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Sri Ramana Maharshi
Welcome
I propose to use this blog primarily to air my occasional musings on any matters relating to the life and teachings of Ramana Maharshi. There will also be occasional contributions about Arunachala, the sacred mountain where Sri Ramana spent all of his adult life.
Articles and interviews on these topics can also be found on my site: www.davidgodman.org.
Articles and interviews on these topics can also be found on my site: www.davidgodman.org.
674 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 400 of 674 Newer› Newest»Sri Bhagavan did not care for astrology a bit, but when one devotee, [I think it is Rangan or
Vasudeva Sastri?] told Him that he was going to have some months of difficult planetary conjunctions, which might even cause him death, Sri Bhagavan said: In which case, you stay with me in the Asramam till that period is over. The devotee did that, and even when he was going to the town, Sri Bhagavan told him not to stay out after sunset and He used to ask others, Has he come back? Has he come back. The period was over and the devotee had immense relief. Sri Bhagavan told him:
Now, if you want you can go to your place!
There is one old Tamizh cinema song, which says: The serpent from the neck of Siva asked the Eagle, 'How are you?' Eagle grudginly said: "If one could stay where he has to, then he is ever safe!
Guru's feet are the safest haven!
Dear Clemens,
Yes. A new born child is ever in bliss of not knowing the little 'i'. It is the mother, relatives and the world inject this 'i' into the child. They put a few bangles and ask: Whose bangle are these? It is Hari's. Who is Hari? I am Hari. Who am I? You are my mother, amma. Whose doll is this? It is my doll. Slowly the mind/ego sprouts and becomes a thick weed, hiding the paddy behind.
Hi Subramanian,
I am only a learner in Astrology.I use Astrology for introspection and to know more about myself:my strenghts, weaknesses, conflict of thoughts etc and so can work on my failings and attitude.Astrology for the purpose of knowing future is more or less useless.Dridha karma cannot be changed so what is the point of brooding over it.
If you are Anuraadha your Raasi is Vrischika.The general prediction for all Vrischika people:
1)From May,2011 Jupiter moves into Aries for one year which is 6th house and so NOT Good
2)From June,2011 Ketu(Dispassion,Distancing,denial) moves into Vrishabha which is your 7th house of partnerships,marriage and remains there for 18 months:Not Good.Also around this time you will set new goals and values for the next 18 years of your life.
3)Saturn moves into Tula from Dec,2011 starting Elinaati Sani(7.5 years of hardwork/hardship:Not Good
So the period Dec,2011 to May2012 is looking very tough for all Vrischikaas; the degree of hardship and the effected areas will depend on their personal horoscopes.
Post your email id or junk id and I will mail you if need to know more.
-z
Dear Anon.,
Thank you for your predictions and observations. I may send my horoscope to you for detailed analysis. But only for curiosity.
The feet of Bhagavan are my refuge.
I may not do any pariharas, rituals for rectifications of the forthcoming difficulties.
Hi Subramanian,
You can send info to fame1390@gmail.com
Time, Place and date of birth.
-z
salutations to all:
clemens/subramanian:
you said "...It is beyond objective consciousness. It is ever present..."
not that i disagree with you, but in the context of what we were talking, statements such as "this is beyond" or "ever-present" lack any substance - the mind cannot fathom it & yet it is the very same mind that is asserting something to be beyond something else etc... hope you see the underlying nonsense :-)
but if something is this intractable, then it seems to be a dead-end - not really, in fact it's to show 'the way out' ('the only way' perhaps) that the awesomely wonderful sage of silence (dakshiNAmurtI) came in days of yore & our most beloved sweetest bhagavAn came now - there is no other way in which one could have the slightest clue about ajAta or asparsha - it's through bhagavAn we understand anything at all but for whom we can study the upanishads ad nauseum and get nowhere (at best one may define asparsha as 'don't touch' and then slip into the absurdity of 'don't-touchism'!) :-)))
Subramanian,
"What is earth's wobbling?"
The earth is like a spinning top. You might notice that as a top spins, it tends to wobble. Its axis moves in a slow rotation about the center, even as the top itself spins very fast. The earth spins around once every 24 hours, making the day, but it also has a large wobble that makes its axis rotate in a large circle. This wobble takes 26,000 years to complete. Very slow. And the tilt of this wobble is about 23.5 degrees, which makes for the seasons.
