Dr. Paul Brunton, A Search in Secret India, New Delhi, B.I. Publications Pvt Ltd, (1934), Reprint 1989
Searching for some kind of answers to his western materialism in the West (as we have our own materialism in India), Brunton came to India hunting for some Yogis1 who would help him find answers. In this process, he met various Yogis, sadhus, sannyasis, gurus, prophets, acharyas, and rishis—most of them were mere magicians, several were fake, but a few were genuine. Finally, he ended up receiving his answer from Ramana Maharishi of Arunachala in Tamil Nadu and almost became his disciple. However, he was very candid about his rationalism with which he never tried or wanted to compromise. Some of his encounters with several yogis, sadhus, sannyasis, and finally Ramana Maharishi never agreed with his kind of rationalism, with which he struggled a lot. Though he reconciled his rationalism with several mystic experiences, which he received from some genuine saints of India, at the end what he says about such experiences, is the climax of this book for me:
The reader should not be misled into believing that such an experience remains continuous and permanent; it is only a temporary but valuable raising of consciousness which passes away. It is of the category which I have called “Moments of Illuminations.” The nature of such a glimpse is explained in the last chapter of my book The Spiritual Crisis of Man. To establish oneself on, and keep this high level it is essential in most cases to work on oneself and develop the right conditions within oneself. For the philosophical enlightenment see The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga and The Wisdom of the Overself.—notes 1, p. 312.
I am not sure whether this statement by him, that one has ‘to work on oneself and develop the right conditions within oneself,’ reflects more of his rationalism and western individualism or the answer he received from Sri Ramana Maharishi (to his famous question ‘Who am I’). Neither his ‘rationalism’ nor his ‘mystic experience’ particularly encountered with Sri Ramana Maharishi never gives a clear cut answer to this I cannot say what he actually means by this ‘work on oneself’ and ‘within oneself.’
Brunton is the one who “is generally recognized as having introduced yoga and meditation to the West” (Kenneth T. Hurst, his daughter, in the personal note p. 5). When I was carefully reading this book as an Indian, I had to question such an approach by any westerner, particularly one who pays (in his case paid) short visits, meeting so few people about whom so much is romanticized by their followers and by outsiders (like Brunton) who had some kind of encounters with them. When I read this book, I found him to be more of an investigative journalist than a true seeker of answers to his questions. But I empathize with him as I too went through a similar kind of understanding about the life and teaching of so many saints both in India and outside India. Because unless I soak myself, if not completely, but at least for a minimum period in another culture, tradition, and worldview, I cannot claim to have understood the answers provided by that particular civilization’s values.
For example, as a follower of Muktinath, in my desire to understand Muktiveda, particularly its theology, I have to heavily depend upon the writings of non-Indian Muktivedic scholars. Though they helped me understand some important aspects of Muktiveda, still, as their writings emerged from their Western civilization worldview—however deep their personal faith might be in the Lord or in Muktiveda, by merely reading those writings or any short visit to the West, won’t help me understand their particular answer to my question regarding Muktinath and Muktiveda.2 That is why I have to wrestle with my personal bhakti in the Lord as an Indian, particularly as a Hindu, trying to understand the Lord, His Mission, teaching, and Muktiveda, creating my own (personal) Bhakti Theology—however it looks controversial to others.
Well, this book was written almost a century before, and he came to visit India during the peak time of its Independence movement. So he had very limited options and sources left with him to find the answers to his questions from his rationalistic search in Secret India. At the end, when I compare some of his rationalistic statements, which he made after his encounter with both true and fake yogis, babas, gurus, etc., which outright contradicted with his personal experience, I have to question his findings with my own rationalism and skepticism about the same rationalism which often confuses me every time I come across my own rationalism and others.
Because I have several questions about this very concept of rationalism to which I cannot find one satisfying rationalistic answer so far. I have shared some of my thoughts on Reason and Rationalism in the blog. So I need not repeat it again here. However, when I compare Brunton’s rationalism with his own experience (which he agrees is temporary and not permanent in the notes which is quoted from page 312 above), I wonder how such romanticism about some of the Secrets that he managed to search out in India would look reasonable to him or to his western3 audience to whom he mostly wrote these books. Having said this, in the following pages I would like to quote verbatim from this book without any of my personal comments for the readers to have their own rationalistic response based on their personal experience about such events in their life.
Before sharing his encounters with yogis of India, he shares the advantage of the ‘scientific training in the West’ and also his ‘journalistic experience’. This, in a sense, lays the foundation of his rationalistic approach in searching for the Secrets of India:
The reports of Indian writers are indeed available, but they must be read with great care. It is an unfortunate fact that the Hindus lack any critical approach to these matters and will mix hearsay with fact quite indiscriminately. Therefore, such reports diminish greatly in truth as documentary records. When I saw the cataract of credulity which covers so many Eastern eyes, I thanked Heaven for such scientific training as the West has given me and for the common-sense attitude which journalistic experience had instilled in me. There is a basis of fact underlying much Oriental superstition, but vigilance is needed to discover it. I was compelled to keep a critical but not hostile eye widely open wherever I went….—p. 14
However, he also acknowledges the undue skepticism about Asiatic wisdom in the West; he says,
…Those clever people who profess to find Asiatic learning empty of useful thoughts for the West thereby prove their own emptiness….—p. 18
It will be interesting reading all his records about his encounters with various yogis in India. However, as space won’t permit sharing all of them, I would like to highlight his particular encounter with Ramana Maharishi. But before that, I would like to share how he ended up meeting Ramana Maharishi. After a brief visit in Mumbai, where he met a Magician from Egypt and stayed with the modern Messiah Meher Baba at Ahmednagar, he came to Chennai and met Yogi Brama at Adyar and also met the ‘Sage who never speaks’. There he meets Subramanya, a retired Army person who became a Yogi. He persuaded him to go and meet a great saint who lives at ‘Arunachala—the Hill of the Holy Beacon’ as he came to meet Brunton as per the ‘guidance which sent’ him to meet him.
