What Time Reveals: On Cruelty, Compassion, and the Fire of Realization

 

Ramana Maharshi with his mother, Allagamal

The Cruelty of Compassion

Imagine being the mother of a sixteen-year-old boy.
One morning he vanishes — no explanation, no farewell, no trace. Days blur into weeks. You hear rumors he has been seen in a distant temple town, living in silence, half-mad or half-divine. With a breaking heart, you travel there, clinging to hope.

At last you find him. His hair is matted, his body wasted. He sits alone, radiant, but utterly beyond reach. Yes — it is your son. But not your son. You fall at his feet. You weep, you plead: “Come home. Think of me, your mother. Think of your duty.”

And he does not answer.

No glance of recognition, no embrace. Only silence — heavy, immovable, inhuman. At last, pressed beyond endurance, he writes a single note:

“The Ordainer controls the fate of souls in accordance with their past deeds.
Whatever is destined not to happen will not happen, try how hard you may.
Whatever is destined to happen will happen, do what you may to stop it.
This is certain.
The best course, therefore, is to remain silent.”

What mother could endure this?
You carried him in your womb. You fed him at your breast. You prayed for him through fevers. You dreamed of his future. And now he sits before you like a stranger, speaking not as son but as Fate itself.

From the human view, it is unbearable cruelty. The world reveres the “good son” — the one who obeys, who consoles, who bends to a mother’s tears. In a culture where the mother is the highest earthly authority — the one even gods are said to tremble before — this refusal tears at the very fabric of dharma.

And yet — from another view — it was no cruelty at all. The one you knew as “son” had already dissolved. What spoke through him was not rebellion, but absorption — the Self unbound by relation. He was not choosing between mother and silence; there was simply no one left who could choose.

This is the paradox: what appears merciless is, in truth, supreme tenderness. It is the refusal to betray truth for the sake of comfort. The silence that wounded the mother was also an initiation — a call to a reality deeper than even the most sacred of earthly bonds.

This scene is not from myth. It happened.
The boy was Venkataraman, later known to the world as Ramana Maharshi.

Realization does not bend to sentiment. It is fire. And fire burns — yet burns only what is false.

The Danger of Mimicry

Stories of saints burn their way into memory. They inspire, they wound, they leave us restless. But they also carry danger.

For the ego loves to imitate what it cannot embody. One sees a sage silent before his mother and thinks: I too will be silent — that will make me holy. One hears of a mystic fearless before beasts and thinks: I too will walk unafraid into the jungle — that will prove my realization.

But without the inner fire, such mimicry is not freedom. It is recklessness.

Swami M., in The Journey Continues, tells the story of a young monk on the Kodachadri peak, near the famous Mookambika Devi temple:

“Do not hypnotise yourself into believing that you are a highly evolved yogi or spiritual being and try taming wild animals. The results would most likely be disastrous. There was this young sanyasin who went to perform austerities in the Kodachadri peak, close to the famous Mookambika Devi temple in Kollur. He was warned that a leopard was frequenting the cave, but he took no heed. He had heard of the tiger which used to come to the Virupaksha cave where the great Sri Ramana Maharishi meditated, and who is said to have petted the tiger according to an old lady who witnessed the act from afar.

The young monk tried to attempt the same feat when the leopard appeared, but was unfortunately torn to pieces. They found his mutilated body after many days. So watch out. Not everyone is highly evolved spiritually. Steer clear of wild animals. If you don’t disturb them they generally leave you alone. In any case, don’t walk up to a wild elephant and transmit loving thoughts. It will most likely not work.”

The lesson is clear: copying the outer gestures of realization without its inner foundation is not courage but self-deception. What was silence in Ramana can be avoidance in another. What was compassion in him can be cruelty in another.

The gestures of saints are not templates. They are eruptions of realization. To imitate them without the same root is not to follow in their footsteps, but to wander into peril blindfolded.

The Razor’s Edge of Sovereignty

There is another layer to this paradox: the subtle difference between pride and divine sovereignty.

In ordinary life, pride feels like inflation — the ego puffs itself up and demands recognition. But there is also a form of radiance that does not belong to the ego at all: the natural majesty of the Self, shining without need for approval. The śāstras call this aiśvarya — sovereignty.

