TAT Profile: Ramana Maharshiby Damien MarkakisTAT Profiles are a guide to the life and thought of individuals, past and present, who havecontributed to the advancement of human awareness.Ramana Maharshi and the Yogic Path of Discriminative WisdomWhy would people from every walk of life, both from the occident and the orient, have traveledout of their ways at great inconvenience and expense to visit the inhabitant of a cave inTiruvannamalai, India? Why would statesmen, writers, and peasants alike all make theoftentimes long journey into the sweltering climate surrounding the sacred hill known asArunacala? Why would such prominent figures as Carl Gustav Jung, Somerset Maugham, ArthurOsborne and Paul Brunton all venture into the heart of the vast Indian sub-continent with the solepurpose of meeting a Hindu renunciate by the name of Ramana Maharshi?. . . a man who hasbeen referred to "as the most saintly of modern Hindu ascetics and mystics." 1 The objective ofthis essay is to explore the life and spiritual teachings of this great sage, and in the process tospeak directly to each of these questions. 1979 TAT Foundation. All rights reserved.1Reprinted with permission. TAT Journal Vol. 2, No. 1In a small Indian village south of the sacred city of Madurai, there lived a rural lawyer namedSundaram Aiyar and his wife Alagamma. A visiting ascetic who had once been mistreated bythis man's ancestors had cast a curse on the family which was to insure that one offspring in eachgeneration would renounce the world and become an ascetic. This couple's second son wasnamed Venkataraman (of which "Ramana" is an abbreviation). He was born on December 30,1879, a day dedicated to the celebration of Lord Siva's victory over the demon Andhaka (a Hindumyth meant to symbolize the conquest of light over darkness).Raised in the security of a middleclass, Brahmin family, the boy led a normal, uneventfulchildhood in the secluded village of Tirucculi, South India. He demonstrated a keen interest inoutdoor sports, but was indifferent towards his studies in school. While being blessed with anextraordinarily retentive memory and an alert mind he, curiously enough, was an abnormallydeep sleeper. Stories have been recounted of his friends actually striking him while he was asleepwithout being able to awaken him. Another relevant event in his life was the death of his fatherwhen he was twelve. His father's passing apparently caused a noticeable change in the son'snature by making the latter more reflective in a profound sense. Other than these factors, hischildhood development through the fifteenth year left no clues as to Ramana's impendingspiritual destiny.During his sixteenth year, a great spiritual awakening was to radically transform his view of life.The first premonition of this mystical unfoldment came accidentally one day while the boy wasspeaking to an elder relative who had just returned from visiting Arunacala, a noted sacred hillnearby. The mere mention of this spot kindled an intense curiosity in Ramana, who soonafterwards began reading his first piece of religious literature, the Periyapuranam (a tale of thelives of the sixty-three Saiva saints). He became fascinated and overwhelmed by these accountswhich pointed the way to realization of the Divine. The