A Search In Secret India by Paul Brunton.

Yesterday the weather forecast told me that there was a 100% chance of rain until the late evening. It was no day for venturing out on the king’s highway, so to pass the time I thought I would write a piece about the book I have just finished reading. It is called A Search In Secret India by Dr Paul Brunton, first published in London in 1934. I first heard of this book when Eckhart Tolle mentioned it in one of his talks on Youtube. When my eBay paperback copy arrived, I was pleased to see a stamp in it from the famous Shakespeare & Company bookshop in Paris where the original owner of the book must have purchased it. Paul Brunton is the pen name of Hyman Raphael Hurst (21 October 1898 – 27 July 1981), a British philosopher, author of spiritual books, journalist and traveller. From an early age he had a fascination for the mystic east and took an interest in such subjects as theosophy and the occult. It was a chance encounter with a mysterious Indian man in a London antiquarian bookshop which determined him to set sail for Bombay in 1930 in search of the yogis and sages of India.

It was in Bombay that he had his first meeting with a remarkable man, who just happened to be staying at the same hotel. He wasn’t actually Indian; he was an Egyptian wizard or magician from Cairo by the name of Mahmoud Bey who revealed that he learned his secrets from an old Jewish magician who lent him musty old books about ancient magic. Paul Brunton asked him to demonstrate some of his skills. Mahmoud asked Brunton to write down any question on a piece of paper while he stood several yards away looking out of a window. Paul wrote in pencil, “In which town did I live four years ago?”. He was then asked to fold the paper as small as possible and clench it in his fist along with the pencil. After a few minutes he was asked to unfold the paper. To his astonishment he found the name of the town written on the paper under the question. When pressed to reveal how he achieved this feat Mahmoud Bey said he did it with the help of spirits called Jinns, one of which was his own deceased brother.  Brunton remained sceptical but couldn’t think of any logical or scientific explanation.

Meher Baba.

After leaving Bombay Paul Bruton visited Meher Baba. (1894 – 1969) who claimed that he was the Avatar, or the total manifestation of God in human form. He had taken a vow of silence and communicated by the use of an alphabet board. I knew of Meher Baba before reading this book because Pete Townshend of The Who and Melanie Safka were devotees of him. Melanie’s song Candles In The Rain mentions Meher Baba. Paul Brunton wasn’t impressed with him however. He doesn’t say that he was a fraud but felt that Meher Baba was deluded about his own greatness. Brunton also had a brief meeting with an aged Afghan female saint called Hazrat Babajaan who Meher Baba had encountered in his youth, after which he had a spiritual transformation. Brunton said of her, ‘some deep psychological attainment really resides in the depths of her being, I am certain’.

Hazrat Babajaan

As this book was written nearly 100 years ago, I find Brunton’s style quite dated, but it is still a compelling read. His attitude seems very colonial as well. He appears quite happy with the status quo of the British ruling India and doesn’t seem to have much time for Gandi and the independence movement. What I do like is his healthy scepticism of the people he meets. He has no time for the fakirs and tricksters he encounters. He has a lot of respect for many other people he met on his travels though, such as a man he called Brama who could display incredible feats of yoga including ceasing to breathe for hours, or even stop his heart from beating with no apparent ill effects. He also spent time with an elderly astrologer called Sudkei Babu. There was also Vishudhananda, the wonder worker of Benares who could produce any scent out of thin air and even bring deceased sparrows back to life. He was very impressed with Sahabji Maharaj who had founded a community near Agra called Dayalbach where the people combined modern methods of industry, farming, education, and housing with following their traditional religious beliefs of Radha Soumi. After reading the book I searched for Dayalbach on the internet and found that the community is still thriving to this very day. It was through meeting the religious leader of South India Shri Shankara that Paul Brunton was encouraged to visit Ramana Maharshi at his ashram at the holy mountain of Arunachula.

Shri Shankara

Brunton visited Ramana twice on this journey. Before meeting Ramana he had prepared a list of journalistic questions to ask. After a short while in his presence Brunton realised that questions were meaningless. He was overcome by the energy of benevolence that emanated from Ramana who just sat in silence beyond thought. Ramana taught that silence was the best communication. He imparted wisdom into people’s consciousness without a word. He had been content to live in obscurity, never leave Arunachula and never sought followers, but they had arrived anyway and the ashram had grown up around him. Brunton’s journey was coming to an end, and he was due to return home, but two days before his ship was due to leave Bombay he changed his mind and returned to Arunachula for a further month because Ramana had impressed him more than anyone he had ever met. When it was finally time to leave, Brunton said of Ramana, ‘He has taken me into the benign presence of my spiritual self and helped me, dull Westerner that I am, to translate a meaningless term into a living and blissful experience’.

Ramana & Paul Brunton.

Before this book was published in 1934 the name of Ramana Maharshi was unknown in the west, but the book made him known throughout the world. It has been translated into twenty languages and Ramana’s influence continues to grow and spread through such teachers as Eckhart Tolle and such practices as mindfulness and meditation. As the philosopher Bertrand Russell once said, "Those who live nobly, even if in their day they live obscurely, need not fear that they will have lived in vain. Something radiates from their lives, some light that shows the way to their friends, their neighbours perhaps to long future ages. I find many people nowadays oppressed with a sense of impotence, with the feeling that in the vastness of modern societies there is nothing of importance that the individual can do. This is a mistake. The individual, if he is filled with love of mankind, with breadth of vision, with courage and with endurance, can do a great deal. Every one of us can enlarge our mind, release our imagination, and spread wide our affection and benevolence. And it is those who do this whom ultimately humankind reveres.”

Arunachula & Ramana.