And here is the razor’s edge: from the outside, pride and aiśvarya can look nearly identical. The same gesture — a refusal, a proclamation, a breaking of convention — can in one person be pure ego and in another be pure freedom.

This is why saints caution against quick judgment. What looks like arrogance might be the natural expression of sovereignty; what looks like compassion might be a subtle compromise. The only true measure is whether the act springs from absorption in the Real or from the itch of the “I.”

And this is also why imitation is so dangerous. For the ego loves to cloak its desires in the costume of divine freedom. It loves to justify its refusals, its rebellions, its displays, by saying “This is my truth.”

But unless the “I” has truly dissolved, such gestures remain entangled. They may look like Ramana’s silence, but they carry the smell of self-importance. They may look like fearless power, but they carry the tremor of performance.

The task is not to copy the gesture but to trace it to its root. If it arises from the mind’s agitation, let it pass. If it arises from the stillness of the Heart, it will need no justification.

The Criterion of Authenticity

How then to discern the difference between true realization and its dangerous mimicry?

Saints themselves have given us the key.

Bijoy Krishna Goswami once said:

“With regard to sin, what most people are talking about is just hearsay. An impression is created on hearing about piety and sins in childhood or on reading books as to which is sin, and which is piety.

Which work will land us into sin? Which work will deliver piety? It is not the same for all. A kshatriya kills people in the Warfield — that is not a sin for him. But for one seeking salvation, even killing an ant is a great sin. An act of theft is called a sin, but in some places in the eyes of God, this is piety.

People judge by looking at external actions, but God judges by the purpose of that action. In reality, what are sin and piety? The action that destroys my religious state of mind is sin, and that which enhances my religious feelings is piety.”

This teaching cuts to the heart: the measure is never the outer act, but the inner state. What strengthens absorption in truth is virtue; what drags the mind away from it is sin. By this standard, Ramana’s silence — however cruel it appeared — was the highest piety, for it preserved absorption in the Self.

The Śiva Sūtras (3.29) add another note of clarity with the phrase vitarka-ātma-jñānam — the sudden flash of direct Self-knowledge that annihilates doubt. When this vision dawns, actions no longer arise from ego, impulse, or calculation. They erupt from absorption, like sparks from fire.

But without such realization? The safest course is humility. Do not rush to copy, nor to condemn. Hold silence and wait.

For in spiritual life, time itself becomes a kind of guru.

• Some acts that look divine are later unmasked as delusion.

• Some gestures that feel erratic are later recognized as medicine.

• Some apparent cruelties ripen into compassion.

• Some dazzling displays fade into nothing.

Time reveals what words cannot. It peels away glamour, exposes motive, tests endurance. It shows whether an action deepens freedom or secretly binds.

A true act of realization does not merely shine in the moment — it continues to bear fruit across time. It steadies, it liberates, it transmits clarity even decades later. False imitations, however brilliant at first, corrode under the pressure of years.

Thus the criterion is simple, though not easy:

• Without direct realization (jñāna), refrain from judgment. Let time disclose.

• With direct realization (vitarka-ātma-jñānam), doubt dissolves, and actions stand clean.

The fool copies the gait of a drunken saint, thinking he too is free. But the saint has drunk truth; the fool only delusion. And time, relentless, will reveal the difference.

Beneath the Drama

It is easy to be shaken by such stories. A boy who turns away from his mother. A monk torn apart by a leopard. A saint whose silence cuts deeper than any word.

But beneath the drama, the teaching is quiet and simple: do not hurry. Do not copy. Do not condemn. Let time and sincerity do their work.

For truth ripens like fruit on the tree. If you force it before its season, it is bitter. If you leave it too long, it rots. But when the time is right, it falls into your hand without effort.

So it is with the path. What looks cruel today may be revealed tomorrow as compassion. What looks luminous today may later be unmasked as vanity. If you cannot yet see clearly, wait. Walk gently. Let life itself be the judge.

And when clarity comes, it will not come with argument or display. It will come like Ramana’s silence — immovable, tender, absolute. It will not need to explain itself, for it will have become its own explanation.

Until then, the kindest course is patience: with yourself, with others, with the mystery. For time is not your enemy. Time is the hand of the Beloved, peeling away illusion until only the Real remains.