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The history and future of arunachala-ramana.org
By Graham
Two distinct websites have been created to replace the very successful ramana-maharshi.org which has been closed down after two years of intense pressure from the management at Sri Ramanasramam. Both of the new sites will continue to serve the devotees of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi and Arunachala, but in different ways.
As many of you will know, I first created the website dedicated to Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi in 1995 as a pure service to devotees, so that serious seekers could access content that they would otherwise find difficult to obtain. In 1998 I created and purchased the domain name ramana-maharshi.org and in 1999 invited Sri Ramanasramam to host some pages on the site along with the Newsletters of Arunachala Ashrama - it ran successfully for 12 years entirely at my own expense and effort (apart from £250 pounds given by Sri Ramanasramam in 2000 towards the considerably higher cost of creating and maintaining it over the years, plus three years annual server costs from another devotee). It became known and respected as the 'official site' for information on Bhagavan and Arunachala.
Since the site was first launched, ramana-maharshi.org grew in content and usefulness, but was also severely restricted by politics and various influences as to its scope. This inevitably led to conflict and its demise.
The influence of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi has grown expotentially since He dropped the body in April 1950. His popularity has also led to an upsurge in undesireable influences from many quarters, creating confusion and often great distress for many seekers. I have long felt that this poison should be addressed, but was unable to do it on ramana-maharshi.org. This is no doubt correct, ramana-maharshi.org was solely about the purity of Bhagavan and Arunachala and should not be soiled by the antics of those whose sole purpose in life is to milk as much money out of Bhagavan's devotees as they can.
To address some of the issues, especially the difficulty in obtaining accommodation in Tiruvannamalai, I created a new, completely independent website (hyperlinked from the 'accommodation advice' page of ramana-maharshi.org) called arunachala-property.com. This website was designed to provide accommodation and property information for devotees wanting to travel to or to live at Arunachala and to warn them about some of the problems they would encounter.
At the time of the creation of arunachala-property.com, the use of the premises of Sri Ramanasramam by unscrupulous property brokers was very prevalent and unhindered ... even to the extent of using the shrines, offices and other buildings to give credence to their nefarious business, something which I witnessed on many occasions and found disgusting in the extreme. The creation of arunachala-property.com with its warnings, brought about an immediate reaction; locals who were trying to help to make the website useful were threatened with violence and other retaliatory measures from people within Sri Ramanasramam.
On my own side there were demands that I remove the link from ramana-maharshi.org and hand the site over or close it down. After taking advice from Bhagavan in my usual manner I refused on His implicit instruction.
In the end however, after two years of incessant lies, torture and coercion I have finally closed it down, despite deep feelings of disquiet that I have betrayed my guru and have now replaced it with this site. In May 2007 I left Sri Ramanasramam in utter disgust after 11 years, joining the hundreds of others who have done the same over the past 50 years.
Arunachala-ramana.org is now being developed as a site free of any outside interference. It will tell the truth about matters that other's shy away from. This does not mean that it is going to be full of scandal or demeaning content, far from it - it will simply tell the truth, because that is what genuine seekers want to know. Those who embark on a spiritual quest do not want to be sidelined by things not pertinent to sadhana, do not want to be continually pestered for money or tortured in other ways.
The new Sri Ramanasramam website contains items about Sri Ramanasramam and its management.
The future development of this site:
Content:
At this time there are over 300,000 pages on the internet (indexed by Google) using the name of Ramana Maharshi. Unfortunately many of the sites I have visited are using the name of Bhagavan to elevate themselves for whatever purpose they have in mind - usually power, sex and greed. Many others just misinterpret his words for their own purposes. Others class themselves as His successor and poison His example even further by their appalling conduct. It is clear that as his popluarity has grown so have the opportunities for those with ambition and less than pure motives. Unfortunately it is impossible to stop this and it is up to the seeker to distinguish the wheat from the chaff.
The only way to find the truth is to compare those who purport to represent him, with Bhagavan himself.
