Fwd: On Bhagavan Ramana

[Guest guest]

advaitin , " lakmuthu " <lakmuthu wrote:

 

Namaste,

 

There is a lot of exchange of educative thoughts in this group on

Bhagavan Ramana. There are memebers who seem to share the works of

Ramana and their understanding too.

 

I had been wanting to write this for a long time, hesitatingly I am

penning it down because I am not able to resist. This is my personal

experience.

 

I am from a family who lived in Tirvannanamalai when Ramana had

moved

to Thiruvannamalai from Madurai. My grandparents were living in 30

Thalagiri Street Thisruvannamalai. My grandfather was a businessman

and a banker and had seven sons. All of them grew up and studied in

Thiruvannamalai.

 

I remember my grandfather narrating incidents of taking care of

Bhgavan Ramana after he came out of the meditation, My grandmother

used to sook food and send it to Bhagavan, when he was living in the

cave up the hill. My grandfather used to accompany Bhagavan

sometimes

while circumambulating the giri.

 

I remember, many judges and teachers and Govt,officials and

westerners used to visit my grandfather and they would be discussing

something for hours together.

 

Now I realise the discussions were vedanta and Bhagavans question

answers sessions. They had been exchanging notes.

 

There are many episodes and incidents that have been narrated by my

uncles and by my father too about the time thay had spent with

Bhagavan.

 

Coming to the point, none of them seem to have anything to say about

the teachings of Ramana. But they had imbibed it in their lives. All

of them were very quiet basically, simple life style, no

extravaganza

or pompousity in their lifestyle. Not emotional at all. Very

composed. No nonsense. No loose conversations. No importance for

rituals. They all did go to temples only as a something they needed

to do. None of them studied vedanta or the scriptures. They had

learnt samskritam as second language. Everything was simple about

them, though thay all had moved away from Thiruvannamalai and living

in cities. One common factor was they loved eating good food. We

enjoy food because Bhagavn also enjoyed eating good food.

 

In my growing years, when I looked at the other people in the

colony

and my friends parents, I used to wonder if there was something

wrong

with our family or are they naive.

 

Because of the influence of their families, the environment might

have changed but none of them had changed in their simplicity,

thinking and eating. Looks like the influence of Bhagavan was so

strong in their lives.

 

Every one of them has had such close contact with Bhagavan. They

have

been patted, sat on his lap, eaten from his hands, or fed by him,

remember eating bananas given by him and things like that. Fond

affectionate rememberances, because they were are young.

 

But questioned on the teaching, I used to get mono syllabic answers.

But one common answer was 'I am a brahmaj~nAni. '

 

I ask, 'How do you say this?'

I know.

How?

This is all that Bhagavan said.

what?

Death is only for the body.

Disease is only for the body.

Sorrow is for the mind.

happiness is for the mind.

You scold me I am not affected.

You criticise I am not affected.

No problem.

I am not attached to all the materials I possess.

No extra effort needs to be put to amass wealth, other than working

for the basic needs. very clear, they were.

 

None of these belong to the Atma, brahman and I am that. Now do you

understand?

 

unakku ippo puriyaadu. kaalam varum appo puriyum po. - meaning you

wont understand this now. When time comes you will understand.

 

At that point of time - some 15 years ago, I thought they were

blabbering something. Especially more so my father and his elder

brother.

 

How lucky they were, a live j~nAni they lived with, and gained

brahmaj~nAna and lived with it. There were no discussions nor any

talk about their having lived with Bhagavan or about what they

learnt. it was so much a part of their living.

 

There is such a great effort on my part to study all the upanishads

etc etc when these peolple could imbibe it so easily.

 

Krishnas teaching in the Gita is true. You pick up the thread in

this

janma from where you left in the previous birth. may be they

deserved

this, in this janma and they got it.

 

Now I wish I could be as simple as they were, in speaking, thinking

and lifestyle. May be brahmaniShTa will be graced by the Lord.

 

May Lord DakshinAmurti bless all of us with the brahmaniShTa. Lord

Dakshinamurti is the form to be worshipped for gaining Self

knowledge.

 

om namo narayanaya

 

Lakshmi Muthuswamy

 

--- End forwarded message ---