“Birth Is the Greatest Disease”: What Did Ramana Maharshi Really Mean?

Yet Zen and other spiritual teachers say that life on earth is heaven.

Birth Is the Greatest Disease (And Yet How Life on Earth Is Heaven)

I remember the first time I came across Ramana Maharshi’s words:

“Birth itself is the greatest disease.”

It shook me.

Everything I had been taught growing up suggested the opposite. Birth was supposed to be a celebration, the miraculous beginning of life, the blessing of existence. And yet here was a sage saying that birth itself is the greatest disease and bondage.

Then why so many spiritual teachers assure us that life, when truly experienced, is blissful, that life on earth is a form of heaven, and the present moment is beautiful?

At first glance, these truths appear to contradict what Ramana Maharshi is saying, but they do not.

Let's understand this deeply in this post..