In the first segment, we saw how Balarama Reddy first met Bhagavan in 1933. It was an encounter that left a lasting impression. During a longer stay, Reddygaru experienced Bhagavan's grace in a dramatic incident on the Hill where, trapped on a dangerous ledge, he inwardly surrendered and was inexplicably saved. This became the turning point of his life.

For years, Reddy had been living at Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry but after receiving permission from Sri Aurobindo to leave, he settled down in Tiruvannamalai in 1937. Living a simple life, he spent long hours in Bhagavan's presence, receiving subtle guidance through silence, gestures, and occasional words. Reddy came to see that Bhagavan's true teaching lay not in discourse but in presence—Bhagavan's silent sannidhi which relentlessly called devotees to Self-knowledge. His sadhana included a vow of silence, undertaken with Bhagavan's tacit approval and ending with Bhagavan's gentle prompting. This experience, too, exemplified his wordless guidance and intimate grace. The narrative picks up here:

A Father's Passing

Not long after ending his silence, Reddy received a letter from his mother asking him to come home, as she had not seen him for a long time:

In the Hall

Reddy repeatedly stressed that Bhagavan's love did not depend on talk or overt display. Between Bhagavan and certain long-time devotees, few words ever passed, yet a glance, a nod, or a brief inquiry communicated intimacy and care. In the atmosphere of the Hall, distinctions softened; devotees felt themselves part of a single family, with Bhagavan at the centre.

At the same time, Reddygaru notes that Bhagavan's kindness did not exclude discipline. Even when appearing indifferent, Bhagavan watched the inner movement of seekers, and he often guided through understated signals rather than direct instruction. Reddyg cites a later family crisis when it appeared that he would need to remain permanently in his native village, implying separation from Bhagavan:

It was in this context that Reddygaru came to appreciate the Sarvadhikari, Niranjanananda Swami (Chinnaswami). Although criticised in his administrative role, he acted at times with a confidence that devotees interpreted as inward prompting. Chinnaswami once remarked to Reddygaru that he felt there was a "wireless connection" between him and Bhagavan.

Paul Brunton

Reddy records a revealing episode from 1939 involving Paul Brunton. Brunton's A Search in Secret India had introduced Bhagavan to a global audience, and Brunton was known for taking notes in the Hall. Over time, the Ashram authorities felt that Bhagavan's teaching was being used in Brunton's later writings without sufficient acknowledgement:

Proofing and Publishing

A year or two later, as Reddy was preparing to visit his village, Bhagavan unexpectedly asked him to correct the final proofs of the fourth edition of B. V. Narasimhaswami's Self-Realization. Proof after proof arrived, delaying Reddy's departure. When he finally reported the remaining errors, Bhagavan remarked with amused surprise that he himself and others had read the proofs, yet Reddy still found additional mistakes—corrections that were added as errata.

Later, the newly printed edition arrived at Reddy's home by post, inscribed "With the blessings of Sri Bhagavan." Reddy preserved the book as a tangible sign that his work—seemingly minor—had been received as service:

Sanskrit Texts

Reddygaru recounts several incidents that revived his old, unfinished desire to learn Sanskrit. He had attempted it more than once but never progressed far. One evening he saw two large volumes illuminated beside Bhagavan's couch—Yoga Vasishtham, which Bhagavan praised for its wisdom. When Reddy lamented his poor Sanskrit, Bhagavan replied with disarming simplicity that he too did not know much grammar. The remark encouraged Reddy to attempt learning in Bhagavan's presence.

Bhagavan, Reddy notes, could follow spoken Sanskrit, though he rarely spoke it. During one Sanskrit conversation in the Hall, Reddygaru suddenly lost the thread, and at that precise moment Bhagavan turned and asked him whether he had followed it—an example of the subtle attentiveness devotees often experienced in Bhagavan's presence.

