 |
| Sri Ramakrishna in samādhi at the house of Keshab Chandra Sen, supported by Hriday. His body stands upright, one arm raised, surrounded by Brahmo devotees — the hut shaking under the elephant of the Divine. |
The Hut That Shakes
“If an elephant enters a weak hut, what will happen to the body?”
— Ramana Maharshi, Living by the Words of Bhagavan“Mahābhāva is a Divine Ecstasy.
It shakes the body and mind to their very foundation.
It is like a huge elephant entering a small hut.
The house shakes to its foundation.
Perhaps it falls to pieces.”
— Sri Ramakrishna, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, Ch. 39
When I first noticed that both Ramana Maharshi and Sri Ramakrishna used the exact same image —
the elephant and the hut — I felt a kind of shock.
Two saints from completely different traditions, one a sage of Arunachala, the other an ecstatic devotee of Kali,
describing the same inner event with the same metaphor.
And it is not just metaphor — it is literal.
When the elephant of the Divine enters, the hut of the body shakes.
Ramana’s body trembled under the sheer force of realization; Ramakrishna’s frame shook in mahābhāva until sometimes he collapsed, breath nearly gone.
I know now, in my own limited way, what they meant.
There are days when Shakti does not come like a gentle breeze but like a surge of voltage,
when the body feels heavy, the mind blurred with bliss,
when the entire system is filled with something too vast to contain.
This essay is my attempt to speak honestly about that state.
Not to romanticize it, not to pathologize it,
but to name it for what it is: a day when the current of the Divine feels so strong
that it alters breath, pulse, chemistry — even the ability to walk, work, or think normally.
And it is also to speak about the paradox:
that while this state can be supreme grace, it can also become a hindrance
if it prevents the puja of daily life —
if it keeps from caring for the child, driving safely,
or doing the work that is itself part of the offering.
Ramana Maharshi’s Voltage
Ramana Maharshi’s awakening at sixteen was not just an inner insight but a physical takeover.
In Living by the Words of Bhagavan, he described that when the power of the Self descended,
the body could not bear it and trembled, like fragile wiring suddenly carrying a current far too strong.
That current never left him.
Even in the 1940s, when rare film footage was taken at Sri Ramanasramam,
Ramana’s head can be seen gently nodding, almost rhythmically,
as if an invisible pulse moved through him.
Close devotees insisted that this was not disease — not Parkinson’s, not frailty —
but the “power of the Self” agitating the body, a visible trace of the force that had rewired him decades earlier.
Disciples observed something even more striking:
whenever Ramana sank into deep samādhi, or when he was transmitting grace (śaktipāta) to someone,
the nodding stopped completely.
For a few moments, the body became utterly still,
as though the current had found perfect alignment and no longer shook the wires.
Then, as he returned to ordinary awareness, the gentle movement would resume.
This was not a passing phase — it remained with him all his life,
a kind of silent testimony that his body was carrying a voltage beyond the ordinary.
Seeing this, I cannot help but think of a transformer station humming under load —
not a simile Ramana used, but my own way of grasping what I see:
a man whose nervous system has been permanently rewired to conduct the power of the Self.
And yet, Ramana remained profoundly functional.
He cut vegetables in the kitchen, supervised the ashram’s daily routine,
answered visitors with clarity and humor, and moved through life with perfect dignity.
He embodied the paradox: inwardly flooded with current, outwardly calm and practical —
the very picture of sahaja samādhi, where samādhi and ordinary life are no longer separate.
Ramakrishna and Other Saints
If Ramana’s current showed itself as a quiet, constant nodding,
Sri Ramakrishna’s body sometimes erupted into open storm.
Eyewitnesses recorded that when Ramakrishna entered deep samādhi,
his entire body would suddenly turn rigid,
sometimes falling like a wooden statue,
sometimes standing upright and immobile for hours,
his breathing nearly suspended.
At other times, the energy took the form of violent trembling —
his hair standing on end, tears running freely,
his voice breaking into song as he swayed like a man intoxicated.
On some days he would suddenly break into ecstatic dance,
on others he would collapse into complete stillness,
so that those around him would check his pulse to be sure he was alive.
The pattern is unmistakable: the descent of Śakti affects the whole body.
Ramakrishna was not performing for effect — his frame was simply too small
for the force that moved through it.
A Universal Sign
Similar manifestations appear again and again in the lives of great saints:
-
Anandamayi Ma would sometimes remain motionless for hours, glowing, breath nearly gone.
-
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s body reportedly trembled and perspired during kirtan,
sometimes falling unconscious from the surge of devotion. -
Christian mystics like St. Teresa of Avila described swoons and ecstatic trances
in which they could no longer control the body.
These are not signs of pathology but of a system overloaded by love —
the nervous system becoming, for a time, too small for the soul that now fills it.
Personal Confession — The Inner Fentanyl
I have to be brutally honest here —
because I think almost no one dares to say this plainly.
I have been under fentanyl during surgery and morphine afterward.
I know exactly what that state feels like:
the slow warmth spreading through the veins,
the dissociation from pain,
the way the world softens and slows,
the feeling of floating just above the body but still present within it.
And I have had Shakti experiences that were strikingly similar.
Not metaphorically similar — but phenomenologically similar.