As Brunton was already packed and ready to go to the North in his search for more yogis and saints, he refused to accept that suggestion. At that time he meets the writer Venkataramani, who is a member of the Senate of Madras University. After some talk with him, when he was ready to leave Chennai, Venkataramani rushes with the message that ‘His Holiness Shri Shankara Acharya of Kumbakonam’ (known popularly in Tamil Nadu as “Maha-Periyava” = Greatest Great person) is camping at Chingleput and tells Brunton that most probably he might help him find a proper Yogi, and he accepts to go and see Shankara Acharya. At Chingleput, Brunton meets and in his talk with Sri Shankaracharya, the latter advises him to, ‘Go on with your travels. When you have finished them, think of the various Yogis and holy men you have met; then pick out the one who makes the most appeal to you. Return to him, and he will surely bestow his initiation upon you’. (p.129) When Brunton questions, ‘what if none of them makes sufficient appeal to’ (p. 129) him, Sri Shankaracharya responds by advising him ‘to go on alone until God Himself initiates you’ (p.129), but refuses to assist him personally when Brunton requests that and suggests he go and see one Maharishi. (p.130) Then Brunton tells that already one guide from that place persuaded him to go and meet him but told that as he already planned to leave South, His Holiness asks him to promise not to leave South India before he meets Maharishi. (p.131) After that visit, Venkataramani tells Brunton he was indeed lucky because ‘this is the first interview which His Holiness has granted to a European writer’ and assures that ‘That brings his blessing upon you!’ (p.132)
The reason for me to give all these details is that it is important to understand what Brunton has recorded about the vision which he saw that night. It is worth quoting as it is:
It is nearly midnight when I return home [at Chennai]. …I run up the steps leading to the veranda, flashing my pocket torch.
Out of the darkness, a crouching figure rises and greets me.
“Subramanya!” I exclaim, startled. “What are you doing here?” The ochre-robed Yogi indulges in one of his tremendous grins.
“Did I not promise to visit you, sir?” He reminds me reproachfully.
“Of course!”
In the large room, I fire a question at him.
“Your master—is he called the Maharishee?’
It is now his turn to draw back, astonished.
“How do you know, sir? Where could you have learnt this?” (p.132)
“Never mind. To-morrow we both start for his place. I shall change my plans.”
“This is joyful news, sir.”
….Subramanya is quite content to sleep….
The next thing of which I am aware is suddenly awakening. The room is totally dark. I feel my nerves strangely tense. The atmosphere around me seems like electrified air. I pull my watch from under the pillow and, by the glow of its radiumlit dial, discover the time to be a quarter to three. It is then that I become conscious of some bright object at the foot of the bed. I immediately sit up and look straight at it.’
My astounded gaze meets the face and form of His Holiness Shri Shankara. It is clearly and unmistakably visible. He does not appear to be some ethereal ghost, but rather a solid human being. There is a mysterious luminosity around the figure which separates it from the surrounding darkness.
Surely the vision is an impossible one? Have I not left him at Chingleput? I close my eyes tightly in an effort to test the matter. There is no difference and I still see him quite plainly!
Let it suffice that I receive the sense of a benign and friendly presence. I open my eyes and regard the kindly figure in the loose yellow robe.
The face alters, for the lips smile and seem to say:
“Be humble and then you shall find what you seek!”
“Why do I feel that a living human being is thus addressing me? Why do I not regard it as a ghost, at least?
The vision disappears as mysteriously as it has come. It leaves me feeling exalted, happy and unperturbed by its supernormal nature. Shall I dismiss it as a dream? What matters it?
There is no more sleep for me this night. I lie awake pondering over the day’s meeting, over the memorable interview with His Holiness Shir Shankara….—pp. 132-133
Then, guided by Subramanya, he arrives in Arunachala and meets Sri Ramana Maharishi. He stayed many weeks and had personal talks with Ramana Maharishi. To his questions, Maharishi gave his regular answers to find out ‘Who am I’,4 etc. All these need not detain us here. But what he further records about his personal experience that he had with Ramana Maharishi is worth reading in his own words:
…I perceive with sudden clarity that the intellect creates its own problems and then makes itself miserable trying to solve them. This is indeed a novel concept to enter the mind of one who has hitherto placed such high value upon intellect. (p.141)
The assembled company squats in rows around the hall, but among them there is no noise and no talk….
The usual cloud of incense floats among the wooden rafters of the roof. I settle down and try to fix my eyes on the Maharishee, but after a while feel a delicate urge to close them. It is not long before I fall into a half sleep, lulled by the intangible peace which, in the sage’s proximity, begins to penetrate me more deeply. Ultimately there comes a gap in my consciousness and then I experience a vivid dream. (p.151)
[in that he become a little boy of five and holds the Maharishee’s hand who becomes a great towering figure at his side, for he seems to have grown to giant’s size….]
The Maharishee turns and looks down into my face; I, in turn, gaze expectantly up at him. I become aware of a mysterious change taking place with great rapidity in my heart and mind. The old motives which have lured me on begin to desert me. The urgent desires which have sent my feet hither and thither vanish with incredible swiftness. The dislikes, misunderstandings, coldnesses and selfishiness which have marked my dealings with many of my fellows collapse into the abyss of nothingness. An untellable peace falls upon me and I know now that there is nothing further that I shall ask from life.
Suddenly the Maharishee bids me turn my gaze away to the bottom of the hill. I obediently do so and to my astonishment discover that the Western hemisphere of our globe lies stretched out far below. It is crowded with millions of people; I can vaguely discern them as masses of forms, but the night’s darkness still enshrouds them.
The sage’s voice comes to my ears, his words slowly uttered:
“When you go back there, you shall have this peace which you now feel. But its price will be that you shall henceforth cast aside the idea that you are this body or this brain. When this peace will flow into you, then you shall have to forget your own self, for you will have turned your life over to THAT!” (p. 152)
And the Maharishee places one end of a thread of silver light in my hand.
I awaken from that extraordinarily vivid dream with the sense of its penetrating sublimity yet upon me. Immediately the Maharishee’s eyes meet mine. His face is now turned in my direction, and he is looking fixedly into my eyes.
What lies behind that dream? For the desires and bitternesses of personal life fade for a while into oblivion. That condition of lofty indifference to self and profound pity for my fellows which I have dreamt into being, does not take its departure even though I am now awake. ‘Tis a strange experience.
But if the dream has any verity in it, then the thing will not last; it is not yet for me.
How long have I been sunk in dream? For everyone in the hall now begins to rise and to prepare for sleep. I must perforce follow the example.—pp. 151-153
A hush falls upon the little company. The minutes slowly pass but the silence only deepens. I am not religious but I can no more resist the feeling of increasing awe which begins to grip my mind than a bee can resist a flower in all its luscious (p.161) bloom. The hall is becoming pervaded with a subtle, intangible and indefinable power which affects me deeply. I feel, without doubt and without hesitation, that the centre of this mysterious power is no other than the Maharishee himself.