Another incident underscored Bhagavan's peculiar state of "wakeful sleep". When Reddy read aloud a Telugu transliteration of a Sanskrit biography of Manikkavachakar, the well-known Saivite poet-saint, Bhagavan reclined with eyes closed. A devotee signalled Reddy to stop, assuming Bhagavan had dozed off. But the moment Reddygaru paused, Bhagavan opened his eyes and asked why he had stopped. Reddy concluded that the usual categories of sleeping and waking did not apply in the Maharshi's case.

Reddy noted the establishment of regular Veda chanting via the burgeoning Veda Patasala (school). Bhagavan listened to the daily recitations without fail, alert and absorbed, and frequently praised their value.

Srimad Bhagavatam

In 1942, Bhagavan fractured his shoulder while saving a squirrel from a dog:

"It is improper to make inquiries about the health and welfare of those whose sole delight is in the Self, since they are strangers to those mental states which distinguish between weal and woe." — Srimad Bhagavatam, Skanda IV, Ch. 22, v. 14.

In January 1946, Bhagavan came across a verse in the Srimad Bhagavatam that strongly appealed to him. He traced it from the Tamil Bhagavatam back to the Sanskrit original, made his own Tamil rendering, and at Reddy's request translated it into Telugu, Reddy's mother tongue:

Inspired Speech

Reddygaru observes that after Ganapati Muni's death, Bhagavan declined requests to compose in Sanskrit, saying that, with Nayana gone, he had no one he could consult. Although Bhagavan had not studied Sanskrit grammar systematically, he composed by inspiration and trusted Nayana's mastery completely. On hearing of the Muni's death, Bhagavan lamented, "Where will we find another like him"? Reddy narrates:

Scholars and Swamis

Reddygaru narrates on the visits from many learned scholars, swamis, and sannyasins, often seeking philosophical answers or an opportunity to test their learning. Reddy insists that Bhagavan's response was never governed by status or appearance but by the inner disposition of the visitor.

Reddy tells of one visit by a well-known swami from Ahmedabad dressed in costly silks. The swami asked whether Ishwara truly existed. Bhagavan gave his characteristic reply: we may speculate about Ishwara, but we know the "I" exists; find out who that "I" is. When the swami argued using scriptures, Bhagavan asked why he, Bhagavan, should be questioned further if the scriptures already said it. As the swami continued, Bhagavan simply turned to his ongoing translation work with devotees, effectively ending the exchange. The swami left displeased, later remarking that the Maharshi "doesn't seem to know very much." Bhagavan later asked what the swami had said and smiled when he was told. Reddy tells of another visit:

This was followed by a barrage of questions from the swami, who asked about Bhagavan's state of realisation, about samadhi, the bhakti school, etc. Bhagavan answered him very patiently, point by point. The swami listened. Whether or not he was satisfied is hard to say. Before leaving the hall, the swami touched Bhagavan's couch and joined his palms in salutation.

Later, Mr. Bose reported that before the swami boarded his train, he said, 'I have truly gained something from this visit to the Maharshi.' Bhagavan also commented after his departure, 'It will work.'

Whenever Bhagavan made this observation, we understood it to mean that the conversation the person had with Bhagavan would sink in and ultimately have positive effects.

Reddygaru recalls how Mr. Bose, devastated by the death of his only son, asked in anguish, "What is God?" After a silence Bhagavan replied, "Your question itself contains the answer: What is, is God."

In these episodes Reddy underscores that Bhagavan had no desire to argue or prove anything. If a visitor came with pride or combativeness, the teaching did not "land". Insincerity, too, was foiled:

Bhagavan's English

Bhagavan read English well and followed newspapers yet rarely spoke English. If the pronunciation was unclear, he might not understand. Reddy records a brief exchange that became memorable:

The American engineer Guy Hague asked how, after Self-realisation, one might help others. Bhagavan replied in concise English: "After realisation of the Self, there are no others."

The State of a Jnani

Bhagavan once remarked, referring to himself, "In this state it is as difficult to think a thought as it is for those in bondage to be without thoughts."