Because of this wobble, the north pole is essentially moving in a large circle through the constellations. Right now it points at Polaris, but long ago it pointed at other stars, and in the future it will point at others still.
For this same reason, the spring equinox will naturally move through all the astrological constellations over this 26,000 year cycle. This is called the "Great Year". One interpretation of the various Yugas (see Yukteswar) is that they represent this cycle through the 12 signs of the zodiac.
Regarding the "13th" constellation of the zodiac, Ophiuchus, it's always been there. Nothing new at all. It's just that astrology has for thousands of years used mathematical divisions of the heavens as its primary principle, and this requires a division of the sky into twelve signs. These signs are named after the dominant constellation in each area of the sky. Ophiuchus got left out because it's in an overlapping area and not dominant enough. Most unfair, I know, but hardly mysterious.
For Subramanian: New Zodiac Signs
Here’s a list of the updated new zodiac signs:
January 20-February 16 - Capricorn
February 16-March 11 - Aquarius
March 11-April 18 - Pisces
April 18-May 13 - Aries
May 13-June 21 - Taurus
June 21-July 20 - Gemini
July 20-August 10 - Cancer
August 10-September 16 - Leo
September 16-October 30 - Virgo
October 30-November 23 - Libra
November 23-December 17 - Scorpio
December 17-January 20 – Sagittarius
You may be wondering why exactly there are new zodiac signs in each month? The answer, according to astrologers, is due to the ancient Babylonians calculations. They said that the zodiac signs were related to which constellation the sun appeared in. Since then, the Earth’s axis has changed just enough, meaning that the sun now seems to be in different constellations. This has led to some astrologers deciding to change the way to system works – and moving the zodiac dates around a month. This has happened very slowly over time, however, so there is no need to get worried about the Earth spiralling into space!
glow
Dear Anon., Broken Yogi, and others,
Thank you all for nice clarifications. I am proud that the members group consists of experts in astrology, astronomy and geology.
I am Anuradha - Vrischika in Hindu
astrology. The first house has got Moon, which is debilitated -
hence my years of psycho neurosis,
from which Sri Bhagavan pulled me out,as per Hindu calculations. The second house, Dhanur has got Ketu, Pisces the fifth house, [My mother ssid it is Poorva Punya sthana.] contains Sun, Budha [mercury], and
Sukra [Venus]. The all dreaded 8th house Mithuna [Gemini] consists, all malefics, Rahu, Saturn, and Mars [lagnathipathi].
The 12th house, Thula, has got Jupiter [Guru], the only saving grace, according to my mother.
You may send your observations and predictions to g337h4@yahoo.com.
Do not send it here, lest people like Maneesha may be bored. I do not want David's blog for this purpose.
Dear everyone,
I was born on 23rd March 1946, 9.56 PM, Saturday. Nadi astrology, the reading old palmyra leaves by one
Vaitheeswaran Kovil chap, told me that I may not cross 70th year. It is good, that I may attain Sri Bhagavan's feet in another 5 years,
sooner the better, is it not?
... Subramanian R., sooner the better, is it not?...
That's really true. Bodily life should not last longer than the blink of the eyes. May I dare to ask you how you prepare yourself for death?
Regarding "new" astrological signs and dates: these are simply without any real meaning.
In the west, astrological signs have almost nothing to do with the actual constellations. We calculate the zodiac based on the position of the spring equinox, and then divide that into twelve equal regions of the sky. These are given the names of the constellations, but they do not correspond to the actual star positions. That is why the western astrological signs simply do not move. The vernal equinox is at the zero point of Ares, a fixed position and easily calculated, so there is no question about its position, and thus no question about the positions of the signs of the zodiac which follow from that point.
The vedic zodiac also divides the sky into twelve equal regions, but its starting point requires an adjustment, called the ayanamsa, which accounts for the "wobble" in the earth's rotation, and the "drift" this creates in the vernal equinox. Vedic astrologers differ in the calculations of the ayanamsa, but most place it at around 23-25 degrees at this point.
None of the "adjustments" to the zodiac being talked about in the news lately have any genuine meaning to astrologers, unless they are vedic astrologers who think that their ayanamsa calculations should be changed, but most would not. The sidereal zodiac is not changed by any of these considerations, nor is the solar zodiac. It's just a bunch of fluff.
Clemens,
no use to prepare. Physical death will come when time is ripe. In the meantime just sit still.