The same heavy sweetness in the limbs,
the same warmth, the same time-slowing,
but with one crucial difference:
this was not unconsciousness but consciousness made luminous,
not fog but clarity,
not numbness but love.
I do not say this to be sensational.
And I say it very clearly:
no one should ever take opioids to “induce” this state.
Outside of a medical context, they destroy lives, they do not liberate.
But I must be honest, because honesty is part of the offering.
When the saints speak of being drunk on God,
I know what that means in my body.
I have lived through the medical “high,”
and I know that what happened in these Shakti days was not fantasy —
it was the nervous system opening its own pharmacy,
flooding itself with bliss.
The Neurochemistry of Bliss
What I experienced is not just mysticism — it has a biological basis that modern science is only beginning to map.
Neuroscientists studying deep meditation, prayer, and mystical absorption have found that the brain floods itself with chemicals during these states — chemicals that explain why they can feel so much like opioid sedation.
-
β-Endorphins – the body’s natural opioids – rise sharply.
These bind to the same receptors that fentanyl and morphine use,
producing analgesia (freedom from pain), warmth, and euphoric calm. -
Serotonin increases, deepening inner peace and emotional balance.
-
Dopamine rises, giving the experience a profound sense of meaning and reward.
-
Oxytocin, the hormone of love and bonding, surges —
giving the unmistakable sense of being embraced by something vast, tender, and safe.
Together, these create a state of heavy sweetness,
where time slows, pain vanishes, and the whole body feels bathed in a soft inner glow.
Unlike medical anesthesia, however, consciousness remains fully awake —
sometimes sharper and clearer than ever before.
This is why saints speak of drinking divine nectar (amṛta),
why they appear intoxicated yet radiant:
their neurochemistry has been completely rewritten in that moment,
filling the system with what can only be called God’s own opiates.
The Miracle of Integration
What amazes me is not that this happens —
but that the human body can survive it at all.
Ramana himself said it was like “an elephant entering a weak hut” —
and modern science would agree that this kind of neurochemical flood is no small event.
Endorphins, serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin — all rising together —
can transform the entire physiology in moments.
And yet, over time, the body learns to stabilize under this voltage.
What was once overwhelming becomes sustainable.
The current still hums, but it no longer knocks you over.
This is what the Kaulas call śakti-saṃhāra —
the gradual process of gathering, integrating, and grounding the energy
so that it can be carried in daily life without collapse.
The Hindrance and the Prayer
There is a paradox hidden inside these states of bliss.
When the current surges, it can become so strong that the ordinary functions of life are interrupted.
The body slows, reflexes soften, the world begins to look dreamlike —
and the very tasks that are part of one’s dharma can suddenly feel distant or impossible.
The saints themselves spoke of this danger.
Ramakrishna would sometimes pray to the Divine Mother to “keep a little I-ness” in him
so that he could continue to teach, eat, and speak with devotees.
In his later years, Ramana lived in such a way that the current no longer incapacitated him —
he could remain absorbed in the Self yet still supervise the ashram kitchen, answer questions, and walk with visitors.
This is why prayer for balance is as sacred as prayer for more ecstasy.
The ideal is not to be so swept away that daily life is abandoned,
but to let the current become a power that supports life’s duties rather than eclipsing them.
Kaula Perspective — Life as Puja
Kālidāsa, in Kumārasambhavam (5.33), writes:
śarīram ādyam khalu dharma-sādhanam
"The body is truly the foremost instrument of dharma."
This line has been cherished by yogic and tantric traditions for centuries.
It is a reminder that our body — and by extension, our ordinary life —
is not a distraction from the sacred but its very starting point.
The temple is not just built of stone — it is built of flesh and breath.
From this perspective, the descent of Śakti is not meant to take us away from life,
but to make life more alive.
It is not meant to turn us into statues incapable of action,
but to flood action with consciousness,
so that even the smallest gesture becomes a mudrā of worship.
This is also the essence of Ramana Maharshi’s sahaja samādhi:
a state where meditation and action are no longer two separate things,
where one can remain absorbed in the Self while chopping vegetables, guiding the ashram kitchen, or speaking to visitors.
Seen this way, the goal is not to escape the puja of daily life,
but to let the current become so steady that puja and samādhi merge —
so that every breath, every act, every word is part of the same worship.
When Puja and Samādhi Are Not Two
There is a beauty in the days when the hut shakes,
when the current floods the system so strongly that the body can barely contain it.
These are days that leave no doubt that grace is real,
that Śakti is not a metaphor but a force.
And yet, the highest aim is not to remain in a state that paralyzes life,
but to reach the point where the current flows steadily —
not knocking the wires loose, not shaking the walls,
but lighting the entire house from within.
This is the vision of sahaja samādhi,
and it is the Kaula vision of life as continuous worship:
to be a transformer of divine voltage in the world,
radiant without being incapacitated,
awake without withdrawing from one’s duties.
So the prayer becomes:
Let me be drunk on Shakti — but not so drunk that I cannot feed the child,
drive safely, or do the work.
Let the current burn through me — but let it also make me more capable, not less.
For if samādhi interrupts the puja of daily life, it is incomplete.
The goal is a state where puja and samādhi are not two —
where the altar is everywhere, the offering is every act,
and the current of the Divine moves through it all without obstruction.
No comments:
Post a Comment