A life broken by loss can mark the beginning of a new way of seeing. When the familiar collapses and the heart is stripped of its securities, the mind begins to ask what lies beyond impermanence. Saints of every age have passed through this crucible. For them, the real meaning of loss was not deprivation but the moment when the root illusion gave way to something more real.

Bhagavan Sri Ramana's awakening began with just such a moment. Confronted by death at sixteen, he turned inward and discovered that what dies is not the Self. Likewise, Gautama Buddha, shaken by the sight of sickness, old age, death, and a sadhu saw that no earthly pleasure could conceal the ephemeral.

Those who face death often see with clarity what others only read about in the lives of saints. Suffering, rightly seen, is not punishment but a passage, the finite yielding to what is whole.

This applies to the life of Avudai Akkal, the 18th-century mystic-poet of Senkottai. Born into an orthodox family in the agraharam of Senkottai near the Western Ghats, Akkal was married as a child. But her first encounter with death was that of someone she scarcely knew. On the evening of her wedding, the garland placed around the neck of her young husband concealed a venomous snake which bit him. He died at once. The next morning, when elders wept and wailed, she asked with childlike directness, "Why cry so much for a boy who has died in another house?" But they were not crying only for the boy. They were crying for the implications that the event would have for their daughter and the family.

The Child-Widow of Senkottai

Though precocious in her spiritual inclination, at this young age, the girl had no way of comprehending what fate had visited upon her. From the time of the tragedy on her wedding day, she was required to erase every symbol of marriage—her jewellery, bindi, and colourful clothing—and don the white sari of widowhood. Remarriage by tradition was not allowed, nor would she be included in the family inheritance. Only austerity awaited her.

Confined to the dim interior rooms, not permitted outdoors and restricted in her activities, the threshold of her home bore the sign of a child-widow: such a house could not be graced with the daily kolam designs at its threshold.

Sridhara Venkatesa Ayyaval

Yet within this harsh order, a hidden sanctity flowed into her life, and widowhood would become, against the odds, an initiation into a deeply fulfilling, vibrant and indeed, exceptional spiritual life. What society had deemed misfortune would prove in her case to be pure grace which arrived in the form of a stranger at the door of the family home.

One day, the wandering saint Tiruvisanallur Sridhara Venkatesa Ayyaval a shining figure of the namasankirtana tradition, was invited by the King of Travancore to conduct Sivaratri worship in the royal temple. Accepting the request, Ayyaval set out on foot from Kumbakonam with a group of disciples, chanting the divine name as they travelled. Passing through Sengottai, the saint was received with customary respect by the local residents. As he walked down the street lined with kolams, lamps, and swept thresholds, Ayyaval suddenly stopped before one house—the only doorway without the auspicious kolam.¹

Hearing the sacred chant, the young widow was seized by an inner force and rushed out. Seeing the monk, she fell at his feet and pleaded, "Save me from this fate!" Moved by compassion, Ayyaval assured her that widowhood could not bar one from God and asked her to meet him at the riverside mantapam that evening for initiation. Shocked, the onlookers dragged her back inside and confronted the saint, insisting she was ineligible for initiation. Ayyaval replied with timeless clarity:

If she is not eligible, then no one here is eligible. The only qualification for knowledge is the longing for Truth.

That evening she escaped and went to the riverside. The guru whispered into the girl's ear a mahavakya, namely, Brahma Satyam—"The Self alone is real."² From that moment her life of mourning took on a new character.

The girl's future now lay with her guru and no matter what she did, as long as it was in his footsteps, only good could result. Thus, she was steadily initiated into religious life. One day while at the river, she picked up a mango-leaf that her guru had used to clean his teeth. Just touching it brought a current of spiritual power which shot through her body like electricity, awakening latent spiritual virtues.

Against social convention, the young widow followed the guru to Travancore, enduring ridicule from denizens of the area. But the guru had no doubt about her potential. Well-to-do ladies murmured about the shaven-headed girl who dared travel with men. But Ayyaval stood firm, declaring: "She is not a widow—she is a jnani."

Over time, her steadiness silenced her detractors. Her detachment became evident to all who chanced to meet her. One day the Travancore king sent bilva leaves made of pure gold for her worship near the river. She accepted them quietly. The next morning, she gathered both the priceless gold leaves and the withered flowers and cast them into the river. For her there was no difference between precious gold and decaying plants—both forms of the same Brahman.

On another occasion, when the guru, his disciples and young Akkal were meditating at the river bank of the sacred Kaveri, a flash flood struck. The disciples ran for safety, but the young girl remained motionless in samadhi. The waters rose and encircled her, yet leaving a small island of sand untouched beneath her form. Witnesses said the river itself had acknowledged her stillness, otherwise, how could such a miracle be explained. From that time onward, the guru's disciples who had till then been disapproving of her presence came to see her greatness and at last accepted her into their company.