Unfortunately that is going to be difficult as 99.9% of everything written by or about Him, the entire records of His ashram before 1952, every letter sent to Him and His replies, virtually every original manuscript, diaries and notebooks of devotees - including 15 years of day-to-day events and talks recorded by TPR (a local lawyer and devout devotee of Bhagavan), etc. have been deliberately burned. Witnesses say that the bonfire containing these latter diaries was as high as a man's chest and took place two days after TPR's death in the 1970's when his house in the Bose compound opposite Sri Ramanasramam, was broken into and everything brought out to be burned.
The Old Hall where Bhagavan spent most of His time was destroyed by fire along with its contents ... manuscripts, translations, the entire collection of the best photographs and negatives, plus many other things of importance to sincere devotees - a crime witnessed from the road by at least three people, two of whom are still living today; all of whom state that the fire was supervised and encouraged for about an hour (from a small fire that could easily have been extinguished to an all-consuming inferno) by T. N. Venkatraman, who stood there with a huge grin on his face as he watched its destruction (this same man was responsible for the other fires that destroyed everything else and he was never brought to worldly justice) ... however, a former attendant of Bhagavan was later convicted of starting the fire at the Old Hall and running off, he served two years in prison and died shortly afterwards. What was not burned was left to rot, some items have been stolen and others just lost. The contents of the third fire filled two locked rooms at the ashram before being burned - these were the entire ashram records and manuscripts submitted as evidence to the Madras High Court in the 1950's and returned in the late 1960's or early 1970's - altogether they weighed about 10 tons.
Is the above information true? There is only one way to find out - ask where the letters and original manuscripts are, ask where the ashram records prior to 1952 are. Ask any of the hundreds, if not thousands of devotees who were there in the 50's, 60's and 70's about these facts. Ask anyone in Tiruvannamalai.
Why was it all burned? Obviously to hide something - was it some dark secret about Bhagavan or the truth about the people who burned it? The answer is of course the latter, motivated by power and greed - whoever controls the flow of information about Bhagavan controls the money that will flow because of Him and to date (2008) that has grown to the equivalent of one hundred million dollars in cash spread across hundreds of bank accounts, shares and property - not bad for a non-profit organisation which presents non-profit balance sheets every year. Today, the effort to find and destroy any remaining diaries and records still continues. If you or your family hold any such diaries then I strongly suggest that you either publish them in full on the internet or submit them to the ASI in India.
Today at Sri Ramanasramam there only remain a few small notebooks with Bhagavan's poetry in various languages, about 900 negatives in various states of deterioration, some printed first editions with Bhagavan's minor corrections and some recently published reminiscences describing Him. However, these latter present a picture of perfection manifest.
There are no dark secrets about Bhagavan. Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi was unique - the word Bhagavan means Parabrahman, the Supreme. His attainment was the highest possible, the complete dissolution of the ego/personality into the Self, Brahman. When He spoke it was the Highest Truth that formed the words, spontaneous and always perfect. For Him there was only Brahman, nothing else, and He not only said this but 'lived and breathed it' in every moment of His life at Arunachala.
But this does not mean that he was cold and aloof as many would like you to believe. He has been described as the most normal of human beings, perfectly natural, but without any attachment to things worldly, considering all of them a burden. He did not form religions or build ashrams, He never put Himself first or considered Himself important - in fact there are many examples of His overwhelming compassion for the poor and disaffected. He considered all to be equal with Him, which is of course the absolute Truth - there is only Brahman and nothing else, everything is composed of, appears and remains in Brahman only.
Those who see themselves as higher or better than others by thought, word or deed, do so only out of swollen ego. Those who use Bhagavan's name to elevate themselves and address themselves as 'Holy', are an insult to Him and to everything that He exemplified, whoever and wherever they are.
The plethora of would-be gurus and loud voices out there, most with little or no understanding of anything deeply spiritual, are the cause of endless distress to serious seekers who put their faith in these criminals. Far from being the uplifters of humanity, they destroy people's faith in God. Such people should remember what is stated in both the Vedas and Christian doctrine about this: it says that 'to disturb someones faith in God, is the one crime that is never forgiven'.
Over the coming months and years I intend to add as much useful information to this site as it is possible to accumulate, from both the internet and publications. Your input is welcome, so please do not hesitate to point me to sources of good material for serious sadhakas.
The Forum is there for all visitors to use, but it will not be permitted to become a soap box for anyone - including myself.