Ramana Maharshi Discussion

Meditationtime Forum Post

Date:  Posted 3 years before Apr 04, 2016

 

MiBeloved 3 years ago

From LinkedIn Yoga and Meditation forum:

 

Von’s post:

"Why are you so attached to this body?

 

"Why are you so attached to this body? Let it go" and, "Where can I go? I am here."

 

In reality life is death and death is life.

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi made such a profound statement at the time of his pass over.

We all know that he could cure his body if he really wanted to, but he could care less. In truth he was more spiritual than physical anyway all his life.

 

All medicine was tried on Sri Ramana Maharshi, but all proved fruitless and were stopped by the end of March when devotees gave up all hope.

 

To devotees who begged him to cure himself for the sake of his followers, Sri Ramana is said to have replied, "Why are you so attached to this body? Let it go" and, "Where can I go? I am here."

 

Any comments?

 

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Alfredo Replied:

 

Von!

 

Thanks for the new thread. As usual, well-selected and sure to bring gratifying spiritual discussions.

 

As an admirer of Ramana Maharshi, I am well acquainted with his life. I was at his asrama last December and enjoy the spiritual atmosphere there and Arunachala hill as no other in India. It is a very unique place.

 

As you well said Ramana Maharshi was more spiritual than physical all his life. Alas, he was like an alien, someone who came here with a purpose from a very rarified and spiritually pure atmosphere. He came just to testify about the state of the Jnani, about the possibility of the Jivanmukta (realized while alive). Not so much to change things dynamically, like Sri Aurobindo for example, but to be a witness to the powers of the static nature of the Brahman.

 

However, it is not clear to me whether he could have cured himself from the cancer he had on his arm.

 

At least he never indicated he could. From day one he stated that this was part of his Prarabdha Karma that was still unwinding, and asked his devotees (among them his brother, the Sardikari of the asrama) to let nature run its course. He submitted to surgery of the tumor only because of their insistence, and when the tumor returned and they wanted to amputate the arm, he was firm and allowed nature to run its course. He was totally fearless all his life, and that included no fear of death.

 

He was also, by the time he passed away, almost crippled by arthritis, and walked with difficulty, the result of those months in his early life in bliss in a damp cellar of Arunachaleswara temple.

 

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MiBeloved’s Response:

 

So long as the devotee or disciple of a realized spiritual master does not have developed psychic perception, that person must rely on the physical presence of the guru. The only way for the guru to have physical register is to take a material body in the dimension where that devotee or disciple exists.

 

Even though the maharshi spoke like this, the actual fact is that he was unable to impart such psychic vision to certain of his disciples or he was unable to give that person the impetus to develop that psychic perception. This failure is there in the history of many of these gurus.

 

Jesus Christ for instance during his life was unable to give the insight to Peter, a very dear disciple of his. Lord Krishna succeeded in giving the insight to Arjuna on the battlefield and not even in a meditative states but just like that in a crisis situation, but then Arjuna lost the perception and begged unsuccessfully for it again in the Anu Gita after the war.

 

As for the idea that the Guruji could cure his body, that is a relative and not an absolute statement because no person, not even God not even Krishna or Shiva can change material nature and make it what it is not which is impermanent. In the Bhagavad Gita Krishna admitted that material nature is endlessly mutable and cannot endure. He never said that he would make it otherwise and no other guru can do so if Krishna cannot do it.

 

Jesus Christ himself, lord that he is, was able to raise Lazarus from the dead as the scripture tells us. But where is Lazarus today?

 

The Christians say that Jesus resurrected his material body and transmuted it, and a great modern yogi, Sri Paramahansa Yogananda also toyed with that idea and even gave the impression that he would do something like that, but that does not make any sense.

 

If in fact as the Christians say that Jesus Christ remanufactured his perishable body which he got from Mary and Joseph, then the question is: What sort of body did he have with the father in heaven before that? When in Genesis, it says that God said, ‘Let Us Create’, who was God talking to? Supposedly, according to St. John, Jesus was there in the beginning as the Word with God, as the Logos.

