A BRITISH SCHOLAR AND THEOSOPHIST’S TRIBUTE TO RAMANA MAHARSHI

[Guest guest]

A BRITISH SCHOLAR AND THEOSOPHIST'S TRIBUTE TO RAMANA MAHARSHI

 

Duncan Greenlees, M.A.(Oxen.) who was in India in the 1930s had

close personal contact with Mahatma Gandhi. He got thrilled after

reading Self Realization by Narasimha Swami, but felt momentarily

repelled after reading Brunton's A Search in Secret India. The

following is a condensed version of his article from the Golden

Jubilee Souvenir (1946).

 

 

 

The book struck me somehow as a piece of journalism of the lower

kind. For a few days it almost dissuaded me from going to

Tiruvannamalai. Had Maharshi stooped to allow this kind of vulgar

advertisement for himself, almost like a quack doctor seeking

testimonials? Of course, I soon threw this foolishness off my mind,

and went to see for myself.

I saw Maharshi. It did not take long for me to be sure that

I was in front of one who had, in that very body I could see before

me, solved life's problem for himself. The radiant peace around him

proved it beyond all cavil. The calm, like that of the midnight

sky, was something too real to question for a moment. The part of

my search thus was over, even at the first glimpse. In the flesh I

had seen a `Master'. I knew he was that what the books call a

jivanmukta. Please don't ask me how I knew for I cannot answer

that. It was just as one knows that water is wet and the sky is

blue. It could not be denied – self-evident is the word.

I had brought the usual list of questions to be asked. As

they were never asked, they do not matter. Shyness kept me silent

while sitting in the Hall those first days. And before I broke that

silence, the unspoken questions had solved themselves in their own

irrelevance. It is a common experience; I only add my own testimony

to that of many others.

The four days I had planned were soon over. But I could not

tear myself away before the last date of the vacation [of the

educational institution where he was teaching], and stayed on,

delighted, enthralled and pacified. That stillness of eternal deeps

had somehow osmosed itself into my heart. I had met a Master who

could quell the waves with a silent word, `Peace, be still!' I knew

myself to be absolutely one with that incarnate Peace on the sofa,

and therefore to be one equally with the Unmanifest in whose

stillness he was so obviously poised.

Before I left that hallowed spot, I did after all put

questions to Maharshi. He answered them in a wonderful way that was

new to me. I was wholly satisfied and filled with joy.

God's grace is such that He gives at his will what He likes

to give to any soul. We cannot earn His grace, even by crores of

years of effort. One can never be worthy of His blessings, but

receives it purely out of His mercy. His darshan can never be the

fruit of sakama tapasya, whatever certain books may say. It is only

the overflowing love of the Lord that brings it to us.

The peace that Bhagavan had put upon me remained in my

heart, like a shining cloud of transparency through which all things

passed dreamlike for about three weeks. The mind was caught and

held in that peace, in a blissfulness it had never known before. It

is a pity I cannot bring about this mood at my own will: it can come

only from the touch of the real Teacher of souls, as I have found.

One day in the Hall I was browsing a notebook of extracts on

Yoga. Bhagavan hardly ever spoke to me first (indeed there was very

little actual talking between us during the years; it did not seem

necessary, somehow), but that day he spoke to me in English: `What

is that book?' I told him. He said quietly, " Read Milarepa " [Dr.

Evans-Wentz's Tibet's Great Yogi Milarepa.] I read the book; it

thrilled and stirred deep places in my heart. Somehow, I feel

Bhagavan had seen that it would be so, and therefore gave me the

only order of the sort he has ever given me.

I have taken all the descriptions of the jivanmukta I could

find in any scripture - Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian, Christian,

Muslim, Jain etc. I have watched Bhagavan under all kinds of

circumstances, and checked up what I have seen with those

descriptions. I have not the smallest doubt that he alone, of the

men I have seen, dwells always in sahaja-smadhi,. Of course I am

not qualified to judge, for none but the saint can know the saint.

I have seen him in a humorous mood. I have seen him play the host

with delicate grace that seemed almost awkward at times. I have

seen him quickly, motionlessly, challenging and defeating injustice

or unkindness. I have seen him cutting vegetables for the

Ashramites long before the dawn. I have seen again and again how he

has solved the doubts, the agonies, the loss of faith of people of

many types – often with a word, often with a movement of healing

silence and a soft distance in his unmoving gaze. I have looked at

his perfect handwriting in many scripts, all a model of beauty and

care. I have heard him correcting the singers of hymns in his own

glory, with an absolute impersonality that was obvious. I have

watched his reactions to the noisy devotee, the lazy worker, the

mischievous monkey, the crazed adorer, the over-bold flatterer, the

one who would exploit his name. I have seen how totally impervious

he is to all considerations of power, place, prestige, and how his

grace shines equally on prince and peasant. Then, can I doubt that

here indeed we have, if not God Himself - for He is omnipresent - at

least Greatness incarnate, the majesty of the ancient hills blending

with the sweetness of the evening star?

Sit before him, as we used to sit those summer evenings, and

you know that you are not that foolish excited little person sitting

there, but the eternal Self out of whom this world has spun its

cobweb yarn of forms.

I know no other man whose mere presence has thus enabled me

to make the personality drop down in the abyss of nothingness, where

it belongs. I have found no other human being who so emanates his

grace that it can catch away the ordinary man from his stillness and

plunge him deep in the ecstasy of timeless omnipresent being.

His grace, which of course is the grace of God whose

representative and messenger he is, has been enough to give brief

glimpses even to me of that infinity, wherein he always seems to

live.

He will brush away all this nonsense of my talk with a wave

of hand and a smile, while saying as he once did, " It is the same in

this and in another place. That bliss you feel is in the Self, and

you superimpose it upon the place or environment in which you are

bodily set. " But, Bhagavan, we say what we like about you and the

blessings we have received from you; we shall not let you interrupt

our foolish words. It is our chance to publicly proclaim our debt

to the silent Teacher of Tiruvannamali.

Those who are in the Ashram are very gentle, considerate and

kindly. The generous services were given by a friend who used to

translate for me the Tamil answers to my English questions and get

translations approved by Bhagavan himself before giving them to me.

Even the human hospitality of Bhagavan himself, though sometimes a

little embarrassing to my innate shyness perhaps, has always been a

delightful thing.

His very presence among us is a benediction. His attaining

a clear and unflickering vision of the Self has raised the whole

world a little nearer to the Truth. His words have been an

unfathomed ocean of comfort and inspiration to thousands. His

silent peacefulness has revealed the Eternal in human form, as

mountains, seas and skies above can usually reveal It.

 

prof laxmi narain (prof_narain)

 

Source and courtesy: Sri Ramana Kendram, Hyderabad

This article was published in Sri Ramana Jyothi,

monthly magazine of the Kendram.