Sri Ramana Maharshi was one of the first Indian masters to be sought out by Westerners, introduced to them by Paul Brunton in his 1934 book, A Search in Secret India. Brunton, in meeting Sri Ramana, was able to ask his all-consuming question: if it was possible for him, Brunton, to achieve enlightenment. 

Sri Ramana replied, "You say I. 'I want to know.' Tell me, who is that I?" 

Brunton is nonplussed, does not understand the question. Finally, he points to himself and mentions his name. 

Sri Ramana replies, "And do you know him?"

"All my life!" I smile back at him.

"But that is only your body! Again I ask, 'Who are you?'... Know first that I and then you shall know the truth." 

Sri Ramana Maharshi's entire teaching can be summed up with this query: 'Who am I?' He found his own enlightenment when, at the age of 16 and overcome by 'a sudden violent fear of death,' he asked himself the question, if I die, who is it that dies? and suddenly knew himself as that which lives on after the body dies, that spirit which transcends death. From that time forward he spent his time absorbed in solitary self-appraisal and eventually he came to teach, though mostly in silence, disciples and students gathering around him and forming an ashram in his name in Tiruvannamalai in Tamil Nadu, South India, in the shadow of the sacred mountain, Arunachala. When his name became known via Brunton's writings he was visited by many from the West, from Hollywood and from the highest reaches of Western society, including W. Somerset Maugham who based a character on Sri Ramana in his final novel, The Razor's Edge.

In his talks with Paul Brunton, Sri Ramana  instructs him to meditate each day, and during the times he is not meditating to perform his duties keeping alive 'that current induced during meditation,' in this way keeping oneself working on self-realization at all times, and always asking the question, 'Who am I?' by which one begins 'to perceive that neither the body nor the brain nor the desires are really you.' Eventually in this way the answer will come to you 'out of the depths of your own being.'

There is much to be gained by a study of the teachings of Sri Ramana. To read books like this, from an enlightened master and from someone who has been affected by him, is a way for us to support our practice of meditation and of seeking to know ourselves truly. Meditation each day, consciously being present in our work, asking ourselves who we are, what we are, what would make us happy, knowing that the self behind our thoughts is the true Self and which is at one with the All--there is no distinction between these teachings and those in our tradition of Vedic meditation.

"The sense of 'I' pertains to the person, the body and brain... When a man knows his true self for the first time, something else arises from the depths of his being and takes possession of him. That something is behind the mind; it is infinite, divine, eternal. Some people call it the kingdom of heaven, others call it the soul, still others name it Nirvana, and we Hindus call it Liberation; you may give it what name you wish. When this happens a man has not really lost himself; rather, he has found himself."

When we sit in meditation, we settle down through the layers of ourself, de-exciting until we contact the place of pure Being within. Here we are touching upon the experience that Sri Ramana describes above. With this amazingly simple mental technique we have been given the capacity again and again to experience the truth of ourselves, the truth of life. Men and women throughout the ages have longed for just such a gift. I think of my life before I found this meditation, and I think of my life today. There is no way I even can imagine trading this life for that. It is unthinkable. For this practice and for all the teachers through whom it has passed to find its way to me I say thank you.

"Know the real self, and then the truth will shine forth within your heart like sunshine. The mind will become untroubled and real happiness will flood it, for happiness and the true self are identical. You will have no more doubts once you attain this self-awareness."

  All quotations are from A Search in Secret India by Paul Brunton

Today I will find gratitude for everything and everyone that tends me in the direction of the Divine. 

Arunachala, The Holy Mountain, Tirruvanamalai, Tamil Nadu, South India