Sri Guru Ramana Prasadam
This is the expanded and retranslated edition of the book that previously appeared as Non-Dual Consciousness, The Flood Tide of Bliss. The original English version was published in the 1990s by the Ramana Maharshi Centre for Learning, Bangalore. This new edition contains over 1,000 verses by Muruganar, originally published in Tamil under the title Sri Ramana Anubhuti, most of which describe his experience of the Self and the gratitude he feels towards Ramana Maharshi for revealing this state to him. The book also contains a number of teaching verses in which Muruganar summarises key aspects of Ramana Maharshi’s teachings.
After Robert had completed his translation, I arranged for the book to be printed in Pondicherry. I then took a copy to the president of Ramanasramam, Sri V. S. Ramanan, and asked if he wanted to sell it in the Ramanasramam Book Depot. He was delighted to see the book and, sight unseen, ordered almost the entire print run. Unfortunately, it sold few copies there and spent several years in a neglected corner of the book shop where slow-moving titles were offered at a discount. One reason I am featuring this title on the site is that I firmly believe it is one of the undiscovered gems of Ramana literature, and that given some exposure it will find a wider audience among devotees who value authentic records of Bhagavan’s teachings and the liberating experiences that devotees had with him.
The book can be ordered here. Here is an excerpt:
The Nature of the Guru
417
Even as I grieved, thinking thoughts I should not think, he became my Lord, spreading his radiance within my heart so that I tasted the sweet nectar of his bliss. He is the ambrosial one who delights my eyes with his form that is pure consciousness. He is Mount Annamalai’s exalted Guru Ramana.
418
He is the Ancient One who prospers in his powerful natural state of mauna, untroubled by questions of ‘where’ and ‘when’. He is the Wondrous One who, established in the glorious radiance of the supreme reality, banishes the mental creations that manifest as space and time.
419
He who dispelled my dullness of mind with the powerful rays of his radiant grace is none other than the Self’s bright Sun, infinite and supreme, who reduced to ashes the impediment of my threefold body.
420
Heart, he neither separates from nor merges with you. He is the lofty one, the reality that is Brahman. Great and small, unaffected by the threefold divisions [knower, known and knowledge, God, the soul and the world etc.], he is eternally liberated and all-transcending. He is the witness, the supreme source of consciousness’ light. He is pure space. He is your husband and protector.
The Glory of the Guru’s Feet
421
Manifesting as the vast all-transcending supreme reality that reveals the truth, so that the false dream of the deluded senses is destroyed, they are the holy feet of Lord Siva, which for those desirous of salvation are the path that leads to final liberation.
422
Through the path of his grace that even the gods cannot know, he came as a Teacher, in a form knowable to the senses and easily accessible to the hearts of men, setting upon the earth those holy feet that shine like bright jewels set in wisdom’s dawn.
422
The world that is perceived through the five senses is like a fiction played out in space and time. For the perplexed souls of men the only salvation is to follow the feet of the Slayer of Death, he whose nature is pure and limitless intelligence.
423
He is the fair husband, the virtuous one. He shines with jnana, the light of the Self, the core of the real. He is pure space. He is the holy bridegroom. He is the Lord whose holy feet are placed upon the heads of the Vedas themselves. And it is those same feet that dwell within my heart as the ultimate reality!
425
If you ask what it was that, as pure consciousness, took the soul of this devotee as its dwelling place, granting me that realisation which never fails – it was the feet of Sri Ramana who reigns as the divine king in the consummate state of final absorption in Brahman.
426
As soon as I had I obtained the blessing of approaching, as a devoted servant, those golden feet which shimmer like perfect, whole gems, the abundant sufferings caused by the ties of kinship and family ceased and took their leave, never to return again.
427
The moment he placed upon my head those compassionate feet that allay the suffering of his devoted servants – so that the mark of destiny is wiped from their brows – the seeds of defilement withered and died within me and the torment within my heart was fully assuaged.
429
The great excellence of his holy feet, which illuminate the hearts of those who have attained equanimity, is that they have brought me to the verdant mountain shore of liberation, and through their grace I have escaped the waves of the ocean of rebirth.
430
The direct experience of the one Self engulfed me in its radiance, banishing the misery of birth that cloaked my soul in darkness. There then remained in my consciousness no landmark whatsoever other than my teacher’s feet – the infinite sky of his grace – subjecting me to their gracious rule and dispelling my fears.
431
The lotus flowers of his feet sprang up within my heart and shone there as the witness, so that I retained no connection whatsoever with anything else. Now I can perceive nothing other than those feet that are the Self whose nature is the highest knowledge.
The Majesty of the Guru
432
He is the wisest of sages, the Primal Being who imparts clear understanding so that the sense of doership is removed from our actions. He is the unique Master who through his gracious bearing afforded me his blissful compassion so that I suffered no more.
433
The great and noble Ramana, flower of the Saivite faith, in whom the powerful light of jnana, the diamond of truth, shines forth, is the Mountain Teacher, who in grace entirely destroyed the antics of false Kama.
434
He is the Lord, the immaculate reality, suffusing the inner stillness where thoughts no longer arise with the pure light of his grace. Dwelling as the Self in the form of the shining Guru, he shattered the darkness that enveloped this world.