Ramana Maharshi’s profound spiritual awakening through an experiment with death

Ramana Maharishi very graphically described his experiment at the age of sixteen, “I seldom had any sickness and on that day there was nothing wrong with my health, but a sudden, violent fear of death overtook me…. I just felt, ‘I am going to die,’ and began thinking what to do about it. It did not occur to me to consult a doctor or my elders or friends. I felt that I had to solve the problem myself, then and there.

The shock of the fear of death drove my mind inwards and I said to myself mentally, without actually framing the words: ‘Now death has come; what does it mean? What is it that is dying? This body dies.’ And I at once dramatised the occurrence of death. I lay with my limbs stretched out stiff as though rigor mortis had set in and imitated a corpse to give greater reality to the enquiry. I held my breath and kept my lips tightly closed so that no sound could escape, so that neither the word ‘I’ or any other word could be uttered, ‘Well then,’ I said to myself, ‘this body is dead. It will be carried stiff to the burning ground and there burnt and reduced to ashes.

But with the death of this body am I dead? Is the body ‘I’? It is silent and inert but I feel the full force of my personality and even the voice of the ‘I’ within me, apart from it. So I am Spirit transcending the body.

The body dies but the Spirit that transcends it cannot be touched by death. This means I am the deathless Spirit.” During this period of intense introspection, Ramana Maharshi experienced what he described as a spontaneous and profound spiritual awakening. He realised that the true “I” transcends the physical body and the limitations of individual identity. He recognised that the essence of his being was eternal and unaffected by physical birth or death.

This realisation led to a profound shift in consciousness for him. The realised state of inner peace, clarity, and self-realisation remained with him for the rest of his life. Following this awakening, he left his family home and travelled to the sacred mountain of Arunachala in Tiruvannamalai, where he lived in solitude and continued his spiritual practice.