Paul Brunton’s Criticisms of Sage Sri, Ramana Maharishi +

Paul Brunton’s Criticisms of Sage Sri, Ramana Maharishi 

As one goes in research into the annals of the history: ~

Paul Brunton was an English writer on spirituality and related subjects. Paul Brunton kept details of his own past as something of a mystery. Paul Brunton’s original name was Raphael Hurst. He was a London journalist. He was keenly interested in eastern spiritual teachings and thought that by an intelligent study and appreciation of it the cause of co-operation between east and west might be greatly promoted. he came to meet Sri, Ramana Maharishi after visiting many spiritual masters, swamis, and yogis.    Brunton wrote under various pseudonyms, including Raphael Meriden and Raphael Delmonte. He changed his name when he visited India and decided to write on spiritual matters. At first, he chose the pen name ~ Brunton Paul. He later changed this to Paul Brunton.

Paul Brunton was the one who made Sri, Ramana Maharishi well-known to the western world. Paul  Brunton met  Sri, Ramana Maharishi in 1931,  and in 1934, he published a book about his meeting with Sri, Ramana Maharishi. The book was called A Search in Secret India.  people all over the world refer to Brunton’s works. 

Now it is interesting that Brunton had very similar criticisms of Ramana. Excerpts of Brunton’s book A Search in Secret India are still published and distributed by Ramana's ashram. What the ashram does not say is that Brunton had a profound disagreement. Brunton says that there were threats of violence against him. In fact, he says he felt forced to leave the ashram. He says he left “abruptly" (32).

Brunton says that he did not see Ramana at all in the 12 years before Ramanaˆa’s death, even though he passed within a few miles of the ashram (33). 

In a book written in 1941, The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga, Brunton refers to “threats of physical violence” and "malicious lying ignorance." He speaks of being “harshly separated by the ill-will of certain men.” He speaks of “hate” and “low manners”, which he attributes to jealousy over his success The main problems were:  In March 1939, Brunton arrived at Tiruvannamalai, where he stayed at Ramana's ashram, not for the expected three months, but for three weeks. Brunton describes the situation at the ashram as: ... a highly deplorable situation in the Ramana ashram which represents the culminating crisis of a degeneration which has been going on and worsening during the last three years. And he complains that Ramana was not exercising any control over the ashram: But during my last two visits to India it had become painfully evident that the institution known as the Ashram which had grown around him during the past few years, and over which his ascetic indifference to the world rendered him temperamentally disinclined to exercise the slightest control, could only greatly hinder and not help my own struggles to attain the highest goal, so I had no alternative but to bid it an abrupt and final farewell (Hidden Teaching, p. 18)

It is clear that there were disagreements between Brunton and Ramana's brother, who was in charge of the ashram. Masson says that Brunton had given interviews in the Indian papers about Ramana which the brother had not found satisfactory. Were these disagreements even earlier than 1939? Brunton had not been at the ashram since early 1936. In September  1936, Ramana was asked about "some disagreeable statements by a man well known to Maharishi." Ramana replied  I permit him to do so. I have permitted him already. Let him do so even more. Let others follow suit. Only let them leave me alone. If because of these reports no one comes to me, I shall consider it a great service is done to me. Moreover, if he cares to publish books containing scandals of me, and if he makes money from their sale, it is really good. Such books will sell even more quickly and in larger numbers, than the others (…) He is doing me a very good turn. (36B).

Now Brunton is not specifically identified here. But the dates fit with Brunton leaving for the Himalayas "in exile."

Legal action had been commenced for control of the ashram. Some people said that Brunton was involved. Brunton felt he had to deny this allegation.

4. Brunton complained that Ramana didn’t impart to him the guidance that he was seeking (Hidden Teaching, p. 15). 

Now, what did Brunton want? He certainly had Ramana's instruction of the method of self-inquiry. It seems that perhaps he wanted the magical powers or siddhis associated with yoga. Examples are the power of telepathy or of foreseeing the future. We know that Brunton was interested in such powers. And he refers to the "higher mysteries of yoga." It seems he wanted some kind of initiation from Ramana. But Ramana never initiated anyone. And although such powers may arise in the course of enlightenment, the Hindu traditions state that it is a mistake to seek these powers in themselves. Interestingly enough, Brunton himself was criticized by his own followers for not following through on his promises. Brunton told his own young disciple Jeffrey Masson about his powers. Masson says that Brunton always carried a magic wand or glass rod. Masson was disappointed that he did not get these powers.

