This following is extracted from Carl Jung’s lengthy introduction to Heinrich Zimmer’s guide on the life and work of Sri Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi in German

The provider of mythological and philosophical knowledge in India has been since time immemorial the ‘holy man’ – a Western title which doesn’t fairly render the essence and outward look of the parallel determine within the East. This determine is the embodiment of non secular India, and we meet him many times in literature. No marvel, then, that Zimmer* was passionately within the newest and finest incarnation of this kind within the phenomenal personage of Shri Ramana. He noticed on this Yogi, the true Avatar of the determine of the Rishi, Seer and Thinker, which strides, as legendary as it’s historic, down the centuries and the ages.

Shri Ramana is, in a way, a hominum homo, a real ‘son of man’ of the Indian earth. He’s ‘real’ and on high of that he’s a ‘phenomenon’ who, seen by way of European eyes, has claims to uniqueness. However in India he’s merely the whitest spot on a white floor (whose whiteness is talked about solely as a result of there are such a lot of surfaces which can be simply as black). Altogether, one sees a lot in India that ultimately one solely needs one might see much less: the enormity and number of international locations and human beings creates eager for full simplicity. This simplicity is there too: it pervades the non secular lifetime of India like a pleasing perfume or a melody. It’s in every single place the identical, however by no means monotonous, endlessly various. To get to understand it, it’s adequate to learn any Upanishad or any discourse of the Buddha. What’s heard there may be heard in every single place; it speaks out of 1,000,000 eyes, it expresses itself in numerous gestures, and there’s no village or nation highway the place that broad-branched tree can’t be present in whose shade the ego struggles for its personal abolition, drowning the world of multiplicity within the All and All-Oneness of Common Being. I used to be then completely sure that nobody might ever get past this, least of all of the Indian holy man himself; and may Shri Ramana say something that didn’t chime in with this melody, or declare to know something that transcended it, his illumination could be false. The holy man is correct when he intones India’s historical chants, however mistaken when he pipes another tune.

Shri Ramana’s ideas are lovely to learn. What we discover here’s a purest India, the breath of eternity, scorning and scorned by the world. It’s the music of the ages, resounding just like the shrilling of crickets on a summer time’s evening, from 1,000,000 beings. This melody is constructed up on an amazing theme, which, veiling its monotony underneath a thousand vibrant reflections, tirelessly and everlastingly rejuvenates itself within the Indian spirit, whose youngest incarnation is Shri Ramana himself. It’s the drama of ahamkara, the‘I-maker’ or ego-consciousness, in opposition and indissoluble bondage to the atman, the Self or non ego. The Maharshi additionally calls the atman the ‘ego-ego’ – considerably sufficient, for the Self is certainly skilled as the topic of the topic, because the true supply and controller of the ego, whose (mistaken) strivings are frequently directed in direction of appropriating the very autonomy that’s intimated to it by the Self. This battle shouldn’t be unknown to the Westerner: for him it’s the relationship of man to God.

To the Indian it’s clear that the Self because the originating floor of the psyche shouldn’t be completely different from God, and that, as far as a person is within the Self, he’s not solely contained in God however truly is God. Shri Ramana is sort of specific on this level. The objective of Japanese spiritual apply is similar as that of Western Mysticism: the shifting of the centre of gravity from the ego to the Self, from man to God. Because of this the ego disappears within the Self, and man in God. It’s evident that Shri Ramana has both actually been kind of absorbed by the Self, or a minimum of has struggled earnestly all his life to extinguish his ego in it. If we conceive the Self because the essence of psychic wholeness, i.e., because the totality of aware and unconscious, we accomplish that as a result of it does actually symbolize one thing like a objective of non secular improvement. This method exhibits the dissolution of the ego within the atman to be the unequivocal objective of faith and ethics, as exemplified within the considered Shri Ramana. The identical is clearly true of Christian Mysticism, which differs from Oriental Philosophy solely by way of having a unique terminology.

Shri Ramana’s phrases, which Heinrich Zimmer has bequeathed to us, in glorious translation, deliver collectively as soon as once more the loftiest insights that India has garnered in the middle of the ages, and the person life and work of the Maharshi illustrate as soon as once more the passionate striving for the liberating ‘Floor’. The knowledge and mysticism of the East have, due to this fact, very a lot to say to us, even after they communicate their very own inimitable language. They serve to remind us that we in our tradition possess one thing comparable, which we’ve already forgotten, and to direct our consideration to the destiny of the internal man, which we put aside as trifling. The life and instructing of Shri Ramana are of significance not just for India, however for the West too. They’re greater than a doc humane: they’re a warning message to a humanity that threatens to lose itself in unconsciousness and anarchy. It’s maybe, within the deeper sense, no accident that Heinrich Zimmer’s final guide ought to depart us, as a testomony, the life work of a contemporary Indian Prophet who exemplifies so impressively the issue of psychic transformation.