His eyes shine with astonishing brilliance. Strange sensations begin to arise in me. Those lustrous orbs seem to be peering into the inmost recesses of my soul. In a peculiar way, I feel aware of everything he can see in my heart. His mysterious glance penetrates my thoughts, my emotions and my desires; I am helpless before it. At first this disconcerting gaze troubles me; I become vaguely uneasy. I feel that he has perceived pages that belong to a past which I have forgotten. He knows it all, I am certain. I am powerless to escape; somehow, I do not want to, either. Some curious intimation of future benefit forces me to endure that pitiless gaze.
…
There comes a perceptible change in the telepathic current which plays between us, the while my eyes blink frequently but his remain without the least tremor. I become aware that he is definitely linking my own mind with his, that he is provoking my heart into that state of starry calm which he seems perpetually to enjoy. In this extraordinary peace, I find a sense of exaltation and lightness. Time seems to stand still. My heart is released from its burden of care. Never again, I feel, shall the bitterness of anger and the melancholy of unsatisfied desire afflict me. I realize deeply that the profound instinct which is innate in the race, which bids man look up, which encourages him to hope on, and which sustains him when life has darkened, is a true instinct, for the essence of being is good. In this beautiful, entranced silence, when the clock stands still and the sorrows and errors of the past seem like trivialities, my mind is being submerged in that of the Maharishee and wisdom is now at is perihelion. What is this man’s gaze but a thaumaturgic wand, which evokes a hidden world of unexpected splendour before my profane eyes? (P. 162)
Hitherto, everyone in the hall has been hushed to a deathlike stillness. At length, someone quietly rises and passes out. He is followed by another, and then another, until all have gone.
I am alone with the Maharishee! Never before has this happened. His eyes begin to change; they narrow down to pin-points. The effect is curiously like the “stopping-down” in the focus of a camera lens. There comes a tremendous increase in the intense gleam which shines between the lids, now almost closed. Suddenly, my body seems to disappear, and we are both out in space!
…
No word passes from him to me. I collect my faculties, look at the clock, and rise quietly. The hour of departure has arrived.
I bow my head in farewell. The sage silently acknowledges the gesture….And so we part. (p.163)
But again wandering in North India, guided again by another yogi, he returns back to Arunachala to see him one more time before leaving India. Before going to Arunachala again, he went and met Venkataramani at Madras (present Chennai), and to his shock and surprise, the former tells him that he was not surprised and expected his return. When Brunton was taken aback, Venkataramani continued, “This is what His Holiness [Shri Shankaracharya at Chingleput] told me. ‘Your friend will travel all around India. He will visit many Yogis and listen to many teachers. But, in the end, he will have to return to the Maharishi. For him, the Maharishi alone is the right Master.” (p.276)
So again, he went to Arunachala and stayed a few more weeks and records his experience this time with these words:
…There are moments when I feel this power of his so greatly that I know he has only to issue the most disturbing command and I will readily obey it. But the Maharishee is the last person in the world to place his followers in the chains of servile obedience, and allows everyone the utmost freedom of action. In this respect he is quite refreshingly different from most of the teachers and Yogis I have met in India.
My meditations take the line he had indicated during my first visit….
Who am I?
Am I this body of flesh, blood and bone? (p.292)
…Yet he has refused to formulate any systematic teaching. The gist of his message is:
“Pursue the enquiry ‘Who am I?’ relentlessly. Analyse your entire personality. Try to find out where the I-thought begins. Go on with your meditations. Keep turning your attention within One day the wheel of thought will slow down and an intuition will mysteriously arise. Follow that intuition, let your thinking stop, and it will eventually lead you to the goal.” (p.292)
…And I like him greatly because he is so simple and modest, when an atmosphere of authentic greatness lies so palapably around him; because he makes no claims to occult powers and hierophantic knowledge to impress the mystery-loving nature of his countrymen; and because he is so totally without any traces of pretension that he strongly resists every effort to canonize him during his lifetime.
….It seems to me, further, that one must accept the fact that such a sage comes to reveal something to us, not to argue anything with us. At any rate, his teachings make a strong appeal to me for his personal attitude and practical method, when understood, are quite scientific in their way. He brings in no supernatural power and demands no blind religious faith. The sublime spirituality of the Maharishee’s atmosphere and the rational self-questioning of his philosophy find but a fait echo in yonder temple. (p.302)
But how divorce oneself from the age-old tyranny of thoughts? I remember that the Maharishee has never suggested that I should attempt to force the stoppage of thinking. “Trace thought to its place of origin,” is his reiterated counsel, “watch for the real self to reveal itself, and then your thoughts will die down of their own accord.”…
Finally it happens. Thought is extinguished like a snuffed candle. The intellect withdraws into its real ground, that is, consciousness working unhindered by thoughts. I perceive, what I have suspected for some time and what the Maharishee has confidently affirmed, that the mind takes its rise in a transcendental source. The brain has passed into a state of complete suspension, as it does in deep sleep, yet there is (p.304) not the slightest loss of consciousness. I remain perfectly calm and fully aware of who I am and what is occurring. Yet my sense of awareness has been drawn out of the narrow confines of the separate personality; it has turned into something sublimely all-embracing. Self still exists, but it is a changed, radiant self. For something that is far superior to the unimportant personality which was I, some deeper, diviner being rises into consciousness and becomes me. With it arrives an amazing new sense of absolute freedom, for thought is like a loom-shuttle which is always going to and fro, and to be freed from its tyrannical motion is to step out of prison into the open air.
I find myself outside the rim of world consciousness. The planet which has so far harboured me, disappears. I am in the midst of an ocean of blazing light. The latter, I feel rather than think, is the primeval stuff out of which worlds are created, the first state of matter. It stretches away into untellable infinite space, incredibly alive. (p.305)
…I discover that I am still sitting in the hall of the Maharishee and that it is apparently deserted. My eyes catch sight of the hermitage clock and I realize that the inmates must be in the dining-room at their evening meal. And then I become aware of someone on my left. It is the seventy-five-year-old ex-stationmaster, who is squatting close beside me on the floor with his gaze turned benevolently on me.
