HOW BHAGAVAN CAME INTO MY LIFE

By Karin Stegemann

ALREADY in early childhood 1 felt a deep religious longing.
But only after many years of seeking and intense study of religion
and philosophy did 1 finally find the answers to my questions in
Buddhism. Later on it was the practice of Zen Buddhism in
particular which guided me on the path of realization.

In 1952 my husband founded a Buddhist Society in
Hamburg, Germany. 1 became his colleague and worked for
more than twenty years, my main duty being the editing of a
journal. During this time I first saw Sri Ramana Maharshi's
photograph and it made a deep impression on me. 1 also found
in the book, Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, a dimension
of spiritual experience which attracted me as if by magic.
From that time onwards this book became my daily spiritual
food, and my longing to see the places where the sage had
lived grew daily.

The love of Bhagavan was with me most powerfully when

¹ sat for meditation. This was immediately after the passing
away of my husband. In those days 1 experienced a Being
beyond birth and death, and he revealed himself to me as the
Sadguru, working from within. Many years had to pass until
I was able to arrange everything in such a way that all my
activities could go on without me for some time. This set me
free for my first pilgrimage to Sri Ramanasramam.

Never in my life was I so happy and so full of deep peace as
during that blessed time at the foot of Arunachala! After my
return to the West, I expressed my gratefulness in a series of
lectures in which 1 showed slides of all the sacred places where
the sage had lived in the body and of those who work nowadays
in a selfless way to keep the Ashram running and to preserve
the atmosphere as it was during his bodily presence.

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After a second visit I was certain that Bhagavan is working
within us beyond time and space, and that it is only the body
which travels from one place to the other. After my first
journey there was still the painful dualistic feeling of
departing; now it had disappeared. Where is coming and
going? In a similar way I experienced that sickness and other
difficulties cannot disturb the inner peace, once the wrong
identification has dropped off.

To meet the wishes of my friends for a seminar on
Bhagavan, I studied anew all available material on the sage,
which points to the incomparable greatness of this Enlightened
One, who, almost as a child, experienced the true nature of
man without any help from outside, without a further
development, without falling back into ignorance. After his
great experience he remained once and for all the embodiment
of the supreme wisdom of India. May his birth centenary
remind us to follow gratefully and wholeheartedly the path
which he has opened to all.

Sayings of Bhagavan

"What will it be like when one achieves Self-realization?"

a devotee asked. "The question is wrong, one does not realize
anything new", said Bhagavan. "I do not get you, Swami",
persisted the devotee. "It is very simple. Now you feel you
are in the world. There you feel that the world is in you",
explained Bhagavan.

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