Incidents Related To Ramana Maharshi during His Final Years

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Ramachandra Rao, an ayurvedic healer and devotee, wanted to prepare a

special tonic for him and wrote a long list with all the ingredients and

presented it to Ramana. The Maharshi went through it with interest, but then

said that he had not the money to buy such expensive things. “If that

medicine is good for me, it must necessarily be good for all the others

here. Can you give it to them also as well as to me? If people who do

physical work don’t need a body-building tonic, how do I who merely sits

here and eats? No, no, that can’t be!â€

 

In 1942 Ramana had a bad fall. A dog was chasing a squirrel and he wanted to

hold the dog back and so stretched out his walking stick, as a result he

slipped and broke his collarbone.

 

Sri Ramana always read the newspapers and he and his devotees listened to

the news on the radio. Occasionally politics were discussed in the

Hall. Professor

Subbaramayya reports the following interesting conversation, “It was June

10, 1940. The radio announced the fall of Paris to Germany and the entry of

Italy into the war against the Allies. … I had just heard a rumour that to

counteract the action of Italy, Turkey had declared war on the side of the

Allies. I asked Narayana Iyer, who was the latest arrival from the town

whether he had heard any such announcement on the radio. Before Narayana

Iyer could reply, Sri Bhagavan Himself said ‘No, it cannot be true.’

Narayana Iyer confirmed this rare reply of Sri Bhagavan, and turning to me,

observed ‘France, a first-rate Power has fallen in three days, Then do you

think our Britain can hold out longer than three weeks at the most?’ Upon

this, Sri Bhagavan again observed ‘Um! – but Russia – ‘ Abruptly Sri

Bhagavan cut short his speech and resumed silence. Neither of us had the

courage to ask Sri Bhagavan what Russia was going to do, though it appeared

strange that Sri Bhagavan should mention Russia who was at that time

friendly to Germany. It will be remembered that war broke out between

Germany and Russia only one year afterwards,and it was in fact Germany’s

attack on Russia that turned the tide of fortune in favour of the Allies.â€

 

When on 30th January 1948 Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated in New Delhi, the

whole of India went into mourning. A newspaper reporter came to the Ashram

to ask the Maharshi his opinion about the tragedy. Ramana said with a

shaking voice, “For the Mahatma’s death in this tragic manner, every

person’s heart is mourning.What is there in particular that I could say? Who

is there who is not grieved? If I say anything, you will publish it and

then, one after another, people will come and ask me. What is the good of

it?†With these words he sent the reporter away and went for his walk. At

half past four the women sang ‘Raghupati Raghava Rajaram’ (one of Mahatma

Gandhi’s favourite songs). With tears in his eyes Ramana indicated that they

should continue with the singing.At 5 p.m. a conch was blown and an

arati-celebration (waving of lights) was held in the Mother’s Temple for the

death of the Mahatma.

 

After Gandhi's assassination the whole country was plunged into turmoil.

There were arson attacks and murders everywhere. The radio in the Hall

reported that the situation was very serious. In Tiruvannamalai too people

were worried and the town was placed under police guard. Sri Ramana’s grand

nephew V. Ganesan reports,“It was 9.30 in the morning. Suddenly loud cries

of ‘Catch them, kill them’ were heard. One mad crowd was chasing another and

all of them entered the Ashram from the hill-side. There was panic inside

the Ashram. A devotee in the Old Hall rushed to the doors and bolted them;

the meditating devotees were naturally disturbed. In the midst of all the

tense commotion, Bhagavan was unperturbed, a picture of attention,

correcting some proof.â€

 

The first signs of Ramana’s illness appeared in early 1949, when he would

often rub his left elbow. An attendant who examined the spot found a boil

the size of a pea, which rapidly grew and was soon as big as a marble. Although

it seemed to be harmless it was nevertheless removed on 9th February by the

Ashram doctor Dr. Shankar Rao and the retired surgeon Dr. Srinivasa Rao,

without consulting any other doctors. The operation was performed in the

bathroom before breakfast.

 

After the operation Ramana did his best to hide the wound with his towel.

When people asked what he had on his arm, he joked, “I am wearing a

bracelet†or “A lingam is born.†The wound took about ten days to heal.

 

It was not long, however, before another, larger and more painful growth

appeared. Renowned doctors from Madras were consulted and they diagnosed it

as a malignant tumour.

 

On 1st May Dr. Raghavachari declared that amputation of the arm was

unavoidable. But Ramana refused, “There is no need for alarm. The body is

itself a disease. Let it have its natural end. Why mutilate it? Simple

dressing of the affected part is enough.â€

 

The doctors also thought that the sun would be beneficial for the sick arm.

So they would arrange a seat for Ramana outside behind the cow shed, remove

the bandage there and clean the wound. The affected part was then exposed to

the sun’s rays for some time. On one occasion devotees again expressed their

worries and fears, but he merely joked about his bleeding ulcer, “See how

nice it is! It is like a precious ruby. It has become an ornament to my arm.

