Some extracts From the Golden Jubilee Sovenir of Sri Ramanasramam

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From the Golden Jubliee Souvenir of Sri Ramanasramam

 

BHAGAVAN SRI RAMANA GOD-REALITY INCARNATE By Sadhu Ekarasa (Dr. G. H. Mees,

M.A., LL.D.)

 

 

Dwelling in the Eternal, the Maharshi makes no distinctions of person, and

“looks with an equal eye†on a learned scholar and a simple peasant, a

Maharaja and a sweeper, an old man and a young woman, a man and a dog, a

householder and a monk. But though Sri Ramana has realized the mystic

“equality†of souls in God-Reality, he knows that in the world of

appearances, which those who have profane outlook consider

to be the real world, no such thing as equality exists or can exist. Once a

visitor said during a conversation: “There should be equality among menâ€.

Sri Ramana promptly remarked: “Then let them go to sleep; in sleep all are

equal.â€

 

BHAGAVAN SRI RAMANA Sustainer of Spiritual Reality By Dr. S. Radhakrishnan,

M.A., D. LITT., F.B.A. (Vice-Chancellor, Benares Hindu University)

 

 

To see the Real and not merely the things of the world, the eye must be

inverted.1 God is within us.2 Not comfort but control is happiness. “If any

man will come after me, let him deny himself,†says Jesus.Dedication to God

means denial of the ego. We must empty the self in the abyss of God. This

process is helped by the practice of

unselfish service (Nishkama Karma), devotion (Bhakti), mindcontrol (Yoga), and

inquiry (Vichara). Inquiry into self, religious worship, ethical service are

means to this realisation. The end of all worship, puja, japa, dhyana, is

communion with God. With increasing intensity in our devotion, the distance

between the human and the Divine diminishes.

 

BHAGAVAN SRI RAMANA AND THE MODERN AGE By B. Sanjiva Rao, B.A. (Cantab), I.E.S.,

(Retired)

 

 

This is the original wisdom which is implicit in every individual life; every

child of man shares in this heritage of the soul. But there is also an original

Ajnana characteristic of all self-conscious existence which is the cause of all

sorrow. Buddha declared that ‘self-conscious’ existence is sorrow. The

Christian believed in an original sin which has brought about the fall of man.

When from an original unconsciousness man developed a self-conscious

individuality, he lost his innocence and gained a knowledge of good and evil.

Good and evil exist only in the mind of the man who suffers from this Ajnana.

The innocent child does not know good and evil, neither does the perfected

Jnani. What is this Ajnana, this original sin, which is the rootcause of all

sufferings? It is Egoism. Egoism is essentially the limitation of life to an

individual body, life and mind. Such limitation brings about a psychological

isolation by the mind of the individual from

the Universal Life and is the root-cause of a fundamental loneliness in the

heart of man.

 

LIFE OF THE EGO AND THE LIFE OF THE TRUE ‘I’

 

Egoistic life is a series of reactions to external impacts. Through the gateways

of the surface mind and the senses there arrive sensations, feelings and

thoughts to which the Ego immediately reacts. It is to such reactions that we

ascribe a semblance of Reality; we call it incorrectly our life. With the data

given to us by our senses, we construct with our mind a picture, a

representation of the outer world, the universe of objective forms; and in the

region of the psyche, we create a network of human relationships which

pictorially describe our own egoistic reactions, mental, vital and physical, to

other Egos,the network which we call samsara. To such a mentally constructed

universe physical and psychic, we ascribe an independent Reality, because there

is a certain measure of agreement in the descriptions of different individuals,

though what is known as the personal equation enters largely into our

concentration of the world of things as they are. The

psychic Universe is unique to each ego. That is fairly recognised, but that the

physical universe itself, i.e., our conception of it, is entirely mental is now

becoming fairly well accepted by some of our most distinguished scientists.

Knowledge derived by the mind of such a universe, called by us ‘Science’, is

really an analysis of the law of our own minds.

 

BHAGAVAN SRI RAMANA THE EMBODIMENT OF SPIRITUAL POWER

 

The Spiritual lessons, which Sri Bhagavan was imparting to earnest inquirers for

over four decades would be legion. They have been incorporated in several

treatises written in English and Tamil, in the form of prose and verse, and this

precious

literature has been widely read all over the civilized world. About 3000 years

ago, a Greek Philosopher was bombarded with some knotty questions. To the

question “What is the easiest thing in the World?†his answer was “To give

advice to othersâ€. To another question, viz., “What is the most difficult

thing in the worldâ€,he answered “To know one’s own true Self â€. Sri

Bhagavan’s main teachings were directed towards the attainment of that

knowledge which is otherwise called “Self-Realization.â€