22 June 2006

Paramhansa Yogananda


Towards the end of 1936 Paramhamsa Yogananda visited Arunachala - but it seems his visit was more for the purpose of meeting Sri Ramana Maharshi than for spending time at the Holy Hill:-

'Before leaving South India, Mr. Wright and I made a pilgrimage to the holy hill of Arunachala near Tiruvannamalai to meet Sri Ramana Maharshi. AT this ashram the great sage welcomed us affectionately and pointed to a nearby stack of East-West magazines. During the hours that we spent with him and his disciples, he was mostly silent, his gentle face radiating divine love and wisdom.

To help suffering humanity regain its forgotten states of Perfection, Sri Ramana teaches that one should constantly ask himself: 'Who am I?', the Great Inquiry indeed. By stern rejection of all other thoughts the devotee soon finds himself going deeper and deeper
into the true Self, and the sidetracking bewilderments of other thoughts cease to arise.'

Autobiography of a Yogi (p.391)

2 comments:

Itinerant Yogi said...

Hi Meenakshi. Do you have any further info on Yogananda's meeting with the Maharshi that you can share with us? Very little information is online. I think he left that section out of his memoir, because Paul Brunton was writing that book right? Thanks.

Meenakshi Ammal said...

Hi there. Inspired by your question have made the following post here:

http://arunachalamystic.blogspot.in/2014/11/meeting-of-ramana-maharsi-and.html

But there is absolutely no new information that I could find. (It is as you say) supposedly Yogananda didn't mention his meeting with Maharshi because it had been written about in the Paul Brunton book.

Posted the video of the meeting between Maharshi, Yogananda and Brunton. But noticed your comment on You Tube, so know that you are familiar with this recorded meeting already.