← Treasure Trove of Sri Bhagavan’s Grace

Foreword

‘BHAGAVAN SRI RAMANA MAHARSHI’ :

The very Sacred Name is a mantra that can make one feel the eternal ever-pure nature of the Self, here and now. The search for the Eternal is also eternal. The very sign of a ‘pure mind’ is the entry into the current of spiritual quest, an incessant inflow towards one’s own depth. When the mind is pure, it no more becomes scattered due to fascination of outer names and forms; it no more becomes dull in exhaustion due to over-consumption through the sensory apertures; it no more becomes stressed due to attachment. In such a Heart, the current of ‘intuition’ awakens.

Bhagavan Ramana’s own Life is the greatest demonstration of how the Atman, the Self, from within, initiates, protects, moulds, and swallows the ‘mature mind’ of a devotee. In fact, the Self itself becomes the Perfect Guru. In Sri Bhagavan’s life — which is a revelation of the Power of Grace — we know how at one stroke, He dealt a death blow to Death. In the ‘death experience’, we see how the most inscrutable Power of Grace leads a truly prepared one from the limitations of his finite personality to the Mighty Impersonality. First, the utterance by a mysterious visitor awakened the name ‘ARUNACHALA’ in the boy Venkataraman's Heart. The ‘mind’ of the sixteen-year-old was indeed like a volcano of Jñāna ready to erupt by a mere touch of Grace. And explode it did by listening to the name ‘Arunachala’, which led to Enlightenment. Sri Bhagavan expresses this in AksharaManaMalai thus: “The moment I recollected Your Divine Name, You just pulled me (inward ‘from death to the Immortality’), O Arunachala! Who can fathom your Divine Glory!” (Verse 70)

After this, the Great Event of “death experience” happened silently in a small room in the southern street of the majestic temple of Sri Sundareshwara and Mother Meenakshi in Madurai. Sri Bhagavan Himself says that Lord Shiva, as both the Mother and the Father, initiated Him (ākki), gave the power to enquire (aḷitthu), and before the ‘mind’ could become scattered into the World, pulled it inward to the Heart, revealing the Immortal, Eternal, and Ever-Pure BEING-ness. This event, though we call it ‘Death Experience’, is actually the experience of the impossibility of Death. This experience is the Shiva Deeksha — the initiation of Arunachala — about which Sri Bhagavan sings in every line of the Five Hymns in His Arunachala Pancharatnam. Lord Shiva swallowed the ‘body’ and ‘mind’ of Venkataraman and shone forth as the “Pillar of Fire”, and that is the BEING — BHAGAVAN SRI RAMANA MAHARSHI.

This Glory of ‘Ramana Anubhavam’, many devotees, Sages, and Saints have sung again and again. Muruganar, one of the greatest devotees of Bhagavan Sri Ramana, sings thus in Ramana Sannidhi Murai — “Sri Bhagavan bestowed the ‘mystical key’ that opens the Treasure Trove of Enlightenment to the deserving. Hence, all the Sages who received it from Him sing His Glory in gratitude.”

In our midst too, we have a divinely ‘blessed bard’ who has sung all his life about nothing other than the Glory of Sri Bhagavan and His Teachings. This devotee who received the holy name ‘Ganesan’ directly from Sri Bhagavan is almost eighty-seven now. He started his spiritual life as a baby fondled by Sri Bhagavan’s Holy Feet. It is a well-known incident in which Sri Bhagavan put His Sacred Feet on the head and tummy of ‘baby’ Ganesan. Remembering this incident, Annamalai Swami used to touch Ganeshanna's head with great reverence, saying: “This is the place touched by Sri Bhagavan’s Sacred Feet.” Ganeshanna was often referred to as Kuzhandai Swami (Child Swami) by Kunju Swami. Though this ‘child swami’ has physically become older now, inwardly he is still the same ‘child’ initiated by Sri Bhagavan’s Sacred Feet. It is a spiritual phenomenon that a person never ages inwardly after Spiritual Initiation.

‘Treasure Trove of Sri Bhagavan’s Grace’ penned by Ganeshanna is an illustrious ‘tail’ for the compendium of his classic works such as Ramana Periya Puranam and Meetings with Sages and Saints. I was wondering what more remains to be written after those two voluminous books. But, when I went through this “Treasure Trove”, it was indeed a thrilling experience. In the beginning, as I read the stories narrated from the Upanishads and the Bhagavatham, the thought came that this is perhaps a book that does not directly deal with Sri Bhagavan and His Teachings. But soon, the stream of contemplation found its way back to the “Celestial Waters” of Sri Ramana. After that, every story is Sri Bhagavan, Sri Bhagavan and Sri Bhagavan! Many of the anecdotes are like sequels to events narrated in Ramana Periya Puranam. And each story reveals one or the other new facet of Sri Bhagavan’s Teaching.

In Tamil, the ‘Perfect Knowledge’ is called ‘Vaal-Arivu’. In Vedanta, it is called ‘Brahma-Puccham’ (the Tail of Brahman). As a snake is caught by its tail, so too, the Infinite, the Eternal, can be caught hold of by the clue that is available in our experience as ‘I-I’. This is indeed the message that comes again and again in Sri Bhagavan’s Teachings. This indeed is the essence of all of Vedanta. The deep thirst to focus one’s attention on one’s own ‘I’ is not something which happens in the ‘thought-plane’; it is the surfacing of the Profound Shakti (Power) inherent in the Self. The outer Guru becomes a reflecting medium and a cause to invoke that Power from within. By His presence, the Power is awakened and is also recognised by the ‘intellect’. The Bhagavad Gita says, “buddhi-grāhyam atīndriyam — the Transcendental is intuited by the ‘pure intellect’.” This phenomenon we can see demonstrated in every single anecdote narrated by Ganeshanna.

