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Showing posts from December 22, 2018


Thoughts on Birthday Celebrations - Vedantic View of Birthday - Sri Ramana Maharshi

This is a thought shared by Sri Ramana Maharshi regarding birthday celebrations. This is a vedantic view of birthday. You who wish to celebrate the birthday, seek first whence was your birth. One’s true birthday is when one enters that which transcends birth and death - the Eternal Being. At least on one’s birthday one should mourn one’s entry into this world (samsara). To glory in it and celebrate it is like delighting in and decorating a corpse. To seek one’s self and merge in the Self – that is wisdom. Jean Dunn explains about this thought of Ramana Maharshi in Ramana Smrti – Sri Ramana Maharshi Birth Centenary Offering (1980) What was he teaching us by this verse? What does it mean, “Seek first whence was your birth”? Aren’t we all aware of who our parents are and the date of our birth? Yes, but that is the date of the birth of a body and the parents are the bodies from which this body is born. Are we the body? If so we will surely die. What did Bh