Testimony of Islam to Ramana Maharshi’s Life and Teachings

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The devotees of Ramana are acquainted with his simple and uneventful life.

He lived a plain life to the end. He was without any pose or pretensions.

Not only that he was a great teacher and lived in a high plane of his own

but he was utterly human in every day life.He had love and sympathy for

every living creature as a true Brahmin should have. He mended his own

stick, took part in the cutting of vegetables and cooking some food now and

then. His sense of unity and equality of mankind was so great that he never

accepted anything prepared for himself but had it distributed equally to all

persons present in his hall. Men of every race, caste, creed, sex, high and

low,rich and poor, visited him and to him all were alike.He never showed any

preference to men of position or looked down upon a pariah or a panchama. To

him all were accessible.

 

So was the Prophet of Islam. He believed in the brotherhood of man and

treated all men alike. He used to say to his followers, Ana mislakum, that

is “I am one like you”. To him Jew or gentile, Muslim or non- Muslim were

alike. Whenever a non-Muslim visited him when he was sitting in his mosque

engaged in prayer he would at once rise up from his seat, spread his own

cloak and seat him respectfully. He mended his own shoes and patched up his

own worn-out garment. Nothing was left in his household for the morrow. All

that he received during the course of a day was distributed to the needy and

the poor. He often said Al faqr fakhri, that is to say, ‘poverty is my

pride’. He took keen interest in the welfare of human beings and used to

retire to a cave for spiritual meditation. Thus we see there is a close

similarity between his life and that of our beloved Maharshi.

 

We all know how Maharshi repeatedly enjoined us to surrender completely to

God’s will and be at peace with all, sink and bury our differences. In fact

once he said, “Burn them and turn to the abode of peace, your own heart.” Islam

is derived from the root Salama which means peace, tranquillity and finally

surrender of oneself to the Divine. ‘The word Islam’, says Deutch, a German

writer, ‘implies absolute submission to God’s will’. Hazrat Ali, the fourth

Caliph, the son-in-law of the Prophet said that “No one can have any

conception of God unless he knows his own Self.” Thus confirming Bhagavan’s

repeated teachings in all his well known books.

 

Further it is said in the Quran, “We are of God and to Him shall we

return”(Quran, Chapter II, verse 156). This clearly indicates whence we came

and whither we are going. Man’s inherent divinity is expressed in these

unequivocal words of the Quran. “God breathed His own breath in the nostril

of man.Man was created after the face of God.”

 

The man who says,‘Ana’l-abd’ ‘I am the slave of God,’ affirms two

existences, his own and God’s, but he that says ‘Ana’l-Haqq’ ‘I am God’ has

made himself non-existent and has given himself up and says, ‘I am God,’

i.e.‘I am naught, He is all: there is no being but God’s.’ This is the

extreme of humility and selfabasement.”

 

These two quotations bear fullest and clearest testimony to Bhagavan’s

teachings as embodied in his books Self Enquiry and Who am I? and others.

 

Source: The Silent Power of Ramana Maharshi book

 

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Om namo Bhagavate Sri Ramanaya

Prasanth Jalasutram