Ramana Maharishi

  Another instalment from my life in South India 1980-85

Yercaud is only 100 miles from Tiruvannamalai and it was inevitable that at one time we would visit the ashram of Ramana Maharishi who is generally regarded as the greatest Indian holy man or saint, or whatever he might be called as he really escapes categorisation, of the 20^th century. Michael respected him but was not especially interested in going to the ashram, having been to enough ashrams in the early ‘70s when he had spent some time in India. But I wanted to visit the place where the Maharishi had lived as he exemplified the ancient rishis of the Upanishads like no one else. He seems to represent a genuine conduit back to ancient India with a spirit uncontaminated by modernity or egotism. Just as one can see the falseness is some of the other religious figures I have mentioned, one can see the truth in him. 

I first came across him in the same way I imagine many people did, through Paul Brunton’s A Search in Secret India. When I read this book in 1978 it served as an excellent spiritual guide and travelogue and I’m sure it still does even though it is almost 100 years old. We may see further than Brunton in some respects now but that is because we stand on his shoulders and on the shoulders of people like him, those early writers who introduced the spiritual teachings of the East to the West. He combined a practical common sense with well-developed spiritual instincts and even today when so much more has been written and explored he remains a good bridge between Orient and Occident, cutting through the superstition of the one and the scepticism of the other. There is some minor controversy surrounding him but it only seems to come from one source and he has been dead for 40 years anyway, so we can overlook it. Meanwhile, his books, possibly outmoded in certain ways, remain a testament to his pioneering research and insights.

 

We wrote to the ashram asking if they could put us up for a few days, and they replied offering us a room for a date about a month away. There were regular buses from Salem to Tiruvannamalai which took about 3 hours and so, at the due date, we boarded one and off we went. The ashram was situated a short distance out of town at the foot of the famous Mount Arunachala where Ramana went when he was aged about 20 shortly after his ‘death experience’ at 16. This was when he became convinced he was going to die and lay down in preparation. While waiting for death he realised that it is only the body that dies, and his consciousness became absorbed in Brahman where it remained ever after. Put like that, it seems almost mundane but the transformation in him was profound for this was not just an intellectual realisation such as anyone might have but the actual experience of spiritual deathlessness and destruction of the idea of a separate self. I will have more to say about this later. Suffice it to say here that Ramana’s experience does seem rather different to that of many people who have mystical experiences in that his ego self did not lay claim to the experience afterwards as is often the case in such instances. I would suggest his experience was more profound and his level of spiritual maturity much greater than the norm. The self exists whether we accept that or not. The experience of self-transcendence can come to anyone at any stage of the mystical life but only one in whom the self has become almost transparent can process this experience in the complete sense, untarnished by ego. Ramana was one of the very rare examples of such a person. To use a Sufi expression, he was able to convert a state into a station meaning he truly became what he experienced.

 

After arriving at Arunachala Ramana lived in various caves in the foothills of the mountain eventually settling in Virupaksha Cave where he stayed for 17 years. When he had first arrived in Tiruvannamalai he had remained sunken in deep meditation oblivious to the outer world but gradually he returned to normal consciousness to the degree that he could interact with the world and the devotees that his advanced state inevitably attracted.  

 

In 1922 following the death of his mother who, after initial disapproval, had joined him and become his disciple, he moved to her tomb at the base of the hill and the ashram began to form around him. One indication of the authenticity of his realisation is that as his fame increased and many more people came to see him, literally to sit at his feet in many cases, this had no effect on him whatsoever. He led a simple and spartan life with barely any possessions and there was no hint of scandal of any kind. He remained in service to his devotees and, such was his innate modesty, resisted any attempt to deify him which is something Indians love to do with their holy men. His purpose was to be accessible to anyone who wished to see him, and I cannot think of a better example of someone who taught by “silence and the rays you give out” (see Meeting the Masters, p. 255).

 

Ramana died in 1950 and his body was buried on site in accordance with tradition in India for a holy person. The ashram developed as a spiritual centre to perpetuate his memory and teachings, and now includes samadhi shrines, a meditation hall and a library amongst other facilities. I don’t recall the library being very large when I went in the early 1980s but there seems to be a big building there now so perhaps a new one has been built. When we went, we spoke to the librarian there, an Englishman slightly older than me who has written extensively about Ramana and some of his disciples. He was rather reserved in his manner but possibly that was because he saw us, as we were, as sympathetic observers rather than true devotees.

 

At that time the ashram still carried something of the peace of Ramana’s presence. It wasn’t crowded and when we walked up the hill to Skandashram, the cave where Ramana lived from 1915 to 1922, there was not a soul to be seen. I went back some 20 years later for a brief visit and it had become busier and more, one has to say, institutional in feeling, but that is inevitable as the further something gets from its source, the more the energy from that original inspiration will be diluted.

 

Ramana was an almost unique religious personage. But does he serve as an example of the way to follow, especially for Westerners? I would say definitely not. He left no lineage and those who came after him and claim to manifest his realisation are, at best, several rungs below him in attainment. It must be remembered how his realisation came to him. It did not come as the result of any spiritual practice. He equated his realisation with what was in the Hindu scriptures some time after his experience as they seemed to describe it, and so he adopted their terminology to explain it, but they were not what brought it about, at least not in this life. I am not questioning his spiritual achievement and status, but I would base that more on his personality and the obvious aura of saintliness about him than the state of consciousness he attained. For what reveals Ramana to be on the upper tiers of spiritual development is not his impersonal realisation but the quality of his personal response to it.

And yet, what exactly was the point of his spiritual realisation? For true believers he had reached the pinnacle of enlightenment but is that really all there is? To become one with the universe and have no self left? It seems a waste of effort. God's effort in creating, that is. Why go to all the trouble of creating if the end is the same as the beginning? Of course, for those who believe that the ground of reality is impersonal being or pure consciousness there is no problem. But if that really were the case then how did anything ever happen? 

I'll tell you how. It happened because God willed it so. There is no other possible answer unless you fall back on the complete fluke response but that is just question begging. God willed it and he had a purpose in doing so. That purpose was to make the universe a universe of many beings in loving communion rather than just one being by himself. It sounds naive perhaps, but why shouldn't the answer be simple? In fact, it should be simple.

Ramana had reached a high state by tracing consciousness back to its source but he had retracted his being into pure oneness. This might be the foundation of existence but it is not the building and it does not negate the reality and meaning and purpose of the building. The building is creation which is real. Your self and my self are real and God gave us these selves so that we might bring them to a state in which they could be divinised not discarded, though the separative element in them should be outgrown. Ramana was a saintly man, though not I repeat because of his realisation but because of his character. Even so, he does not indicate the way of Christ which is the greater way because it includes the whole of life not just part of it. Life is not just one. It is one and many, both together, and that gives it its unending richness and beauty.