The Maharshi in Germany by Dr. P. J. Saher

One day as I was gazing affectionately at the picture of our beloved Maharshi, it came upon me to ask for a boon." May I be brought into contact with the" Maharishi's German devotees " was what I wished because I felt a bit isolated on my quest for the Higher Self. Thereupon I lost consciousness
— not that I was at all in the habit of doing so. I awoke to the sound of my door bell ringing. I got up and staggered to the door . It was the postman. I was too weak to shut the door properly and I felt as if I was about to fall. My last thoughts were directed to the Maharshi and I prayed to him for rescue. Then I must have fainted for I next saw the postman bending over me.


A r e you all right " he asked. " Shall I call a doctor ? "
" Yes, do . " I replied.
" Why , if you had fallen an inch more to the right or to the left, you would have banged your head seriously," he said.

As I rested on the sofa I opened what the postman had brought me. It was a letter of invitation from the A B G (the Altbuddhistische Gemeinde or Buddhist Society) of Utting accompanied by a monetary transfer to meet the expenses of the journey . At that time I did not know that there was a single devotee of Maharshi in Utting but I did know that it was one of the few precious centers of Buddhist learning in Europe. I was reluctant to undertake the journey in my weak physical condition but as I gazed at Maharshi's picture, he appeared to be smiling assent, so I decided to go.And it was
good that I did. Somehow the long and arduous journey did not tire me. The night train tore across the entire length of Germany. Utting is a charming hamlet on the shores of an inland sea called Ammersee surrounded by solitary hills which are covered b y the haunting forests of Bavaria.
The Ammersee reminds one some how of the Manasarovar lake in Tibet and the house of my hosts, die Altbuddhistische Gemeinde, was situated in an ideal spot. I could see the calm lake from my room and I found that I could meditate here better than usual.

This house in Utting ( which is now open to all devotees of the Maharshi) deserves to be described in detail. It is indeed a kind of " ashram " where people come to stay from time to time in order to study Buddhist Philosophy (or for that matter any philosophy dealing with the Higher Self in man) and to meditate. This community house or ashram was founded by the late Georg Grimm, one of the most outstanding German scholars of Buddhist Philosophy.

Georg Grimm, a Mahathera as he is called today , was a judge of the High Court of Bavaria and was famous for pronouncing decisions which were not only just but also equitable from an ethical and human point of view . He, however , soon felt the urge to seek spiritual truth and something told him
to look for it in the ancient wisdom of India. He there upon gave up his lucrative post and took up the study of Sanskrit and Pali. He became an intimate friend of Paul Deussen, the famous translator of the Upanishads.

Georg Grimm studied Buddha and his teachings with extreme thoroughness and he was aghast at the superficial views of Buddhist thought in Europe at that time People regarded it as a kind of " oriental
pessimism caused by malnutrition " (Nirvana was represented as an atheistic invention to abolish a self that never was)

Grimm's researches convinced him that the Buddha actually formulated a philosophy and a technique of logical thinking combined with meditation which helps us to understand our self and the world around us as it really is. In his masterpiece The Doctrine of the Buddha—the religion of Reason and
Meditation (Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1958), he took great pains to prove that , the Buddha's teachings are not at variance with the main tenets of Indian Philosophy. The Buddha ( according to Grimm ) belongs to the mainstream of Indian thought because he also was trying to draw our attention to the cardinal problem of Self in contradistinction to ego. (I hope to show later in this article how the Buddha in effect comes to the same conclusions as Maharshi Ramana) .

On my arrival in Utting I was met by Brother Dhammapalo who, having renounced all, leads an exemplary life of fasting, meditation and study. He introduced me to Holy Sister Maya (Georg Grimm's daughter and spiritual heir who now conducts the administration of the community - house ) and to Sister Karuna.

Sister Karuna worked selflessly and unceasingly from early morning till late at night attending and serving all who crossed her path. Under her loving care I regained health and strength.

In the evening I was requested to give a talk to the inmates of the house. This took place in an adjoining temple, one of the very few authentic Buddhist temples in Europe. In its meditation hall I found the atmosphere so rich with spiritual vibrations that I felt anyone here would be able to meditate effortlessly and without the usual obstructions. The temple has also a treasure - house of Buddhist art with originals collected from all over the world.

In my lecture I made it plain that I was not a Buddhist but a Parsi and further that I saw no contradiction in being (and remaining ) a Parsi and having Maharshi Ramana as my guru at the same time. At my mentioning the name of Maharshi Ramana the faces, of the audience lit up and they  
exchanged meaningful glances with each other. I wondered why. I propounded my thesis that if one accepts Buddha one ought also to accept Maharshi Ramana because the latter illuminates the same truths from a different angle and for a later generation. I give below a summary of my lecture.

