Sri Ramana Maharshi
On 30th December 1879 a child named Venkataraman was born to Sundaram Aiyar (father) and Alagammal (Mother) in the village of Tiruchuli, 30 miles south of Madurai, in the southern state of Tamil Nadu in India. This boy was destined to be later called as the sage Ramana Maharshi.
However growing up there was nothing unusual or distinctive about the boy. He grew up like any other kid and went to school like other kids of his age. At the age of 12 his father died and this required the family to move from the village into the town of Madurai to be with a paternal uncle.
Though highly intelligent and blessed with a powerful memory, he was an indifferent student with nothing notable about his academic performance. He was a strong and healthy lad and his classmates were afraid of his strength. No one dare mess with him. The only notable thing about this lad was that he had an unusually deep sleep. He could be carried in his sleep, or even mishandled, without his waking up or his sleep being disturbed.
One day a relative was visiting when Venkataraman was about 16 years old. When he learnt that his relative was from a place called “Arunachala” it was as if the name cast a spell on him. This was the first time Venkataraman realized that he had some kind of connection with this place called Arunachala.
Shortly after this incident Venkataraman came across some religious texts that aroused his intense curiosity and excitement. It was as if these texts awakened within him his deeper spiritual tendencies.
One day in 1986 when he was not quite seventeen, and was sitting alone on the second floor of his uncle’s house, when a sudden and overwhelming fear of death came over him. He was sure he was going to die. The feeling of his imminent demise however did not unnerve him. He calmly lay on the ground and stretched out his limbs, holding them stiff, as if rigor-mortis had set in. A wave of realization soon hit him and he came to a deep realization that he was not his mind-body. The fear of death vanished forever from his life. Venkataraman found that from now on he was on a higher spiritual plane than normal and his life was forever changed. Somehow Venkataraman had stumbled into a kind of “self-awakening”, a process that normally is difficult for most of us even under the guidance of an expert Guru. From now on nothing that he had valued earlier mattered. School, friends, relatives, nothing of this mattered to him anymore. All he was concerned about was all things spiritual. He would go to the temple everyday and be so moved by the images of saints and gods that tears would flow freely. He now avoided company and instead preferred to sit alone and meditate. Continue reading
