Teachings of Ramana Maharshi – excerpt

<>SIt is sometimes the case that someone who is following a spiritual path or someone who has not even consciously begun the search yet, has a flash of Realization during which, for a short eternity, he experiences the absolute certainty of his divine, immutable, universal Self. Such an experience happened to Maharshi when he was a 16-year-old boy. He himself described it:

“The big change of my life took place about six weeks before I left Madurai for good. It happened unexpectedly. I was sitting alone in a room on the first floor in my uncle’s house. I was seldom ill, and there was nothing wrong with my health that day either, when I was suddenly seized by a sudden and violent fear of death. There was nothing in my state of health to justify it, and neither did I try to explain it or discover if there was any real reason for fear. I just felt” now I’m dying “and I started thinking about what to do in this situation. It didn’t occur to me to consult a doctor, nor my elders or friends. I felt that I had to solve the problem on my own, then and there. The shock of the fear of death turned my mind inward, and I said to myself, mentally, without actually saying the words:” Now death has come. What does that mean? What is what dies? The body dies.”

<>And I instantly dramatized the phenomenon of death. I lay down with my legs stiff forward as if “rigor mortis” had set in, imitating a corpse to give more veracity to the investigation. I held my breath and pressed my lips tightly so that no sound escaped, so that neither “I” nor any other word could be spoken. “Okay, then,” I said to myself, “this body is dead. Stiff, he will be taken to the cremation place and there burned and reduced to ashes. But with the death of this body am I dead? Is the body “I”? The body is silent and inert, but I feel the full force of my personality and even the voice of the “I” inside me, separated from the body. I am therefore a spirit that transcends the body. It is the body that dies, but the Spirit that transcends it cannot be touched by death. It means, then, that I am the immortal spirit.“All this was not mere dry thinking; They have passed through me intensely as a living truth that I have perceived directly, almost without the thought process. The” I “was something very real, the only real thing in my present state, and all the conscious activity related to my body had centered on that” I.“From that moment on, through a strong fascination, the” I “or Self focused all attention on itself. The fear of death disappeared once and for all. From then on the absorption into the Self continued without interruption.”

The last sentence is also the most remarkable, because, as a rule, such an experience passes quickly, although the impression of certainty that it imprints on the mind is never forgotten afterwards. Very rare are the cases in which it is permanently established, leaving a man from then on in constant identity with the Universal Self. One such man was Maharshi.

Soon after this change occurred, the young man who would later be known as “Maharshi” left the parental home as a sādhu. He directed his steps to Tiruvannamalai, the city at the foot of the holy hill of Arunachala, where he remained for the rest of his life.

Excerpt from The Teachings of Ramana Maharshi by Arthur Osborne