Major A. W. Chadwick (Sadhu Arunachala) - Ramana Lives

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RAMANA LIVES

 

Major A. W. Chadwick (Sadhu Arunachala)

 

UNDOUBTEDLY the same peace is to be found at

Tiruvannamalai as in the old days when Bhagavan’s

physical body was still with us. Some people declare that they

find it is stronger now than formerly. They had been distracted

by his form, and now that this distraction is no longer there

they enjoy undisturbed the bliss of his amazing aura. Did he

not himself say during those last sad days, “You say I am going

to die. Die! I shall be more alive than ever.” And so it is.

 

But there are still a number who declare that he is dead,

that there is no use coming to the Ashram and sitting beside an

empty tomb. “No doubt there are psychic vibrations,” they

admit reluctantly, “but those you can find in any holy place.

No, it is no use remaining there, the initial impetus having

been given you, you must go off in search of a ‘living guru’.”

Living guru, indeed! Is he not now and ever most living?

 

But let us examine their argument. It is something like

this. Bhagavan having left his body has become absorbed in the

Infinite (you don’t mean to pretend that he is still bound to a

corpse, do you?), so except for certain sentimental attachments

there is no use remaining in the Ashram or even visiting it. If

you do go you may feel certain vibrations, the backwash, so to

speak, of the past, but these are useless for sadhana, or useful

only as a preliminary step which will lead you on to a ‘living

guru’. But for anybody with any pretence to advancement, it is

useless. There’s an end of it.

 

 

But like so many plausible arguments it is entirely false,

for even by these people Bhagavan was admitted to be a

jivanmukta, one who is already and finally released from ego.

And how often did he not say: “You think I am the body, this

corpse that I have to bear about. That is where you are wrong. I

am universal.” You see, “universal”, even before he apparently

left the body.

 

The whole mistake is initial, in the interpretation they put

on the word jivanmukta; or in what they think a jnani really is

and how he functions. When it is found that a jivanmukta is

already absorbed in the Infinite and that for him the apparent

change he undergoes is no change at all, there should be no

more misapprehension. There is no further step for a jnani to

take; he lost all sense of doership or association with a particular

body when he finally knew himself to be a jnani. The physical

death is only just a happening in the myriad strange happenings

in maya. He was in no way limited to a body while it was

functioning. It was there, one might almost say, for us. We

needed something that we could see, somebody who could speak

to us.

 

Now we must get along without the comfort of the physical

presence, but it does not mean that Bhagavan has gone

anywhere, indeed, as he said himself: “Where could I go? I am

always here.”

 

While he was in the body, his body acted as a visible centre

for concentration, something tangible, as a point to focus on,

which drew the disciples to it. Yet he never was the body even

then, he was – and knew he was – the eternal Atman alone. So

now what is more appropriate than that the place in which he

lived so long and which is so permeated with his presence should

serve as this centre for concentration? But to pretend for one

moment that Bhagavan Ramana has been dispersed, just blown

away in thin air, is madness. How could anybody who knew

him talk like this?

 

 

“But no, we don’t exactly say that. He has become absorbed

in the Infinite, become in fact, the Infinite,” they would reply,

“Now he is everywhere, not just at a point in Madras”. But as I

said above, this is no argument. He was always the Infinite and

denied his being in the body. The situation is exactly the same,

except that now we no longer have his embodied form before

us. But there is still his Ashram and the samadhi where that

sacred body is enshrined.

 

Theoretically, I suppose, there never was any need to seek

him in Tiruvannamalai, even when he was functioning through

a body, except for the well-known rule that a Guru is necessary.

Yet we felt the need, and flocking there knew the benefit. Today

we can still do the same.

 

But in the old days he spoke, gave verbal instructions.

Now that can happen no more. But to how few did he actually

ever speak? How many thousands just came and sat before him

silently and went away without a word? How many came with

their minds bursting with questions and in his presence found

all the questions self-answered? All this is still possible.

 

Still, too, can we sit in front of the samadhi and receive

the most potent vibrations, get answers to our unasked questions,

comfort and encouragement when needed.

To what, after all, did all his spoken instructions amount?

“There is only one Self. You are that.”

 

Amplifying slightly it becomes: there is nothing to do,

nothing to seek. There is only a false identification with

limitation to discard and that is done by concentration on the

Eternal Witness, the One behind all phenomena. Know who

you are and there is no more to know. You cannot be the

eternally-changing body, you witness that; you cannot be the

senses that observe and contact, you use them; you cannot be

the mind which reasons, that is only a tool; you cannot even be

the named individual, because that has its changes of childhood,

youth and old age, it is born and it dies, it ceases in deep sleep,

it takes entirely new forms and names in various births, you are

a witness of that too. But we know, each one of us, that there is

a permanent ‘I’ behind all these functions and changes. We

would only concentrate on that instead of on the apparent

world, we should have no more worries or problems.

 

Any further additions to these teachings were purely given

as a sop to the ever-inquisitive mind which wants to know, to

probe into the future, but is never satisfied, for as soon as one

doubt is cleared there is another waiting to pop up and take its

place. Moreover, how is it ever possible to clear doubts

intellectually? For the moment we may be satisfied, then we

forget the arguments, or remember another on our side of the

question which we forgot to pose. Bhagavan, knowing this,

spoke little. “Silence is best!” he would say. And here once more

we are led back to the Ashram where the same silence can be

found, the same presence, the same inspiration, and the same

all-absorbing peace.

 

 

 

Surpassing Love and Grace