See how red it is! It is glowing brilliantly with the sun’s rays falling on

it. Look at it!â€

 

The ayurvedic healer who had successfully treated Ramana’s broken

collarbone, tried a treatment using a poultice of healing green leaves. One

evening Ramana returned from his walk shivering with fever and, walking with

an extremely unsteady gait, was barely able to reach his couch. Shantamma,

who could not control her grief at this sight, cried out, “Oh! Your

body….â€,

but before she was able to complete the sentence the Maharshi interrupted

her, “Oho! The body? What about it? What has happened? Shivering? What if it

is shivering? What you want is that there should be life in this body.Life

is in it. Are you satisfied?†Finally he managed to control the shivering,

and looking at the people around him, said, “This is Nataraja’s dance. Daily

it is a stationary darshan. Today it is tandava darshan [dancing darshan].

Why should there be any worry on that account?†Then he kept silent. The

suspicion was that the shivering was caused by an infection brought on by

the green leaves. So this treatment was stopped.

 

Sri Ramana found it increasingly difficult to climb the steps of the eastern

entrance of the New Hall. When it was suggested that he should use the

northern entrance, where the steps were not so high, he refused, as the

northern part of the Hall was the women’s area and he did not want to

disturb them by entering there. But from now on, whenever he was not giving

darshan, he remained in the small room on the eastern side of the New Hall,

which had its own bath. This room became known as the ‘Nirvana room’, as it

was here that he died.

 

On 19th March, the Telugu New Year, Sri Ramana had a bad accident.When he

entered his bathroom in the morning, he stumbled over the threshold and

fell. A devotee wanted to help him up, but he refused and stood up by

himself, albeit with difficulty. His koupina and his towel were covered in

blood. He probably had a fracture, but his attendant was not allowed to make

it public. The part of his body on which he had fallen, started to suppurate

and was very painful, but this too was concealed. That day Ramana sat as

usual from 9 a.m. onwards on the veranda of the little room to give darshan.

 

On the night before the 14th April Sri Ramana asked everyone to go to bed or

to meditate and leave him alone. Even his attendants he sent away. The next

morning he said in English to his attendant Rangaswami, who had just

finished massaging him, “thanksâ€. Rangaswami, who knew no English, looked

astonished, so Sri Ramana smiled and explained the meaning to him, “The

English have a word ‘thanks’, but we only say ‘santosham’ (I am

pleased).â€

 

Until the last Sri Ramana showed his concern for the animals.Some hours

before his death he asked if the peacocks, whom he heard screeching, had had

their food. The animals reacted to his approaching end. The peacocks walked

round his room, the cows,dogs, monkeys, birds, all showed their affection in

their own way.But the white peacock stood on the roof of the Nirvana room

screeching uninterruptedly.

 

On 14th April 1950 At 8.47 p.m., without any struggle, his breathing

stopped. There was no other sign of death,only that the next breath did not

come.

 

The French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson,who had been staying at the

Ashram for two weeks, rushed into the Nirvana room shortly after the moment

of the Maharshi’s

death and asked those present for the exact minute of his death.He later

reported, “I was in the open space in front of my house,when my friends drew

my attention to the sky, where I saw a vividly-luminous shooting star with a

luminous tail, unlike any shooting star I had before seen, coming from the

South, moving slowly across the sky and, reaching the top of Arunachala,

disappeared behind it. Because of its singularity we all guessed its import

and immediately looked at our watches – it was 8.47 – and then raced to the

Ashram only to find that our premonition had been only

too sadly true: the Master had passed into mahanirvana at that very minute.â€

 

This unusual phenomenon was witnessed by large numbers of people over a wide

area. On 16th April all English and Tamil newspapers published reports on

the death of the Maharshi and also about the appearance of the shooting

star.

 

The crowd of people was so large that the twenty policemen were barely able

to keep them under control. Cohen reports that about 40,000 people came

during the day to pay their last respects to Sri Ramana.

 

But as the Maharshi spent 54 years of his life in Tiruvannamalai and 28 of

them at Ramanashram,his presence is felt there with special intensity.

 

It is, nevertheless, very important to point out that the true experience of

the presence of Ramana and Arunachala must be in the Heart, it is not bound

by time or place, and everything else has only the limited value of a

manifestation. “Where could I go? I am here†means that he is the Heart of

all living beings, the Self, as it states in Chapter X, verse 20 of the

Bhagavad Gita, his favourite verse, “I am the Self, Oh Gudakesa, dwelling in

the Heart of every being; I am the beginning, the middle and also the end of

all living beings.â€

 

Ramana describes Realization of the Self as follows, “In a pinhole camera,

when the hole is small, you see shapes and colours. When the hole is made

big, the images disappear and one sees only clear light. Similarly when the

mind is small and narrow, it is full of shapes and words. When it broadens,

it sees pure light. When the box is destroyed altogether, only the light

remains.â€

 

 

Source: Ramana Maharshi: His Life A biography by Gabriele Ebert

 

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