A Teacher
David Godman
Foremost compiler of Ramana’s teachings
The transmission
David Godman (born 1953 in Stoke-on-Trent, England) is a British author who has become the foremost contemporary scholar and compiler of the teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi.
He first travelled to India in 1976, intending only a brief visit to Ramana’s ashram at Tiruvannamalai, but settled at the foot of the sacred mountain Arunachala and made it his home. Between 1978 and 1985 he served as librarian of Sri Ramanasramam, immersing himself in the archive of Ramana’s life and words, and he has lived in the Tiruvannamalai area ever since, studying and practising the self-inquiry that Ramana taught.
Godman’s anthology Be As You Are: The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi (1985), published by Penguin, is widely regarded as the standard introduction to the sage’s teaching in the English-speaking world.
Over the following decades he wrote or edited some sixteen books on Ramana, his disciples and related teachers, including the three-volume Nothing Ever Happened, a biography of Ramana’s disciple H.W.L.
Poonja (Papaji), and The Power of the Presence. Beyond the printed page he maintains an official website and an active YouTube channel of filmed talks on Ramana, Arunachala and self-enquiry, making him one of the most relied-upon living transmitters of this nondual lineage.
What they gave
Be As You Are (1985): Edited the most widely read anthology of Ramana’s teachings, the standard English-language introduction to self-inquiry.
- Biographer of the lineage: Documented Ramana’s disciples in works such as Nothing Ever Happened (Papaji) and Living by the Words of Bhagavan, preserving an oral tradition that would otherwise be lost.
- Archival scholarship: Drew on years as ashram librarian to ground his books in primary sources, raising the standard of accuracy for Ramana literature.
- Modern digital transmission: Extends the teaching through an official website and YouTube films, reaching audiences far beyond Tiruvannamalai.
In their words
This practice of self-attention or awareness of the ‘I’-thought is a gentle technique which bypasses the usual repressive methods of controlling the mind. It is not an exercise in concentration, nor does it aim at suppressing thoughts; it merely invokes awareness of the source from which the mind springs.
The method and goal of self-enquiry is to abide in the source of the mind and to be aware of what one really is by withdrawing attention and interest from what one is not.
Being what one already is is effortless since beingness is always present and always experienced.
Self-enquiry should not be regarded as a meditation practice that takes place at certain hours and in certain positions; it should continue throughout one’s waking hours, irrespective of what one is doing.
Sri Ramana taught that the Self is pure being, a subjective awareness of ‘I am’ which is completely devoid of the feeling ‘I am this’ or ‘I am that’. There are no subjects or objects in the Self, there is only an awareness of being.
Sri Ramana taught that the Self alone exists and that it can be directly and consciously experienced merely by ceasing to pay attention to the wrong ideas we have about ourselves.
According to Sri Ramana, every conscious activity of the mind or body revolves around the tacit assumption that there is an ‘I’ who is doing something.
The line they stand in
David Godman stands within the Advaita Vedanta lineage transmitted through Ramana Maharshi, building directly on the foundational work of earlier Ramana chroniclers such as Arthur Osborne.
Though he never met Ramana (who died in 1950), he absorbed the teaching through long residence at Sri Ramanasramam, study of its archives, and contact with senior disciples including H.W.L.
Poonja (Papaji) and Annamalai Swami, whose words he recorded and published. As compiler, biographer and commentator he has become the principal contemporary conduit carrying Ramana’s self-inquiry teaching to a global readership.
Revelations they taught
Essential Works
- Be As You Are: The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi1985
- Living by the Words of Bhagavan1994
- Nothing Ever Happened1998
- The Power of the Presence2000