Reddy also remembered him saying, "You ask me questions, and I reply and talk to you. If I do not speak or do anything, I am automatically drawn within, and where I am, I do not know." Reddy further narrates:

—(to be continued)

Bhagavan's 146th Jayanti will be celebrated at Sri Ramanasramam on the morning of 4th January 2026 (4.30am IST) and then across the world that same evening. Those unable to attend the function in person at Ramanasramam can join the programme on the morning of the 4th at https://youtube.com/SriRamanasramam/live.

For the global online programme that evening at 5pm IST, please go to:
Watch Global Program

In the last two segments, we saw how stillness cultivated through self-inquiry (vichara) quietens thought and sensory agitation, leading to an alert, thought-free awareness. Yet entering this silence is unsettling, for we moderns are habituated to busyness, distraction, and outward activities, which mask unresolved inner conditions and give us a false sense of worth rooted in performance.

The chief resistance to stillness is the ego. Stillness threatens ego's strategies of distraction, consumption, and craving. What is blamed on silence—the discomfort arising in vichara—is very often the surfacing of buried grief, karmic residues, and unexamined identities. Silence does not cause pain but highlights it. Through inquiry, we come to see the fabricated persona as an object—not the true Self—and this seeing gradually loosens its hold.

In the last segment, we saw how resistance to stillness may be related to ancestral and transgenerational forces. Traditional pitru dosha parallels modern ideas of inherited trauma: unresolved grief, neglect, and dissatisfaction transmitted across generations. Multigenerational wounding shapes the nervous system, our attachment patterns, and even brain chemistry, very often leading to restlessness and compulsive behaviours. Yet awareness is curative. Clear seeing and sustained inquiry act as a fire that burns karmic seeds—not only one's own but those we carry within from the family lineage.

Consumer society is driven by the hungry ghost of constant stimulation. Ever indulging the senses, we moderns substitute a continual stream of sense input for genuine needs. Sages of old cautioned against this temptation. The Buddha warned that happiness from outside—samisa sukha—is always accompanied by a sullying aspect, namely, attachment. Sense stimulation is never permanently gratifying but leaves residues of further longing.

Attachment to longings and the fleeting respite that indulging them brings is the basis for egoic agency. Indeed, ego's foundation is thinking and the notion of being an individual person—as apart from others, apart from the cosmos, apart from God. Born of longing, the sense of a someone within is related to the agglomeration of memories of past experiences which include not only short-term pleasures but deprivations from early life and the residues of unease they engender.

We saw last time how the developing brain depends on emotional resonance with caregivers. Warm, responsive interactions stimulate endorphins and other reward chemicals that support the growth and integration of neural circuits governing mood, motivation, and attention. When early bonding is inconsistent or anxious, these systems develop under strain. A well-documented consequence is reduced sensitivity in the brain's reward circuitry, including fewer or less responsive dopamine receptors. The child matures with a persistent sense of inner lack and difficulty accessing a stable feeling of being "okay."

Stimulation then becomes compensatory. Repeated sensory input—food, scrolling, work, excitement, or substances—briefly lifts the system, but at a cost. Because the brain continually seeks equilibrium, chronic overstimulation leads to further down-regulation of dopamine receptors, producing the familiar law of diminishing returns. When stimulation is withdrawn, the depleted system registers the absence as boredom, loneliness, or depression. What appears outwardly as compulsion is often an inherited and biologically reinforced attempt to regulate a nervous system shaped by early relational strain, sometimes compounded across generations. Stillness feels threatening because it removes the anaesthetic and exposes the deeper hunger beneath.¹

Religions have long warned against activities that bring excessive elation. They advise moderation in the use of intoxicants and activities that scatter attention. Today we consider exhilarating preoccupations to be an unqualified good because they lift the spirits, but monastic orders of various traditions have historically cautioned against pastimes like dancing, singing, shows, and other such entertainment. Why? From a brain science point of view, any stimulation that produces significant endorphin release is likely to be accompanied by tolerance and withdrawal where the urge to repeat the indulgence intensifies, while satisfaction diminishes.

Inner and Outer

Tradition speaks of the purusharthas and recognises kama—pleasure and desire—as one of the legitimate aims of life.² If the sense realm is rejected outright, the spiritual endeavour may backfire. But in the consumer age, we have elevated kama to a universal remedy, often at the expense of moksha (transcendence). Kama manifests in daily life in seemingly innocuous ways such as repeated peeks at our cell phone, multiple cups of coffee, gratuitous internet surfing and You Tube.

Moksha is the archetype that calls us beyond the economy of compensation. As sadhakas, we are invited to err on the side of moksha and forego excessive kama, not because pleasure is a manifest evil, but because compulsive pleasure keeps us ever skating on the surfaces of life. When kama eclipses moksha, our life becomes hollow, wracked with obstacles and a pervasive sense of futility. The sastra states:

The Theatre of Diversion

Kama is at work in most of our diversions, designed as they are to distract us from inner discomforts. The Buddha's exchange with the actor Talaputa makes this explicit.⁴ Talaputa, the leader of a theatre troupe, believed that delighting others from the theatre stage would bring about his own karmic reconciliation and a heavenly rebirth. The Buddha disabuses him of this notion, explaining that an entertainer is karmically liable insofar as his art serves as a diversion for his audience, helping them maintain the egoic status quo. Talaputta weeps, recognising that he and his troupe have been misled.⁵

The point here is that entertainment is too good to be true. It seems to free us from our burdens, but in reality, it only diverts our attention temporarily from the discomfort within. Neglect of the Heart is the cause for our discomfort. The issue is not joy but diversion. When outward pleasure serves primarily to anesthetize inner unease, ego defences are reinforced.

Such diversions and the neglect they entail contribute to the very anguish we seek to escape. An inexorable law is at work here. Bhagavan calls our attention to it:

Tradition tells us that happiness coming from within—niramisa sukham—is not accompanied by withdrawal and more importantly, causes no karmic burden. In fact, such internally sourced joy is curative of our karmic legacy. Not only is inner joy dharmically acceptable, but it is recommended. Indeed, inner joy should be sought as a necessary step in the meditation process. Colloquially, such joy is called the happiness that does not depend on what happens.

Stoically suppressing the desire function drives kama deeper into the subconscious—enhancing its power. Heavy-handedness only exacerbates the distortion. Our true work is cultivating inner joy through Bhagavan's vichara, gradually displacing the need for outward indulgences; after all, distortions related to kama are caused by exile of the heart. If we repair the exile, kama can resume normal healthy functioning. Bhagavan comments:

The Power of Reversal

Cross-cultural studies reveal the archetypal nature of mastery over the sense realm, a universal motif in the myths and legends of large- and small-scale cultures the world over. The Bhagavata Purana tells of Ajamila, a man who falls from virtue into a life dominated by sense indulgence. His life is a textbook case of egoic distraction and addiction. Yet at death, when all supports fall away, he calls out the name of his son, Narayana, unwittingly invoking the divine.

Ajamila is not redeemed because he "deserves" it, but because even a life structured around avoidance can reverse direction. When the ego is no longer able to manage things, grace enters. The Purana insists that the inward turn can occur even at the eleventh hour.

Psychologically, Ajamila represents an ego exhausted by its own strategies. Sense indulgence, diversion, and self-deception eventually fail. When they do, something deeper emerges. Stillness—forced by circumstance or embraced through the inner investigation—becomes the opening through which the Heart may recover its rightful place. An ancient text reads:

Anatomy of the Ego

There is another reason why internally sourced joys are preferable to those sourced from without. The ego sees what is real as outside, whereas the Heart knows the real to be inside. The outer is not what it appears; the inner is the domain of the divine.⁹

We often imagine the mind as the Heart. But the mind is outside of the Heart. It is the mano-maya kosha.

The mind is a sense door, and thoughts are its sense objects, no different from any other sense object. The ego is born of, and sustained by, sense objects, chief among them, mind objects. Bhagavan instructs:

The eye loves beautiful visual objects, the ear beautiful sound objects, and the mind beautiful mind objects. The most alluring mind objects are those which affirm the ego—honour, recognition, and being seen. Yet, like any other sense object, these only bring comfort for a time.

