The Mountain Path Vol. 8 No. 1, Jan 1971
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O Moon of Grace, with Thy (cool) rays as hands, open (within me) the ambrosial orifice and let my heart rejoice, Oh, Arunachala. (A QUARTERLY) — The Marital Garland of Letters, verse 29. " Arunachala ! Tliou dost root out the ego of those who meditate on Thee in the heart, Oh Arunachala ! " —The Marital Garland of Letters, verse 1. Publisher : T. N. Venkataraman, President, Board of Trustees, Vol. VIII JANUARY 1971 No, 1 Sri Ramanasramam, Tiruvannamalai. CONTENTS Page EDITORIAL : Sad-Guru is One 1 Editor ; Lord Ramana, Come 4 Mrs. Lucia Osborne — Satyamangalam V enkataramana Iyer Ramana Sad-Guru Sri Ramanasramam, 5 — Satyamangalam Venkataramana Iyer Tiruvannamalai. 6 Ramana Sad-Guru — Arthur Osborne The Sources of Classic Chinese Thought —-Father Thomas Merton § The Sacred Song of Thayumanavar 11 — Gladys de Meuter 18 Managing Editor : Sad-Guru is within Excerpts from a Saint's Talks 19 V. Ganesan, — Prof. Modem Mohan Varma Sri Ramanasramam, Life of Saint Arunagirinathar 20 Tiruvannamalai. — Sadhu Parthasarathy 23 Awakening — Philip Pegler Vallimalai Tiruppugazh Swami Centenary 24 Celebrations — Kalyanasundaram , 25 I Am Here — Bhamini N. Munsif Sri Ramana : A Pure Channel for a Higher 26 Annual Subscription : Power — Paul Br union 27 INDIA Rs. 6, The Voyage — Harindranath Chattopadhyaya 28 FORBIGN 12sh 6d $ 1,50 « I_I » _ Wei Wu Wei World as Self : Its Question as Answer ? 29 Life Subscription : — Stephen Joss Brooks Rs. 125 £ 12-10-0 $ 30. The Great Game of Pretending 30 — Douglas E. Harding 34 Single Copy: Garland of Guru's Sayings (Poem) 35 Rs. 1.75 3sh. 6d. $ 0.45 Creation and Uncreated — P. Stenius God, the Self-Created and Self-Maintaining 36 Principle — Joel S. Goldsmith 37 The Illusion of Matter — Murdoch Kerby CONTENTS— (Contd.) Page t&tje fountain How Bhagavan Came to Me — Sadhu Trivenigiri Swami 38 (A QUARTERLY) The Snow Maiden, Uma Haimavati — ' Sunya 40 Glory of Arunachala 42 The aim of this journal is to set Arunachala — Jean Dunn 45 forth the traditional wisdom of all religions and all ages, especially Yoga Vasisjita Sara 46 as testified to by their saints and The Vedaparayana 47 mystics, and to clarify the paths What We Really Are ! 48 available to seekers in the condi• Book Reviews 49 tions of our modern world. Ashram Bulletin 62 Introducing Mrs. & Mr.* A. R. Narayana Rao 70 Letters to the Editor 71 The Flight — Harindranath Chattopadhyaya 76 Contributions for publication should be addressed to * The Editor, The Mountain Path, Sri Ramanas• GRACE IN WORDS: The Verses (UPADESA SARAM) ramam, Tiruvannamalai, Madras in Tamil reproduced on the fly-leaf facing the frontispiece State'. They should be in English is the fascimile of Sri Bhagavan's own handwriting. The and typed with double spacing. translation is a new free rendering into English by Contributions not published will be Prof K. Swaminathan. returned on request. To Our Subscribers The editor is not responsible for 1. The official year of the quarterly is from January statements and opinions contained to December. in signed articles. 2. SUBSCRIBERS IN INDIA should remit their annua! subscription by Money Order only as far as possible and not by cheque. The words * subscription for The Mountain Path for year/years' should be written on the M.O coupon and the full name and address written in BLOCK No payment is made for contri• LETTERS on the reverse of the coupon. butions published. Anything herein Life Subscription should be sent by cheque drawn published may be reprinted else• favouring The Mountain Path and crossed. where without fee provided due The journal will not be sent by V.P.P. acknowledgement is made and the 3. FOREIGN SUBSCRIBERS can send their subscrip• editor is previously notified. tion by International Money Order, British Postal Order oi by Bank cheque or draft payable in India, U.S.A. or U.K. The subscription rates -are for despatch of the journal by surface mail to all parts of the world. Contributions are accepted only If despatch by AIR MAIL Is desired the following on condition that they do not additional annual amount should be remitted: appear elsewhere before being pub• lished in The Mountain Path. They can be published later elsewhere (a) Pakistan, Ceylon Rs. 6.80 but only with acknowledgement to (b) Aden, Kuwait, Hongkong, Malaysia, The Mountain Path. Indonesia, Fhillipines 15s 1.80 (c) U.K., France, Belgium, Greece, Italy, Monaco, Switzerland, East, South and West Africa 22s 2.70 (d) Australia, Denmark, Netherland, THE MOUNTAIN PATH Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden 30s 