The Voice of the Real

The girl lived near her master by the Kaveri for many years. Under his care, young Akkal's wisdom ripened into luminous poetry and songs by the hundreds began to pour forth from her lips. Composed in the idiom of domestic life, they were radiant with sublime advaitic signification. She praised the guru and God in thanksgiving for the life she had been led to:

I, for a long time suffering as though trapped within a moat, was liberated! As one rescued from a blazing palace by a helping hand; as one who, drowning in the torrent of a flooded river, is hauled ashore and resuscitated by a helping hand; as one who, on the verge of being consumed by the vast forest fires of grief, is saved—you facilitated my ultimate freedom with your infinite compassion! That one deed is enough!³

Soon Akkal was no longer oppressed by public opinion or the rejection she suffered from her family in childhood:

Father, mother, daughters and sons
Became like a crowd in the marketplace,
Like animals in a flock, like a mere number,
While I became Timeless eternity.⁴

She mocked hypocrisy not as a means to rebel but to restore dignity and sanity to those for whom the life of faith had become murky, to remind them where true sanctity was to be found. Her non-duality was transcendent but practical and unpretentious. A verse declares:

Caste, order, and scripture are gone;
I am the Supreme Brahman beyond all attributes.⁵

It should be said that Akkal did not occupy herself with singing or writing songs, rather, songs simply poured forth unbidden by virtue of her deep encounter within—through intense inner recollection. Proclaiming Brahman within, she resolved the shame she had felt just years before, born of her widowhood. But now she no longer felt oppressed by societal norms:

Diving deep into the ocean of sorrow, reaching the other shore,
I shunned shame and disgrace
And became vast as the sky—Paraparame.

And again:

The idle gossip, falsity and delusion of the world disappeared
And I became like the sky
Vast, indivisible, Paraparame.

This song whose verses end with the invocation Paraparame—"O Transcendent One!"—signalled Akkal's surrender and the dawning of self-knowledge.⁶ Her clarity shone in other verses from this same song:

All the scriptures I had read became tattered and worn like old cloth,
While I became shoreless and immeasurable infinity, Paraparame.⁷

The Daily Round

Avudai Akkal's mystical insights were not a rejection of the world—like Bhagavan Ramana she had no need to reject anything—but absorption in the world around her without any need for criticism of it. Her verses show that liberation is not elsewhere but is contained in the rhythm of daily life. She sang of the Divine through the familiar: the mortar and pestle, the cowherd, the river, the cooking pot—bridging the metaphysical and the mundane.⁸ The mortar that grinds grain becomes the mind that crushes desire. The river that flows is the Self moving as consciousness.

Her teaching was fearless in its simplicity. For her, Brahma Satyam was not doctrine but direct experience—The Real is what remains when all has gone.⁹ She continues:

The divisions of 'self' and 'other' have vanished;
Names and forms, the sense of 'we' and 'I'—all are gone.¹⁰

Non-duality became the centre of her voice:

I am not the body, I am consciousness the supreme,
I am the Absolute, Brahman indeed..
Upon meditating, 'I am consciousness alone!'
With an awareness that like a stream of oil flows,
Is there either world or body to behold?¹¹

And:

Mind, if you ask if activities remain
Even after realisation is gained,
It's like a man who, after waking, recounts a dream.
Or one who rejoices, saying, 'The Self is only me!'¹²

Just as a large boulder unmoving remains,
Though a river in spate over it cascades,
His inner faculties, like a rock, unmoving remain,
By wave upon wave of impressions unfazed...

The ajnani and the jnani are both alike.
If you ask how to distinguish them in this bodily life,
The ajnani in actions is fully occupied.
The jnani, free of action, simply as Brahman abides.¹³

After her guru's passing, she continued to sing songs which became for her listeners a deep teaching. Seekers including other widows gathered around her, finding in her voice consolation and courage. She was called "an unmattha—one who wanders like a madwoman—spiritually intoxicated. She composed her songs while in this state".¹⁴

Is there a mind to remember and forget,
Or any body, subject to birth and death?
In the undefiled can there defilement be?
Or anything that as large or small is seen?
Is there any caste or class in that Self?
Any witnesser or anything witnessed?
In the ocean of overflowing bliss
What is form and what is formlessness?
A wonder, a wonder, a wonder indeed is this.¹⁵

Women followed her, learnt her songs and passed this treasure on to other women. Slowly her songs became known in every local brahmin household. There may have been a time, perhaps, when the women of all brahmin households in Tiruneveli district sang her songs.¹⁶

The Dance of Stillness

Akkal's later poems are suffused with joy—the joy of being nothing separate, of moving yet unmoving. The pallavi (refrain) of one such song reads:

Dance, my dear, as the undivided One…
This dance that knows no dancing is the dance of bliss.

In a verse she defines the dance:

Dwelling in the form of 'That,' free of 'I' and 'other,'
Abiding firmly come what may,
Deeply sleeping yet wide awake—this is the dance of joy and bliss.¹⁷

Here "dance" means life lived from the centre, the Self that neither acts nor refrains from action—natural absorption amid activity.¹⁸

Suffering as Redemption

In both Avudai Akkal's life and the lives of the widows who came to Bhagavan, we see the same thread, the movement from loss to faith, from deprivation to revelation. What appears as personal tragedy becomes, in the light of inquiry, the threshold of awakening.

Bhagavan often said that suffering is the call of the Self—the unbearable pressure of truth upon what is false. When life collapses around us, the attention turns inward where grief is allowed to purify the heart, dissolve pride and illusion, until the only refuge is awareness itself. Abiding there is the only means to know the deathless. Avudai expresses this with serene finality:

As the raging forest fire consumes without discrimination
All the wood—trees, stumps, trunks—in its path,
So the fire of Knowledge completely devoured
The categories of time, space, name and form.¹⁹

In this plain idiom, she articulates the essence of advaitic teaching: death and bereavement are not ends but revelations that point to what was never born.

Akkal speaks of the body's death as a bird's flight from the sky—nothing lost, nothing gained. The formless remains unmarked by change.

Akkal lived near the Courtallam Falls, where, tradition says, she spent her last days in silent absorption. One morning she climbed the hill with three disciples and told them not to follow her. She walked up and vanished, never seen again—no grave, no body—only the rumour of her union with the Infinite remained.

Conclusion

What Akkal wove with words, Bhagavan Ramana communicated in silence. Those whom society had rejected—the widows, the poor, the ill—found recognition with Bhagavan. He treated no one as broken or incomplete. His silence carried the assurance that redemption is simply born of seeing clearly—what you seek, you already are.

Avudai Akkal's life and Bhagavan's teaching illuminate one another, showing that the path begins where dependence on worldly security ends. For Akkal, child-widowhood served as a gateway to the Beyond.

Postscript

One afternoon in 1946 following an advaitic discussion in the Old Hall, Lokamma began to sing a rustic Tamil tune. Bhagavan's face lit up: "Avudai Ammal," he said softly. "Mother used to sing this song very often. It says exactly what we have been speaking of." Bhagavan went on: "Avudai Ammal has composed a great many songs. They are very popular in Madurai and other nearby districts. Some of them have been published. Still, so many remain unpublished. They have been handed down orally from generation to generation, mostly through women, who learn them by heart, hearing them from others and singing them along with those who already know them."²⁰

Only in the last century have Avudai²¹ Akkal's songs finally been collated and published, first in palm-leaf transcriptions and later as the Senkottai Sri Avudai Akkal Padal Thirattu. Scholars tell us that among Avudai Akkal's works, her most celebrated compositions include the major philosophical pieces with deep non-dual content, Vedanta Kuravanji, Vedanta Vidya Sobanam, Soodalai Kummi, and her luminous collection of shorter lyrics known as Vedanta Jnanarasa Kirtanaigal. These songs, blending poetry, devotion, and advaitic insight, have been cherished for generations in the Tamil non-dual tradition.

A comprehensive edition of her works has been published by Sri Gnanananda Niketan, Sri Gnanananda Tapovanam, Tirukoilur. The Jnanarasa Kirtanaigal in particular gained wider recognition through musical renderings by the renowned Bombay Sisters (Smt. Saroja and Smt. Lalitha, with musical direction by L. Krishnan), bringing Akkal's voice to modern listeners through recorded audio performances. Ramana Kendra are beginning to sing some of her songs.²²

Avudai Akkal's verses echo through the Tamil countryside even now, sung by women who may not even know her story but feel her voice as their own—an enduring testimony that the heart and soul of the Tamil land transcends the generations and every social chain.

In the end, threads converge—the widow, saint, seeker, and sage—all meeting in the same silence where grief ends and only Being remains.²³ —

āyinunai yanriyiran tarrapari pūranamāy
ēyum iraivā nī yiyampāy parāparamē

Can there be an appearance of anything apart from you when
you are the non-dual plenitude? O Supreme God, pray tell me.

The Ashram is live streaming the Sri Chakra Puja on the first and last Friday of each month. Daily live streaming Mon to Sat from 8 to 9.30 am and 5 to 6.45 pm IST continues and includes the Vedaparayana, puja and Tamil Parayana. (No streaming on Sundays) To access live streams, go to: https://youtube.com/@SriRamanasramam/live

Deepavali, from deepa (light) and avali (row), means "row of lights." Also called Naraka Chaturdasi, it marks Sri Krishna's slaying of the demon Narakasura, whose mother, Bhumi Devi, unknowingly fulfilled the boon that only she could end his tyranny. Granted liberation at death, Narakasura's fall symbolizes the victory of light over darkness, wisdom over ignorance. At Sri Ramanasramam, Deepavali was celebrated on 20th October with early morning puja and fireworks. —

Key among Bhagavan's directives for devotees on the path is summa iru—Be still!¹ This, he tells us is 'the path to peace'. But how do we enter it?

Bhagavan's vichara centres on turning the attention inward, withdrawing the senses from outer objects, focusing the awareness upon the source of consciousness and inquiring into whatever may appear there. In its early stages, this involves concentration—the steadying of the mind which ultimately results in a deep union with the object of inquiry. When sustained, thought streams settle, the mind becomes calm and there is a deep sense of being united with the universal. Bhagavan called this practice being asleep while awake (jagrat sushupti)². In other words, the active thinking mind is at complete rest just as when in deep sleep, and yet, awareness remains.

As we journey into stillness, strange things may start to happen. Out of the silence, things long forgotten emerge, some of which are unnerving. The experience can be so jarring that we find ourselves dislodged from the place of peace and have to examine accumulations from the past.

We may recall from an earlier Saranagati³ a saying that goes, 'to become zero, you have to become one'. What does this mean? It seems to suggest that we must get our lives in order before any genuine transformation can take place. We have to cultivate a coherence between inner intentions and outer actions, aligning what we do with what we believe to be right. We find that this coherence needs to be so finely tuned that even the intentions hidden in our heart should line up with the words we speak. When they don't, our best option is acknowledging the fact and making needed adjustments. When unwholesome intentions and longings emerge in the heart, we do not wish them away or pretend they don't exist but identify them and seek to understand their causes. We become thoroughgoing in the endeavour to name what is not whole within us and to work with it patiently. This is what it means to 'become one'.

'Becoming zero' means quietening the heart and mind and moderating the compulsion toward endless cogitation. The heart and mind find a modicum of rest and are thus able to register the more subtle trends within. Bhagavan tells us:

Concentration is not the act of thinking one thing; it is the quiet exclusion of all thoughts that veil our true nature. Every effort in practice is simply to remove ignorance. At first, it seems difficult to still the mind, but in the awakened state, it is harder to summon thoughts at all—for what is there to think about when only the Self exists? Thought depends on objects, but when no objects remain, how can thought arise? The difficulty lies only in habit. Once the error is seen, no one would continue the needless strain of thinking.⁴

We took Bhagavan's silence to mean the absence of audible words (material silence). But we soon discover that the silence he was referring to is deeply mysterious and little understood, a profound calm at the depths of the heart. Such silence does not lend itself to word-descriptions because it is the portal to a realm beyond the rational ego and the thinking mind. In a hymn to Arunachala, Bhagavan versifies its greatness:

In silence Thou saidst, 'Stay silent' and Thyself stoodst silent, Oh Arunachala! Happiness lies in peaceful repose, beyond speech, enjoyed when resting in the Self.⁵

Bhagavan adds:

Ignorance cannot be destroyed by any other act than by the intense activity called 'silence.⁶

If till now, the literalizing ego has steadfastly resisted stillness, it is because it fears it would cease to exist in the face of it. The land of zero is the place where neither thoughts nor words impinge on the Heart, or when they do, they come only as wisps in the mind and do not intrude on our inner tranquillity.

We oscillate between periods of inner stillness in the meditation hall and the distractions of daily life. We have lived our lives under the assumption that what is hidden cannot hurt us. But hidden afflictions express themselves in unsuspecting ways, to our detriment, whereas going after them in the realm of zero, they can be identified, befriended and mended.

Running, Ever Running

If we find ourselves running—mentally or otherwise—if we feel perpetually compelled to hasten toward the next task in daily life, it may be time to inquire into the mechanisms presently at work in us.

Running means trying to come free of the moment because it feels uncomfortable. When we run, we do not know we are running. Running is a defence against inner discomfort and saves us from the poignancy of nakedly encountering the vast, unadorned stillness within.

We shrink from stillness, ever deflecting from what is most intimate through distraction, indulgence, preoccupation, compulsive activity, and obsession with being busy—anything to avoid intimacy within. We may be running from ourselves, mistaking the movement for identity, believing that we are the running. Yet the running is precisely the movement away from what is most genuine.

Running has become a feature of the collective, wrought by an overarching feeling of insufficiency. The incessant urge to be busy is a futile gesture at manufacturing a sense of purpose and value. The emphasis on performance and production is born of a contrived sense of self-worth gained through activity, seeking to justify our existence through accomplishments—a compensation for the lack of wholehearted presence in our lives day in and day out.

In the post-pandemic hyperdigital era, two-dimensional screen time has displaced three-dimensional presence. As human relating becomes increasingly mediated through devices, the reward such virtual engagement offers leaves us feeling bereft. We therefore compensate by increasing time and energy devoted to our devices. The more we run, the more we must keep running, for we have forgotten how to stop. Neurologists suggest this is key in accounting for the high rate of anxiety in the 21st century.⁷

Running helps distract us from the cognitive dissonance born of an ego-driven life in the realm of simulation. We dwell in representations, and the ego becomes our sole preoccupation. Its flat world asks little of us—no surrender, no silence, no real seeing.

Samsara is nothing other than the drive to keep moving—to flee the realm of zero. The frenetic ego cries out hysterically, "Don't just sit there—do something!" Bhagavan, by contrast, directs us, "Don't just do something—sit there."⁸ In other words, don't just rush about doing things in order to make the ego feel solid, rather, be still, be silent, and inquire into the nature of the frantic doer. Look into your mind and your heart. Make peace with any turbulence found there. And inquire into it. Be present to the reality of each moment through inner investigation. Find the courage to confront the rough edges of your inner being—the grief, fears, subtle humiliations that come with life's change and loss. Stop your running, which means risking meeting the one you have abandoned in your haste: your own Self. Bhagavan adds:

Being still is what is called wisdom (jnana), tapas, and yoga. The effort to be still is the only true effort.⁹

If you find you cannot stop, at least notice that someone is running—and inquire into that one. Who is the runner? Who is it that flees this present experience?

The act of noticing already introduces stillness. As the Katha Upanishad reminds us: "Resting in the Self, one neither acts nor causes to act. Bhagavan adds:

Since the Self shines as that which is still, know that the state of perfect stillness alone is the state of true knowledge.¹⁰

Uncovering the Hidden Realm

If the realm of zero brings calm, it also brings challenges. We discover that hidden within are layers of afflictions from the past. This is a crucial preliminary stage because no wound can be healed unless it be seen and known.

The afflictions of the heart and mind have been carefully kept out of view—to our peril. The ego does not want stillness and peace; it wants information, sense stimulation, excitement, even crises—anything to drown out the haunting cries of the defilements.

When afflictions appear in stillness, the urge is to escape them, either through thinking or some other outward diversion. Patience here means acquiring the capacity to maintain stillness for long periods, allowing regrets and remorse to be recognised.

We have steadily hidden things away because of the shame and embarrassment they cause us. As our awareness about what causes us pangs of conscience become more subtle and finely tuned, we are better able to navigate life and avoid actions and speech that would later cause us grief or regret. We become expert in allowing our heart to communicate to us what brings it peace and what causes it agony. By avoiding further karmic accumulation and by cleaning up existing karmic accumulations, the veil concealing the land of zero is made permeable. With increased vision comes added clarity about how to proceed moment by moment. We need no books on etiquette to guide us because we are being guided from within by our heart's innate intuition in respect of what is just and right.

The Realm of the Defilements

The gate to the land of zero is where we encounter the root karmic defilement, namely, the illusion of a separate self. As our vision sharpens, more subtle impurities present themselves and the deception regarding separateness turns out to be nothing more than karmic accumulations. This is where Bhagavan's vichara has real application. The illusion of separateness is born of the ignorance caused by karmic afflictions. The clarifying ground reveals itself when we inquire into our afflictions, rehabilitating them, and exposing the illusion. Bhagavan comments:

The mind should be made to rest in the Heart till the destruction of the 'I'-thought born of ignorance is brought about. This is wisdom; this alone is dhyana.¹¹

Of course, all separation (viyoga)¹² is an illusion, Bhagavan tells us. The distance is only an appearance—after all, the Self is all there is. But the psyche takes the apparent distance to be real and behaves as though it were real, granting it a perceived reality. All our suffering, it turns out, is born of mere phantoms and ghosts. When the exiled parts of the heart emerge through acceptance, they become integrated and whole. Bhagavan instructs us:

If one meditates ceaselessly on the Self, the darkness of ignorance in the Heart, and all the impediments born of ignorance, will be removed, and the plenary wisdom will be gained.¹³

The literalist vision appears to bear the marks of reality: it is concrete, tangible, and clearly defined. But the literal is just surface daylight consciousness projected onto the vast unseen realm that contains it. Here the ego is caught in a category error: confusing the container—the potentiality for all Being—for mere darkness and emptiness, whereas it is the root of the divine, the Ground of the Self.

The land of zero lies far beyond rationality and the literalist vision. The unconscious and all that dwells concealed within the heart lies far below the cognising mind upon which the rational ego is founded. Ego imagines that it is the way out from the ghost realm, not recognising that it is itself a ghost—indeed, the chief of all ghosts. Faced frontally, it begins to disperse under the penetrating power of Bhagavan's upadesa. Bhagavan comments:

When the lion of Self-knowledge roars within, all thoughts, which are like timid animals, run away of their own accord.¹⁴

The land of zero is the place where we gain the courage to face demons and devils. Once we have broken the spell of concealment and are no longer afraid of what lurks in the depths of the heart, we will no longer see our hearts as threatening, as something to be feared or ashamed of. Once what had been hidden is brought into the light of awareness—seen and known as it is—then we discover that hidden along with it is the divine realm.

The inner divinity is part wisdom and part being. It cannot be named because it is not a thing but more like an energy or power, or better said, the vast empty space that contains everything. It is not bound by physical limits like the body or the ego but extends outward—in dream, in meditation, in imagination. It has wings and can transcend the ordinary boundaries of a literalist world.¹⁵ The Vivekachudamani summarises:

I am that in which the whole universe, from prakriti down to gross matter, appears as a mere shadow, that which is the substratum, which illumines all, is of all forms, is all pervasive and yet distinct from all, that which is all void, which is distinct without any attributes of maya, that which is scarcely known by the gross intellect, which is ether itself, which has neither beginning nor end, which is subtle, motionless, formless, immutable, unbroken, eternal, aware.¹⁶

Conclusion

Ego's literalism, born of adherence to preconceived notions, fills up the spaces. When given up, the vast expanse of a soulful realm¹⁷ emerges, imbued with mystery—the multidimensional colour and depth of the unconscious and the imagination. Within it is the vast inexhaustible realm of intuitive wisdom, untapped and concealed in the heart already prior to our birth.¹⁸

The imaginal is not imaginary but the touchstone of a life well-lived and of what is really true. If we call it mystical or visionary, this would not be inaccurate—but then wherefore the need to dress up what is most natural to us? Bhagavan speaks of the realm of zero this way:

True knowledge transcends both knowledge and ignorance, for in pure knowledge there is no object to be known.¹⁹

The realm of zero is the already given—the starting point, the Uncreated Ground. The rational ego paints its world on a flat two-dimensional canvas—monochromatic, without depth or colour—unaware that it is the subset of a greater multidimensional domain: the vast space from which all that is seen emerges.

If the rational ego sought to fly to the heavens to be free of all that would weigh it down—not least of all, karmic afflictions. Now karmic afflictions are not a burden but just the stuff of us that need inquiring into and letting go of. When not resisted, they become manageable.

When the vast expanse of the Heart is no longer feared as the place of monsters, when we no longer deny our neuroses, then the mechanism of neurosis is dismantled. Here the upward ascent—toward Spirit—and downward descent—into the depths of the Heart—are not opposing and self-cancelling movements, but a single undertaking in the unitary realm of zero.

If the land of zero is the realm of soul, of heart, of wisdom, of the Self—till now trapped beneath the confusing morass of lifelong fears—now we enter it, no longer afraid of being nothing but recognising that in being nothing, we are Everything. —

For the October edition of In Focus, copy the following URL into your browser:
https://youtu.be/dsSdDYE6Ehw?si=X4cKNb5XxUrBfFAq

How many auto-rickshaws are there in Tiruvannamalai? After a moment's reflection, a senior owner-driver. said, "Five thousand." That sounds about right.

While the vehicular load has boomed, the narrow streets have not expanded in like measure. Trucks, buses, cars, autos and two-wheelers have all made traffic jams a common occurrence, with no space left over for pedestrians who must fend for themselves, in order to preserve life and limb.

In the midst of this mayhem, it was electrifying to spot a speeding auto with Bhagavan's primary teaching boldly emblazoned on its rear, where normally we are assaulted by mundane advertisements. It was enlivened by an elegant 'Arunachala' and 'Om' rendered in a fluent, freehand style.

"Who am I?"

Call it the world's first 'Advaita Vedanta Autorickshaw' careening around Maharshi's adopted hometown! —

Already in the early days at Virupaksha in 1901-02, Sivaprakasham Pillai put questions to young Bhagavan who, though in silence, was willing to write down answers to questions. Pillai later transcribed the text that would form the twenty-eight question-and-answer booklet published in 1923 under the title, Who Am I?

In 1908 Krishna Iyer published the first edition of Bhagavan's Tamil translation of Vivekachudamani which went through numerous prints before being included in 1927 in the first edition of Sri Ramana Nooltirattu (Collected Works of Sri Ramana in Tamil).

These early volumes were published by individuals like Echammal, Narayana Reddiar and the publishing house, Vani Vilas, with proceeds going to the Ashram. Ramana Padananda financed the publication of Muruganar's Sri Ramana Sannidhi Murai in 1931. Books like Ramana Gita were sold at a book shop called Ramaneeya Vaani Pushtakaalayam in the northeast corner mantapam of the Arunachaleswar Temple and earnings given to the Ashram. In 1925, Ramanasramam got its own book stall, which was managed by Somasundara Swami (and later by Sivarama Reddiar). Finally, by the early 1930s, the Ashram started publishing its own books.

This year marks the bookstore's centenary year. One hundred years later, the Ashram bookstall is more in demand than ever. A growing catalogue of titles on Bhagavan in various language populates the shelves of the facility near the Ashram office. May all devotees remember with gratitude the bookstall staff who serve with dedication to meet the demands of devotees.

Pictured here with the Ashram President, Dr. Venkat S. Ramanan and Mrs. President, Dr. Nitya Ramanan, from top left: Sharmila Devi, Geetha, Akshara, Gayatri, Jennifer, Sireesha, Mohan, Jayakodi, Kannan, Ilango; seated middle row from left: Lakshman, P S N Murthy, Sasidharan, Balaji; front row from left: Arumugam, Gurumurthi, Swami Satyananda, and Chinnaswami. —

The illumination of the mind is analogous to that of a mirror.

Know that the mind which illumines the illusory world is [a mere reflected light] like the glittering mirror-light, reflecting the bright sunlight. — GVK §1004

A mirror is not self-luminous but only shines with the aid of sunlight, reflecting the items placed in front of it. Likewise, the mind is neither self-luminous but shines only by the light of Atman and makes the world before it shines. — Upadesa Ratnavali §28

Sri R. Venkatakrishnan, son of Manavasi "Saranagati" Ramaswamy Iyer and long-time servant of Bhagavan, attained Bhagavan's Feet on 11th October 2025, at 7:20 am, aged ninety-nine. Blessed to sit on Bhagavan's lap as a boy, Venkatakrishnan's lifelong dedication and devotion had been assured. When his father was employed as a govt. civil engineer constructing the famous Godavari Rail bridge in Berhampur, Orissa, Venkatakrishnan was born there on 25th December 1925 following his father's prayers to Bhagavan for a male child.

The family was subsequently transferred to Tiruvannamalai, where his father served as a PWD engineer. One day, taking measurements for the road under construction, Bhagavan held one end of the tape and Ramaswamy Iyer, the other. Venkatakrishnan's father had been among the earliest devotees to meet Bhagavan (in 1907, at Virupaksha Cave) and was later celebrated for composing immortal devotional hymns such as Dhikku Verillai and Saranagati.

