Maha Yoga - The Sage of Arunachala, #3 & #4

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The Sage of Arunachala

 

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Thus he reflected: “Who or what is it that dies? It is this

visible body that dies; the kinsmen come and take it away and

burn it to ashes. But when this body dies, shall I also die? That

depends on what I really am. If I be this body, then when it

dies, I also would die; but if Ibe not this, then Iwould survive.”

Then there arose in his mind an overpowering desire to

find out, then and there, whether he — the real Self of him —

would survive after death. And it occurred to him that the

surest way to find it out would be to enact the process of

death. This he did by imagining that the body was dead. A

dead body does not speak nor breathe; nor has it any sensation;

all this he imagined with such perfect realism, that his body

became inert and rigid just like a corpse; his vital energies

were withdrawn from it, and gathered into the mind, which

now turned inwards, animated by the will to find the real Self,

if any. At this moment a mysterious power rose up from the

innermost core of his being and took complete possession of

the whole mind and life; by that power he — that is to say, his

mind and life — was taken inwards. What then happened is a

mystery; but we can gather some idea of it from the teachings

of the Sage himself. We must take it that, possessed by this

power — which is identical with what devotees call ‘grace’

— the mind plunged deep into the Source of all life and mind

and was merged in It. All this happened while he was wide

awake, and therefore he became aware of his own Real Self,

free from all thought-movement; this Self was free from the

bondage of desires and fears and therefore full of peace and

happiness. The state which he now reached was just the

Egoless State described in a later chapter — the state in which

the Real Self reigns alone, and in serene calmness. Thus

Ramana became a Sage. We shall never know what that state

is like, until we ourselves shall reach it and abide in it; but

with the help of his Revelation we shall be able to understand

what it is not.

 

 

From this we see that a sustained and one-pointed resolve

to find the real Self —which is the highest and purest form of

devotion — is the means of winning that Self. This is in accord

with a text of the ancient Revelation which says: “He alone

shall find this Self, who is powerfully attracted to Him in

complete devotion; to him that Self reveals Himself as He

really is.” This is the highest truth of all religions; it was

differently expressed by Jesus, who said: “Ask, and It shall

be given; knock and It shall be opened.”

 

It is this very path that the Sage teaches in his answers to

disciples and in his writings. In one of the latter he calls it

‘the Direct Path for all’ by which all the problems of life are

transcended. The state that is won by pursuing this path is

called the Natural State — Sahaja bhava. It is so called because

therein the Self is manifest as He really is, and not as He

appears to the ignorant. It is also described as the Egoless

State and the Mindless State. The truth of that State as revealed

by the Sage and by ancient Revelation is the subject of a later

chapter. Here it is enough to say that the Natural State is the

highest there is — that for one that has attained that State

there is nothing else to be striven for. For him the pilgrimage

of life is at an end.

 

Ramana had by this Experience become a ‘Sage’, or rather

the Sage that was always in him became unveiled. For him,

therefore, there could be no further evolution in spirituality.

Mind and body are by this Experience completely dissociated

from the Self. That is to say, the mind no longer identifies the

body with the Self. Ignorance being just this identification and

nothing more, and the mind itself — as will be seen later —

being an outcome of this ignorance, this great Event is also

called the destruction or dissolution of the mind. Hence it is

strictly true that for the Sage there is no mind nor body nor

world. But that does not mean that body and mind are destroyed

in the sense that other people will cease to see them; for them

the Sage’s body and mind will continue to appear, and they

would appear to be affected by events, and hence there can be

a further history of the Sage. The Sage himself may seemingly

be active in diverse ways, though these actions are not really

his. Hence the course of events that occurred after this great

Event — some of which are narrated here — do not really

belong to the Sage; they do not affect him in any way.

 

Because Ramana had never read about nor heard of the

Nameless, Formless, Indescribable known to the learned as

Brahman, he had no doubts as to the nature of the State which

he won by this Event. Later, when he came to know that the

sacred books described the State of Deliverance as that in

which the Self is experienced as identical with that Reality,

he had not the least difficulty in understanding that he himself

had attained that State.

 

Whatever occurred in the life of the Sage after this great

Event concerns only the body and the mind that apparently

survived the Event, and not the Sage himself. The divine

qualities and powers which are inherent to the Natural State

became soon manifest, since their exercise was necessary for

the fulfilment of the Sage’s mission in the world.

 

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taken from MAHA YOGA, by WHO