The ending of suffering

Since you are intent on driving out suffering, you should know that your real nature is bliss alone.

Confusion and agitation are erroneous superimpositions upon consciousness, within which they have no real existence.

For all the many distressful diseases the peerless medicine is definitely the certainty of the real nature of the Self.

Why do you become distressed and suffer to no purpose over things that are not worthy of your concern? Let go of the mind's anxieties.

Those adepts who have perfected their sadhana will not become dejected and perturbed when they are beset by trials and tribulations.

In what way do lamentations benefit the jiva? The sensible policy is to terminate the tyrannical insurgency of the mind.

Until you enquire into your real nature, seeing and abiding as it, the triple miseries experienced by you will not cease.

~ Padamalai, Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi Recorded by Muruganar

In holy silence at his flawless feet, thinking, yet beyond the
realm of thought, I established in my heart that consciousness
wherein his self and mine were one. The confusion of eye and
mind, born of treacherous desire, died away, its falsehood
revealed, and amidst grace’s honeyed flood, divine reality was
all.

~ Sri Muruganar, Sri Ramana Anubhuti

a miracle wrought by Bhagavan

Among the devotees of Bhagavan, Muruganar, the poet, holds a specially honoured place. In Tamil Nadu the connection between poetry and sanctity has been close and continuous down the centuries. Peria-puranam, the story in verse of the sixtythree Saivite Saints — many of them poets — was a favourite of Bhagavan's in his boyhood; and in drawing Muruganar to himself the seer was only helping to preserve an ancient tradition.

Born in 1895, Sri C. K. Subrahmanyam grew up in an atmosphere of Tamil learning and became in due course a teacher of Tamil in a High School. His first collection of poems, Swatantra-Gitam, owed much to his ardent admiration of Gandhiji and, like the early work of his elder contemporary, Subrahmanya Bharati, formed a distinct contribution to the national movement.

But when he came to Bhagavan and fell under his spell, he renounced all other interests, completely effaced his personality and turned into "a shadow of Bhagavan." And he has lived ever since in a state of stark simplicity, utterly poor and obscure. In thus losing the world to find Bhagavan, he has found a joy to utter and a voice to utter it which have given him a high and assured place among the immortal singer-saints of Tamil Nadu. This sudden and complete change in the poems and in the manner of his utterance, the marvelously sustained and infinitely varied beauty of the enormous bulk of his verse on a single theme, constitutes an undoubted 'miracle' wrought by Bhagavan, permanently there for all eyes to behold.

Muruganar was content with composing his poems and having them read by Bhagavan. For him there was no 'wider public' to whose notice they should be brought. Thus it fell to an admirer, Sri Ramana Padananda, to arrange for the printing and publication of six volumes of Muruganar's poems.

~ from The Mountain Path, Volume 1, October 1964, No. 4

Sadhu Om's love for Muruganar

The intimate spiritual and literary friendship, which existed between Sri Muruganar and Sri Sadhu Om was forged by Sri Ramana Himself on the very first day in 1946 that Sri Sadhu Om came to Him.

On that day Sri Sadhu Om sang before Sri Ramana the song Kuyilodu Kooral, which had spontaneously surged forth from his heart a few days earlier and in which all his feelings of intense longing to see Sri Ramana were expressed in a most heart-melting manner; after hearing that song, Sri Ramana read through it carefully and asked Sri Sadhu Om to show it to Sri Muruganar. Thus started the deep and intimate friendship between these two great poet-saints, which in course of time proved most fruitful.

...

The great love and high regard which Sri Sadhu Om had for Sri Muruganar can clearly be seen in all his Tamil prose writings about him, selections from which have been compiled, translated and included in this book under the title ‘Sri Muruganar - The Right Hand of Sri Bhagavan’, but perhaps his love can be found expressed most poignantly in two verses which surged in his heart during the night after Sri Muruganar left his physical body. In the first verse, addressing the contemporary world, which had failed to understand the greatness of Sri Muruganar, he sang:

“The cuckoo who sang (in your midst) for eighty-three years with a sweet voice of cultured, spiritual, ancient Tamil has gone, flying off into the great space of Sri Ramana, the exalted treasure of austerity with which the world has been blessed. What will you do now?”