Brunton says that meditation apart from experience is “inevitably empty” (Hidden Teaching, p. 19). The illuminations gained by yoga or by trance states are always temporary ones. Although a trance may produce a feeling of exaltation, this feeling goes away and one must repeat the experience daily. He cites the Hindu philosopher/sage Aurobindo: Trance is a way of escape–the body is made quiet, the physical mind is in a state of torpor, the inner consciousness is left free to go on with its experience. The disadvantage is that trance becomes indispensable and that the problem of the waking consciousness is not solved, it remains imperfect. (Hidden Teaching, p. 27)

Brunton refers to the “sheer shriveled complacency” of some of Ramana's followers and their “hidden superiority complex.” He refers to this mystical attitude as a “holier than thou attitude,” and an assumption that total knowledge had been reached when in fact it was only a partial knowledge (Hidden Teaching, p. 16). 

He says that without the healthy opposition of active participation in the world’s affairs, they [mystics] have no means of knowing whether they were living in a realm of sterilized self-hallucination or not. (Hidden Teaching, p. 19) 

Brunton had ethical disagreements with Ramana. For Brunton, it was not sufficient for a realized person to meditate. Interaction and involvement with the outside world are necessary. He felt that Ramana took no stand on issues like the coming war. Brunton seems particularly upset by an incident when the news was brought to the ashram that Italian planes had gunned undefended citizens on the streets of Ethiopia (the Italians invaded Ethiopia in October 1935).

Brunton reports that Ramana said: The sage who knows the truth that the Self is indestructible will remain unaffected even if five million people are killed in his presence.

Remember the advice of Krishna to Arjuna on the battlefield when disheartened by the thought of the impending slaughter of relatives on the opposing side (38)

Now I believe that Brunton's criticism of Ramana is correct, at least with respect to ethics. Ken Wilber also says that, however, realized Ramana was, he had ethical shortcomings (39). I see the problem as an inconsistency in Ramana's teachings between different views of the self. On the one hand, the self is seen as static and unmoving, uninvolved in the world. On the other hand, there is the view of the self as dynamic and participating in the world. Brunton says that the field of human activity is meant to be not in the trance world, but in the external world, this “time-fronted and space-backed world.”

 Brunton's previous experiences of yoga and meditation. In Hidden Teaching, Brunton says that he still regards Ramana as “the most eminent South Indian yogi.” But he also says something quite surprising: that he had known about meditation and yoga before he came to Ramana's ashram, and that his experience with Ramana was no new experience.

He makes the “confession” that when he first came to India, he was no novice in the practice of yoga. Even as a teenager …the ineffable ecstasies of mystical trance had become a daily occurrence in the calendar of life, the abnormal mental phenomena which attend the earlier experience of yoga was commonplace and familiar, whilst the dry labors of meditation had disappeared into effortless ease. (Hidden Teaching, p. 23)

Brunton claims that he not only had practiced yoga but that he had experienced abnormal phenomena or siddhis. He refers to the experience of being seemingly extended in space, an incorporeal being. What I omitted to state and now reveal was that it was no new experience because many years before I had met the saintly yogi of Arunachala, I had enjoyed precisely similar ecstasies, inward repose, and luminous intuitions during self-training in meditation .- (Hidden Teaching, p. 25).

Brunton says that Ramana only confirmed his earlier experiences: When later, I came across translations of Indian books on mysticism, I found to my astonishment that the archaic accents of their phraseology formed familiar descriptions of my own central and cardinal experiences…(Hidden Teaching, p. 23).

This last statement is almost exactly what Ramana claimed for himself–that his experience was direct, and that the later books that he read were only "analyzing and naming what I had felt intuitively without analysis or name." Is Brunton being honest here? Or has he invented this story of the previous experience in view of his disenchantment with Ramana? Surprisingly, the independent record seems to show that Brunton may be telling the truth. There is evidence that Brunton had had earlier experiences. A 1931 report of his first meeting with Ramana reports Brunton (then known as Hurst) as telling Ramana that he had earlier experienced moments of bliss. (41)

Brunton says that his experiences with Ramana brought back these earlier experiences. This may be true, but what Brunton says about his first book, A Search in Secret India, must give cause for great concern insofar as it relates to the record of Ramana. Brunton says that he used the story of Ramana as a “peg” on which to hang his own theories of meditation: It will, therefore, be clear to perspicacious readers that I used his name and attainments as a convenient peg upon which to hang an account of what meditation meant to me. The principal reason for this procedure was that it constituted a convenient literary device to secure the attention and hold the interest of western readers, who would naturally give more serious consideration to such a report of the “conversion” of a seemingly hardheaded critically-minded Western journalist to yoga (Hidden Teaching),

God as an illusion. Brunton also criticizes Ramana’s view that even God is an illusion: The final declaration which really put me, as a Western enquirer, off Advaita came later: it was that God too was an illusion, quite unreal. Had they not left it at that but taken the trouble to explain how and why this all was so, I might have been convinced from the start. But no one did.

