A few months ago, I jetted out to a tiny town called Torp just outside Oslo for a three day meditation retreat with author, philosopher and modern-day sage Rupert “The Spiralizer” Spira.
During the sessions, Rupert talked about one of his influences, the Indian guru Ramana Maharshi.
The word guru is bandied about a lot nowadays.
But Ramana Maharshi is the guru’s guru. He’s widely renowned for his teachings on inner peace and seen as one of the most influential sages of the 20th century.
Well, it so happened that a few weeks after I jetted back to London Town, I fired up a podcast and heard a fascinating story about how Ramana Maharshi blew the mind of a burnt out exec who’d flown to India to visit him after hearing various whispers of secrets, wonders and miracles.
When the exec arrived, he marched into a hall where Ramana Maharshi was sitting quietly and took a pew in front of him. Then he stood up 20 minutes later in a sulk as if to say “I’ve seen enough already”.
As he turned to leave, Ramana stopped him and asked him a question:
“Would you do me a small favour before you go?”
Confused, the exec agreed.
Ramana asked the exec
to write a short letter to his wife. So the exec grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled:
“Dear Millicent, I haven’t found what I came for in India. I’ll be home Friday. Please remember the dentist appointment for our daughter and don’t forget to water the flowers. Harold.”
He folded the note and handed it to Ramana.
The only clothing that Ramana wore was a loincloth. So his buttocks were bare. And once he'd taken the note, Ramana slid it under the corner of his bare left butt cheek.
Then he asked the man to sit back down.
As Ramana rose to leave a few minutes later, he handed the note back to the man.
The executive opened it and
froze.
The note had changed!
It now read:
“Dear Harold, I’m sorry you didn’t
find what you were looking for in India. I have made the dentist appointment and watered the flowers. I would write more, but the gentleman in a turban who brought this note is rushing me. Millicent.”
Perhaps you’re shaking your head right now. I was shaking my head when I heard this story too.
But the podcast went on to say how similar stories are ten-a-penny in the East. What we call a miracle in the West barely stirs the chai in the ashrams of India.
Whatever the case, the part that really matters is this:
Harold arrived in India with a bucketload of thoughts and assumptions. And in one fell swoop, Ramana sliced straight through those assumptions like a knife through ghee.
In that moment, Harold’s sense of how things work would’ve wobbled.
That’s what happens when the ground shifts beneath you. The minds we lug around suddenly have nothing to cling to. And when our minds lose their grip like this, even for a split second, the natural quiet slips through.
As it happens, this is exactly what
The Subtraction Method is designed to do.
It’s designed to subtract just enough of the noise and mental habits for you to spot the peace that’s already there.
If you’re interested in finding this peace for yourself,
you might be relieved to hear that your left butt cheek is not required (and neither is your right butt cheek, for that matter).
Except, perhaps, for sitting on a comfy chair as we chat on Zoom and notice then & there how our minds are starting to calm.
If and when you’re ready, here’s where it all begins:
https://waitinglist.followingfulfilment.com
To fulfilment,
Tom