I recently posted a link to an article by David Godman that evaluates the accuracy of books that record Ramana’s teachings. One of David’s criteria for judging a book is whether Ramana reviewed and edited it. We can apply this criterion not only to whole books, but also to shorter pieces of text like the […]
Author: Freddie
P.R. Subramanian Iyer
P.R. Subramanian Iyer, known to friends as Mani and often identified as P.R.S. Mani, worked as a photographer for a movie studio in Tamil Nadu. He married the daughter of Ganapati Muni and died at 33. I think (but I’m not sure) that he is the man in the lower left corner of the photo […]
Neti neti
A friend of a friend studied French by reciting sentences like these: ‘Buenos días’ is not French. ‘அறிவே நான்’ is not French. ‘Ausgezeichnet’ is not French. ‘夫妻肺片’ is not French. And so on. He worked hard at it but his French was always awful. That’s neti neti. If you don’t know anything about neti neti, […]
Henri Cartier-Bresson
I hesitate to post Henri Cartier-Bresson’s famous photos of Ramana because some people find them sad if not gruesome. But it must be done. If you feel sad when you look at them, maybe it will help to remember Ramana’s famous words to devotees just before he died: You say I am going away. But […]
Gajanan Govind Welling
Anybody who has been interested in Ramana Maharshi for more than ten minutes has probably seen the next picture. It’s reproduced frequently on book covers and web sites. The photo’s popularity is completely understandable; it’s a wonderful picture. This photo and similar ones are sometimes called “the Welling busts.” They were taken in 1946 by […]
You don’t hit a dog, you pet a dog
I’ve written before about the autistic boy who I’ve loved and taken care of for years. I should stop calling him a boy because he’ll turn twenty this year. I’ll pretend his name is George. He has — or had — sociopathic tendencies. His father has told me that he himself is a diagnosed sociopath, […]
Eliot Elisofon
Eliot Elisofon was the photographer who took the pictures for Life Magazine‘s long article about Ramana Maharshi that appeared in May, 1949. He was was one of the most famous and accomplished Western photographers of his day, with notable achievements in other fields as well. I’m old enough to remember Life Magazine in its heyday. […]
A hint concerning Self-enquiry
The main tool we use for Self-enquiry, at least in the early stages, is attention. In this context the word ‘attention’ means the deliberate, volitional choice of what is evident. When attention succeeds, we become or remain aware of the object of attention. The reason I’m analyzing this common word in microscopic detail is that […]
Which books present Ramana’s teachings most accurately?
When you see a book or pamplet that says “by Sri Ramana Maharshi” on the cover, or one that contains records of his conversations, you might assume that the words inside are his. Unfortunately things aren’t so straightforward. To take one example, some of the conversations in Talks With Ramana Maharshi were paraphrased and written […]
Exit signs in the dream
People often say that the world is like a dream and that when we wake up from it, we become enlightened. The first half of this idea has probably occurred to people in all times and places. In the words of the children’s song, “Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.” The second […]