In December 1922, the Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi came down the hill to the location of the present ashram. The ashram was gradually built at the present location. The most well known of the structures was what is now called the "Old Hall." Notice the two major pillars just to the right of the "Maharshi" in the photograph of the ashram as used in the 1946 movie version of The Razor's Edge. Compare them with the pillars in the middle photo of the ashram today. If you look closely the base of the pillars are almost exactly the same, indicating a fair amount of research done either by the studio staff or on the recommendation of William Somerset Maugham, the author of the novel --- who, as a guest of the Maharshi, stayed at the ashram in 1938 during his Travels In India.
In Maugham's novel, the centeral character Larry Darrell, who was based on an actual person in real life (see), visited the ashram in the 1928-1930 period --- when it looked like the bottom photo. The movie version however, shows the ashram more-or-less as it looked when Maugham visited it ten years later in 1938, which for the most part is pretty much how it still looks today. The almost expediential growth of the ashram starting in 1928 or so coincided with the arrival of Annamalai Swami, who became the Maharshi's personal attendant and given the duties --- as directed by Sri Ramana --- to oversee the ongoing construction at the ashram, including the goshala (cow shed), dining hall, dispensary and other projects.
For the record, the snow capped mountains in the background of the movie version of the ashram is way off base. The ashram is located in the very hot south of India. The holy mountain of Arunachala, adjacent to the ashrama, although it dominates the local environment, stands way too low at only 2,665 feet high --- and located well out of the snow belt region of the Indian sub-continent. A hundred years ago Arunachala was covered by a thick forest where tigers roamed and streams flowed down its sides. However, photographs of Sri Ramana on the mountain taken well before his death in 1950 show the forests long depleted and most of the trees along the slopes above the plain gone.
Sri Ramana stayed in the "Old Hall" nearly 20 years, from 1927 or 1928 to 1947. Typically he would pass the days siting on a couch in a corner. Birds built nests above the couch while squirrels ran about freely around and over Ramana’s body. Monkeys were constantly on the lookout for a chance to snatch food from the offerings given to Ramana. Cow Lakshmi would visit whenever she wanted. All day long people would be going in and out. No permission or appointment was needed to see Ramana. Under almost every circumstances most people understood they should seize any opportunity to clear their doubts, for all were aware of the Maharshi’s compassion and willingness to help.
So said, even in the court of Enlightenment there is intrigue. Paul Brunton, a British author that is credited with almost singlehandedly spreading the word of Sri Ramana to the west eventually came to be viewed NOT so favorably by everyone at the ashram. One day in 1939, Brunton was sitting taking notes in the meditation hall and told in English by a high ranking ashram dignitary that he was no longer permitted to take notes while sitting before the Maharshi. Brunton asked, "Is this also Bhagavan's view?" The Maharshi, who was easily within earshot, continued sitting quietly and didn't say a word. A few tense moments passed. Then Brunton got up and left. That was the last time Brunton took notes in the hall and also when he began distancing himself from the ashram.
As the years passed Brunton's feud with the ashram waned and he was actually invited to spend his final years there. He remained in England, however, eventually having numerous visions and bilocation visitations of Sri Ramana. The last one occurred fifteen months AFTER the holy man's physical death in 1950. The sage appeared before him and told him that they had to part. Brunton experienced no further similar visions after that. See THE MEETING: An Untold Story of Sri Ramana.
Returning to Larry Darrell, the main character in Maugham's novel The Razor's Edge, even though he initially seeks out and studies under Sri Ramana at the ashram he does NOT Awaken to the Absolute there as many think. Actually his Enlightenment experience transpired many miles away --- and without Ramana even being around. The following from THE RAZOR'S EDGE: True or False?:
Maugham has Darrell travel clear to the south of India, meet the Maharshi and be invited to stay at the ashrama. However, he also writes that Darrell did not stay at the ashrama continuously. He had met a man that was a forestry officer and devotee of Sri Ramana who would spend a few days at a time at the ashrama. The forestry officer gave Darrell a key to a secluded forest service bungalow that was a two-day journey by bus followed by a long hike high into the mountains. It was in that isolated area that Darrell had his Awakening experience, which means his Enlightenment did NOT occur on or about Arunachala or at the ashrama like one might expect. It just isn't feasible that Maugham would concoct such a scenario out of whole cloth, especially so for how important it should be, you would think, to have had Darrell Awaken under the direct auspices of the Maharshi. True, Ramana played a major role and directly responsible for setting the environment for the Awakening to transpire, but to have Darrell go off and self-Enlighten on his own is even too much for Maugham to think of.
Of those Awakening experiences so recorded, if an experience such as the one described above by Maugham took place under the grace and light of the Maharshi, it usually took place accompanied by a close proximity, either in the caves above the ashram or in the ashram, but almost always under direct visual and or verbal contact, study, or darshan. To wit:
SRI RAMANA MAHARSHI: THE LAST AMERICAN DARSHAN
RECOUNTING A YOUNG BOY'S NEARLY INSTANT TRANSFORMATION INTO THE ABSOLUTE DURING HIS ONLY DARSHAN WITH THE MAHARSHI
Fundamentally, our experience as experienced is not different from the Zen master's. Where
we differ is that we place a fog, a particular kind of conceptual overlay onto that experience
and then make an emotional investment in that overlay, taking it to be "real" in and of itself.
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Unless otherwise cited the research source for this article was, in part, from:
Self Realization, Life and Teachings of Ramana Maharshi, by B. V. Narashima Swami
Published by Sri Ramanasraman, Tiruvannamalai, India
Eighth Edition, 1976
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