Arthur Osborne - Sri Ramana Maharshi [3]

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BHAGAVAN SRI RAMANA MAHARSHI

 

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Two modes of conscious planned ascent have now been

indicated, whatever name one may give them (apart from the

occasional transportation of the mystic and the uncharted

elevation of certain saints): that of the man who ascends in

stages, becoming stabilized in this lifetime in some higher state,

possibly with higher powers, but with no direct, and often even

no theoretical knowledge of the supreme state of Self-realization,

and that of the man who envisages the supreme truth of Identity,

strives towards it, perhaps has occasional glimpses of its

Realization but, until attaining it, is not established in any higher

state. Which is preferable? The question is unrealistic, since each

aspirant will follow the path that accords with his temperament

and that his destiny makes available.

 

Another question that may be raised at this point is that of

the benefit to those below. Reverting to the symbol of the

mountain: should the hill-dweller who is facing downwards,

having established a homestead not too high up from which he

can supply the sufferers in the plains below, not be considered

preferable to one who has turned his back on them and

struggled up on his lone path to the summit? He might be if the

symbol held good, but it does not. It is cancelled out by Christ’s

saying that to him who attains the kingdom of heaven all else is

added. It is therefore he who has greatest power to help others.

One’s own Self-realization is the greatest boon that one can

bestow on others, while at the same time, paradoxically, it reveals

that there are no others to whom to bestow boons. It is like

waking up from a dream; and to ask what can be done for

others is as senseless as worrying what happened to the people

one saw in last night’s dream. And yet waking is the best way to

help them. Both are true.

 

Plontinus is usually spoken of as a sage and Eckhart as a

mystic, and yet they would both appear to fall into the same

category of wayfarers on the direct path. In theory they both

showed complete understanding of the absolute Oneness of Selfrealization,

of what Guenon called the ‘Supreme Identity’; in

practise also they both seem to have had glimpses of realization

such as Bhagavan refers to, although it is clear from what they

themselves wrote that they were not permanently and irrevocably

in the state.

 

To be thus established is possible although very rare. Again,

“Among thousands, perhaps one strives for realization; among

thousands who strive for Realization, perhaps one knows Me as

I am.” (Bhagavad Gita, Ch. 7, verse 3). This does not imply

knowing as one does another but knowing by being. It means

simply to realize the Self that you always were by complete

dissolution of any other-than-Self in you, or, more correctly

still, by complete dissolution of the mistaken belief that there

ever was any other-than-Self in you.

 

This is the supreme state. It is beyond revelation, for who

is to reveal to whom? Beyond prayer, for who is to pray to

whom? However, the realized man may consciously act a part

on the stage of life where prayer, like any other activity, is to be

performed. He may act any part in life — that of king or hermit,

married or celibate, famous or obscure, according to his apparent

nature and destiny. I say ‘apparent’ because in fact he has

transcended nature and destiny.

 

Such a one was the Bhagavan I knew. He was the most

simple, natural, unassuming of men; he was what a man should

be, quite without affectation, like a child; and at the same time

with an indescribable beauty and wisdom and with such power

that many trembled in his presence and feared to speak to him.

To address him in the third person, as ‘Bhagavan’, seemed less

inappropriate than saying ‘you’ to one who was leading us beyond

the duality of ‘you’ and ‘I’. When the meaning was general and

warranted it, he would also say ‘Bhagavan’ — “even if you let

go of Bhagavan, Bhagavan will never let go of you”. In simple

daily affairs he would play the part of an individual, just as an

actor could play Lear’s frenzy without himself being frenzied,

without supposing that he was Lear.

 

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taken from Arthur Osborne's My Life & Quest