Dear Clemens Vargas Ramos,
Everytime there is a pain or misery, I always say the phrase of Saint Manikkavachagar: "Tharikkilen kaya
vazhkai, Sankara potri." I do not want this bodily life, O Sankara!.
Whenever I feel happy, I say, "Bhagavan! This is fleeting. Let me not love this life, for this sake." At night, before going to bed, I remember Ramaneswara Mahalingam, in Samadhi Hall, and say " O Bhagavan! Please take me quickly to Your Feet. Even if I do not see the sunrise tomorrow, nothing is lost for me..." Then I chant Arunachala Siva, Arunachala Siva and then get into sleep. In the morning, when I wake up, I say, Arunachala Siva, Arunachala Siva.... and the rise from the bed. Then I tell Him, please say in my Heart, in Jagrat, Swapna and deep sleep states....
salutations to all:
subramanian/others:
just my opinions - with all due respects to astrology, does knowing when one is likely to die hasten one's progress? i sincerely doubt it! even more i doubt that bhagavAn is going to clean up our self-created 'mess' (after all, if one loves bhagavAn, why would one cast the burden of cleansing his/her 'aegean stables' on him? - what love are we talking of??) i know next to nothing in astrology for me to have anything against it, but even at the empirical level, the naive curiousity, with which it begins, in course of time, may descend into an ill-founded obsession of being dictated by destiny for all & sundry (as if such a destiny was imposed on the whim of an alleged dictator!!)
i remember svAmi vivekAnanda saying 'if what one is in the present is because of what one did in the past, it also implies what one will be in the future shall depend on what one does in the present'! for those who argue that 'to know what will happen helps one to plan better', i don't know what to say but this much i do know that even if it might help such a one to plan out the mundane aspects of life, it could be quite useless towards making any plans to be free!! if it were otherwise, bhagavAn & thAkur would have said it in so many words; if they didn't, would presume that destiny has got nothing to do with freedom - and if that's valid, the farther seekers stay from astrology, the better! could be more fruitfully spent with mathematics/music if unable to do vichAra :-)))
Dear S.,
I also agree with you. It is God or Guru who decides our destiny, death/salvation and not our sankalpa. However, instead of asking Sri Bhagavan, 'give me good health, give me more money, give me sannyasa,' it is better to remember Him and ask for His feet, at the time of death. Even this is duality. "The better way would be to tell Him: Give me my Self."
Even here, self inquiry is the best but most of us, ardent devotion and self surrender appears easier, though Sri Bhagavan said both are easy or difficult, and both are the two sides of the same coin.
As regards astrology, all this cropped up because of that 13th Zodiac. I was curious. I started the post. Our friends are kind enough to reply. That is all. But if someone is fearful about impending planetary positions, again the best way as Rangan [or Vasudeva Sastri] was asked to do: To stay with Him. As Tiru Jnana Sambandhar said in KoLaRu Padigam: What will all these planets, starting from Sun would do to me, I am the devotee of Siva, whose consort is having slender shoulders like bamboos, in whose neck the halahala is held. He is an excellent Veena player [There is one Veena Dakshinamurty]. He wears blemishless crescent moon, and is in my Heart.
Here the consort is referred to indicate the Grace. Halahala poison to indicate any danger. Veena is referred to indicate that Siva is Sabdha Brahman. Crescent moon to indicate that even sinners will be forgiven by Him.
GK, Maybe it's best to say be still, not sit still!
glow
Subramanian. R
Thank you. I believe this devotion of yours the best way. Like Nachiketa we shall do our best to make friends with Yama as soon as possible. After all He is one of the manifestations of God, isn't it? Nothing can harm the one making friends with death. After all, what is death? It is a journey to another, exciting continent. As for me I'm always happy to make a new journey.
Hi
I thought you might like to read this, "The Experience of No-Self: A Contemplative Journey" by Christian, Bernadette Roberts.
I'll be interested to read your thoughts on the article.
http://www.nonduality.com/berna.htm
regards and hope you are all well
Dear Clemens Vargas Ramos,
Krrp praying, keep praying, avoid
others who do not pray.
Saint Manikkavhagar sings in Verse 10, Decad of Dread, Accha Pathu,
Tiruvachakam:
I dread not arrow that unswerving flies;
nor the wrath of death's dread King
I fear,
Him whose adornment is the mighty moon,
men praise not, nor with hymns adore;
They ponder not with souls subdued, while tears
from brighty beaming eyes pour forth,
These thankless men, not men! if we behold,
Ah me! we feel no dread like this!
