Exploring “Timeless in Time” – a biography of Sri Ramana Maharshi
Timeless in Time, a biography by A.R. Natarajan of the remarkable life and teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950), is a beautifully written and illustrated work which offers a vivid account of Ramana and a choice selection from his sayings and writings.
Ramana was not a learned pundit or an accomplished academic philosopher; he was rather a living exemplar and embodiment of the deep spirituality and wisdom of the Advaita, or non-dualist, Vedantic tradition which has extended from the early Vedic writings, primarily the Upanisads, to the present. From early childhood, Ramana seemed obsessed with the central Advaitic question “Who am I”? and was able to answer it, as it were, in terms of his own state of realized consciousness of the undifferentiated oneness of being. He is said to have become enlightened when he was only sixteen years old.
Who can understand the state of the one
-Ramana
Who has dissolved his ego and
Is abiding always in the Self?
For him the Self alone is.
What remains for him to do?
No form he has, no name, no quality.
—Murugnar, speaking of Ramana
Still there besides the holy hill he dwells
In human form, known by the comely name
Of Ramana, marked by the primal power
Of love: with moist eyes showering grace for all
To see.
All said and done, a jnani (sage) like Ramana must remain
an enigma. He once told Subbaramayya, “However much
a jnani might talk, he is still a silent one. However much
he might work, he is still a quiet one. His voice is the incor-
poreal voice. His walk is not on the earth, it is like measur-
ing the sky with the sky.” Therefore while attempting to
comprehend the true stature or glory of Ramana, one is
reminded of one of his own verses which reads:
Master, you have till this day kept me at your feet
And Master, when people ask me,
What is your nature? you make me stand with
Head hung down, a speechless statue.
which was later made into a shrine.
In Tiruchuzhi, the holy town of Bhuminatha, I was
—Ramana
born to Sundara and his good wife Sundari. To rescue
me from this barren worldly life, Arunachala
Siva in the form of a Hill famous throughout the
universe, gave me His own state of bliss, so that
His heart might rejoice, so that His own Being as
Awareness might shine forth and His own Power
might flourish.
The holy Christmas season was being celebrated all over the world. The sacred village of Tiruchuzhi, and the devotees of Siva, God of gods, Mahadeva, were celebrating the holy Ardra Darsana day. The procession of Bhuminatheswara was slowly returning to the temple at 1 a.m. The star in the constellation was Punarvasu, also considered to be special. It was at that time that Ramana was born. It was the birth of the birthless, born for the welfare of the world.
He was the second son of his parents and was named Venkataraman. Among those present at the time of his birth was a blind lady who was blessed with a vision of light. She told others present there, “He who is born today in your house must be a divine being.” How true indeed were these words, how prophetic! Later events and the years to come were to prove this beyond doubt.
Arthur Osborne, a devotee of Ramana’s, recalls, “The child was born a little later, both in the time of the day and year than the divine child of Bethlehem, nearly two thousand years ago. The same coincidence marked the end of earthly life also, for Sri Ramana left his body in the evening of April 14, a little later in time and date than Good Friday.” The analogy might be because like Jesus, Ramana was a pathfinder. He revealed a way of life by following which one could be born anew.
“One day I was alone in the first floor of my uncle’s house. I was in my usual state of health. But a sudden and unmistakable fear of death seized me. I felt I was going to die. Why I should have so felt cannot now be explained by anything felt in the body. I did not however trouble myself to discover if the fear was well grounded. I did not care to consult doctors or elders or even friends. I felt I had to solve the problem myself then and there.
The actual inquiry and discovery of ‘Who am I?’ was over on the very first day, after a short time. Instinctively I held my breath and began to dive inward with my inquiry into my own nature .… I stretched myself like a corpse, and it seemed to me that my body had actually become rigid— ‘I’ was not dead—‘I’ was on the other hand conscious of being alive, in existence. So the question arose in me, ‘What was this “I”?’ I felt that it was a force or current working, despite the rigidity or activity of the body, though existing in connection with it. It was that current or force or center that constituted my personality, that kept me acting, moving etc. The fear of death dropped off. I was absorbed in the contemplation of that current. So further development or activity was issuing from the new life and not from any fear.”
