Fwd: A Sadhu's Reminiscenses of Ramana Maharshi, #5

[Guest guest]

ThePowerOfSilence , " viorica " <viorica@z...>

wrote:

 

 

...............

I had always wondered how it was that St. Paul, who was a most

orthodox Jew, hated Christ and persecuted the Christians,

interpreted his great experience on the Damascus road in terms of

Christ and afterwards became an ardent Christian himself. So one day

I asked Bhagavan. He said that St. Paul was always thinking about

Christ and the Christians, they were never out of his mind, so when

he returned to self-consciousness after his experience he identified

his realization with this predominant thought. And he referred to

Ravana as an example. Ravana hated Rama, never ceased to think of

him and, dying, Rama was the uppermost thought in his mind and so he

realized God. It is not a question of love or hate, it is just the

question of what is in the mind at the time.

 

People judge the deeds of others as good or bad, but it is the

doing itself that matters and not the complexionof the deed. The

whole secret lies in whether we are attached to our actions or not.

A person who spends his time in good deeds can be much more attached

to them than the so-called bad man is to his. And it is the one who

drops off all attachments first who will be Self-realized soonest.

Good and bad are found eventually to be only relative terms. Self-

enquiry is found to be no more than the discarding of Vasanas. So

long as one single Vasana remains, good or bad, so long must

weremain unrealized.

 

...............................

 

 

Bhagavan was a very beautiful person; he shone with a visible light

or aura. He had the most delicate hands I have ever seen with which

alone he could express himself, one might almost say talk. His

features were regular and the wonder of his eyes was famous. His

forehead was high and the dome of his head the highest I have ever

seen. As this in India is known as the dome of Wisdom it was only

natural that it should be so. His body was well formed and of only

medium height, but this was not apparent as his personality was so

dominant that one looked upon him as tall. He had a great sense of

humour and when talking a smile was never far from his face. He had

many jokes in his repertoire and was a magnificent actor, he would

always dramatise the protagonists of any story he related. When the

recital was very pathetic he would be filled with emotion and unable

to proceed. When people came to him with their family stories he

would laugh with the happy and at times shed tears with the

bereaved. In this way he seemed to reciprocate the emotions of

others.

 

He never raised his voice and if he did occasionally seem angry

there was no sign of it on the surface of his Peace. Talk to him

immediately afterwards and he would answer calmly and quite

undisturbed. With others some effect of the anger will still remain

for a while even after the cause is gone. Internally we all take

time to regain our composure, but with him there was no reaction. He

would never touch money, not because he hated it, he knew that for

the purposes of daily life it was necessary, but he had never had

need of it and was not interested in it. Money and presents came to

the Ashram; well, that was all right, the management needed them to

be able to carry on, but there was no need for them to worry about

it or ask people to give. God would provide.

 

People said that he would not talk but this was untrue, as were many

of the other foolish legends about him. He did not speak

unnecessarily and his apparent silence only showed how much foolish

chatter usually goes on amongst ourselves.

 

He preferred every sort of simplicity and liked to sit on the

floor, but a couch had been forced upon him and this became his home

for most of the twenty-four hours of the day. He would never, if he

could help it, allow any preference to be shown to him. And in the

dining-hall he was adamant on this point. Even if some special

medicine or tonic were given to him he wanted to share it with

everybody. " If it is good for me then it must be good for the

rest, " he would argue and make them distribute it round the dining-

hall.

 

He would wander out on to the Hill a few times a day, and if any

attachment to anything on earth could be said of him, it was surely

an attachment to the Hill. He loved it and said it was God Himself.

He used to say that it was the top of the spiritual axis of the

earth; there must, he said, be another mountain corresponding to

Arunachala at exactly the opposite side of the globe, the

corresponding pole of the axis. So certain was he of this that one

evening he made me fetch an atlas and see if this was not correct. I

found, according to the atlas, the exact opposite point came in the

sea about an hundred miles off the coast of Peru. He seemed doubtful

about this. I pointed out that there might be some island at this

spot or a mountain under the sea. It was not until some years after

Bhagavan's passing that a visiting Englishman had a tale of a spot,

supposed to be a great secret power centre, in the Andes somewhere

in this latitude. Later I found that though a centre had certainly

been started it had failed. Since then I have been told of another

person who is practising meditation in solitude in the region of the

Andes in Ecuador. So it does appear as though there were some

strange attraction about that part of the globe. The earth is not an

exact sphere and maps are not so accurate as all that, so we are

unable to pin it down to any definite point. It is quite possible

that more is going on in that part of the world than we know and

this would fit in well with what Bhagavan said. However I could

never discuss the matter with Bhagavan as it was not until many

years after his passing that I had any indication that anything of

this sort was happening in those parts. I had many years ago

travelled extensively in that country but had never seen anything

which would lead me to think that there might be important spiritual-

centres there.

 

...........................

taken from

 

A SADHU'S REMINISCENCES OF RAMANA MAHARSHI

By SADHU ARUNACHALA (A. W. Chadwick)

 

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