R. Venkatakrishnan got a good education and served with distinction as Chief Manager (Finance & Accounts) at Chennai Petroleum Corporation Ltd. (formerly Madras Refineries Ltd.), where his integrity, discipline, and sense of responsibility earned him the respect of his colleagues. Beyond his professional life, it was his spiritual service that most defined him. As Treasurer, and later President, of the Ramana Kendra, Mylapore, he played a pivotal role in sustaining and strengthening the Kendra's activities, guiding it with the quiet devotion and steadfastness that marked his family's long association with Bhagavan.

Sri Venkatakrishnan's late wife, Smt. Padma Venkatakrishnan (1927–2018), was also steeped in the Ramana tradition. Raised in Tiruvannamalai under the care of her aunt Yogambal, who had moved there to be near Bhagavan, Padma grew up visiting the Ashram daily as a young girl. Trained in music by her father-in-law, she often sang before Bhagavan and was blessed by the guru's gracious attention. Her life remained anchored in devotion—attending Navaratri at Sri Ramanasramam each year, participating in the Sumangali Puja, and upholding the simple values of service and surrender. She attained the Feet of Bhagavan on October 11th, 2018, the third day of Navaratri, at the age of ninety-one.

Sri and Smt. Venkatakrishnan embodied the spirit of saranagati—a life of humility, devotion, and faith in Bhagavan's ever-present grace. Their home in Chennai was a sanctuary of devotion, where the name of Arunachala was ever on their lips.

Sri Venkatakrishnan is survived by his son, Sri V. Ramesh, and daughter, Smt. Chandrika Mohan, and by many friends and devotees who cherish his memory. His long life, marked by faith, and quiet dignity, stands as a bridge linking the early devotees of Bhagavan's time to the present generation—a living testament to the enduring grace of Bhagavan Ramana. —

Smt. Vijaya Nagaraj was born on 8th May 1971 in Cholavandan, Madurai, and grew up with her two elder brothers, Giridaran and Shekar. In 1981, the family moved to Chennai. As their means were modest, Vijaya assisted her mother in preparing food items for the neighbours, contributing to the household from a young age.

In time, a well-wisher suggested Vijaya as a suitable match for Sri Nagaraj, the youngest son of Appichi Mama, the revered head priest of Sri Ramanasramam. The couple were married on 11th February 1996, after which Nagaraj took up employment in a chocolate factory in Chittoor. In March 1997, their son was born, and the following year the family moved to Tiruvannamalai, where Nagaraj began his service at Sri Ramanasramam. Their daughter was born in 2002.

Having known hardship in her early years and having been denied the chance for higher studies, Vijaya was determined that her children should receive a good education. She managed the household near the Ashram with devotion and discipline and was often seen performing her daily prayers at the various shrines in and around Ramanasramam.

In later years, Vijaya developed diabetes, which became more severe in recent months. In mid-September, she suffered acute abdominal pain and was hospitalised. When gallbladder disease was finally diagnosed and emergency surgery performed, complications had already affected her pancreas and kidneys. Despite all efforts, her condition worsened, and she peacefully merged at the Feet of Bhagavan on the evening of 18th September. Vijaya is survived by her husband, Nagaraj and her son, Ramanaganesh and her daughter, Jayalakshmi. —

After an above normal (+8%) southwest monsoon season this year, we're being blessed by back-to-back rains with the timely arrival of the northeast monsoons, currently active over Tamil Nadu, with above normal rainfall expected due to developing La Niña conditions. The landscape is lush and green, Samudram Eri is overflowing, rivers are coursing, and farmers are busy planting. —

