Venkataraman (later Sri Ramana Maharshi) was born on December 30, 1879, at Tiruchuzhi, a small, obscure village in Tamil Nadu, some thirty miles from Madurai and eighteen miles from Virudhunagar, the nearest railway station. It was the day of Ardra Darshan. This festival celebrates that ancient, eternal moment when Lord Arunachala Shiva appeared from a primordial, infinite, fiery pillar of light to destroy the egos of warring gods and give them enlightenment. At midnight on this auspicious day, just as the idol of Shiva returned to Tiruchuzhi’s legendary Bhoominatheshwara temple, a wail of an infant was heard in a humble home on its northern street. Mother Azhagammal had just given birth to a baby boy. A baby boy who, in time, would be known the world over as Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi. Named Venkataraman as a child, the history of Bhagavan proves that the aspects of fire and light were very important throughout his life. His mother conceived many times. However, it was only when she was bearing Bhagavan that she had a burning feeling in her stomach. To soothe it, a traditional paste of neem and bilva leaves had to be applied daily on her stomach. Later, when the child was born, the blind midwife saw a brilliant light.

Venkataraman’s mother Azhagammal was a pious, devoted person; his father, Sundaram Ayyar, was a leader who practised primarily before the local magistrate. Venkataraman had a brother, two years his senior. His other brother and his sister were both younger than him by a few years. They were a happy, well-to-do middle-class family.

Endowed with a more robust constitution than most of his classmates and with a spirit of independence that marked him off from other students, Venkatraman found school games and outdoor life more agreeable than studies and reading books. Bhagavan was very well built with a powerful physique, and an excellent swimmer, football player, and wrestler. He never had a headache, stomach ache, or any ailment – so robust was his body. However, he was prone to abnormally deep sleep. Speaking about it in later years, he said: ‘The boys didn’t dare to touch me when I was awake, but if they had any grudge against me they would come when I was asleep, carry me wherever they liked, beat me, paint my face with charcoal and then put me back; I would know nothing how it happened until they told me next morning.‘

From his years of innocence, Venkataraman could hear the sound, ‘Arunachala, Arunachala,’ within himself. The sound stayed with him all the time, but he did not know what it was. Later, when he became a great Master, he was asked about it, “’f you could hear the sound all the time, why did you not ask people about it? Why did you not seek an explanation for it?’ Bhagavan replied, ‘Would someone go about checking with people if they breathe? It was built into my system, and I thought everyone could hear it too. I did not know it was an aberration.‘ Other than this, Venkataraman seemed to be an ordinary boy. Nothing spectacular about him suggested that he was to become a great Rishi.

When Venkataraman was twelve, Sundaram Ayyar died, and the family was broken up. He and his elder brother were sent to live with their paternal uncle, Subbier, who had a house in Madurai. Venkataraman first attended Scott’s Middle School and then joined the American Mission High School for his ninth grade. At school, his one asset was an amazingly retentive memory, which enabled him to repeat a lesson after hearing it just once.

In November 1895, an elderly relation spoke to Venkataraman about his visit to Arunachala, the sacred hill in Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu. Since childhood, the word ‘Arunachala’ had somehow evoked inexplicable awe and love in him. So he enquired from the relative the whereabouts of Arunachala and ever afterward found himself haunted by its thoughts.

Strangely enough, he had not read any Hindu scriptures till then. He later said, ‘I did not know any terms from philosophy or spirituality – Brahman, Atman, samadhi, jnana, Self, mind – nothing.’ Then a copy of the Periapuranam fell into Venkataraman’s hands. This Purana contains stories of sixty-three Tamil Saints who could secure Lord Shiva’s grace by their exemplary devotion. As Venkataraman read the book, he was overwhelmed with ecstatic wonder that such faith, such love, and such divine fervor were at all possible. The tales of renunciation leading to Divine union filled him with awe and admiration. Something greater than all dreamlands was proclaimed real and possible in the book.

