THE MAHARSHI

November 24, 2004

THE MAHARSHI

January/February 1993 Vol. 3 - No. 1

Produced & Edited byDennis HartelDr. Anil K. Sharma

The Maharshi in America

It is well known there from the age of sixteen Sri Ramana Maharshi never left the holy environs of his beloved Arunachala Hill. But what did travel were the tales of his pristine purity, the liberating qualities of his teachings, and the inexplicable power of his presence.

From all over India and the far corners of the world, seekers flocked to his Ashrama. In the midst of all these seekers there were those who made their living seeking out and writing on newsworthy stories. Evidently, as time passed, the Maharshi became a newsworthy item, and the media from around the world began making their way to Sri Ramanasramam; of course, the American media didn't fall far behind.

HOLY MAN

"Sri Ramana Maharshi has India's answer to most of man's problems." This was the heading and subheading beneath the large double-paged picture above. It was the largest photo in the May 30, 1949 issue of LlFE magazine. It was also part of the longest article spanning ten pages with eleven photos and over 5,000 words, contributed by the distinguished American writer and musician, Winthrop Sargeant.

Competing for attention in this same popular photo journal-weekly was a ten page photo-biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt's early life. Also seen are news and photos of the weeks events, covering stories like, 'Warsaw rises from its wreckage,' 'John McCloy takes on job as Germany's boss,' 'Monaco buries its sprightly old prince,' and other small articles under the titles of 'Art', 'Education', 'Science', 'Movies', etc.

But by far the most prominent feature in the whole 108 page issue is the Holy Man written about the Maharshi. It has four times more written text than the next longest article, which is quite amazing, considering the magazine then had a readership of over 26,000,000. Amazing also for the fact it was written not just by an ordinary reporter, but by a qualified journalist who was also a sincere seeker, capable of going far deeper into Indian philosophical thought than any ordinary foreign newsman.

After introducing himself to a member of Sri Ramanasramam he is candidly asked, "Are you interested merely in something to write for your paper, or have you a deeper purpose?"

He then writes: 'I replied quite shamelessly that I was in search of salvation.' But if this was the true purpose of his visit it is not easily detectable by his observations, which remain for the most part, objective, correct, yet interesting. He was telling a story for a large, uninitiated American audience, and to grab and keep their attention seems to be his primary concern. In this he succeeds very well, even while delving into Hindu Psychology, Theology, Reincarnation, Philosophy, and the intricacies of Mukti (final emancipation ).

Under the subtitle, Experiment vs. Contemplation, he writes: 'To the orthodox Hindu mind, which considers the material world an illusion of the senses, experiment has never seemed important. While the Westerner busied himself with test tubes in an effort to subdue and comprehend his material environment, the Hindu simply sat and thought . . . . 'Ultimately, by a process of purification, the soul becomes free of the necessity of repeated rebirths and is permanently united with the vital force itself. This final state is the goal of all human life. . .'

Then for several paragraphs he turns his attention to the Bhagavad Gita, a book he undoubtedly has a fascination for: * 'Seldom in the history of religious and philosophical writing has so much profundity been encompassed in a few pages, and the result is a compendium of the essentials of Hindu religion. As Krishna describes it, life is an impermanent dream-like state in which the soul is beset by illusions and desires. Once independent of his desires and unattached to glory, ambition, pride or any other fruit of worldly achievement, he can go through life in complete serenity and pass from it into an eternal union with Brahman, the omnipresent spirit of all created things . . . .'

After explaining the gist of the Gita with clarity and conviction, and knowing that he has just indulged upon the reader's limits of reflective thought, he brings us back to the central figure, The Maharshi, and asks: 'Now what has all this ancient doctrine got to do with Sri Ramana Maharshi, the sun-tanned old gentleman who lives at the foot of the mountain near Tiruvannamalai ? Everything. Sri Ramana's views are extremely orthodox and correspond exactly with those propounded in the Gita. His life of austerity, his renunciation of all worldly desires, his contemplative serenity, his unshakable peace of mind are all part of the traditional equipment of the Hindu sage . . . . Sri Ramana's soul is already united with Brahman. Only the presence of his physical body, an outer husk connected with the world of appearance, still sustains the illusion that he is a man like other men. . . .'

