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Ramana Maharshi
John also provides free access to his version of the Human Gospel of Ramana Maharshi.
Below are some digital editions of classics about Ramana Maharshi:
The Human Gospel of Ramana Maharshi As Shared by V. Ganesan
As Freely Shared by V. Ganesan in Talks at AHAM, Asheboro, NC, USA and AHAM, India. Ganesan shared his life‘s personal intimate time with the old devotees of Ramana Maharshi
Over 100 years ago, when Ganesan‘s great uncle awakened as young man, he found himself in Tiruvannamalai. Later, he was discovered and named by a renowned theist as Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi. By that time he was situated on a hill considered sacred ground, Arunachala, and the teachings remarkably recorded for posterity with great integrity. This sharing is supported by the most remarkable collection of devotees imaginable that found themselves in the Master‘s company by many notable synchronistic events. Ganesan‘s stories are shrouded in mysterious mythological imaginings, cultural nuances, vivid dreams and guru-disciple relationships, with the overlay of the theological etiquette of the time and place. However, a beautiful and simple pearl of the divine wisdom (Darshan) is openly revealed and shared by V. Ganesan. It is about the elder devotees of The Maharshi that Ganesan loved and served most of his life. The sharing is an immaculate gift to humanity.
The collective wisdom of Ganesan‘s spiritual insight in now shared as The Human Gospel of Ramana Maharshi, Ganesan‘s sharing. V. Ganesan has authored: Be the Self, Moments Remembered, Purushottama Ramana and The Direct Teaching of Bhagavan Ramana and Drops from the Ocean. This sharing, The Human Gospel of Ramana Maharshi, a true gift for any spiritual aspirant in this age of information and a quickening in awakening, it is a blessing to have Ganesan‘s confession and insight into an authentic divine emergence or God-flower. This is true spiritual satsang framed with a unique perspective in Indian cultural nuances and the spiritual etiquette of the time and place in sacred Tamil Nadu, Southern India.
The “Talks”, first published in three volumes, is now issued a handy one-volume edition. There is no doubt that the present edition will be received by aspirants all over the world with the same veneration and regard that the earlier edition elicited from them. This is not a book to be lightly read and laid aside; it is bound to prove to be an unfailing guide to increasing numbers of pilgrims to the Light Everlasting.
We cannot be too grateful to Sri Munagala S. Venkataramiah (now Swami Ramanananda Saraswati) for the record that he kept of the “Talks” covering a period of four years from 1935 to 1939. Those devotees who had the good fortune of seeing Bhagavan Ramana will, on reading these “Talks”, become naturally reminiscent and recall with delight their own mental record of the words of the Master. Despite the fact that the great Sage of Arunachala taught for the most part through silence, he did instruct through speech also, and that too lucidly without baffling and beclouding the minds of his listeners. One would wish that every word that he uttered had been preserved for posterity. But we have to be thankful for what little of the utterances has been put on record. These “Talks” will be found to throw light on the “Writings” of the Master; and probably it is best to study them along with the “Writings”, translations of which are available.
Sri Ramana’s teachings were not given in general. In fact, the Sage had no use for “lectures” or “discourses”. His words were primarily addressed to the particular aspirant who felt some difficulty in his spiritual path and sought to have it resolved. But, as the same difficulties arise in the quest after the Self and as the method of resolving them is the same, the Maharshi’s replies to questions have the quality of universality.“Who am I?” is the title given to a set of questions and answers bearing on Self-enquiry. The questions were put to Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi by one Sri M. Sivaprakasam Pillai about the year 1902. Sri Pillai, a graduate in Philosophy, was at the time employed in the Revenue Department of the South Arcot Collectorate. During his visit to Tiruvannamalai in 1902 on official work, he went to Virupaksha Cave on Arunachala Hill and met the Master there. He sought from him spiritual guidance, and solicited answers to questions relating to Self-enquiry. As Bhagavan was not talking then, not because of any vow he had taken, but because he did not have the inclination to talk, he answered the questions put to him by gestures, and when these were not understood, by writing. As recollected and recorded by Sri Sivaprakasam Pillai, there were fourteen questions with answers to them given by Bhagavan. This record was first published by Sri Pillai in 1923, along with a couple of poems composed by himself relating how Bhagavan’s grace operated in his case by dispelling his doubts and by saving him from a crisis in life. ‘Who am I?’ has been published several times subsequently. We find thirty questions and answers in some editions and twenty-eight in others. There is also another published version in which the questions are not given, and the teachings are rearranged in the form of an essay. The extant English translation is of this essay. The present rendering is of the text in the form of twenty-eight questions and answers.
