EXPERIENCES OF A SWISS DEVOTEE WHO RAN SRI RAMANA CENTRE IN SWITZERLAND FOR MANY

[Guest guest]

EXPERIENCES OF A SWISS DEVOTEE WHO RAN SRI RAMANA CENTRE IN

SWITZERLAND FOR MANY YEARS

 

 

Henri Hartung, a Swiss, translated Ulladu Naarpadu in French,

which went into several editions. He passed away in the early

1980s. He writes:

 

I came to Bhagavan in 1947. The long path to the Ashram became for

me the royal road to the discovery of oneself.

In 1939, I had learnt that Ramana Maharshi was an authentic

representative of the traditional wisdom. After the end of the war

in Europe I came to the Far East, still combining with the

impetuosity of youth my temporal mission and my spiritual journey.

In Bombay I met a Brahmin who told me without astonishment as if it

were an item of the everyday news, and even before greeting me, " I

was waiting for you, I have to escort you to Maharshi. "

Two days and two nights of train travel followed. While admiring

the Indian landscape and especially the noisy and colourful scenes,

which occur during the stops, I tried to assess myself. Finally, I

frame some ten questions that remained essential for me – the

meaning of my presence on earth, what happens after death? Why? How?

etc. I reach the Ashram.

During the next ten days, I shared the ritual life of the Ashram,

sitting for hours in front of Sri Ramana in the meditation hall. On

the day of my departure, a precise answer to every one of the

questions I had prepared was given to me, without my asking them.

Sometimes through a few words written by himself, sometimes through

answers to questions, sometimes through some shared domestic chores,

especially in the kitchen, most often in silence; so unfolds a

really subtle transmission of an exceptional spiritual reality.

Till his last day, he will make it possible for his visitors from

the next town or from a remote place, on foot and penniless or in

luxurious cars, to see him, even to talk to him. They came to bow

in front of the living incarnation of the divine reality in human

form. He was there, amongst us, without ever showing any sort of

ambition, or a particle of pride. A smile of love and peace, a

look, which I feel, while writing these lines, words could not

devalue.

Thirty years after the first meeting, I am once again at

Tiruvannamalai, with my wife. A pilgrimage, which goes to the

depths of my soul, as it did thirty years ago in 1947. the Maharshi,

his samadhi and Arunachala – who is present in these high quarters

where I can, without great effort, come to terms with what inside me

is truer than myself? (Source: Ramana Smrti, Ramanasramam,

Tiruvannamalai.)

 

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.