Ganapati Muni and Sri Natesan

My mind had been in a curious dilemma for several years. On one hand, I had a strong connection with Ramana Maharshi. On the other hand, I had an equally strong connection with Sri Aurobindo whose teaching was very different. Though I held Ramana as the ideal, my own work and writings made more sense in terms of Sri Aurobindo's teaching.

This dilemma began to resolve itself in an unexpected way. I studied the works of Kapali Shastri, the guru of M.P. Pandit, who wrote extensively on the Vedas from Sri Aurobindo’s point of view. Many of my comments on the Upanishads that I had written were echoed in Kapali’s work. I eventually discovered that Kapali, prior to connecting with Aurobindo had been a disciple of Ramana Maharshi. He was responsible for many of the Sanskrit works on Ramana under the pseudonym K.

Kapali was the chief disciple of Ganapati Muni, who was perhaps the chief disciple of Ramana. Ganapati had first discovered Ramana as a young boy then called Brahma Swami, because he was a Brahmin boy. He renamed him Ramana and Bhagavan. Ganapati wrote several important Sanskrit works on the Maharshi and also put Ramana’s teachings into Sanskrit, which Kapali as his disciple commented on.