Subramanian,
You forgot to give us place of birth(nearest town or city).
-z
Hi Peter, I read Bernadette Roberts book years ago. I found it unsettling and somehow quite unsatisfactory. As I recall where was the lasting peace?
glow
Dear Anon.,
I was born in Thanjavur town, at the home of my grandmother, in Tamizh
Nadu. I do not know the latitude and
longitude. It is south of Chennai city. Not a sea cost either.
Dear Peter,
I read just an hour ago, the lady's
experiences. She had all the bhavas
of a true inquirer. She had fear, blackout, absolutely sapping energy
in the body, etc., But the end part of it I did not understand. She looks more like a Christian mystic. I am not sure.
Subramanian,
Thanks for the positive thoughts.This positive attitude has helped me.I used to dwell on Budhdhistic, Nihilistic kind of attitude and that did not help me.This was the main criticism of Swami Vivekananda about Budhdhistic thinking and attitude.Although he was a great fan of Lord Budhdha he did not like their attitude and criticized their thinking and practises as dry.This is also where Bhakthi/Faith scores over Jnaana.If one has great Faith in Bhagawan he is already crossed great many hurdles and so is lucky.Yet this faith only comes by time/experience and cannot be practised like pumping muscles or arrived at through intellectual speculation.Although great faith and surrender is very difficult our positive attitude is the main weapon and vehicle that can take us there.Most of what Vivekananda did was only to create postive attitude in the masses by reminding them of their inherent power and past glory.All the multi million dollar personality development education empire in the US is about Positive Development but mostly I think they also take out any reality check with in you and end up as bogus courses.Positive attitude without reality check(knowing your strenghts and weaknesses and knowing what you want, and what it takes to get you there) is just like those puffy courses in America.Again sometimes nothing can about some things.It is best to laugh away if you can that is or simply cry out:)
When Bhagawan was asked should one just sit and expect God to somehow magically get him food he replied surely one must go out atleast make an attempt to ask[Not exact words but someone please dig out this story] but this applies to a lot of us.My little experience is that Faith for the kind of us does not mean expecting God to deliver miracles but also making our best efforts.Here lies another practical probelm. Where does our effort end and Bhagawan's grace begin?How to decide how much effort should I make and at what point to leave it God.This is grey area for me.Becuase too much effort at all means and costs will take us to the opposite path of 'Self-effort' which is also mentioned as one of the paths mentioned by Bhagawan.This I call the path of Ravana which it will eventually lead to i.e if one succeeds.For now I think I should leave it to whatever common sense prevails at that time.
Regarding Astrology; astrology for the purposes of knowing future is self defeating.If you believe in Astrology that future is fixed what is the point of knowing it in advance.In India horoscope matching between prospective bride and groom is common.If one believes in Astrology and who you are going to marry is fixed what is the point of matching horoscopes?This probably might have come into as there is no dating in traditional Indian culture but even with dating in the west divorce is very high.Similarily divorce among love marriages is the highest.This does not mean traditional Indian marriages are happy.I think horoscope matching symbolises our effort.But blessed is one who does not believe nor care for Astrology at all.Where I use Astrology is to look at various traits,attitudes,character so that I can work on them or just be aware of them and that will eventually correct them.But generally people after 30 know a lot of their strengths and weaknesses i.e whatever that is possible to know and the margin of error in Astrology is so high. I read one All India expert K.N.Rao saying a great expert is one who can achieve 70% accuracy.Again this accuracy is only on general non-detail predictions.In my personal opinion all pariharams and gemstones are ONLY for psychological reasons to create Positive Attitude.Prayer and Social service is the best pariharam.
I hope I haven't sounded as a preacher.If I am already what all I've said I would be God would n't I.Just a few thoughts from my current experiences and struggles.
-z
Dear Anon.,
Yes. Bhakti and Faith should reach
higher and higher, when you begin to experience that everything, every step that I take is His Will. This is the stage at which surrender becomes complete and ego gets atomized. At this stage Guru's Grace, which is all the while there, starts operating. Sri Bhagavan told Devaraja Mudaliar: Oye, Grace
is always there, but "you" don't come in between! When the ego becomes smaller, we become larger vessels to take the ever flowing grace. If one could have king size ego, and takes only a spoon to Sri Bhagavan, he will get only spoonful of grace. Ultimately all depends on our ego. Muruganar quotes Tiruvachakam, