If only Sri Ramana Maharshi knew the vedanta teachings, if only he was familiar with the advaita vedanta scriptures, perhaps then he could have given a more precise teaching and more people could have found liberation.**
If only he had read Gaudapada’s Karika and Shankara commentaries on the Triple Canon of the Upanishads, Brahma Sutras and Bhagavad Gita which explain the path to liberation in detail, perhaps then Sri Ramana could have taught a more effective methodology to liberation.**
Wait a second, Sri Ramana had read the scriptures! He had read the Upanishads, he had read the Bhagavad Gita, albeit after his self-realisation had already taken place. He even translated several Advaita Vedanta texts from Sanskrit into Tamil for the benefit of those who could not read Sanskrit!
But if only he had written a clear and concise summary of the vedanta path and selected the most important verses from key Advaita Vedanta texts – wait – he did this too!
See here for more:
Ramana Maharshi summarises the entire spiritual path | Advaita Vedanta
The Ten most important verses of Shankara’s Vivekachudamani according to Sri Ramana Maharshi
For more of Sri Ramana’s translations of Advaita Vedanta texts, see the Collected Works of Sri Ramana Maharshi:
**This is what some vedanta scholars say about Sri Ramana Maharshi, stating that Sri Ramana’s teachings are inferior to the true traditional Advaita Vedanta. More often than not, these intellectuals have not graspsed the essence of either the Vedanta Teachings or the teachings of Sri Ramana – at least that is my view – Sri Ramana’s teachings are the true teachings that lead to the cessation of suffering and the Bliss of Self, they give us the essence of Vedanta without all the over-intellectualisation and detours that keep us trapped in Ego, Maya & suffering
Om Namo Bhagavate Sri Ramanaya!
Tom Das 
Bodhidharma would have dissd that idea… 😉
A special transmission outside the scriptures.
No dependency on words and letters.
Pointing directly to the human mind.
Seeing into one’s nature and attaining Buddhahood.
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🙂
By the by, you may be interested to know that there is a lack of any good evidence that Bodhidharma wrote those lines…even though they are usually attributed to him. They do, ironically, sound like the Lankavatara Sutra, which is, also ironically, the lengthy tome that Bodhidharma passed on to Huike and recommended that Huike read.
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dear tom das, namaskar.
first, i really appreciate you for your uncomparable reverence on ramana maharshi. you are great.
ramana swami, however, is already beyond what we think the great guru is. you and i need not baloon him in vain to glorify him.
ramakrishna and ramana are two jewels and oceans as well of advaita sampradaya. do not show any type of inferiority complex. had they indulged the world of letters as you mention in your write-up, there would be no addition. can anyone add and darken the blueness of the sky by any means? they are too huge personalities already to add more on them.
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Thank you for your view, namaskar
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I did read that. It’s like mankind has been playing a very long game of “telephone” (the Chinese call it “the Whispers Game” ) Are you familiar with that game on your side of the pond? I first came to see it that way when I was young and doing Calligraphy. I was gifted a facsimile of the Book of Kells at the time and leaned then how monks copied scripture. Over and over and always with colorful embellishment’s, little comments and creative illustrations in the margins and unnoticed changes, a word here, a tiny shift in phrasing there until….
Hope all is well with you and yours.
I got my first Covid shot today and I don’t expect to wake up missing a limb.
Warm Regards
B Callahan
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the achievement is the same for everyone. The difference lies in the capacity of didactics, the expression of experience. There is no one superior or inferior. But the deficient expression does not mean that the experience of nirvikalpa samadhi was inferior. it does not exist. the shapeless is always present, but people don’t notice it. therefore they live in the realm of form and suffer for it. Eventually everyone has glimpses of the Shapeless, but they don’t stay there
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