Sri Sadhu Om

Along with Muruganar and Sivaprakasam Pillai, Sadhu Om (1922-85) was one of the foremost disciples of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi, but whereas Muruganar and Sivaprakasam Pillai each elicited from Bhagavan important texts such as Nāṉ Ār? (Who am I?), Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu (Forty Verses on What Exists), Upadēśa Undiyār (Essence of Spiritual Instructions) and Āṉma-Viddai (Science of Self), Sadhu Om had no such role to play. Nevertheless, as a sublime and divinely inspired Tamil poet and a clear and profound exponent of Bhagavan’s teachings, through his writings in poetry and prose Sadhu Om has made an extensive and priceless contribution to the vibrant body of exalted Ramana literature.

Among his poetic writings are works such as Śrī Ramaṇa Sahasram (a thousand verses praying for jñāna), Śrī Ramaṇa Varuhai, Sādhanai Sāram, Guruvaruḷ Antādi, Aruṇācala Veṇbā and hundreds of other verses and songs composed in a wide variety of poetic and musical styles, expressing his heart-melting and all-consuming love for Bhagavan and his teachings, and among his prose writings are Śrī Ramaṇa Vaṙi (The Path of Sri Ramana), detailed commentaries on many of Bhagavan’s writings, and Guru Vācaka Kōvai Urai (an explanatory prose paraphrase of all the verses of Guru Vācaka Kōvai).

Though he was an abundant well of contagious love for Bhagavan Ramana as well as clear, deep and practical understanding of his teachings, Sadhu Om was simple-hearted and extremely self-effacing, so during his bodily lifetime the tremendous value of his literary outpourings was recognised and appreciated by relatively few among Bhagavan’s devotees, and it is only now so many years later that it is gradually coming to be appreciated more widely.

On the first day that Sadhu Om came to him in July 1946, Bhagavan sent him to meet Muruganar, advising him to show him the songs he had composed on his journey there, and thus he forged a close friendship and strong bond between these two great Tamil poets, which in course of time proved to be extremely fruitful, because from 1955 till the end of Muruganar’s bodily life in 1973 they worked closely together, preserving and organising all of Muruganar’s previously unpublished verses, and eventually Sadhu Om compiled and edited thousands of them in a series of nine volumes entitled Śrī Ramaṇa Jñāna Bōdham.

The day before Sadhu Om first came to Bhagavan, devotees in his presence were discussing the current state of Tamil education, and someone remarked that the standard of Tamil education had fallen so low that one could not expect to see any poets of the calibre of Bhagavan or Muruganar among the young generation. Hearing this, Bhagavan responded: ‘Even now there will be young poets who are divinely inspired, no matter what their level of education may be. What education did poets such as Jnanasambandhar and Arunagiriyar have? It is only by divine grace that they became such great poets’. The next day, after Sadhu Om had offered his newly composed songs to Bhagavan and shown them to Muruganar, when Muruganar next entered his hall, Bhagavan said to him: ‘Just yesterday we were talking about young poets inspired by divine grace. See the example of this who has come today’.