Ramana Guides A Layman

Ramana Maharshi

oi-Staff

By Staff

Wednesday, September 16, 2009, 11:51

Bhagavan Ramana provided spiritual guidance to all seekers who flocked at His feet according to their spiritual maturity. The read and unread both thronged at the master's presence for spiritual progress. Though the master directed the questioners to Self enquiry, the way He resorted to guide was varied according to the seeker's calibre.

Once a man who was ignorant in spiritual knowledge spent about two to three days in the ashram and left to find food and shelter elsewhere in accordance with the saying in the scriptures of eating in choultries and sleeping in mutts. However the magnetic pull of the master did not spare him, that he visited the ashram to bask in Ramana's presence everyday. On the day of his departure, he humbly approached Bhagavan and said "Swami people sitting here are always asking you questions and you enlighten them with your replies. When I see that, I too feel tempted but I do not know how to ask you. How can I get Mukti?"

Ramana in His all endearing manner asked the lay man "How do you know that you do not know?"

The questioner replied that "By the questions that people put forward to you, and seeing you pleased in replying to them, the feeling that I do not know anything has overcome me" Ramana said, that nothing more was required and the understanding was suffice. The man was however not satisfied by Bhagavan's reply. He doubted if the understanding was sufficient for Mukti, or liberation. Bhagavan then clarified, "There is someone who knows that you do not know anything. It is enough if you can enquire and find out who that knower (someone) is.

Ramna further said, the ego would only be enhanced by thinking that one actually knows. It is therefore better to know that one is ignorant and proceeds to enquire as to how one can gain moksha.

The man, convinced by Bhagavan's words , went his way happily.

Bhagavan thus guided one and all who came to find their way to liberation accordingly.

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