Self-Realisation
Epilogue
The fourteen years which intervened between the laying down of Sri B.V.Narasimha Swami’s pen, after writing the foregoing Life of Sri Ramana Maharshi and the passing of the Master into Mahanirvana in 1950, saw great expansion in the Ashram’s activities and its fame. As Sri Bhagavan’s teaching spread far and wide and captivated the hearts and imaginations of seekers, both in the East and the West, devotees and truth-hungry visitors poured into the Ashram from many lands and climes in an increasingly-swelling stream, which necessitated its corresponding physical extension to accommodate and feed them all. Thus by 1938 solid buildings of granite stones and mortar sprang up in many parts of the Ashram premises. The Office which had hitherto been alternated with the dining shift in the tiny room which served both purposes, was then established in its own permanent building. The dining hall became an imposing structure capable of accommodating 500 to 700 diners at a time, with an adjoining equally commodious kitchen. The ramshackle cowshed became a huge gośālā in the North-easternmost corner of the compound. The bookshop and Veda School each had by then its own building. A few small terraced rooms were made available for temporary visitors who came from long distances. The visitors from South India who were by far the largest in number were accommodated in large dormitory-like guest rooms.
A new feature which in the beginning caused some headache to the management and which was later satisfactorily met, was the influx of permanent settlers, particularly from the West, who applied for permanent lodgings or sites for cottages. The Ashram ground is too restricted to permit the building of a large number of cottages for individual settlers, who are used to spread themselves in more than one room with separate kitchen and bathroom. After permitting the first Westerner to build his own cottage, the pinch began to be felt when a flood of demands for sites followed. The prospect frightened the authorities, and made them put down their foot and reject them all.
By 1941 the overflow became so intense that the devotees, who till then had scattered themselves as best they could : some in the town and some on the hill or in a neighbouring forest-like garden known by the name of Palakothu, acquired many acres of land near the Ashram which they divided among themselves in plots, on which they built their small houses. In the space of five years, this grew into a new township entirely independent of, and free from, the Ashram authority or management. In it lived many sadhakas, some singly and some with their families. This colony is now known by the name of Ramananagar, after the name of Sri Bhagavan, and has its own Post Office.
The only place which till 1946 remained unaltered was the old tiled-roofed darsan Hall in which the Master lived, slept and received the streams of visitors. It was always full to capacity : those who could not squeeze themselves in it, were satisfied to sit on the outside verandah and meditate there, or listen through the doors and windows to any talks taking place inside. In 1946 when the celebration of the Golden Jubilee of the Master’s arrival at Tiruvannamalai attracted a vast congregation from all parts of the world, a temporary shed covered with palm leaves and open on three sides to the North of the Hall was made available. It came to be known as the Jubilee Hall. This, however, served as the darsan Hall till 1949, when the large stone-built Hall attached to the Mother’s temple was completed and inaugurated.
Disciples
In the body of this book the names of some disciples have been mentioned in brief sketches to illustrate the individual appeal the Master had for each of them. But those were by no means the only ones who had stories worth telling. Actually each devotee had his or her interesting story peculiar to his or her circumstance.
As the tide of devotees rose to considerable proportions after 1935, an attempt to single out any one of them for this record would be highly misleading if not also invidious. For now the foreigners came in appreciable numbers, and there has hardly been any civilized country which has not been represented at one time or another by a visitor. Even at this hour a few of them still remain tied to the place, which they find to be one of the sanest in this crazy world, and where the sacred remains of their Divine Guru continue to scintillate with spiritual power and peace. Almost all of them own the houses in which they live.
Books
Since 1936, new books, some translated from the vernacular original and some directly written in English, embodying the recorded talks of the Master were published by the Ashram. After the Mahanirvana a spate of them came into existence ; all written by old devotees from reminiscences, diaries, or recorded conversations. A list of the English publications is appended to this book.
Mother’s Samadhi
Reference has been made to the death of Sri Maharish's Mother in 1922 and to her burial near Palitheertham which caused the Ashram to shift from the hill to the burial place, round which it grew and spread. Sri Niranjanananda swami, the younger brother of the Master, who later became its Sarvadhikari, proved to be a most devoted son. Not satisfied with the simple structure over his mother’s samadhi, he vowed to erect a lasting monument in the form of a temple in its place, to perpetuate her memory as the mother of one of the mightiest Rishis that had ever lived. He made his plans in 1938 and immediately set to work with unremitting determination and courage. From the donations of devotees he saved every extra rupee with which he slowly collected the stones, and all the other materials which went into its making. The grim attention which he gave to the perfection of this monument may literally be said to have cost him his heart’s blood. Eleven years of incessant watch and labour were at last crowned with success, when the magnificent structure was completed in the beginning of 1949, and the consecration ceremony (Kumbabhishekam) was performed in the presence of Bhagavan and with his undoubted blessing, in grand Vedic style for five full days from the 14th to 18th March. This was attended by not less than 15,000 people from the neighbourhood of Tiruvannamalai and the whole of India. From that date onwards the daily worship has been performed in this shrine, now known as Mathrubootheswara Temple.
