Ramana Maharshi's alleged deathbed statement that he would be more active in the ashram after death can now be traced to its true form. He was fond of reading biographies of saints and mystics, both Western and Eastern. In The Life of Catherine of Siena, her own dying last will and testament, Catherine says: "I promise you [the disciples] that I shall be with you always, and be of much more use to you on the other side than I ever could be here on earth, for then I shall have left the darkness behind me and move in the eternal light." Note her use of the words "on earth" which, in the quoted words, was surely the Maharshi's meaning too. The belief that Maharshi's ghost is now more active at the ashram than was the living Maharshi himself contradicts his own teaching as I heard it from his lips and as it is even stated in print in an ashram publication, Golden Jubilee Souvenir, page 209. Here he expressly declares, "The idea that he [the guru] is outside, is ignorant." That belief is certainly based on the idea that the real Maharshi was tied to a particular place outside his body. By the light of his lifetime's gospel, it is mere superstition.
-- Notebooks Category 15: The Orient > Chapter 2 : India Part 1 > # 438
