This body is a temple, and God is seated inside you. But you are not going to see him because you are always going outside. Because you are not aware of God inside, you run after other, outside things. This human body, this temple that has been given to you, is a very rare birth. If you reject it and the opportunities it gives to you, it will be a tremendous loss. You don't know when these circumstances will be given to you again. Nobody knows. You don't know if this desire for liberation will ever come to you again.

~ Papaji, The Fire of Freedom, Edited by David Godman

A couple of days ago, I asked David Godman this question:

David, do you think these kinds of very specific heart/mind experiences such as Saradamma described (and the kind Papaji has described) always happen when Self-realisation takes place, and some people just never speak of them? When I first read that account in No Mind I am the Self, it struck me as so very precise and physiological that it almost seemed like if that is the doorway through which one ego makes its final exit, that would need to be the way they all go ... Yet Annamalai Swami, for example, does not mention anything like this (I don’t think), or speak of severed knots, and instead describes a more gradual process. I am thinking specifically of this exchange in Final Talks:

Question: I want to ask Swamiji about his own experience. Was his own experience a single event, an explosion of knowledge? Or did it happen more gradually, in a more subtle way?

Annamalai Swami: It was my experience that through continuous sadhana I gradually relaxed into the Self. It was a gradual process.

Question: So it is not necessarily something that happens with a big bang?

Annamalai Swami: It is not something new that suddenly comes. It is eternally there, but it is covered by so much. It has to be rediscovered.

I’d love to hear anything and everything that comes to you on this topic ... I have wondered a lot about this. Thanks!

David then gave this answer on his new blog http://sri-ramana-maharshi.blogspot.com/.

a rare and precious lovesickness

Papaji: From where has this desire 'I want to be free' arisen? This desire is a beautiful desire, and it is one which is rarely expressed. When you were growing up, how many people talked about this desire to you? When you went to restaurants with your friends and relatives, what did you talk about? Mostly each others' problems: divorces, families, relationships, jobs, personal dramas. Did you ever sit down with a member of family and hear him or her say, 'I am looking for freedom and I am desperate to get it. How much longer do I have to wait? It did not happen today. When will it happen?' Did you ever participate in conversations of this kind?

Q: Not very often.

Papaji: [laughing] I think you are exaggerating. This is such a rarely expressed sentiment, I doubt you heard it even once while you were growing up. I am not talking about some intellectual discussion in which two people exchange ideas on what freedom might be and how it might be attained; I am speaking of two lovesick people who are hurting inside because they cannot find a way to become one with freedom, their beloved. Many people speak about this, but how many of them are actually suffering inside because they cannot reach this elusive goal? That's very, very rare and very, very precious. This desire comes from a place that is not controlled by the mind. Mind cannot absorb or digest a desire like this, but at the same time it cannot stop it from arising and demanding your attention. When this desire for freedom makes you sick with longing for it, it has the power to bring about that freedom that it desires so badly. Just want it badly enough.

~ The Fire of Freedom, edited by David Godman

the Maharshi's eyes

When I was at Ramanasramam in the 1940's I used to spend hours looking at the Maharshi's eyes. They would be open and staring, but not focussed on anything. Though his eyes were open, they were not seeing anything. Those eyes were completely free of thoughts and desires. The mind is revealed very clearly in the eyes, but in those eyes there was nothing at all to see. In the hours that I concentrated on his eyes, I didn't once see even a flicker of a thought or a desire. I have not seen such utterly desireless eyes like his on any other face. I have met many great saints during my life, but no one has impressed me as much as the Maharshi did.

~ Papaji talking to David Godman about Sri Ramana Maharshi in Nothing Ever Happened, Volume Three

eye meeting eye

When I was allowed in the hall, my attention would always be on his face. I couldn't look at anything else. Sometimes his eyes would be half-open, but most of the time they would be wide-open and empty. I have never seen eyes like this in any other living being. On only one occasion during this period did he look directly at me. He looked straight into my eyes, eye meeting eye, like a lover looking into the eyes of his beloved. My whole body shook and vibrated. I did not feel the presence of the body at all. Tears were falling from my eyes, and my throat was choked. For hours I could not speak to anyone.

~ Papaji, Nothing Ever Happened, Volume One, by David Godman

I sleep on your front veranda because I can't bear to be any further away from you.

Papaji: There had been a lot of trouble in the Punjab, and most of my family were still living there. Since I had not been reading any newspapers, I didn't even know what was going on there.

One of the devotees told the Maharshi that my family was stuck on the wrong side of the new international boundary between Pakistan and India, and when he heard this the Maharshi advised me to go home and look after them.

I didn't want to go because I had completely fallen in love with the Maharshi. I felt that I couldn't live without seeing his form.

We were walking on the hill together when this conversation was taking place.

'Sir,' I said, 'before I came to meet you I had a wife, children, brothers, sisters and parents. Now that I have met you, all these people have become a dream. I am not attached to anyone any more, except you.'

The Maharshi replied by saying, 'If you want to call it a dream, why are you afraid of it? If you can see that it is a dream, then you can transact your dream business with these dream people.'

I could see the logic of what he was saying but I didn't want to leave because I had become infatuated with his form and presence.

'I am completely attached to your form,' I said. 'That's the only relationship I have left. I am so physically attached to you. I cannot leave, even for a few hours. When the doors of your hall are open, I am inside, staring at you. When they are closed, I am camped outside your window, hoping to catch a glimpse of you. During the night I sleep on your front veranda because I can't bear to be any further away from you. I am absent for about one hour a day, eating or going to the bathroom. The rest of the time I am here with you. How can I leave?"

He looked at me and said, 'I am with you wherever you are'. These are the words I remember him saying. I immediately understood what he was saying. The 'I am' that the Maharshi spoke of, referring to himself, was my own Self as well, so how could I ever be away from it?

I could not argue any more. I prostrated before him, walked around him three times, prostrated again, collected some of the dust from under his feet and put it in my pocket. I went back to my home town, picked up my family and took them all to the safety of India on the last train that left Pakistan. After that I never had a chance to go back to Ramanasramam because my family were destitute refugees. I had to support them all by working here in Lucknow. I didn't need to go back because I understood that 'I am with you wherever you are' means that my Master is always inside me, as my own Self.

Question: I have just one simple question. Why did you pick up the dust from under the Maharshi's feet?

Papaji: Gratitude. It was an expression of my absolute, unconditional gratitude.

~ The Fire of Freedom, Edited by David Godman

the Heart on the right

On one occasion, for example, I [Papaji] heard him tell a visitor that the spiritual Heart-centre was located on the right side of the chest, and that the 'I'-thought arose from that place and subsided there. This did not tally with my own experience of the Heart. On my first visit to the Maharshi, when my Heart opened and flowered, I knew that it was neither inside nor outside the body. Based on my own experience of the Self, I knew that it was not possible to say that the Heart could be limited to or located in the body.

So I joined in the conversation and asked, 'Why do you place the spiritual Heart on the right side of the chest and limit it to that location? There can be no right or left for the Heart because it does not abide inside or outside the body. Why not say it is everywhere? How can you limit the truth to a location inside the body? Would it not be more correct to say that the body is situated in the Heart, rather than the Heart in the body?'

I was quite vigorous and fearless in my questioning because that was the method I had been taught in the army.

The Maharshi gave me an answer which fully satisfied me. Turning to me, he explained that he only spoke in this way to people who still identified themselves with their bodies.

'When I speak of the "I" rising from the right side of the body, from a location on the right side of the chest, the information is for those people who still think they are the body. To these people I say that the Heart is located there. But it is really not quite correct to say that the "I" rises from and merges with the Heart on the right side of the chest. The Heart is another name for Reality and it is neither inside nor outside the body; there can be no in or out for it, since it alone is. I do not mean by Heart any physiological organ or any plexus or anything like that, but so long as one identifies oneself with the body and thinks that one is the body, one is advised to see where in the body the "I"-thought rises and merges again. It must be the Heart at the right side of the chest since every man, of whatever race and religion, and in whatever language he may be saying "I", points to the right side of the chest to indicate himself. This is so all over the world, so that must be the place. And by keenly watching the daily emergence of the "I"-thought on waking, and the subsidence in sleep, one can see that it is in this Heart on the right side.'

~ from Nothing Ever Happened, volume one of Papaji's biography by David Godman

left behind

The summer months were the best time to catch him in a quiet environment. The climate was so unpleasant at that time, few visitors came. One time in May, at the height of the summer, there were only about five of us with the Maharshi. Chadwick, one of the five, made a joke about it: 'We are your poor devotees, Bhagavan. Everyone who can afford to go to the hills to cool off has left. Only we paupers have been left behind.'

The Maharshi laughed and replied, 'Yes, staying here in the summer, without running away, is the real tapas.'

~ Papaji, from Nothing Ever Happened, volume one, by David Godman

Advaita within the Heart

This is taken from the end of an essay on David Godman's site in which he explains verse 39 from Ulladu Narpadu Anubandham:


Keep advaita within the Heart. Do not ever carry it into action. Even if you apply it to all the three worlds, O son, it is not to be applied to the Guru.



Extending this analogy into the spiritual realm, the disciple may have attained oneness with his or her Guru, but the behaviour he or she exhibits is always reverent and deferential. This is what Sadhu Om has to say on this point in his commentary on this verse:



When the Sadguru has destroyed the ajnana that is his disciple’s individual consciousness; when he has graciously bestowed upon him the experience of non-duality; and when he has made him one with himself in the state where duality is no more; even then, such a disciple will always serve his Sadguru and show for him a fitting respect, and will continue to venerate his name and form. Although, in an inner sense, it is not possible to show a reverence that is dualistic in the state of oneness where duality is not present, still, that disciple will show respect outwardly, just as a wife acts respectfully toward her husband.

... as long as the Guru and disciple appear in the perceptions of others as separate individuals, possessing individual minds and bodies, it will always appear to others that they are, in reality, separate from each other. Therefore, even when this perfected disciple who knows reality attains the non-dual state in which, in his Heart, he and his Guru are one, he will always conduct himself in a subservient and deferential manner toward his Sadguru, such that other disciples, taking him as an example, will follow him and behave in a fitting manner.(17)



I have found this to be true with all the great teachers and enlightened beings I have been associated with. Nisargadatta Maharaj, for example, did an elaborate Guru puja every day of his life, long after he had realised the Self. One morning, just before he started, he paused to give an explanation of this daily ritual.

‘I don’t need to do this at all. There is nothing that I can gain from it because I know who and what I am, and what I am cannot be added to in any way. My Guru asked me to do bhajans and puja every day, and even though I no longer use them to attain a spiritual goal, I will continue to do them until the day I die because my Guru asked me to do them. In carrying out these orders I can show not only my respect for his words but also my continuous, undiminishing gratitude to the one who gave me the knowledge of who I really am.’

Muruganar wrote thousands of verses in which he thanked Bhagavan for bestowing the state of liberation on him, but he still did elaborate full-length prostrations whenever he came into Bhagavan’s presence. Sometimes he would remain lying on the floor after his namaskaram was completed and talk to Bhagavan while he was still prostrate at his feet. Viswanatha Swami used to make fun of Muruganar for this, calling the resulting conversations ‘lizard talk’.

Once, while I was sitting with Papaji, someone asked him if he had any regrets about his life. At first he answered ‘no,’ but after a few seconds’ reflection he added, ‘Actually, I do have one regret. Because my legs are now almost paralysed, I can no longer throw myself full length on the floor at the feet of my Master.’ In his later years he had to be content with a standing ‘namaste’ whenever he wanted to pay his respects to Bhagavan’s image.

And what about Bhagavan himself? His respect and veneration towards Arunachala, his Guru, were legendary. However, I will just mention one interesting point. When he composed his philosophical works such as Upadesa Undiyar and Ulladu Narpadu, his tone was non-dualistic. The verses were an uncompromising expression of what the Anubandham verse calls ‘advaita within the Heart’. However, when Bhagavan wrote about his Guru, Arunachala, in his devotional poems, he often adopted the pose of the loving, grateful devotee, a standpoint that enabled him show proper respect and veneration to the form and power of the mountain.

One final story about Bhagavan: when Arunachaleswara (the God Arunachala who is the principal deity in the Tiruvannamalai temple) was being taken in procession around the hill in the 1940s, it stopped outside the gate of Sri Ramanasramam. Bhagavan noticed it as he was taking a walk to the cowshed. He sat on a bench to watch, and when devotees brought him vibhuti as prasad, he applied it reverently to his forehead and remarked, ‘The son is beholden to the father’.

(for the whole essay, see http://davidgodman.org/rteach/unverse39.shtml)