Self contemplation

He would go to Meenakshi Temple every day and stand there in front of the Deity in complete absorbtion with tears flowing from his eyes. His life was soon to take a diferent course.On the 29th of August 1886 Venkataraman was asked to copy out a lesson in English Grammar thrice to learn it. He copied it twice when the utter futility of the whole thing struck him and he set his books aside. His elder brother who was watching him remarked’ What use is all this to one like you?’.

Though the remark was meant to spurn him into studying it had a different effect.Venkataraman embarked on a life of renunciation. Leaving the house with a few rupees in his hand he left to ‘Arunachala’.In his letter to his brother he wrote “ I have left, in quest of my Father in accordance with His command”. In this he showed his oneness with his eternal Father and his next line further proved it wherein he said “It is on a virtuous enterprise that this body has embarked”. The “this” here refered to his own person . He did not sign but merely left a dash indicating his complete lack of identity with his own person.

On his journey there he stopped at the temple at ‘Arayaninallur’ where he had a vision of brilliant light which filled the whole place around him. He reached ‘Arunachala’ after an arduous journey.He announced his arrival to the Lord in the Temple which was empty at the time of his arrival. He came out only to shave his head, throw out his sacred thread and don a loin cloth. He threw out the little money he had and did not touch money again.

He entered the temple once again and sat there immersed in the bliss of his self. He used to be disturbed by urchins who troubled him by pelting stones but he changed places even going to obscure corners to sit in deep absorption to the extent of being oblivious to vermin and insect bites. He was often protected by a reciding Swami there called Seshadri. Soon people started taking care of him. The rest of his life he spent in “Tiruvannamalai”, in quietness, he did not turn down his thronging devotees and did not speak much but only when needed. He lived there till the 14th of April 1950.


Ramana Maharshi’s Love and Forbearance

The Maharshi was a simple man who followed all the rules of the Ashram himself without fail for the others to emulate. He would join the others in the kitchen to help them cook and did not tolerate any special treatment to him of any kind.He would dicourage people from rising up for his sake and said if they did that then they would have to rise up for everybody who enters. He once rebuked a devotee for asking a foreigner who was sitting with legs out stretched to fold them. As an answer he himself sat with folded legs even though he had arthitritis and found that difficult.He would never refer to animals as ‘it’ but as ‘he’ or ‘she’ indicating that he thought of them as individual souls.

Once the Maharshi and his devotees were attacked in their Ashram by robbers who beat them up, Ramana Maharshi dissuaded people from retaliating saying that to beat them was not difficult but they were misguided souls, blinded by ignorance. He said that it was more important to note what is right and to stick by that. Would we knock our teeth out just because they bit us by mistake?He belived that every thing was preordained and would happen as it was decided that it should happen in accordance with the One, from the time we are born. The only freedom we have is whether or not to identify with our body.Towards the end the Maharshi’s left arm was affected by sarcoma and the doctors suggested amputation. To this he called the body itself a disease and refused amputation. He did not mind external bandaging but prefered to let the body take its course.
The Works Of Ramana Maharshi

The most important of his works is The Forty Verses on Existence. In the Upadesa Saram which is alsoa poem the quintessence of Vedanta is set forth. The sage composed five hymns to Arunachala. Some of the works of Sankara like Vivekacudamani and Atma-bodha were rendered into Tamil by him. Most of what he wrote was in Tamil. He also wrote in Sanskrit, Telugu, and Malayalam.

 

 

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