An Interview with David Godman -[1]

[Guest guest]

Dear Vicki,

very hearty welcome here again! I was so much waiting for your return

and I am happy if you will give us Ramana's teaching again. You need

not answer anything. I only want to say how happy I am you are back

again - in whatever way you like to be here.

All Love of Ramana

Gabriele

 

RamanaMaharshi, "viorica_weissman" <viorica@z...> wrote:

> An Interview with David Godman

>

> The man who wrote Be As You Are talks about his life, his work, and

> his two new books.

>

> David Godman is best known for his anthology of Ramana Maharshi's

> writings,

> Be As You Are, which has become the standard single-volume

reference

> on the

> great sage's teachings. But few people know that David has written

> nine other books,

> and each one is equally remarkable in its own way. Two of these

> books have just come

> out, providing a good excuse for an interview. Since David lives in

> Tiruvannamalai and

> the editor of this website lives in New York, the interview was

> conducted by e-mail.

>

> You have just brought out two new books on Ramana Maharshi.

> Can you tell me something about them?

>

> In the late 1980s I began to collect first-person accounts by

people

> who had spent time with Ramana Maharshi. It was my intention to

make

> an anthology of accounts that hadn't been published before. To find

> original material I did extensive research on books that had

> appeared in various Indian languages but not in English. I also

> found some good material written in English that had never been

> published.

>

> At some point during this research I went to see Annamalai Swami, a

> devotee of Sri Ramana who had moved intimately with him for many

> years. His account proved to be so interesting and so long, I ended

> up doing a whole book just about him. Then I went to Lucknow to

> interview Papaji. His story fascinated me so much, I spent four

> years in Lucknow and eventually wrote a massive 1,200 page

> biography. The original project got put on the back burner, and I

> only came back to it about a year ago.

> I have changed my original criteria. I am now using some material

> that has been published before. However, since most of this

material

> is rarely sold outside India, I think non-Indian readers of these

> books, even devotees of Sri Ramana, will find that most of the

> material is new to them

>

>

>

> --- taken from www.realization.org

> by permission