In the second verse, addressing and consoling those Ramana devotees who had true love for Sri Muruganar, he sang:

“Does ‘Muruganar’ mean the four-cubit body? O you who have love for Muruganar, who is Muruganar?

Know that Muruganar is only the Eye of Self-Knowledge given by Annamalai-Ramana,
the ancient Siva.”

~ from the essay "Sri Muruganar and Sri Sadhu Om" by Michael James, in Ramana's Muruganar, compiled and edited by A. R. Natarajan

As I wandered, I know not where, fair Padam, supreme bliss, brought me here to his feet through his sweet grace and brought me salvation.

Padam gave me the emotion that makes my body soften and melt every time I think of the true, cool grace that it bestowed on me.

~ Padamalai, Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi Recorded by Muruganar

just this form that pulsated love for Bhagavan from every pore

... Memories of Muruganar return, memories of silence, of his ever flowing tears at the very mention of Bhagavan's name, of being moved beyond words when we sang on Bhagavan.

On one visit, an elder cousin reprimanded a younger one for excusing himself from Muruganar's presence on some pretext. 'He had no interest in what was going on', I stated.

'It matters little', came the answer. 'Whether one is disinterested or even totally restless at that time, one must somehow spend the maximum time possible in a jnani's presence. The extrordinary good that comes out of even simply being in such a presence cannot be estimated by us', he explained. 'For sadhakas such a presence is invaluable. When you see a jnani you can concretely perceive what it means to be apart from the body', he continued, and added, 'I have had the great good fortune of being with Muruganar on an occasion when he was extremely unwell. Yet it was so obvious that his body's suffering did not even touch him'.

To those who have seen Muruganar this would be quite evident. In fact, even to one so young and unlettered in spiritual lore as I, it was obvious at that time that there was really no 'Muruganar' before us. There was just this form that pulsated love for Bhagavan from every pore.

Someone mentioned after going through the book 'Ramana's Muruganar' that almost every article contained reference to Muruganar's tears of joy on hearing Bhagavan's name. I explained that this was not a mere repetition of a single fact, but that it was a continuous experience which is sure to have had an impact on all those who came to Muruganar. Just as it is impossible to speak or write without words, even so it is impossible to think, speak or write on Muruganar without mentioning how he would melt with love for Bhagavan.

~ Dr. Sarada Natarajan, Surging Joy (Self Discovery) (I took the liberty of breaking this into more paragraphs than the original text to make it more readable on the screen.)

unfailing guidance

In accordance with this teaching of Sri Ramana, Sri Muruganar exemplified the humble state of being a true disciple, and hence (as I have explained elsewhere*) he never allowed anyone to consider or treat him as guru. Even after Sri Ramana had left his physical body, Sri Muruganar discouraged devotees from considering either himself or any other disciple of Sri Ramana as guru, saying that for devotees of Sri Ramana no other guru is necessary, because he is always living within each one of us as our own self, guiding us unfailingly towards our final goal, the egoless state of true self-knowledge.

~ Michael James, from the Introduction to Guru Vachaka Kovai (the one translated by Michael James and Sri Sadhu Om ... please see: http://happinessofbeing.blogspot.com/2007/09/guru-vachaka-kovai-e-book.html)

*Sri Sadhu Om often said that no true disciple of Sri Ramana can be a guru, because Sri Ramana alone is the guru of all who are attracted to his teachings. Whenever anyone asked him whether it is not necessary for us to have a 'living guru', Sri Sadhu Om used to laugh and say, "guru alone is living, and we are all dead", and he explained the real guru is not a physical body but is the ever-living spirit, the infinite consciousness of being that exists within each one of us as our own true self.