“You have been in a spiritual trance for nearly two hours,” he informs me. His face, seamed with years and lined with old cares, breaks into smiles as though he rejoices in my own happiness.1 (p.310)
My adventure in self-metamorphosis is over, but the turning axle of time will bring me back to this place, I know….(p.312)
Before closing this article, I would like to record what he wrote about Meher Baba when he revisited him before coming to Arunachala. Because his assessment of Meher Baba will help us understand Brunton’s rationalism versus mystic experiences:
I believe that the youthful Meher became quite unbalanced as a result of this expected experience [which he had with a Muhammedan woman faqeer, Hazrat Babajan]. This was obvious enough when he fell into a condition of semi-idiocy and behaved like a human robot, but it is not so obvious now that he has recovered sanity. I do not believe that he has returned to normality as a human being. To some people, a sudden overdoes of religion, Yogic trance, or mystic ecstasy is a unbalancing as a sudden overdose of certain drugs. In short, I believe that Meher Baba has not yet recovered from the first intoxication of his exalted mood, and a lack of balance still exists as a result of the tremendous derangement which occurred to his mental faculties at such an early age. On no other hypothesis can I account for the extraordinary behaviour which he manifests from time to time.
He shows, on the one hand, all the qualities of a mystic—love, gentleness, religious intuition, and so on, but on the other hand he shows signs of the mental disease of paranoia. He exaggerates everything which pertains to his own self. This condition is also found among religious enthusiasts who experience sudden but temporary states of ecstasy. They emerge with the awareness that something colossal has happened to them. It is only another step for them to make unwarranted claims to spiritual greatness, and so they begin to found new cults or to set up queer societies with themselves at the head. The deification of self, the belief that they are messiah destined to save all mankind, is the final step taken by the audacious few.—p. 259
I have traveled to various parts of North India and also read several books on Hinduism. But till I read this book by Brunton, I never heard about this Meher Baba. At the end of this chapter, in the footnotes, he wrote, ‘Meher Baba has since appeared in the West and a Western cult has started to gather around him’.5 So to know what happened to this Meher Baba, I searched YouTube and, to my surprise, there are so many videos about him, and he still has considerable followers both in India and the West.
After this second visit to Meher Baba, when he was almost exhausted both in body and mind, he wrote:
I have had to learn how to pick my way between genuine sages and fools who mistake their egotistic way between genuine sages and fools who mistake their egotistic fancies for divine knowledge, between true religious mystics and mere mystery-mongers, between pseudo holy men working black magic and true followers of the way of Yoga. And I have had to cram and concentrate my investigations into minimum time, for I cannot afford to spend years out of a life upon a single quest.
If my physical and mental condition is bad, my spiritual state is little better. I am dishearted by a sense of failure. True, I have met some men of remarkable attainments and fine character, as well as others who can do amazing things, but I have not settled down to any positive inward recognition that here is the spiritual superman of my quest, the master who appeals to my rationalistic make-up and to whom I can gladly attach myself. Enthusiastic disciples have vainly endeavoured to draw me into their own teachers’ folds, but I can see that, just as youth takes its first adolescent adventure as the last measure of love, so these good folk have been so thrilled by their early experiences that they have not thought to seek any farther. Besides, I have no desire to become the depository of another man’s doctrines; it is a living, first-hand, personal experience which I seek, a spiritual illumination entirely my own and not someone else’s.[emphasis added]—p. 270
I know that he never wrote this book while he was still visiting India. After returning back, going through his various notes which he recorded during his visit, he completed this book. I wonder, as a rationalistic person who does not want to ‘become the depository of another man’s …experience’, sincerely and faithfully wrote this book as per his principle? Well, as others might ask similar questions about some of my writings (including this article), the reader of this article and this book alone can decide about it.
Gurukulam
27-1-2022
Notes
1 …One heard much of certain so-called holy men who possessed reptue of having acquired deep wisdom and strange powers; so one travelled through scorching days and sleepless nights to find them—only to find well-intentioned fools, scriptural slaves, venerable know-nothing, money-seeking conjurers, jugglers with a few tricks, and pious frauds. To fill my pages with the records of such people would be worthless to the reader and is a distasteful task to me. Therefore I omit the tale of time wasted upon them.—Brunton, p. 13
2…I, too, was somewhat impatient of those who construct theological paradises and who then confidently show you round with an air of being God’s estate agents. I had nothing but contempt for what seemed to be the futile, fanatical efforts of uncritical theorisers.—Brunton, p. 19
3 These wonders of mysticism are, it may be freely confessed, incomprehensible and surrounded by clouds of doubt for any Western mind nurtured, as all are, upon materialist empiricism. If we have not ourselves had such experiences we doubt them because our whole civilization is based upon concepts of measurement—weight, mass, velocity, temperature and the like. If modern physics and the most ancient Upanishads happen to agree that the material universe is an illusion of which the formulable essence is energy, our tendency is to regard that as a remarkable coincidence and no more. But it is beginning to be explicitly admitted among scientists that the human consciousness is a mystery, that the pulsations of the brain—which have been measured by machines as they leave the head, varying considerably in energy as shown by the mechanical graph—cannot begin to be (p.333) explained electronically, and that our knowledge of ourselves, in spite of three generations of psychologists, is infantile….—Vincent Sheean, Lead, Kindly Light, New York, Random House, 1949, pp 333-34
4 The following points from various pages from this book might help us to understand the basic philosophy of Sri Ramana Maharishi:
‘You have to ask yourself the question, Who am I? This investigation will lead in the end to the discovery of something within you which is behind the mind. Solve that great problem, and you will solve all other problems thereby.” [Maharishee] (p.157)
“The sense of ‘I’ pertains to the person, the body and brain,” replies the Maharishee calmly.
“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.”
As the last word falls from the interpreter’s lips, there flashes across my mind those memorable words which were uttered by a wandering Teacher in Galilee, words which have puzzled so many good persons: Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it. (p.159)
…If you meditate on this question, Who am I?—if you begin to perceive that neither the body nor the brain nor the desires are really you, then the very attitude of enquiry will eventually draw the answer to you out of the depths of your own being; it will come to you of its own accord as a deep realization.”
Again I ponder his words.
“Know the real self,” he continues, “and then the truth will shine forth within your heart like sunshine. The mind will (p.160) (p.160) 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.” (p.161)
5 Meher Baba has since appeared in the West as a Western cult has started to gather around him…..He has several times visited England, has acquired a following in France, Spain and Turkey, and has been twice to Persia……When he arrived in Hollywood, he was given a royal reception. Mary Pickford entertained him in her home, Tallulah Bankhead became interested in him…A large tract of land was acquired in the United States to establish his Western head-quarters. Meanwhile dumbness still lies upon his lips, the while he flits impulsively from country to country on brief visits. At last he has been brought into the glare of notoriety.—Brunton, p. 262 [More on Meher Baba See Youtube]
Dr. Paul Brunton, A Search in Secret India, New Delhi, B.I. Publications Pvt Ltd, (1934), Reprint 1989
Searching for some kind of answers to his western materialism in the West (as we have our own materialism in India), Brunton came to India hunting for some Yogis1 who would help him find answers. In this process, he met various Yogis, sadhus, sannyasis, gurus, prophets, acharyas, and rishis—most of them were mere magicians, several were fake, but a few were genuine. Finally, he ended up receiving his answer from Ramana Maharishi of Arunachala in Tamil Nadu and almost became his disciple. However, he was very candid about his rationalism with which he never tried or wanted to compromise. Some of his encounters with several yogis, sadhus, sannyasis, and finally Ramana Maharishi never agreed with his kind of rationalism, with which he struggled a lot. Though he reconciled his rationalism with several mystic experiences, which he received from some genuine saints of India, at the end what he says about such experiences, is the climax of this book for me:
The reader should not be misled into believing that such an experience remains continuous and permanent; it is only a temporary but valuable raising of consciousness which passes away. It is of the category which I have called “Moments of Illuminations.” The nature of such a glimpse is explained in the last chapter of my book The Spiritual Crisis of Man. To establish oneself on, and keep this high level it is essential in most cases to work on oneself and develop the right conditions within oneself. For the philosophical enlightenment see The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga and The Wisdom of the Overself.—notes 1, p. 312.
I am not sure whether this statement by him, that one has ‘to work on oneself and develop the right conditions within oneself,’ reflects more of his rationalism and western individualism or the answer he received from Sri Ramana Maharishi (to his famous question ‘Who am I’). Neither his ‘rationalism’ nor his ‘mystic experience’ particularly encountered with Sri Ramana Maharishi never gives a clear cut answer to this I cannot say what he actually means by this ‘work on oneself’ and ‘within oneself.’
Brunton is the one who “is generally recognized as having introduced yoga and meditation to the West” (Kenneth T. Hurst, his daughter, in the personal note p. 5). When I was carefully reading this book as an Indian, I had to question such an approach by any westerner, particularly one who pays (in his case paid) short visits, meeting so few people about whom so much is romanticized by their followers and by outsiders (like Brunton) who had some kind of encounters with them. When I read this book, I found him to be more of an investigative journalist than a true seeker of answers to his questions. But I empathize with him as I too went through a similar kind of understanding about the life and teaching of so many saints both in India and outside India. Because unless I soak myself, if not completely, but at least for a minimum period in another culture, tradition, and worldview, I cannot claim to have understood the answers provided by that particular civilization’s values.
For example, as a follower of Muktinath, in my desire to understand Muktiveda, particularly its theology, I have to heavily depend upon the writings of non-Indian Muktivedic scholars. Though they helped me understand some important aspects of Muktiveda, still, as their writings emerged from their Western civilization worldview—however deep their personal faith might be in the Lord or in Muktiveda, by merely reading those writings or any short visit to the West, won’t help me understand their particular answer to my question regarding Muktinath and Muktiveda.2 That is why I have to wrestle with my personal bhakti in the Lord as an Indian, particularly as a Hindu, trying to understand the Lord, His Mission, teaching, and Muktiveda, creating my own (personal) Bhakti Theology—however it looks controversial to others.
Well, this book was written almost a century before, and he came to visit India during the peak time of its Independence movement. So he had very limited options and sources left with him to find the answers to his questions from his rationalistic search in Secret India. At the end, when I compare some of his rationalistic statements, which he made after his encounter with both true and fake yogis, babas, gurus, etc., which outright contradicted with his personal experience, I have to question his findings with my own rationalism and skepticism about the same rationalism which often confuses me every time I come across my own rationalism and others.
Because I have several questions about this very concept of rationalism to which I cannot find one satisfying rationalistic answer so far. I have shared some of my thoughts on Reason and Rationalism in the blog. So I need not repeat it again here. However, when I compare Brunton’s rationalism with his own experience (which he agrees is temporary and not permanent in the notes which is quoted from page 312 above), I wonder how such romanticism about some of the Secrets that he managed to search out in India would look reasonable to him or to his western3 audience to whom he mostly wrote these books. Having said this, in the following pages I would like to quote verbatim from this book without any of my personal comments for the readers to have their own rationalistic response based on their personal experience about such events in their life.
Before sharing his encounters with yogis of India, he shares the advantage of the ‘scientific training in the West’ and also his ‘journalistic experience’. This, in a sense, lays the foundation of his rationalistic approach in searching for the Secrets of India:
The reports of Indian writers are indeed available, but they must be read with great care. It is an unfortunate fact that the Hindus lack any critical approach to these matters and will mix hearsay with fact quite indiscriminately. Therefore, such reports diminish greatly in truth as documentary records. When I saw the cataract of credulity which covers so many Eastern eyes, I thanked Heaven for such scientific training as the West has given me and for the common-sense attitude which journalistic experience had instilled in me. There is a basis of fact underlying much Oriental superstition, but vigilance is needed to discover it. I was compelled to keep a critical but not hostile eye widely open wherever I went….—p. 14
However, he also acknowledges the undue skepticism about Asiatic wisdom in the West; he says,
…Those clever people who profess to find Asiatic learning empty of useful thoughts for the West thereby prove their own emptiness….—p. 18
It will be interesting reading all his records about his encounters with various yogis in India. However, as space won’t permit sharing all of them, I would like to highlight his particular encounter with Ramana Maharishi. But before that, I would like to share how he ended up meeting Ramana Maharishi. After a brief visit in Mumbai, where he met a Magician from Egypt and stayed with the modern Messiah Meher Baba at Ahmednagar, he came to Chennai and met Yogi Brama at Adyar and also met the ‘Sage who never speaks’. There he meets Subramanya, a retired Army person who became a Yogi. He persuaded him to go and meet a great saint who lives at ‘Arunachala—the Hill of the Holy Beacon’ as he came to meet Brunton as per the ‘guidance which sent’ him to meet him.
