Saranagati

Sri Ramanasram

may

Vol.2, No.5

issues

issues

Inside this issue

Dear Devotees,

With Sri Bhagavan’s Grace we are pleased to publish an eNewsletter from Sri Ramanasramam’s website. The purpose is to bring together devotees of Sri Bhagavan from across the world.

Saranagathi, a monthly eNewsletter, is being developed to help devotees share their experiences, about satsangh, meetings and other events that are held within various centers of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi around the world.

It is proposed to have one feature article for each issue. The feature article would focus on events that happened during the years between 1879 and 1950 as captured in popular books like Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, Letters from Sri Ramanasramam and others, which are available for download from the ashram website.

Our earnest request, to all devotees, satsangh groups and centers is to share with us their events, stories and experiences. Please email them to saranagathi @ sriramanamaharshi.org

Ever Truly In Sri Bhagavan,

President, Sri Ramanansramam.

Believing that the body is
Oneself, one dreads the body's death.
Enquiring "What dies?”, "Who am I?”
One dies into the Self. How else
But through the ego's death can one
Gain immortality.


–
 Garland of Guru's Sayings, v.228 by
 Sri Muruganar
 

 

 

Mahasamadhi of Sri Bhagavan in April, 1950

Ramana Maharshi and the Path of Self-Knowledge
Arthur Osborne

On Thursday, April 13th, a doctor brought Sri Bhagavan a palliative to relieve the congestion in the lungs but he refused it. "It is not necessary; everything will come right within two days.”

That night he bade his attendants go and sleep or meditate and leave him alone.

On Friday the doctors and attendants knew it was the last day. In the morning he again bade them go and meditate. About noon, when liquid food was brought for him, he asked the time, punctual as ever, but then added, "But henceforth time doesn"t matter.”

Delicately expressing recognition of their long years of service, he said to the attendants, "The English have a word "thanks" but we only say santhosham (I am pleased).”

In the morning the long crowd filed past the open doorway silent with grief and apprehension, and again between four and five in the evening. The disease-racked body they saw there was shrunken, the ribs protruding, the skin blackened, it was a pitiable vestige of pain. And yet at some time during these last few days each devotee received a direct, luminous, penetrating look of recognition which he felt as a parting infusion of Grace.

After darshan that evening the devotees did not disperse to their homes. Apprehension held them there. At about sunset Sri Bhagavan told the attendants to sit him up. They knew already that every movement, every touch was painful, but he told them not to worry about that. He sat with one of the attendants supporting his head. A doctor began to give him oxygen but with a wave of his right hand he motioned him away. There were about a dozen persons in the small room, doctors and attendants.

Two of the attendants were fanning him, and the devotees outside gazed spell-bound at the moving fans through the window, a sign that there was still a living body to fan. A reporter of a large American magazine moved about restlessly, uneasy at having been impressed despite himself and determined not to write his story till he got away from Tiruvannamalai to conditions that he considered normal. With him was a French press photographer.

Unexpectedly, a group of devotees sitting on the veranda outside the hall began singing "Arunachala-Siva" (Aksharamanamalai). On hearing it, Sri Bhagavan"s eyes opened and shone. He gave a brief smile of indescribable tenderness. From the outer edges of his eyes tears of bliss rolled down. One more deep breath, no more. There was no struggle, no spasm, no other sign of death: only that the next breath did not come.

For a few moments people stood bewildered. The singing continued. The French press photographer came up to me and asked at what precise minute it had happened. Resenting it as journalistic callousness, I replied brusquely that I did not know, and then I suddenly recalled Sri Bhagavan's unfailing courtesy and answered precisely that it was 8:47. He said, and I could hear now that he was excited, that he had been pacing the road outside and at that very moment an enormous star had trailed slowly across the sky. Many had seen it, even as far away as Madras, and felt what it portended. It passed to the north-east towards the peak of Arunachala.

8.47pm on April 14th, 2008

A report from Sri Ramanasramam

The anniversary of Sri Bhagavan‟s Brahma Nirvana is usually celebrated on Chaitra Krishna Paksha Trayodasi (April-May) reckoning the day according to the Souramana (solar) system of the Hindu calendar. For the last few years it is also observed according to the Gregorian calendar, that is, on 14th April, the day Bhagavan left His body.

For the last few years it is also observed according to the Gregorian calendar, that is, on 14th April, the day Bhagavan left His body. Sri Bhagavan‟s Aksharamanamalai was chanted by a large number of devotees before the Nirvana room on 14th April this year between 8:15pm and 9pm. This chanting movingly re-enacted the scene of the very same day in 1950, when devotees present chanted the hymn in the minutes before Bhagavan‟s Brahma Nirvana

ART

AA