Be As You Are the Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi
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Ramana Maharshi – Be As You Are – by David Godman Be As You Are The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi Edited by David Godman 1 Ramana Maharshi – Be As You Are – by David Godman ARKANA PENGUIN BOOKS ARKANA Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2 Penguin Books India (‘I’) Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, Cnr Rosedale and Airborne Roads, Albany, Auckland, New Zealand Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England www.penguin.com First published by Arkana 1985 13 Copyright© Sri Ramanasramam, 1985 All rights reserved Printed in England by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser 2 Ramana Maharshi – Be As You Are – by David Godman Contents Be As You Are...........................................................................................................................................1 Introduction................................................................................................................................................4 PART ONE - The Self............................................................................................................................... 7 Chapter 1 - The nature of the Self......................................................................................................... 7 Chapter 2 - Self-awareness and Self-ignorance.................................................................................. 13 Chapter 3 - The jnani...........................................................................................................................22 PART TWO - Enquiry and surrender...................................................................................................... 28 Chapter 4 - Self-enquiry — theory......................................................................................................29 Chapter 5 - Self-enquiry – practice..................................................................................................... 34 Chapter 6 - Self-enquiry — misconceptions....................................................................................... 42 Chapter 7 - Surrender.......................................................................................................................... 49 PART THREE - The Guru.......................................................................................................................55 Chapter 8 - The Guru...........................................................................................................................56 Chapter 9 - Silence and sat-sanga........................................................................................................63 PART FOUR - Meditation and yoga....................................................................................................... 68 Chapter 10 - Meditation and concentration.........................................................................................69 Chapter 11 Mantras and japa...............................................................................................................74 Chapter 12 - Life in the world............................................................................................................. 79 Chapter 13 - Yoga............................................................................................................................... 85 PART FIVE - Experience........................................................................................................................ 91 Chapter 14 - Samadhi..........................................................................................................................92 Chapter 15 - Visions and psychic powers........................................................................................... 97 Chapter 16 - Problems and experiences............................................................................................ 101 PART SIX - Theory............................................................................................................................... 106 Chapter 17 - Creation theories and the reality of the world.............................................................. 107 Chapter 18 - Reincarnation................................................................................................................114 Chapter 19 - The nature of God.........................................................................................................118 Chapter 20 - Suffering and morality..................................................................................................123 Chapter 21 - Karma, destiny and free will........................................................................................ 129 Acknowledgments To Sri Ramanasramam for permission to reprint extracts from most of the books listed in the bibliography. To Rider and Co., London, for permission to reprint an extract from A Search in Secret India. To Sadhu Om, for permission to reprint material from The Path of Sri Ramana and for permission to use and adapt his unpublished translations of the writings of Sri Ramana Maharshi and Guru Vachaka Kovai. To Michael James for assistance in adapting verses from Guru Vachaka Kovai and for offering constructive advice throughout the preparation of the book. 3 Ramana Maharshi – Be As You Are – by David Godman Introduction In 1896 a sixteen-year-old schoolboy walked out on his family and, driven by an inner compulsion, slowly made his way to Arunachala, a holy mountain and pilgrimage centre in South India. On his arrival he threw away all his money and possessions and abandoned himself to a newly-discovered awareness that his real nature was formless, immanent consciousness. His absorption in this awareness was so intense that he was completely oblivious of his body and the world; insects chewed away portions of his legs, his body wasted away because he was rarely conscious enough to eat and his hair and fingernails grew to unmanageable lengths. After two or three years in this state he began a slow return to physical normality, a process that was not finally completed for several years. His awareness of himself as consciousness was unaffected by this physical transition and it remained continuous and undimmed for the rest of his life. In Hindu parlance he had ‘realised the Self’; that is to say, he had realised by direct experience that nothing existed apart from an indivisible and universal consciousness which was experienced in its unmanifest form as beingness or awareness and in its manifest form as the appearance of the universe. Normally this awareness is only generated after a long and arduous period of spiritual practice but in this case it happened spontaneously, without prior effort or desire. Venkataraman, the sixteen-year-old schoolboy, was alone in an upstairs room of his uncle’s house in Madurai (near the southern tip of India) when he was suddenly gripped by an intense fear of death. In the following few minutes he went through a simulated death experience during which he became consciously aware for the first time that his real nature was imperishable and that it was unrelated to the body, the mind or the personality. Many people have reported similar unexpected experiences but they are almost invariably temporary. In Venkataraman’s case the experience was permanent and irreversible. From that time on his consciousness of being an individual person ceased to exist and it never functioned in him again. Venkataraman told no one about his experience and for six weeks he kept up the appearance of being an ordinary schoolboy. However, he found it an increasingly difficult posture to maintain and at the end of this six week period he abandoned his family and went directly to the holy mountain of Arunachala. The choice of Arunachala was far from random. Throughout his brief life he had always associated the name of Arunachala with God and it was a major revelation to him when he discovered that it was not some heavenly realm but a tangible earthly entity. The mountain itself had long been regarded by Hindus as a manifestation of Siva, a Hindu God, and in later years Venkataraman often said that it was the spiritual power of Arunachala which had brought about his Self-realisation. His love for the mountain was so great that from the day he arrived in 1896 until his death in 1950 he could never be persuaded to go more than two miles away from its base. After a few years of living on its slopes his inner awareness began to manifest as an outer spiritual radiance. This radiance attracted a small circle of followers and, although he remained silent for most of the time, he embarked upon a teaching career. One of his earliest followers, impressed by