The Essential Teachings of Ramana Maharshi: A Visual Journey

As one with academic training in philosophy, I reluctantly concede...yes, truth can be found in, um, a picture book. What's more, you may not need to go farther than that. On page 109: "There is no use removing doubts. If we clear one doubt, another arises, and there will be no end of doubts. All doubts will cease only when the doubter and his source have been found. Seek for the source of the doubter, and you find he is really nonexistent. Doubter ceasing, doubts will cease." And looking at the pictures of Ramana in this book, doubts cease.

This book has become one of my favorites. It is filled with clear black and white photographs of Ramana Maharshi. Inserted on the pictures are GEMS of Ramana's teachings. The quotes are distilled and arranged in such a way to make them tremendously potent. I read a few pages at a time as I look at the pictures. I start feeling enlightenment. The words are dripping with profound simple insight into our apparent condition. The phantom self begins to drop away, peace begins to bring it's light, there is no need to seek. There is nowhere we need to go, it's all center, nobody's going anywhere. Time and space are but an illusion. Reading the words in this book. It's so simple and clear. All seeking, even religious seeking assume a separation from the infinite but the infinite is always here and now. Seeking objectifies and distances the infinite from us. It can even strenghthen the ego, now one has become a super holier than thou ego. There might be a certain readiness needed for this teaching. Some methods use seeking and a distance from God. Sometimes one needs to keep seeking because of all the commotion going on in one's soul. A tempest is blasting in one's soul and sometimes we are too in a hurry to be in the present. We've got things to do and places to go, you know. If you've begun to see the futility of seeking then you are ready for this book. You'll experience quiet, peace and stillness and an ordinary contentment with what is. What you feel after this depends on how much you contemplate and meditate upon these words and finally go beyond them into your REAL SELF. There is the phantom self and your REAL SELF. This book can help you find your REAL SELF that has been here all along, remember...?

This beautiful book is a treat for anyone interested in spiritual insight. Ramana Maharshi was a wise man and more: he knew himself to be identical with the One Self of all. The photos are beautiful, the text, though brief, is sublime. Ramana insists we are o k just as we are. We fail to realize it because we fail to know ourselves as we really are; infinite and divine, the one true Self. To read this book is to partake in a visual and philosophical feast. Its brevity demands attention. Its truths have the power to enlighten. Enjoy this book as a meditation which will help you see and know your own true Self.

This editor has done a masterful job of compiling brief quotes from Ramana Maharshi, the great master of the spiritual teaching called Advaita. The truth of Advaita is simple, and, as in Zen Buddhism, the apprehension of that truth is mind-stilling and profound. Each page of this book contains a quote that performs the mind-stilling function quite admirably. The illustrations - photographs of Ramana Maharshi, his ashram, and the mountain Arunachala - are very beautiful. However, it is the enormous silence behind the words on each page that give this book its power. I couldn't recommend any book more highly.