Along with Vicharasangraham (Self-Enquiry), Nan Yar (Who am I?) constitutes the first set of instructions in the Master’s own words. These two are the only prosepieces among Bhagavan’s Works. They clearly set forth the central teaching that the direct path to liberation is Self-enquiry. The particular mode in which the enquiry is to be made is lucidly set forth in Nan Yar. The mind consists of thoughts. The ‘I’ thought is the first to arise in the mind. When the enquiry ‘ Who am I?’ is persistently pursued, all other thoughts get destroyed, and finally the ‘I’ thought itself vanishes leaving the supreme non-dual Self alone. The false identification of the Self with the phenomena of non-self such as the body and mind thus ends, and there is illumination, Sakshatkara. The process of enquiry of course, is not an easy one. As one enquires ‘Who am I?’, other thoughts will arise; but as these arise, one should not yield to them by following them , on the contrary, one should ask ‘To whom do they arise ?’ In order to do this, one has to be extremely vigilant. Through constant enquiry one should make the mind stay in its source, without allowing it to wander away and get lost in the mazes of thought created by itself. All other disciplines such as breath-control and meditation on the forms of God should be regarded as auxiliary practices. They are useful in so far as they help the mind to become quiescent and one-pointed.
For the mind that has gained skill in concentration, Self-enquiry becomes comparatively easy. It is by ceaseless enquiry that the thoughts are destroyed and the Self realized - the plenary Reality in which there is not even the ‘I’ thought, the experience which is referred to as “Silence”.During the closing years of Sri Ramana Maharshi’s bodily existence, his silent radiance and incomparable teachings attracted thousands of seekers to his Ashram in South India. Suri Nagamma was the chosen instrument to cast the immortal sayings of this illumined, divine personality onto paper and to paint an exquisite picture of a Rishi’s life in modern times.
She did this in the form of 273 letters to her brother, Sri D. S. Sastri, who translated them from Telugu for the benefit of the English-reading public. They cover the last five years of the Master’s earthly life, and are of particular relevance because they were shown to Bhagavan prior to being mailed. There is no other book from this period that captures so well the enlightened personality and profound sayings of the Master. These recordings will certainly guide seekers for countless generations. One hundred and thirty-five letters were translated into English and first published as Volume I in 1962.
Another 106 letters were added to this and published in 1970. In this 2006 edition of Letters from Sri Ramanasramam, we have included an additional thirty-one letters that were published by the Ashram in 1978, under the title, Letters from and Recollections of Sri Ramanasramam. The twenty-eight ‘Recollections of Sri Ramanasramam’ from this book have also been added at the end of this volume, providing a complete collection of Suri Nagamma’s remarkable description of the days she spent at the feet of the Master.
This English version of the Yoga Vasishta Sara is based on a translation made by Swami Sureshananda, an old devotee of Bhagavan, who has founded an ashram named ‘Vijnana Ramaneeyam’ at Palghat and has translated several works of Bhagavan as well as the Yoga Vasishta Sara into Malayalam. This was published serially in The Mountain Path, the journal published by Sri Ramanasramam, during 1969 to 1971 and is now made available.
