Ramana Maharishi (1879-1946) is widely regarded as one of the great sages of the twentieth century. His version of advaita demands of its follower’s relentless inquiry into the self rather than any ritualistic worship of God. His legacy, the Ramanasrama, located on the hills of Tiruvannamalai in Tamil Nadu, draws devotees from all parts of India and the rest of the world.
According to Ramana’s teachings:
What is called mind is a wondrous power existing in Self. It projects all thoughts. If we set aside all thoughts and see, there will be no such thing as mind remaining separate; therefore, thought itself is the form of the mind. Other than thoughts, there is no such thing as the world.
Of all the thoughts that rise in the mind, the thought ‘I’ is the first thought.
That which rises in this body as ‘I’ is the mind. If one enquires ‘In which place in the body does the thought ‘I’ rise first?’, it will be known to be in the heart [spiritual heart is ‘two digits to the right from the centre of the chest’]. Even if one incessantly thinks ‘I’, ‘I’, it will lead to that place (Self).
The mind will subside only by means of the enquiry ‘Who am I?’. The thought ‘Who am I?’, destroying all other thoughts, will itself finally be destroyed like the stick used for stirring the funeral pyre.
Named Venkataraman at birth, Ramana was the second of four children of Sundaram Iyer and Azhagammal, in a village called Tiruchuzhi near Madurai in Tamil Nadu. He was born on 30 December 1879. His siblings were Nagaswamy (1877-1900), Nagasundaram (1886-1953) and sister Alamelu (1891/92-1953).
One November morning in 1895, three years after his father’s death, Ramana met an elderly relative who had come from “Arunachala.” According to a biography by Krishna Bikshu, “The word “Arunachala” was familiar to Venkataraman from his younger days, but he did not know where it was, what it looked like or what it meant. Yet that day that word meant to him something great, an inaccessible, authoritative, absolutely blissful entity. Could one visit such a place? His heart was full of joy. Arunachala meant some sacred land, every particle of which gave moksha. It was omnipotent and peaceful. Could one behold it? “What? Arunachala? Where is it?” asked the lad. The relative was astonished. “Don’t you know even this?” he asked, and continued, “Haven’t you heard of Tiruvannamalai? That is Arunachala.”
In mid-July 1896, at age sixteen, Ramana had a life changing experience. Suddenly and inexplicably overcome by the fear of death, he decided to simulate the experience, adopting the classical savasana pose, and even closing his nostrils, to stop breathing. In Ramana’s own words, ‘The shock of the fear of death drove my mind inwards and I said to myself mentally, without actually framing the words: “Now death has come; what does it mean? What is it that is dying? This body dies."
“Is the body I? It is silent and inert, but I feel the full force of my personality and even the voice of I within me, apart from it. So I am the Spirit transcending the body. The body dies but the spirit transcending it cannot be touched by death. That means I am the deathless Spirit. All this was not dull thought; it flashed through me vividly as living truths which I perceived directly almost without thought process. “I” was something real, the only real thing about my present state, and all the conscious activity connected with the body was centred on that “I”. From that moment onwards, the “I” or Self focussed attention on itself by a powerful fascination. Fear of death vanished once and for all. The ego was lost in the flood of Self-awareness.”
After this event, Ramana lost interest in school-studies, friends, and relatives. He constantly sat alone, absorbed in concentration on the Self, and went daily to the Meenakshi temple, ecstatically devoted to the images of the gods, tears flowing profusely from his eyes. He decided to leave his home and go to Arunachala.
He slipped away quietly one fine morning, telling his brother he needed to attend a special class at school. Ramana took out an atlas, calculated the cost of his journey, took three rupees from the five meant for his brother’s college fees and left the remaining two with a note which read: “I have set out in quest of my Father in accordance with his command. It (a reference to himself) has embarked on a virtuous enterprise. No one need grieve over this act. And no money need be spent in search of it. Your college fee has not been paid. Herewith rupees two.”
After much travel by foot and train, on the morning of the 1st of September (now observed as Advent Day), 1896, he boarded a train for the last leg of the journey to Arunachala. In Tiruvannamalai he went straight to the temple of Arunachaleswara. There, he found not only the temple gates open, but the doors to the inner shrine as well, and not a single person, not even a priest, in the temple. He entered the sanctum sanctorum and addressed Arunachaleswara: “I have come to Thee at Thy behest. Thy will be done.” He embraced the linga in ecstasy. Venkataraman had arrived.
Ramana stayed in different parts of the temple for several months, sitting quietly in meditation. The first few weeks he spent in the thousand-pillared hall but urchins pelted him with stones so he shifted to other spots in the temple and even to the Patala-lingam vault. Undisturbed there, he would spend days absorbed in such deep samadhi that he was unaware of the bites of vermin and pests. Seshadri Swami, a local saint, discovered him in the underground vault and tried to protect him.