As Brunton was already packed and ready to go to the North in his search for more yogis and saints, he refused to accept that suggestion. At that time he meets the writer Venkataramani, who is a member of the Senate of Madras University. After some talk with him, when he was ready to leave Chennai, Venkataramani rushes with the message that ‘His Holiness Shri Shankara Acharya of Kumbakonam’ (known popularly in Tamil Nadu as “Maha-Periyava” = Greatest Great person) is camping at Chingleput and tells Brunton that most probably he might help him find a proper Yogi, and he accepts to go and see Shankara Acharya. At Chingleput, Brunton meets and in his talk with Sri Shankaracharya, the latter advises him to, ‘Go on with your travels. When you have finished them, think of the various Yogis and holy men you have met; then pick out the one who makes the most appeal to you. Return to him, and he will surely bestow his initiation upon you’. (p.129) When Brunton questions, ‘what if none of them makes sufficient appeal to’ (p. 129) him, Sri Shankaracharya responds by advising him ‘to go on alone until God Himself initiates you’ (p.129), but refuses to assist him personally when Brunton requests that and suggests he go and see one Maharishi. (p.130) Then Brunton tells that already one guide from that place persuaded him to go and meet him but told that as he already planned to leave South, His Holiness asks him to promise not to leave South India before he meets Maharishi. (p.131) After that visit, Venkataramani tells Brunton he was indeed lucky because ‘this is the first interview which His Holiness has granted to a European writer’ and assures that ‘That brings his blessing upon you!’ (p.132)
The reason for me to give all these details is that it is important to understand what Brunton has recorded about the vision which he saw that night. It is worth quoting as it is:
It is nearly midnight when I return home [at Chennai]. …I run up the steps leading to the veranda, flashing my pocket torch.
Out of the darkness, a crouching figure rises and greets me.
“Subramanya!” I exclaim, startled. “What are you doing here?” The ochre-robed Yogi indulges in one of his tremendous grins.
“Did I not promise to visit you, sir?” He reminds me reproachfully.
“Of course!”
In the large room, I fire a question at him.
“Your master—is he called the Maharishee?’
It is now his turn to draw back, astonished.
“How do you know, sir? Where could you have learnt this?” (p.132)
“Never mind. To-morrow we both start for his place. I shall change my plans.”
“This is joyful news, sir.”
….Subramanya is quite content to sleep….
The next thing of which I am aware is suddenly awakening. The room is totally dark. I feel my nerves strangely tense. The atmosphere around me seems like electrified air. I pull my watch from under the pillow and, by the glow of its radiumlit dial, discover the time to be a quarter to three. It is then that I become conscious of some bright object at the foot of the bed. I immediately sit up and look straight at it.’
My astounded gaze meets the face and form of His Holiness Shri Shankara. It is clearly and unmistakably visible. He does not appear to be some ethereal ghost, but rather a solid human being. There is a mysterious luminosity around the figure which separates it from the surrounding darkness.
Surely the vision is an impossible one? Have I not left him at Chingleput? I close my eyes tightly in an effort to test the matter. There is no difference and I still see him quite plainly!
Let it suffice that I receive the sense of a benign and friendly presence. I open my eyes and regard the kindly figure in the loose yellow robe.
The face alters, for the lips smile and seem to say:
“Be humble and then you shall find what you seek!”
“Why do I feel that a living human being is thus addressing me? Why do I not regard it as a ghost, at least?
The vision disappears as mysteriously as it has come. It leaves me feeling exalted, happy and unperturbed by its supernormal nature. Shall I dismiss it as a dream? What matters it?
There is no more sleep for me this night. I lie awake pondering over the day’s meeting, over the memorable interview with His Holiness Shir Shankara….—pp. 132-133
Then, guided by Subramanya, he arrives in Arunachala and meets Sri Ramana Maharishi. He stayed many weeks and had personal talks with Ramana Maharishi. To his questions, Maharishi gave his regular answers to find out ‘Who am I’,4 etc. All these need not detain us here. But what he further records about his personal experience that he had with Ramana Maharishi is worth reading in his own words:
…I perceive with sudden clarity that the intellect creates its own problems and then makes itself miserable trying to solve them. This is indeed a novel concept to enter the mind of one who has hitherto placed such high value upon intellect. (p.141)
The assembled company squats in rows around the hall, but among them there is no noise and no talk….
The usual cloud of incense floats among the wooden rafters of the roof. I settle down and try to fix my eyes on the Maharishee, but after a while feel a delicate urge to close them. It is not long before I fall into a half sleep, lulled by the intangible peace which, in the sage’s proximity, begins to penetrate me more deeply. Ultimately there comes a gap in my consciousness and then I experience a vivid dream. (p.151)
[in that he become a little boy of five and holds the Maharishee’s hand who becomes a great towering figure at his side, for he seems to have grown to giant’s size….]
The Maharishee turns and looks down into my face; I, in turn, gaze expectantly up at him. I become aware of a mysterious change taking place with great rapidity in my heart and mind. The old motives which have lured me on begin to desert me. The urgent desires which have sent my feet hither and thither vanish with incredible swiftness. The dislikes, misunderstandings, coldnesses and selfishiness which have marked my dealings with many of my fellows collapse into the abyss of nothingness. An untellable peace falls upon me and I know now that there is nothing further that I shall ask from life.
Suddenly the Maharishee bids me turn my gaze away to the bottom of the hill. I obediently do so and to my astonishment discover that the Western hemisphere of our globe lies stretched out far below. It is crowded with millions of people; I can vaguely discern them as masses of forms, but the night’s darkness still enshrouds them.
The sage’s voice comes to my ears, his words slowly uttered:
“When you go back there, you shall have this peace which you now feel. But its price will be that you shall henceforth cast aside the idea that you are this body or this brain. When this peace will flow into you, then you shall have to forget your own self, for you will have turned your life over to THAT!” (p. 152)
And the Maharishee places one end of a thread of silver light in my hand.
I awaken from that extraordinarily vivid dream with the sense of its penetrating sublimity yet upon me. Immediately the Maharishee’s eyes meet mine. His face is now turned in my direction, and he is looking fixedly into my eyes.
What lies behind that dream? For the desires and bitternesses of personal life fade for a while into oblivion. That condition of lofty indifference to self and profound pity for my fellows which I have dreamt into being, does not take its departure even though I am now awake. ‘Tis a strange experience.
But if the dream has any verity in it, then the thing will not last; it is not yet for me.
How long have I been sunk in dream? For everyone in the hall now begins to rise and to prepare for sleep. I must perforce follow the example.—pp. 151-153
A hush falls upon the little company. The minutes slowly pass but the silence only deepens. I am not religious but I can no more resist the feeling of increasing awe which begins to grip my mind than a bee can resist a flower in all its luscious (p.161) bloom. The hall is becoming pervaded with a subtle, intangible and indefinable power which affects me deeply. I feel, without doubt and without hesitation, that the centre of this mysterious power is no other than the Maharishee himself.