 

Okay, then if we accept that at face value, if we stop being critical and reactionary to that, then it leaves us with an enigma as to why this person, who is such an integral part of the Godhead, has to come down into a material body and then has to spiritualize that material form.

 

The whole thing is ridiculous because if he has a divine body and had it from all eternity, as person Godhead, then what is the need for him to make a perishable body an imperishable one. The whole thing is stupid.

 

There is no need to state that Ramana Maharshi could have healed his body, because in the first place he would not have kept it forever any more than Jesus could have revived Lazarus and keep Lazarus’ material body alive forever.

 

The first issue is our lack of psychic perception. The second issue is the lack of power of Ramana, Paramhamsa Yogananda and others to award it to us or to cause us to develop it in ourselves. This is what is under this whole incidence.

 

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In the early 1970’s I used to go to Ramana Maharshi’s place in India, to Arunachala. This is on the astral side of the place. I never went there physically. I used to sit by him and listen to his discourses on the astral side. He was a cool yogi, very accomplished and downright hostile to spiritual ignorance.

 

But later on when I used to see him around the year 2000, he said this to me, “Boy, what you are doing is fine. Keep up with it. Let people focus on Gita. That is the one thing I did not do. I did not support the importance of Lord Krishna. All else is in vain.”

 

He always looked at me the way a father looks at an infant son and I appreciated that relationship. He never fed me any of that stuff about no person, oneness and so on, even though that was his main rap.

 

In a group of sadhus, if I would meet him in the astral, he would point to me and say, ‘You stay on this side. You are just a boy. Come over here. You can understand this stuff.” So like that I always got that son relationship with him.

 

He was trying to explain to people that the identity of the personal self is not reliant on social settings in the material world, that it was independent of that.

 

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I will tell you another thing about him Von, since you seem to have a sincere allegiance to him. This is very important, listen to it carefully.

 

Once privately when I was with him on an astral plane, he had a kamandalu which is a little clay pot for water. This is carried by certain yogis in certain astral levels of existence. He only had a loin cloth on and nothing else. His astral body was like that of a young man of about 18 years of age. His skin was smooth like finely-sift clay smooth over when it is wet. His eyes sparkled.

 

So I was with him as a little boy by his side, using an infant astral body. So I spoke to him. I said, ‘Father, how is it that you tell them that they are God when in fact, they cannot even match up to being decent human beings? Why suggest that they are identity-less, when in fact they cannot function except through identity?’

 

He looked at me and then touched my head, and at once I was transmitted into the state of Brahman, in an identity-less splitting-white-light which was all pervasive. It is the state from which the Vedic Rishis of the Upanishad era wrote down mantras like Tat Tvam Asi and Aham Brahmasmi.

 

In that state all impressions and utilities of identity as we know it in this material world and in the astral world which is related to this world, vanishes. One is there but there is no where to place one’s foot, there is no reliance on anything. That is endless, up and down, right and left and so on, in an omni-directional sense. There is an infinity of identity-less identities all clustered together like particles of light stuffed tightly near a billion trillion trillion particles of light. In that state of Sat one is aware (chit) and one is in bliss (ananda). It is an endless place, where one cannot tell where one begins or ends nor where anyone else who is there begins or ends.

 

When I came back to where we were and I could see him again. He was smiling and so was I.

 

I understood then that this was what he was trying to impart.

 

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So yes, he was saying that people are God but the meaning of that word is not the same for him as it is for others and the assumptions people make about it is very misleading. It does not mean that they are the Supreme Person or that there is no Supreme Person. It only means that they are of the nature and value of the Supreme Energy and that their identity otherwise is a mock up, a sort of garment over a garment, shirt over a skin. All applications of identity on this side of the existential border are for utility here only and should not be taken to be absolute.

 

But he was unable to impart this and that itself, tells of our predicament. So then what happens?

 

Then we take to a statement about being absolute even though we are not realized in it.

           

Jettins 3 years ago

Long post, but it felt quick because it was very interesting. I have several questions, but it might be better I do some research first.

