When UG met Ramana

shvu · October 19, 2001

Most people here will not be interested in this piece. I found it interesing when I first read it, and this is just in case, someone here may find it of interest. This was spoken by UG, when someone asked him to narrate his life story. He was 21 years old, at that time.

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Then somebody came along, and we were discussing all these things. He found me practically an atheist (but not a practicing atheist), skeptical of everything, heretical down to my boots. He said "There is one man here, somewhere in Madras at Tiruvannamalai, called Ramana Maharshi. Come on, let's go and see that man. Here is a living human embodiment of the Hindu tradition."

I didn't want to see any holy man. If you have seen one, you have seen them all. I never shopped around, went around searching for people, sitting at the feet of the masters, learning something; because everybody tells you "Do more and more of the same thing, and you will get it." What I got were more and more experiences, and then those experiences demanded permanence -- and there is no such thing as permanence. So, "The holy men are all phonies -- they are telling me only what is there in the books. That I can read -- 'Do the same again and again' -- that I don't want. Experiences I don't want. They are trying to share an experience with me. I'm not interested in experience. As far as experience goes, for me there is no difference between the religious experience and the sex experience or any other experience; the religious experience is like any other experience. I am not interested in experiencing Brahman; I am not interested in experiencing reality; I am not interested in experiencing truth. They might help others; but they cannot help me. I'm not interested in doing more of the same; what I have done is enough. At school if you want to solve a mathematical problem, you repeat it again and again -- you solve the mathematical problem, and you discover that the answer is in the problem. So, what the hell are you doing, trying to solve the problem? It is easier to find the answer first instead of going through all this."

So, reluctantly, hesitatingly, unwilling, I went to see Ramana Maharshi. That fellow dragged me. He said "Go there once. Something will happen to you." He talked about it and gave me a book, Search in Secret India by Paul Brunton, so I read the chapter relating to this man -- "All right, I don't mind, let me go and see." That man was sitting there. From his very presence I felt "What! This man -- how can he help me? This fellow who is reading comic strips, cutting vegetables, playing with this, that or the other -- how can this man help me? He can't help me." Anyway, I sat there. Nothing happened; I looked at him, and he looked at me. "In his presence you feel silent, your questions disappear, his look changes you" -- all that remained a story, fancy stuff to me. I sat there. There were a lot of questions inside, silly questions -- so, "The questions have not disappeared. I have been sitting here for two hours, and the questions are still there. All right, let me ask him some questions" -- because at that time I very much wanted moksha. This part of my background, moksha, I wanted. "You are supposed to be a liberated man" -- I didn't say that. "Can you give me what you have?" -- I asked him this question, but that man didn't answer, so after some lapse of time I repeated that question -- "I am asking 'Whatever you have, can you give it to me?'" He said, "I can give you, but can you take it?" Boy! For the first time this fellow says that he has something and that I can't take it. Nobody before had said "I can give you," but this man said "I can give you, but can you take it?" Then I said to myself "If there is any individual in this world who can take it, it is me, because I have done so much sadhana, seven years of sadhana. He can think that I can't take it, but I can take it. If I can't take it, who can take it?" -- that was my frame of mind at the time -- you know, (laughs) I was so confident of myself.

I didn't stay with him, I didn't read any of his books, so I asked him a few more questions: "Can one be free sometimes and not free sometimes?" He said "Either you are free, or you are not free at all." There was another question which I don't remember. He answered in a very strange way: "There are no steps leading you to that." But I ignored all these things. These questions didn't matter to me -- the answers didn't interest me at all.

But this question "Can you take it?" ... "How arrogant he is!" -- that was my feeling. "Why can't I take it, whatever it is? What is it that he has?" -- that was my question, a natural question. So, the question formulated itself: "What is that state that all those people -- Buddha, Jesus and the whole gang -- were in? Ramana is in that state -- supposed to be, I don't know -- but that chap is like me, a human being. How is he different from me? What others say or what he is saying is of no importance to me; anybody can do what he is doing. What is there? He can't be very much different from me. He was also born from parents. He has his own particular ideas about the whole business. Some people say something happened to him, but how is he different from me? What is there: What is that state?" -- that was my fundamental question, the basic question -- that went on and on and on. "I must find out what that state is. Nobody can give that state; I am on my own. I have to go on this uncharted sea without a compass, without a boat, with not even a raft to take me. I am going to find out for myself what the state is in which that man is." I wanted that very much, otherwise I wouldn't have given my life.

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Cheers

talasiga · October 19, 2001

Originally posted by shvu:

........... I am not interested in experiencing Brahman; I am not interested in experiencing reality; I am not interested in experiencing truth.........

Here is an excerpt from a very long quote

that Shvu has provided. Here we have someone

who purportedly is not at all interested in

experience

but spends a lot of time talking about it.

Is this analogous to an atheist who denies the Divine

with every God given breath ?

Jahnava Nitai Das · October 19, 2001

It is very funny to read UG's statements. He says things like, I asked a question, but didn't care to listen to the answer... I really wasn't even interested in seeing this guy... he said something, but I didn't pay attention because they are all the same, aren't they? Talk about a blind believer.

Jahnava Nitai Das · October 19, 2001

Oh yeah, my own 2 cents worth opinion on UG is that he was just a confused person who liked to talk and have people listen to him. He enjoyed to have the followings that he criticized the swami's for having. Just a simple case of envy. But the difference is the swamis he was criticizing were detached from matter, fame, and enjoyment whereas he was attached to it.