Ramana Maharshi usually told a sanitized version of his realization story, to not cause alarm.
In this version, he was doing his homework in an upstairs room when he had a panic attack.
Thinking he would die, he decided to explore the experience instead of running to get help.
He lay down in a death-like pose and imagined himself dead and gone.
Though the body was gone, he discovered he was still here.
He realized he’s infinite Spirit.
We have to wonder how this thought-experiment was so successful, because his body wasn’t gone at all. It was only a thought-experiment.
How did he get from A to B?
“Good karma” was the usual reply.
The unsanitized story is more illuminating, when we’re ready to hear it.
He was a regular kid.
He was a superb athlete and not very good at school.
He was funny and good-natured, but nobody ever messed with him.
If they did, he “thrashed them.”
He was your typical jock with no interest in spirituality except he did read one book on the lives of the saints.
So what happened?
In the version of the story he more privately told, he died.
He was sitting upstairs doing his homework when his heart stopped beating.
He left his body and hovered over the resulting scene of grief and pandemonium.
He even saw his body being carried down the street.
He wanted to go back home, and suddenly he was there.
He didn’t rise from the dead to everyone’s amazement. It was as though that whole story-line never happened.
He realized life is only a dream.
When we identify with the dream character, we forget we’re dreaming.
When people asked him for advice, he was uncompromising on the fact that there is nothing out there.
But we don’t have to escape from the dream, because the dream fools only itself.
He called the dreaming mind a “wondrous power” that sees its thoughts outside itself, as the world.
He didn’t consider it to be our enemy.
The true Self we’re looking for is right here and completely available.
Our own awareness is the truth of this world.
It’s the obvious fact we always overlook.
What is true and real?
I am.
‘I’ is absolute happiness.
To discover ‘I’ is to find the fountain of joy in the heart.