From V. Ganesan’s book Ramana Periya Puranam: Sadhu Natanananda raged, “What a fool you are! What do you think you have come to Bhagavan for? For what function has he chosen you? It is only to make you like him!” Photo: Sri Ramanasramam catalog number boa_52
Author: Freddie
T. N. Krishnaswami
Dr. T. N. Krishnaswami, known as Dr. TNK, took most of the photos in Sri Ramanasramam’s archives. In the 1930s when he was a medical student he came from Madras with friends to visit Sri Ramanasramam for the first time. He brought a camera and took this picture: People at the ashram liked the photo […]
Ouspensky’s tragic mistake
Introduction added in 2019 During the two years since this article was published, a number of readers have posted comments below accusing me of misunderstanding Ouspensky. To those readers: this article is my reaction to a section of one of Ouspensky’s books which you can read for free at this link: Self Remembering by Ouspensky […]
Ramana’s crucial secret
The title of this post refers to an article by Michael James. According to Michael: This is the crucial and extremely valuable secret that Sri Bhagavan [Ramana Maharshi] has revealed to us all about the nature of our ego or mind: If we attend to anything other than ourself, our mind will thereby rise and […]
A short love letter to India
India is the only human civilization that discovered Self-realization and created institutions to hand down that knowledge. India is the spiritual teacher of all humanity. Photo: Vitalla Temple in Hampi, Karnataka, India
The greatest miracle
Pain hurts. This is the greatest miracle we know of. If this sounds strange, please read on. I picked pain for my example rather than sound or sight or blueness or impatience or orgasm or affection or a billion other phenomena which are equally miraculous only because English happens to have a peculiar word, ‘hurt’, […]
General anesthesia and Advaita Vedanta
It is sometimes said that Advaita Vedanta began with Gaudapada’s commentary on the Mandukya Upanishad. It is from this Upanishad and commentary that we get the doctrine of the three states (waking, dream, and sleep) and turiya, the fourth. Whether Advaita really began with Gaudapada’s commentary, I don’t know. I’m not an intellectual historian. But […]
Nalla Pillai Mudaliar
The photo above shows Nallapillai Studio, a photography business in Kumbakonam, India, as it exists today. The business was created in 1878 by Nalla Pillai Mudaliar, the great-great-grandfather of the present owner. Nalla Pillai was a devotee of Sri Mouni Guru Swamigal. When I began writing this article, I thought that Sri Mouni Guru Swamigal […]
Catalog of Ramana photos
Realization.org recently published a gallery with about 1500 photos of Ramana. Further reading Ramana photo gallery on Realization.org Article about the Sri Ramanasramam photo archive Photo by Eliot Elisofon