After about six weeks in the Patala-lingam, he was carried out and cleaned up. For the next two months he stayed in the Subramanya Shrine, so unaware of his body and surroundings that food had to be placed in his mouth or he would have starved. From there, he was invited to stay in a mango orchard next to Gurumurtam, a temple about a mile out of Tiruvannamalai.
Shortly after his arrival at Gurumurtam a sadhu named Palaniswami first heard of Brahmana Swami, as Ramana was then known, and went to see him. Seeing Ramana filled him with peace and bliss, and from that time on he served Ramana.
Palaniswami joined Ramana as his permanent attendant providing him with a lifetime of care and protection. Ramana was lost in inner bliss most of the time and during those times protection was very valuable.
Gradually, despite Ramana’s silence, austerities, and desire for privacy, he attracted attention from visitors, and some became his disciples. When his family discovered his whereabouts, his uncle Nelliappa Iyer pleaded with him to return home but Ramana sat motionless and eventually his uncle gave up.
In February 1899, Ramana moved further up Arunachala where he stayed briefly in Satguru Cave and Guru Namasivaya Cave before taking up residence at Virupaksha Cave for the next 17 years, using Mango Tree Cave during the summers.
In 1902 a Government official named Sivaprakasam Pillai put Ramana 14 questions about how to know one’s true identity. These questions and young Ramana’s answers were his first teachings on the method of self inquiry for which he became widely known. These were published as ‘Nan Yar?’ or ‘Who am I?'
Several visitors came to him and many became his disciples. Ganapati Sastri, a Vedic scholar of repute, who came to visit him in 1907 proclaimed him as Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharishi. Ramana was known by this name for the rest of his life.
In 1911, Frank Humphreys, then a policeman stationed in India, became his first western disciple. He published articles in The International Psychic Gazette in 1913 on Ramana. Ramana became internationally known after 1934 when Paul Brunton published the book, ‘A Search in Secret India’, which became very popular. Other prominent visitors included Paramahansa Yogana-
nda, W Somerset Maugham, Mercedes De Acosta, Julian P Johnson, and Arthur Osborne.
Ramana’s fame began to spread throughout the 1940s. However, even as his fame spread, Sri Ramana was noted for his belief in the power of silence and relatively sparse use of speech, and a lack of concern for criticism. His lifestyle remained that of a renunciate.
In 1916 his mother Azhagammal and younger brother Nagasundaram joined Ramana at Tiruvannamalai and followed him when he moved to the larger Skandashram Cave, where Bhagavan lived until the end of 1922. His mother took up the life of a sanyasin, and Ramana gave her intense, personal instruction, while she took charge of the ashram kitchen. Ramana’s younger brother, Nagasundaram, then became a sanyasi, assuming the name Niranjanananda.
Beginning in 1920, his Mother’s health deteriorated. On the day of her death, May 19, 1922, at about 8 a.m., Ramana sat beside her. It is reported that throughout the day, he had his right hand on her heart, on the right side of the chest, and his left hand on her head, until her death around 8:00 p.m., when Ramana pronounced her liberated.
In December 1922, he settled at the base of the Hill, where Ramanasrama is still located today. Not long after the 50th anniversary in 1946 of his arrival at Arunachala, Ramana’s health rapidly deteriorated. In November 1948, a cancerous lump the size of a pea was found, and in February 1949 this was removed by the ashram doctor, assisted by another devotee doctor. Soon, another growth appeared, and another operation was done by an eminent surgeon in March, 1949, and Radium treatment was given. Ramana refused to have an amputation when the doctors recommended it. A third and fourth operation were performed in August and December of 1949, but only weakened him. Other systems of medicine were then tried. During all this, Ramana remained peaceful and unconcerned. As his condition worsened, Ramana remained available for the thousands of visitors who came to see him, even when his attendants urged him to rest. His attitude towards death was serene. To devotees who begged him to cure himself, he replied: “Why are you so attached to this body. Let it go.” and “Where can I go? I am here.”
By April 1950, Sri Ramana was too weak to go to the hall, and visiting hours were limited to 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. in the morning and 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the evening. Visitors would file past the small room where he spent his final days, to get one final glimpse. By April 14th, it was evident the end was near. Swami Satyananda, the attendant at the time, reports, “On the evening of 14th April 1950, we were massaging Sri Ramana’s body. At about 5 o’clock, he asked us to help him to sit up. Precisely at that moment devotees started chanting ‘Arunachala Siva’, ‘Arunachala Siva’. When Sri Bhagavan heard this, his face lit up with radiant joy. Tears began to flow from his eyes and continued to flow for a long time. The doctor wanted to administer artificial respiration but Bhagavan waved it away. Bhagavan’s breathing became gradually slower and slower and at 8:47 p.m. it subsided quietly.”
His disciples established the Ramanasram in Tiruvannamalai to propagate his message. Later, devotees in other parts of India and the rest of the world established additional centres dedicated to Ramana and his teachings.