The death anniversary of the Mother has been annually celebrated ever since in the Ashram, as the Maha-puja day. This falls in May or June according to the Hindu Calendar in each particular year.
Master’s Illness and Mahanirvana
Adjoining Mathrubhutheswara temple, a large Hall was constructed vdth the same materials as the temple itself, namely, granite stones and mortar, to be the permanent darsan Hall. In it a large couch cut out of a single rock, and beautifully polished, carved and designed, was placed for the Master, to serve as a seat by day and a bed by night. This Hall was declared open in a simple ceremony on the 1st June 1949, from which date it became the new darsan Hall.
But alas ! From this time the Master’s health began to give way. He had entered his 70th year, and the chronic complaints which he had acquired during the early years of his absorption in the Ultimate Consciousness, owing to the entire neglect of his body, began to tell on him. Due to exposure to cold, rain, wind and the dampness of the underground cave (Pathala Lingam), in various open spaces, and on the hill, he had contracted asthma, and then an arthritic rheumatism which clung to him till the end. Signs of pronounced weakness appeared in 1947, which exposed his system to the invasion of latent or new diseases. The rheumatism itself increased in violence, and spells of nervous hiccup of long duration further weakened him and paved the way to a virulent sarcomatous growth on his left elbow, to which his body finally succumbed, after a severe illness lasting more than a year.
The year 1949/50 was a year of great bodily suffering for the Master. Although he never complained but bore all the pain, surgical operations and radium applications, with the cheerful calmness becoming the Divine Man he was, yet the disciples were under no illusion of the havoc which the corrosive poison of this malignant tumour created inside his delicately sensitive constitution. It started in November, 1948 as a tiny lump of the size of a pea on the ulnar nerve of his left elbow, which the Ashram doctor assisted by another devotee doctor thought fit to remove at its very infancy, on the 9th of February, 1949. But alas ! they counted without the tumour. The wound soon gave rise to another growth, which one day the Master jocularly characterised as “rising like a lingam”. Another operation had thus to be performed on the 27th March, this time by an eminent surgeon, who thought he had removed enough to prevent recurrence. Yet again the wound refused to heal. Radium was applied later, and under its action the wound showed favourable signs and the Master’s health considerably improved, though this improvement proved short-lived; for by the 20th June, an itching sensation in the elbow heralded the re-appearance of the lump, from which blood now oozed. After a month of herbal treatment, septic symptoms appeared in July which called for penicillin injections. The doctors held that complete cure was possible only through amputation of the whole left arm from shoulder, but this the Master strictly forbade. The much more elaborate operation had to be performed in the Ashram dispensary on the 7th August and the fourth one on the 19th December with anaesthetic, (?diotmic?) knife, blood-transfusion and all such surgical paraphernalia with the hope of blasting the dread disease at its very foundations as the only alternative to amputation. But Fate proved stronger than the doctors’ skill, the fourth and last operation so depleted the Master’s vitality that further resort to surgery became out of the question. Other systems of medicine were then tried one by one ; Homeopathy, Malabari Vaidya and the Siddha system, but all proved fruitless and were stopped at end of March, when all hope was given up. With a blood pressure as low as 68/36, Sri Bhagavan continued to (?weaken?) from hour to hour. The vast congregation of devotees who assembled during the first fortnight of April were amazed at the peaceful repose of his countenance, lustre of his eyes and the keen alertness of his mind. Not a complaint, not a moan, not a sigh escaped him throat throughout this terrible ordeal.
When he left the dispensary on the 1st January 1950 the Master did not return to the big darshan Hall, He went to the small room which he had used as a bedroom during the previous few months. From there he dragged himself twice a day to the couch just outside the room to sit for about an hour morning and evening among the disciples who looked forward to his appearance and waited expectantly outside. But when on the 2nd March he found himself incapable of making even the few steps, he ceased, though he insisted that devotees should be given the chance of seeing him twice a day, and this they continued to do, filing past his door in queues till the very last evening on April the 14th.
Details of the Master’s illness have already been published in my book ‘"Guru Ramana”, from which I quote the events of this last day and the following two days for the convenience of those readers who have not read it.
