As our ox cart came up the road facing Skandasramam, Kunju Swami reminisced, "Bhagavan used to come up this road. The houses at night would be lit up, the doors and windows open, and people would be quiet, just like this. 'This is like the turiya state,' Bhagavan would say, 'All the doors of the senses are wide open, and yet the mind is quiet.'"

There are several striking parallels between the Machu Picchu site and the Shakti culture. The Inca's worshipped Machu Picchu as the manifestation of the Divine Mother Goddess of the Universe. They referred to Her as "Paachamama," a name that bears a striking similarity to the name "Pachaiamman" used for Parvathi in South Indian shrines. [In the early 1900s, the Maharshi spent many months at the Pachaiamman Temple at the foot of the Hill, outside the town of Tiruvannamalai.] The architecture of the temple city was astrologically and astronomically determined. Various points of the city serve as a kind of giant sextant or observatory from where specific constellations and celestial objects can be plotted and observed. A closer look at the topology of the city reveals a striking resemblance to the Sri Chakra, the Meru architectural topology that characterizes Indian Shakti shrines.

You Must Love All

"There never was and never will be a time when all are equally happy or rich or wise or healthy. In fact none of these terms has any meaning except in so far as the opposite to it exists. But that does not mean that when you come across anyone who is less happy or more miserable than yourself, you are not to be moved to compassion or to seek to relieve him as best you can. On the contrary, you must love all and help all, since only in that way can you help yourself. When you seek to reduce the suffering of any fellow-man or fellow-creature, whether your efforts succeed or not, you are yourself evolving spiritually thereby, especially if such service is rendered disinterestedly, without the egoistic feeling 'I am doing this', but in the spirit 'God is making me the channel of this service; He is the doer and I the instrument.'"


Bhagvan Ramana Maharshi
| My Recollections
           Devaraj Mudaliar

There is the light of Uma in your eyes for dispelling your devotees' dark ignorance. Your face gleams lotus-like with the grace and brilliance of Lakshmi. Your words contain the secret lore of Saraswati. Preceptor of the worlds! How can a mortal sing your glory?

| Devotee of Bhagvan Ramana Maharshi

When I knew a little I was blinded by pride as an elephant by rut, and my mind was covered over by the thought, 'I know everything'. But when through the company of the enlightened I learned little by little, then I found that I was a fool and the fever of my pride departed
| Bhavatrihari

We should not lose sight of the scheme of creation and ideal because of our attachment to human relations in this life. Serve them, but seek not your happiness in them. Seek it within where it is eternally flowing. That is the only way to serve and be happy in life.

I always think of the brilliant biologist/writer Rachel Carson's words when accepting the John Borroughs Medal for Environmental Science Writing for "Under the Sea Wind", prior to her courageous defense of the natural world in Congressional hearings and her landmark book The Silent Spring: ""I myself am convinced that there has never been a greater need than there is today for the reporter and interpreter of the natural world. Mankind has gone very far into an artificial world of his own creation. He has sought to insulate himself, in his cities of steel and concrete, from the realities of earth and water and the growing seed. Intoxicated with a sense of his own power, he seems to be going farther and farther into more experiments for the destruction of himself and his world. For this unhappy trend there is no single remedy - no panacea. But I believe that the more clearly we can focus on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for its destruction"

ONE day it was suggested to Sri Maharshi that no spiritual progress could ever be made without sadhana, or discipline. After a pause he made these observations: "Mind it is that binds man, and the same mind it is that liberates him. Mind is constituted of sankalpa and vikalpa desire and disposition. Desire is of two kinds the noble and the base. The base desires are lust and greed. Noble desire is directed towards enlightenment and emancipation. Base desire contaminates and clouds the understanding. Sadhana is easy for the aspirant who is endowed with noble desires. Calmness is the criterion of spiritual progress. Plunge the purified mind into the Heart. Then the work is over. This is the essence of all spiritual discipline!"