Ramana Maharshi

By Anjanee Gyan-Dyck

In 1994, upon the completion of my studies at the University of San Diego, I had only three subjects out of the required four. I returned to my teaching job in Alberta but was still on the search for my fourth guru. At the invitation of a close friend, I visited the Hindu Temple in Edmonton. After the worship, I entered into a conversation with a gentleman about my research. He asked me whether I was familiar with Ramana Maharshi. I did not know about him and

returned home to begin my research. My adventure started when I started to discover with astonishment his uniqueness, especially as a young boy and teenager.

Ramana Maharshi was born in Venkataramana in 1879 in Tiruchuzhi, South India. A disciple later changed his name to Ramana. He belonged to a middle-class Brahman family who was quite religious. At the same moment of his birth, the ceremonial carriage-float of Lord Shiva (G0d) re-entered the temple. This timely birthing seemed to announce the future of an extraordinary and godly person.

In elementary school, Ramana was a normal and intelligent student. By Middle School, he was bright and had a very retentive memory of his school work. He was exceptionally athletic. He was an excellent swimmer and wrestler and played football with his friends. He had an unusual ability of abnormal deep sleep that made him seemed lazy. On one occasion, Ramana locked the front door for the night, and his family could not get in. No amount of noise could awaken him. Finally, when the door could open, all the boys and his uncle resorted to beating him to wake him up, but Ramana knew nothing. In the morning, the family mentioned it to him, but Ramana had no recall of it. His friends did not dare touch him when he was awake. If they had a grudge against him when Ramana would be asleep, they would beat him up, then put him to bed. It was only the next morning he would know when they told him.

Ramana’s sixteenth birthday year seemed a propitious one that ushered in a dramatic change in his life towards spiritual interests. As a younger boy, he showed no interest in the family’s temple visits or reading any religious articles or books. One day, not long after his sixteenth birthday, a relative returned from visiting Arunachala. As a boy, Ramana had heard about this sacred place. Animatedly, he began to question his relative about Arunachala. Now he knew that it was a real place on earth and not a story. This sacred mountain called Arunachala piqued his interest. He began to find satisfaction in frequently visiting the temple. Previously, some of his only readings were the Periapuranam (Tamil scriptural texts), the Bible, and Tamil religious stories.

Soon after this, Ramana had an unforgettable, supernatural experience. While sitting alone in his room, a sudden violent and unmistakable fear of death overtook him. He saw his body being cremated, but yet he lived. This experience lasted less than thirty minutes, but it changed this teenager’s life forever. He became aware that his real nature was his universal deathless Self and that this Self or Spirit was the same in everyone. From that moment of feeling the nearness of the Supreme Being, Ramana continued to experience a burning sensation in his body.

After this realization, Ramana began to enjoy reading the life stories of Tamil saints. He would become overwhelmed with ecstatic wonder at their faith, love, and divine fervor. He felt astonished that there could be such beauty in human life. The spiritual experiences of the Tamil saints inspired him with awe and emulation. An awareness of meditation began to awaken in him. His focus on the Living Spirit within made him neglect school, friends, and family, but his temple visits became frequent. As he stood before the images of Shiva or Shakti, his longing for God accelerated while spiritual emotions flowed into his young soul.

On August 29, 1896, a crisis occurred in this teenager’s life. After silently debating the uselessness of schoolwork and his elder brother’s harsh words, Ramana recognized that he had to leave home. He also realized that he could not tell his family, who would stop him. Using an excuse of going back to school for a particular class on electricity, Ramana left home to seek Arunachala, the holy mountain in the town of Tiruvannamalai in South India.

After three days of travelling, Ramana arrived in Tiruvannamalai and walked to the great temple there. After miraculously obtaining a shaved head and a drenching rain bath, the requirements of renunciation, Ramana found a raised stone platform that became the place for his self-realization. For weeks, this young man sat motionless absorbed in silence on his Self within. Various people took pity on him, especially when some boys threw stones at him. It was then Ramana sought refuge in an underground dungeon that was dark, dank, and infested with stinging insects. Yet Ramana was absorbed in the Bliss of Being.

After six months of worshippers helping the young blissful Swami, a visiting sadhu named Palaniswami was stirred in his heart to see Ramana in meditation. Palaniswami was a learner who would find books on spiritual philosophy. Written in Tamil, he struggled to understand them. For the first time in a very long while, Ramana reached out to help Palaniswami understand what he was reading. Correspondingly, Ramana learned Sanskrit, Telugu, and Malayalam from the books that Paliniswami brought. Until the end of his life, Palaniswami served Ramana. Not wanting to depend on Paliniswami for food, Ramana began to beg for his daily food then moved to live in a temple on a flat side of Arunachala mountain. Here he would sit silently immersed in Self-absorption but sometimes was accidentally locked in the temple by the caretaker. A few people began to notice the blissful young Swami and started to follow him wherever he went.

It was here after two years of searching, in 1898, his mother, Alagammal, found her son. Weeping and praying, she begged Ramana to speak to her, but he would not break his vow of silence. At last, someone gave him a pencil and paper on which he wrote that he must remain silent and ‘whatever is destined to happen will happen.’ Alagammal began to cook for her son and others who chose to live close to the young Swami. In this way, an ashram grew. Ramana remained on the hill until he was forty-three years old. He later moved to the foot of the mountain where the ashram still exists.

Ramana experienced his last superconscious experience at thirty-eight years of age. After that, the burning sensation he felt in his earlier life left him then he returned to a full outer normal life. His subtle and powerful presence attracted many people, even foreigners. Paul Brunton, a British news correspondent, experienced a self-transformation in Ramana’s presence and became his disciple.

Ramana was always in silence, but as a watchman, he was very much aware of every person who gathered in the hall. Ramana did not like to argue or debate on spiritual issues. He taught by answering the questions people asked. He did not have a human guru but experienced the Supreme Being and self-realization from within himself. It was amazingly the same process written in the Vedic Scriptures.

Ramana’s powerful presence to others was healing, comforting, and he provided learning to all who came searching for help and spiritual knowledge. His main philosophy and teaching were microcosmically, the Conscious Self within every human being, and macrocosmically, the only Reality. He taught that this same Being could be found by every person’s Self-inquiry on, “Who am I?”

Ramana left this earth on April 13, 1950, after suffering from elbow cancer.