His eyes shine with astonishing brilliance. Strange sensations begin to arise in me. Those lustrous orbs seem to be peering into the inmost recesses of my soul. In a peculiar way, I feel aware of everything he can see in my heart. His mysterious glance penetrates my thoughts, my emotions and my desires; I am helpless before it. At first this disconcerting gaze troubles me; I become vaguely uneasy. I feel that he has perceived pages that belong to a past which I have forgotten. He knows it all, I am certain. I am powerless to escape; somehow, I do not want to, either. Some curious intimation of future benefit forces me to endure that pitiless gaze.
…
There comes a perceptible change in the telepathic current which plays between us, the while my eyes blink frequently but his remain without the least tremor. I become aware that he is definitely linking my own mind with his, that he is provoking my heart into that state of starry calm which he seems perpetually to enjoy. In this extraordinary peace, I find a sense of exaltation and lightness. Time seems to stand still. My heart is released from its burden of care. Never again, I feel, shall the bitterness of anger and the melancholy of unsatisfied desire afflict me. I realize deeply that the profound instinct which is innate in the race, which bids man look up, which encourages him to hope on, and which sustains him when life has darkened, is a true instinct, for the essence of being is good. In this beautiful, entranced silence, when the clock stands still and the sorrows and errors of the past seem like trivialities, my mind is being submerged in that of the Maharishee and wisdom is now at is perihelion. What is this man’s gaze but a thaumaturgic wand, which evokes a hidden world of unexpected splendour before my profane eyes? (P. 162)
Hitherto, everyone in the hall has been hushed to a deathlike stillness. At length, someone quietly rises and passes out. He is followed by another, and then another, until all have gone.
I am alone with the Maharishee! Never before has this happened. His eyes begin to change; they narrow down to pin-points. The effect is curiously like the “stopping-down” in the focus of a camera lens. There comes a tremendous increase in the intense gleam which shines between the lids, now almost closed. Suddenly, my body seems to disappear, and we are both out in space!
…
No word passes from him to me. I collect my faculties, look at the clock, and rise quietly. The hour of departure has arrived.
I bow my head in farewell. The sage silently acknowledges the gesture….And so we part. (p.163)
But again wandering in North India, guided again by another yogi, he returns back to Arunachala to see him one more time before leaving India. Before going to Arunachala again, he went and met Venkataramani at Madras (present Chennai), and to his shock and surprise, the former tells him that he was not surprised and expected his return. When Brunton was taken aback, Venkataramani continued, “This is what His Holiness [Shri Shankaracharya at Chingleput] told me. ‘Your friend will travel all around India. He will visit many Yogis and listen to many teachers. But, in the end, he will have to return to the Maharishi. For him, the Maharishi alone is the right Master.” (p.276)
So again, he went to Arunachala and stayed a few more weeks and records his experience this time with these words:
…There are moments when I feel this power of his so greatly that I know he has only to issue the most disturbing command and I will readily obey it. But the Maharishee is the last person in the world to place his followers in the chains of servile obedience, and allows everyone the utmost freedom of action. In this respect he is quite refreshingly different from most of the teachers and Yogis I have met in India.
My meditations take the line he had indicated during my first visit….
Who am I?
Am I this body of flesh, blood and bone? (p.292)
…Yet he has refused to formulate any systematic teaching. The gist of his message is:
“Pursue the enquiry ‘Who am I?’ relentlessly. Analyse your entire personality. Try to find out where the I-thought begins. Go on with your meditations. Keep turning your attention within One day the wheel of thought will slow down and an intuition will mysteriously arise. Follow that intuition, let your thinking stop, and it will eventually lead you to the goal.” (p.292)
…And I like him greatly because he is so simple and modest, when an atmosphere of authentic greatness lies so palapably around him; because he makes no claims to occult powers and hierophantic knowledge to impress the mystery-loving nature of his countrymen; and because he is so totally without any traces of pretension that he strongly resists every effort to canonize him during his lifetime.
….It seems to me, further, that one must accept the fact that such a sage comes to reveal something to us, not to argue anything with us. At any rate, his teachings make a strong appeal to me for his personal attitude and practical method, when understood, are quite scientific in their way. He brings in no supernatural power and demands no blind religious faith. The sublime spirituality of the Maharishee’s atmosphere and the rational self-questioning of his philosophy find but a fait echo in yonder temple. (p.302)
But how divorce oneself from the age-old tyranny of thoughts? I remember that the Maharishee has never suggested that I should attempt to force the stoppage of thinking. “Trace thought to its place of origin,” is his reiterated counsel, “watch for the real self to reveal itself, and then your thoughts will die down of their own accord.”…
Finally it happens. Thought is extinguished like a snuffed candle. The intellect withdraws into its real ground, that is, consciousness working unhindered by thoughts. I perceive, what I have suspected for some time and what the Maharishee has confidently affirmed, that the mind takes its rise in a transcendental source. The brain has passed into a state of complete suspension, as it does in deep sleep, yet there is (p.304) not the slightest loss of consciousness. I remain perfectly calm and fully aware of who I am and what is occurring. Yet my sense of awareness has been drawn out of the narrow confines of the separate personality; it has turned into something sublimely all-embracing. Self still exists, but it is a changed, radiant self. For something that is far superior to the unimportant personality which was I, some deeper, diviner being rises into consciousness and becomes me. With it arrives an amazing new sense of absolute freedom, for thought is like a loom-shuttle which is always going to and fro, and to be freed from its tyrannical motion is to step out of prison into the open air.
I find myself outside the rim of world consciousness. The planet which has so far harboured me, disappears. I am in the midst of an ocean of blazing light. The latter, I feel rather than think, is the primeval stuff out of which worlds are created, the first state of matter. It stretches away into untellable infinite space, incredibly alive. (p.305)
…I discover that I am still sitting in the hall of the Maharishee and that it is apparently deserted. My eyes catch sight of the hermitage clock and I realize that the inmates must be in the dining-room at their evening meal. And then I become aware of someone on my left. It is the seventy-five-year-old ex-stationmaster, who is squatting close beside me on the floor with his gaze turned benevolently on me.
