Jacobs Alan - True happiness: the teachings of Ramana Maharshi

Copyright 1962 by Sri Ramanasraman

Edited by Arthur Osborne, who asserts his right to be identified as editor of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Hampton Roads Publishing, Inc. Reviewers may quote brief passages. First Published by Rider, a division of Random House Group, Ltd., ISBN: 9781846044335.

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Paul Brunton was a distinguished author who wrote on spiritual and metaphysical matters and whose most important book was undoubtedly his almost legendary A Search in Secret India. Published in 1931, it has now sold over 250,000 copies and soon made the name of the Great South Indian Sage Sri Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi well known among the spiritually aware throughout the English-speaking world. During his journey in search of great yogis, Brunton consulted the famed Spiritual Head of Southern India, the Shankara Acharya of Kumbakonam, asking if he could direct him to a great Master, one who you know is competent to give me proofs of the reality of Higher Yoga. The Acharya replied, I recommend you to visit a High Master whose abode is on Arunachala, the Mountain of the Holy Beacon. Following his suggestion, Brunton travelled to Tiruvannamalai, where he met the Master. His visit was well rewarded by the wisdom Ramana Maharshi imparted to him, and all their exchanges are recorded for posterity in the book Conscious Reality, published by Ramana Ashram. Here Brunton wrote, In the presence of the Maharshi I felt security and inward peace. The spiritual radiations that emanated from him can never be reported. Face to face with the Maharshi, sometimes I felt in the presence of a visitor from another planet, at other times with a being of another species.

A good friend of Paul Brunton at that time was the celebrated novelist Somerset Maugham. When Brunton told Maugham about his discovery of the Great Sage, it inspired Maugham to consider writing a major novel based on such a discovery. Maugham then took the journey to India himself, to meet Ramana for purposes of research. The result of his visit inspired him to write his masterpiece The Razor's Edge, telling of a young man's spiritual journey, ending in a meeting with a Great Guru based on Sri Ramana Maharshi and his ashram. The novel was later made into a highly successful motion picture and has been remade since.

Once it became generally known that the Sage on whom Maugham based his novel was Sri Ramana Maharshi, it further added to his ever-increasing reputation in the West. Maugham later studied Advaita Vedanta, the high Non-Dual teaching which was taught by Ramana Maharshi (following in the tradition of the Great Philosopher Sage Adi Shankara), and later wrote a series of essays that were published.

Many visitors from Europe and America were subsequently inspired to visit Tiruvannamalai and all returned home with glowing reports, some even stayed and eventually reached the blessed state of Self-realization through his teaching and presence.

So Ramana Maharshi, widely known, became a World Guru, the highest ranking among spiritual Indian masters. Since those pre-war days his worldwide reputation has widened even more. Ramana Ashram has published over 70 books on his teachings, written by numerous highly literate devotees. All the answers to the questions asked by devotees, during his 50 years of teaching, were recorded and translated into English and checked for his approval. (He was fluent in English, having received his earlier education in an American mission school in his home town of Tiruchuzhi.) All these extensive publications led to his growing reputation as a Great Spiritual Master or Jnani, and led to more and more people visiting his ashram, where his presence can still be felt. After the Second World War and the release of the Fascist and Communist grip on Europe, many flocked from Russia, Germany and the Middle European countries too.

Arthur Osborne, an Oxford University scholar, lecturer, author and editor, settled down in Ramana Ashram as a committed and leading devotee. His masterly book The Teachings of Ramana Maharshi In His Own Words soon became a popular, easy-to-assimilate introduction to his complete teachings, and remains today as a great classic in post-war spiritual literature.

Since the Maharshi's passing there has been a surge of interest in his spiritual message, which has led many to the blissful state of Self-realization. At the time of writing, on Facebook alone there are numerous Ramana Maharshi pages, but the main one has over 188,000 adherents. A video of me reading one of his talks, which was published on YouTube, has received over 525,000 viewings since it was first made and released.

What more is there to say? Sri Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi is today universally acclaimed and acknowledged as a Great World Guru and ranks among the highest spiritual teachers of modern times, all of which has made him extremely influential around the world. In India there are study centres in the main cities, as well as several in North America, Europe and elsewhere. Arthur Osborne's fine book eloquently and painstakingly shows us why and how Ramana Maharshi's influence has spread worldwide like a blazing forest fire burning up the woods of ignorance and spiritual apathy in the world today.

ALAN JACOBS

President of the
Ramana Maharshi Foundation UK

The carrier of mythological and philosophical wisdom in India has been since time immemorial the holy man a Western title which does not quite render the essence and outward appearance of the parallel figure in the East. This figure is the embodiment of spiritual India, and we meet him again and again in literature. No wonder, then, that Zimmer was passionately interested in the latest and best incarnation of this type in the phenomenal personage of Shri Ramana. He saw in this Yogi, the true Avatar of the figure of the Rishi, Seer and Philosopher, which strides, as legendary as it is historical, down the centuries and the ages.

Shri Ramana is, in a sense, a hominum homo, a true son of man of the Indian earth. He is genuine and on top of that he is a phenomenon who, seen through European eyes, has claims to uniqueness. But in India he is merely the whitest spot on a white surface (whose whiteness is mentioned only because there are so many surfaces that are just as black). Altogether, one sees so much in India that in the end one only wishes one could see less: the enormity and variety of countries and human beings creates longing for complete simplicity. This simplicity is there too: it pervades the spiritual life of India like a pleasant fragrance or a melody. It is everywhere the same, but never monotonous, endlessly varied. To get to know it, it is sufficient to read any Upanishad or any discourse of the Buddha. What is heard there is heard everywhere; it speaks out of a million eyes, it expresses itself in countless gestures, and there is no village or country road where that broad-branched tree cannot be found in whose shade the ego struggles for its own abolition, drowning the world of multiplicity in the All and All-Oneness of Universal Being. I was then absolutely certain that no one could ever get beyond this, least of all the Indian holy man himself; and should Shri Ramana say anything that did not chime in with this melody, or claim to know anything that transcended it, his illumination would be false. The holy man is right when he intones India's ancient chants, but wrong when he pipes any other tune.