Swami Ramanagiri

Mountain Path, Jayanti 1994, pg.145

Ramanagiri was born into an aristocratic Swedish family in 1921 . Though he was related to the King of Sweden, it was the 'royal' yoga of Patanjali that finally claimed him. In his youth he came across Swami Vivekananda's Raja Yoga and found he had an immediate affinity with the subject matter. He studied the book and began to practise the techniques it prescribed. Realising that he needed a teacher to guide him, he came to India in 1945 and began to study philosophy at Benares Hindu University. He soon discovered, though, that academic philosophy held little attraction for him. Feeling a strong urge to pursue his yoga full time, he gave up his studies, renounced property worth more than eight million dollars and took sannyasa.

At the time of his initiation his diksha guru stipulated that he should never ask for anything himself, and only accept what was offered to him. On the day following his initiation he passed by a friend's house, but his friend failed to recognise him because of his shaved head and orange robes.

When he saw the sannyasin he shouted to his wife, 'A mendicant is going by! Give him the rotten bananas!' This was his first bhiksha.

On the following day he was walking in front of the palace of the Raja of Benares when a soldier accosted him and asked him to step inside.

'Why?' asked the swami..

The soldier replied that it was the practice of the raja to offer food daily to the first sannyasin he saw walking in front of the palace gates. So, on that day, he was taken in, accorded a royal reception, and given a feast, personally served by the raja himself.

When he later narrated both of these incidents to his diksha guru, he was told that both should be treated with equal indifference, as food is only for physical sustenance. For the rest of his brief life he never asked for anything and never handled money.

Shortly afterwards he set off on a pilgrimage to visit some of India's holy places. With the fire of liberation burning inside him it was perhaps inevitable that sooner or later he would end up at the feet of Sri Ramana Maharshi.

Swami Ramanagiri with Bhagavan

click to see a large image

Though he had a natural inclination for Raja Yoga, Swami Ramanagiri felt an immediate attraction to Atma vichara, the path of Sri Ramana. He practised intensively for forty days in Bhagavan's presence and was rewarded, on Sivaratri day 1949, with a direct experience of the Self. When asked later about what happened on that momentous day, he would usually say, 'On that day I became a fool'. For the rest of his life he referred to himself in the third person as 'this fool'. Speaking of the effect this experience had on him, he wrote in one of his notebooks:.

I don't know anything,
And that I which knows is
Nothing but an ignorant fool.
I think, when I don't think,
That I have no end and no beginning.
That which thinks has to take thousands of births.
When there is I,
He is not;
When He is, I am not.

How did he practise Atma vichara? It was his own method, combining classical vichara, pranayama, a little neti-neti, and some imaginative visualisations. Some interesting insights into his method can be gleaned from the following long letter which he wrote to a devotee who was seeking guidance on the path:

"In the course of sadhana, maya comes to a sincere soul first in the form of worldly troubles, second in the form of desires, and third in the form of dear friends who keep him away from the quest. 1 Our own mind is the greatest cheater in the world. It will make thousands of different excuses to go its own way. There are three ways of handling this cheat, who is nothing but a bundle of thoughts creeping in the conscious mind.

First, to treat him as a friend and give him full satisfaction. This is a very long and tiresome way because he is never satisfied.

"Second, to treat him as an enemy and with all force try to get rid of him. This is only possible by the grace of the divine because the mind has got two very powerful weapons — the discriminating intellect and the imaginative faculty. These two fellows can convince even God Himself that black is white.

"The third way is the way taught by Sri Ramana in the days of silence at the foot of sacred Arunachala. This way, which has been adopted by this fool, is to treat the mind as a patient, or rather several patients who are coming to a doctor to complain about their various ailments. Just as a doctor sits in his room receiving different kinds of patients, this fool imagines himself sitting in the sacred cave of the Heart and receiving the different thought patients. You know that a sick person likes to babble for hours about his complaint. In the same way, a thought likes to multiply itself, but the doctor always cuts it short, saying, 'Very good. Take this medicine. Thank you very much.' And then he calls for another patient.

"This is how this fool decided to meditate. First the fool slows down the breath as much as possible, but only to the point where there is no discomfort. To this fool, two breaths per minute is the proper speed, but that may not be possible for you because this fool has practised for a long time. You may be able to decrease your breathing to 8-10 per minute in the beginning. Don't get to a level where you are uncomfortable, because that discomfort will give rise to thoughts.

This fool then decided to receive twenty patients before closing the dispensary of the Heart. He calls out 'Number one!' and he waits for thought patient number one to come. The thought patient may say, 'Smt such-and-such is not well. Sri so-and-so is worried.

Then this foolish doctor says, 'Oh, you are number one. Very good. The name of Lord Murugan will cure you. Thank you very much.

