[Fwd: Who/what/how is a devotee of Ramana Maharshi?]

[Guest guest]

This post is from Vicki (long time member and friend

and Bhagavan devotee) written over a year ago to the HS list. I enjoyed

it and thought to share it again.

 

Namaste and love to all

Harsha

 

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Who/what/how is a devotee of

Ramana Maharshi?

 

 

 

Mon, 1 May 2006 19:15:06 +0200

 

 

 

viorica

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ThePowerOfSilence <ThePowerOfSilence >

 

 

CC:

H_S

 

 

 

 

 

Who/what/how  is a devotee of Ramana

Maharshi?

  

Some time ago someone said he wanted

to meet a very famous devotee of Ramana Maharshi and asked for a phone

number from me. It struck me the expression 'very famous'. Then the

same person said he read that devotee's story somewhere. Then I

understood. What made the other person a 'very famous devotee' was the

fact that a story appeared to be published somewhere. Then I realized I

held the same concepts(prejudice?): we see somebody's name published in

a newsletter, a book, a web site and we automatically turn that person

into a famous devotee. So what makes a devotee famous is his/her name

published somewhere, or any other deed that impressed someone and

decided to mention a name somewhere. I wondered at that that seeing and

reading a story somewhere we build a whole mental image about the

'famous' devotee to whom we mentally assign also all the good/

brave/excellent qualities we can imagine without ever having any live

real contact with that person.   

 

Another time I was told a good devotee

of Ramana Maharshi would not think like this, speak like this, behave

like this. Another was even more upset with me because I don't

associate the Who Am I? and Ramana Maharshi's teaching with

simultaneous obeyance to Hindu culture and tradition. I have always

been quite alien to any ritual or traditional form of religious

practice and I wondered at that that many Western Ramana devotees

adopted only a Hindu form of external life and practice no enquiry at

all.  

And so there have begun to appear many

ideas and new rules that we begin to associate with the good devotee

and we let them govern our lives and decide our relationships.

 

I think that more and more a certain

image of what and how a Ramana devotee should be or should manifest

his/her life as a devotee becomes stronger and stronger among people's

beliefs and expectations.

 

I also used to judge people by my own

measures and concepts and expectations of what a devotee of Ramana is

or should be. Till the day I realized we all were doing the same

mistake and that our expectations from such people and the good

qualities we assign to such people or their lives have nothing to do

with anything else other than our own views.

 

When I realized that, I gave up the

mental split I used to apply in my relationships when relating to

friends: this is a devotee, this is not a devotee. And further on: this

devotee is the Devotee, and the other one is still so far from living

the teaching. And so on. Someday I realized that a woman at my work

place who was lost in duality with God(what a sin to still be the

normal average religious person who hasn't seen the mistake of not

adopting the new age advaita point of view yet!) was just a more

sensitive human being than another who is fully immersed in Advaita and

devotion to guru(s). That' s how I began turning back to people in my

world and started enjoying again their presence unconditioned by the

 fact that these people knew/didn't know who Ramana Maharshi is.

            

 

2000 hundred of years of devotion to

Jesus didn't solve the envy, hatred, jealousy, greed, racism, wars and

killing among his devotees. Living in Jerusalem I don't see that

pilgrimages to this holy place and land can(could) solve the conflicts

of the Jesus' devotees all over the world. There are some people to

whom pilgrimages to Tiruvannamalai are the greatest sign of devotion to

Ramana. I realized I don't have to do that or behave as if if I would

not spend my life urging to travel to India I would miss the meaning of

life. I don't feel I miss anything, I feel I am fine where I am and I

don't have to prove anything to anybody, neither to become 'very

famous' by having a story written or by myself writing any story or by

acclaiming that my life is worthless if not spent in the study of

scriptures, Sanskrit or pilgrimages. Because it is not true.

 

I wonder if there are more devotees

who realize how we started labeling and judging each other by all kind

of criteria that have validity and meaning only to the mind who is

thinking them. 

 

I am writing that as an apology to all

people whom I once used to judge by my own self-built Ramanist

phantasies, by all such mental constructs that I brought between me and

the world I live in, mental stuff that now has been demolished so that

I may live in peace and enjoy people and friends around me as they are.