Preface
Sri Ramana Maharshi is well known wherever there is a longing for a life of Wisdom and Love, of inner Freedom. The Sage of Arunachala was an embodiment of such a higher life and a living proof that the longing for the highest Truth is no escapism for weaklings from hard facts to soft dreams, but the entrance to true Reality.
Sri Ramana Maharshi and his message need neither backing nor propaganda; they have found their silent way all over the world to those hearts that were ripe and ready for them. However, for the Centenary of the Master’s birthday we wanted to bring out something which will show that the Secret of the Sage of Arunachala is not at all exhausted, but that still again and again new perspectives are opening themselves to the searching soul.
In the auspicious atmosphere of the Sacred Hill things seem to arrange themselves. Thus, it happened that V. Ganesan, M.A., made the suggestion, the German authoress Lucy Cornelssen, resident of Sri Ramanasramam, provided the material. Prof. K. Swaminathan and Sri Viswanatha Swami were kind enough to go through the typescript and offer useful suggestions, and Jim Grant, a young Amercian devotee, took great care in touching up the representation.
So… where is ‘the doer’? … …
‘Hunting the I’ goes out to the public as a small example of the great Truth: Things happen; men are merely means, to make them happen …
May the blessings of the Star of Arunachala go with this humble gift to the reader!
PUBLISHER
SRI RAMANASRAMAM, 1991
CONTENTS
Contents
I The Lone Star
To view Chidambaram, to be born in Tiruvarur, to die in Benaras, or merely to think of Arunachala is to be assured of Liberation. (Talks, 448)
- The Setting
- The Sage
II Hunting the ‘I’
‘What is the use of Self-Realisation?’
“Why should you seek Self-Realisation? Why do you not rest content with your present state? It is evident that you are discontent with the present state. This discontent is at an end if you realise the Self.” (Talks, 487)
- Investigation
- Meditation
- Obstacles and Pitfalls
III Maya
Maya is that which makes us regard as non-existent the Self, the Reality, which is always and everywhere present and all-pervasive and self-luminous, and as existent the individual soul, the world and God, which have been conclusively proved to be non-existent at all times and places. (Spiritual Instruction.)
- The Snake in the Rope
- On Gurus, Siddhis and Sannyasa
IV The Voice of Nature
….. to think is not your real nature. (Talks 184).
- The Birth of Man
- I and God
V Awakening
Vichara, investigation, is the process and the goal also. ‘I am’ is the goal and the final Reality. To hold on to it with effort is Vichara. When spontaneous and natural it is Realisation. (Talks, 390).
- Return to the Source
- Thus Spake Ramana