Red Hot Ramana

In a recent article, writer and speaker Robert Rabbin made a claim that is sure to provoke just about everyone. He writes, "Ramana Maharshi . . . didn't go far enough on his journey of self-discovery." Anyone who has been touched by this great sage will no doubt raise their eyebrows (or their hackles) You mean the one saint who deserves to be placed in the pantheon along with The Buddha and Christ didn't go far enough?

This is only the beginning. Rabbin adds that Ramana's problem is that "he only went away; he didn't come back." He suggests that Ramana needed to come back into a "full, robust, sensual, sexual, passionate embodiment of that silence." OK, I'm trying to imagine Ramana in a red sports car, with designer jeans and a t-shirt -- instead of his usual dhoti -- roaring around LA with a hot babe by his side as he heads off for some wild passionate sex. It just doesn't fit.

What Rabbin is trying to tell us is that for realization to be complete, it must be brought down into the body. If we stay off in some blissful state of pure consciousness, we are avoiding life. An interesting idea, but by whose criteria? If we want to remain stuck in ego -- and the suffering that comes with it -- we may want to follow Robert Rabbin's path. But if we want to find the peace that surpassses all understanding, we'll have a better chance with Ramana.

I agree that some teachings encourage a kind of spiritual idealism, which easily downgrades into an excuse for not being engaged in the world: "Oh, there's really no one out there, everything is One and I am That." But that's dissociation -- not awakening. True awakening is when the realization is expressed in one's humanness -- when it is lived.

The big mistake is to think that Ramana may have been "missing something" by not experiencing his full sensuality. In the way I experience Ramana, his inner silence is so vast that we are the ones who are missing out. There is more passion in that silence then there will ever be in the human body. To try and compare what the body can give you with that vastness is to miss the boat entirely.

I love that Robert Rabbin shakes us up and has us question our beliefs, but ultimately he is inviting us to stay stuck in duality (you can't have sensuality and sexuality without suffering). Do you want to be immersed in the happiness that is your true nature, or do you want to be torn apart by desire and suffering? Take your pick.