This is a rather strange criticism and reflects a rather naïve view of Vedanta. Brunton’s own later teaching moves from a personal to an impersonal Absolute.

Finally, Brunton seems to criticize Ramana for a lack of originality. He says, "some years after I met Maharishi I discovered in an old Sanskrit text the same Who Am I method." Part 2 of Lecture.

Part -2

The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga (1941)

In Hidden Teaching, Brunton changes the question “Who am I?” to “What am I?” He says that "Who Am I" was a question that emotionally pre-supposed that the ultimate 'I' of man would prove to be a personal being, whereas "What Am I?" rationally lifted the issue to scientific impersonal enquiry into the nature of that ultimate 'I.' (Hidden Teaching, 17).

In Hidden Teaching, Brunton says that he still regards Ramana as “the most eminent South Indian yogi.” But he also says something quite surprising: that he had known about meditation and yoga before he came to Ramana's ashram, and that his experience with Ramana was no new experience. He makes the “confession” that when he first came to India, he was "no novice in the practice of yoga," Even as a teenager …the ineffable ecstasies of mystical trance had become a daily occurrence in the calendar of life, the abnormal mental phenomena which attend the earlier experience of yoga was commonplace and familiar, whilst the dry labors of meditation had disappeared into effortless ease (Hidden Teaching, 23).

Brunton claims that he not only had practiced yoga but that he had experienced abnormal phenomena or siddhis. He refers to the experience of being seemingly extended in space, an incorporeal being.

What I omitted to state and now reveal was that it was no new experience because many years before I had met the saintly yogi of Arunachala, I had enjoyed precisely similar ecstasies, inward repose, and luminous intuitions during self-training in meditation (Hidden Teaching, 25).

Brunton says that Ramana only confirmed his earlier experiences. Is Brunton being honest here? Or has he invented this story of the previous experience in view of his disenchantment with Ramana? Surprisingly, the independent record seems to show that Brunton may be telling the truth. There is evidence that Brunton had had earlier experiences. The 1931 independent report of his first meeting with Ramana reports Brunton (then known as Hurst) as telling Ramana that he had earlier experienced moments of bliss (94). 

It is in Hidden Teaching that Brunton says that he used the story of Ramana as a “peg” on which to hang his own theories of meditation:-

It will, therefore, be clear to perspicacious readers that I used his name and attainments as a convenient peg upon which to hang an account of what meditation meant to me. The principal reason for this procedure was that it constituted a convenient literary device to secure the attention and hold the interest of western readers, who would naturally give more serious consideration to such a report of the “conversion” of a seemingly hard-headed critically-minded Western journalist to yoga (Hidden Teaching, 25).

It is also in Hidden Teaching that Brunton made public his criticisms of Ramana. Brunton says that there were “threats of physical violence” against him. He says he left the ashram “abruptly.” He refers to “threats of physical violence” and "malicious lying ignorance." He speaks of being “harshly separated by the ill-will of certain men.” He speaks of “hate” and “low manners”, which he attributes to jealousy over his success (Hidden Teaching, 18). Brunton did not return to see Ramana at all in the 12 years before Ramana’s death, even though he passed within a few miles of the ashram (Notebooks 8, s. 6:233.) 

Brunton had many disagreements with Ramana.   An article in The Maharshi gives the following reason for Brunton’s disagreements with the ashram. It says that after the success of his book A Search in Secret India, Brunton had published many books without acknowledging that Ramana was the source of his ideas.

As we have seen, there certainly appears to be the truth in the allegation that Brunton did not sufficiently acknowledge Ramana as his source for many ideas. Chadwick says that Brunton was “a plagiarist of the first water” (Chadwick, 16). But there were also other disagreements with Ramana, at least as noted by Brunton. 

Brunton disagreed with Ramana's brother, who was the Sarvadhikari in charge of the ashram. Brunton describes the situation at the ashram as: ... a highly deplorable situation in the Ramana ashram which represents the culminating crisis of a degeneration that has been going on and worsening during the last three years (96). 