From that time onwards, the spiritual current of awareness began to wake up in the young boy. This grew ever stronger with time, and after a few months, sometime in the middle of July 1896, when he was just sixteen and a half years old, Venkataraman miraculously realised the Self. Years later, he described the event himself in the following words:

‘About six weeks before I left Madurai for good, a great change took place in my life. It was quite sudden. I was sitting alone in a room in my uncle’s house when a sudden fear of death overtook me. There was nothing in my state of health to account for it. I just felt, “I am going to die” and began thinking about it. The fear of death drove my mind inwards, and I said to myself mentally, “Now that death has come, what does it mean? What is it that is dying? Only this body dies.” And at once, I dramatised the occurrence of death. I held my breath and kept my lips tightly closed, and said to myself, “This body is dead. It will be carried to the cremation ground and reduced to ashes. But with the death of this body, am I dead? Is this body “I”? I am the spirit transcending the body. That means I am the deathless Atman.”‘

What happened next is difficult to comprehend, though easy to describe. Venkataraman seemed to fall into a profound conscious trance wherein he became merged into the very source of existence, the very essence of Being. He quite clearly perceived and imbibed the truth that the body was apart from the Atman that remained untouched by death.

Venkataraman emerged from this amazing experience as an utterly changed person. He lost interest in studies, sports, friends, and so on. His chief interest now centered in the sublime consciousness of the true Self, which he had found so unexpectedly. As a result, he enjoyed an inward serenity and a spiritual strength which never left him.

The new mode of consciousness transformed Venkataraman’s sense of values and habits. Things he esteemed earlier had now lost their appeal. In his words: ‘Another change that came over me was that I no longer had any likes or dislikes concerning food. Whatever was given to me, tasty or bland, I would swallow with total indifference.‘

After his death experience in Madurai, Bhagavan often went to the Meenakshi temple there. He would stand in front of Mother Meenakshi’s idol for hours together, looking at her eyes. Tears would flow from his eyes. Significantly, Meenakshi means ‘One with fish-like eyes.’ The Hindu scriptures describe three kinds of spiritual initiations. One of them is the way of the fish. The fish is said to have the power of hatching its eggs by just looking at them. Therefore, the inner meaning of the name Meenakshi is ‘The mother who blesses or initiates with her eyes.’ The unique gift that Mother Meenakshi gave her son Venkataraman was the power to initiate and bless his devotees with just his look. (In fact, almost every devotee of Bhagavan has talked about how the very first look from him pushed them inwards and gave them a never-before experience of joy, peace, and silence. Even on his last day, Bhagavan insisted that devotees be allowed to have his darshan – to give each one of them his final look of blessing.

Both Venkataraman’s uncle and elder brother became critical of his changed mode of life, which seemed utterly impractical. Then came the crisis on August 29, 1896. Venkataraman was then studying in tenth grade, preparing for his public examination. His teacher had given him an exercise in English grammar to be written three times. He copied it out twice and was about to do so for the third time when the futility of it struck him so forcibly that he pushed the papers away and, sitting cross-legged, abandoned himself to meditation.

His elder brother, who was watching this, scolded him for behaving like a yogi while still staying in the family and pretending to study. Such remarks had been made constantly during the last few weeks and had gone unnoticed. But this time, they hit home. ‘Yes,‘ thought Venkataraman, ‘What business do I have here?‘ Immediately came the thought of Arunachala that had caused such a thrill in him a few months ago. He then decided to discover the fabulous and legendary Arunachala of his dreams. Venkataraman knew that it was necessary to use some guile because his family would otherwise never let him go. So he told his brother that he had to attend a particular class at the school. Unintentionally providing him with funds for the journey, his brother said, ‘Take five rupees from the box and pay my college fees.’ Venkataraman took only three rupees, no more than what he thought was necessary for reaching Tiruvannamalai. In the note, he left (which fortunately is preserved), he wrote in Tamil:

‘I have set out in quest of my Father following His command. It is on a virtuous enterprise that “this” has embarked, therefore let none grieve over this act and let no money be spent in search of “this.” Your college fees have not been paid. Two rupees are enclosed.‘ The note ended with the word “Thus” and a dash — in place of his signature. 

