Other English Books
by Sri Sadhu Om and Michael James

Till now the only complete books that I (Michael James) have written are Happiness and the Art of Being and a smaller book entitled Philosophy, Science and True Knowledge, which I plan to add to this website at some point in the future.

There are also two other books that I am in the process of writing, which may be entitled Otherness and the Art of Being and Yoga and the Art of Being, and I will add these to this website as and when I can complete them. In the meanwhile, I may include extracts from them as articles in my blog, Happiness of Being – Teachings of Sri Ramana.

Though these four books are the only ones that I have written entirely on my own, there are several other books that I assisted Sri Sadhu Om in translating into English.

The most important book that we translated together is Guru Vachaka Kovai, which is the most profound, comprehensive and trustworthy collection of the sayings of Sri Ramana, recorded in Tamil verses by Sri Muruganar. This was the first major translation work that I did with Sri Sadhu Om, and in the midst of other work it took us several years to complete. We always intended to revise the first draft of our translation, but unfortunately we never had time to do so, so I hope that one day I will have the time to revise it thoroughly and to bring out a new and more accurate translation.

In the meanwhile, however, the existing first draft of our translation has been published as a book by Sri Arunachalaramana Nilayam in Tiruvannamalai. Information about this book and where it can be purchased is available on David Godman's website, and can be accessed by clicking on the link Guru Vachaka Kovai - printed book. An e-book version of our translation is also available in the Books section of this website, and can be accessed by clicking on the link Guru Vachaka Kovai – e-book.

Another very useful book that Sri Sadhu Om and I translated together is Sadhanai Saram, the 'Essence of Spiritual Practice', a collection of verses that he wrote at various times, mostly in answer to questions that he was asked about the practice of the spiritual teachings of Sri Ramana. Our English translation of this book has been published by AHAM under the title A Light on the Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi - The Essence of Spiritual Practice, and is available from their online bookstore.

Sri Sadhu Om and I also translated all the original writings of Sri Ramana, but most of these have never been published, except in some articles in The Mountain Path, the quarterly journal published by Sri Ramanasramam, and as quotations in various books.

One of our translations of the original writings of Sri Ramana which has been published as a book is Upadesa Undiyar. This translation, together with an introduction and brief explanatory notes, has been published by Sri Ramana Kshetra (a branch of Kanvashrama Trust) under the title Upadesa Undiyar of Bhagavan Sri Ramana, and information about it and where it can be purchased is available on David Godman's website by clicking on the link Upadesa Undiyar - printed book. A PDF version of this translation is also available on David's website, and can be accessed by clicking on the link Upadesa Undiyar - online version.

The translation that Sri Sadhu Om and I made of Nan Yar? (Who am I?), one of the most important works written by Sri Ramana, is included as an appendix in Part One of The Path of Sri Ramana, a book by Sri Sadhu Om in which he explains the practice of atma-vichara or 'self-enquiry' in a very clear and detailed manner.

Another one of our translations of the original writings of Sri Ramana which is available on David Godman's website is Sri Arunachala Pancharatnam. This translation, which is accompanied by an introduction and a very detailed oral commentary by Sri Sadhu Om, which I recorded in English, was originally published in instalments in The Mountain Path (in the five issues from September 2003 to September 2004), and the online version of it can be accessed by clicking on the link Sri Arunachala Pancharatnam - English commentary.

With the exception of Sri Arunachala Pancharatnam, which was the last work that I did with Sri Sadhu Om in English, I do not consider any of the translations that we did together to be finalised, because in those early years my understanding of Tamil was very limited, and though Sri Sadhu Om understood and could express himself reasonably well in English, his knowledge of English was far from perfect. Because of his natural powers of expression, he could convey his ideas remarkably well when speaking English, but his written English was clumsy and ungrammatical. Therefore in our early years together, when I was just beginning to learn Tamil, my main role in our joint translation work was to try to understand the meaning explained by him and to re-express it in more fluent English.

As time went on, and my understanding of Tamil improved, I was able to assist Sri Sadhu Om more competently in our translation work, and after he passed away in 1985 I continued to develop my understanding of Tamil, so I am now much better placed to make translations that convey in English the exact meaning of the original Tamil as accurately and as clearly as possible. Therefore whatever translations I give in my more recent writings are far more accurate than those that I assisted Sri Sadhu Om to make. However, the clarity and accuracy of the translations that I make nowadays still owe much to the understanding of the teachings of Sri Ramana that I gained by studying them in depth under the close guidance of Sri Sadhu Om.

The English translation of the 1981 edition and all subsequent reprints of The Path of Sri Ramana - Part One is generally attributed to me. However, my role in its translation was actually quite minor. The first English edition, which was published in 1971, was not a sufficiently accurate or clear translation of the original Tamil book, Sri Ramana Vazhi, so several friends had tried to help Sri Sadhu Om to revise that translation. However, even this revised translation was far from perfect, so towards the end of 1980, when there was a strong demand to reprint the English version of this book, I helped him to make some rather hasty final revisions.

Sri Sadhu Om recognised that even this revised English translation did not clearly, accurately and adequately convey the meaning of his original Tamil book, so we intended to make an entirely fresh translation for later editions, but unfortunately we never had time to do so. However, we did begin to make a fresh translation of The Path of Sri Ramana - Part Two, because the first translation published in 1976 was far from adequate, but we managed to translate only the first three-quarters of the first chapter.

Therefore I hope in future to be able to retranslate both parts of The Path of Sri Ramana. Not only are the existing translations insufficiently accurate and clear, but they are also incomplete, because in the third edition of the original Tamil book, which was published in 1985, Sri Sadhu Om incorporated many additional explanations, and these have never been translated into English, so a fresh translation of both parts would be very useful for anyone who cannot read the Tamil version.

In the meanwhile, though the existing translations of the two parts of The Path of Sri Ramana are inadequate and incomplete, I would still highly recommend them to anyone who wishes to practise correctly the teachings of Sri Ramana, because they contain a wealth of valuable clues to help us in our practice of the twin paths of self-enquiry and self-surrender. In fact, even though they are a poor translation of the book that Sri Sadhu Om originally wrote in Tamil, they nevertheless explain the teachings of Sri Ramana far more accurately and clearly than many other books written in more fluent English.

Finally, one other book by Sri Sadhu Om that I helped him to translate into English is a small book called A Summary of the Life and Teachings of Sri Ramana, which was published by Sri Ramana Kshetra, but which is unfortunately now out of print.

Most of the books mentioned above are available from Sri Ramanasramam Book Stall, and more information about how to buy them is given in the How to buy books by Sri Sadhu Om and Michael James section of the Books page of this website.