Pure Being is equivalent in practice to No-Thing . The SELF is Pure Being. As such it is a No-Thing and consequently cannot be described in words . A positive affirmation of SELF (as Atman) is logically difficult if not impossible. An ordinary person might even fall prey to confusion with it.
( We notice this on almost every page of " Talks with Maharshi " ) . The Buddha therefore bypassed this obstacle by using the method of reductio ad absurdum. Indeed the neti neti (not this—not that) of the Upanishads is a similar treatment. Georg Grimm saw deeper than most Buddhist scholars of his time. His The Doctrine of the Buddha shows with enormous source material how Buddha came to the same conclusions as Maharshi Ramana, using the reductio ad absurdum, a permissible method when  positive proof of an affirmation is not possible but the number of alternatives is limited, e.g. : Suppose that I am not in a position to prove affirmatively that what I hold in my hand is a pen. Suppose further that apart from it being a pen only three other alternatives are possible : that (a) it
is a bottle , ( b ) it is a nail, ( c ) it is a hat.

If now I can conclusively prove that what I hold in my hand is not a bottle nor a nail nor a hat, I have there by proved that it is a pen. It is such a method that both the Buddha and the Maharshi adopt to drive home the truths about our essential self.

The Buddha lets every disputant say what he regards as his " self " . He then shows him that that cannot possibly be his (real) self (as per Majjhima Nikaya, 22nd. Discourse). After the disputant has thought out all possibilities he is at his wits end and despairs of knowing what he is.

That I am cannot be denied. But what if the Buddha succeeds each time in proving that I am neither this nor that ? The only alternative then left is that I am nothing.(Many people wrongly take this to mean ' I am not ' or indeed ' I never was ' or even ' a self does not and cannot exist ' ) . But the Buddha was an incarnation of wisdom itself. His aim was to provoke the adversary further into asking what this " nothing " is. In order to understand what nothing is the adversary is invited to contemplate the
opposite of nothing. The opposite of nothing is all. And what is " all " composed of ? " All " means  for us all we can cognize with our senses plus all we can picture through our imagination (as per Cf. Samyutta Nikaya, XXXV, 24). What I can neither perceive, cognize nor imagine is not included in my " all ". It is, therefore , as if it) were nothing. The ' I ' indeed cannot be cognized for it is the cognizer ; it cannot be imagined because it is the imaginer ! The 'I' being always the subject of cognition, can never be an object of cognition. The ' I ', being always the imagining subject, cannot be the object of
imagination. The ' I ' , being always the thinker, it cannot be anything think-able, i.e.: expressible in thoughts. The I is the " Nothing " which makes " all " possible. As Goethe put it : " In this your Nothing, I find my all " (Faust's reply to the devil . )

The ' I ' is transcendental : that means out side the realm of logical thought. The Real - Self akin to Nirvana is atakkavacara (a = outside ; takka = logical thought ; avacara = the realm ) .

The Atma or our essential Self is always in a condition of Nirvana. The teaching of Maharshi Ramana enables us to understand Buddhist philosophy in its pristine purity. Georg Grimm freed Buddhist thought from the mountains of prejudice under which it was ( in Europe ) submerged. Thanks t o him, we see how Maharshi and Buddha complement one another thus giving us one of the
most perfect systems of metaphysical thought known to man.

The Maharshi's cardinal question was " who am I ? " ; the Buddha's " what am I not ? " B y using the " what am I not method " one eliminates all one had superimposed on the Real - Self till there remains only the " Unborn, Unoriginated, Unmade, Unformed . "(The Maharshi also used this approach : " If you eliminate all that is not-self, what remains is the Self." (Editor). " If there were not, monks, this unborn, unoriginated, unmade, and unformed, there would be no way out for the born, the originated, the made and the formed . "(as per Itivuttaka, 43) 

At this point I told my audience about a miracle I had experienced through Maharshi Ramana's divine grace. Till then I had kept this experience secret for fear of being misunderstood.

It was near the end of August 1958. I had fallen on hard times. Insecurity and danger were lurking on all sides and my sole comfort was in thinking of Maharshi. My landlady showed me Zimmer's Der Weg Zum Selbst which she had bought for herself. I knew that the book was about Maharshi Ramana but could not read it, as at that time I was innocent of German ! When I was alone in the room I actually wept because of my inability to read/ it. I was sure that Maharshi's wisdom could give me the guidance to overcome all worries for my future. This wisdom lay buried in a book I held in my hand but could not read ! What would I not have given at that time to be able to read German. I wept with
frustration. Then I distinctly heard a voice say with authority : " Read that book ! ".

I opened the b o o k at the first page and each sentence my eyes fell on, the precise meaning was conveyed to me as if by telepathy.

When my landlady returned I requested her to sell me that book on the spot. She agreed but said with amazement : " Why do you buy a book you cannot read ? " (My landlady and I used to speak English to one another. She had not however the intellectual calibre to act as translator or interpreter ) .

So miraculous was this grace that I read the whole book from cover to cover in seven days without even once consulting a dictionary or asking anyone for aid. I understood the book so perfectly that I even underlined in black those passages I found important, in blue those more important, and in red
those most important. Several years later, after I had learnt German properly , I noticed from the underlined passages that I had indeed understood the book correctly at that time.