This month, let us celebrate the arrival of Sri Muruganar at Bhagavan's Feet

It was in September of 1923 that Sri Muruganar first came to Bhagavan. (If anyone knows the exact date, please post. :-))

Muruganar's father-in-law Dandapani Swami showed him Aksharamanamalai, and Muruganar recognized right then that Bhagavan was the Guru he had been seeking. Soon after that, he set out for Arunachala.

How much we owe this "shadow of Bhagavan" as he was known!
____________________________________________________________________________

I cried out, 'O rain cloud pregnant with compassion!
Teach me fully the trick
Of escaping alive from the flood of births.'
Ramana, Lord of wisdom and welfare, said,
'Neither like nor loathe the true or the false.
Stand in the centre and be
Impelled by the grace of the Lord.'

~ Sri Muruganar, Sri Ramana Sannidhi Murai, vv 967-76

the composing of Aksharamanamalai

However, the most moving and beloved of the Five Hymns is the Marital Garland of Letters (a Hundred and Eight Verses to Sri Arunachala), commonly known in English by its refrain, `Arunachala Siva' [and widely known as Aksharamanamalai or Akshara Mana Malai]. During the early years of Sri Bhagavan's abode at Virupaksha, Palaniswami and others used to go into town to beg food for the small group of devotees, and one day they asked Sri Bhagavan for a devotional song to sing as they went. He replied that there were plenty of sublime songs composed by the Saints, many of them neglected, so there was no need to compose a new one. However, they continued to urge him and some days later he set out on pradakshina round the Hill, taking a pencil and paper with him, and, on the way, composed the hundred and eight verses.

Tears of ecstasy streamed down his face as he wrote, sometimes blinding his eyes and choking his voice. The poem became the great devotional inspiration of the devotees. All the pain of longing and all the bliss of fulfilment are mirrored in its glowing symbolism. The perfection of Knowledge is combined with the ecstasy of devotion. And yet this most heartfelt of poems was composed from the standpoint of the devotee, of one who is still seeking. It is also an acrostic, its hundred and eight verses beginning with the successive letters of the Tamil alphabet. Nevertheless, no poem could be more spontaneous. Some devotees asked Sri Bhagavan the interpretation of some of the verses and he replied: "You think it out and I will too. I didn't think while I was composing it; I just wrote as it came."

~ Arthur Osborne, Ramana Maharshi and the Path of Self-Knowledge

that look

From boyhood I was spiritually inclined. Although coming from a meat-eating family, I turned vegetarian while still a boy. I was mainly a worshipper of Shiva but learned about Christ and Buddha too and revered them. Twice I visited the great Muslim shrine at Nagore, and I understood that Allah was only another name for God. My one ambition in life was to see God face to face. This was granted to me while still a schoolboy in March of 1917 when I first went to Skandashram and set my eyes upon Bhagavan. Reclining on the couch, he looked indescribably majestic. Since then he has been God in human form for me, my God, Guru and All. I did not ask him for anything. I was filled to overflowing by just seeing him. He turned on me that look of heart melting Grace that he so often bestowed on newcomers. After a few days I had to return home. There I learned the "Marital Garland of Letters" and spent my time reciting it either mentally or aloud and even writing it out.


It was on my second visit to Skandashram that I first made pradakshina. A visitor from Madurai whom I knew wanted to go round the hill with Bhagavan and I joined him. At that time the lower slopes were still forested and we took the forest path for a good part of the way before coming out on the road. Next day I had a sudden urge to go round by myself. I started out as before but soon lost my way on the forest track. As I started I had noticed that one of the Ashram dogs was following me. Now it ran in front and began to lead. At once it flashed on me that this was Bhagavan's work. With tears of gratitude and joy I followed my guide. He took me by the same path as the previous day until we came to the road and then disappeared; and I saw him at the Ashram when I got back. At the time I told nobody about this. It was my first experience of my spiritual relationship with Bhagavan and I was more than ever convinced that he would guide me through the unknown paths of life. Such an incident may appear trivial to the reader, but when it actually happens it strengthens one's faith in Bhagavan, who alone can help by his infinite Grace in opening one's inner vision.


