Born to a south
Indian, Brahman family, Venkataraman Aiyer, read mystical and devotional
literature, particularly the lives of South Indian Shaiva saints and the life
of Kabir.
He was
captivated by legends of the local pilgrimage place, Mt. Arunachala, from which
the god Shiva was supposed to have arisen in a spiral of fire at the creation
of the world.
At the age of 17
Venkataraman had a spiritual experience from which he derived his vicara
technique: he suddenly felt a great fear of death, and, lying very still,
imagined his body becoming a stiff, cold corpse.
Following a
traditional "not this, not that" (neti-neti) practice, he began
self-inquiry, asking "Who am I?" and answering, "Not the body,
because it is decaying; not the mind, because the brain will decay with the
body; not the personality, nor the emotions, for these also will vanish with
death."
His intense
desire to know the answer brought him into a state of consciousness beyond the
mind, a state of bliss of a samadhi. He immediately renounced his possessions,
shaved his head, and fled from his village to Mt. Arunachala to become a hermit
and one of India's youngest gurus.
He was endowed
with a spiritual title Ramana Maharshi, used by Venkataraman's disciples and his
preaching attracted a number of notable students. Ramana Maharshi believed that
death and evil were maya, or illusion, which could be dissipated by the
practice of vicara, by which the true self and the unity of all things would be
discovered. For liberation from rebirth it is sufficient, he believed, to
practice only vicara and bhakti (devotional surrender) either to Shiva Arunachala
or to Ramana Maharshi.
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