Any student or devotee of the Maharshi would fully endorse these observations of Mr. Sargeant. He has grasped the essence of the Advaitic ideal and how the Maharshi embodied it. But under the subtitle 'Who am I?' his elaborations on the Maharshi's teachings fall short: 'The method is merely a variation on a theme that is at least 3,000 years old. Sri Ramana's favorite point of departure, the question 'Who am I?,' was stated long ago by Socrates as 'Know thyself,' and has been echoed by thousands of great moral teachers everywhere.'

That is as far as the author elucidates on the actual technique of the 'Who am I ?' method, which is no elucidation at all. However, the quotation from the Maharshi that follows, does serve to compensate and provide the vast American readership with some thought-provoking concepts: "If only the mind is kept under control," says Sri Ramana, "what matters it where one may happen to be? The mind of the ignorant one, entering into the phenomenal world, suffers pain and anguish. When the world recedes from one's view, that is when, free from thought, the mind enjoys the bliss of the Self. There is no such thing as the physical world apart from and independent of thought. Just as the spider draws out the thread of the cobweb from within itself and withdraws it again into itself, even so out of itself the mind projects the world and absorbs it again into itself. The Self alone is the world." This is the full extent of the Maharshi's teachings given in this article.

What, perhaps, had a greater attraction to the readers of this magazine was the picturesque description of Sri Ramanasramam and the physical appearance of the sage. In this task the author remains respectfully objective, writing kindly without adulation or marked devotion. This results in a lucid, credible and very readable account: 'After some conversation and tea drinking I was led into the presence of Sri Ramana himself. He was a small, thin man of seventy with close cropped white hair and a stubby beard and mustache, an extremely kindly and intelligent face and a deeply tanned body, dad in a loincloth. He reclined on a massive stone couch propped up with pillows. An American alarm clock ticked on a shelf behind him and a calendar hung from one of the posts. . . Sitting crossed-legged on the floor about him were two or three dozen people, all gazing rapturously at the master. . . . 'Sri Ramana would have looked like a superior human being in any surroundings. He had the quietly assured look of a man who has experienced a great deal and thought everything through to a final, unshakable conclusion. Even an unbeliever could see that he possessed a sort of personal serenity that is rare even in the contemplative Orient. I mumbled a few words of greeting which I hoped were appropriate and was smilingly waved to a place on the floor. The Maharshi spoke very little, sometimes in English, sometimes in the Tamil language which a considerable pan of his audience didn't understand. But that didn't matter. 'You can attain peace merely by being near him,' the professor of English Literature explained later.

'The Maharshi was presented with an old book of Tamil scriptures from which he read odd passages aloud, commenting on them in a leisurely tone of voice while his listeners gazed raptly. Finally he stopped talking altogether and simply smiled an endless warm-hearted smile. After an hour or so he rose from his couch and, supporting himself with a long cane, was led by a disciple back to his living quarters. The whole scene had a biblical quality about it, like something that might have happened thousands of years ago. It was a re-enactment of the typical scene between master and disciples that has been going on since long before the time of Buddha and that continues in India today as if time stood still and history did not exist.'

Besides valuable observations like the above, and credible explanations about Hindu life and philosophy, Mr. Sargeant did not resist the temptation to dabble in the sphere of incredulous speculation. He indulged in this by comparing the supernatural powers claimed by followers of both Sri Aurobindo and Sri Ramana, creating a sense of competition and obvious foolishness. Perhaps he thought the readers needed this for entertainment and relief from an otherwise serious, impressive and somewhat intrusive Hindu profile upon a powerful Christian nation. A thoughtful and informed reader would easily forgive him for this slight lapse and judge the overall value of his work. And while millions of Americans sat and pondered over these curious photographs and the ancient wisdom from the East, the final year of a glorious testimony to the heights of human and spiritual perfection, in the form of Sri Ramana Maharshi, began.

* In 1979, Winthrop Sargeant published a 735 page, word-for-word translation and commentary on the Bhagavad Gita.

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