Arthur Osborne - Sri Ramana Maharshi [1]

[Guest guest]

BHAGAVAN SRI RAMANA MAHARSHI

 

The parts of this chapter about Bhagavan’s teachings are largely based

on The Teachings of Ramana Maharshi in His Own Words. There are

also quotations from Ramana Arunachala.

 

 

I found my wife changed when I met her at Tiruvannamalai

after four years. She had been mature in character before but

now she was mature in understanding also. She no longer asked

for explanations but gave them. And as she was explaining the

same truths in a different idiom, that of Bhagavan instead of

that of Guenon, it took me some time to adjust myself.

Bhagavan did not immediately reveal himself to me. I felt

far less from his bodily presence than I had from his invisible

support in camp. His photograph had been more real and vivid

to me than any person, and yet now that I saw him face-to-face

I felt his presence much less. This did not unduly worry me; it

seemed merely a confirmation of what I had been told, that he

was not a guru. I will give my impressions as I wrote them

down at a time when they were fresher in my mind.

 

“I entered the ashram hall on the morning of my arrival,

before Bhagavan had returned from his daily walk on the hill.

I was a little awed to find how small it was and how close to

him I should be sitting; I had expected something grander

and less intimate. And then he entered and, to my surprise,

there was no great impression. Certainly far less than his

photograph had made. Just a white-haired, very gracious man,

walking a little stiffly from rheumatism and with a slight stoop.

As soon as he had eased himself on to the couch he smiled at

me and then turned to those around and to my young son

and said: ‘So Adam’s prayer has been answered; his Daddy has

come back safely.’ I felt his kindness but no more. I appreciated

that it was for my sake that he had spoken English, since Adam

knew Tamil.”

 

The change came a few weeks later at one of the big festivals

of the ashram year. “There were huge crowds for the festival

and we were sitting in the courtyard outside the hall. Bhagavan

was reclining on his couch and I was sitting in the front row

before it. He sat up, facing me, and his narrowed eyes pierced

into me, penetrating, intimate, with an intensity I cannot

describe. It was as though they said: ‘You have been told; why

have you not realized?’ And then quietness, a depth of peace,

an indescribable lightness and happiness.

 

“Thereafter love for Bhagavan began to grow in my heart

and I felt his power and beauty. Next morning, for the first

time, sitting before him in the hall, I tried to follow his teaching

by using the vichara, ‘Who am I?’. I thought it was I who had

decided. I did not at first realize that it was the initiation by

look that had vitalized me and changed my attitude of mind.

Indeed, I had only heard vaguely of this initiation and paid

little heed to what I had heard. Only later did I learn that other

devotees also had had such an experience, and that with them

also it had marked the beginning of active sadhana (quest) under

Bhagavan’s guidance.”

 

Then, for the first time in my life, I began to understand

what the grace and blessing of the guru could mean. “My love

and devotion to Bhagavan deepened. I went about with a lilt of

happiness in my heart, feeling the blessing and mystery of the

guru, repeating, like a song of love, that he was the Guru, the

link between heaven and earth, between God and me, between

the Formless Being and my heart. I became aware of the

enormous grace of his presence. Even outwardly he was gracious

to me, smiling when I entered the hall, signing to me to sit

where he could watch me in meditation.”

 

However, with the Sadguru, the Divine Guru, this simple,

idyllic state could not long continue. Although the devotion

never diminished, it had merged with understanding. “And

then one day a vivid reminder awoke in me: ‘The link with

Formless Being? But he is the Formless Being.’ And I began to

apprehend the meaning of his Jnana and to understand why

devotees addressed him simply as ‘Bhagavan’, which is a name

for God. (I should have said: ‘A word meaning God’). So he

began to prove in me what he declared in his teaching: that

the outer guru serves to awaken the guru in the heart. The

vichara, the constant ‘Who am I?’ began to awaken an

awareness of the Self as Bhagavan outwardly and also

simultaneously of the Self within.

 

The specious theory that Bhagavan was not a Guru had

simply evaporated in the radiance of his Grace. Moreover, I

now perceived that, far from his teaching not being practical

guidance, it was exclusively that. I observed that he shunned

theoretical explanations and kept turning the questioner to

practical considerations of sadhana, of the path to be followed.

It was that and only that he was here to teach!

..................

taken from Arthur Osborne's My Life & Quest