“14th April, 1950 : — Maharishi is in a very precarious condition. The whole morning has been spent by devotees in hushed gloom and abated breaths. After the evening darshan which was attended by more than fifteen hundred persons, the unanimous verdict was that it was positively the last. The Master is now propped on large pillows, almost in a sitting posture to enable him to breathe freely. At 7 p.m. oxygen is administered to him for a few minutes, but, seeing it gave him no relief, he feebly asked that it should be stopped. The situation was tense : about five hundred devotees were outside in sad expectation of the solemn last moment. Blood relations, Ashram workers, and a few veteran disciples went in by turn to have a last sight of him.
When the end was known to be approaching the whole congregation with one voice took to chanting the Tamiḷ hymns he had composed in praise of Lord Arunachala : “Arunachala Shiva, Arunachala Shiva, Arunachala !”, till it came at 8:47. Many devotees grief stricken and beating their breasts with agony, rushed to the big darshan Hall, to which the sacred body had been brought and made to sit crossed legs in yoga asana^ to pay their last respects. The news spread like wild fire to the town and the neighbouring villages and drew huge crowds. By 9:15 the crowd was so thick, that it became necessary to give chance to all to pay their homage, and pass the body in an orderly manner. A queue was thus formed seven to ten thick at a quick-march pace.
“Around the sofa sat the disciples, some chanting Maharshi’s verses and other devotional hymns, and some silently. Sandalwood paste, and jasmin flowers now cover the body, and incense burns by its side.
“At about 9 p.m., Monsieur Cartier-Bresson, the famous French photographer, related an experience of his to me. He said : ‘It is a most astonishing experience : I was in the open space in front of my house, when my friends drew my attention to the sky, where I saw a vividly-luminous shooting-star with a luminous tail, unlike any shooting-star I had before seen, coming from the South, and moving slowly across the sky, reached the top of Arunachala and disappeared behind it. Because of its singularity we all guessed its import and immediately looked at our watches — it was 8:47. We raced to the Ashram only to find that our premonition was too sadly true : the Master had passed into Mahanirvana at that very minute. Other devotees in the Ashram and in the town later told me that, they too had seen the prophetic meteor.
“15th April : Many devotees kept vigil the whole of last night, singing and chanting the Veda, as did the queues of worshippers, till 11:30 a.m. today, when the body was taken out to the south Verandah for puja and abishekam, Sri T.N.Venkataraman in the immediate presence and under the supervision of Sri Niranjanananda Swamy, the sarvadhikari, with his own hands poured over the sacred head dozens of brass pots of milk, curds, butter-milk, orange juice, mashed bananas and jack fruits, coconut water, etc., which he followed by many bottles of rose-water, attar, perfumes of all kinds and sweet-smelling oils. Then enormous flower garlands, and piles of jasmin flowers were placed round the neck ,and strewn all over the body.
“At 6-30 p.m., the body which by then had received the homage of not less than about 40,000 persons was carried in a decorated palanquin, reserved for the God of the temple, to the samadhi. Here it was placed in the same yoga-asana posture into a bag made of the finest kaddar (home-spun cloth), which was then filled with pure camphor, and lowered into the area in the pit which had been reserved for it. Then the pit was filled to the brim with camphor, salt, and sacred ashes to preserve the body from worms and rapid disintegration, and closed with masonry work.
“Mr.Kaikobad, a Parsi devotee of the Master of long-standing, last night happened to be on the terrace of his house in Madras (120 miles away) when he saw the shooting-star to which Mr.Cartier-Bresson and others referred last night, and intuitively associated it with the Mahanirvana of the Master and, without waiting for the morning, he immediately hired a car and came at top speed.
“16th A.pril All the English and Tamiḷ papers which arrived this morning from Madras gave wide publicity in banner headlines to the passing away of the Maharshi. They also referred to the meteor seen in the sky all over the State of Madras, scores of thousands of square miles, at 8:47 on the night of April 14, by a large number of people in different places and reported to the Press by many eye-witnesses who had been struck by its peculiar look and behaviour, which led them to ascribe the strange phenomenon to the passing of a great soul. Such a mass of evidence speaks for itself, if evidence be needed.”
The burial of the sacred remains was made almost in the identical spot, where till 1938 the Master used to take his meals : the small dining-hall-cum-office having by then ceased to exist, except as a place of worship in lieu of the Mother’s Samadhi during the transformation of the latter into the present picturesque temple. Thus what was once the dining hall became in 1950 the heart of the Ashram, the Master’s samadhi, in which ahishekam, puja and naivedyam are performed twice a day, with the parayanam (Veda recital), which used to be read near the Master’s seat during his life-time. Resident devotees and visitors usually attend these devotional functions, particularly in the evening. They sit reverently listening to the melodious chanting, or meditate in the purifying proximity of the holy samadhi, where the Master^s spiritual magnetisms are strongly felt.
