Who/what/how is a devotee of Ramana Maharshi?

[Guest guest]

Who/what/how is a devotee of Ramana Maharshi?

 

 

Some time ago someone said he wanted to meet a very famous devotee of Ramana Maharshi and asked for a phone number from me. It struck me the expression 'very famous'. Then the same person said he read that devotee's story somewhere. Then I understood. What made the other person a 'very famous devotee' was the fact that a story appeared to be published somewhere. Then I realized I held the same concepts(prejudice?): we see somebody's name published in a newsletter, a book, a web site and we automatically turn that person into a famous devotee. So what makes a devotee famous is his/her name published somewhere, or any other deed that impressed someone and decided to mention a name somewhere. I wondered at that that seeing and reading a story somewhere we build a whole mental image about the 'famous' devotee to whom we mentally assign also all the good/ brave/excellent qualities we can imagine without ever having any live real contact with that person.

 

Another time I was told a good devotee of Ramana Maharshi would not think like this, speak like this, behave like this. Another was even more upset with me because I don't associate the Who Am I? and Ramana Maharshi's teaching with simultaneous obeyance to Hindu culture and tradition. I have always been quite alien to any ritual or traditional form of religious practice and I wondered at that that many Western Ramana devotees adopted only a Hindu form of external life and practice no enquiry at all.

And so there have begun to appear many ideas and new rules that we begin to associate with the good devotee and we let them govern our lives and decide our relationships.

 

I think that more and more a certain image of what and how a Ramana devotee should be or should manifest his/her life as a devotee becomes stronger and stronger among people's beliefs and expectations.

 

I also used to judge people by my own measures and concepts and expectations of what a devotee of Ramana is or should be. Till the day I realized we all were doing the same mistake and that our expectations from such people and the good qualities we assign to such people or their lives have nothing to do with anything else other than our own views.

 

When I realized that, I gave up the mental split I used to apply in my relationships when relating to friends: this is a devotee, this is not a devotee. And further on: this devotee is the Devotee, and the other one is still so far from living the teaching. And so on. Someday I realized that a woman at my work place who was lost in duality with God(what a sin to still be the normal average religious person who hasn't seen the mistake of not adopting the new age advaita point of view yet!) was just a more sensitive human being than another who is fully immersed in Advaita and devotion to guru(s). That' s how I began turning back to people in my world and started enjoying again their presence unconditioned by the fact that these people knew/didn't know who Ramana Maharshi is.

 

2000 hundred of years of devotion to Jesus didn't solve the envy, hatred, jealousy, greed, racism, wars and killing among his devotees. Living in Jerusalem I don't see that pilgrimages to this holy place and land can(could) solve the conflicts of the Jesus' devotees all over the world. There are some people to whom pilgrimages to Tiruvannamalai are the greatest sign of devotion to Ramana. I realized I don't have to do that or behave as if if I would not spend my life urging to travel to India I would miss the meaning of life. I don't feel I miss anything, I feel I am fine where I am and I don't have to prove anything to anybody, neither to become 'very famous' by having a story written or by myself writing any story or by acclaiming that my life is worthless if not spent in the study of scriptures, Sanskrit or pilgrimages. Because it is not true.

 

I wonder if there are more devotees who realize how we started labeling and judging each other by all kind of criteria that have validity and meaning only to the mind who is thinking them.

 

I am writing that as an apology to all people whom I once used to judge by my own self-built Ramanist phantasies, by all such mental constructs that I brought between me and the world I live in, mental stuff that now has been demolished so that I may live in peace and enjoy people and friends around me as they are.

[Guest guest]

Dear Viorica

thank you for sharing with all of us your experience - it is of course of great help to all of us who are ready to listen (to their "inner voice", which very often "comes" thru the insight of "others")

after letting go this burden daily life certainly will be fullfilling in the way right for you.....

Peace with you along your way.......

yours sincerely

michael bindel

....I am writing that as an apology to all people whom I once used to judge by my own self-built Ramanist phantasies, by all such mental constructs that I brought between me and the world I live in, mental stuff that now has been demolished so that I may live in peace and enjoy people and friends around me as they are.

 

viorica <viorica (AT) zahav (DOT) net.il> wrote:

Who/what/how is a devotee of Ramana Maharshi?

Some time ago someone said he wanted to meet a very famous devotee of Ramana Maharshi and asked for a phone number from me. It struck me the expression 'very famous'. Then the same person said he read that devotee's story somewhere. Then I understood. What made the other person a 'very famous devotee' was the fact that a story appeared to be published somewhere. Then I realized I held the same concepts(prejudice?): we see somebody's name published in a newsletter, a book, a web site and we automatically turn that person into a famous devotee. So what makes a devotee famous is his/her name published somewhere, or any other deed that impressed someone and decided to mention a name somewhere. I wondered at that that seeing and reading a story somewhere we build a whole mental image about the 'famous' devotee to whom we mentally assign also all the good/ brave/excellent qualities we can imagine without ever having any live real contact with that person.

Another time I was told a good devotee of Ramana Maharshi would not think like this, speak like this, behave like this. Another was even more upset with me because I don't associate the Who Am I? and Ramana Maharshi's teaching with simultaneous obeyance to Hindu culture and tradition. I have always been quite alien to any ritual or traditional form of religious practice and I wondered at that that many Western Ramana devotees adopted only a Hindu form of external life and practice no enquiry at all.

And so there have begun to appear many ideas and new rules that we begin to associate with the good devotee and we let them govern our lives and decide our relationships.

I think that more and more a certain image of what and how a Ramana devotee should be or should manifest his/her life as a devotee becomes stronger and stronger among people's beliefs and expectations.

I also used to judge people by my own measures and concepts and expectations of what a devotee of Ramana is or should be. Till the day I realized we all were doing the same mistake and that our expectations from such people and the good qualities we assign to such people or their lives have nothing to do with anything else other than our own views.

When I realized that, I gave up the mental split I used to apply in my relationships when relating to friends: this is a devotee, this is not a devotee. And further on: this devotee is the Devotee, and the other one is still so far from living the teaching. And so on. Someday I realized that a woman at my work place who was lost in duality with God(what a sin to still be the normal average religious person who hasn't seen the mistake of not adopting the new age advaita point of view yet!) was just a more sensitive human being than another who is fully immersed in Advaita and devotion to guru(s). That' s how I began turning back to people in my world and started enjoying again their presence unconditioned by the fact that these people knew/didn't know who Ramana Maharshi is.

2000 hundred of years of devotion to Jesus didn't solve the envy, hatred, jealousy, greed, racism, wars and killing among his devotees. Living in Jerusalem I don't see that pilgrimages to this holy place and land can(could) solve the conflicts of the Jesus' devotees all over the world. There are some people to whom pilgrimages to Tiruvannamalai are the greatest sign of devotion to Ramana. I realized I don't have to do that or behave as if if I would not spend my life urging to travel to India I would miss the meaning of life. I don't feel I miss anything, I feel I am fine where I am and I don't have to prove anything to anybody, neither to become 'very famous' by having a story written or by myself writing any story or by acclaiming that my life is worthless if not spent in the study of scriptures, Sanskrit or pilgrimages. Because it is not true.

I wonder if there are more devotees who realize how we started labeling and judging each other by all kind of criteria that have validity and meaning only to the mind who is thinking them.

I am writing that as an apology to all people whom I once used to judge by my own self-built Ramanist phantasies, by all such mental constructs that I brought between me and the world I live in, mental stuff that now has been demolished so that I may live in peace and enjoy people and friends around me as they are.