Ramana Maharshi · The devotees

The devotees of Ramana Maharshi

Around the silent sage of Arunachala gathered some of the most remarkable souls of the age ~ a poet, a weaver, a soldier, a grieving mother, a builder, and many more. Their stories are the human heart of the whole teaching.

You can learn a teaching from its texts. But you understand a teacher through the people who loved him ~ and in Ramana's case, the devotees who gathered at the foot of the hill are a treasury of stories as moving as any in the spiritual literature. Each found something different in him, and each shows a different face of what he was. Here they are, the ones whose stories we have told so far ~ with more to come.

The Indian devotees

Muruganar ~ the poetThe scholar-poet who drew out the teaching and sang his master in an ocean of verse. Mastan Swami ~ the weaver saintThe Muslim weaver Ramana called the ripest soul he had met. Annamalai Swami ~ the builderWho built the ashram, then was told to lay it all down and simply be. Echammal ~ grief into graceWho lost her whole family, found refuge in Ramana, and fed him daily for decades. Sivaprakasam Pillai ~ the questionerThe sincere seeker whose questions, answered in the sand, became ‘Who Am I?’. Kunju Swami ~ the attendantWho served Bhagavan for decades and preserved the small human details of daily life with him. Sadhu Om ~ the poet-scholarThe Tamil devotee-poet whose translations carried Ramana's verse teaching into English.

The Western devotees

Brunton, Chadwick, Osborne & moreHow the West found Ramana ~ and wrote him down for the world. Arthur Osborne ~ the biographerThe writer who brought Ramana's life and teaching to the English-speaking world. Paul Brunton ~ the journalistWhose bestselling travelogue introduced Ramana Maharshi to the West. Major Chadwick ~ the soldierThe British army officer who settled at the ashram and never left. Maurice Frydman ~ the engineerThe Polish engineer whose translations carried Ramana and Nisargadatta alike into English.

And close to him

Alagammal ~ his motherWho came to reclaim her son and was set free by him at her death. Lakshmi the cow & the animalsThe creatures he loved and treated as devotees ~ one Self in all.

The wider lineage

Papaji ~ H.W.L. PoonjaThe devotee whose brief 1944 meeting with Ramana became, decades later, a teaching lineage of its own. Lakshmana Swamy ~ realised in three daysWhose 1949 visit to the ashram became one of the most direct realisation stories in the tradition. Sarada ~ the second generationLakshmana Swamy's disciple and successor, carrying the thread a generation further. Robert Adams ~ a disputed claimThe American satsang teacher whose own account of meeting Ramana researchers have been unable to verify.
A growing collection

More devotee stories are being added ~ further Siddhars of the hill, and others whose lives were changed at the foot of it.