In my younger days itself, I have tasted the sweetness of Ganeshanna's ‘Moments Remembered’ in The Mountain Path. Amidst the powerful writings that used to appear in the journal from the pens of Arthur Osborne, Viswanatha Swami, Muruganar, Paul Brunton and many other scholars from the West and the East, “V. Ganesan’s Moments Remembered” were very simple and light revelations of the same Profound Teachings of Sri Bhagavan.

Some hold the opinion that these writings contain a lot about his own personal life. But that indeed is the taste of the book. His personal experiences are not proud boastful narrations but a natural style of story-telling which has simplicity and innocence of a simple villager narrating incidents about the simple villagers around. In fact, I felt it directly appealing to my Heart. It was like our own affectionate granny narrating anecdotes about how our own relatives met the “Divine” in human form.

If the experiential words of Sri Bhagavan are like the explosion of a ‘volcano’, here we find the ‘lava’ is not hot but is the cool nectarine river of Jñāna, Bhakti and unmotivated service to Guru. The stories of Sankaramma, Sampurnamma, Sundarammal and many other such devotees reveal what the Presence of Sri Bhagavan did to the deserving ones. The supernal height of Jñāna or Jīvanmukti, which otherwise would have felt like the unconquerable Mount Kailas was made to feel like an easily mountable peak by stories of such illiterate but simple and pure devotees who attained the Highest by the Grace of the Master. Some articles, for example, like that of Mercedes de Acosta, contain profound portions of Sri Bhagavan’s conversations hitherto unavailable in Talks. It contains many insightful statements of Sri Bhagavan. In one portion, the conversation happens thus:

Q: Why have we no memory of past lives?

B: ‘Memory’ is a faculty of the ‘mind’ and part of the ‘illusion’. Why do you want to remember other ‘lives’ that are also ‘illusions’? If you abide within the Self, there is no ‘past’ or ‘future’ or not even a ‘present’ since the Self is out of time — ‘timeless’.

Q: Are the World, the ‘mind’, the ‘ego’ and the ‘body’ — all the same thing?

B: Yes. They are one and the same thing. The ‘mind’ and the ‘ego’ are one thing, but there is no word to explain this. You see, the World cannot exist without the ‘mind’, the ‘mind’ cannot exist without what we call the ‘ego’ (itself, really), and the ‘ego’ cannot exist without a ‘body’.

Q: Then when we leave this ‘body’, that is, when the ‘ego’ leaves it, will it (the ‘ego’) immediately grasp another ‘body’?

B: Oh, yes. It must. It cannot exist without a ‘body’.

Q: What sort of ‘body’ will it grasp then?

B: Either a ‘physical body’ or a ‘subtle-mental body’.

Q: Do you call this present physical ‘body’ the ‘gross body’?

B: Only to distinguish it — to set it apart in conversation. It is really a “subtle-mental-body” also.

Sri Bhagavan concludes the conversation with a grand upadeśa:

“These questions are good, but tell de Acosta she must not become too ‘intellectual’ about these things. It is better just to meditate and have no ‘thought’. Let the ‘mind’ rest quietly on the Self — in the cave of the Spiritual Heart. Soon this will become natural and then there will be no need for questions. Do not imagine that this means being inactive. ‘Silence’ is the only real activity.”

Each and every anecdote of this book is an illustrious demonstration of the Power of a Jñāni. Whoever may be the devotee, whatever be their qualification or quest, we find the strange Power of Sri Bhagavan’s “Mauna” playing about on him or her. Most of them are somehow made to feel intuitively the Adhishṭhāna — the Substratum — on which the individuality, the ‘I’, and its World with all its problems appear and disappear, like a ‘mirage’ in the desert. The ‘Divine Power’, ‘Chit-shakti’, that emanated from Sri Bhagavan pushed the devotees’ attention away from the actors, actresses, comedy, tragedy, events, and emotions of the ‘movie’ called saṃsāra and towards the “Screen” on which all these merely appear to exist. That Adhishṭhāna is Bhagavan Sri Ramana Himself. That Substratum is “Arunachala”. When one pays attention to “That” directly, the ‘I’ merges back in the Source, leaving aside only the Pure Space of Shivānubhava. This is what Sri Bhagavan says in Aksharamanamalai — “O Arunachala, when will my ‘thoughts’ subside so that I will intuit the subtle-most Infinite Space, the Divine Nature of Thine?” (Verse 57)

This experience of transcending the ‘mind’ and merging in the “Silence of the Self”, we find re-enacted again and again in every episode of this book. To open this “Treasure Trove” is to own that “Great Treasure of Grace” — tiru aruḷ nidhi. Some of us have often sat with Ganeshanna, drinking the ambrosia of Ramana-Amrita for days and nights. The same impact of “Ramana Experience” is invoked in this book-form as well. ‘Let the reader himself taste the Ramana-Samādhi — the Ecstasy of Sri Ramana — by reading with his whole Heart’ is our prayer to Sri Bhagavan.

‘NOCHUR’ RAMANA

(RAMANA CHARANA TIRTHA NOCHUR VENKATARAMAN)