This is why name and fame never satisfy. They rest on mind objects and self-adulation. The narcissistic wound, born of early deprivation or ancestral injury, cannot be healed by mind objects, no matter how flattering they might be. The wound can only be met within the Heart—in stillness.

Tradition tells us that the mind is the last sense door we learn to regulate, the ultimate link to the conceit of a separate self, and the one that most needs severing if we are to successfully follow the Ramana path. The Upanishad comments:

From ego's point of view, the domain of the Heart is perilous. The ego harbours shadows, grief, and ancestral residues. Ego projects these forces outwardly,¹² imagining that the threat originates from outside—hence its love of hierarchy and control. Yet the ego is a phantom which usurps the Heart's light. To know the Heart, ego must relinquish mastery. What feels like death is in fact release. The Upanishad continues:

Conclusion

Stillness is an inner resilience that enables us to greet the demands of the world. It can only arise in the absence of sense indulgence.¹⁴ Ego does not know that it is blind, that it cannot see the realm it so casually dismisses because it only knows what is external.

Without depth we cannot meet life. Without heart we cannot receive what comes to us. Bhagavan comments:

If we enter the realm of zero and remain there, the initial hurdle on the path of inquiry will have been crossed. By facing vasanas and meeting them with sincere awareness, we avoid projection and deflection.

In the land of zero, the pitru-ghosts may arise to test us—not as enemies but as unresolved story fragments seeking recognition. At such times we may feel like running away. But here we are asked to keep up our efforts to abide in the Heart, trusting that every encounter within, no matter how uncomfortable, will lead us one step closer to eventual healing. Bhagavan continues:

We are asked to approach the realm of zero gently—through patience and care. If resistances rise up to block our way, the remedy remains the same—steady, gentle investigation into the Heart. As we learn to abide in stillness, eventually establishing a bridgehead in the realm of zero, the knots of the Heart start to loosen and the ground of the Self begins to reveal itself.

When we get our first glimpse of the long-sought peace spoken of by the ancients, we feel only an immeasurable gratitude for the path laid out by Sri Bhagavan's simple words and enduring presence—ever there to guide us and urge us, further and further on. —

(series concluded)

• 1. In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, Dr. Gabor Mate, pp. 23-27.
• 2. The purusharthas are: dharma (righteous duty, ethics), artha (prosperity, material well-being), kama (pleasure, love, enjoyment), and moksha (liberation, transcendence, spiritual freedom).
• 3. Manu Smriti 2.224.
• 4. Samyutta Nikaya 42.2, known as the 'Talaputa Sutta'. The Buddha then teaches Talaputa the Dharma, after which Talaputa asks for and receives ordination, eventually becoming an arahant.
• 5. This subject came up in the Old Hall in September 1946 when Framji and Taleyerkan brought cinema reels from Madras for viewing in the Ashram. Nagamma and Muruganar objected on the grounds similar to those mentioned above. (See 'Bhagavan and Cinema' in Ramana Reflections, Saranagati June 2023, p. 11-14.)
• 6. Talks, §495.
• 7. Talks, §244.
• 8. Katha Upanishad 1.2.2: this dialogue between Yama and Nachiketas highlights the choice between spiritual realization and worldly desires.
• 9. Jung says: What comes to us from outside… can only be made our own if we are capable of inner amplitude… Real increase means consciousness of an enlargement that flows from inner sources. From C.G. Jung's, Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, vol. 9 of his Collected Works, p. 1514.
• 10. Talks, §347.
• 11. Amritabindu Upanishad 2–3.
• 12. When ego projects outwardly, it is called blame; when it projects inwardly, it is called shame, and by shame, we mean toxic shame.
• 13. Katha Upanishad 2.3.10–11.
• 14. The tradition talks of nirodha sampati and "the consciousness beyond perception and non-perception".
• 15. Talks, §54, §246, §398.
• 16. Talks, §247.