Reaching Tiruvannamalai on the early morning of September 1, 1896, after a series of trials and tribulations, Venkataraman went straight to the great Arunachaleswara temple and stood before his Father. His cup of bliss was now full to the brim. It was the journey’s end and his homecoming. 

Bhagavan declared to Arunachala on the first day of his arrival at Tiruvannamalai, ‘Father, I’ve come at thy bidding. Thy will be done.‘ From that moment on, his whole life was surrendered to the Self.  Coming out of the temple, the youth had his head shaven and threw away all his belongings and clothes, except for a strip he tore off his dhoti to serve as a loincloth. Thus, renouncing everything, he went back to the temple complex and immersed himself in the Bliss of Being, sitting motionless, day after day, night after night.

In the six months of his stay in the Arunachaleshwara temple, Bhagavan was continuously immersed in samadhi (deep, bodiless repose). Astonishingly, he had never heard the word samadhi or any other term to describe what he was experiencing until then. In Pathalalinga, a dark, dank, underground niche in Arunachaleshwara temple, insects and vermin feasted on his body as he sat unmindfully blissful – absorbed in the Self. Could Father Arunachala tolerate this torture to his son’s body? He sent the saint Seshadri Swami, Venkatachala Mudali, Uttandi Nayanar, and Annamalai Thambiran to give relief to Bhagavan. 

Seshadri Swami brought Bhagavan’s body out from the underground cave. The others also did what they could to protect Bhagavan’s samadhi state. However, crowds of ignorant people continued to disturb Bhagavan in the temple. Consequently, Bhagavan was taken to Gurumurtam, a saint’s shrine on the outskirts of Tiruvannamalai owned by Annamalai Thambiran. Strangely, Gurumurtam too was infested with ants and other insects. Bhagavan, though, was utterly oblivious to the body. His body was unwashed, his hair had grown long, thick, and matted, and his fingernails were long and curled over. Since he hardly ate food, his body was emaciated and terribly weak. How could Arunachala bear all this? He, therefore, sent Palani Swami, his Nandi, to Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi. (On the southwest slope of Arunachala is a rock that looks startlingly like the head of Shiva’s bull, Nandi. The old devotees like Viswanatha Swami and Kunju Swami used to point it out and say, ‘That is Palani Swami – the Nandi of our Bhagavan.’)

Pilgrims and sightseers began to throng Gurumurtam, and many would prostrate themselves before the Swami, some with prayers for boons and some out of pure reverence. As the crowd became large, a bamboo fence was put around Swami’s seat to prevent the public from touching him. There was no difficulty about food, as several devotees wished to supply it regularly; the more pressing need was to keep away the crowd of sightseers and visitors.

About this time, a Malayali sadhu named Palaniswami, living in great austerity, was devoting his life to the worship of Lord Vinayaka [Ganesha]. One day a friend told him, ‘Why do you spend your life with this stone swami? There is a young swami in flesh and blood at the Gurumurtam. He is steeped in tapas like the young Dhruva. If you go there and attach yourself to him, your life will attain its purpose.’ So when Palaniswami went to the math, he was stirred to his depths at the very sight of the Swami and felt that he had discovered his saviour. So he devoted the remaining twenty-one years of his life serving the Maharshi as his attendant.

As the Swami utterly neglected his body, it got weakened to the limits of endurance. When he needed to go out, he barely had the strength to get up. Many times it so happened that he would raise himself by a few inches and then sink back again.

