Paul Brunton - The Maharshi and His Message #23

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One day a relative came to Madura and in answer to Ramana’s

question, mentioned that he had just returned from a pilgrimage to

Arunachala. The name stirred some slumbering depths in the boy’s

mind, thrilling him with peculiar expectations which he could not

understand. He enquired as to the whereabouts of Arunachala and

ever after found himself haunted by thoughts of it. It seemed to be

of paramount importance to him, yet he could not even explain to

himself why Arunachala should mean anything more to him than

the dozens of other sacred places which are scattered over India.

 

He continued his studies at the Mission school without

showing any special aptitude for them, although he always

 

evinced a fair degree of intelligence in his work. But when he

was seventeen, destiny, with swift and sudden stroke, got into

action and thrust its hands through the even tenor of his days.

He suddenly left the school and completely abandoned all

his studies. He gave no notice to his teachers or to his relatives,

and told no one before the event actually occurred. What was

the reason of this unpromising change, which cast a cloud upon

his future worldly prospectus?

 

The reason was satisfying enough to himself, though it

might have seemed mind-perplexing to others. For life, which

in the ultimate is the teacher of men, set the young student

on another course than that which his school teachers had

assigned him. And the change came in a curious way about

six weeks before he dropped his studies and disappeared from

Madura forever.

 

He was sitting alone one day in his room when a sudden and

inexplicable fear of death took hold of him. He became acutely

aware that he was going to die, although outwardly he was in

good health. The thing was a psychological phenomenon, because

there was no apparent reason why he should die. Yet he became

obsessed with this notion and immediately began to prepare for

the coming event.

 

He stretched his body prone upon the floor, fixed his limbs

in the rigidity of a corpse, closed his eyes and mouth, and finally

held his breath. “Well, then” said I to myself, “this body is dead.

It will be carried stiff to the burning ground and then reduced

to ashes. But with the death of the body, am ‘I’ dead? Is the

body ‘I’? This body is now silent and stiff. But I continue to feel

the full force of my Self apart from its condition.”

Those are the words which the Maharshi used in describing

the weird experience through which he passed. What happened

next is difficult to understand, though easy to describe. He

seemed to fall into a profound conscious trance wherein he

 

became merged into the very source of selfhood, the very essence

of Being. He understood quite clearly that the body was a thing

apart and that the ‘I’ remained untouched by death. The true

Self was very real, but it was so deep down in man’s nature that

hitherto he had ignored it.

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