The Vedic Experience by Raimon Panikkar
Vayu
What would you save from a blazing house? A precious, irreplaceable manuscript containing a message of salvation for mankind, or a little group of people menaced by the same fire?
The situation is real and not for this writer alone: How can you be just an "intellectual," concerned with truth, or just a "spiritual," busy with goodness, when Men desperately cry for food and justice? How can you follow a contemplative, philosophical, or even religious path when the world shouts for action, engagement, and politics? And, conversely, how can you agitate for a better world or for the necessary revolution when what is most needed is serene insight and right evaluation? That the burning house is not my private property should be clear to all my neighbors on this earth of ours. But to speak about myself alone: this anthology is the product of an existential overcoming of my concrete situation by denying the ultimate validity of such a dilemma. If I am not ready to save the manuscript from the fire, that is, if I do not take my intellectual vocation seriously, putting it before everything else even at the risk of appearing inhuman, then I am also incapable of helping people in more concrete and proximate ways. Conversely, if I am not alert and ready to save people from a conflagration, that is to say, if I do not take my spiritual calling in all earnestness, sacrificing to it all else, even my own life, then I shall be unable to help in rescuing the manuscript. If I do not involve myself in the concrete issues of my time, and if I do not open my house to all the winds of the world, then anything I may produce from an ivory tower will be barren and cursed. Yet if I do not shut doors and windows in order to concentrate on this work, then I will not be able to offer anything of value to my neighbors.
Indeed, the manuscript may emerge charred and the people may emerge blistered, but the intensity of the one concern has helped me in the other. The dilemma is not whether to choose the Monastery or the Ballroom, Hardwar or Chanakyapuri (Vatican or Quirinal), Tradition or Progress, Politics or Academia, Church or State, Justice or Truth. In a word, reality is not a matter of either-or, spirit or matter, contemplation or action, written message or living people, East or West, theory or praxis or, for that matter, the divine or the human. Indeed, perhaps the fundamental insight of this book is that there is no essence without existence, no existence without an essence.
This study emerges out of an existential struggle between concentrating on the writing of it at the risk of letting people be trapped in the fire, and helping persons out of the house at the price of abandoning the manuscript altogether. The act of faith behind this study is to have denied the inevitability of a choice, not by an act of the will alone or of the mind alone, but by allowing circumstances to guide my intellect, my spirit, and indeed my whole life. Is not the entire Vedic experience based on life-giving sacrifice?
When, a decade ago, the urgent and long-standing need for a study of this kind pressed on me so hard that it could no longer be resisted, a tantalizing alternative seemed to present itself: either to become a trained mechanic, in Sanskrit and English at least, or else to become a trusty pilot in Vedic and other personal flights. Circumstances again decided for me, and this work has been rendered possible by the unusual team of people collaborating with me. One could hardly have found a more unselfish and devoted group of helpers than the one that has made this anthology possible. One does not fly alone.
Related Pages
The Human Gospel of Ramana Maharshi As Shared by V. Ganesan
As Freely Shared by V. Ganesan in Talks at AHAM, Asheboro, NC, USA and AHAM, India. Ganesan shared his life‘s personal intimate time with the old devotees of Ramana Maharshi
The “Talks”, first published in three volumes, is now issued a handy one-volume edition. There is no doubt that the present edition will be received by aspirants all over the world with the same veneration and regard that the earlier edition elicited from them. This is not a book to be lightly read and laid aside; it is bound to prove to be an unfailing guide to increasing numbers of pilgrims to the Light Everlasting.
During the closing years of Sri Ramana Maharshi’s bodily existence, his silent radiance and incomparable teachings attracted thousands of seekers to his Ashram in South India. Suri Nagamma was the chosen instrument to cast the immortal sayings of this illumined, divine personality onto paper and to paint an exquisite picture of a Rishi’s life in modern times.
The Vedic Experience by Raimon Panikkar
What would you save from a blazing house? A precious, irreplaceable manuscript containing a message of salvation for mankind, or a little group of people menaced by the same fire?