Sri Niranjanananda Swamigal
The reader is already familiar with this name. To refresh his memory I shall briefly recapitulate what has already been recorded elsewhere. Sri Niranjanananda Swami, or simply Chinnaswami, was the younger brother of Sri Maharshi and the last but one child of his parents. Born in 1885, he joined the Master’s Ashram at Tiruvannamalai in 1917, when as a widower he took the vows of sanyasa with the view of dedicating his life entirely to the service of Sri Bhagavan. In 1930 he was made the sarvadhikari (manager or superintendent) of the Ashram to manage its temporal affairs. Since then and till his death, which took place very early in 1953, he worked tirelessly and with exemplary devotion for the welfare of the Ashram and the perpetuation of his mother's memory, which was the most sacred treasure of his heart. The present Ashram and all it contains, owe their existence entirely to his labour, iron determination and thrift. How thrifty was he in the Ashram’s interest will be judged from the last message he gave from his deathbed to his successors, to which I shall refer in due course. Apart from the expansion inside the Ashram to which mention has been made, Chinnaswami bought in the name of the Ashram, the birthplace of Sri Maharishi in Tiruchuzhi, and converted it into a temple under the name “Sundaram Mandir”. He also acquired the house in Madura where the Master had his first experience of the Absolute Awareness and from which he left for Tiruvannamalai in 1896. That house too became a temple named “Sri Ramana Mandiram”. In both these shrines puja and naivedyam are being daily performed.
The passing of the Master into Mahanirvana affected Chinnaswami deeply. It was for the moment as if the sun had set for him and left him in utter darkness and solitude, particularly as some petty-minded workers raised their heads against his authority and took to nagging and worrying him. He soon developed a heart disease and, seeing that his work was done and well done too, he decided to give to his tired and aged body the long rest due to it. So in June 1950 he called a conference of the most prominent devotees and, choosing the ablest who were willing to serve from among them, he formed them into a committee under the title of Sri Ramanashram Managing Committee, to which he entrusted the main task of carrying on the Ashram activities under his own Chairmanship.
Although his heart ached at the departure of his beloved brother and Master, and the truculence of some workers, he never ceased to feel the mighty powers of Sri Bhagavan behind him till the end. The spiritual Sun that had sustained him in his difficulties in the long years of his services during the life-time of the Master, continued to shine in his inner life to inspire and guide him. Now. it suffused him with unbounded peace. But the heart disease, continued to make incursions on his vitality, so much so, that the last six months of 1952, it kept him in bed, heroically bearing his severe illness. The end approached slowly, so that the work of purification through physical suffering might be completed. Though his chest struggled for breath and his water-logged limbs for relief from the heavy load that weighed them down, his mind remained centred on Bhagavan, whose photographs decorated the four walls of his small room in the Ashram clinic. Feeling that his end was near, on the 28th January 1953, he called T.N.Venkataraman who is his son and successor to the Ashram’s seat, his family and some Ashram workers and devotees, and with thick speech, said : "I am departing with a clear conscience and clean hands. I have not used even a pie of the Ashram funds for my own benefit. Everything here belongs to Bhagavan, and should be guarded with care and vigilence. Devote yourselves heart and soul to the service of the Lord, and in return He will shower His grace on you. Be sincere and truthful to the core of your being. Uphold our revered ancient tradition in the working of this Ashram as I have upheld them all my life.
At 11-30 p.m. on Thursday the 29th January, at almost the exact hour of the very holy full-moon of Makaram, Sri Niranjanananda Swamigal peacefully passed into Mahasamadhi amidst loud chanting of the sacred Veda by dozens of the Ashram devotees. His remains were buried in the quiet coconut grove, which he himself had planted and which was dear to him, in a straight line facing those of the mother, whom throughout life he had adored. Although not of his choice, this site must have conceivably given a great satisfaction to his spirit.
With him passed away the last living child of Sundaram and Alagammal.
His son T.N.Venkataraman was installed as the Manager of the Ashram and the Life-President of Sri Ramanashram Managing Committee, on the 1st February, 1953.
“Athai”
This biography will not be complete without a brief reference to the Master’s sister, Alamelu Ammal, who was the last child and only daughter of her parents. It will be recalled that Chinnaswami as Nagasundaram became a widower very early in life, and that his baby son was given first to the care of his aunt, and then at the latter’s death, which was not many years afterwards, to that of his sister Alamelu Ammal, the aunt of the baby, who naturally grew to call her “Athai” (aunt), which name stuck to her ever since, and by which she has been endearingly called by her relations and friends.
