YOGI Ramaiha It was in the 1930’s. Paul Brunton was entering his hut when to his horror and loathing he saw a cobra with a raised hood inside. As he stood frozen and helpless outside the hut, a well built man, like a graven Buddha, came and took in the situation with a glance. Raising both his hands to calm the cobra, he entered the hut. In response, the cobra put down its raised hood near the man’s feet. The man then calmly bent down and stroked the cobra’s tail as it slithered out of the room. Surprised Paul Brunton asked, “Are you not afraid?” The man replied, “What have I to be afraid of? I approached it without hatred and with love in my heart for all beings.” Thrilled with the man’s actions and words, Brunton asked him for his name. “Yogi Ramiah,” was the reply. Yogi Ramiah’s parents were devout and very wealthy. Consequently, he was more interested in enjoying the good things in life than paying attention to his studies. At the age of eighteen - this is how the divine operates - he happened to read a book on saint Kabir. On reading it, the unreality of the world exploded like a bomb in his face. He had been taking the world to be real. But, after reading about Kabir’s life and teachings, he was a changed man. Now, thirsting to know what the truth is, he started searching for a guru. One day, he met a guru who advised him to chant the name ‘Rama’, five thousand times every day if he wanted to know the truth. So intense was the young man’s thirst for truth that he countered, “What if I chant more?” The guru replied, “The benefit you reap will be greater.” Not letting up, Ramiah persisted, “What will happen if I chant it continuously?” Thrilled by the young man’s question, instead of replying, the guru embraced him and initiated him into the Rama mantra. From that moment onwards, whatever else he was doing, he was chanting the mantra without interruption. In due course, he had the vision of Lord Rama. On pursuing it even more intensely, he experienced the disappearance of the external Rama. Instead, he started feeling God within as the Self. Puzzled, he went and queried scholars, “Can the subject and the object be the same? Can they remain indistinct as one?” Their answer that the subject is different from the object did not satisfy him. So, he went on searching for someone who could solve his doubt. One of these searches led him in the thirties to the Old Hall in Ramanasramam. Obsessed with his doubt, he asked, “Can the subject and the object be one?” Kavyakantha Ganapati Muni, who was also in the hall, answered, “Of course not, the subject is different from object.” Pained, Ramiah looked at Bhagavan. Disagreeing with Kavyakantha, Bhagavan clarified, “The subject and object are distinct in the phenomenal world to the ordinary man. But in the experience of samadhi they merge and become one.” This answer dissolved Ramiah’s doubt. He instantly took Bhagavan as his satguru and decided to stay on in Tiruvannamalai. Source : Ramana Periya Puranam
