Ramana Maharshi 1879 – 1950

Ramana Maharshi was an Indian Hindu sage and one of the most influential teachers of Advaita Vedanta in the twentieth century. At sixteen he experienced a spontaneous identification with what he called the Self and travelled south to the holy mountain of Arunachala, where he lived for the rest of his life in silence and later in dialogue with disciples and visitors from around the world. His central teaching is the practice of self-inquiry: the patient asking of the question who am I until the apparent ego dissolves into the Self that alone is real. His simple ashram became a major center of Indian spiritual life.