Maha Yoga, The Sage of Arunachala - #2

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The Sage of Arunachala

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Even as a little boy, Ramana was continually aware of

something supremely holy, whose Name was Arunachala; this

we learn from a poem composed by the Sage later for the use

of his disciples. We see that he brought over from his past

lives a fully ripe devotion to that mysterious Being, which

most of us call God, but which may be more justly described

as the Spiritual Centre of life. This was seen on one occasion

in his boyhood, when an uncle of his spoke to him harshly; he

then went for consolation and peace, not to his earthly mother,

but to the Divine Mother in the temple of the village.

Sometimes also he would fall into what seemed to be an

exceptionally profound sleep, a sleep from which nothing

could awake him; if we may judge from the perfection which

he attained later, and which he enjoys in the waking state also,

we may surmise that this seeming sleep was in fact a spiritual

experience on an elevated plane of being.

 

Thus continued his life, a double life on parallel lines — a

life in the world which he led mechanically and without interest,

as one that did not really belong to the world, and a life in the

spirit, of which the people around him had not even the faintest

suspicion. This lasted till the end of the sixteenth year of his

life. He was then in the highest class in the high school course,

and it was expected that at the end of the course he would sit

 

for the matriculation examination of the University of Madras;

but this was not to be; for then something happened, which

brought the boy’s schooling to an abrupt end.

 

The age-period of sixteen and seventeen is a critical one

for all. In the average man the mind is then overrun by

imaginations and desires, which revolve round the sense of

sex. But for a few exceptional souls it is the time of the

awakening to the true life — compared to which this thing

that we call life is death — the life that begins with the

blossoming of the spiritual perfections which are already latent

in them. This we find to be the case in the lives of all the

Saints and Sages of the world.

 

It is also a fact, appearing in the lives of the Sages of the

past, that this awakening begins as a rule with a sudden fear

of death. It is true that the fear of death is not unfamiliar to

common men; for it comes often enough to them; but there is

a difference in the reaction to this fear; to the common man it

makes very little difference; he is led to think of death when

he sees a funeral procession; sometimes he begins to

philosophise, more or less on traditional lines; but this mood

lasts only until his next meal; afterwards he becomes ‘normal’

again; the current of his life runs on the same lines as before.

 

The born Sage reacts differently to the thought of death.

He begins to reflect coolly, but with all the force of his

intelligence, on the problem of death; and this reflection is

the starting point of a concentrated effort to transcend the

realm of death. Thus it was in the case of Gautama Buddha.

Thus it was also in the case of Ramana.

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taken from MAHA YOGA, by WHO