Paul Brunton
I realize that all my questions are moves in an endless game, the play of thoughts which possess no limit to their extent; that somewhere within me there is a well of certitude which can provide me with all the waters of truth I require; and that it will be better to cease my questioning and attempt to realize the tremendous potencies of my own spiritual nature. So I remain silent and wait. The Maharishee’s eyes continue to stare straight in front of him in a fixed, unmoving gaze. He appears to have forgotten me, but I am perfectly aware that the sublime realization which has suddenly fallen upon me is nothing else than a spreading ripple of telepathic radiation from this mysterious and imperturbable man.
On one visit the Maharishee (Raman) finds me in a pessimistic mood. He tells me of the glorious goal which waits for the man who takes to the way he has shown. “But, Maharishee, this path is full of difficulties and I am so conscious of my own weaknesses,” I plead.
“That is the surest way to handicap oneself,” he answers unmoved, “this burdening of one’s mind with the fear of failure and the thought of one’s failings.”
“Yet if it is true?” I persist.
” It is not true. The greatest error of a man is to think that he is weak by nature, evil by nature. Every man is divine and strong in his real nature. What are weak and evil are his habits, his desires and thoughts, but not himself.”
His words come as an invigorating tonic. They refresh and inspire me. From another man’s lips, from some lesser and feebler soul, I would refuse to accept them at such worth and would persist in refuting them. But an inward monitor assures me that the sage speaks out of the depths of a great and authentic spiritual experience, and not as some theorizing philosopher mounted on the thin stilts of speculation.
Another time, when we are discussing the West, I make the retort: ” It is easy for you to attain and keep spiritual serenity in this jungle retreat, where there is nothing to disturb or distract you.”
“When the goal is reached, when you know the Knower, there is no difference between living in a house in London and living in the solitude of a jungle,” comes the calm rejoinder. And once I criticize the Indians for their neglect of material development. To my surprise the Maharishee frankly admits to me.
” It is true. We are a backward race. But we are a people with few wants. Our society needs improving, but we are contented with much fewer things than your people. So to be backward is not to mean that we are less happy.”
Excerpted from ‘A Search in Secret India.’ The 120th birth anniversary of Paul Brunton is being observed on October 21.