“You have been in a spiritual trance for nearly two hours,” he informs me. His face, seamed with years and lined with old cares, breaks into smiles as though he rejoices in my own happiness.1 (p.310)
My adventure in self-metamorphosis is over, but the turning axle of time will bring me back to this place, I know….(p.312)
Before closing this article, I would like to record what he wrote about Meher Baba when he revisited him before coming to Arunachala. Because his assessment of Meher Baba will help us understand Brunton’s rationalism versus mystic experiences:
I believe that the youthful Meher became quite unbalanced as a result of this expected experience [which he had with a Muhammedan woman faqeer, Hazrat Babajan]. This was obvious enough when he fell into a condition of semi-idiocy and behaved like a human robot, but it is not so obvious now that he has recovered sanity. I do not believe that he has returned to normality as a human being. To some people, a sudden overdoes of religion, Yogic trance, or mystic ecstasy is a unbalancing as a sudden overdose of certain drugs. In short, I believe that Meher Baba has not yet recovered from the first intoxication of his exalted mood, and a lack of balance still exists as a result of the tremendous derangement which occurred to his mental faculties at such an early age. On no other hypothesis can I account for the extraordinary behaviour which he manifests from time to time.
He shows, on the one hand, all the qualities of a mystic—love, gentleness, religious intuition, and so on, but on the other hand he shows signs of the mental disease of paranoia. He exaggerates everything which pertains to his own self. This condition is also found among religious enthusiasts who experience sudden but temporary states of ecstasy. They emerge with the awareness that something colossal has happened to them. It is only another step for them to make unwarranted claims to spiritual greatness, and so they begin to found new cults or to set up queer societies with themselves at the head. The deification of self, the belief that they are messiah destined to save all mankind, is the final step taken by the audacious few.—p. 259
I have traveled to various parts of North India and also read several books on Hinduism. But till I read this book by Brunton, I never heard about this Meher Baba. At the end of this chapter, in the footnotes, he wrote, ‘Meher Baba has since appeared in the West and a Western cult has started to gather around him’.5 So to know what happened to this Meher Baba, I searched YouTube and, to my surprise, there are so many videos about him, and he still has considerable followers both in India and the West.
After this second visit to Meher Baba, when he was almost exhausted both in body and mind, he wrote:
I have had to learn how to pick my way between genuine sages and fools who mistake their egotistic way between genuine sages and fools who mistake their egotistic fancies for divine knowledge, between true religious mystics and mere mystery-mongers, between pseudo holy men working black magic and true followers of the way of Yoga. And I have had to cram and concentrate my investigations into minimum time, for I cannot afford to spend years out of a life upon a single quest.
If my physical and mental condition is bad, my spiritual state is little better. I am dishearted by a sense of failure. True, I have met some men of remarkable attainments and fine character, as well as others who can do amazing things, but I have not settled down to any positive inward recognition that here is the spiritual superman of my quest, the master who appeals to my rationalistic make-up and to whom I can gladly attach myself. Enthusiastic disciples have vainly endeavoured to draw me into their own teachers’ folds, but I can see that, just as youth takes its first adolescent adventure as the last measure of love, so these good folk have been so thrilled by their early experiences that they have not thought to seek any farther. Besides, I have no desire to become the depository of another man’s doctrines; it is a living, first-hand, personal experience which I seek, a spiritual illumination entirely my own and not someone else’s.[emphasis added]—p. 270
I know that he never wrote this book while he was still visiting India. After returning back, going through his various notes which he recorded during his visit, he completed this book. I wonder, as a rationalistic person who does not want to ‘become the depository of another man’s …experience’, sincerely and faithfully wrote this book as per his principle? Well, as others might ask similar questions about some of my writings (including this article), the reader of this article and this book alone can decide about it.
Gurukulam
27-1-2022
Notes
1 …One heard much of certain so-called holy men who possessed reptue of having acquired deep wisdom and strange powers; so one travelled through scorching days and sleepless nights to find them—only to find well-intentioned fools, scriptural slaves, venerable know-nothing, money-seeking conjurers, jugglers with a few tricks, and pious frauds. To fill my pages with the records of such people would be worthless to the reader and is a distasteful task to me. Therefore I omit the tale of time wasted upon them.—Brunton, p. 13
2…I, too, was somewhat impatient of those who construct theological paradises and who then confidently show you round with an air of being God’s estate agents. I had nothing but contempt for what seemed to be the futile, fanatical efforts of uncritical theorisers.—Brunton, p. 19
3 These wonders of mysticism are, it may be freely confessed, incomprehensible and surrounded by clouds of doubt for any Western mind nurtured, as all are, upon materialist empiricism. If we have not ourselves had such experiences we doubt them because our whole civilization is based upon concepts of measurement—weight, mass, velocity, temperature and the like. If modern physics and the most ancient Upanishads happen to agree that the material universe is an illusion of which the formulable essence is energy, our tendency is to regard that as a remarkable coincidence and no more. But it is beginning to be explicitly admitted among scientists that the human consciousness is a mystery, that the pulsations of the brain—which have been measured by machines as they leave the head, varying considerably in energy as shown by the mechanical graph—cannot begin to be (p.333) explained electronically, and that our knowledge of ourselves, in spite of three generations of psychologists, is infantile….—Vincent Sheean, Lead, Kindly Light, New York, Random House, 1949, pp 333-34
4 The following points from various pages from this book might help us to understand the basic philosophy of Sri Ramana Maharishi:
‘You have to ask yourself the question, Who am I? This investigation will lead in the end to the discovery of something within you which is behind the mind. Solve that great problem, and you will solve all other problems thereby.” [Maharishee] (p.157)
“The sense of ‘I’ pertains to the person, the body and brain,” replies the Maharishee calmly.
“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.”
As the last word falls from the interpreter’s lips, there flashes across my mind those memorable words which were uttered by a wandering Teacher in Galilee, words which have puzzled so many good persons: Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it. (p.159)
…If you meditate on this question, Who am I?—if you begin to perceive that neither the body nor the brain nor the desires are really you, then the very attitude of enquiry will eventually draw the answer to you out of the depths of your own being; it will come to you of its own accord as a deep realization.”
Again I ponder his words.
“Know the real self,” he continues, “and then the truth will shine forth within your heart like sunshine. The mind will (p.160) (p.160) 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.” (p.161)
5 Meher Baba has since appeared in the West as a Western cult has started to gather around him…..He has several times visited England, has acquired a following in France, Spain and Turkey, and has been twice to Persia……When he arrived in Hollywood, he was given a royal reception. Mary Pickford entertained him in her home, Tallulah Bankhead became interested in him…A large tract of land was acquired in the United States to establish his Western head-quarters. Meanwhile dumbness still lies upon his lips, the while he flits impulsively from country to country on brief visits. At last he has been brought into the glare of notoriety.—Brunton, p. 262 [More on Meher Baba See Youtube]
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