After Bhagavan left home, nobody knew where he was. When his mother heard the news, she was grief-stricken. She made desperate efforts to find him until one day somebody informed her that he had met a person in Tiruvannamalai who wrote his name as Venkataraman of Tiruchuzhi. Encouraged by this news, she sent her brother-in-law, a soft-hearted man, to look for her son in Tiruvannamalai. On his return, he confirmed the report, ‘Yes, I saw Venkataraman. He is totally absorbed in meditation. I pleaded with him to come back, but he did not reply. There was no response; he was just like a rock.‘

Confident that he would accept her pleas, Mother Azhagammal decided to go and beg him to return. It was 1898, two years after Bhagavan left Madurai and came to Tiruvannamalai. Bhagavan was seated on a rock at Pavazhakundru, a small hillock in Tiruvannamalai. On reaching there, his mother pleaded with him, ‘Come back home. I will not disturb you. I will feed you because you are uncared for here. I will attend to your body. I will not interfere in your life. You can continue your spiritual life there. Please come back.‘ There was no response from Bhagavan. Rock-like, he remained motionless and still. (Muruganar used to say, ‘Even a big boulder on Arunachala may move sometimes, but Bhagavan will not move. You cannot move Bhagavan.‘)

One day, some residents of Tiruvannamalai who had been seeing this old woman crying up and down the hill reproached the young ascetic, ‘Why don’t you give her a reply? Either accept or decline! We have been observing this lady cry for the last three days, and you don’t even reply!’ Relenting, Bhagavan wrote a reply on a piece of paper. This reply to his mother is his first written teaching. He wrote, ‘The Ordainer, prevailing everywhere, makes each one play his role in life according to his karma. That which is not destined will not happen despite every effort. What is destined to happen is bound to happen. This is certain. Therefore, the best course is to remain silent.‘

But it does not mean that utmost sincere efforts to succeed are not to be made. The man who says, ‘Everything is predestined; therefore I need make no effort,’ is indulging in the wrong and tricky assumption that he knows what is predestined. The mother returned home, and the Swami remained absorbed in the Self, as before.

Early in 1899, the young ascetic, accompanied by his attendant Palaniswami took up his residence in the Virupaksha Cave, named after the thirteenth-century saint Virupakshadeva, whose remains lie buried there. The cave is curiously shaped to resemble the sacred monosyllable OM, the tomb being in the inner recess. He stayed in this cave for about seventeen years. Here also, the young Swami maintained silence for the first few years. His radiance had already drawn a group of devotees around him, and an ashram had come into being. He occasionally wrote out instructions and explanations for his disciples. Still, his silence did not impede their training because his most effective way of imparting instruction was through the unspoken word. Thus, the penetrating silence became the hallmark of the young sage.

Shivaprakasam Pillai, an officer in the Revenue Department and an intellectual, heard of the young Swami residing on the hill. At his first visit in 1902, he was captivated by the Swami’s aura and became his life-long devotee. As the Swami was still maintaining silence, he answered fourteen questions of Pillai by writing on a slate.

These were later expanded and arranged in a book form ‘Who am I?’; perhaps the most widely appreciated prose exposition of the Maharshi’s philosophy. Ganapati Muni, a renowned Sanskrit scholar, and poet, was another devotee who visited the Swami from 1903 onwards and accepted him as his Guru in 1907. The grateful Muni named the Swami as Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi and sang of him as an incarnation of Subrahmanya, son of Lord Shiva. Maharishi’s answers to the Muni and his disciples’ questions largely constitute the well-known work Ramana Gita. 

In 1916, as the number of resident devotees increased, Sri Ramana shifted to the more commodious Skandashram, named so as it was built through Herculean efforts of his staunch devotee Kandaswami. After the death of Ramana’s mother in 1922 (who had come to stay with her ascetic son six years before and received nirvana in his hands), her body was laid to rest at the foot of the Arunachala hill. The present Ashram, named Sri Ramanasramam, has developed around the mother’s samadhi called Matrubhuteswara, God in the form of Mother. The Ashram, which began with a single thatched shed over the mother’s samadhi, has developed into a relatively large complex of buildings, the most important of which, according to many sadhakas, is the Old Hall where Sri Ramana spent most of his life for over twenty years on a couch gifted by a devotee. The shrine over Sri Ramana’s samadhi, which has a large, bright, and airy meditation hall attached to it, regularly draws many devotees and visitors throughout the year. 

After Sri Ramana came down to live in the Ashram at the foot of the hill, he made it clear, though not explicitly, that giving darshan and communicating with people through silence or brief messages of deliverance was his sole goal in life. As a result, many seekers in various stages of spiritual evolution came to him and found peace, clarity, and strength of mind in his presence.