For a whole year at Skandashram Bhagavan took only one meager meal a day. I was on a visit there the day he broke this fast. I had decided to stay the night even though there was no food for an evening meal for the rest of us. I didn't feel hungry. At about 7:30 one of the devotees, Ramanatha Brahmachari, came back with some pieces of broken coconut and some rice that he had been given at a ceremony he attended in town. Bhagavan suggested that we should boil it up on the charcoal stove we had there and share it, as was the usual custom. He told us to see whether there was any sugar or sugar candy left from gifts by earlier visitors to flavor it with. We looked but there was nothing at all. It was dark and raining outside and we could not go into town for anything. I was near to tears that Bhagavan should ask for something — so rare an event — and we should not be able to provide it. At that very moment the door opened and two students came in with a bag of sugar candy and a bunch of bananas that they had brought to present to Bhagavan. The meal was cooked and eaten, the two visitors also being invited.

Bhagavan remarked that we had asked for sugar candy and got bananas also, which could be cut up and served like a pickle with the food. After eating he said that it was just a year, 365 days exactly, since he had limited himself to one meal a day and that from now on he would eat in the evening also. That was how things happened with Bhagavan. He did not work miracles, things just happened right. Miracles are generally thought of as deliberate acts willed by a person, but happenings like this are the result of spiritual forces naturally and always at work. The Jnani is God Himself in human form. He never wills anything but things happen in his presence and the ignorant attribute them to him. His state is pure awareness. It is a matter of experience. One may get a glimpse of it in his presence.

~ Ramaswami Pillai

A group of pandits sit near his couch, translating a Sanskrit work, and from time to time take it up to him to elucidate some point. A three year old, not to be outdone, takes up his story of Little Bo Peep, and Sri Bhagavan takes that too, just as graciously, and looks through it with the same interest; but it is tattered, so he passes it to an attendent to bind and gives it back next day neatly repaired.

~ Arthur Osborne, Ramana Maharshi and the Path of Self-Knowledge

111 years ago today, He, who was later to be called Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi, arrived ...

THEY were the early hours of the day, darkness was slowly fading away, right from the moment he boarded the train. Venkataraman was eager to see Arunachala. As his cherished goal was nearing, his excitement mounted.

At first hazily, a little later more clearly and finally explosively the peak of Arunagiri, its middle, its foothills and its base, with the temple towers touching the stars all these came into view. Venkataraman's heart was immersed in an ocean of joy, his body quivered, his eyes brimmed with tears which came in the way of his beholding his beloved Arunachala to his heart's content.

Soon after the train reached the station, Venkataraman walked swiftly to the temple, almost running. In those early hours except the wind god, nobody was paying obeisance to the Lord. Even the rustle of that wind faded away from Venkataraman's earshot. It was the hour when the temple remained closed. Till eight nobody would come to the temple nor open the doors. But unusually, that day all the doors were wide open.

Was it a moment when the Father gave a secret upadesa to his son? Or did He feel that the inspired son deserved nothing less than a private audience? Or did He instruct the son: "You search for me in the depths of your heart, you shall find!"

Venkataraman walked straight into the sanctum sanctorum. Having done so, he reported to the Lord, "Father, I have come according to your bidding, I offer myself to you."

The emotional upsurge which flooded his heart vanished. The conflict of emotions abated. Peace reigned. That experience transcended both joy and sorrow — it would be appropriate to describe it as pleasurable. Tears flowed down his cheeks. The burning sensation had gone. There was no agony of any kind. An overwhelming happiness drowned him.

The son who till then was playing different parts in this world was no longer going to leave the Father's presence. All connection between him and the world snapped. Let the Lord give his benediction to the world. For Venkataraman, Arunachaleswara was the sole refuge. Never would he leave His lap. "He obtained That, having obtained which, there was nothing else to desire."

Farewell to the turmoil of this world, welcome to absolute peace. Henceforth whatever he did (physically, mentally or by any other means) was to be offered to the Father.

To whom did he offer himself? To his Father, Easwara.

~ from Sri Ramana Leela

http://ramanaleela.blogspot.com/2007/06/11-goal.html