• 1. Transgressing Boundaries, Kanchana Natarajan, Zubaan 2012.
• 2. Brahmajnanavalimala, verse 20.
• 3. "Pantitan Kavi", Ibid., p. 55.
• 4. Ibid., p. 87.
• 5. https://pattaabhi.wordpress.com/2014/10/09/shenkottai-avudai-akkal-vedanthic-songs.
• 6. "Avudai Akka of Chengottai" by Dr. Kanchana Natarajan, in the Mountain Path, January 2010, pp. 23-25. In this song entitled Paraparakanni, the author footnotes the word Paraparame saying: The song is addressed to the Paraparam, the Absolute Being that transcends the duality of both param (Supreme) and aparam (non-supreme). The Tamil saint Tayumanavar, probably Akka's senior contemporary, also composed Paraparakkanni, a widely read work. This address to the Absolute is used to describe the spiritual journey of the author as well as to detail the nature of the world and its illogical social norms. While Akka uses the Paraparakanni to express her spiritual attainment, she also rails against the Brahminical systems that she understood well from personal experience as a child-widow. (See also Dr. Kanchana Natarajan's Transgressing Boundaries, 2012, Zubaan, pp. 84-97).
• 7. Ibid., Mountain Path, January 2010, pp. 23-25.
• 8. Transgressing Boundaries, p. 47.
• 9. Vedānta Āccē Pōccē, ('What Vanished and What Manifested with Vedanta'), Transgressing Boundaries, pp. 174-179; see also, the Mountain Path, July 2019, pp. 33-69.
• 10. Vedānta Āccē Pōccē.
• 11. Concert Programme of Songs by Cenkōttai Srī Āvudai Akkāl, by Robert Butler, 2021, p. 6.
• 12. Ibid., p. 7.
• 13. Ibid., pp. 7-8.
• 14. Introduction to Songs of Cenkōttai Srī Āvudai Akkāl, translated by Robert Butler, 2019, pp. ix-x.
• 15. Concert Programme of Songs by Cenkōttai Srī Āvudai Akkāl, by Robert Butler, 2021, p. 19.
• 16. Introduction to Songs of Cenkōttai Srī Āvudai Akkāl, translated by Robert Butler, 2019, pp. ix-x.
• 17. "Self-Realisation and Destiny: The Advaita of Avudai Akkal" by Robert Butler, in July 2020 Mountain Path, p. 17.
• 18. Transgressing Boundaries, pp. 55-58.
• 19. Transgressing Boundaries, p. 13.
• 20. From Day by Day with Bhagavan, 2002, pp. 95-97, quoted in Kanchana Natarajan's Introduction to Songs of Cenkōttai Srī Āvudai Akkāl, translated by Robert Butler, 2019, pp. ix-x.
• 21. Dr. Kanchana Natarajan tells us that the name 'Avudai' is the Tamil form of Gomati Amman, the presiding goddess of the temple Sankaran Koil, some 40 kilometres from Senkottai. This massive temple is dedicated to Siva, his consort Gomati and Shankaranarayanan. (Ibid., p. ix.)
• 22. Sri Gnanananda Niketan: http://www.srignananandaniketan.org
• 23. The support of Cheenu Srinivasan of Sydney is much appreciated.
• 24. Talks, §426 (12th June 1937).
• 25. In Talks, §609, Bhagavan says: It is neither sleep nor waking but intermediate between the two. There is the awareness of the waking state and the stillness of sleep. It is called jagrat-sushupti. Call it wakeful sleep or sleeping wakefulness or sleepless waking or wakeless sleep. It is not the same as sleep or waking separately. It is the state of perfect awareness and of perfect stillness combined.
• 26. Saranagati, "Ramana Reflections: The Dream of Self", July 2024, p. 12.
• 27. Talks, §398, 14th April 1937. This edited citation begins in the original as: "Concentration is not thinking one thing…"
• 28. Aksharamanamalai, v. 36-37.
• 29. Spiritual Instruction, chapter 2, §4, in Collected Works, p. 56.
• 30. Neurobiologists offer explanations for the incessant need to stay in motion: it is a remnant of ancient survival circuitry. Human cognition and language are recent developments, whereas the mammalian brain—about 220 million years old—evolved from the far older reptilian brain, estimated at 770 million years old. The sympathetic nervous system manages threat through two responses: fight or flight. But the reptilian brain employs a third—death-feigning—by shutting down metabolism to appear dead. Reptiles can survive this suspended state for long periods, but mammals, with higher metabolic demands, cannot. For them, the same freeze response can be fatal. Hence, the more recent mammalian and cortical systems evolved strategies to override this primitive shutdown. One such mechanism is mobilisation—the compulsion to move, act, and engage—which keeps the organism from slipping into the life-threatening dorsal-vagal collapse.
  
  This has relevance for Ramana devotees today who find sustained vichara difficult, not from lack of sincerity but because, in the fast-paced digital era, chronic activation of the sympathetic nervous system interprets stillness as threat—an echo of the ancient circuitry designed to flee danger. Our flight from silence is thus not moral weakness but a reflexive survival response. The task, then, is to "override the override", that is, to gently retrain the nervous system to tolerate stillness and silence. Bio-hacks and neuromodulating exercises can help retune the nervous system toward calm engagement in order to access parasympathetic pathways essential for deep stillness, thus making sustained inquiry possible. (Gleaned from various books and public talks by the Indiana University neurobiologist and professor of psychiatry, Stephen W. Porges.)
• 31. This phrase is from the Vietnamese monk, Thich Nhat Hahn.
• 32. Guru Vachaka Kovai, §777.
• 33. Ibid., §776.
• 34. Self-enquiry, §36 in Collected Works, p. 31.
• 35. Freud says that when ego takes the lead and reduces everything to separate parts, this is born of Thanatos, the death drive.
• 36. Self-enquiry, §29, in Collected Works, p.25.
• 37. Letters from Sri Ramanasramam (9th February 1947); see also Talks, §146, (26th January 1936).
• 38. This paragraph is inspired by Patrick Harpur's Daimonic Reality where he speaks of the rational, literalising ego, see pp. 263-266.
• 39. Vivekachudamani, from Collected Works, p. 263.
• 40. The Nobel prize-winning physicist Werner Heisenberg said that soul is what is inside; ego is on the surface.
• 41. The neo-cortex, that fragile newcomer in our evolutionary story, appeared only some forty millennia ago, bringing with it the power of metacognition—the mind's ability to turn upon itself and know that it knows. Yet this shining crown of awareness rests upon a deep substratum of ancient neural life that has pulsed within the human lineage for hundreds of millions of years. If intuitive wisdom is non-verbal, wordless and immediate, it is because it arises from these archaic, pre-linguistic circuits—the quiet intelligence of the body, the animal alertness, the cellular listening that preceded speech.
• 42. The Essence of Instruction, §27, from the Collected Works, p. 113.