About the Author
Dr. G.H. Mees M.A., Cantab., LL.D., Leyden (The Netherlands) 1903–1955
Dr. G. H. Mees, known in India as Sādhu Ekarasa was born in Rotterdam, Holland on 6 August 1903. He was a scion of private bankers, Con. R. Mees & Zoonen. At 19 he went to Cambridge University at St. John College to study Law and Comparative Law.
The young Mees was especially fascinated by India and its Great Ones. After obtaining his Master’s degree he settled at Leyden University in the Netherlands and worked some eight years on his Ph.D. — an LL.D. thesis “Dharma and Society” — and in 1935 became Holland’s first sociologist.
Dr. Mees found that the root of law was in religion; so he studied Buddhism, the Sufis and all the major religions and cultures of the world. In 1936 as a young man of thirty-three he toured in India in the style of the British Raj, with a huge seven-seater car and a big entourage. While halting in Bangalore a friend suggested to go and meet “a wonderful living Sage in the nearby town of Tiruvannamalai.” He went. It was Bhagavān Śrī Rāmaṇa Mahārṣi.
Within twenty-four hours he knew his search was over: he had found his Sat-Guru! He gave up his career, his ambitions, and settled in Tiruvannamalai at the Feet of Śrī Rāmaṇa, who occasionally called him “Śāstri-swāmī” because of his appearance, and maybe more than that! However Tiru’s hot climate didn’t suit him for year-round residence. He found and bought a property in Travancore, now Kerala by the sea at Varkala. There, “on wings of direct insight”, after long years of inspired association with Śrī Rāmaṇa Mahārṣi, finally the reservoir of vast esoteric knowledge of this erudite servant of Truth imploded toward the Center. A grand work of transcendental vision was born: The Revelation in the Wilderness — an exposition of Traditional Psychology, revealing the meaning of the symbolism in the Tradition of old, and its significance in the wilderness of the mind and the modern world.
Between 1938 and 1954 he travelled constantly between Varkala and Tiruvannamalai. He met many people in Sri Ramanasramam but always kept to himself. He had good friendship with Major A. W. Chadwick (Sadhu Arunachala) and Swami Viswanathan, Arthur Osborn, Mr. Cohen etc. A few written lines were penned down during this period in poems such as, “Tear-drops in my eyes, I offer” and others. He wrote an article for the Ramanasramam Golden Jubilee Souvenir, entitled: “Bhagavan Sri Ramana: God-Reality incarnate”.
He fell severely ill in spring 1954, and on his way by ship to England accompanied by a young Dutch student — Mr J. J. de Reede (Sri Hamsanandan) — lost consciousness and went into coma. His last words were: “What a wonder: Paradise is Here and Now…” He passed away two days later on reaching the shore of England, on 5 June 1955. His Samadhi has been erected there inscribed with a quotation from the Bible: “The Scholar, the Devotee, the Man.” — Romans 7:6
at the Samadhi of the Author, Sadhu Ekarasa
But we best remember him from these lines:
“If a man were to do the greatest deed in the world, and come and sit in the presence of Bhagavān Śrī Rāmaṇa Mahārṣi, he would realize that his deed was as nothing compared to the perpetual Deed of Self-realization of the Sage.
“If a man were to write the greatest book in the world, and come and lay it as an offering before the Sage, he would realize that the Sage was a greater Book, which is written from day to day, not with the medium of pen and ink and paper, but without intermediation, and even without any conscious effort, in the inner being of all who care to come and read it.”
Paul Brunton and other Devotees
