By Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishana-
( Excerpt from the article that appeared in the Goldenn Jubilee Souvenir, September 1946)
It is somewhat surprising that may students of religion assume that the religious seers, the true representatives of religious genius, belong wholly to the past and we today have to live on the memory of the past. If religion is a living truth, if it has any vitality, it must be capable of producing men who from time to time bear witness ot the truth and confirm and correct from their own experience the religious tradition.In the Indian tradition, religion has not meant an imaginative or intellectual apprehension of Reality but its embodiment in regenrated living.
The truly religious are those who have solid hold of the unseen Reality in which we ordinary men merely believe.
It is our good fortune that we have with us today a living embodiment of God centered life, a perfect image of life divine in the mirror of human exixtence. Sri Ramana Maharishi is not a scholar ; he is no erudition; but he has wisdom that comes from direct experience of Reality.
Dedication to God/Guru means denial of the ego. We must empty the self in the abyss of God. This process is helped by the practice of unselfish service (Nishkama Karma), devotion (Bhakthi) , mind control( Yoga), and inquiry (Vichara). Inquiry into self , religious worship , eithical service are means to this realization. The end of all worshp, puja , japa , dhyana is communion with God.With increasing intensity in our devotion , the distance between the human and the Divine diminishes.
Sri Ramana dwells not only in a world of pure subjectivity but has also sense of the Infinite that is in all. As he has no selfish desires and no sense of agency , he enters into the world movement and carries out the functions expected of him by the Universal spirit. Honour and dishonour , praise of blame , do not move him.
His very presence radiates peace and joy. He refashions the souls of those who look to him for help.With keen psychological insight he understands the needs of those who approach him and satisfies them.He loves all beings as he loves himself and cannot rest until everyone mirrors the Divine in his life.
Men like Ramana Maharishi recall us to the larger dimension of Reality to which we really belong , though we are generally unaware of it.
Sri Ramanaarpanam