The Old Hall, currently used for meditation in Ramanasramam, was built in 1926 in which Bhagavan was given a couch, though Bhagavan himself did not like it. Bhagavan said, ‘I prefer to sleep on the rock.’ When the disciples placed a new velvet cushion on it, Bhagavan said, ‘This velvet cushion is pleasurable and enjoyable only to you. It is a bed of thorns to me. I prefer to sit on the rock.‘

Bhagavan also worked along with his devotees. All the ashram chores, including gardening, chopping vegetables, cooking, cleaning, and even masonry work, were done by Bhagavan too. He would bring rocks, mixed water, and mud for the mortar to build walls. When the Master accompanied his disciples in their work, they felt rejuvenated and happy. 

A visit to Ramanasramam will show four tombs for four animals. Bhagavan treated animals just like he treated human beings; there was no difference. Just as he bestowed liberation for his mother, so he conferred mukti to a deer, a dog, a crow, and a cow – and these are just the known instances. Moreover, when Bhagavan was at Skandashram, as witnessed by Kunju Swami, as soon as a baby monkey was born, the entire group of monkeys would come to Bhagavan and place the newborn with blood and all on his lap. Bhagavan washed it and returned it to the mother. This is a remarkable phenomenon because usually if a human were to touch a newborn monkey, the whole herd would reject the infant. He also cared for the delivery of the ashram pups. Squirrels used to complain to Bhagavan, who would often mediate between them if they quarreled. He even would attend to cats whenever they were ill. 

Bhagavan’s compassion for animals and birds cannot even be called extraordinary because he treated every being alike. Only because we perceive a difference between the animal kingdom and mankind, we glorify Bhagavan’s love for animals. Bhagavan was not paying any particular attention to them – he was paying equal attention to all. 

The golden jubilee of Ramana’s coming to stay at Tiruvannamalai was celebrated in 1946. However, in 1947 his health began to fail. He was not yet seventy but looked much older. Towards the end of 1948, a small nodule appeared below the elbow of his left arm. Operations were performed, but the malignant tumor appeared again. The disease did not yield any treatment and was diagnosed as a case of sarcoma. The doctors suggested amputating the arm above the affected part. Ramana replied with a smile: ‘There is no need for alarm. The body is itself a disease. Let it have its natural end. Why mutilate it? A simple dressing of the affected part will do.‘ Two more operations had to be performed, but the tumor appeared again. Indigenous systems of medicine were tried, and homeopathy too. The disease did not yield itself to treatment. The Sage was quite unconcerned and was supremely indifferent to suffering. He sat as a spectator watching the disease waste the body. But his eyes shone as bright as ever, and his grace flowed towards all beings. Crowds came in large numbers. Ramana insisted that they should be allowed to have his darshan. Devotees profoundly wished that the Sage should cure his body through an exercise of supernormal powers. Ramana had compassion for those who grieved over the suffering, and he sought to comfort them by reminding them of the truth that Bhagavan was not the body: ‘They take this body for Bhagavan and attribute suffering to him. What a pity! They are sad the Bhagavan is going to leave them and go away — where can he go, and how?‘ In his unique way, he would ask whether we ever retained the leaf plate after the meal was over.

The end came on April 14, 1950. The great master gave an example of his compassion even in his last moments. Just before Bhagavan dropped the body, he asked to be assisted into padmasana. A white peacock was making sounds outside. After five minutes, Bhagavan opened his eyes and said, ‘He is hungry; feed him.‘ (In India, animals, and birds are usually referred to in the neutral gender as ‘it.’ But Bhagavan always attributed referred to them as ‘he’ or ‘she.’) These are one of the last few sentences he spoke. At 8:47, the breathing stopped. There was no struggle, no spasm, none of the signs of death.  At that very moment, a bright comet moved slowly across the sky, reached the summit of hill Arunachala, and disappeared high in the sky. The super soul had returned to its source. The Jyothi of Bhagavan moved as meteor-like light and merged with Arunachala.