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 |   As the first blog entry got exhausted. My second book |
| Evolution of Love Part 2 |
| "Immobility and silence are not inactive. The flower fills the space with perfume, the candle - with light. They do nothing yet they change everything by their mere presence. You can photograph the candle, but not its light. You can know the man, his name and appearance, but not his influence. His very presence is action." Nisargadatta, I Am That, Chapter 72 Ramana’s first Western devotee was F. H. Humphrys. He came to India in 1911 to take up a post in the Police service at Vellore. Given to the practice of occultism, he was in search of a Mahatma. His Telugu tutor introduced him to Ganapati Sastri, and Sastri took him to Ramana. The Englishman was greatly impressed. Writing about his first visit to the sage in the International Psychic Gazette, he said: "The Sastriar told me to look the Maharshi in the eyes, and not to turn my gaze. For half an hour I looked Him in the eyes, which never changed their expression of deep contemplation… I could only feel His body was not the man; it was the instrument of God, merely a sitting motionless corpse from which God was radiating terrifically. My own sensations were indescribable… He is a man beyond description in His expression of dignity, gentleness, self-control, and calm strength of conviction." Humphreys’ ideas of spirituality changed for the better as a result of his contact with Ramana. He repeated his visits to the sage and recorded his impressions in his letters to a friend in England that were published in the Gazette mentioned above. In one of them he wrote, “You can imagine nothing more beautiful than his smile.” And again, “It is strange what a change it makes in one to have been in his presence!” [http://www.sriramanamaharshi.org/ramana-maharshi/reminiscences/] Krishnamurti - The Reluctant Messiah, Chapter 6: After a delicious vegetarian dinner that evening, we went into the kitchen to help wash and dry the dishes, a chore that Krishnaji had imposed on himself to help the aging cook. Then we moved into the wood-paneled living room, where Krishnaji built a fire in the fireplace. Both of us sat on a couch, watching the fire without making a single comment. There is something wonderfully relaxing about dancing flames and crackling wood in a fireplace. Tonight, however, the psychic atmosphere in that charming old California bungalow, given to him by a friend, was not conducive to relaxation. The feeling was more like that generated by a giant dynamo. There was a powerful force concentrated there; it was almost physically palpable. It didn’t surprise me, though, for many times before I had felt it in Krishnaji’s presence, although never with such intensity. Krishnaji was one of those rare persons who could be perfectly relaxed in the company of another while completely silent, and I had visions of spending the whole evening with him just watching the fire wordlessly. I kept thinking about a remark he had once made to me, that he was like a deep well, out of which each person took as much of the quenching spiritual waters as he was capable of drinking. Unfortunately, the highly charged atmosphere tonight had a curious effect on me. Instead of sharpening my sensitivity, it dulled it. Perhaps I had eaten too much. Whatever the cause, my usually meager capacity to drink from the Well of Wisdom had diminished alarmingly. I simply wasn’t able to frame any kind of question appropriate to the occasion. At length, Krishnaji got up to stoke the fire. He turned and faced me, straight and austere, regal in appearance, a prince in faded Levi’s and worn cotton shirt, his expressive black eyes alight with a great fire. All at once, the veil of unawareness that had obscured my perceptions vanished. I felt entirely vulnerable. “What do you want out of life, Sidney?” “I’m not sure, Krishnaji. I thought I knew in Eerde, when I walked under the tall trees with you. I felt sure then that I could face any situation in life with serenity, confidence. I felt I would never lose that inspiration. Today, after battling with lawyers, bill collectors, and sitting for weeks in the witness chair in Superior Court, I feel like a truck had run over me.” “Forget about Eerde, what you felt and thought and did there. When you divide life between the beautiful woods of Eerde and the ugly business world of Los Angeles, you create a hopeless conflict. You long for a memory and fight the reality of your life now.” “You’re telling me to fully accept my present situation, without complaining.” “No, to accept is an attitude of the mind. To understand is to see, to perceive at the deepest level, and be free.” “I understand and perceive this, Krishnaji. That I am unhappy, in pain, frustrated. A life without conflict, such as you talk about, seems to me, at this point in my life, totally out of reach.” “It’s really easy,” he said casually. “But you complicate things. You don’t let Life paint the picture. You insist on doing it your own way.” “You’re a spiritual genius, Krishnaji. Most of us don’t have any particular talent in that respect.” “No, no,” he protested. “That’s just an excuse for not facing yourself. The very fact that you are here with me now shows you have the potential.” “I thought I did a while back,” I said, thinking of the great joyous laughter I had experienced. “It’s gone now. That’s the sad part of all this. You have moments when you think you’ve made a breakthrough, then the next day you’re in the soup again. Men like Walt Whitman and Edward Carpenter spoke about moments of great illumination, but they lost it, all but the memory of it.” “They tried to hang on to it,” said Krishnaji, as if he were well acquainted with the lives of these great mystics. “They didn’t let it come to them.” “Are you in constant touch with the reality you call Liberation?” “There’s no separation,” he said. Then, after a moment: “I am an example. I have cleaned the slate. Life paints the picture.” There was a long silence. The fire crackled in the fireplace; the wind whistled in the orange grove. Then Krishnaji spoke about a subject we had often discussed before: the importance of being a spiritual aristocrat, which he obviously was to his fingertips, of totally rejecting the deadening mediocrity which engulfed the world, of abandoning oneself to that great spiritual adventure which is unique to every person. “You have had great teachers,” I said. “You have reportedly taken several initiations and have been especially trained and guided for your role as World Teacher. Is it reasonable to expect that we who have not had any of these advantages can attain what you have discovered?” “I took the long road to find the simple Union. And because of that, because I have attained, you too can find the simple Union.” I had quickly scribbled some notes, which Krishnaji thought useless. We talked some more and then Krishnaji picked up his big Mexican hat and sauntered out, advising me to go to bed early, that I needed the rest. But that would prove a difficult task. I went over my notes and expanded them, then glanced at some of the interesting books on the living room shelves. My mind was racing; there was no possibility of sleep. I went out for a walk, but quickly returned because of the evening chill. Arya Vihara is a spooky place at night. I had been told that Dr. Besant had magnetically sealed off the place to keep “uninvited astral entities” from loitering on the premises. But the fact was that the night noises here were scary. No doubt they were caused by the expanding of the wood in the daytime with the heat, and the contracting of it with the evening chill. The effect, however, was disturbing. On top of it was the great force generated by Krishnaji, which did not leave with him. The house still felt like the central dynamo of a power plant. I went to bed, closed my eyes and tried to go to sleep. Impossible. The creaking, thumping, bumping noises no longer bothered me. It was that inescapable, pervading, challenging power that filled the house which I seemed unable to adjust to. At about three in the morning, without a wink of sleep, I could no longer cope with what a friend of mine had called “Krishnaji’s roaring kundalini." I got dressed and went out for a long walk. The sun was peeking over Topa Topa when I returned. I had walked miles, but I was so filled with the restless energy I had “caught” at Arya Vihara that I felt I could have walked back to Hollywood. |
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Thanks for sharing.