Poonjaji
(1910-1997)
Poonjaji was born Hari Wansch Lal Poonja, in Punjab, India. His mother and father were Yamuna and Paramanand Devi, and Yamuna’s brother was a highly revered spiritual teacher Swami Rama Tirtha. His parents were deeply spiritual, with a strong desire to know God.
At the tender age of eight years old, Poonjaji was visiting some relatives with his family, when he had his first conscious glimpse of bliss. Here it is described in his own words;
“One evening, while we were all sitting in my relatives house in Lahore, someone started to prepare a mango, milk and almond drink for everyone. It should have been a mouth-watering treat for a boy my age, but when a glass full of it was offered to me, I made no attempt to stretch out my hand to receive it. It was not that I didn't want to drink it. The truth was I had just been consumed and engulfed by an experience that made me so peaceful and happy, I was unable to respond to the offered glass. For two whole days I stayed in this peaceful, blissful, happy state, unable to communicate with anyone, but still fully aware of the various things that were going on around me.”
His parents encouraged his spirituality, and his mother encouraged him to embrace Krishna. Poonjaji became completely absorbed in Krishna throughout his childhood, his marriage and long into his family life. In 1942, Poojaji joined the British army, as he was involved with revolutionary groups determined to end British rule in India. The group chose the method of infiltration as a means to overturn British rule. Throughout his training, he continued to look within, and he is quoted as saying, “The rigorousness and the brutality of the training could not suppress the inner spiritual fire that still burned within me.”
Soon after training was completed Poonjaji left the army to seek God. His inner yearning was so great that it eclipsed everything else. Not long after, he was at his family home when a wandering Sadhu appeared at his door, asking for food. He invited the man in, gave him food, and asked him, “Can you show me God? If not, do you know anyone who can?”
Poonjaji,
reflecting on it later said, “Much to my surprise he gave me a positive answer. ’Yes,
I know of a person who can show you God. If you go and see that man
everything will be all right for you.
His name is Ramana Maharshi. He lives in Sri Ramanashram Tiruvannamalai.’”
When Papaji met Ramana he asked him, “Have you seen God?” Ramana answered, “Anything that you see cannot be God. God is not an object of your senses. Your God is a woman through whom all things are seen, tasted, touched, heard and smelled, yet he himself cannot be seen because he is the seer, not an object of sight.” He told Poonjaji, “Find out who his seer is.” Poonjaji reports about Ramana, “In his presence, I experienced the seer, what it was. It was so quick. My body was vibrating and became one. I did not understand this tremendous Bliss, this tremendous Happiness, this Beauty, in just an instant.”
Poonjaji described an occasion when Ramana looked directly into his eyes, “He looked straight into my eyes, eye meeting eye, like a lover looking into the eyes of his beloved. My whole body shook and vibrated. I did not feel the presence of the body at all. Tears were falling from my eyes, and my throat choked. For hours I could not speak to anyone... He told me, ‘I am with you wherever you are.` That was his promise, and that is my experience. There is no one called Poonja left anymore. There is only an emptiness where he used to be. And in that emptiness there shines the I, the I that is my reality, the I that is my master, the I that promised would be with mewherever I am.”
The central point of Poonjaji's teachings, as Ramana taught before him, is emptiness. Many report instantaneous experiences of emptiness, inner bliss, thoughtlessness, and attainment of the state of no mind when sitting in Poonjaji’s experience. Many have experienced permanent shifts in their awareness. Poonjaji’s transmission of emptiness is complete.
Once a devotee told Poonjaji, “To abide in emptiness frightens me. Also that makes me feel as if I'm wasting my time.” Papaji replied, “True, real emptiness is not frightening. If you experienced fear or fright, it was not a state of emptiness. You have never allowed yourself to experience the emptiness that is empty of all objects. Reject all known expressions, all pictures borrowed from the familiar world of your memory.”
Once Papaji, as his devotees liked to call him, was speaking to a devotee practicing japa, repeating the name of God as a mantra. He told her, “If you say it properly, once will be enough.” Then he put two apples on a table and said, “One repetition has just come and gone,” as he removed one apple. Picking up the other apple he continued, “I have taken away the second japa before you can say it. Now, between the disappearance of the first japa, and the start of the second japa, what is there? What is left?” The devotee says of this experience, “I knew the answer was ‘nothing,’ but it wasn't that it appeared in the mind. In the moment he asked the question, I knew myself to be that nothingness, that emptiness. His question made me aware of what I really am. I couldn't answer his question because I wasn't capable of uttering even a single word, but I knew, without a doubt, who and what I was. The knowledge that I was nothingness, emptiness, was revealed to me in a moment, and it has remained with me ever since. He emptied me of everything. That is my state.”
Learn more about the inner path of a seer, and the meditation of inner emptiness. The calmness comes when your brain consciousness has tuned to the awareness of spiritual peace within your self. Self awareness is a form of higher consciousness found on the path to inner peace. The miracle of consciousness creativity is in the higher state of consciousness that Poonjaji indicates comes from inner emptiness.