He says that Ramana’s ascetic indifference meant that he could not control the ashram:

But during my last two visits to India, it had become painfully evident that the institution was known as the Ashram which had grown around him during the past few years, and over which his ascetic indifference to the world rendered him temperamentally disinclined to exercise the slightest control, could only greatly hinder and not help my own struggles to attain the highest goal, so I had no alternative but to bid it an abrupt and final farewell (Hidden Teaching, 18).

The ashram had turned out to be “a miniature fragment of the imperfect world I had deserted” (Hidden Teaching, 43).

 Comments made about Ramana: - Masson says that Brunton had given interviews in the Indian papers about Ramana, which the brother had not found satisfactory (Masson, 25). Were these disagreements even earlier than 1939? Brunton had not been at the ashram since early 1936. In September 1936, Ramana was asked about "some disagreeable statements by a man well known to Maharshi." Ramana replied ~ I permit him to do so. I have permitted him already. Let him do so even more. Let others follow suit. Only let them leave me alone. If because of these reports no one comes to me, I shall consider it a great service done to me. Moreover, if he cares to publish books containing scandals of me, and if he makes money from their sale, it is really good. Such books will sell even more quickly and in larger numbers, than the others […] He is doing me a very good turn. (Talks, 204; paragraph 250 (Sept. 7, 1936)

What can I do? If I go off to the forest and try to hide, what will happen? They will soon find me out. Then someone will put up a hut in front of me and another person at the back, and it will not be long before huts will have sprung up on either side. Where can I go? I shall always be a prisoner. (Chadwick, 93)

Brunton says that with Ramana, he experienced intermittent satisfaction of mental peace. But these entered into conflict with “an innate, ever-enquiring rationalism” (Hidden Teaching, 21). 

He had hoped to obtain more guidance from Ramana: I turned in the first hope of finding clear guidance to the Maharishi. But the guidance never came. I waited patiently in the hope that time might draw it out of him, but I waited in vain. Gradually it dawned upon me as this question of obtaining a higher knowledge than hitherto rose uppermost in my mind, that so far he had never instructed any other person in it. The reason slowly emerged as I pondered the matter. From my long friendship with him, it was possible to gauge that primarily this was not his path and did not much interest him. His immense attainment lay in the realms of asceticism and meditation. He possessed a tremendous power of concentrating attention inwardly and losing himself in a rapt trance, of sitting calm and unmoved like a tree. But with all the deep respect and affection I feel for him, it must be said that the role of a teaching Sage was not his forte because he was primarily a self-absorbed mystic. This explained why his open disdain for life’s practical fulfillment in disinterested service of others had led to inevitable consequences of a disappointing kind in his immediate external environment. It was doubtless more than enough for himself and certainly for his adoring followers that he had perfected himself in indifference to worldly attractions and in the control of the restless mind. He did not ask for more. The question of the significance of the universe in which he lived did not appear to trouble him. The question of the significance of the human being did trouble him and he had found an answer which satisfied him. (Hidden Teaching, 16)

Paul Brunton regarded these trances as evidence of Ramana’s enlightenment. But in Hidden Teaching, Brunton criticizes trances. Brunton refers to the “sheer shriveled complacency” of some of Ramana's followers and their “hidden superiority complex.” He refers to this mystical attitude as a “holier than thou attitude,” and an assumption that total knowledge had been reached when in fact it was only a partial knowledge (Hidden Teaching, 16). He says that without the healthy opposition of active participation in the world’s affairs, they [mystics] have no means of knowing whether they were living in a realm of sterilized self-hallucination or not. (Hidden Teaching, 19)

Brunton cites Aurobindo with approval:~

Trance is a way of escape--the body is made quiet, the physical mind is in a state of torpor, and the inner consciousness is left free to go on with its experience. The disadvantage is that trance becomes indispensable and that the problem of the waking consciousness is not solved, it remains imperfect (Hidden Teaching, 27).

Brunton refers to Zen as more sensible and practical. Young men are trained for 3 years; during that time they are given active tasks. They are not allowed to pass the day in lazy, futile or parasitical existence.” A half-hour of meditation daily is sufficient after their departure from the monastery to keep them in contact with spiritual peace; their worldly life did not suffer but as enriched (Hidden Teaching, 28).

This criticism reflects a rather naïve view of Vedanta. Brunton had discussed this issue with Ramana as early as December 1935 (Talks, 106, par. 112). Brunton’s own later teaching moves from a personal to an impersonal Absolute. And instead of “Who am I?” Brunton refers to “What am I” as being more scientific (Hidden Teaching, 17).