"Then he calls for number two, and he waits till the second patient is entering the room. 'Mr So-and-so may get mukti this life,' he says.

'"Very good. You are number two. The whole world is benefited if one soul gets liberated. Thank you very much.' Numbers three, four, five, etc. are dealt with in the same way.

"When all the twenty thought patients have come and gone, the doctor closes the room to the Heart and no one else is allowed to come inside. Now he is alone. Now there is time for Atma vichara. He asks himself, 'To whom have all these thoughts come?' Three times he slowly repeats the same question, along with the outgoing breaths. Then he, in that same slow manner, answers, 'To me, to me, to me'. 'Then who am I? Then who am I? Then who am I?' All questions and answers are repeated thrice, very, very slowly.

'"This "I" is not a thought. This "I" is not a thought. This "I" is not a thought.'

"'Then who is the receiver of the thought? Then who is the receiver of the thought? Then who is the receiver of the thought?'

"'"I" - "I" - "I"' Now the mind is centralised in the source itsel.

'"Then who am I? Then who am I? Then who am I?'

Now the breath comes to an end and the attention is concentrated 100% on the sound caused by the palpitation of the heart, as if the sound would give the answer to our questions. This is nothing but the pranava itself. If, during this time, the sakti which was static is converted to movements or becomes dynamic, then trance will occur. If the primal energy reaches the space between the eyebrows, savikalpa samadhi will occur. That is, God with form will be seen. If the energy rises up to the top of the head, nirvikalpa samadhi will occur, which is nothing but the Self itself.

"But you should also know that even if the doctor has closed the dispensary door, some patients may come and peep in through the window to complain about their ailments. At the beginning of Atma vichara the patients at the window are many. In the same way, although the door to the cave of the Heart is closed, some thoughts may occur at the time of dhyana. For example a thought may come: 'Mr Iyer's sushumna nadi has opened up.' Since the patient has not come at the proper time, the doctor doesn't attend to him. Instead, he continues the quest: 'To whom has the thought of Mr Iyer come?'

"To me, to me, to me.'

"Then who am I? - who am I? - who am I?'.

"Dearest 'S'. In all humility this fool has babbled something about how he tries to establish himself in the experience of ananda, which is no different from the Self itself..

"With all my love to you,     Ramanagiri in Him         Om".

After Bhagavan's Mahanirvana in April 1950 , Bhagavan appeared before Swami Ramanagiri in a vision and directed him to go and stay in the Sirumulai Hills, about twenty miles from Madurai. He spent most of his time there, continuing his practice of yoga and enquiry, and frequently became absorbed in ecstatic or blissful states, so much so that he had little awareness of his body or its needs. Of one experience he wrote:.

The whole night
Nothing but Fire, Light, Bliss and Pranava.
O Father! O Father! What happiness!
No thoughts, only the enjoyment and the enjoyer.
O Father! How near I was to losing myself
completely in Your embrace.
O Father, why do You turn me back to the state of mind
Where I suffer from thoughts and where I am tormented by an ego?

In a more sober and reflective mood he made the following assessment of the blissful states he was experiencing through his pranayama and Atma vichara:.

Bliss is not a product of fantasy, but the most convincing experience we are capable of. If this experience would be a product of the imagination, the hair would not stand on end, nor would tears of happiness come in streams from the eyes, nor would the nose start flowing, nor would there be any shivering of the body, the skin would not turn red-hot, and there would be no levitation of the body. How many times I have found the body at another place in the room after having enjoyed Mother's bliss? In padmasana the body is not capable of moving.

Swami Ramanagiri eventually contracted tuberculosis, a disease which claimed him at the young age of thirty-four, in 1955. He spent his final days in the Perundurai Sanatorium. Though his body was lean and emaciated, his spirits were high.

"It is the body which suffers," he told his visitors. "I am alright. Sakti is now stronger than ever before, and it is here [indicating the spot between the eyebrows]."

It was summer and mangoes were just beginning to appear. Accepting some as an offering, he alluded to his forthcoming death by saying, "I will eat a nice mango now, but it will become garbage tomorrow morning."

For more than an hour before his death he was completely withdrawn in a deep meditative state, with his hair standing on end. At the last moment he whispered, "Let us go," and he left his body, in true yogic fashion, through the fontanelle in the top of his head. Blood was seen to ooze out of a hole there.

During his brief stay in the Sirumulai Hills, Swami Ramanagiri had attracted a substantial following, although he always refused to take on a teaching role, saying that no such mission had been given to him by Bhagavan. His body was interred at the foot of the Sirumulai Hills at the place he had named Ramana Padam, and a Siva lingam was installed over his samadhi. Twice a year there are gatherings there to commemorate the day of his great experience with Bhagavan and the date of his final passing away. A poor feeding is conducted and crowds of over 2,000 assemble to pay homage to this foreign son of India.