—Ramana, on his Enlightenment
The moment I thought of your name, you caught
—Ramana
and drew me to yourself.
Who can know the greatness of your grace
Arunachala?
Arunachala, my loving lord, place
—Ramana
your garland on my shoulders and
wear this my garland on your
own.
It was the morning of September 1, 1896, when Ramana reached his spiritual Father’s home, Arunachala. The command had been obeyed. The search had ended. Thereafter there was no parting ever. Heart brimming with love, Ramana went straightaway to the Arunachaleswara temple.
The Lord was waiting to receive his son, born to proclaim his glory and power, to proclaim the direct path for Self-knowledge. Ramana could go into the sanctum sanctorum unhindered. “Father, I have come,” Ramana said. More words were superfluous. Thanks to the overflowing grace of Arunachala the schoolboy became the enlightened jnani Ramana at Madurai. This had happened on July 17, 1896. Now the physical separation too ended. It could not be otherwise as his task as a universal guru was to be performed from this one place.
The formless and imperishable Real stands revealed
—Ramana
in the Aruna Hill, the embodied Presence
of the three-eyed God. Since the Cave named
Virupaksha sustains the very devotees who dwell
within the Heart-cave of that God, well may we
call it Mother.
Ramana stayed in the Virupaksha Cave for seventeen years from 1899 to 1916. Ramana was just a young lad of twenty years when he shifted from Gurumurtam to the Virupaksha Cave. Ramana’s feelings towards this cave are expressed in the stray verse extracted above. He considers it appropriate to call it “Mother” because it sustains the very devotees who give themselves wholly to the Aruna Hill, the embodied form of Lord Siva.
After these seventeen years, a devotee of Ramana decided to build an asram, or community place for worship. Ramana says of this man’s work:
“You cannot imagine the state of the site as it was originally. Kandaswami worked with almost superhuman effort and achieved with his own hands what even four people cannot do together. He removed all the prickly pear, reduced the stone and boulder to a level ground, created a garden, and raised the asram. Four coconut trees were planted. To plant them properly, Kandaswami dug huge square pits about 10ft deep. That would give you an idea about the labor he put into the work. He was a strong, well-built man.”
Taught by the true brahmin, Venkata,
-Muruganar
Flourish ever, this dharma of the cross
The dharma of vicarious penance.
Jesus Christ was crucified on the cross. Sri Ramakrishna suffered from throat cancer. Sri Ramana’s body suffered from sarcoma for many long months from early February 1949 to April 14, 1950. Four operations had to be performed on his body and the pain was excruciating. The world is unable to understand the suffering of the bodies of the saviors of humanity like them. “Why should the pure, spotless ones suffer?” is the question which arises in the minds of many. The reason for this is given in the above verses of Muruganar. The crucifixion of the bodies of world teachers is a logical corollary of their universal love and compassion. They suffered for the sins of others. Theirs is vicarious penance.
The devotees panicked after Ramana’s fourth unsuccessful operation. Each came forward with his pet theory as to what would be the best course of treatment. In December 1949, when the devotees were at a loss as to what treatment should be tried next, one of them approached to ask Ramana. He replied with a smile, “Have I ever asked for any treatment? It is you who want this and that for me. So it is you who must decide. If I were asked, I would always say, as I said from the beginning, that no treatment is necessary. Let things take their course.”
Ramana’s breathing became gradually slower and slower and at 8.47 p.m on the 14th of April, 1950, it subsided quietly.
We also have the first-hand account of what happened precisely at this moment in the heavens. “Suddenly, a bright and luminous body arose from the southern horizon, slowly went up and descended in the north somewhere on the Arunachala hill. It was not a meteor as it was bigger than what Venus looks to our vision and its movement was slow. It was so lustrous that when it was at the zenith the light shed by its trail stretched as far as the horizon like an arc in the sky.”