Finally, Brunton seems to criticize Ramana for a lack of originality. He says, "some years after I met Maharishi I discovered in an old Sanskrit text the same Who Am I method" [101]. This is also a strange criticism, in view of the fact that Brunton was not really interested in Ramana’s ideas at all, except as a peg for his own ideas. Nevertheless, there is some point to the criticism, for Ramana’s disciples have often assumed more originality in Ramana than is warranted by the facts. Ramana relied on many previously written works, including some tantric works, as I have shown in Jivanmukta.

Although Brunton left the ashram and wrote publicly about his disagreements with Ramana, he nevertheless expressed his "loving devotion and profound reverence for him”: As I wrote in a London journal when he died in 1950: "He was the one Indian mystic who inspired me most…The inner telepathic contact and close spiritual affinity between us remained vivid and unbroken… (Hidden Teaching, 33)

It should be noted that even in this appreciative comment, Brunton is emphasizing special occult powers, such as telepathy.

In his Notebooks, Brunton wrote that he regretted saying some of the things he did about Ramana. He says that he regrets the criticism of Ramana, and says that this criticism was occasioned “more by events in the history of the ashram than by his own self.” [102] But although he continued to admire Ramana as a mystic, Brunton did not change his views about the importance of ethics. 

This review from My Father's Guru: A Journey Through Spirituality and Disillusion (Paperback) by BY E. VERRILLO

I picked up this book, not because I was interested in Paul Brunton (I'm not that kind of girl), but because I was intrigued by Jeffrey Masson. After reading three of Jeffrey Masson's controversial books on psychology, I wanted to know what inspired him to challenge one of the legends of our time: Sigmund Freud. This book not only answered that question but several others I had not thought of asking.

This book, unlike Masson's others, is a personal memoir. It recounts the long, strange relationship Masson's family maintained with their "guru", Paul Brunton. For reasons that are not entirely clear, though tantalizingly hinted at, Masson's father "adopted" Brunton, inviting him into their home, and becoming his disciple. Eventually, every member of the family ended up walking Brunton's "Path to Enlightenment." Ultimately, the family's association with Brunton proved disastrous, involving financial loss, a precipitous move to Uruguay to avoid "WWIII", and the permanent estrangement of Masson's uncle, Bernard. Although having Brunton as a live-in guru was not ultimately as harmful as joining the Moonies or following Jim Jones to South America, Masson does point out the similarities.

In his Epilogue, Masson writes: "To see deep into the structure of one tyranny is to understand something basic about all forms of oppression. It is totalitarian. Like other authoritarian systems, it requires a suspension and suppression of critical questioning, it demands unquestioning submission to a rigid hierarchical structure, it centers on a cult of personality, and it engenders personal intrusion and abuse." This was the point of Masson's memoir, and it completely explains why Masson joined the Freudian cult of psychoanalysis, and why he ultimately rejected it. In Freud, Masson saw a reflection of Brunton's appeal but found himself unable to suppress his critical faculties yet again. One charlatan in Masson's life was enough. 

We can, and should, apply Masson's object lesson whenever we encounter anyone who requires that we suppress inquiry--whether he be a priest or a president. Such "gurus", according to Masson, always lead us down the primrose path to disaster. It is a lesson worth bearing in mind, and one which Masson's personal experience so amply demonstrates.

Paul Brunton's contribution is very valuable to the seeking world. People all over the world long enjoyed Paul Brunton's book ‘A SEARCH IN SECRET INDIA’, which was instrumental in making Sri, Ramana Maharishi famous, Meher Baba wince. This book is an all-time bestseller at the time and continues to sell to this day.

In the 1940s and 1950s, Brunton lived with American author and former psychoanalyst Jeffrey Masson, the son of a Jewish American friend of Brunton,^[10] as Masson's parents were among a handful of Brunton's close disciples. Masson published a memoir of his childhood under the title My Father's Guru. Initially influenced by Brunton, Masson gradually became disillusioned with him. According to Masson, Brunton singled him out as a potential heir to his spiritual kingdom. In 1956, Brunton decided that a third world war was imminent and the Massons moved to Montevideo since this location was considered safe. From Uruguay, Masson went at Brunton's bidding to study Sanskrit at Harvard. Brunton himself did not move to South America, instead of spending some time living in New Zealand.^[11] Masson subsequently became proficient in Sanskrit and realized that Brunton did not have the facility with the language that he claimed.^[12]wiki

Paul Brunton's books can still be read with merit, but one should not ignore  Masson’s expose simply because we have accepted Brunton's writing as a yardstick in our pursuit of truth. Everything has to be verified before accepting anything as truth. 

C/N