The reading of this book was a great spiritual experience for me. Firstly, I felt so near to Maharshi Ramana being able to ' read ' what I could not read. Then also the contents of the book were very important for my efforts at gaining enlightenment. It was indeed a source of inspiration for my Indische weisheit und das abendland (published by Verlag Anton Hain in 1965) which is dedicated to Maharshi Ramana and contains a chapter on him.

Feeling relieved that Maharshi Ramana's grace had come to my aid so spontaneously in a crisis, I gave up worrying about the future as something unworthy of a devotee.And indeed all turned out well. I remembered Maharshi's example of the man in a railway carriage who puts his luggage on the
rack and lets the train carry it for him.

When I told this story everybody smiled appreciatively . I discovered later that, without my knowing it, they were all devotees of Maharshi ! They had all read Zimmer's Der Weg Zum Selbst and all possessed a picture of our beloved Maharshi which they revered. I had been brought unwittingly into the midst of the Maharshi's German devotees !

The next day Sister Maya invited me to enter the inner sanctuary, so to speak, of the house. There in a position of great importance was a picture of Maharshi Ramana. I knelt before it in adoration. Then Sister Maya said to me : " When I am ill, I hang the picture over my bed . " She then explained why everybody smiled the evening before over my enthusiasm for the Maharshi. They themselves were equally enthusiastic. I then told them of the existence of The Mountain Path and soon several of them wanted to become life - subscribers . I suggested that since 'such a large assembly of the Maharshi's devotees were assembled in Utting, the A B G - Utting should also serve as the Ashram's and The Mountain Path's representative for Germany and Austria.We at once wrote to the Ashram. Sister
Maya said that any devotee of Maharshi was welcome to come and stay at the A B G - Utting which itself is a kind of ashram. Efforts will also be made to hold an annual meeting of Maharshi Ramana's European devotees there.

Brother Dhammapalo (Mr. Max Hoppe ) ,editor of the A B G - Magazine Yana, also gave a lecture in which he stressed the importance of studying Maharshi's teaching and described the coming of Maharshi Ramana as the most outstanding spiritual event of our time.

Next day a benevolent patron of the A B G, Mrs. Hopfner ,took me to her mansion. It was a most beautiful place with a view of the lake and enclosed by solitary woods and hills. In her room also I found Zimmer's Der Weg Zum Selbst. Frau Hopfner's burning wish was to create a better understanding between the different religions of the world. She placed her entire villa and park, along
with a separate lecture room and meditation hall, at my disposal to be used as a summer school for Comparative Religion this year. I agreed to conduct such a school and plans are already in progress.

It was late at night when I returned to Utting. As I lay in bed I had an urge to visit the temple below and give thanks for all the love and kindness I had received in Utting. I tiptoed silently into the temple and sat before the altar in meditation. I do not know how long I remained there. The place had a haunting beauty of its own. I felt myself the recipient of waves of grace. I prayed inwardly " Sri Arunachala - Shiva !Shivoham !" Then again I did obeisance to Mahathera's picture. All of a sudden I had an uncanny feeling that the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of the past had entered the room carrying with them an enormous wheel. ( I marvelled that so huge a wheel could be encompassed within the confines of the room ) . Some of them had a friendly aspect while others were awe - inspiring . Then the Mahathera (Georg Grimm) seemed to appear at my side ; or perhaps it was all only my heightened fancy. In any case I realised that the huge wheel was really the paticcasamuppdda (the formula of origination through interdependence ) . The Mahathera appeared to explain it to me, revolving both anti- clockwise and clockwise. Now I grasped what profound wisdom lay concealed in it. It is indeed a key to immortality. I wonder if it is' possible without grace or exceptional insight to understand the secret yet unerring workings of this wheel. One who has got behind the mystery of this wheel could never again be life's victim, Indeed it was now that I realised what life was all about. It was Easter Sunday - and all the Easter Sundays of my life passed before me in review . I felt I could remember every thing and it seemed that even my past lives on this earth were about to appear
before my astonished gaze. A great sadness overwhelmed me and I realised how unworthy I was of even a fraction of this grace.

The prayer I mentioned at the beginning of this article had been answered. I wished to contact the Maharshi's German devotees and this had come to pass in a most pleasant and surprising manner.

Spiritually and physically refreshed, I returned home to Munster. On my return found an invitation from the Ashram for Maharshi's Brahmanirvana celebrations on 18 April 1966. I at once phoned  Sister Maya and told her of it. We both turned our thoughts to this important event.

This article was published as it is in " The Mountain Path" Vol III October 1966 and  written by DR. P. J. SAHER.

Dr. P. J. Saher, a Parsi doctor living at Muenster in West Germany, is President of the Internationale Gesellschaft fur Religionsphilosophie und Geistesgeschichte. He is also a close friend of the Altbuddhistische Gemeinde of Utting am Ammersee, which has become The Mountain Path agent for
Germany and Austria.

Note : The only objective of sharing this article is to compile the thoughts and work of Dr. P.J. Saher at one place for benefit of his followers.