3.60 is dedicated to (e) North, Central and South America, Fiji, Hawaii, New Zealand 37s 4.50 Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharsh ^xx(<nr) O IT<y^l ff «ws^ nr 25. Seeing oneself free of all attributes Is to see the Lord, For He shines ever as the pure Self. 4 26. To know the Self is but to be the Self For It is non-dual. In such knowledge One abides as That. 27. That is true knowledge which transcends Both knowledge and ignorance. For in pure knowledge Is no object to be known. BHAGAVAN SRI RAMANA MAHARSHI (QUARTERLY) Editor : LUCIA OSBORNE Vol. VIII JANUARY, 1971 No. SAD-GURU IS ONE Editorial [There is a strange prelude leading up to this editorial. A devotee-friend, a Bengali engineer, S. P. Mukherjee, who settled down here with his wife after Sri Bhagavan's Maha- samadhi met us one evening on our way home from the Ashram meditation hall and told us with some excitement about a vivid dream he had had the previous night. In this dream he was shown an article signed by Arthur in the all-pervading presence of Sri Bhagavan though he was not quite sure whether he saw His form or not. Its title SAD-GURU IS ONE imprinted itself on his mind ; it was so distinct. He thought this was a sure indication that such an article should be written. Arthur fully agreed and next morning we sent a note asking him to put his dream down in writing which he did. Since Arthur did not manage to write the article it devolves on me to do so now as best as I can with Grace and support.] ^y^HO is the Sad-Guru ? Ramana Maharshi to him only who has striven hard and one- says that God, Guru and Self are one pointedly." and the same. The Sad-Guru is within abid• ing always in the profound depths of the Self. In an editorial on the spiritual Master as a All sadhana is meant to remove the ignorant factor in religious experience (Newsletter idea that he is outside, that we are separate Review of the Bucke Memorial Society, from the Self so that we may discover in the Autumn 1967) the guru is referred to as a end first intellectually and then as living truth " specialized helper". Presumably the spe• that the seeker himself never was anything cialized helper refers to the second kind of else but that which he was seeking with so guru mentioned in the article ' The Two Kinds much effort. Still this seemingly unnecessary of Guru' in the same Newsletter Review and 1 effort is a vital condition in one's sadhana till in The Mountain Path. Such a guru has been it becomes effortless. The Sad-Guru for whom vested with the authority and function of there is no ' otherness' nevertheless stresses directing without having himself broken free this condition. " Divine Grace is vouchsafed 1 July 1969 issue, p. 134. 2 THE MOUNTAIN PATH January from the illusion of the individual state. He the very core of my being, the I AM. And is compared to a not perfectly clean pipeline so He always is but we do not always know. bringing the waters of life to thirsty men, able Later I came across such statements with a thrill of recognition that it was so, that to quench their thirst up to a point not with• it was true." out danger of germs and sickness. The scriptures declare that the Enlightened In other traditions this truth is couched in who has attained Supreme Knowledge is different terms but it means the same. In the Brahman Himself.- The spiritual Master or •Siva Puranam Saint Manickavachakar prays Sad-Guru is the Enlightened and not merely for an unbroken state of experience adoring a factor in religious experience but the inner• the feet of Him ' who is really not apart from most essence of all beings. To a bhakta He me in my heart not even for a moment'. is the Beloved in the inmost recess of the spiri• The form of the Sad-Guru is a sort of tual heart. When the mind dissolved in love decoy. Out of compassion He assumes a merges in the Beloved, the Self reveals Itself form and name. Sri Bhagavan says : " You as It is in Absolute Consciousness. ' The imagine Him to be like yourself with a body. real Guru is in the heart', says Ramana His work lies within. The Guru who is God Maharshi, ' the task of the outer Guru is only or Self incarnate, who is immanent, out of to turn you inward to the Guru in the heart.' Grace takes pity on the devotee and manifests The outer Guru in the form of a human Himself and guides in the right path until he psychosomatic instrument guides one back to realises the Self within. The Guru is both the Self within. And this can be experienced. within and without so He creates conditions Here is an extract from 4 Our Quest' in to drive you inwards and exerts a pull from preparation : within.