The Open Thread that has been running since June seems to be malfunctioning today. I can't access it myself, and a reader has emailed me to say that the problem is not mine alone. I am starting a new 'Open Thread' here in the hope that the problem is localised to the June 'Open Thread'.
Apologies to everyone for not adding anything new recently. I am working on several projects and hope to post something soon.
Apologies to everyone for not adding anything new recently. I am working on several projects and hope to post something soon.
386 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 386 of 386This was from the introduction to the text entitled Saddarsanam: An Inquiry into the Revelation of Truth and Oneself"
"The Muni's Sanskrit version is used in this present volume. It is translated in a very literal manner, to the extent that even the order of the Sanskrit words is followed fairly closely in the English wherever possible, even if the English then reads a bit awkwardly. Whenever practical, the point where English line breaks follows the pattern displayed in the Sanskrit text. In numerous instances, alternative translations of words, phrases, and lines are presented. The aim is to prived the literal meaning free of interpretation and also, to present the numerous nuances of meaning that can be derived from the text without deviating from a literal translation. With this supplied, the meditating reader can easily, inwardly understand the significance of each verse, and, if he chooses, mentally render the verse into a more smoothly flowing set of English words, for a consequence of this style of translation is the loss of hte poetic quality of the original text. ---skipping---
the translation contained herein is intended to augment and to substitute for existing translations.
I happen to be reading Kapali Sastriar right now. " His outstanding contributions to the propagation of Sri Maharshi's teachings, Sat Darsana Bhasya and its English rendering, and the Ramana Gita Prakasa.
He had great reverence for the authentic utterances of Ramana. Sri Kapali had the benefit of direct instruction from the Maharshi and his commentaries were submitted to Bhagavan and were accepted by him."
A.R. Ponnuswami Iyer
Re: The first verse of Ulladu Narpadu
This is to add to David’s post above, “The 'Because we see the world' idea is absent. Leaving it out, to my mind, negates the logic of the original idea: that we see the world and therefore want to understand how multiplicity has manifested.”
Indeed, “Because we see the world” idea is critical to the verse.
This first verse, or more accurately, just the first line, is one of the greatest, profoundest pieces of spiritual statements ever made. The first invocatory verse has been elaborately written about in recent times by several authors, but this one has remained a hidden gem.
This is because it does not merely contain the superficial idea that our seeing the world leads to our wanting to understand how multiplicity has manifested; i.e. just the mere idea of curiosity regarding the nature and source of the manifested world.
“Because we perceive the world, the acceptance of a multi-powered First Principle is settled.”
This is also a categorical statement that - because we see the world, then, logically and by reasoning, it can be conclusively proven and therefore accepted, that all this that is “seen”, is derived from, and is, really, the “First Principle”. This is a statement of the type, “because X is there, Y is also there”.
This is staggering. In one sweep He has categorically covered the entire expanse of Vedanta. And started from a point that no one before has dared to start; i.e. that the multifarious, variegated seen world, itself, is the proof that there can only be a “First Principle”. (All systems start from the “First-Principle-end”; i.e. from Brahman or from God or Ishwara etc. and then come “down” to the seen world).
The statement contains the collected wisdom of a 1000 of the most esoteric, complicated Advaita texts known to us, and would, doubtless, take a tome of considerable size to write out the complex logical proof implied by Sri Bhagavan.
Only the Sat-Chit-Ananda, Brahman Himself (Itself), could make a statement like this one.
regards
Dear David,
Hope u would have read this article about a Bhagavan Ramana's devotee, T.R. Kanakamma, published in "The Hindu - Friday Review" (on Jan 29, 2010).
http://www.hindu.com/fr/2010/01/29/stories/2010012951350700.htm
Have u meet her? Any reminiscences as well as any other information about this Devotee?
Thanks. Sankar Ganesh.
Thanks for the link to the Kanakkamal obituary in The Hindu.
I didn't have much contact with Kanakammal, although I saw her regularly in the samadhi hall at Ramanasramam. As you are probably aware, she wrote a book of her own recollections of being with Bhagavan and Muruganar. Entitled 'Cherished Memories', it is available in the ashram book store.
Although there are many interesting stories in this book, the one that has always stuck in my memory is her account of how she, as a single girl in the 1940s, could not find accommodation closer to Ramanasramam than a room near the government hospital, which is about one kilometre towards town. From there she wanted to walk every morning to Ramanasramam for the early-morning chanting of the Vedas, but was too scared to do so because she was afraid of being attacked by leopards in the forest that still existed between the town of Tiruvannamalai and the ashram. Truly, that was a different era.
Incidentally, I spoke recently to Dorab Framji, who used to accompany his father on visits to the ashram around the same time that Kanakkamal first settled here. He told me that when Bhagavan went for his walk on the hill, many of the devotees would go and have a tea or coffee near to this same government hospital (close to where Kanakkamal first stayed) since that was the nearest place in those days to get any kind of snacks or refreshment.
I would guess that Paul Brunton's description of the ashram as a 'jungle hermitage' was valid at least until the 1950s.
Friends,
This is an Excerpt from 'Inspired Talks' of Swami Vivekananda-Tueday,July 11,1895.
"Love will painlessly attain to philosophy; then after knowledge comes Parâbhakti (supreme devotion).
Knowledge is critical and makes a great fuss over everything; but Love says, "God will show His real nature to me" and accepts all.
RABBIA
Rabbia, sick upon her bed,
By two saints was visited —
Holy Malik, Hassan wise —
Men of mark in Moslem eyes.
Hassan said, "Whose prayer is pure
Will God's chastisements endure."
Malik, from a deeper sense
Uttered his experience:
"He who loves his master's choice
Will in chastisement rejoice."
Rabbia saw some selfish will
In their maxims lingering still,
And replied "O men of grace,
He who sees his Master's face,
Will not in his prayers recall
That he is chastised at all !"
— Persian Poem
Hi David,
I had asked a cpl of Qs sometime back. Guess it got lost. Can you let me know your opinion on these? Or if these have been already discussed before, can you please guide me to the same? Below I am copy-pasting the old post:
"David,
I have a couple of questions:
1. Question about manolaya. I have long wondered what is manolaya, as Maharshi has many times warned us not fall into it. I guess I am not there yet, still would like to know what exactly is laya. I was reading "Final Talks". There Annamalai Swami has mentioned that it is nothing other than sleep. In that was is the difference between sleep and manolaya, if there is one? Have you experienced it?
2) Question as regards to "Summa iru" of Bhagavan. I rememeber in one of the Talks Maharshi says, since we cannot "keep quiet", He recommends Enquiry. Does it mean that if we are able to maintain awareness without any thoguth as such, it is still good; good enough? Is it same as the "give me one second of your time" that Papaji has talked about in "Papaji interviews"?"
I mean to say, augment and not to substitute for existing translations. Evidently Nome, didn't see this translation as replacing the others, he listed them all, including the one's David mentioned in the introduction, and gave a detailed analysis of why he did it the way he did it.
Autobiography of a Jnani
Just came across this from the Net. For those who have read the earlier dialogues, (Advaita for Yogis) this book has some additional 80 pages in continuation of earlier work.
In this book, the experience of Turiya is described and experienced by the former "yogi" now a "Jnani".
Download: http://itisnotreal.com/Autobiography%20of%20a%20Jnani.pdf
It does show step by step progress made by the Sadhaka during the course of the journey. Interesting I would say.
Anonymous,
Autobiography of a Jnani-I downloaded this book and had a quick glance through the Pages.
I find that for the most part,only two Characters are Featured-Ed Muzica and Rajiv and their Dialogue.
I am looking for any insight and understanding that these 'Experiences'had effected in Rajiv,The Jnani.How does he see his Family and move with them?How does he conduct his Glass Business?How does he interact with others?I Look forward to finding something along these lines Featured here.
Thanks very much.
Namaskar.
With inquiry, and sometimes I actually do this and it feels more successful. It helps listening to audio of my teacher, but even when not. When, it is said about inquiry to focus on the I-thought, or the I-sense. It means focusing on the individual, because the individual is unreal, that's what I take it. and sometimes initially, when I start to attempt inquiry, it is concentration, or a redirection of attention. But who is the person who is concentrating, or redirecting attention? then I focus on him. And it seems essentially that is maybe what inquiry is. In the focus on the individual, the real Self is revealed. The problem with attachments, is I can be too attached to focus on I. (see and there is the irony). I can be too attached to focus on I, even statements like that are absurd. But I, I'm learning is not a thought, it's the sense that there is a me. Who is that me? Focusing on the sense of me, the sense of individual in any thought, experience. I think that is what To whom did this thought arise? To me, well who am I? Because that I, who is thinking is unreal. I think when I first read Who am I?, I understood it more experientially, but it got clouded by other more intellectual interpretations.
.
By the way - the brilliant teaching of Zen patriarch Huang-po mentioned in Open Secret by Wei Wu Wei is downloadable at SCRIBD.com. Especially the second part titled The Wang-Ling Record is great. I know this book since many years. In addition to Swami Venkatesanandas Yoga Vasistha it belongs to my favourite books:
The Dharma of Mind Transmission - Zen Teachings of Huangpo
I thought Ed was supposed to be the jnani. Is the same dialogue that was offered up earlier. I was thinking that, it's hard to tell if someone is a jnani from these kind of dialogues that are read. I was thinking how perhaps it is sort of possible to tell a jnani in their presence, by the power that dramatically causes the mind to subside in their presence. By the gracefulness and appropriateness of their interactions with others and the environment. Also it has been my experience that in reading dialogues with jnanis, actual jnanis there teachings tend to be really simple and profound, I don't know if that is a requirement.And also clear. Like most of the things jnanis say, it is obvious in a sense and resonates deeply. It may be things that I haven't been facing in myself, but I recognize the truth of it. I tend to be skeptical of teachers, where the teachings tend to be presented in a way that is esoteric, and complicated and technical. Because I don't think the Self and Realizing the Self is that kind of subject. Like mathrusrisarada.org, Lakshmana Swami, and Mathru Sri Sarada have very clear teachings. It's just a matter of doing them, and giving up bad habits of the ego. Eventually, there will be success with that kind of earnestness. I feel the same with Nome. Things that come from the ego, I feel tend to be obfuscatory, where words that come from the Self tend to be very clear and direct. It seems like it's egos that want to have some kind of advanced technical knowledge and be smarter than others, not jnanis. There were things in the earlier dialogue, and occassionally things in reading this with Ed that felt a little like the latter, obfuscatory. But I don't feel comfortable saying that Ed is not a jnani, becuse I don't know. Also when he said, only one in a thousand have reached where you are, that did not feel to me like something a true jnani would say.
Because a jnani is not interacting with another individual, and the jnani is not an individual. So I would not expect jnanis to talk about themselves a whole lot in that way especially when in interacting with othesr. Also Ed said that being able to spell correctly or type correctly would help him to teacher, I'm paraphrasing, something along those lines, that does not strike me correct. True guru-ship is not something that has anything to do with acquired skills in the world, and is not something that is a typical skill or planned out, but I believe is a natural result of being completely egoless and attuned to grace, and non-doership. I guess what I'm saying, is my intuition tells me that some of what Ed says resonates more with the ego than with egolessness.
I was reading that autobiography of a jnani again. There are things he says that actually seem to me to be correct, but then he says things that seem really wrong, like food for the ego. Fueling individuality, self-importance. Among jnanis like Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta, and Robert Adams, I don't see that. It seems to me that even among 'advanced', 'mature' devotees who did Realize the Self, they weren't praised, but kept being guided to egolessness. That the individual doesn't really exist. And infact once they got it, for instance Lakshmana Swami. Maharshi he simply asked where he was from. I guess what I'm saying, is that I haven't really seen jnanis say anything that is superfluous that isn't directly involved in revealing the delusion to be delusion. Praise would be wasted energy for that. Infact, I've experienced the deepest, most profound, most blissful lack of states of mind. (laugh), when my teacher has been most critical. Actually it doesn't matter. But if he is critical or positive about something, he is positive about the Self, he's not positive about individuals, he is constructively critical of delusions that I'm expressing. He always finishes his e-mails with aphorisms such as "may you always abide in the blissful immortal Self", all his praise is for the Self. He doesn't praise me as a person. And I don't think he would even if I was on the verge of Self-Realization, he would just be silent. What is there to say at that point? What use woudl talking be? Wasted ATP. I guess when I'm reading the Autobiography of a Jnani, there are things in it that stand out to my discernment as being incorrect, and others that are correct.
I don't have that same experience of something resonating in an awkward or wrong way with Maharshi, with Nisargadatta, with Papaji, with Jiddu Krishnamurti, with Robert Adams or with Nome. Everything resonates with blissful Being, and nothing they say resonates with my ego and it's self-importance, anxiety, or discontent.
I briefly tried corresponding with this other 'alleged' advaita guru. But my experience was the same as with Ed, that he would say things that just would feel totally wrong. And he would say other things that seemed correct. I'll give an example, he talked about the pure Being of the Self and the individual being unreal, but then he would say things about being in love romantically. I can't explain it, but ther was something in it that I felt undermined the message that happiness is within. I don't think a true jnani would praise a worldly experience as being worthwhile spiritually. Yes, of course, love is unitary, I would think in Self-Realization, so love is unconditional because there is only the Self. This is to be distinguished from ego validation. And I would expect a jnani would tell people not to be romantically involved. But that is all the senses and the mind, being in love with another individual is a state of mind. It's not transcendence of the mind. Nome's responses have been so perfect and I immediately feel my whole mind (and it's states) vanquished after his responses, and Bliss, peace taking over really intensely. And he really stays on message that there is only the Self and it is where happiness is. Lakshmana Swami and Mathru Sri Sarada really expressed the same thing very profoundly on mathrusrisarada.org.They are jnanis.
correction: I meant, I don't think a jnani would tell a person not to be romantically involved. I accidentally said would. I don't think a jnani would focus primarily on the actions, and the main moral message would be related to do unto others with body, speech and mind, and not causing harm with those instruments.
Friends,
I spent time with Autobiography of a Jnani.I am reminded of Sri Bhagavan's saying-"No one would go round saying-'I am a Man'"
I wish them(Guru and Disciple) all the Best.
Friends,
David mentioned how Sri Sadhu Om considered the bathroom door as more sacred than the Meru Chakra,How it was touched by Sri Bhagavan more times and hence sanctified!
We find another such crazy Bhakta in Ramachandra Datta,a Householder disciple of Sri Ramakrishna.
"Rama Chandra Datta, a householder disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, had unflinching faith in the Master and his love and devotion for him was exuberant. He used to say that any place Sri Ramakrishna visited even for a day became a holy place, and that whoever came to the Master and served him once was blessed. Ram further asserted the horse carriage which Sri Ramakrishna took to visit the Calcutta devotees, along with its coachman and horses, were all sanctified by the touch of the Master.
Ram’s attitude was considered extreme by many, and once someone sarcastically remarked: ‘ If that is true then what is there to fear? So many people have seen Sri Ramakrishna on the street and so many coachmen have driven him. Do you think all these people will get liberation?’ Ram Chandra’s face turned red, and he vehemently replied: ‘Go and take the dust of the feet of the sweeper of Dakshineshwar who saw the Master. This will make your life pure and blessed.’
On January 17, 1899, at 10:45 p.m., Ram breathed his last. His body was cremated on the bank of the Ganga and the relics were placed next to Sri Ramakrishna’s temple at Yogodyana. Before he passed away he told his disciples: ‘When I die please bury a little of the ashes of my body at the entrance to Yogodyana. Whoever enters this place will walk over my head, and thus I shall get the touch of the Master’s devotees’ feet forever.’
-----------------------------------
you may read the complete article : http://www.hinduism.co.za/atheist.htm
Does a spiritual change of any kind mean an improvement? As the vasanas come to the fore the person may become more prickly and overbearing? Or the person may become more jealous or greedy?
I recall Ramana Maharshi stating that with a particular disciple, let the vasanas come out, it's no use having them bottled up.
On the other hand if we "let it all hang out" there is no end to desires and delusion.
Thats the reason one needs an authentic guru to guide us.
Maybe, just maybe you get the guru you deserve.
There *are* teachings that say to reduce desire. These I call
progressive path teachings. They can involve ascetic lifestyles even
out of monastic settings. Lifestyles such as avoiding sex, spicy foods,
too much sun, too much/little sleep, avoiding music with beautiful
melodies or exciting rhythms, etc. The idea is to polish the mirror
until all the specks are gone. Some teachings say this will end up in
realization. Other paths, such as advaita, and Middle Way Buddhism, use
it as a precursor to direct inquiry
Greg
Dear Scott,
Om Namo Bhagavate Sri Ramanaya
Namaste.
Thank you for your message with the excerpts from David Godman's
writing. As mentioned previously, David Godman is held in high esteem and
his work is very much appreciated here. Perhaps, we will meet "in person"
someday and enjoy that holy company of fellow devotees of Sri Bhagavan that
is blissful and filled with the joy of divine love.
Because I have not looked at the blog to see the context and because
he has not written to me directly, I will treat the comments as if they were
your own remarks. Here is a very brief response.
First, you must observe the context and the difficulties that can
arise when some statement, verse, writing, etc. is presented divested of its
context. In this case, the context is explained, in the introduction to the
book. The particular purpose of the very literal translation that preserves
the order of the words and phrases, at the cost of increased awkwardness of
phrasing and lack of elegance, is explained in the introduction. Therein,
eight other translations, both from Sanskrit and Tamil, as well as several
commentaries are recommended, and the reader is advised to read them. In the
context of its purpose, the translation, especially of a few verses, no
longer appears as if obscure or circumlocutory.
The relationship of the Tamil and Sanskrit texts was also described
in the introduction. The purpose of this humble translation was definitely
not to create an all-encompassing fusion of the Sanskrit and Tamil versions.
The introduction also explains the use of parenthesis and brackets.
The intention of such, changes in nuance, and how the reader can use such
are explained, even if somewhat tersely. In the verses cited by you, words
of the English translation have been omitted, and alternative meanings
contained as parenthetical information have been substituted for the primary
translation, so that this no longer accurately represents Nome's
translation. This, combined with the removal of the verb and the
rearrangement of the associated words as presented by you does, indeed
reduce the intelligibility of verse 1. The reference to the universe and the
I (ahamah) in the first line of the Sanskrit corresponds to the seer and the
seen mentioned in the latter part of the same verse. Of course, all this is
explained in detail in the discussion portion of the same book, which also
may help in the comprehension of the translation as well as the keen inquiry
that reveals the true meaning.
Anavadhir translates literally as unlimited. The word has no other
meaning in Sanskrit. Verse 4 appears as verse 9 in Sri Ramana-hrdayam by K.
Lakshmana Sarama, who employed the word nissima. It means without limit or
boundary and has no other meaning. Generally, we have reserved the word
"infinite" to translate ananta, as in the phrase from the Upanishad:
satyam-jnanam-anantam (the true, the knowledge, the infinite). A simple look
at Monier-Williams (authoritative Sanskrit-English dictionary) will verify
what is stated here. Of course, the "infinite eye" phrase appears in the
explanation and discussion portion of the book in question. So, again,
divorcing the expression from its context is likely to bring obscuration of
the essential truth of the message.
If, after reading translations such as Song of Ribhu, Ribhu Gita,
Svatmanirupanam, the eight texts of Advaita Prakaranam, Advaita Devatam,
etc. and authored works such as Self-Knowledge, Timeless Presence, Essence
of Enquiry, etc. and, thereupon, reads the book in question with a full
comprehension of its particular approach and purpose, someone opines that
Nome is lacking in powers of expression in the English language, I would be
the first to agree with him. The Maharshi's Silence is absolute eloquence.
Thus, Dakshinamurti. See Sri Ramana's Five Verses on the One Self. If there
be any mistake, it is by this hand; if there is clarity, it is His
Perfection.
Here are a few other suggestions:
Argument serves little purpose. Actual inquiry yields the
Self-Revelation of Self-Knowledge. See verse 34 of Saddarshanam. Moreover,
Sri Ramana has set the example in this.
Discrimination born of deep Self-inquiry reveals that which is true
and the real significance of the scriptural texts. Without such, other means
will be resorted to by the mind in the attempt to determine the essence of
the teachings, which may lead to assertion, doubt, and further dualism with
its characteristic limitation and fear. It is wiser and happier, with a
heart full of devotion to Sri Bhagavan, to inquire as he instructed to know
yourself.
Please do not pull passages of this message out of context. If you
share it, share the entirety of it.
Ever yours in Truth,
Nome
34. It is due to illusion born of ignorance that men fail to recognise That which is always and for everybody the inherent Reality dwelling in its natural Heart-centre and to abide in it, and that instead they argue that it exists or does not exist, that it has form or has not form, or is non-dual or dual.
Friends,
I wish to share a couple of incidents from the Life of Sri Bhagavan.Here is the First one and it is from 'At The Feet of Bhagavan'By TKS:
"10. CAN A CRACKED EGG BE
HATCHED?
IT was the early hours of the morning in the Hall of Sri
Bhagavan. He had had His bath, and now went to the
farther end of the Hall to take His towel that hung from
a horizontally suspended bamboo, at one end of which
a sparrow had built her nest and laid therein three or
four eggs.
In the process of taking His towel Sri Bhagavan’s
hand came against the nest, which shook violently, so
that one of the eggs dropped down. In this way the egg
was cracked; Sri Bhagavan was taken aback, aghast. He
cried out to Madhavan, the personal attendant. “Look,
look what I have done today!” So saying, He took the
cracked egg in His hand looked at it with His tender
eyes, and exclaimed: “Oh, the poor mother will be so
sorrow-stricken, perhaps angry with me also, at my causing
the destruction of her expected little one! Can the cracked
eggshell be pieced together again? Let us try!”
So saying, He took a piece of cloth, wetted it, wrapped
it around the broken egg, and put it back in the mother’s
nest. Every three hours He would take out the cracked
egg, remove the cloth, place the egg on His roseate palm,
and gaze at it with His tender eyes for minutes together.
What was He really doing at this time? How can we
say? Was He sending with those wonderful looks of gentle
At the Feet of Bhagavan 33
Grace life-giving beams into the cracked egg, putting ever
newer warmth and life into it? That is a mystery none can
solve. Yet He kept on saying: “Let the crack be healed!
Cannot this be hatched even now? Let the little one come
from this broken egg!”
This anxious concern and tenderness of Sri Maharshi
continued from day to day for about a week. So the
fortunate egg lay in the nest with its wet bandage cloth,
only to be fondled by Sri Maharshi with divine touch
and benign look. On the seventh day, He takes out the
egg, and with the astonishment of a schoolboy
announces: “Look what a wonder! The crack has closed,
and so the mother will be happy and will hatch her egg
after all! My God has freed me from the sin of causing
the loss of a life. Let us wait patiently for the blessed
young one to come out!”
A few more days pass, and at length one fine morning
Bhagavan finds the egg has been hatched1 and the little
bird has come out. With gleeful smiling face radiant with
the usual light, He takes the child in His hand, caresses it
with lips, stroking it with His soft hand, and passes it on
for all the bystanders to admire. He receives it back at last
into His own hands, and is so happy that one little germ
of life has been able to evolve in spite of the unhappy
accident to it in the embryo.
The wonder here is that the bird understood enough to sit on the
egg, even after it had been handled by man. Who really knows how far
the understanding of a ‘beast’ can carry her towards the truth?
Ah, what concern for the meanest of creation! Is it
not the heart of the real Buddha which shed first tears of
anxiety at the crack in the eggshell and then tears of joy
at the birth of the new-born babe? Could the milk of
kindness ever be seen or conceived of sweeter than this?"
-----------------------------------
This is the uniqueness of Sri Bhagavan.Sri Bhagavan never ever said-'All this is happening.There is No 'I' that does any of these things',etc,etc.
This is what is endearing about our Bhagavan.This is Jnana.This is Love.
Namaskar.
Friends,
Here is the second incident-another accidental happening,yet how Sri Bhagavan treats is an object lesson for all.
"Apology to Hornets-
One day when Bhagavan was climbing the Hill he knocked
against a hornets' nest and was attacked and very badly stung
on the leg and thigh. He felt remorse for having disturbed
them.
Questioned by Muruganar in the form of the following
verse:
Sighting an overgrown, green-leaved bush, and
When stepping on it and stung by hornets to have legs
swollen,
Venkata, in truth, why was an accidental intrusion
Treated without mercy, just as a wanton transgression?
Sri Bhagavan responded likewise in verse:
When I was stung by hornets in revenge
Upon the leg until it was inflamed,
Although it was by chance I stepped upon
Their nest, constructed in a leafy bush;
What kind of mind is his if he does not
At least repent for doing such a wrong?"
-----------------------------------
Namaskar.
.
Jagadguru Sri Chandrasekhara Bharathi Mahaswamigal (1892 - 1954)
pontiff of Sringeri Matha 1912 - 1954
This great soul decided of his own free will to give up his body. This is respectfully described in The Unique Seer.
(There was an incident here nearby of my town when a man decided to do the same. He couldn't see sense in embodied life any longer. What did he do? He took his bicycle and rode into the forest around here. There he hided himself in a hunters shelter and waited until he died of thirst and hunger. He wrote a diary but it was not published. The stupid newspapers called this an act of desperation but it was brave, isn't it?)
Do you have children? Then this one of His pearls of wisdom may be of interest for them:
Pearls of Wisdom, True seekers find the path of Vedanta rosy
When in our younger days we feel an inexplicable longing to grasp at the truth of things and think of taking up seriously the study of our Vedanta, many of our sincere friends, relatives and well-wishers would be shocked at our "premature" and "ill-advised" attempt to explore the philosophical lore of our ancient sages, would censure us in threatening tones how foolhardy such an attempt was, would point out to us what dire consequences would follow such foolish inroads into forbidden ground where far greater men were still groping without knowing how to find their way in or out of it, and would cite to us, as warning examples, the cases of those who had perished in their foolishness and had been lost to the world for ever.
Necessarily we would be very much discouraged by such disinterested advice and would drop the attempt altogether. But when the innate longing is strong and persistent we will come at a stage of life when we make up our mind to have that longing satisfied at any risk. Once we start with this determination, we will feel before long that the road before us is really smooth and not at all thorny. Where we expected dangerous pitfalls, there would be stepping-stones. Instead of "wild beasts and robbers" on the way, we will find very kind and helping hands. When actually on the road, we will feel a joy and exhilaration, which no earthly thing can ever offer us. When we do enter into the heart and spirit of the Vedanta, we will find it so pure, clean and healthy and giving us the bliss beyond compare.
.
Dear All,
Wanted to share something with you. Was in Tiru over Friday and Saturday last.
Early Saturday morning, I went for a loiter on the hill. As I was walking, a thought suddenly came into my head.
The thought was that at Arunachala, Shiva loves his devotees so much, he even lets them walk on his head.
In this life, I've had some glimpses of ajata, that there really isn't a world, and there really isn't an individual. But I've also often been more often than not immersed in the ego, so teh world often has this reality to it. But I am aware that the reality of the world is my thinking, the imagination. The thing that has my attention most often is thought, I can't really say there is a world apart from thought, because even when I see something, or touch something, it is my act of noticing it (thought) which gives it it's reality. So my experiences have given me a clue that absolute nonduality is true. I think before I had these experiences, I don't know what I would have made of Maharshi's teachings.
.
... LMM; In this life, I've had some glimpses of ajata, that there really isn't a world, and there really isn't an individual. ...
Your words reminds me of a master. Sometimes a formulation sounding new pushes the mind further towards the right direction:
"Maya does not mean that the world is unreal but that the way we see it is unreal."
... ANONYMOUS; ... walking on Shivas head ...
Great! This perception feels absolutely true although I never was in India. (Perhaps we even may dare to say: ... trampling on Shivas head...)
.
.
Just a curious one?
Are Mount Machu Picchu (in Peru) and Arunachala twins connected by a spiritual axis?
While reading "A Sadhu's Reminiscences" by A.W. Chadwick (Sadhu Arunachala), he mentions that Bhagavan was sure that there must be a spiritual twin to Arunachala on the other side of the globe connected by a spiritual axis.
Thanks. Sankar Ganesh.
"Your words reminds me of a master. Sometimes a formulation sounding new pushes the mind further towards the right direction"
Though I still am in the midst of aspiration, I'm very flattered. Thank you Clemens.
I want to thank David Godman, for his excellent comment moderation. I feel greatly benefited by his delaying egoic-based comments that I make, and immediately posting one's that result from a deeper inquiry. I've noticed this pattern, and i deeply appreciate it.
I kind of really suspect from my experiences, and while not making any claim about my maturity in any way, I have as I mentioned had some 'deep' experiences. I mentioned the ajata experiences, before I had heard of Maharshi, especially in my early twenties whole months in and out of it, I probably was entering nirvikalpa samadhi and freaking out about it when the ego (individual-stand) arose, reasserted itself. I haven't heard this experience described much, but I honestly suspect that is what it was.
And then I resisted going into nirvikalpa so much out of terror, that i didn't any longer for awhile. It was intense. Politics of Experience by R.D. Laing a book critical of psychiatric views on schizophrenia, has some similar deep spiritual experiences, that the various people had trouble integrating. I suspect some schizophrenic-experiences are really going in and out of nirvikalpa and freaking out, or it really freaks the mind out really bad. i.e. my thinking mind, who I am (but not really), almost ceased to exist.
But why I was writing this was I was just thinking about how a question that is seeming really profound and effective right now, is "Is this person me?" First, who am I taking myself to be right now, or what? With ego, tehre is always a what or a who, and maybe that is equivalent to "For whom is this thought?", tracing back to the individual-stand. But the answer is of course no, because that individual-stand is self-evidently, and I think regardless of maturity vaporous, or imaginary. Not that it isn't persistent.
But this seems to be a way, to dissolve the individual-stand, which is the ego, in essence. Regardless of the kind of thinking going on, or the seeming power of that thinking, teh question, is this person, the one I'm taking myself to be, really who I am? The answer is obviously no. And what I am, is what that arises in, which is I suspect what Maharshi means by the source. The source is infinite and all-encompassing, without a specific location. The other thing I was thinking about is, why do jnanis say the world is unreal? an illusion.
Well, I think that jnanis perhaps in some sense 'experience' the world, in some indescribable way, in a sense have infinite experience of it, and infinite omnipotence within it (i'm speculating), that I guess really can't be called experiencing, because that is subject/object, experiencing means subject/object. So, the reason they say the world is unreal, as Maharshi I believe said is, if you dissolve, by seeing it's unreality, the individual stand, the individual-stand is thought, is the world experience, so it all dissolves, the entire non-self universe dissolves, when the individual-stand is given up being seen to be unreal.
Why to do this? Well, not only is the essence of happiness where there is no false individual-stand, and so what is sought is really within, falsely sought in an objective experience as a subject. So there is nothing to get there, like a mirage is really sand, so unsatisfying. But also, everything true, good and beautiful without, is really within, because within is not physically within. Which is why jnanis such as Maharshi and Papaji lived such immaculate lives to the views of onlookers, why even devotees of jnanis seem to move and talk with such grace after the buzz of being in their presence.
It seems to me that people who have just been in the present of a jnani, act, move and talk someone more like a jnani. Even have the buzz of grace, transmittence, because they are more in the Self.
"The thought was that at Arunachala, Shiva loves his devotees so much, he even lets them walk on his head."
I think I'm happier though, when Shiva is walking on me, i.e. the dissolution of my false, unholy individual-stand, and Shiva/Ramana alone remaining.
Question : What is samadhi?
Ramana Maharshi : The state in which the unbroken experience of existence-consciousness is attained by the still mind, alone is samadhi. That still mind which is adorned with the attainment of the limitless supreme Self, alone is the reality of God.
When the mind is in communion with the Self in darkness, it is called nidra [sleep], that is, the immersion of the mind in ignorance. Immersion in a conscious or wakeful state is called samadhi. Samadhi is continuous inherence in the Self in a waking state. Nidra or sleep is also inherence in the Self but in an unconscious state. In sahaja samadhi the communion is con-tinuous.
Question : What are kevala nirvikalpa samadhi and sahaja nirvikalpa samadhi?
Ramana Maharshi :The immersion of the mind in the Self, but without its destruction, is kevala nirvikalpa samadhi. In this state one is not free from vasanas and so one does not therefore attain mukti. Only after the vasanas have been destroyed can one attain liberation.
Question : When can one practise sahaja samadhi?
Ramana Maharshi : Even from the beginning. Even though one practises kevala nirvikalpa samadhi for years together, if one has not rooted out the vasanas one will not attain liberation.
Question : May I have a clear idea of the difference between savikalpa and nirvikalpa?
Ramana Maharshi : Holding on to the supreme state is samadhi. When it is with effort due to mental disturbances, it is savikalpa. When these disturbances are absent, it is nirvikalpa. Remaining permanently in the primal state without effort is sahaja.
Question : Is nirvikalpa samadhi absolutely necessary before the attainment of sahaja?
Ramana Maharshi : Abiding permanently in any of these samadhis, either savikalpa or nirvikatpa, is sahaja [the natural state]. What is body-consciousness? It is the insentient body plus consciousness. Both of these must lie in another consciousness which is absolute and unaffected and which remains as it always is, with or without the body-consciousness. What does it then matter whether the body-consciousness is lost or retained, provided one is holding on to that pure consciousness? Total absence of body-consciousness has the advantage of making the samadhi more intense, although it makes no difference to the knowledge of the supreme.
Friends,
I wish to share this excerpt from the Letters from Sri Ramanasramam:
"20th April, 1946
(42) ABHAYAM SARVA BHUTHEBHYAHA
(COMPASSION TOWARDS ALL)
At the time that Bhagavan was to go out in the morning
today, the labourers who had been deputed to gather
mangoes from the tree near the steps towards the mountain
began beating the tree with sticks to knock down the mangoes
instead of climbing the tree and plucking them one by one.
In the course of the beating, the mango leaves also were
falling down in heaps. Hearing the sound of the beating
even while seated on the sofa, Bhagavan sent word through
his attendants not to do so and when he went out as usual,
saw mango leaves lying in heaps. Unable to bear the cruel
sight, he began saying in a harsh tone to the labourers,
“Enough of this! Now go! When you are to gather the fruit,
do you have to beat the tree so that the leaves fall off? In
return for giving us fruit, is the tree to be beaten with sticks?
Who gave you this work? Instead of beating the tree, you
might as well cut it to the roots. You need not gather the
fruit. Go away!”
Bhagavan’s voice, which was like thunder, reverberated
in the ears of all who were there and made them tremble
with fear. The bamboos that were held aloft were brought
down and placed on the ground. The labourers stood with
folded hands like statues. They had no words to speak. When
I saw the personification of kindness towards nature in an
angry mood, my heart beat violently and my eyes were full
of tears. Can one who is so much moved by the falling of the
leaves of a tree, bear pain in the minds of human beings?
Bhagavan Ramana is indeed karunapoorna sudhabdhi, the
ocean filled with the nectar of compassion.
By the time he returned from the Gosala side, the
devotees had gathered the leaves into a heap and begged
him to forgive the fault. Bhagavan went into the hall, saying,
“How cruel! See how many beatings were showered on the
tree! How big is the heap of leaves! Oh!”
----------------------------------
Namaskar.
This is my best interpretation, or what I'm guessing about samadhi. (I'm welcome for feedback, because i don't really know, but this is what I understand from what I've read) Savikalpa samadhi, is those blissful experiences where i attempt inquiry, and the room gets brighter, I feel intensely blissful, and I even inquire maybe deep enough that in that bliss, my vision even glows, I kind of get rid of thought, or the sense of a person to a degree, but it's still operating on a subtle level, so I can for intance maybe see the wall, the bookshelf, or whatever is around me. I would say really, this is what I since i've corresponded with Nome, and attempted practice, have more frequently experienced is this savikalpa samadhi experience. I think sometimes after I've gotten a response from my teacher, I'll maybe, and i'm not sure, fall into nirvikalpa which is effortless (briefly), but maybe it is not quite nirvikalpa.
I'm not really sure. Because I think nirvikalpa is something deeper than I usually experience. But I think some of those involuntary experiences that freaked me out in my early 20s were nirvikalpa, were maybe valid ajata experiences, because that is what scared me about them, was that I would fall into a state that would be peaceful, but I could feel being sucked in and being destroyed as an individual in a sense, evne though it was peaceful, it felt kind of like when freezing to death, suddenly panicking. that is my best analogy. The body starts feeling warm and good, but there is also teh feeling of ceasing. And especially when I was 22, it would be really intense, but then the mind would arise, and I would say to my friends, "my brain isn't working properly", how can I function when I fall into these spells. they would tell me I was perfectly lucid, they couldn't tell what was going on with me. but i remember in this Hawaii trip, I fell into full on nirvikalpa samadhi I think quite frequently. But the I-thought would arise and really not like this state of affairs. Obviously, i don't know how pure they were, obviously my ego wasn't completely eliminated, but there would be complete cessation of the ego as far as experience, I think. Sometimes, what would happen, I have a vivid memory I was in Hawaii with friends that year, and I was walking, and suddenly maybe egoity ceased and the whold crowded scene dissolved in pure white, and when I came out of it seconds later, everyone looked really weird. And in these experiences I would feel like i was kind of aware of everything around me, like it was all in my head, which felt discomfortable. indescribable, but nonetheless these experiences were so beyond what most people know about. i would also sometimes after having that feeilng of falling into ceasing to exist, all the senses would kind of blend together in this really frightening nightmarish way, even though I found it terrifying, i was aware of how amazingly cool it was too. even while hating it, and wishing it would stop. One of my problems is perhaps I would have realized the Self, and to all of you onlookers would be right now a jnani, if it weren't for what was discussed in the glimpses of the Self thread, I had pending desires. this is true, and i think this is what pulled me back. I wanted to function in the world, and fulfill my desires, fall in love. (ironically, I think in this time period, in these states, it was much easier to truly love others, and even fall in love perhaps even romantically) I didn't want to become enlightened unless it was in accord with that. though I recognized the supernatural bredth of this experience, and taht it wasn't just insanity. if it was just insanity, there wouldn't be this intense synchronicity almost like i was making things happen. almost like robert Adams describes saying "god, god, god". But Robert Adams was obviously more mature and without desires, unlike me. That's the difference. Other then that, my experiences for instance that experience in hawaii might be almost indistinguishible from his experience in that schoolroom. And infact when i read Maharshi's Who am I? I actually initially got cocky, because it was the first time someone had described what I had went through, in his death experience. And thought I was on the verge of Self-realization. yay! I'm going to get enilghtened. After I had gotten over my initial freaked out-ness about those experiences, I started doing yoga, tai chi, chi gong, getting acupuncture, eventually vipassana meditation. So anyway, sorry to share this story again.
I think the reason i feel pulled to share it, why I don't want to hold it back? Is I went almost a decade with this experience, that no one really believed me, or understood what i was talking about. But I think in some ways, I may be more in touch with the Self now, than I was in those early experiences in the sense that, I don't know if I fall into nirvikalpa, but in a more stable sense, i think I've been making headway into conquering desires, and truly inquiring. One thing i don't really quite understand, from what I understood. When I first read No Mind i am the Self, and maharshi's story, I kind of thought enlightenment, I mean Self-Realization is an event. And maybe it is, in a sense, but what is happening now to me, in my earnest attempt at inquiry is that is more of a starting to move in accord with the Self, for instance cleaning up the bad habits, dissolving the objective outlook whever possible, being in bliss as much as possible, so it is more of a gradual merging, and it's hard for me to believe that there is going to be an event like in some of these other cases. But some of these cases, like Lakshmana Swami, it may be just have been being under the gaze of Maharshi and merging, and merging so thoroughly that there was no way to un-merge. Because in some way, it does seem to me that is correct that the Self is already realized, and even if we don't know it, the experience of Self-Realization will not be surprising, new or somehow different than we already experience. It's just stop this illusory make believe, and transient arising, and pretending to be seperate from our own experience. And even the Bliss of Self-Realization will not be foreign, because we do sometimes experience it, in deep sleep and when we are really, really happy and content. like when I was a child at christmas time, I experienced intense bliss, like Self-bliss.
but obviously (laugh), none of what I just described is the sahaja that is mentioned in that quote and in glimpses of the Self. but perhaps a prelude. I'm starting to learn where the good is, and where the happiness is, and it's not in something objective and imaginary, tha seems to be one of the most important things.
everything i just said, seems to make so much more sense now, going back and reading that quote i posted on samadhi in light of that quote. I experiened nirvikalpa, but still had vasanas, so there wasn't continuous sahaja.
David and friends, According to B.V
Narasimha Swami's unexpunged 1931 copy. 'The Muni believed, like Confucious, that he had a lofty mission in life, and that he had adequate power to carry it out. Society, in India had yet to be revivified, and old yet bright ideas of Vedic times resuscitated. New and deleterious growths which impeded communal life had to be got rid of. And the entire panoply of heavenly forces (sakti) had yet to be drawn down by sastri himself .......mainly be mantra japa'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gF2XX-dJ5mI
"Om Nama Sivaya"
Today is Maha Siva Ratri....the pinnacle of spiritual endeavour.
This is the only festival in India which is associated with strict austerities - fasting, constant Nama Smarana, followed find alert vigil the entire night - No food, no festivity, no enjoyment.
Let us all re-dedicate ourselves to the noble pursuit of discovering our identity with Shiva within.
Regards Murali
Mr. Godman
How did you know the process that 'Maharshi Gospel' was written?
In the preface of the book there is no information.
I have not recieved your reply to my previous question.So,I will again ask same question.
Is it right to regard 'Maharshi Gospel' as the only English book that Bhagavan corrected by himself?
thank you
.
A simple but great truth:
Avoid the hell of Life
Gurdjieff (George Gurdjieff [1877-1949]) remembers that when his grandfather was dying -- he was only nine years old -- the grandfather called him. He loved the boy very much and he told the boy, "I don't have much to give to you, but departing from the world I would like to give you something. I can only give you one piece of advice that has helped me; it was given to me by my father, and he was also dying when he gave it to me. I am dying. You are too young, you may not be able to understand it right now, but remember, a day will come when you will understand. Whenever you find yourself capable of following my advice, follow it, and you will never be in misery. You can avoid the hell of life."
And what was the advice? Just this sutra -- not exactly in these words. He said to Gurdjieff, "Remember one thing: if you want to do any bad thing, postpone it for tomorrow; and if you want to do something good, do it immediately -- because postponement is a way of not doing. And bad has not to be done, and good has to be done. For example," the old man said, "if somebody insults you and you feel angry, enraged, tell him that you will come after twenty-four hours and answer him." Gurdjieff remembers, "That advice transformed my whole life. Although I was too young, only nine years old, I tried it just out of curiosity. Some boy would insult me or would hurt me or would say something nasty, and I would remember my old dying grandfather and I would tell the boy, 'I will have to wait; I have promised an old man. After twenty-four hours I will answer you.'
"And it always happened," Gurdjieff remembers, "that either I would come to conclude that he was right, that whatsoever he had said LOOKED nasty but it was true about me.... He was saying, 'You are a thief,' and that is true, I am a thief. He was saying, 'You are insincere,' and that is true -- I am insincere." So he would go and thank the boy: "You pointed out something true about me. You brought up a true facet of my being which was not clear to me. You made me more conscious about myself. I am immensely grateful." Or, after twenty-four hours' thinking, he would come to conclude that, "That man or that boy is absolutely wrong. It has nothing to do with me." Then there is no point in answer-ing; he would not go back to the boy. If something is utterly wrong, why become enraged? This is a big world, millions of people are there; you cannot go answering everybody, otherwise your whole life will be wasted. And there is no need either."
Biografies
.
Shiba
The talks that precede Sat Darshana Bhashya were read out to Bhagavan in English, and he made a few suggestions which were incorporated in the final printed version. I learned this from K. Natesan who was present in the hall with Kapali Sastri when the manuscript was read out.
Self-Realisation by Narasimha Swami was not checked by Bhagavan prior to its publication. He admitted this to the lawyer who questioned him about it in the Perumal Swami case.
The first few pages of Day by Day with Bhagavan were shown to Bhagavan by Devaraja Mudaliar at the time they were written, but after that he only consulted Bhagavan if he was unsure about something he was proposing to write.
I don't know of any other English texts that were personally checked by Bhagavan, apart from Maharshi's Gospel. A proof copy in the ashram archives has Bhagavan's handwritten corrections on it.
Mr.David
Thank you very much for your reply.
When you find my questions are delicate ones to answer, I would like you to tell me that. I don't want to give you trouble by questioning you repeatedly.
thank you
In an old copy of the Mountain Path
I came across Hsin Hsin Ming (Verses of the faith mind)the 3rd Patriarch of China. It's a very inspirational translation by Richard Baker.
To come directly into harmony with this reality.
Just simply say when doubt arises "not two"
In this "not two" nothing is separate, nothing is excluded.
No matter when or where,
enlightment means entering this truth.
And this truth is beyond extension or diminution in time or space;
In it a single thought is ten thousand years.
Great story about Gurdjieff.
I believe Gurdjieff has still got a following in Europe which extends as far as Holland.
One well known devotee of Ramana's, Ethel Merston. was strongly influenced by Gurdjieff and had quite a few interesting stories to tell of her time with him.
Merston was one of a small group of Europeans that clustered around Ramana Maharshi and the ashram in the 1940's and had a sound understanding of his teaching.
Friends,
With reference to Kaduveli Siddhar,Sankar Ganesh's comments are quite appropriate.
coming to herenow's comments:
"I also have no real desire to parade or hide the sex lives of gurus etc .
I merely point out that it is a topic of concern to many people, both on a spiritual path and those more secular people commenting on spiritual issues in general.
( and basically implying or stating that the entire spiritual endeavour is bogus because one or another teacher has questionable sexual behaviours.)"
I agree with you that this is something that should not be lightly explained away or overlooked-saying all that a jnani does is Right.
Sri Ramakrishna gave this warning message-'Observe a Sadhu not just during the Day but at Night as well!'.
The path of Yoga is fraught with dangers even for the advanced sadhak.Of all desires that need to be set aside,Sex is the most primeval and deep seated and even highly advanced ones have fallen by the wayside.This is the reason that Sanatana Dharma has duly recognised this aspect and graded the various Stages of Life as-The Celibate,Householder,Ascetic and The Renunciant.Each of these stages has its associated set of Dharmas or Principles-and in adhering to these principles the Sadhaka is lead in a natural way towards the spiritual goal.
The Recent phenomena of the so called 'Masters' or 'teachers' in tossing aside the Fundamental principles and Foundations of Living-and ignoring these as 'Outmoded' chaff-has lead to a good deal of confusion.
Are we to assume that the individual in 'Society' now is well advanced and that 'Fundamentals' are no longer needed or that all 'principles' are only kindergarden stuff?
Does this 'advancement' in society permit the current lot of 'teachers' to bypass the 'Dharma' as taught by The Buddha as 'mental stuff' and go straight for the 'Truth'?
The results are self evident,if we care to see.
If we are earnest,we will be lead on to the Right path-however long it may be(or short!).We will not be lured into what is 'easy' and 'comforatble'.
-----------------------------------
Namaskar.
Friends,
This is what Sri Ramakrishna says about 'Lust' and 'Gold':
“When you live amid ‘lust and gold,’ your mind is forcefully pulled to them. So you must be cautious. But he who has renounced the world need not fear much. The genuine renouncer keeps a proper distance from ‘lust and gold’. That is how he can fix his mind on the Lord while practicing spiritual disciplines.
“Who is a real renouncer? He who can keep his mind fixed on the Lord. Like the bee which only takes honey from flowers. But he who is in the household, living amid ‘lust and gold,’ can sometimes fix his mind on the Lord, and at other times it goes to ‘lust and gold’. He is like the ordinary housefly who sits on sweets one moment and on a sore or excreta another.
“You must always fix the mind on the Lord. Initially, you have to make some effort. Later you enjoy a pension.”
-----------------------------------
Tomorrow(16th February)is Sri Ramakrishna's Jayanthi day.
Namaskar.
'Ramanamayi' recently wrote to me, asking permission to use material from Padamalai for a new Bhagavan blog she has started. I, of course, agreed. The blog can be found at:
http://bhagavanspromises.blogspot.com
Ramanamayi,
Wonderful Blog with beautiful, captivating pictures and messages.The very first one with that person sweeping the Roof with its crisp message on Loving Service-is a sweet one,followed by classic Sri Bhagavan pictures.
Wish you the Very Best.
Namaskar.
It's almost as if, I was thinking, jnanis give Reality to the world. The world has no reality apart from it's jnanis. But jnanis who are like fountains of the true, good and beautiful by bringing the silver in touch with mother of pearl, give the world reality, otherwise it is a mere appearance. So...in a sense the only slightly real times on Earth are it's sattvic times. Just like in my life, the only real is the Bliss. The rest of it, is just the silver pretending it is different from mother of pearl.
I was just thinking about how when Maharshi said, "mind why you have come". On one level it seems like he is referring to getting involved in ashram politics instead of using the opportunity to inquire and Realize the Self. But...really, mind what you have come was saying, don't abide in thought, or ego, but dwell in the Self. The getting involved in ashram politics was like a metaphor, because being around Maharshi was being in the holy company or presence of the real Self, and so the being involved in the ego or mind took the form of being involved in ashram politics, which was an escape from one's own Self, Maharshi.
I was bringing this up, because this has happened in my own sadhana. When I read Who am I?, I was just re-reading it, I understood it. But instead of pursuing the inquiry it advised, I got caught up in all sorts of side issues. One of them, was getting angry at all the fake teachers. Basically getting involved in a worldly standpoint about Maharshi's teachings, rather than actually doing Maharshi's teachings.
Friends,
Follow the Rabbit-the Questions that you have raised-I understand that these are quite genuine and one that besets all seekers when they set themselves on the Path.The Central question,I understand is the importance of finding the True Guru.The Other questions are peripheral and may fall off once the central question is answered.
There can be no denying that the SadGuru(The very Definition -Truth Guru!Not a SAD Guru!)is very important.This is what Sri Ramakrishna has to Say:
"Sri Ramakrishna — Where is the capacity in man to liberate another from bondage of the world? Only He who is the creator of this world-bewitching maya can liberate man from maya. But for Sachchidananda Guru, there is no refuge. Where is the capacity of those who have neither realized the Lord, nor received His commandment, nor have become powerful with the power of the Lord to liberate a jiva (embodied soul) from the bondage of the world?
“One day I was going from Panchavati to Jhautala (pine grove) to answer the call of nature. I heard a bullfrog croaking aloud. I learnt that it had been seized by a snake. After quite some time when I was returning, I noticed that the frog was still croaking aloud. I peeped in to see what the matter was. I saw that a dhonda (a kind of poison less) snake had seized the frog. It could neither release it nor swallow it. There was no end to the frog’s agony. Then I said to myself: Had it been seized by a cobra, the frog would have been silent just after three croaks. But it had been seized by a dhonda! And so the snake was suffering and also the frog.
“If you have a Sadguru (true preceptor), the ego of the jiva ends with just three cries. And if the guru is unripe, both the guru and the disciple undergo suffering. The disciple does not get rid of his ego nor his bondage of the world. Falling in the hands of an unripe guru, the disciple does not attain salvation.”
The above statement is something that a Seeker needs to be aware of,and in general it is better to be critical than to be Gullible!
Now how is one to find a True Guru?
Here all the Great Masters are unanimous in that if there is a genuine need in us,the Guru will find us.
-----------------------------------
I also find that 'Attend to what you came for' a little overflogged!Sri Bhagavan said this to people who came into HIS PRESENCE(or THE PRESENCE in case some of us are allergic to the use of 'his').This does not mean that one should not discriminate.
It is indeed true that one should not be judgemental about others but this does not at all mean that one should be gullible and set aside all critical discernment.
-----------------------------------
Namaskar.
Follow the Rabbit,
Here is a typical example of what Sri Ramakrishna spoke of-from The Very First Chapter of The Gospel Of Sri Ramakrishna-The Great Master gives the shock treatment!
"Sri Ramakrishna on M.'s marriage
SRI RAMAKRISHNA: "Pratap's brother came here. He stayed a few days. He had nothing to do and said he wanted to live here. I came to know that he had left his
wife and children with his father-in-law. He has a whole brood of them! So I took
him to task. Just fancy! He is the father of so many children! Will people from the
neighbourhood feed them and bring them up? He isn't even ashamed that someone
else is feeding his wife and children, and that they have been left at his father-inlaw's
house. I scolded him very hard and asked him to look for a job. Then he was
willing to leave here.
"Are you married?"
M: "Yes, sir."
SRI RAMAKRISHNA (with a shudder): "Oh, Ramlal!1 Alas, he is married!"
Like one guilty of a terrible offence, M. sat motionless, his eyes fixed on the
ground. He thought, "Is it such a wicked thing to get married?"
The Master continued, "Have you any children?"
M. this time could hear the beating of his own heart. He whispered in a trembling
voice, "Yes, sir, I have children."
Very sadly Sri Ramakrishna said, "Ah me! He even has children!"
Thus rebuked M. sat speechless. His pride had received a blow. After a few
minutes Sri Ramakrishna looked at him kindly and said affectionately: "You see, you
have certain good signs. I know them by looking at a person's forehead, his eyes,
and so on. Tell me, now, what kind of person is your wife? Has she spiritual
attributes, or is she under the power of avidya?"
M: "She is all right. But I am afraid she is ignorant."
MASTER (with evident displeasure): "And you are a man of knowledge!"
M. had yet to learn the distinction between knowledge and ignorance. Up to this
time his conception had been that one got knowledge from books and schools. Later
on he gave up this false conception. He was taught that to know God is knowledge,
82
and not to know Him, ignorance. When Sri Ramakrishna exclaimed, "And you are a
man of knowledge!", M.'s ego was again badly shocked.
God with and without form
MASTER: "Well, do you believe in God with form or without form?"
M., rather surprised, said to himself: "How can one believe in God without form
when one believes in God with form? And if one believes in God without form, how
can one believe that God has a form? Can these two contradictory ideas be true at
the same time? Can a white liquid like milk be black?"
M: "Sir, I like to think of God as formless."
MASTER: "Very good. It is enough to have faith in either aspect. You believe in God
without form; that is quite all right. But never for a moment think that this alone is
true and all else false. Remember that God with form is just as true as God without
form. But hold fast to your own conviction."
The assertion that both are equally true amazed M.; he had never learnt this
from his books. Thus his ego received a third blow; but since it was not yet
completely crushed, he came forward to argue with the Master a little more.
M: "Sir, suppose one believes in God with form. Certainly He is not the clay
image!"
..........continued...
Follow the Rabbit,
...The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna continued....
"MASTER (interrupting): "But why clay? It is an image of Spirit."
M. could not quite understand the significance of this "image of Spirit". "But,
sir," he said to the Master, "one should explain to those who worship the clay image
that it is not God, and that, while worshipping it, they should have God in view and
not the clay image. One should not worship clay."
God the only real teacher:
MASTER (sharply): "That's the one hobby of you Calcutta people – giving lectures
and bringing others to the light! Nobody ever stops to consider how to get the light
himself. Who are you to teach others?
"He who is the Lord of the Universe will teach everyone. He alone teaches us,
who has created this universe; who has made the sun and moon, men and beasts, and
all other beings; who has provided means for their sustenance; who has given
children parents and endowed them with love to bring them up. The Lord has done
so many things – will He not show people the way to worship Him? If they need
teaching, then He will be the Teacher. He is our Inner Guide.
"Suppose there is an error in worshipping the clay image; doesn't God know that
through it He alone is being invoked? He will he pleased with that very worship. Why
should you get a headache over it? You had better try for knowledge and devotion
yourself."
This time M. felt that his ego was completely crushed. He now said to
himself: "Yes, he has spoken the truth. What need is there for me to teach others?
Have I known God? Do I really love Him? 'I haven't room enough for myself in my
bed, and I am inviting my friend to share it with me!' I know nothing about God, yet
I am trying to teach others. What a shame! How foolish I am! This is not
mathematics or history or literature, that one can teach it to others. No, this is the
deep mystery of God. What he says appeals to me."
This was M.'s first argument with the Master, and happily his last."
-----------------------------------
Sri Ramakrishna mentioned 'M' as a person totally free from 'Ego'-We find a beautiful account of Master Mahasaya in 'The Autobiography of a Yogi'.
Sri Ramakrishna talks about Pratap's brother to 'M'-What he says applies to 'M' as well!As a Householder devotee,M had a family to care for and Sri Ramakrishna annihilated the 'escapist' streak in M and laid the Strong foundation in the very first encounter!
Namaskar.
I was thinking about Papaji calling people 'enlightened' when they had a glimpse of the Self. I forget which post discussed that. But it really makes sense. When someone is aware of the Self, though not in the sahaja permanent state where the I has died, that is enlightenment. That person is walking around in an 'enlightened', blissful, sattvic state, grace is even flowing out of them. I don't know how the sahaja state is accomplished by grace or by effort, but I try to stay enlightened as much as possible. Aware of a deeper source, a well-spring of Bliss. Using whatever means necessary. Lately, it's been a mix of Nome satsang audio CD's, where his words constantly liberate me from thinking into a sattvic blissful state. If I didn't have a sadguru, I would probably listen to audio CD's of Papaji (either with a CD walkman or I-pod), I even have found J. Krishnamurti effective as well. (despite claims that he didn't have the power to enlighten), even audio CD's of him seem to be endowed with some potent shakti. I would want those words constantly flowing into my ears. But also another aspect is, turning away from wanting anything from this world. Realizing that this world cannot fulfill me. Even if temporarily there was some illusion of fulfillment, it is temporary and so anxiety-ridden. I think Papaji saying this temporary 'state' was enlightenment is correct. Because yeah, any state is temporary and not the Self, but the boundaries that mark it off as a 'state' are the ego. The enlightenment, the bliss, is just because there is a whole in the ego's veiling. And I like it, because those enlightened states are not trivial, and I think the more one abides in them, they become the effortless, thoughtless state (nirvikalpa), and eventually the sahaja state (or permanent Self-Realization). They are excellent!
"The above statement is something that a Seeker needs to be aware of,and in general it is better to be critical than to be Gullible!"
I think there is a good way to not fall in with an unripe guru. Does the presence of this guru, or his words liberate one from thinking into Bliss, a sattvic, state of ego subsidence. Rather then judging on objective grounds. Judge on this. If the guru is unripe, that means he still has a mind, which means the bliss of the Self is veiled, which means that really that guru is not a source of the grace that would accomplish this, his words will be out of accord with the Self. But if everything the guru does and says, causes the mind to subside into a state of peace, contentment and bliss. Then it doesn't matter whether you call that guru a jnani, he may very well be. But that is someone worth staying around, because an unripe guru, a fraud, an abuser, a manipulator would not be able to accomplish this. Have you ever met a fraud, an abuser, a manipulator that caused one to feel good about oneself. If so, then we have a different criteria for what makes someone an abuser. The world is full of manipulator's and abusers, it's the tamasic way much of the world runs. There may be fraudulent gurus who fit this definition, but they aren't going to be liberating to be around. If they are liberating to be around, they are good! That's my criteria. Then you don't need to judge whether gossip about them is true or not, you don't have to use your mind to judge, since you are trying to get rid of your mind. The Self knows itself better then an illusory mind ever will.
.
... this does not at all mean that one should be gullible and set aside all critical discernment. ...
I believe that the point here is as well that judgements of other people - let them be jnanis or not - lead to nowhere. Judgements of concepts lead to helpful refinements of concepts but where could judgements of persons lead to except to the realms of maya?
Nothing can prevent a "false" disciple to come in contact with "false" teachers and nothing can prevent a true disciple to come in contact with his true teacher - who cares? Such is the way of life. Should we maintain "guru ratings"? We know that Ramana said that there are a lot of teachers but not much disciples. Let us try to be true seekers deserving the guru we follow and all will be ok. A true seeker shuns gossip.
.
Ramos,
"I believe that the point here is as well that judgements of other people - let them be jnanis or not - lead to nowhere. Judgements of concepts lead to helpful refinements of concepts"
Yes.Just to refine this further,judgement it is when one stores it in one's memory and let this memory colour one's perceptions.Discernment it is when one sees afresh into the Heart of the matter,without bringing in the accumulated past experiences stored in the memory.
I also will not attempt to 'interpret' what Sri Ramakrishna has said.The Truth of it has to be understood by the sincere seeker with discernment.
Namaskar.
Namaskar.
For Bhagavan, true discrimination does not mean having the faculty to determine who is or who is not a jnani; it is, instead, the knowledge and understanding that all 'jnanis' are the one Self, and that nothing but that Self exists.
Guru Vachaka Kovai, verse 121 says:
You who, with a great eagerness and an expectation of seeing miracles, wander around looking at this mahatma and that mahatma! If you enquire into the real nature of your own maha-atma [great Self], reach the Heart and realise it [the great Self], then every mahatma will be found to be only that one Self.
And Lakshman Sarma has recorded a similar statement in Sri Ramanaparavidyopanishad, vv. 592-4:
The popular notion that there are many sages is also not true. All differences belong to the world. In the worldless state they do not exist.
He who says, ‘I have today seen this sage; I shall see others also,’ does not know the true nature of sages, which is reality-consciousness-bliss. This is what Bhagavan has told us on this point.
For him who knows not the sage who is within himself, there appear to be many sages. For him who knows that one, who is his own Self, this plurality [of sages] is non-existent.
Papaji's Nothing Ever happened is a real extensive tour of the apparent manifest life of Papaji as seen by others. Why did Papaji take us on that tour? It almost heightens that sensationalist excitement about the life of a jnani. I have to say that is one of the appeals for me of that book, of wow! look at all the cool things that happen around a jnani. cool! better than fireworks. And not only that, so and so that he met was a jnani. Look at all the cool ways jnanis live. The only thing I can think of, is that the book is a decoy deer, and it's title is the correct meaning of the story. I mean the same with all the interviews and writings and edited books by David Godman as well. Have the effect of being a decoy deer. So maybe in a way Nothing Ever happened was doing, is it wasn't just a great biography, it was basically an entrapment into the true, good and beautiful. The fascination is not really with the objective life of a jnani, but with our own Self. David Godman that was a very sagely answer (laugh).
"You who, with a great eagerness and an expectation of seeing miracles, wander around looking at this mahatma and that mahatma! If you enquire into the real nature of your own maha-atma [great Self], reach the Heart and realise it [the great Self], then every mahatma will be found to be only that one Self."
Man, Maharshi covered it all. He really covered it all. Yup. My interaction with Nome, I can't say that was the purpose, I've wanted liberation. But sometimes, I think I've been fascinated with that question who is and who isn't a jnani more then is really good for me. I think I've been fascinated more, and wrongly, because it's not worth being fascinated about, even things like the mind silencing power of jnanis, or the crafting or responses, as well as visinos around them. But it's fascination with the non-self's response to a jnani. The jnani is no other then my own Self. I'm not trying to realize something external and objective, it's my own Self that I'm trying to realize.
In Narasimha Swami's book he tells a tale of a devotee who has absented himself for many long months from the ashram.
But long absence from Maharshi's presence did not improve him. On the contrary it rendered him more worldly and less spiritual. Disgusted with himself he climbed up to see the Maharshi and was met with laughter. As Maharshi tells, little half fledged birds that try too early to fly from their nests fall, and "Why should one try his flights prematurely and fancy he can conquer the world before he is fully prepared and developed?"
That was the significance of the Maharshi's laughter.
Friends,
An Excerpt from The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna:
"M. guessed that the conversation was about worldly men, who look down on those who
aspire to spiritual things. The Master was talking about the great number of such people in
the world, and about how to deal with them.
MASTER (to Narendra): "How do you feel about it? Worldly people say all kinds of things
about the spiritually minded. But look here! When an elephant moves along the street, any
number of curs and other small animals may bark and cry after it; but the elephant doesn't
even look back at them. If people speak ill of you, what will you think of them?"
NARENDRA: "I shall think that dogs are barking at me."
God in every being
MASTER (Smiling): "Oh, no! You mustn't go that far, my child! (Laughter). God dwells in
all beings. But you may be intimate only with good people; you must keep away from the
evil-minded. God is even in the tiger; but you cannot embrace the tiger on that account.
(Laughter). You may say, 'Why run away from a tiger, which is also a manifestation of
God?' The answer to that is: 'Those who tell you to run away are also manifestations of God
- and why shouldn't you listen to them?'
Parable of the "elephant God"
"Let me tell you a story. In a forest there lived a holy man who had many disciples. One
day he taught them to see God in all beings and, knowing this, to bow low before them all.
A disciple went to the forest to gather wood for the sacrificial fire. Suddenly he heard an
outcry: 'Get out of the way! A mad elephant is coming!' All but the disciple of the holy man
took to their heels. He reasoned that the elephant was also God in another form. Then why
should he run away from it? He stood still, bowed before the animal, and began to sing its
praises. The mahut of the elephant was shouting: 'Run away! Run away!' But the disciple
didn't move. The animal seized him with its trunk, cast him to one side, and went on its
way. Hurt and bruised, the disciple lay unconscious on the ground. Hearing what had
happened, his teacher and his brother disciples came to him and carried him to the
hermitage. With the help of some medicine he soon regained consciousness. Someone
asked him, 'You knew the elephant was coming - why didn't you leave the place?' 'But', he
said, 'our teacher has told us that God Himself has taken all these forms, of animals as well
as men. Therefore, thinking it was only the elephant God that was coming, I didn't run
away.' At this the teacher said: 'Yes, my child, it is true that the elephant God was coming;
but the mahut God forbade you to stay there. Since all are manifestations of God, why
didn't you trust the mahut's words? You should have heeded the words of the mahut God.'
(Laughter)
"It is said in the scriptures that water is a form of God. But some water is fit to be used for
worship, some water for washing the face, and some only for washing plates or dirty linen.
This last sort cannot be used for drinking or for a holy purpose. In like manner, God
undoubtedly dwells in the hearts of all - holy and unholy, righteous and unrighteous; but a
man should not have dealings with the unholy, the wicked, the impure. He must not be
intimate with them. With some of them he may exchange words, but with others he
shouldn't go even that far. He should keep aloof from such people."
Namaskar.
David/Friends,
Discrimination is certainly not to determine who is a Jnani and who is not a Jnani.It is the capacity to sift the essential from the nonessential.It comes into play even in such a mundane activity like eating-What is Healthy and what is not.Ditto for the mental and Spiritual Realms as well.
coming to the Guru-All Great Masters are unanimous-Self or Satchidananda alone is the Guru and the 'Human' Guru is a visible manifestation of the Self.
Namaskar.
Friends
An Excerpt from'The Path of Sri Ramana' by Sri Sadhu Om:
"After Azhahammal’s passing away, Sri Bhagavan
would often take a walk from Skandasramam to her tomb,
which in early days was sheltered by a small thatched hut.
Then, in December 1922, according to the divine Ordinance
of Sri Arunachalam, He came down and settled there
permanently. Many devotees came to live in the Presence of
Sri Bhagavan and in due course there grew around Him
many large and handsome buildings, which now constitute
the present Sri Ramanasramam.
Perfect equality was the principle lived by Sri
Bhagavan in Sri Ramanasramam. Till the end He wore only
a loin cloth, which is less than the dress needed by even the
poorest among our countrymen. ‘The same was the case
with His food, for which He always sat among the devotees,
and which was the same as that served to all – in fact it was
rather less than what was served to others. Whatever
eatables devotees offered Him would be equally distributed,
then and there, to everyone in His presence. Not only
human beings, but even cows, dogs, monkeys, squirrels,
crows and peacocks enjoyed perfect freedom and full rights
in the Asramam. cow Lakshmi, for example, lived there as
a pet daughter and attained Liberation in her last hour by
the divine touch of Sri Bhagavan.
The doors of the small Hall where Sri Bhagavan lived
were open day and night, and to all. In a life such as
His, which was shining as a vast open space of mere
consciousness where was the necessity to hide Himself
and how to do so? Even in the middle of the night
devotees were free to go and see Him in the Hall.
“Defects alone need to hide, a pure heart need not,” is
a wise saying of saint Auvaiyar! To have the darsan of
Sri Bhagavan was a great fortune which was not bound
by any condition and which was open to all people and
at all times. When He gave a warm welcome even to
the thieves who came at night, saying, “You may come
in and take whatever you want,” what better proof is needed
of Sri Bhagavan’s sense of equality?"
-----------------------------------
This is it.Sri Bhagavan is inimitable.
Namaskar.
Friends,
I wish to share this excerpt on Sri Sadhu om:
"Sri Sadhu Om Swamigal,
developed a deep yearning for spiritual knowledge even in
his early childhood, and that yearning began to express
itself in his fourteenth year in the form of a copious flow
of Tamil verses and songs. In due course in his early
twenties his spiritual yearning naturally drew him to the
Feet of his Sadguru, Bhagavan Sri Ramana. Though his
outward contact with Sri Bhagavan lasted barely four years
(from July 1946 till April 1950), on account of his onepointed
and unshakable devotion to Sri Bhagavan, his
sincere and steadfast adherence to the practice of His
teachings, and his total self-effacement, he soon became a
fit vessel to receive the Grace of Sri Bhagavan in fullest
measure and to attain thereby firm and steady abidance in
the state of Self-knowledge.
Though the time a disciple has spent in the physical
presence of his Sadguru is not a criterion by which one can
judge his spiritual attainment, some people used to gauge
the worth of each devotee of Sri Bhagavan by the number
of years they had lived with Him. When one such person
once asked Sri Swamigal in a slightly disparaging manner,
“You lived with Sri Ramana for only five years; are there not
many who lived with Him for many more years than you
x
did?” he replied, “Yes, I am indeed ashamed about it,
because when even five seconds were more than sufficient
for the divine Power shining in the Presence of Sri
Bhagavan to quench the spiritual thirst of mature souls, if
five years were necessary in my case, does it not show my
state of immaturity?”.
This reply was typical of the unassuming and selfeffacing
attitude of Sri Swamigal. In spite of his versatile
genius as a Tamil poet of surpassing excellence, a talented
musician, a melodious and sweet-voiced singer, a lucid
writer of prose, and a brilliant philosopher endowed with
a deep spiritual insight and a power of expressing the truth
in a clear, simple and original manner, he never sought for
himself any recognition or appreciation from the world. In
fact, his life was a perfect example of strict adherence to the
principal precept taught by Sri Bhagavan, namely that we
should deny our-self at every moment of life by giving no
importance to our own individual entity, and should thus
completely erase our ego."
-----------------------------------
Namaskar
fellow practitioners
is the question "where is this me?" the same as "who am I?"
personally, i prefer the question "where is this me?".........it seems to better resonate
also, i recall reading that Ramana said, who am I actually means 'whence'.
and given that Ramana encourages us to find the source of the 'I', "where is this me?" seems appropriate.
your thoughts!
Peter
Bhagavan encouraged devotees to do self-enquiry either by asking 'Who am I?' or 'Whence am I?'
'Whence am I?' is not quite the same as 'Where am "I"?' 'Whence am I?' translates as 'What is the place from where the "I" arises?' It is an encouragement to look for, find and abide as the source of the 'I'.
I can't think of any place where Bhagavan said that one of these two approaches ('Who am I?' or 'Whence am I?') was superior to the other.
Well, I was really confused and trying to figure out what Self-inquiry is. Most of what I do, or my attempt at Self-inquiry is not questions. It's a direct peering into the subject, the inquirer, so me looks at me, annihilates me. Concomitantly, I try to treat the manifest life as no more real then a dream. Because if I ask "Who am I?", that kind of naturally leads to who is asking the question. And i think that is the "I" that inquiry is meant to get at, and see that it doesn't exist apart from the Consciousness that gives it birth. 2 things, treating the manifest life as a dream, and peering into the me that is peering into the me that is peering into (laugh). Finding that I that is the witness, the doer. And seeing what that I really is.
It seems like inquiry, the main thing maybe is keeping focus on me. Me looking at me. Because if the me is looking at anything else that me and this arise. But if I looks at I, if I makes I the object, then the duality is merged. I was even wondering if that is why it is called the Self, or That, in I am That. Because it's making the self into that. Subject/object is self and that. me looking at something, thinking about something, contemplating something. But if I make that me, the witness the object of contemplation, or attention. It annhilates itself into the One without a Second. Then the false thinker cannot really survive. Papaji was saying the same thing I think when I was watching Call off the search, he was describing inquiry as mirroring the self back on itself. Any thought, any identity, anything is an object arising, which is creating separation. I cannot repress it, or if I do repress it, it will come back. The only way to stop the process is to turn it back on itself the witness looking at the witness. The thinker looking at the thinker. The person looking at the person. And it seems just keeping my attention on this, false identities, delusions dissapear. Then... as Maharshi was saying it seems like there gets to be increasing power to do this. The tendencies are weakened??? It becomes more obvious.
This is really good footage of Krishnamurti when he was younger...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuRH9dl6LU4
this resonates very strongly with Maharshi's teachings.
I get the gist of those quotes, nonetheless I think I'm excited sometimes by who is a jnani, for the reason of excitement that the teachings are being expressed in some phenomenon. I had early noticed similarities between U.S. President Aberham Lincoln as perhaps a sadguru. I was perusing the wikipedia page and came on this tidbit about him that I found interesting in light of Maharshi's teachings, and I think validates my suspicions that Lincoln was a jnani.
"Even as a child, Lincoln largely rejected organized religion, but the Calvinistic "doctrine of necessity" would remain a factor throughout his life. In 1846 Lincoln described the effect of this doctrine as "that the human mind is impelled to action, or held in rest by some power, over which the mind itself has no control."[200] In April 1864, in justifying his actions regarding Emancipation, Lincoln wrote, "I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me. Now, at the end of three years struggle the nation's condition is not what either party, or any man devised, or expected. God alone can claim it."
This is very reminiscent of Who am I? by maharshi.
I think one of the pitfalls of inquiry, that I only rcently have passed. One of the reasons, I wasn't donig it so much was because I couldn't figure out how, or what it meant. And even when people said keep attention on the 'I', I didn't know what they meant, or I would look at some imagined I, or self residing in the body. But really, keeping attention on I is what I said earlier I think. If there's a subject, there has to be an object, meaning this powerful force will be directed out toward imagination, thinking, people, perception. It can be redirected to something conceptual, there can different meditations, concentrations on different things that are conceptual or the breath. But it will still return to those earlier attachments. (love interests, enemies, etc. )But this powerful force needs an object, even when attempting self-inquiry, the "I" can be something made up to look at, to fool myself that I'm doing inquiry. But what I think it really means, is that this powerful force is turned back on itself and then annihilates what is false, partly because no energy can be given to the false if this powerful force is looking at itself. All those other things including mediations are still 'false objects', implying a 'false subject'. I still don't find this easy, I'm just saying that I think I now have an idea what it means. The seer looks at the seer. That powerful force that grabs on to attachments, when directed onto itself I think is related to the so-called current Maharshi described after his death experience. One thing I keep noticing, is in my attempt at inquiry am I habitually looking at something objective, even subtle and conceptual, or even just repressing the outward tendency which doesn't work. It's giving as an object to this powerful force, the search for itself. It won't work, if anything objective is grabbed onto. So if anything objective is grabbed onto, including conceptions of self, in my case concentration is sometimes mistaken as inquiry. I think maybe a good tactic, is to just give up those objects of attention, and concentrate on peering into the seer. Sometimes when I do this, I actually do feel that very pleasent feeling of the world becoming unreal and dreamlike. One other pitfall of inquiry, is assuming a subject and taking it for granted. I'm me, and I'm attempting inquiry, I've progressed so far, been doing it for so many years. Then it's just a concentrating subject. That subject, that supposed person who inquiry is part of the story. Look at him.
So when maharshi said ask yourself, "to whom did this thought arise?" "to me". "Who am I?" I'm thinking what he was getting at, is what I'm describing, these set of questions are a way of making sure that you are really peering into the seer, and not just some subtle object of concentration, because even then, "Who is concentrating?" But I don't think, I'm guessing, Maharshi meant to stop at asking the question, but to actually look or hold onto that one, once it is found. Because there is that taken for granted false subject of anything, and if I ask "to whom did this thought arise? Or to whom did this experience arise?" If I really ask that question, there is this subtle concept??? that is normally taken for granted, this false "I". And in a way, it's like I'm redirecting that powerful flashlight on to the false I, after asking that question. But the purpose of those questions is to find the false, imagined subject of that experience and redirect the flashlight on to him/her, and in doing so that is the key to realizing that the self was really the Self. What the big Self is, will be revealed if the small self is revealed to be unreal, but if that flashlight is redirected to anything besides the actual false "I", it doesn't work. So that is where the discrimination is important. Even "not this, not this". And in Who am I? it even starts with not this, not this, and what am I? That Awareness that alone remains.
Friends,
In a beautiful poem,Sri Subramanya Bharati, one of The Great Tamil Poets wonders:
"Nirpadhuve nadappadhuve parappadhuve
NeengaL ellam soppanam thaano
Pala thotRa mayakkangaLo
KaRpadhuve ketpadhuve karudhuvadhe
NeengaL ellam ardhamaiyaigaLo
ummuL aazhndha poruLillaiyo"
'Oh all Ye That Stand,walk and Fly,
Are you Just Dreams!
Appearances as many,Illusions?
AllYethatLearneth,Heareth,Thinketh!
Are you just senseless delusions?
Have Ye no deep meaning(Substance)in you?
Homely Sky,Morning Sun,leaning Tree
Are you all just mirages,
Mere Optical illusions!
Since All That is past,Like unto Dream-
Broken Destroyed and Gone!
Am I also a Dream?Is This World just a deception?
...On it goes where the Poet wonders if Time and Space,Objects and Their Qualities are also only deceptions.
In kindling this wonder,he gives us the meaning of Maya like no other philosopher can.As Sri Ramakrishna so beautifully said-'The Magician alone is real and not his Magic!'
Yet the Magic is also there as otherwise the Magician will not be a Magician!
-----------------------------------
It is indeed very difficult to translate the Beauty of the Mahakavi's poetry into any other language.For those interested,I understand that a video clip from the Film 'Bharati' is available-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipkLxvFhKYw
I was just thinking about, how I think I've figured out the essence of inquiry. It being tracing inward to the me that is being taken for granted as hte person, and keep tracaing into that, because the objective experience requires that, both the individual nad objective experience vanish if the I is held, myself the person is held, and then there is grace. The difficulties I have sometimes still, is wanting this objective experience to be real and enduring.
Friends,
An Excerpt from Swami Siddheswarananda's article in the Golden Jubilee Souveneir:
"The philosophical outlook of Maharshi tends very often
to be confused with that of solipsism or its Indian equivalent,
drishti-srishti-vada, which is a sort of degenerated idealism. That
Maharshi never subscribes to that view can be known if we
study his works in the light of orthodox Vedanta or observe his
behaviour in life. When he says that it is the mind that has
projected this universe, the term ‘mind’ should be understood
in the Vedantic sense in which it is used. Unfortunately I have
no books by Maharshi or works on him with me here for
reference as all of them have disappeared when our library was
looted during German occupation. What I write has necessarily
to depend on my memory-impressions. The term ‘mind’ is also
used by Sankara and Gaudapada in a wider sense than we are
accustomed to use it in, as an antahkarana vritti. In certain
places in the bhashyas of Sankara and the Karikas, the pure
‘mind’ is equated with Atman. For example, let us take verse
170 in Viveka Chudamani: “In dream when there is no actual
contact with the external world the mind alone creates the whole
universe consisting of the enjoyer, the objects etc. And similarly
in the waking state also there is no difference. Therefore, all
this phenomenal universe is the projection of mind.”
If the ‘mind’ used here is taken as identical with antahkarana
vritti, Vedanta will necessarily be classed as solipsism! To
understand the larger sense in which ‘mind’ is used in many
such contexts we have to read the Mandukya karika. For
example, take verse 29 in Ch. III.
“As in dream the mind acts through Maya presenting the
appearance of duality, so also in the waking state the mind acts
through Maya presenting the appearance of duality.”
-----------------------------------
The Swami was in France when he contributed this article-the distinction between Solipsism and Vedanta that he points out is an important one and I have not encountered it in any other writing on Sri Bhagavan.
I request David to qualify/add to this.
Namaskar.
David
Another thing I've noticed. Today, I was really serious about my inquiry. Really serious. Dissolving by peering into any notion that I am individual person. Not doing anything besides that, besides things that need to get done like studying, doing my best. What I've noticed, and I don't understand, but probably related to the fact that the world is a mental creation of the self, is that the world will create the thing you most desire, or most fear and put it in front of you to distract from the inquiry. Swami Ramanagiri I remember mentioned that. Desires, friends, and worldly troubles, but maybe the mind when it reasserts itself, it actually reasserts itself in a phenomenal visceral way. So no matter what is seen, keep attention on "I". And when I say keep attention on "I", I mean keep attention on the feeling of individuality, treat the world immediately as unreal, dream-like and focus on where that sense of individuality is manifesting itself. Why to do this? The reason my focus has become more progressively on the inquiry is because everything from harmonious action to happiness and contentment, the things I've wanted, to even the Supreme happiness, lie in one direction, focusing on "I". I have discovered sometimes repeatedly is that there is no good anywhere else.
Although I am sometimes prone to delusions of grandeur, since I was a kid I would sometimes imagine myself as people I admired. I would say in the last few years, sometimes I imagine myself as Papaji. I really admire him on lots of levels. Well, anyway, despite that, I really attempt inquiry not out of a liking for it particularly, or that I want to become enlightened really. I sometimes get those delusions of grandeur of becoming a jnani, though that is different then actually 'becoming' one which is almost in the opposite direction. But the point I'm making here, is that the force driving me onward in inquiry is purely survival. It is life or death. Life is inquiry, and death is not inquiring. And for me, I mean that on all levels. I haven't found myself permanently free of desires, but even in the realm of desires whether for personal relationships, or institutional success, without inquiry, I wouldn't have any success at those things. So even when I do desire, the only way to fulfill my desires really, is to get rid of myself. To inquire into myself. But then also just to be fearless and happy and blissful and confident, I need to inquire so the flawed ego dissapears. Fear of death, again, inquiry is necessary to overcome, otherwise I'm afraid of things going wrong, death, alienation. Different phenomenal based fears. So even for that, I need to inquire. There just is not a good reason for me not to inquire. While I may have some disabilities in some ways, I would think that what I'm articulating really applies to everyone, and the only reason that some people may not see it that way is a tamasic dullness that veils this obvious truth. Even when I was looking on mathrusrisarada.org, both her and Lakshmana Swami advised complete bramacharya, celibacy, not thinking about sex. Which in a secular culture, some people may view as prudish, conservative. But even from a socially liberal perspective and I am, I noticed that Mathru Sri Sarada said something I can't remember about basically the heroic romance is egoless. So really, the culprit is the thinking about sex, obsessing about sex, which doesn't even help in those matters, romance. My point here, is that there really doesn't seem to be any at all good excuse to put off or avoid earnest spiritual practice. It is the way to live a good life. Jnanis just live perfect lives for they've transcended lives.
I didn't know it before Nome told me in an e-mail, and I don't know many places where Bhagavan talks about it. But that the True, Good and Beautiful is the Self. Satyam-Sivam-Sundaram. So what is really cherished, both internally and externally, it is the Self. And I do think the more one earnestly inquires the better things will get internally and externally even though both may not be real. In inquiry, I'm going to the source of every kind of good, true and beautiful experience.
Hi,
Sometime back, while browsing in a bookshop, I came across a book of UG Krishnamurthi's quotes (sorry, I don't remember the title of the book). One of the quotes struck me because it seemed to be almost as if Sri Ramana would have made the same remark.
The quote was "Every time a thought is born, you are born".
Thought I would share it with all of you.
Thank you,
shiv
P.S - Hope I am not violating any copyright rules by posting the quote. Are there any rules regarding this ?
Friends,
I wish to share this treasure trove I chanced to come upon!Someone is lovingly translating all the complete talks of The Sage of Kanchi-Devivathin Kural(Voice of God).It is available here:
http://advaitham.blogspot.com/2008/09/deivathin-kural-20-of-vol-2-of-21-aug.html
In this page,The Subject matter is-"'Adwaitamo Dwaitamo? -- Aduvum Parasakthi Vasame ~!' i.e., 'Adwaitam or Whatever, That's All Hers ~!'"
-----------------------------------
Those of us who are interested in Traditional Advaita vedanta will find the talks of the Sage(one of the spiritual Giants who was a contemporary of Sri Bhagavan)absolutely absorbing and invaluable.
Namaskar.
Ravi
There are many interesting points in the extract you quoted from Swami Siddheswarananda's article. I will marshal my thoughts on the matter, collect some supporting quotes from Bhagavan, and make it the subject of my next post. It might take a few days to appear since nowadays I send my new posts to a friend to be proof-read before I put them in the public domain.
.
Do you know this book of him, Ravi:
The Metaphysical Intuition: Seeing God With Open Eyes by Swami Siddheswarananda. Translated by André van den Brink
.
PART 1 of post
THE METAPHYSICAL INTUITION Seeing God with Open Eyes Commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita
Swami Siddheswarananda
Translated by André van den Brink
Included in this book, co-published with Arunachala Press, are notes on the Mandukya Upanishad of which an excerpt is reprinted below with permission of the publisher:
The Mandukya Upanishad is the only Upanishad that is purely metaphysical. It teaches the Ajata Vada, the way of the non-born, of noncausality. For that reason it is sometimes called Karika Vedanta -- this is contrary to the classical Vedanta -- after the famous commentary (karika) on this Upanishad by Gaudapada, the guru of the guru of Shankaracharya. Shankara himself has only commented upon the Mandukya Upanishad and on the karika of Gaudapada.
In the metaphysics of Vedanta a distinction is made between (1) the reality (tattva), that which does not change and which persists through all of our experiences, and (2) truth (mata), of which, according to the the Vedanta, there may be any number. Swami Vivekananda explains this with the example of the sun.
Somebody is travelling towards the sun and at each stage he takes a picture. The images are all different, but nobody will deny that they all show the same sun. The reality always stays the same, whereas the truths, although all true at their own particular level, are relative. As such the other is as much entitled to have a place for his standpoint as we do by occuying a place with our own standpoint.
The Mandukya Upanishad is a philosophy of the totality (sarvam) of existence, which is not the same as the sum total of a number of separate entities or data added together. It seeks the knowledge (jnana) of that totality, which endeavours to solve the greatest problem of philosophy, namely the contradiction between life and death.
The reality is the totality of existence which is showing itself under two aspects: (a) the manifested aspect (vyakta), and (b) the nonmanifested aspect (avyakta). The aim of the Mandukya Upanishad is to prove that, irrespective of the level of existence at which one may find oneself, it is only the one reality which is (sat). Nevertheless, from the standpoint of the practice of spirituality (sadhana), the waking state is of superior value to us.
Non-dualism
The dialectics of the Vedanta, such as used by Shankara, does not serve to establish non-dualism (advaita) as a position. A dialectic which seeks to establish a position is, in fact, propaganda. We just cannot establish non-dualism as a position within temporality, because within the relativity of the temporal everything is constantly subject to change. If, by means of dialectics, you are establishing a position, then such a position is destined to be refuted again in the course of time. The dialectics of the Vedanta merely serves to destroy our ignorance (avidya) and negation (ajnana) regarding the non-dual nature of the one reality.
So non-dualism is not a philosophical system, but a metaphysical intuition. Each explanation or description of the reality is only voiced by the language of defeat, for here we stand before a wall... In every explanation there is a deceiver and a deceived! Sri Ramakrishna used to say that only Brahman, the absolute, cannot be sullied by the tongue.
Since advaita is not a thesis, it never takes up a position. As in Zen Buddhism, it expresses itself through silence or through paradox. We are unable to establish a dialectics of the absolute. However, through knowledge (jnana) we are able to realize the one reality as non-duality. In order to do so we have to arouse within ourselves the power of the buddhi (the faculty of metaphysical discrimination) by means of spiritual practices (sadhana). The realisation to be attained should (a) be free from contradictions, (b) be self-evident, and (c) be universal, not being subject to the limitations of time and space.
.
.
PART II of post:
As there is only one reality, it must to non-dual by nature, and in this non-duality absolutely no relations are possible. That is why the Mandukya Upanishad speaks of Asparsha Yoga, the yoga of no-contact, of no-relation. This is in contrast to our everyday life, which consists of relations and rapport only. The problems in the life of an individual are always relational problems. It is only through relations and rapport that we can have (relative) knowledge, normally speaking. Therefore you may keep this as keystone for the study of the Mandukya Upanishad, that everything is relations, everything is rapport.
.
David/Ramos/Friends,
Swami Siddheswarananda was a student of Subramanaya Iyer (who also taught Paul Brunton who subsequently wrote the Book-The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga).The Swami did not agree with his teacher(Iyer considered Sri Bhagavan as a Mystic and not a Jnani!Quite similiar to Swami Dayananda)and was a Devotee of Sri Bhagavan.
Ramos,I have not come across the Book that you have referred to-Siddheswarananda was definitely a brilliant exponent of Vedanta.You may read some of the excerpts of his writings on The Gita-Pl visit:
http://living.oneindia.in/yoga-spirituality/ramakrishna-paramahamsa/2009/bhagavad-gita-message-brahman-maya-100209.html
Namaskar.
I'm still really excited that I think I've figured out what Self-inquiry is. And now that I've figured it out, how easy it is. Let the body go, treat the world as a dream, and turn the light of Consciousness on itself. It's very much like a mirror. When I look in a mirror, I'm looking at my face. So a mirror is self-inquiry with body identification (laugh). So I think looking at my body in the mirror, light reflection is looking at myself. But with actual Self-inquiry the same principle applies, except the me that I'm looking at is the very sense of self, but it's the self that is considered to be me. So I 'look' at it, and it almost metaphorically seems like a circuit. It also seems like when I was in Nome's presence, this Self-inquiry, this mirroring of self onto self happened naturally, effortlessly, I didn't need to do anything, but I'm realizing the same thing, grace of the sage, is accomplished by turning the light of awareness on myself, wherever and whatever myself is considered to be. If I do this, the sense that that self is a person, an individual, an entity, a being, vanishes, and there gets to be this encompassing sense of peace. Now what I've noticed is that if I do this intensely for a little bit, maybe sitting at a cafe, is that sometimes if I'm interacting with someone, it happens in this really natural, unself-conscious way, where there is a sense of non-doership. Or the sense of doership doesn't arise. Everything is pleasent and happy. Worries dissolve. I also experience something visually, and this happened when I was in Nome's presence, without any effort on my part. But there is a sense of like a shift, and I don't know if I can explain it, it happened when looking at Nome in satsang. There was something about Mercedes de Acosta's account of being with Maharshi sounded similar. She called it spiritual shocks. But it's more that the dream-like awareness of the world becomes apparent. Interestingly, in a hallucenatory way, Nome seemed in control of it, I would see him gesture with his eyes closed and I would experience this spontaneous 'shift'. I think it's because the sage really is bodiless. So are we. But i think this visual appearance, someone else may not see Nome make the gesture. It's in my mind, because the sage as a person is in my mind. The sage is the entirety of my reality, not a body that is sitting before me. Literally. But I am That too. And I realize that by mirroring with the light of Consciousness looking at myself in the real mirror, not the apparent waking dream mirror. In a way the visual shift, is like I shift out of the world being an objectified, solid thing, it's like I move over a little and see that it is silver in mother of pearl.
Interestingly on Facebook, Sri Ramana Seva Ashram offered me friendship as my 200th friendship. And the blog they have is beautiful. While I agree with Maharshi that progress is not to determine who is and who isn't a jnani. There is something about this blog that really bespeaks that what is going on there is pure jnana.
http://sriramanasevaashram.blogspot.com/
.
Thank you, Ravi, I have bookmarked this article you refered to.
May I ask you all here what in your eyes (or in english language) is exactly the difference between a mystic and a jnani?
I use this word mystic in german to express a transcendental knowledge of the nature of reality.
.
I have been to Swami Dayananda's lectures and I do admire him for his vedantic knowledge. He is a great scholar but thats all.
For Dayananda to judge Ramana Maharshi for not being a vedantic scholar so therefore unenlightened
is just laughable.
Swami Chinmayananda was en erudite,
scholar and a great orator but still understood the greatness of Ramana Maharshi who was of course in a class of his own.
A spiritual Hercules amongst men.
Ramos,
By 'Mystic' Iyer refers to Yogi who leans on 'subjective' experience;By a Gnani he means one who unifies the subjective and objective experience as Brahman.
Here are a few Excerpts from Lights on Advaita:
Selected Teachings of V. Subrahmanya Iyer(By Paul Brunton):
"(47.47) When a man says that he has seen his internal self, he is still a yogi, but when he
says that he has seen the Universe in himself, he has become a knower of Truth--a
sage--a gnani.
(47.48) This waking world is also real if you know it is Brahman. A Gnani who cannot
see the material world as Brahman (and therefore real) is no gnani.
(47.50) The removal of the I is not enough to realize Brahman. It happens in sleep, for
instance. There must also be the knowledge that everything is your self. The mystic may
make some claim. So a test is to be applied. Test is, is he doing anything for others?
(47.51) The gnani rejects nothing, for it would mean to him giving up part of Brahman,
which in meaningless. The absence of anything, even the world, is not Gnanam. Hence
Gnani does not have to give up anything in the worlds within or without, neither objects
or ideas."
-----------------------------------
continued....
Ramos/Friends,
...Lights on Advaita...continued...
"(49.20) The idea that Gnanam means the absence of everything, so as to make One
without second, is a false idea. That is mere sleep, Gnanam means that he sees all objects
and creatures and yet at the same time sees they are all One. Hence gnanam is not
absence of everything, but the presence of everything. When you see many things you
must also see Oneness. This is the paradox of Gnana. It is difficult. Every fool can see the
world, but he cannot see its Oneness. It is not Gnanam if you do not see it now and in the
waking state. There are then no doubts. Hence after perfection in Samadhi, the yogi must
begin inquiry. After a time he may finish his inquiry and reach Gnanam.
(49.21) Our philosophical teaching is not that unity exists in multiplicity but that unity
alone is. Multiplicity does not exist.
(49.22) You must see your body, all other bodies, everything as ideas which you know as
self. This is realization. It can come only after you know the Seen is not separate from the
Seer.
(49.23) Similarly the world now is Brahman, just as the waves are even now made of
water in the ocean--when things appear they are Brahman, when they disappear they are
Brahman. There is really nothing new, nothing born, everything ultimately is Brahman
and not different from it. Just as in dream, the persons, mountains, colors forms, actions
were all mind, and nothing else, so all that you see in this world, whether beautiful, or
ugly is Atman or Brahman.
(49.24) ''Illusion" means that it does not affect the reality. The snake illusion does not
affect or change the rope. You have not become a man, you are what you always were,
eternal Brahman."
-----------------------------------
I found the following very interesting view on the Gnani seeking to be born!
Continued...
Ramos/Friends,
...Lights on Advaita continued...
"(47.63) PANCHADASI. "In the performance of actions or in the abstention from them
there is not the slightest difference, as regards body, senses, mind and intellect between
an ignorant man and the wise man…the difference between them lies in the existence of
doubt in the former (ignorant) and the destruction of it in the latter (the wise.)"
(47.64) When the time of death approaches for a gnani he expresses the will to return to
earth again and be reborn. Now he has achieved liberation from all his Karma. Why then
should he take on the old bondage of the human body again. Answer: Because he realizes
his unity with all mankind, he considers their welfare as his own. Therefore when that
further incarnation comes to a close he will again express his determination to be reborn a
second time. This process will go on ad infinitum, with the result that the gnani is born
again and dying again just like all other human beings. So from the external viewpoint he
is to share the same joys and sorrows as all unenlightened men for countless number of
incarnations despite the fact that he has achieved Nirvana. The definition usually given
by Pundits and yogis in India of the word Moksha as meaning liberation from the cycle of
transmigration pertains to the lower or purely religious sphere. This doctrine is on the
lower level because it is based on the reality of the ego. The Vedantic interpretation of
the word is "liberation from ignorance." Similarly the word Nirvana is interpreted in
Buddhist countries as meaning release from the cycle of births and deaths. This too is the
popular interpretation, not philosophical which is precisely the same as the Vedantic. It is
quite true that Buddha constantly taught that man should seek release from
transmigratory existence but we must remember however that what the sage knows is
known only to himself in its fullness and that he gives out to the public only so much as
they could grasp and no more.
Of course, the gnani will have a different attitude towards his pleasures and pains
from that of the ordinary man by reason of his refusal to identify himself with the body.
Thus Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda expressed the desire to be born again and
again for the salvation of the humanity. Buddha too has told of numerous previous births
wherein he descended to help mankind. Thus the startling fact must now emerge that all
the sages in the history of mankind who had ever attained Truth, Moksha or Nirvana by
virtue of such attainment have identified themselves with the whole of mankind and its
sufferings and have therefore, all without a single exception willed to return to earth in
constantly repeated births and deaths. This they have done without any necessity or
compulsion upon their part, but solely in order to serve others because of their feeling of
unity with them and pity for their sufferings. This does not mean that all the sages of
history are at the present moment living on this earth because they need not necessarily
be reborn immediately after each death. They may need a period of rest and recuperation
after each incarnation and therefore some may be on earth, and others not, but the latter
will surely be reborn later."
-----------------------------------
We may recall what Sri Bhagavan said about Kailasa-how there also a Sadhu will be sitting and others sitting around him,etc-Ravi.
....Continued....
Ramos/Friends,
'Lights on Advaita;Selected teachings of V Subrahmanya Iyer' is available as a download:
http://wisdomsgoldenrod.org/publications/
Perhaps the following Excerpt reveals why Iyer considered Sri Bhagavan as a 'Mystic':
"(1.90) What is the first thing that a man sees? It is the world. The mystic and religionist
disregard this in order to think of self.
(1.91) If you don't see objects, it does not mean you have Gnana. Whoever looks at
objects alone, at the external world, he is wholly ignorant. But he who looks at both the
outside and inside, inquires; he is led towards knowledge.
(1.92) Those mystics who ask "Who am I?" may succeed in finding the common factor in
all ‘I’s, the I-ness but they have to come back afterwards to the world. Their task is
incomplete. They do not know the world is Brahman.
(1.93) It is a defect to make "What Am l?" a philosophic interrogation. It is not. The
stages are: scientific: What is the world? Mystic: What am I? philosophic: What is the
whole. For philosophy puts both the world and the ‘I’ together after having examined
each separately; it is interested in the whole of life, not a part. The world is only a part
just as the ‘I’ is a part.
(1.94) The “Who am I? formula is useful as a first stage to show the illusoriness of ego
and thus help seeker to get rid of it. This prepares him to consider the higher question:
What is the world, the truth about which cannot be learnt by those attached to their ego,
with its prejudices against idealism, etc."
-----------------------------------
Understanding this viewpoint helps to understand Sri Bhagavan better-Especially his admonition that Advaita should be in 'Bhava' and Dvaita in the Empirical world.This part of the Teaching of Sri Bhagavan is less emphasised-His Life exemplified this aspect as Swami Siddheswarananda rightly mentions in that excerpt that i have posted earlier.I eagerly await David's article.Thanks David.
Namaskar.
Friends,
I find that all the posts that I have posted are appearing as being posted from my wife's google account!Sorry for that confusion.I should have signed her off before posting!
Namaskar.
David and friends, Who was the mysterious Satyamangalam Venkatraman Iyer? When did he come and what did he compose in praise of Ramana Maharshi?
I can't find any information about him.
I've wondered about some of those things brought up. The thing that in Reincarnating Jnanis and the quotes in it that makes sense is that if I realize the Self, then I have questioned my mind, my ego, my individuality out of existence. So there would no longer be even this incarnation really, experientially. Because it is based on the duality of my mind. I don't know what the final experience of Gnana is. And it seems like in some paradoxical way, yes the jnani experiences the world in a way that cannot be described, infact experiences it more fully not less fully, without delusion. As my teacher said (paraphrasing), "It's not that the jnani does not see the world, it's that the jnani sees that there is no world". While I agree that the Vedantic teachings of sages, it makes sense that it is for our egos to realize their non-existence. The actual experience of being free of the ego cannot truly be described. And the things brought up there, are why I don't doubt the possibility that from an onlookers perspective a jnani could reincarnate. In that, that sage, except even that doesn't make sense, because all sages realize as mentioned that they are not incarnations. So any given sage is not really a person. They are all Reality. And if Reality doesn't reincarnate then neither do sages. It does make sense to me, that in inquiring and realizing the Self, I'm not giving up something important or substantial. I'm giving up illusion. The mind is an illusion. So, the important part of what I'm already experiencing, seen or seer, would be the same. The only part I would give up is the imaginary, changeful part. But there are aspects of this, that seem like good points. Because when I first read these teachings. I kind of imagined that the sage is in some worldless stupor like deep sleep while the body is functioning. Like sleep walking. But then it became apparent that this is not the case. The jnani is more awake, more aware, or entirely aware, sees Oneness so much that there is only Oneness and not the differentiated any longer. In that state, even trying to imagine it, it becomes pretty clear that the sage as body is only for onlookers.
.
Thank you, Ravi/Hema, that was very clear.
And Iyer regarded Ramana as a pure "Who am I" questioner (as I understood so far)? This is a quite astonishing misunderstanding.
.
Earlier this evening, I focused on I so intensely that something happened where the intensity became effortless. And it was very pleasent. I thought I was maybe on the verge of Realizing the Self, or samadhi or something. I could do that all the time. The only thing that keeps me from doing it, is a belief that I need my mind to function, which probably is not true, the mind actually gets in the way. Because with ego running havoc, I have preference, I want to rest rather than to work. I want to sleep. I'm depressed or anxious and need to seperate myself from situations. If I was focused on I, the inquiry all the time intensely, I wouldn't have these needs, and I could go from task to task that needs to get done like mentioned in the Ashtavakra gita. So that is probably an excuse. It's a tamasic haze that is addictive or something. There is nothing stopping me from keeping my focus intensely on I. So in that sense perhaps Maharshi was a pure Who am I? questioner since that is maybe what Maharshi meant by Who am I?, and in his death experience didn't the I hold his fascination. I still have to distinguish for myself between concentration and inquiry, I'll find myself concentrating but not inquiring. Inquiring, as I do it now, is focusing on the self. It arises in thoughts. When there is a thought, there is an identity, I shift to the identity and hold that identity which is the ego-self. But there is an ego-self holding so I focus on that, and get more and more interior and if I can just hold the primal sense of self, with full and powerful intensity. No matter what else...
One morning
the fox came down the hill
and didn't see me.
And I thought to myself,
so this is the world,
. . . I'm not in it
Mary Oliver
Friends,
The Talks of the Sage of Kanchi-compiled as advaita Sadhana is available as a download:
http://www.advaita.org.uk/discourses/downloads/sadhana.pdf
This is indispensable for all aspirants.
Namaskar.
Something has occurred to me recently, a potential 'conflict' in my practice.
Bhagavan taught us to inquire as to who is thinking a particular thought, who is doing a particular thing, so as to direct the mind inward toward itself, toward the 'I', and then to seek the source of the 'I . At the same time, he taught that 'I am the doer' is a false statement and that to become realized in the Self one must give up the notion of I am the doer.
So, on the one hand, during self-enquiry I may be asking myself who is doing or thinking a particular thing, and I acknowledge to myself that it is I. On the other hand, I must give up the idea that I am the doer at all.
The conflict I feel about this is not huge, but I am aware of it nonetheless.
Self-enquiry is a process, using words and effort and inner focus to help quieten the mind and to help one realize one's true nature. The 'I am the doer' notion is a way of thinking about oneself that must be abandoned in order to achieve realization. There doesn't have to be a conflict between this process and this idea, but sometimes I do feel it.
Any thoughts from anyone about this?
KISS
In many cases the principle of KISS (Keep it simple stupid) for worldy affairs and concepts works very good. Making things complicated will only confuse all parties.
The very same approach applies also for spiritual developments. How many books and printed matters have been written on SRI Bhagavan . . . and it is getting more, day by day.I wonder what he would say about all that.
Why not sticking to the simple things: just stop arguing, stop the input, breath in and out and unplug your computers for a time - say a year or so.
After that period, either the dragon had swallowed you or you swallowed the dragon.
Try it out.
@ Jupes. One thing that has helped me with that, and by no means have I finished my practice. One thing that has helped with that is it seems to me that the point of inquiry, it is me looking at myself, because there is no other. "I am the doer" in my experinece is not a notion or idea in terms of a thought. i never think about being the doer. There is just this sense that it is my responsibility to go somewhere and do something, or not go somewhere and do something. (If the I is present, there is no way to convince myself I am not the doer, The individual I, implies doership, and the only way to transcend doership is to inquire into the I. If individual I is running rampant, even if I cease to do, it is still me doing it) I think it seems to me that all these surrounding or auxillary ideas like about doership, or being the body only make sense if I am looking for the primal sense of I, the I that is looking for itself. I'm looking for the sense that I'm a person to hold that notion so that it will annihilate itself. For if I'm looking at the notion that "I" am an individual, the feeling that there are two of us becomes ridiculous. Maybe in a sense Maharshi points these things out, so that our focus is entirely on I. That we don't need to worry about the world (it is unreal). We don't need to worry abotu taking care of things (they will take care of themselves), a providence moves all bodies. This frees us up to focus totally on the I. Now, the I is tricky. What is the I? I have relaly grappled with that. The I, is not a mental image, infact it is not something that can be grasped. There is the sense that I am a person, look and see if that is true. Look at it. That seems to be what Who am I? is pointing at. I could ask Who am I? until I'm blue in the face and progress would be slow, but as soon as I ask Who am I? the focus is turned on vaporous sense of me, then I keep my attention or focus on that. But it's not exactly attention, because if there is attention, there is one directing it, and that one who can direct attention, that one who is seperate from itself, is the one we are trying to get at, probe into, locate. So it seems to me the problem you are encountering, and I have encountered is leaving duality intact. The attention should go to the one who is trying to figure that out, the one who sees the conflict, there is the I.
@ Jupes, the relevent analogy is that the I is the stick used to stir the burning funeral pyre. So the I, my sense of individual self is used to annihilate itself by looking at itself. That's my interpretation. So by all means that should be done.
Friends,
To the Earnest soul,the whole world is Guru.
" From Pachiamma and Kittu I learned that poverty means simplicity not misery, and nakedness and vulnerability are neither shameful nor do they rob one of dignity. When my friends rejoiced, they did so openly, completely, unselfconsciously, and when they suffered, they suffered utterly, to the bone, and unselfconsciously. And thus the suffering passed and they came out on the other side renewed, purified and very much alive, with their sense of Divine intimacy not merely unimpaired but strengthened. And for this -- and so much more -- they were my teachers no less than Lakshmana Swami and Sarada, Annamalai Swami and Yogi Ramsurat Kumar."
I came across this beautiful article-Please visit:http://www.among-friends.ca/spiritual-essays/arunachala.htm
Namaskar.
Jupes,
I am not sure, if I understand the "conflict". Are you saying that while we need to give up the notion of doership, in enquiry we are the ones that "does" enquiry? Is it here that you find contradiction?
BTW, I feel enquiry as something beyond words, thought as against your definition as "Self-enquiry is a process, using words and effort and inner focus to help quieten the mind and to help one realize one's true nature". I feel so because The "I" in the "Who am I", I feel, referes to the presence, the body-awareness that we experience. However, it still cannot be cornered to be something apart from thougts and cannot be expressed in words or even thoughts...
Thoughts/discussion around this are welcome.
.
The Talks of the Sage of Kanchi-compiled as advaita Sadhana
Great hint, Ravi. Perhaps my next translation project.
.
.
The very same approach applies also for spiritual developments. How many books and printed matters have been written on SRI Bhagavan . . . and it is getting more, day by day.I wonder what he would say about all that.
Really true. I wonder about why all this discussions are needed at all. Hasn't He explained all the necessary things completely and thouroughly in "Who am I" or "Spiritual Instruction"? Sometimes "self enquiry" seems to develop itself as kind of vasana, isn't it?
We do not need to re-invent the wheel anew. Mind is always wandering around to look for its "prey". Who says anything really new? It's better to sing a song, to say a prayer, to extoll spiritual knowledge.
.
I don't have a problem with discussing thigns about inquiry. The problem I think is that people ar wrong to pretend to be an authority on spirituality when they are not enlightened. If someone talks from a position of authority without having attained egolessness, I think they are incorrect in doing so. But then again, the only person whose sadhana is my business is my own. "Correcting oneself is correcting the world".
LMM & Anonymous, thanks for your feedback on my comment.
Anon, you asked, 'Are you saying that while we need to give up the notion of doership, in enquiry we are the ones that "does" enquiry?' Yes, this is where I notice a contradiction, in the very outer sense of these two things. I agree with you that enquiry is something that is beyond words, but I would also say that Bhagavan gave us tools to use in enquiry, and those tools include words. So I cannot deny the role that words play in the process, in helping one get to the heart of it. Maybe words are best used as 'back-up', when 'going there' directly is just not happening, due to an over-abundance of thoughts or a foggy mind.
LMM, you may have hit the nail on the head when you said, 'So it seems to me the problem you are encountering, and I have encountered is leaving duality intact. The attention should go to the one who is trying to figure that out, the one who sees the conflict, there is the I.'
Clemens, you said:
We do not need to re-invent the wheel anew. Mind is always wandering around to look for its "prey". Who says anything really new? It's better to sing a song, to say a prayer, to extoll spiritual knowledge.
I disagree with you on this one. I think that each of us is, in a sense, reinventing the wheel as we learn individually what it is to 'do', to 'be', to 'practice' self-enquiry. It doesn't matter how many times I might read Who Am I? or Spiritual Instruction. These are books, and even though they are Ramana's books, a book will never replace the value of personal experience and hardcore practice.
Also, it is important, at least for me, to be able to articulate the teachings and to express what I have learned, even if it sounds very much like what the next person says. Each of us is creeping along at our own pace, and it seems important that space be given for discussions that arise from that creeping.
In the field of psychology, our constant 'patching' of identity is
called by a special word, "compensation". The event of
"decompensation" is defined as 'psychosis'. Loss of identity is thus
defined in our (western) cultures as _insanity_. Yet, here in the
NDS, we are determined to jettison identity, for the event of
realization of a 'larger, common 'SELF'. It is no surprise that all
of the 'spiritual traditions' advocate some form of this
'conversion', usually defined as 'God-Realization' or something
similar.
I will point out that the most successful 'religions' are those that
state that 'God is Love', that the Great Spirit creates and nurtures
us all. Sadly, most of those 'religions' also have included special
_criteria_ by which God's love is parcelled out to individuals, based
upon those persons conformance with such criteria. I direct your
attention to the most basic of criteria, right now; that being, that
submission to Greater Authority is the guarantee of acceptance and
thus love and nurturing BY that Greater Authority.
This is what I think might be footage of such a sage questioner tiger's jaws moment. This happened throughout the recent U.S. summit where the intractable opposition party, Republicans, would dialogue with this perhaps raja rishi. Notice the deer in headlights look in the questioner's eyes. It reminds me of encounters with Papaji.
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/meeting-highlights?video=4
Clemens,
concerning the books on Sri Ramana - I was not quite true. One book is still missing: Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi for Dummies A good opportunity for a competent person to go on with this work.
Scott,
You ask whether I think Obama is a Raja Rishi.I have to say I do not know much about Obama.If I have to go by the video clip where he is asked a pointed question whether going by the current agreement whether a citizen can choose(or not choose) the Doctor he wants ,etc-The way Obama tackles that is the usual way politicians do-by talking a lot and not answering 'Yes' or 'No'.
The Basics of Good communication are -the ABCs-A for Accuracy,B for Brevity,C for Clarity.
-----------------------------------
Namaskar.
Friends,
The January 2010 edition of Prabuddha Bharata is a special edition-Perspectives on Vedanta.I came across the following poem of Swami Ramatirtha(Papaji is the nephew of this cavalier Sage):
"The Soundless sound,the flameless light.
The Darkless dark and wingless flight
The mindless thought,the eyeless sight
The mouthless talk,the handless grasp so tight.
Am I,am I,am I."
Jupes had brought in an interesting point-'Doership' and 'I'.
I do not follow the path of Self Enquiry.I will however share a few thoughts on this:
When we are Breathing Freely,we do not say-'I am Breathing'.When we have a cold and there is an obstruction to breathing,we say-'I am not Breathing properly'.The 'I' and 'Not Breathing' arise together.
In the same manner,when our Body is Healthy,we need not be aware of it.Ditto with Feelings and Thoughts.As long as the flow is free,the 'I' is not there;the moment there is an obstruction to this flow by way of attachment,the 'I' is there.
-----------------------------------
Swami Ramatirtha says:"You are simply to undo what you have already done in the way of forming dark cocoons of desires around you.So Self Realization is mainly a PROCESS of undoing and unlearning!Forgetting what you know yourself to be!Nothing more than that!"
Namaskar.
@Jupes,
Well, the conflict is in a way "right". Since we cannot really resolve this, I feel we need to treat this conflict as a doubt which is basically a distraction from your enquiry and not worth pursuing. This is similar to the feeling of being aware that you are meditating when you meditate. Point is, once you start thinking of yourself as the meditator, you are actually out of meditation; you are distracted; the focus is on the ego, which only feels proud that "I have been successfully meditating" than the object of meditation. Similarly, if we feel "conscious" of doing enquiry, we are out of enquiry. Instead of tracing the source of it, we are just probably bloating it with useless doubts.
Annamalai Swami, in "Living by words of Bhagawan" warns sadhakas that they a subtle ego could develop as we progress in meditation, in the form of pride that one has been making progress and that we need to take care of avoiding it. In this case, its in the form of a doubt than pride.
Any kind of thought is ego in guise of doubt/pride/whatever else. We should just be prudent to not lose our focus.
You could probbaly look out for an answer to this when out of meditation as such; but I feel its not worth it.
Hope this helps.
I just wanted to reiterate that it seems to me the way out of this paradox that I am the inquirer is to inquire (laugh). That was the point, other methods take for granted that there is a meditator. But inquiry is inquiry into the one who is meditating. The way to avoid that duality, is to immediately turn towared the one who seems as if a seperate individual who could be inquiring. It is Self-inquiry, because it is inquiry into the self, so if it seems there is an individual self, who is he/she? The inquirer him/herself is exactly what inquiry is inquiring into. Because in the illusion of maya??? it seems as if there are two selves, but if I look at the self I'm taking myself to be. I think that is is how the One without a second is realized. So the feeling that I am doing inquiry as a conflict with that there is non-doership expressed in the teachings. It is precisely because the I that is inquiring is left un-investigated into. There is still an individual to be inquiring. That is perhaps why Papaji said "do it once and do it properly". I can for a long time do a practice and not actually inquire into the "I". But tell everybody how "I've" been inquiring for 2 years. Who is that one? (laugh). And what I've come to understand is that it's not simply to ask that question but to actually inquire, probe, hold, investigate, look at that I, that sense of me, because if I am looking into the me that is looking, there is nothing else to look at or be aware of. The way I understand it, and it makes sense experientially is that then, the I, the mind, the individuality resolves itself into That! Normally there is the feeling I am this individual, and there are the various things thought about all implied in each thought. As someone here posted, birth takes place with the rising eveyr thought. The inquiry is to keep the focus on the individual so that it resolves itself into That. If it's focused on the I. It's I making itself the object of it's own fancy. Which I think is why Maharhsi says, "are there two selves? One to be aware of the other?" The way to see what he is saying is to actually look at the sense of self.
Anonymous, your comments have indeed helped.... thank you. I think you have put it in proper perspective. This 'conflict' is simply a doubt and therefore a distraction, something to be gone beyond and ignored.
Ravi, you said: When we are Breathing Freely,we do not say-'I am Breathing'.When we have a cold and there is an obstruction to breathing,we say-'I am not Breathing properly'.The 'I' and 'Not Breathing' arise together.
Yes, this is a good analogy of what is happening. The so-called conflict becomes an obstruction to the flow of enquiry and meditation, to' proper breathing', and the I arises to address it, just like any other thought.
My apologies if this has seemed like an insignificant issue to raise. I am not often inspired to write on this blog, but for some reason I was inspired to bring this up. The reasons may have nothing to do with the actual discussion, but it's not my place to question the script that prompted it.
awesome Ramana story.
http://luthar.com/surrender-and-salvation-by-voruganti-krishnayya/
"You ask whether I think Obama is a Raja Rishi.I have to say I do not know much about Obama.If I have to go by the video clip where he is asked a pointed question whether going by the current agreement whether a citizen can choose(or not choose) the Doctor he wants ,etc-The way Obama tackles that is the usual way politicians do-by talking a lot and not answering 'Yes' or 'No'.
The Basics of Good communication are -the ABCs-A for Accuracy,B for Brevity,C for Clarity."
Then I'm picking up on something else. What I notice is that Obama cuts right to the heart of the matter, and not on a superficial intellectual way, but seems to see the dynamic that is going on. One thing in that dialogue that was noteable, is how it completely stopped this Republican in his tracks. This is someone who does comment very negatively about Obama on pundit shows. But in this dialogue, Obama's response completely stopped him, deer in headlights. There is something also I pick up from Obama, that is the feeling I get from darshan. There is something that when he looks into the camera, even on a Youtube video, it has this effect on me, where my mind is silenced to some degree. I do, suspect from my experiences that he is a jnani. But as David Godman has repeatedly quoted. There are no jnanis, only jnana. But maybe there is more excitement about manifestations of jnana in the world. One thing that is noteable however, is that he is a head of state, and how non-chalantly he puts himself on equal level with his quite hateful opposition. Sitting at a table with them. And he seems quite unaffected by the extremely negative ways they've characterized him. Treating them on equal footing with his own party. Equanimity. It's also noticeable that he doesn't act any differently then clips of him when he was a senator. There's no feeling of "I'm more important now". Not only that Obama has expressed in a very beautiful way things that are resonant with Maharshi's teachings and deep spirituality. In a lecture on faith to conservative christians he was talking about seeing the face of God in the face of your enemy. These are highly unusual ways of speaking, I think for a politician. Similar to Marcus Aurelius and Aberham Lincoln. Who knows, maybe King Janaka. When he looks at that camera, I feel i'm shifted out of a more limited view, into an all expansive peace. Something very sahaja samadhi. Even the way he kind of slowly and thoughtfully breaks down the opponents perspective, reminds me of the way Maharshi or Papaji responds to someone. So on a superficial level, yeah different. But the manner of deconstructing the ignorance of the person dialoguing with him, it seems kind of the same to me.
Scott,
The Story in Luthar.com is a wonderful one;someone had mailed me this about a fortnight back.
Jupes,
Please do share whatever you feel inspired to.
Namaskar.
I do want to add, and I don't mean this arrogantly. And obviously who is and who isn't a Jnani is absolutely unimportant for sadhana. Only inquiring into I matters, nothing else. But in my 22nd year, the breakdown I had, I had never read this stuff like Maharshi. I wasn't a spiritual person. I only knew the Buddha's name (laugh). But when I was exposed to Maharshi, it resonated with my experiences that I had since my 22nd year. That may be different than some who got into Maharshi through being spiritual, and him being a famous sage. This relates to the obama thing.
On Obama...this is my feeling on it. Whether others accept it or not, and maybe I could be wrong. Barack Obama is an enlightened jnani, in the exact same way Maharshi was, Brahman itself. But Obama unlike Maharshi is not a spiritual teacher. Ravi, you quote Ramakrishna alot, and others, who like Maharshi was not only a jnani, was a jnani whose prarabdha was to be a spiritual teacher. To answer people's spiritual concerns and questions. That is not the fate of all jnanis. Barack Obama is one whose prarabdha is to be a political leader, and action. So being in his presence I would think would be similar. I don't know what his power to enlighten is. (laugh). But he isn't first and foremost a spiritual teacher. But because of Realization is a sat-guru. And there may be people who come into his presence who are advanced and become Realized from being in his presence. But to the public he is a President, and that's all some can tell about him. Articulate, smart, nice. But it is noticeable in light of this, the thing you maybe are looking for Ravi is beatific quotes like Ramakrishna, or sagely insights like Maharshi. And what i've observed of Obama, and I do experience grace watching him, and him seeming kind of magical and formless. But the things he talks about, is just speaking about the political issues, his actions are being brought to bare on, with simplicity and clarity. And sometimes sagely insights come out, but usually in relation to some other topic. So in this, he was talking to his vehement opposition. And he's considerably disarmed them from an angry lynch mob, to a stubborn opposition in several months. So it seems to me like he is an action jnani, and what he talks about relates to his job, and not spiritual teaching. Kind of renewing the dharma, after an almost fascist, totalitarian, adharmic regime. So more like what Papaji described about Ghandi, the most sattvic man besides Bhagavan he had ever met. That's my feeling about Obama.
@ Jupes. Again I want to stress that I'm really learning that the key to inquiry is to focus on the I. All the other aspects of Maharshi's teachings stem from that, and cannot be taken in an isolated manner. I am teh doer, and I am the body, and I am an individual are all consequences of "I". I can't isolate one of those and cause it to go away. Another thing.... I am really learning I think that inquiry shoudl be as constant as possible. That means always looking at the I-feeling, I-notion. And so that this doesn't become conceptual, realize I-notion is referring to nothing less then the feeling that you are this individual entity person, constantly hold that, keep your attention on that, and nothing else. In Realization, that will be when there is nothing else, that is why it is called the Self. Hold the self until there is only the Self. If anything other than the self is held, then there is still I an that other thing. The only way that duality of me and the other thing can be ended is by looking into me. Me has to look at me. Anything else no matter how subtle or gross, and there is still duality. That was I think Maharshi's point, and why Self-inquiry is the final practice.
Everything else that is a distraction, every other habit, inclination has to be renounced, then look into the me that had those. Even when I say that, I sometimes imagine me as something seperate, somethign conceptual. But it is the most taken for granted thing, look at it, hold it. And that is why I'm finding inquiry is actually easy. Because there is no struggle in it. The struggle is always when there is something else, I'm being attentive to. Keep attention attention on the me that feels they have to inquire for whatever reason. There will never be a time to stop, when Realization occurs there will no longer be one to inquire or one to stop inquiring. The force of looking at I, will become the only thing there is. So more intensity the better.
Friends,
Yesterday evening,we had been to the Kalakshetra,Chennai to witness the Dance Drama - Kannappa Kuravanji-on the Life of Kannappa Nayanar,The Great Hunter Saint-wonderfully and soulfully performed by the Kalakshetra group of Artists.It reminded me once more of what Sri T K Sundaresa Iyer had so beautifully narrated in 'At the Feet of Bhagavan'.I have posted it earlier,but one never tires of recounting these things!
"8. BHAGAVAN TELLS OF
KANNAPPAR THE SAINT
Devotees of Bhagavan Sri Ramana know well that
the one book which radically influenced His inner
life while He was still at school was the Periapuranam in
Tamil, written by the poet-saint Sekkilar. This book
contains the lives of the sixty-three saints of Tamil Nadu
who, by their acts of supreme devotion or merit, won
Siva’s Grace and came to the state whence one never again
returns to worldliness. Bhagavan never made distinction
between bhakti (devotion) or jnana (knowledge), provided
this true State is thereby obtained: “In that state bhakti is
no other than jnana, jnana nothing else but bhakti”; this
is Bhagavan’s experience of them both.
In His perpetual silence, Sri Ramana was looked upon
as Sri Dakshinamurti, and His teachings always emphasised
the Karya-karana (cause-and-effect) aspect. The emphasis
on this aspect was so great that there seemed to be no
room in His teaching for anything but pure reason. People
even used to feel that it was all cold and heartless logic.
But those who have lived with Bhagavan know only too
well that Bhagavan’s heart — a strange term, this; is
Bhagavan different from Heart? — was full of feeling for
suffering humanity. His great disciple, Sri Kavyakanta
Ganapati Muni, used to say that Bhagavan had the light
28 At the Feet of Bhagavan
of the Teacher Sri Adi Sankara, the heart of
Sri Ramanujacharya and the analytical powers of
Sri Madhvacharya. Be that as it may, on several occasions
Bhagavan revealed in His life the aspect of true Bhakti.
Once, on the night after the Karthikai Deepam, the
deities Arunachala and Apithakuchambal were in
procession round the Hill. When the procession came in
front of our Ashram, we offered flower garlands, coconut
and camphor, and after being waved before them, burning
camphor was taken to Bhagavan on His seat in the Old
Hall. The devotees took this camphor, along with the
ash-prasad (vibhuti) of Arunachaleswara, and began to
wave it before Bhagavan. But He exclaimed, “Why all
this? The Son is included in the Father!”
....continued....
Friends,
...At The Feet of Bhagavan....
"Once someone placed the Periapuranam in Tamil
prose in Bhagavan’s hands, and He began reading out of
it. Now Bhagavan was a past master in story-telling, and
he used to tell stories in hundreds. His solo-acting was
ever the admiration of His devotees; His modulation of
voice for different characters, suiting gestures and postures
for each incident, was wonderfully effective. His devotees
never missed a chance of being in the Hall on such
occasions, so as to enjoy and benefit by the recitals.
Bhagavan began to read out the life of Kannappar,
the great devotee saint. He went on reading incidents in
his early life, and how he went to the forest and found
Kudumi Devar, the Sivalinga, his Lord, up the Kalahasti
Hill in the Chitoor district (of Andhra state). Then he
told how Kannappar worshipped the Sivalinga with water
At the Feet of Bhagavan 29
carried in his own mouth, flowers taken from his own
hair, and the well-cooked and tasted beef prepared for his
own meal — knowing no better and having no better to
offer his beloved Lord. The way in which the ordained
priest, Siva Gochariar, resented the intruding defiler of
the sacred Sivalinga was so characteristically brought out
by Bhagavan, with His own explanations of the rites and
the meanings of the mantras used in the worship, that it
enriched the recital greatly to the benefit and admiration
of the devotees.
Then came the scene of scenes, when the Lord in
that Sivalinga tested Kannappar and incidentally revealed
to Siva Gochariar the intensity of the forest hunter’s
worship from a place of hiding. He saw the unexpected
trickling of blood from one of the eyes on that Sivalinga;
he saw Kannappar running to and fro for herbs, and
treating the Lord’s eye with them. Then he saw how,
finding them all useless, Kannappar plucked out one of
his own eyes and applied it to that in the Sivalinga; then,
seeing the treatment was effective, he ran into ecstasies of
joyful dance.
When Bhagavan came to the story of how Kannappar
was plucking out his second eye to heal the second of the
Lord, and of how the Sivalinga extended a hand to stop
him, saying “Stop, Kannappar!” Bhagavan’s voice choked,
His body perspired profusely, His hairs stood on end,
tears gushed out from His eyes; He could hardly utter a
word, and there was silence, pin-drop silence in the Hall.
All were dumbfounded that this great Jnani could be so
30 At the Feet of Bhagavan
overpowered by emotion and ecstasy at the great huntersaint’s
devotion. After a while Sri Bhagavan quietly closed
the book, dried the tears in His eyes with the ends of His
towel, and laid aside the book, saying, “No, I can’t go on
any further.”
Then we could realise the import of His words in
Aksharamanamalai: “Having become silent, if one remains
like a stone, can that be called real silence?” His blossomed
Heart had in it the perfect warmth of devotion, no less
than the supreme light of Knowledge."
-----------------------------------Namaskar
Friends,
In his deeply devotional Hymn Sivananda Lahari,Sri Sankara describes kannappa nayanar as the King of Devotees!(Verse 63):
"Marga varthitha paduka pasupathe rangasya koorchayuthe,
Gandoo shampoo nishechanam pura ripo divyabhishekaa yathe,
Kinchid bhakshitha maams sesha kabalam navyopaharayathe,
Bhakthi kim karoth yaho vana charo bhaktha vatam sayathe. 63
The way faring sandals become the kusa crown of Pasupathi,
The gargled mouthful of water become the holy water of bath ,
To him who destroyed the three cities,
The just tasted pieces of the remaining meat ,
Become the holy offering to the Lord,
And wonder of wonders,the hunter who lives in the forest
Becomes the king of devotees.
What is there in this world that devotion to the Lord cannot do?
(This sloka refers to the devotion shown by Kannappa a hunter
devotee of Lord Shiva.In the forest he used to remove his sandals and place it
on the top of the idol, bring water in his mouth to bathe the idol and offer to the lord
the meat pieces which he found were tasty.)
-----------------------------------
Sivananda Lahari is a work very dear to my late father. He used to carry a small booklet of these verses in his pocket; when travelling in bus on his way to office he used to recite this.
Namaskar.
Friends,
I wish to share these two verses from Sivananda Lahari that my father always delighted in chanting:
(Verse 10)
Narathwam devasthvam naga vana mrugathwam masakhatha,
Pasuthwam keetathwam bhavathu vihagathwadi janananam
Sada twadpadabja smarana paramananda lahari.
Vihaarasaktham che dhugdhaya miha kim thena vapusha. 10
Be it in a human form,
Be it in the form of Gods,
Be it in the form of animal,
That wanders the forests and hills,
Be it in the form of mosquito,
Be it in the form of a domestic animal,
Be it in the form of a worm,
Be it in the form of flying birds,
Or be it in any form whatsoever,
If always the mind is engaged in play,
Of meditation in thine lotus like feet,
Which are the waves of supreme bliss,
Then what does it matter,
Whatever body we have.
verse 12:
Guhayam gehe va bahiapi vane va adri shikaram,.
Jale va vahni va vasathu vasathe kim vada phalam,
Sada yasyai va antha karana mapi sambho thava pade
Sthitham chedyogosau sa cha parama yogi sa cha sukhi. 12
Be it in a cave, Be it in house,
Be it outside, Be it in a forest,
Be it in the top of a mountain,
Be it in water, Be it in fire,
Please tell, What does it matter,
Where he lives?
Always, if his inner mind,
Rests on the feet of Shambhu,
It is Yoga and He is the greatest Yogi
And he will be happy forever.."
-----------------------------------
Namaskar.
Thinking of VanGogh and the Amsterdam
museum
He started out obediently painting darkly
like all the others
Dark earth, dark rooms, brown
pears in a brown bowl
Suddenly he saw sunlight fills the world
and painted everything revealed
More radiantly than sun does.
At last they called him insane when he saw and felt
and painted how ALIVE everything is.
He sent his ear to someone he loved.
I wonder if the message was
"This deafening silence is too beautiful
to miss. Hear it as I do, beloved."
Unknown
Beautiful insight.
LMM Scott: It is inspiring to read your impassioned words relating your experience and deep desire and focus regarding self-enquiry. I definitely hear what you're saying: it is the message we hear again and again in his teachings, enhanced now by the passion and desire you bring to your practice. I will keep these things in mind as I move along in my own practice.
Ravi, so very sweet to read these verses your father used to chant! Beautiful verses, and even more so as I think of your father chanting them.
Friends,
The Great Saint Mannikkavachakar refers to kannappar in his hymn-Hymn X- tiruk kOtthumbi:
There was no love in me like Kannappan's;
when He, my Sire, saw this, me poor
Beyond compare, in grace He made His own;
He spake, and bade me come to Him.
With heavenly grace adorned He shines, and wears
white ashes, and the golden dust !
To Him, - of mercy infinite, - go thou,
AND BREATHE HIS PRAISE, O HUMMING-BEE ! "
-----------------------------------
Namaskar.
Arunachala's Widows
I have never met a person whose greatest need was anything other than real, unconditional love. You can find it in a simple act of kindness toward someone who needs help. There is no mistaking love. You feel it in your heart. It is the common fiber of life, the flame that heats our soul, energizes our spirit and supplies passion to our lives. It is our connection to our lives. It is our connection to God and to each other.
Elizabeth Kübler-Ross
From - http://www.widowsofindia.de/html/english.html
Jupes/Friends,
Yes,to hear a devotee chant a verse is quite different than reading it in print.Appa(Father)was not demonstrative ,however when he used to explain the meanings of these verses he will struggle to get going.
I just came across a fine version of the Full story of Kannappa nayanar and its interesting connection with Arjuna,and the esoteric significance.Rather than give the link to that site,I thought it will be great to share it in this wonderful platform that David has generously offered for devotees.
-----------------------------------
The story begins thus:
Nagan was the king of hunters at Uduppur in Pottapi Nadu. His wife was Tattai.
They were great devotees of Lord Subramanya. By His grace, they had a child,
after a long time. It was very heavy: so, they named him Tinnan.
Tinnanar was Arjuna in the previous birth, according to Tiru Kalahasthi Puranam.
When he went to worship Siva, to get Pasupatha Astra, and when the Lord came to
him as a hunter, Arjuna did not recognise Him. So, he had to be born as a
hunter again and adore the Lord, before attaining Final Liberation.
Tinnanar was educated according to the hunters’ customs. He became a good
archer. Even when he was young, his father retired, and crowned him king.
Though he was a hunter and carried on hunting as his Dharma, Tinnanar was full
of love and would not kill young ones, females, diseased animals, etc.
Spiritually, he had already killed the animals within himself, viz., lust,
anger, greed, vanity, etc.
One day, Tinnanar went out hunting. A pig escaped from its net and was running
away. Tinnanar pursued it accompanied by two others, Nanan and Kadan. The pig
was tired and stood near a tree. It was quickly killed by Tinnanar. They were
tired, too, and thirsty. They proceeded towards the Ponmukali. Tinnanar wanted
to climb the nearby mountain. Nanan, too, volunteered to follow him, saying
that on that, the Kalahasthi hill, there was Lord Kudumithevar (God with a
Tuft). Kadan was busy cooking the pork.
.........continued......
Jupes/Friends,
....The Story of Kannappar...ctd...
Even when he began to climb the hill, there was a definite change coming over
Tinnanar, owing to past Samskaras. He felt that a great burden was being lifted
off his shoulders. He was losing body-consciousness. As he saw the Lord there,
he felt supreme love surging in his heart. He embraced the Lingam and kissed
It. He began to shed tears of joy. He felt that the Lord was lonely there, and
that he should thenceforth remain with Him. Again, he thought that the Lord
might be hungry. Though he was reluctant to leave the Lord alone, he quickly
came down the hill to fetch some food for the Lord. He took the best pieces of
the pork, tasted them and ear-marked the very best for Him. In the mean time,
he gathered from Nanan that the Lord was worshipped daily with water, flowers,
etc, before the food was offered to Him. So, he began to collect the other
articles of worship. He filled his own mouth with water from the river.
Flowers, he gathered
and wore them on his head! He took the pork, bow and arrow and went up the hill
again, alone this time.
At the temple, Tinnanar poured from his mouth, the water that he had brought for
His worship. That was his ‘Abhishekam’. Then he decorated the Lingam with the
flowers he had brought on his own head. This was his ‘Archana’. He then placed
the pork before the Lord. He went out and stood guard for Him, at the entrance,
lest some wild animals should hurt Him. In the morning again he went out to hunt
and bring fresh food for the Lord.
In the mean time, Nanan and Kadan worried about the change that had come over
Tinnanar (which they thought to be madness). They went and reported the matter
to Tinnanar’s parents. They came and tried, in vain, to take him back. They,
too, went away.
When Tinnanar left the temple in the morning to get food for the Lord,
Sivagochariar, the temple priest, came there for the usual orthodox worship. He
was horrified at the desecration that some unknown person had done in the
temple. He was well versed in the Agamas (rituals of Siva-worship). He
performed the necessary purificatory rites and took bath again and began his
formal worship. He brought water in a holy pot, with a bandage around his own
mouth, lest the breath of his mouth should pollute it. He brought fresh flowers
in a holy basket. He brought fruits and sweets, newly made and unpolluted by
anyone tasting it, before the Lord for being offered to Him. He went home after the worship.
...Continued....
Jupes/Friends,
Tinnanar returned with fresh meat. He removed the priest’s decorations, and did
the worship in his own way, and then as usual, stood guard at the entrance.
This went on for five days. The priest was greatly upset about the desecration
of the holy place. He appealed to the Lord to stop it. Lord Siva wanted to show
to Sivagochariar the nature of Tinnanar’s supreme devotion. He commanded him in
a dream, to hide himself behind the Lingam, when Tinnanar went to the temple
the next day, and watch what took place.
On the sixth day, Tinnanar went out as usual for getting the Lord’s food. While
returning, he saw many ill omens, which made him feel that something had
happened to the Lord: he was so unconscious of himself, that he did not think
that something could happen to him.
He ran towards the Lord. He was grieved to see blood issuing from the Lord’s
right eye. The articles he had brought for the worship dropped from his hand.
He wept bitterly. He could not find who had done this to the Lord. He treated
the eye with herbs he knew of. Still the bleeding did not stop. A simple idea
occurred to him: ‘flesh for flesh’. At once, with his own arrow, he took out
his own right eye, and fixed it over the right eye of the Lord. The bleeding
stopped. He was very happy. When he was dancing in ecstasy, he noticed that the
Lord’s left eye had begun to bleed. But, he had already found out the remedy.
There was only one problem: how to locate the eye of the Lord, when his own eye
had been pulled out. So, Tinnanar planted his foot at the place where the Lord’s
left eye was on the Lingam, and began to pull his left eye out, with his arrow.
At once, Lord Siva caught hold of his hand and said: ‘My dear child, Kannappa!
Stop plucking your eye.’ The Lord repeated the word Kannappa thrice. Kannappar
was thrice blessed. Tinnanar became Kannappar, because he gave his own eye to
the Lord. Lord Siva took him with both Hands, and kept him on His right side.
Kannappar regained his vision and lived as god himself. Sivagochariar
understood the true nature of devotion.
This story has an esoteric meaning, too. Nayanar had conquered all other evils:
but, Anava Malam or egoism had to be killed, too. The wild pig represents this.
Supreme Bhakti dawned, the moment this was killed. In its chase, the seeker is
accompanied by good and evil (the two hunters Nanan and Kadan). Nanan (good)
described the glory of the Lord to him: Nanan represents good Samskaras. Kadan
(the evil) had to be left behind. The aspirant with good Samskaras, goes to His
Presence. But, when he has to attain God-realisation, even this has to be
renounced. Hence, Nayanar, when he went to worship Him, went alone. Tinnanar’s readiness to pluck out his own eyes for His sake is total
self-surrender or Atma-Nivedan, the highest peak of devotion which immediately reveals the Lord in all His glory.
-----------------------------------
Namaskar
Losing M. Mind,
I don't know whether to laugh or cry reading your comments on one B.H.O. in this forum devoted to Sri Ramana. From what deep vat of Kool Aid have you been drinking? You have perhaps been thinking (and writing!) on non-dual matters so much that your capacity for critical analysis of more worldly matters has suffered a wee bit.
You might wish to read the following article for an update on what B.H.O. has been up to since being elected:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17894
Many other articles at that site, as well as posts by Glenn Greenwald at salon.com, will help you form a clearer picture of "The Man who would be Jnani."
Perhaps you are also of the opinion that Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs (the most generous Wall Steet contributor to B.H.O.'s campaign, and of whom one congressman has said "Frankly, they own the place [Congress]"), is also a jnani, as revealed in this recent comment (of startling--and, no doubt, utterly selfless--humility): "I'm just a banker doing God's work." (Thanks to God, no doubt, he is also, without any question, the most handsomely remunerated jnani on the planet!)
A New updated Updated "Autobiography of a Jnani" is now available for download.
Download: http://itisnotreal.com/Autobiography%20of%20a%20Jnani.pdf
An insight into the deepening of the Turiya and beyond states experienced by Rajiv during his intense Meditations and how that translates during waking state has been added. Also includes an updated section on self-inquiry called "Hunting the I"
Friends,
The January 2010 edition of Prabuddha Bharata is a special edition-Perspectives on Vedanta.I came across the following poem of Swami Ramatirtha(Papaji is the nephew of this cavalier Sage):
"The Soundless sound,the flameless light.
The Darkless dark and wingless flight
The mindless thought,the eyeless sight
The mouthless talk,the handless grasp so tight.
Am I,am I,am I."
Jupes had brought in an interesting point-'Doership' and 'I'.
I do not follow the path of Self Enquiry.I will however share a few thoughts on this:
When we are Breathing Freely,we do not say-'I am Breathing'.When we have a cold and there is an obstruction to breathing,we say-'I am not Breathing properly'.The 'I' and 'Not Breathing' arise together.
In the same manner,when our Body is Healthy,we need not be aware of it.Ditto with Feelings and Thoughts.As long as the flow is free,the 'I' is not there;the moment there is an obstruction to this flow by way of attachment,the 'I' is there.
-----------------------------------
Swami Ramatirtha says:"You are simply to undo what you have already done in the way of forming dark cocoons of desires around you.So Self Realization is mainly a PROCESS of undoing and unlearning!Forgetting what you know yourself to be!Nothing more than that!"
Namaskar.
Clemens,
concerning the books on Sri Ramana - I was not quite true. One book is still missing: Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi for Dummies A good opportunity for a competent person to go on with this work.
I don't have a problem with discussing thigns about inquiry. The problem I think is that people ar wrong to pretend to be an authority on spirituality when they are not enlightened. If someone talks from a position of authority without having attained egolessness, I think they are incorrect in doing so. But then again, the only person whose sadhana is my business is my own. "Correcting oneself is correcting the world".
.
Thank you, Ravi/Hema, that was very clear.
And Iyer regarded Ramana as a pure "Who am I" questioner (as I understood so far)? This is a quite astonishing misunderstanding.
.
David/Ramos/Friends,
Swami Siddheswarananda was a student of Subramanaya Iyer (who also taught Paul Brunton who subsequently wrote the Book-The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga).The Swami did not agree with his teacher(Iyer considered Sri Bhagavan as a Mystic and not a Jnani!Quite similiar to Swami Dayananda)and was a Devotee of Sri Bhagavan.
Ramos,I have not come across the Book that you have referred to-Siddheswarananda was definitely a brilliant exponent of Vedanta.You may read some of the excerpts of his writings on The Gita-Pl visit:
http://living.oneindia.in/yoga-spirituality/ramakrishna-paramahamsa/2009/bhagavad-gita-message-brahman-maya-100209.html
Namaskar.
.
PART II of post:
As there is only one reality, it must to non-dual by nature, and in this non-duality absolutely no relations are possible. That is why the Mandukya Upanishad speaks of Asparsha Yoga, the yoga of no-contact, of no-relation. This is in contrast to our everyday life, which consists of relations and rapport only. The problems in the life of an individual are always relational problems. It is only through relations and rapport that we can have (relative) knowledge, normally speaking. Therefore you may keep this as keystone for the study of the Mandukya Upanishad, that everything is relations, everything is rapport.
.
PART 1 of post
THE METAPHYSICAL INTUITION Seeing God with Open Eyes Commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita
Swami Siddheswarananda
Translated by André van den Brink
Included in this book, co-published with Arunachala Press, are notes on the Mandukya Upanishad of which an excerpt is reprinted below with permission of the publisher:
The Mandukya Upanishad is the only Upanishad that is purely metaphysical. It teaches the Ajata Vada, the way of the non-born, of noncausality. For that reason it is sometimes called Karika Vedanta -- this is contrary to the classical Vedanta -- after the famous commentary (karika) on this Upanishad by Gaudapada, the guru of the guru of Shankaracharya. Shankara himself has only commented upon the Mandukya Upanishad and on the karika of Gaudapada.
In the metaphysics of Vedanta a distinction is made between (1) the reality (tattva), that which does not change and which persists through all of our experiences, and (2) truth (mata), of which, according to the the Vedanta, there may be any number. Swami Vivekananda explains this with the example of the sun.
Somebody is travelling towards the sun and at each stage he takes a picture. The images are all different, but nobody will deny that they all show the same sun. The reality always stays the same, whereas the truths, although all true at their own particular level, are relative. As such the other is as much entitled to have a place for his standpoint as we do by occuying a place with our own standpoint.
The Mandukya Upanishad is a philosophy of the totality (sarvam) of existence, which is not the same as the sum total of a number of separate entities or data added together. It seeks the knowledge (jnana) of that totality, which endeavours to solve the greatest problem of philosophy, namely the contradiction between life and death.
The reality is the totality of existence which is showing itself under two aspects: (a) the manifested aspect (vyakta), and (b) the nonmanifested aspect (avyakta). The aim of the Mandukya Upanishad is to prove that, irrespective of the level of existence at which one may find oneself, it is only the one reality which is (sat). Nevertheless, from the standpoint of the practice of spirituality (sadhana), the waking state is of superior value to us.
Non-dualism
The dialectics of the Vedanta, such as used by Shankara, does not serve to establish non-dualism (advaita) as a position. A dialectic which seeks to establish a position is, in fact, propaganda. We just cannot establish non-dualism as a position within temporality, because within the relativity of the temporal everything is constantly subject to change. If, by means of dialectics, you are establishing a position, then such a position is destined to be refuted again in the course of time. The dialectics of the Vedanta merely serves to destroy our ignorance (avidya) and negation (ajnana) regarding the non-dual nature of the one reality.
So non-dualism is not a philosophical system, but a metaphysical intuition. Each explanation or description of the reality is only voiced by the language of defeat, for here we stand before a wall... In every explanation there is a deceiver and a deceived! Sri Ramakrishna used to say that only Brahman, the absolute, cannot be sullied by the tongue.
Since advaita is not a thesis, it never takes up a position. As in Zen Buddhism, it expresses itself through silence or through paradox. We are unable to establish a dialectics of the absolute. However, through knowledge (jnana) we are able to realize the one reality as non-duality. In order to do so we have to arouse within ourselves the power of the buddhi (the faculty of metaphysical discrimination) by means of spiritual practices (sadhana). The realisation to be attained should (a) be free from contradictions, (b) be self-evident, and (c) be universal, not being subject to the limitations of time and space.
.
.
Do you know this book of him, Ravi:
The Metaphysical Intuition: Seeing God With Open Eyes by Swami Siddheswarananda. Translated by André van den Brink
.
Another thing I've noticed. Today, I was really serious about my inquiry. Really serious. Dissolving by peering into any notion that I am individual person. Not doing anything besides that, besides things that need to get done like studying, doing my best. What I've noticed, and I don't understand, but probably related to the fact that the world is a mental creation of the self, is that the world will create the thing you most desire, or most fear and put it in front of you to distract from the inquiry. Swami Ramanagiri I remember mentioned that. Desires, friends, and worldly troubles, but maybe the mind when it reasserts itself, it actually reasserts itself in a phenomenal visceral way. So no matter what is seen, keep attention on "I". And when I say keep attention on "I", I mean keep attention on the feeling of individuality, treat the world immediately as unreal, dream-like and focus on where that sense of individuality is manifesting itself. Why to do this? The reason my focus has become more progressively on the inquiry is because everything from harmonious action to happiness and contentment, the things I've wanted, to even the Supreme happiness, lie in one direction, focusing on "I". I have discovered sometimes repeatedly is that there is no good anywhere else.
Friends,
In a beautiful poem,Sri Subramanya Bharati, one of The Great Tamil Poets wonders:
"Nirpadhuve nadappadhuve parappadhuve
NeengaL ellam soppanam thaano
Pala thotRa mayakkangaLo
KaRpadhuve ketpadhuve karudhuvadhe
NeengaL ellam ardhamaiyaigaLo
ummuL aazhndha poruLillaiyo"
'Oh all Ye That Stand,walk and Fly,
Are you Just Dreams!
Appearances as many,Illusions?
AllYethatLearneth,Heareth,Thinketh!
Are you just senseless delusions?
Have Ye no deep meaning(Substance)in you?
Homely Sky,Morning Sun,leaning Tree
Are you all just mirages,
Mere Optical illusions!
Since All That is past,Like unto Dream-
Broken Destroyed and Gone!
Am I also a Dream?Is This World just a deception?
...On it goes where the Poet wonders if Time and Space,Objects and Their Qualities are also only deceptions.
In kindling this wonder,he gives us the meaning of Maya like no other philosopher can.As Sri Ramakrishna so beautifully said-'The Magician alone is real and not his Magic!'
Yet the Magic is also there as otherwise the Magician will not be a Magician!
-----------------------------------
It is indeed very difficult to translate the Beauty of the Mahakavi's poetry into any other language.For those interested,I understand that a video clip from the Film 'Bharati' is available-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipkLxvFhKYw
David/Friends,
Discrimination is certainly not to determine who is a Jnani and who is not a Jnani.It is the capacity to sift the essential from the nonessential.It comes into play even in such a mundane activity like eating-What is Healthy and what is not.Ditto for the mental and Spiritual Realms as well.
coming to the Guru-All Great Masters are unanimous-Self or Satchidananda alone is the Guru and the 'Human' Guru is a visible manifestation of the Self.
Namaskar.
Papaji's Nothing Ever happened is a real extensive tour of the apparent manifest life of Papaji as seen by others. Why did Papaji take us on that tour? It almost heightens that sensationalist excitement about the life of a jnani. I have to say that is one of the appeals for me of that book, of wow! look at all the cool things that happen around a jnani. cool! better than fireworks. And not only that, so and so that he met was a jnani. Look at all the cool ways jnanis live. The only thing I can think of, is that the book is a decoy deer, and it's title is the correct meaning of the story. I mean the same with all the interviews and writings and edited books by David Godman as well. Have the effect of being a decoy deer. So maybe in a way Nothing Ever happened was doing, is it wasn't just a great biography, it was basically an entrapment into the true, good and beautiful. The fascination is not really with the objective life of a jnani, but with our own Self. David Godman that was a very sagely answer (laugh).
.
... this does not at all mean that one should be gullible and set aside all critical discernment. ...
I believe that the point here is as well that judgements of other people - let them be jnanis or not - lead to nowhere. Judgements of concepts lead to helpful refinements of concepts but where could judgements of persons lead to except to the realms of maya?
Nothing can prevent a "false" disciple to come in contact with "false" teachers and nothing can prevent a true disciple to come in contact with his true teacher - who cares? Such is the way of life. Should we maintain "guru ratings"? We know that Ramana said that there are a lot of teachers but not much disciples. Let us try to be true seekers deserving the guru we follow and all will be ok. A true seeker shuns gossip.
.
I was thinking about Papaji calling people 'enlightened' when they had a glimpse of the Self. I forget which post discussed that. But it really makes sense. When someone is aware of the Self, though not in the sahaja permanent state where the I has died, that is enlightenment. That person is walking around in an 'enlightened', blissful, sattvic state, grace is even flowing out of them. I don't know how the sahaja state is accomplished by grace or by effort, but I try to stay enlightened as much as possible. Aware of a deeper source, a well-spring of Bliss. Using whatever means necessary. Lately, it's been a mix of Nome satsang audio CD's, where his words constantly liberate me from thinking into a sattvic blissful state. If I didn't have a sadguru, I would probably listen to audio CD's of Papaji (either with a CD walkman or I-pod), I even have found J. Krishnamurti effective as well. (despite claims that he didn't have the power to enlighten), even audio CD's of him seem to be endowed with some potent shakti. I would want those words constantly flowing into my ears. But also another aspect is, turning away from wanting anything from this world. Realizing that this world cannot fulfill me. Even if temporarily there was some illusion of fulfillment, it is temporary and so anxiety-ridden. I think Papaji saying this temporary 'state' was enlightenment is correct. Because yeah, any state is temporary and not the Self, but the boundaries that mark it off as a 'state' are the ego. The enlightenment, the bliss, is just because there is a whole in the ego's veiling. And I like it, because those enlightened states are not trivial, and I think the more one abides in them, they become the effortless, thoughtless state (nirvikalpa), and eventually the sahaja state (or permanent Self-Realization). They are excellent!
Follow the Rabbit,
...The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna continued....
"MASTER (interrupting): "But why clay? It is an image of Spirit."
M. could not quite understand the significance of this "image of Spirit". "But,
sir," he said to the Master, "one should explain to those who worship the clay image
that it is not God, and that, while worshipping it, they should have God in view and
not the clay image. One should not worship clay."
God the only real teacher:
MASTER (sharply): "That's the one hobby of you Calcutta people – giving lectures
and bringing others to the light! Nobody ever stops to consider how to get the light
himself. Who are you to teach others?
"He who is the Lord of the Universe will teach everyone. He alone teaches us,
who has created this universe; who has made the sun and moon, men and beasts, and
all other beings; who has provided means for their sustenance; who has given
children parents and endowed them with love to bring them up. The Lord has done
so many things – will He not show people the way to worship Him? If they need
teaching, then He will be the Teacher. He is our Inner Guide.
"Suppose there is an error in worshipping the clay image; doesn't God know that
through it He alone is being invoked? He will he pleased with that very worship. Why
should you get a headache over it? You had better try for knowledge and devotion
yourself."
This time M. felt that his ego was completely crushed. He now said to
himself: "Yes, he has spoken the truth. What need is there for me to teach others?
Have I known God? Do I really love Him? 'I haven't room enough for myself in my
bed, and I am inviting my friend to share it with me!' I know nothing about God, yet
I am trying to teach others. What a shame! How foolish I am! This is not
mathematics or history or literature, that one can teach it to others. No, this is the
deep mystery of God. What he says appeals to me."
This was M.'s first argument with the Master, and happily his last."
-----------------------------------
Sri Ramakrishna mentioned 'M' as a person totally free from 'Ego'-We find a beautiful account of Master Mahasaya in 'The Autobiography of a Yogi'.
Sri Ramakrishna talks about Pratap's brother to 'M'-What he says applies to 'M' as well!As a Householder devotee,M had a family to care for and Sri Ramakrishna annihilated the 'escapist' streak in M and laid the Strong foundation in the very first encounter!
Namaskar.
Friends,
With reference to Kaduveli Siddhar,Sankar Ganesh's comments are quite appropriate.
coming to herenow's comments:
"I also have no real desire to parade or hide the sex lives of gurus etc .
I merely point out that it is a topic of concern to many people, both on a spiritual path and those more secular people commenting on spiritual issues in general.
( and basically implying or stating that the entire spiritual endeavour is bogus because one or another teacher has questionable sexual behaviours.)"
I agree with you that this is something that should not be lightly explained away or overlooked-saying all that a jnani does is Right.
Sri Ramakrishna gave this warning message-'Observe a Sadhu not just during the Day but at Night as well!'.
The path of Yoga is fraught with dangers even for the advanced sadhak.Of all desires that need to be set aside,Sex is the most primeval and deep seated and even highly advanced ones have fallen by the wayside.This is the reason that Sanatana Dharma has duly recognised this aspect and graded the various Stages of Life as-The Celibate,Householder,Ascetic and The Renunciant.Each of these stages has its associated set of Dharmas or Principles-and in adhering to these principles the Sadhaka is lead in a natural way towards the spiritual goal.
The Recent phenomena of the so called 'Masters' or 'teachers' in tossing aside the Fundamental principles and Foundations of Living-and ignoring these as 'Outmoded' chaff-has lead to a good deal of confusion.
Are we to assume that the individual in 'Society' now is well advanced and that 'Fundamentals' are no longer needed or that all 'principles' are only kindergarden stuff?
Does this 'advancement' in society permit the current lot of 'teachers' to bypass the 'Dharma' as taught by The Buddha as 'mental stuff' and go straight for the 'Truth'?
The results are self evident,if we care to see.
If we are earnest,we will be lead on to the Right path-however long it may be(or short!).We will not be lured into what is 'easy' and 'comforatble'.
-----------------------------------
Namaskar.
Mr.David
Thank you very much for your reply.
When you find my questions are delicate ones to answer, I would like you to tell me that. I don't want to give you trouble by questioning you repeatedly.
thank you
Mr. Godman
How did you know the process that 'Maharshi Gospel' was written?
In the preface of the book there is no information.
I have not recieved your reply to my previous question.So,I will again ask same question.
Is it right to regard 'Maharshi Gospel' as the only English book that Bhagavan corrected by himself?
thank you
but obviously (laugh), none of what I just described is the sahaja that is mentioned in that quote and in glimpses of the Self. but perhaps a prelude. I'm starting to learn where the good is, and where the happiness is, and it's not in something objective and imaginary, tha seems to be one of the most important things.
This is my best interpretation, or what I'm guessing about samadhi. (I'm welcome for feedback, because i don't really know, but this is what I understand from what I've read) Savikalpa samadhi, is those blissful experiences where i attempt inquiry, and the room gets brighter, I feel intensely blissful, and I even inquire maybe deep enough that in that bliss, my vision even glows, I kind of get rid of thought, or the sense of a person to a degree, but it's still operating on a subtle level, so I can for intance maybe see the wall, the bookshelf, or whatever is around me. I would say really, this is what I since i've corresponded with Nome, and attempted practice, have more frequently experienced is this savikalpa samadhi experience. I think sometimes after I've gotten a response from my teacher, I'll maybe, and i'm not sure, fall into nirvikalpa which is effortless (briefly), but maybe it is not quite nirvikalpa.
Question : What is samadhi?
Ramana Maharshi : The state in which the unbroken experience of existence-consciousness is attained by the still mind, alone is samadhi. That still mind which is adorned with the attainment of the limitless supreme Self, alone is the reality of God.
When the mind is in communion with the Self in darkness, it is called nidra [sleep], that is, the immersion of the mind in ignorance. Immersion in a conscious or wakeful state is called samadhi. Samadhi is continuous inherence in the Self in a waking state. Nidra or sleep is also inherence in the Self but in an unconscious state. In sahaja samadhi the communion is con-tinuous.
Question : What are kevala nirvikalpa samadhi and sahaja nirvikalpa samadhi?
Ramana Maharshi :The immersion of the mind in the Self, but without its destruction, is kevala nirvikalpa samadhi. In this state one is not free from vasanas and so one does not therefore attain mukti. Only after the vasanas have been destroyed can one attain liberation.
Question : When can one practise sahaja samadhi?
Ramana Maharshi : Even from the beginning. Even though one practises kevala nirvikalpa samadhi for years together, if one has not rooted out the vasanas one will not attain liberation.
Question : May I have a clear idea of the difference between savikalpa and nirvikalpa?
Ramana Maharshi : Holding on to the supreme state is samadhi. When it is with effort due to mental disturbances, it is savikalpa. When these disturbances are absent, it is nirvikalpa. Remaining permanently in the primal state without effort is sahaja.
Question : Is nirvikalpa samadhi absolutely necessary before the attainment of sahaja?
Ramana Maharshi : Abiding permanently in any of these samadhis, either savikalpa or nirvikatpa, is sahaja [the natural state]. What is body-consciousness? It is the insentient body plus consciousness. Both of these must lie in another consciousness which is absolute and unaffected and which remains as it always is, with or without the body-consciousness. What does it then matter whether the body-consciousness is lost or retained, provided one is holding on to that pure consciousness? Total absence of body-consciousness has the advantage of making the samadhi more intense, although it makes no difference to the knowledge of the supreme.
It seems to me that people who have just been in the present of a jnani, act, move and talk someone more like a jnani. Even have the buzz of grace, transmittence, because they are more in the Self.
"Your words reminds me of a master. Sometimes a formulation sounding new pushes the mind further towards the right direction"
Though I still am in the midst of aspiration, I'm very flattered. Thank you Clemens.
.
... LMM; In this life, I've had some glimpses of ajata, that there really isn't a world, and there really isn't an individual. ...
Your words reminds me of a master. Sometimes a formulation sounding new pushes the mind further towards the right direction:
"Maya does not mean that the world is unreal but that the way we see it is unreal."
... ANONYMOUS; ... walking on Shivas head ...
Great! This perception feels absolutely true although I never was in India. (Perhaps we even may dare to say: ... trampling on Shivas head...)
.
.
Friends,
I wish to share a couple of incidents from the Life of Sri Bhagavan.Here is the First one and it is from 'At The Feet of Bhagavan'By TKS:
"10. CAN A CRACKED EGG BE
HATCHED?
IT was the early hours of the morning in the Hall of Sri
Bhagavan. He had had His bath, and now went to the
farther end of the Hall to take His towel that hung from
a horizontally suspended bamboo, at one end of which
a sparrow had built her nest and laid therein three or
four eggs.
In the process of taking His towel Sri Bhagavan’s
hand came against the nest, which shook violently, so
that one of the eggs dropped down. In this way the egg
was cracked; Sri Bhagavan was taken aback, aghast. He
cried out to Madhavan, the personal attendant. “Look,
look what I have done today!” So saying, He took the
cracked egg in His hand looked at it with His tender
eyes, and exclaimed: “Oh, the poor mother will be so
sorrow-stricken, perhaps angry with me also, at my causing
the destruction of her expected little one! Can the cracked
eggshell be pieced together again? Let us try!”
So saying, He took a piece of cloth, wetted it, wrapped
it around the broken egg, and put it back in the mother’s
nest. Every three hours He would take out the cracked
egg, remove the cloth, place the egg on His roseate palm,
and gaze at it with His tender eyes for minutes together.
What was He really doing at this time? How can we
say? Was He sending with those wonderful looks of gentle
At the Feet of Bhagavan 33
Grace life-giving beams into the cracked egg, putting ever
newer warmth and life into it? That is a mystery none can
solve. Yet He kept on saying: “Let the crack be healed!
Cannot this be hatched even now? Let the little one come
from this broken egg!”
This anxious concern and tenderness of Sri Maharshi
continued from day to day for about a week. So the
fortunate egg lay in the nest with its wet bandage cloth,
only to be fondled by Sri Maharshi with divine touch
and benign look. On the seventh day, He takes out the
egg, and with the astonishment of a schoolboy
announces: “Look what a wonder! The crack has closed,
and so the mother will be happy and will hatch her egg
after all! My God has freed me from the sin of causing
the loss of a life. Let us wait patiently for the blessed
young one to come out!”
A few more days pass, and at length one fine morning
Bhagavan finds the egg has been hatched1 and the little
bird has come out. With gleeful smiling face radiant with
the usual light, He takes the child in His hand, caresses it
with lips, stroking it with His soft hand, and passes it on
for all the bystanders to admire. He receives it back at last
into His own hands, and is so happy that one little germ
of life has been able to evolve in spite of the unhappy
accident to it in the embryo.
The wonder here is that the bird understood enough to sit on the
egg, even after it had been handled by man. Who really knows how far
the understanding of a ‘beast’ can carry her towards the truth?
Ah, what concern for the meanest of creation! Is it
not the heart of the real Buddha which shed first tears of
anxiety at the crack in the eggshell and then tears of joy
at the birth of the new-born babe? Could the milk of
kindness ever be seen or conceived of sweeter than this?"
-----------------------------------
This is the uniqueness of Sri Bhagavan.Sri Bhagavan never ever said-'All this is happening.There is No 'I' that does any of these things',etc,etc.
This is what is endearing about our Bhagavan.This is Jnana.This is Love.
Namaskar.
Friends,
David mentioned how Sri Sadhu Om considered the bathroom door as more sacred than the Meru Chakra,How it was touched by Sri Bhagavan more times and hence sanctified!
We find another such crazy Bhakta in Ramachandra Datta,a Householder disciple of Sri Ramakrishna.
"Rama Chandra Datta, a householder disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, had unflinching faith in the Master and his love and devotion for him was exuberant. He used to say that any place Sri Ramakrishna visited even for a day became a holy place, and that whoever came to the Master and served him once was blessed. Ram further asserted the horse carriage which Sri Ramakrishna took to visit the Calcutta devotees, along with its coachman and horses, were all sanctified by the touch of the Master.
Ram’s attitude was considered extreme by many, and once someone sarcastically remarked: ‘ If that is true then what is there to fear? So many people have seen Sri Ramakrishna on the street and so many coachmen have driven him. Do you think all these people will get liberation?’ Ram Chandra’s face turned red, and he vehemently replied: ‘Go and take the dust of the feet of the sweeper of Dakshineshwar who saw the Master. This will make your life pure and blessed.’
On January 17, 1899, at 10:45 p.m., Ram breathed his last. His body was cremated on the bank of the Ganga and the relics were placed next to Sri Ramakrishna’s temple at Yogodyana. Before he passed away he told his disciples: ‘When I die please bury a little of the ashes of my body at the entrance to Yogodyana. Whoever enters this place will walk over my head, and thus I shall get the touch of the Master’s devotees’ feet forever.’
-----------------------------------
you may read the complete article : http://www.hinduism.co.za/atheist.htm
I don't have that same experience of something resonating in an awkward or wrong way with Maharshi, with Nisargadatta, with Papaji, with Jiddu Krishnamurti, with Robert Adams or with Nome. Everything resonates with blissful Being, and nothing they say resonates with my ego and it's self-importance, anxiety, or discontent.
I thought Ed was supposed to be the jnani. Is the same dialogue that was offered up earlier. I was thinking that, it's hard to tell if someone is a jnani from these kind of dialogues that are read. I was thinking how perhaps it is sort of possible to tell a jnani in their presence, by the power that dramatically causes the mind to subside in their presence. By the gracefulness and appropriateness of their interactions with others and the environment. Also it has been my experience that in reading dialogues with jnanis, actual jnanis there teachings tend to be really simple and profound, I don't know if that is a requirement.And also clear. Like most of the things jnanis say, it is obvious in a sense and resonates deeply. It may be things that I haven't been facing in myself, but I recognize the truth of it. I tend to be skeptical of teachers, where the teachings tend to be presented in a way that is esoteric, and complicated and technical. Because I don't think the Self and Realizing the Self is that kind of subject. Like mathrusrisarada.org, Lakshmana Swami, and Mathru Sri Sarada have very clear teachings. It's just a matter of doing them, and giving up bad habits of the ego. Eventually, there will be success with that kind of earnestness. I feel the same with Nome. Things that come from the ego, I feel tend to be obfuscatory, where words that come from the Self tend to be very clear and direct. It seems like it's egos that want to have some kind of advanced technical knowledge and be smarter than others, not jnanis. There were things in the earlier dialogue, and occassionally things in reading this with Ed that felt a little like the latter, obfuscatory. But I don't feel comfortable saying that Ed is not a jnani, becuse I don't know. Also when he said, only one in a thousand have reached where you are, that did not feel to me like something a true jnani would say.
With inquiry, and sometimes I actually do this and it feels more successful. It helps listening to audio of my teacher, but even when not. When, it is said about inquiry to focus on the I-thought, or the I-sense. It means focusing on the individual, because the individual is unreal, that's what I take it. and sometimes initially, when I start to attempt inquiry, it is concentration, or a redirection of attention. But who is the person who is concentrating, or redirecting attention? then I focus on him. And it seems essentially that is maybe what inquiry is. In the focus on the individual, the real Self is revealed. The problem with attachments, is I can be too attached to focus on I. (see and there is the irony). I can be too attached to focus on I, even statements like that are absurd. But I, I'm learning is not a thought, it's the sense that there is a me. Who is that me? Focusing on the sense of me, the sense of individual in any thought, experience. I think that is what To whom did this thought arise? To me, well who am I? Because that I, who is thinking is unreal. I think when I first read Who am I?, I understood it more experientially, but it got clouded by other more intellectual interpretations.
I happen to be reading Kapali Sastriar right now. " His outstanding contributions to the propagation of Sri Maharshi's teachings, Sat Darsana Bhasya and its English rendering, and the Ramana Gita Prakasa.
He had great reverence for the authentic utterances of Ramana. Sri Kapali had the benefit of direct instruction from the Maharshi and his commentaries were submitted to Bhagavan and were accepted by him."
A.R. Ponnuswami Iyer
That vision (eye, wisdom, beholding) is one (single),
limitless, [and] certainly perfectly full.
When I was writing them out, I choose specific words out of the one's that are in parenthesis. I took beholding and single. Brackets is a word added in to make it more intelligible. It seems to me, the limitless eye is actually kept. But he was saying that wisdom, vision and beholding are alternative translations for eye. And that limitless could be substituted for infinite. Is that better as far as keeping the "inifinite eye", just curious.
This is a subject that interests me, but may not interest anyone else.
Before I was exposed to this stuff, early in my twenties I was exposed to alot of green-anarchy, primitivist stuff. It's a fringe leftist movement in the U.S. To me, it was compelling to me, that fall from grace was the beginning of agriculture, and the beginning of heirarchical systems, was where it all went wrong. I remember in that literature there was alot of stuff about how civilized people are somehow limited in thier consciousness from hunter-gatherers.
Some of the reputable writings of Jared Diamond agree with this, that life became much harder with the agricultural revolution and farming and cities. So of course, a question that would perhaps arise to me in light of these teachings is, what if it is agriculture, civilization and authoritarian societies that alienated us from our consciousness. So, then the question arises, well what if all non-civilized peoples and wild animals are jnanis, enlightened, sages. (No doubt if civilized people attain enlightenment, pre-civilized people would also, and even within these teachings non-human animals have been enlightened or attained enlightenment even according to Maharshi, who knows perhaps there were enlightened dinosaurs and trilobites occassionally)
But (on this assertion that wild animals and pre-civilized humans are enlightened)... there is some clear experiential evidence to me anyway that this is not the case, and that jnana is something far grander, more transcendent and supernatural then simply being feral. First thing, if wild animals were all in touch with the Self, then certainly if a pigeon wondered near me, it would be darshan. I would experience grace if I was ripe, in other words, why go to see Maharshi or read his writings, why not frequent with the squirrels and pigeons and sparrows, even the insects and spiders.
My teacher, Nome's translation of 40 verses on What Is -Ramana Maharshi.http://books.google.com/books?id=oDUAVSqA_PsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=saddarsanam&cd=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Prayer 1.
Can there, indeed, be the belief of existence without that which exists? In the Heart devoid of thoughts, this is called the Heart.
How to remember that immeasurable one? Remembrance of that, there for, is, indeed, firm abidance.
2. For those who have taken refuge, out of fear of death, in the Conquerer of death,
The "I" notion is the first to attain death.
Thereafter, in them who are naturally immortal,
How again can there be space for the thought of death?
Text
1. By all, a first original essence of the universe and of the "I"
It is said, the Lord, someone with boundless power.
Variegated in this, the seeing one and the seen, and
The screen, and the Light, also. He, the One, became.
2. With naming the individual, the world, and the Supreme Self
Principles, all doctines began.
The triad is so long as the "I"-notion will be.
The best of all abidance is void of the "I"-assumption.
3. True or false, this is consciousness or inert,
Suffering or happiness, thus vain is the quarrel.
The world is not seen, clear ascertainment of no "I",
Abidance without doubt, the Supreme, is dear to all.
4. With-form belief the world and the Lord are
So long as the with-form idea in oneself is.
If the Self is formless, who is to see?
That beholding is single, limitless and perfectly full.
5. The body is of the nature of the five-fold sheaths.
Without that does the world shine?
Without the five-fold body, that, this here,
Who at all see the world? Let them speak.
6. Of the form of sound and others is the entire world.
The existence of sound and others is a mode of the senses brought to light.
The existence of the senses in the mind's control is.
Composed of the mind is that world, we say.
The Maharshi proclaims the Truth that there is, in reality, no inner or outer. He declares the nature of the mind to be pure like space. Pure means unalloyed, while like space means it is inherently boundaryless and untouched by form. As space pervades all but remains unconfined by all, so the mind pervades all but is unconfined by that which is conjured up within itself. The mind remains pure, which means it is unalloyed--unmixed with anything else.
If the mind does not mix with any object, then, negating the notions of objectivity as being delusions, what remains of the mind?
The dissolution of the mind is by Knowledge of the Self. Self-inquiry reveals it. The dissolution of that primary illusion, of a supposedly existent mind, is also the dissolution of subsidiary illusions within and based on it, such as the objective sphere of experience termed "the world." Thus, in Who am I?, the Maharshi reveals this wisdom in a manner similar to this section of Self-inquiry,
"If the mind, which is the instrument of knowledge and is the basis of all activity, subsides, the perception of the world as an objective reality ceases. Unless the illusory perception of the serpent in the rope ceases, the rope on which the illusion is formed is not perceived as such. Even so, unless the illusory nature of the perception of the world as an objective reality ceases, the Vision of the true nature of the Self, on which the illusion is formed, is not obtained."
The nature of the mind is known by the wise. The knowledge of the nature of all is known by the wise. This entire universe and the entirety of the mind are completely of the nature of pure Consciousness. Consciousness is our quintessential Being. That is the Self. It is called the Heart. The Heart, the Self, is all in all at all times. It is One without a second. There is no duality at any time. The one Self, or Heart, alone is, eternally.
The one Self alone is imagined to be divided into jagat-jiva-para, the world, the individual, and the Supreme. The one Self alone is imagined to be a jivatman (individual self) and Paramatman (Supreme Self). In Self-Knowledge, differentiation is realized to be unreal, and forever unmodified, nondual Being is realized to be what is real.
That Self is Brahman. Brahman is ineffable, formless, nondual, inconceivable Absolute Being. It is, and alone is.
From the Vedic rishi-s to the Maharshi, the Truth of the Self---of Brahman---has been revealed to be the nondual Reality.
Whoever receives and understands, by his Grace, this perfect Knowledge revealed by Sri Bhagavan, transcends the senses and their objects, dissolves the notions of inner and outer, and, becoming ethereal like space, realizes the Self, the Heart, and thus abides in infinite Wisdom and Bliss.
Om Sri Ramanarpanamastu
Om May this be an offering to Sri Ramana
"Dear LMM,
from which text is this quote? In my understanding meditating with the thought "I am He" is not self-inquiry/atma-vichara."
That is from I believe Maharshi's first work, Self-inquiry. And I believe, because it said in the preface that it is the Arthur Osborne translation, so maybe it's the same as the version in Collected Works. Maharshi did say it, nonetheless.
"Question : Is soham (the affirmation `I am he') the same as `Who am I?'
Ramana Maharshi : Aham [`I'] alone is common to them. One is soham. The other is koham [Who am I?]. They are different. Why should we go on saying soham? One must find out the real `I'. In the question `Who am I?', `I' refers to the ego. Trying to trace it and find its source, we see it has no separate existence but merges in the real `I'."
(from "Day by Day with Bhagavan", also in "Be as you are", page 75)
Best wishes,
Stefan
Hello fellow-travellers, and humans…
(God this is so long!, I've read only bits...but):
Even though this 'ego' 'does exist' for most-of-us, most-of-the-time, I have found the notion that it doesn't REALLY exist. Ego is just the 'I-thought' nothing more, nothing less. Sure, almost all of us (including myself) are almost always 'wedded to it' but the happier and more Alive (in the truest, healthy and most 'Spiritual' senses of those words we are, the less it is. This approach is very resonant with me, and helps free my being and others'... :)
It seems that if you are in the moment, fully, then there is no preoccupation regarding ego, nor, more importantly, compromise with it; we are free, and know for a fact, that it doesn't really/ultimately exist. On a psychological level, I think one could say that it is the dead (inert) part of ourselves (-that is separate from Life-flow.). So... to be fully alive all round, to be in the living moment, ego has no 'place' or 'reason' to exist. To me, this is a/the flexible truth: since ego is just the 'I-thought', like a ghost, a second-hand reality, we don't make a religion out of it. If we are truly alive, in the moment, where is the problem? It is not there... We might be in pain, but we are life and therein there is no duality...no spiritual problem.
In the Sage, where it doesn't ever exist, it appears to, to outsiders: our conditioning 'puts' an IDEA that there is a fixed 'self' around the body-location of the person. That is just not what-is. There is a Temperament, a character, even an 'Individuality'*, but these are all flavours; there is no 'self. *These are my terms, individuality seems strongest in sages, that emanates from Wholeness, ...like Sun through stained glass; since the Sun, Life itself is fully clear 'within' these men and women, then the colour that flows through them is strong and un-mistakable.
Anyway, these are just thoughts/perceptions/experiences put into words, 'bicycled' up into the 'ether', no more or less valuable than anyone else's, but may prove interesting or useful for someone else. As some are for me here... Have a blessed day., free of the ego-thing! :) Julian (UK)
Sorry for the rather incoherent flow of the last posting.
I am aware that there are many 'scholars' on this blog,- and this is just after a casual glance at some comments... but Sri Ramana and Those like him (famous and non-famous:) are just BEYOND that (even if it is important as a human-being to have a good mind, Along with GOD heart, common-sense, & Intuition, etc...)
But surely such simple experiencing of what-is are just FULLY beyond 'that.
Then again, I can get involved in those intricate discussions, and there is a place for them...
(Sorry -this was just meant to be an apology for the slight incoherence of my above post!)
May all be increasingly/fully Alive, Free, Happy and at 'one' with that which Really IS:)
Julian, UK.
Post a Comment