Sri Ramana. I now know this 'I'.

[Guest guest]

When Ramana was twelve years old, in 1892, his father Sundaram Iyer died. On the

day of cremation, for several hours Ramana enquired into the meaning of life and

death. Paul Brunton has recorded what Ramana told him and about his enquiry on

that tragic day.

 

"On the day his father died he felt puzzled by death and pondered over it,

whilst his mother and brothers wept. He thought for hours and after the corpse

was cremated he got by analysis to the point of perceiving that it was the 'I'

which makes the body to see, to run, to walk and to eat. 'I now know this 'I'

but my father's 'I' has left the body.

 

Quite obviously the constant awareness of Arunachala-Siva in his heart was

cutting at the illusion of a separate individuality, his ego sense. One can say

that his was an indication of the things to come, a fore runner of his

enlightenment, which was to happen four year later at Madurai.

 

A snip from Timeless in Time by Natarajan