Born in 1888, Athai grew to be one of those rare souls unique in their crystal purity and in their silent resignation to all conditions of life, coming as, they think, they do from the Lord Himself, Life itself, she considered to be a gift from Him, solely designed for His service. Having no child of their own, she and her husband Pichu Iyer, gratefully accepted the charge of the child Venkataraman, and brought him up with all the tenderness and love of fond parents, and when Venkataraman grew up to a fine manhood, married and begot children, they looked after the children with the same tenderness as they had looked after him.
When in 1938 Chinnaswami badly needed an assistant, he called Venkataraman, then a bright young man of 24, to help him in the management of the Ashram. With Venkataraman came his wife and two baby sons, followed after two or three years by Pichu Iyer and Athai. As no ladies were allowed to stay in the Ashram proper, a house in town was rented for the whole family, till a plot of ground was bought by Pichu Iyer in Ramananagar near the Ashram, and a house constructed on it for them.
But Athai was destined to die in the same month as her elder brother, Chinnaswami. Like him she spent the last six months of 1952 in bed, laid low by a virulent liver disease from which it pleased God to relieve her on Saturday, the 3rd January 1953, at 8:20 a.m. when she peacefully passed to Life Eternal to the care of her Divine brother Sri Ramana Bhagavan.
But though this book is finished and the Maharshi, his brother and sister have left the scene, the Ashram still continues as a place in whose sanctity the same peace is still to be found. Pilgrims and old devotees come, sit in front of the Holy Samadhi, close their eyes and find that they are once again in the very real presence of the beloved Guru, who meant everything to them and whom for a weak moment they feared they had lost. Surprise is followed by a look of joy and, rising from their place they go on their way convinced that RAMANA LIVES.
Appendix
A straege and remarkable incident in the life of Sri Maharshi
One morning about the year 1912 the Swami, Palaniswamy, Vasudeva Śāstṛi and others left the Virupaksha cave and proceeded together to Pachaiamman Koil taking oil and soap-nut powder for an oil-bath, as facilities for such a bath were ample at that place. Bath over, they started back, cutting a path for themselves across the hill.
The bath and the walk were overstraining the Swami's nerves. The sun was fairly hot (about 10 a.m.) and the climbing was an additional strain. Palaniswamy and Śāstṛi had gone some steps in advance. While the Swami was near Tortoise Rock, he began to feel faint and what followed is best given in Swami’s own words-
"Suddenly the view of natural scenery in front of me disappeared and a bright white curtain was drawn across the line of my vision and shut out the view of nature. I ‘could distinctly see the gradual process. At one stage I could see a part of the prospect of nature yet clear, and the rest was being covered by the advancing curtain. It was just like drawing a slide across one's view in the stereoscope. On experiencing this I stopped walking lest I should fall. When it cleared, I walked on.
When darkness and faintness overtook me a second time, I leaned against a rock until it cleared. And again for the third time I felt it safest to sit, so I sat near the rock.
Then the bright white curtain had completely shut out my vision, my head was swimming, and my blood circulation and breathing stopped. The skin turned a livid blue. It was the regular death-like hue — and it got darker and darker. Vasudeva Śāstṛi took me in fact to be dead held me in his embrace and began to weep aloud and lament my death. His body was shivering. I could at that time distinctly feel his clasp and his shivering, hear his lamentation and understand the meaning. I also saw the discoloration of my skin and I felt the stoppage of my heart beat and respiration, and the increased chillness of the extremities of my body. Yet my usual current of (Dhyana) thought was continuing as usual in that state also. I was not afraid in the least, nor felt any sadness at the condition of my body. I had closed my eyes as soon as I sat near the rock in my usual posture but was not leaning against it. The body which had no circulation nor respiration, maintained that position still. This state continued for some ten or fifteen minutes. Then a shock passed suddenly through the body, circulation revived with enormous force, as also respiration and there was perspiration all over the body at every pore.
The colour of life reappeared on the skin. I then opened my eyes, got up and said “Let us go.” We reached Virupaksha cave without further trouble. That was the only occasion on which both my blood circulation and respiration stopped.”
Maharshi added, to correct some wrong accounts that had obtained currency about the incident, “I did not bring on the fit purposely, nor did I wish to see what this body would look like at death. Nor did I say that I will not leave this body without warning others. It was one of those fits that I used to get occasionally. Only it assumed a very serious aspect in this instance.”