           

Alfredo 3 years ago

Michael: Did you know Avadhuta Maharaj from before (apparently he is called SRILA BHAKTI VIRAHA AVADHUTA MAHARAJ)?

           

MiBeloved 3 years ago

Alfredo,

 

I do not know him personally. I guessed he is from ISKCON because of his types of replies which are stereotype replies from that lineage. I am in the lineage but my stuff does not toe their line and they are against that and will make every effort to wipe anything like my books from the face of the earth.

 

He may also be from a parallel sampradaya to ISKCON which is from the Gaudiya Math tradition.

           

Alfredo 3 years ago

Man, you guessed right...as usual.

 

He is apparently originally from Venezuela, originally ISKCON, now in parallel sampradaya. You took him to task big time.

           

MiBeloved 3 years ago

Krishna is not the property of any Sampradaya. Krishna is the Supreme Being and if anyone has freedom then it is Krishna.

 

Krishna is not limited to the Vaishnava Sampradayas.

 

What happened is that Srila Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, His Divine Grace, was the one to bring the Gaudiya Math system out of India big time. But he was not the first to bring it out. He was however the first to do it big time.

 

So after his society had problems after his demise, many of his disciples left and went to Sridhara Maharaj, his Godbrother who held the reins of the Gaudiya Math, their spiritual master's organization in India.

 

Then later some other disciples of Bhaktivedanta also went to Narayana Maharaj of the same lineage in India.

 

Each of these societies have gripes against the other for one reason or the other, but overall the approach is the same.

 

I am from the Sampradaya undoubtedly but I am not a yes man to anything unless I am living under their roof because then you have no choice in the matter.

 

They are against yoga, against the ashtanga yoga system and it is banned in their institutions and on their premises. They try to say that Krishna' is against yoga but there is no real evidence for that in the Bhagavad Gita or in the Uddhava Gita. It is however a fact that it is Lord Chaitanya's example that one should not practice yoga and he did not like anyone to do it.

 

They feel that no one should take shelter in Krishna's advocacy of ashtanga yoga but should only take shelter in Lord Chaitanya's instructions about the holy name as the only process of salvation for this Kali Era.

 

Avadhuta tried to say that my translation speaks for the limited living entity being the same as Krishna but there is not a single line in any of my books which states such a crazy thing.

 

However that is the mood of the sampradaya, one of we and them, us and our opponents, the mayavadis, and so he is just doing what he was trained to do.

 

Since I have done commentaries and translations outside of the authority of the sampradaya, they feel their duty is to crush me. That is the way the sampradaya operates.

 

He does not know my history in the sampradaya and so he is actually barking up the wrong tree, because I am even more for Krishna then he is and I will fight for Krishna even more than he would even though he has Maharaj tacked on to his name.

 

But I won't fight for Krishna by deleting and understating Krishna's recommendations for ashtanga yoga. That I will never agree to do.

           

Alfredo 3 years ago

Michael Wrote: [Avadhuta tried to say that my translation speaks for the limited living entity being the same as Krishna but there is not a single line in any of my books which states such a crazy thing.]

 

Alfredo’s Reply:

In his previous post he said that. He said: In other words we are all part of Krishna. Just like the rays of the sun are part of the Sun. We are equal is quality with Krishna. He is the whole and we are the parts of the whole.

 

However in his last post he seems to come closer to you when he stated:

The soul is eternally a separated part. The part can never become equal to the whole. Krishna has spoken this verse just to amplify the dichotomy of the infinitesimal soul and the infinite Supreme Soul. If there was equality of the Lord and His parts then the real meaning of the Bhagavad Gita is lost. The 'jiva' or small parts are ever existent as minute-expansions.

           

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Michael:

 

Now, I just finished your book "Krishna Cosmic Body" and I am confused.

 

Who is Krishna finally? What is his relationship to Brahma and Vishnu, mainly, and even Shiva?

 

What is Vishnu/Krishna relationship to Narayana?

 

What is all of them relationship with Brahman?

 

What is the Supreme Person?

 

Krishna as a person who existed in flesh and blood, was He the avatar mentioned in the Hindu Vishnu Puranas?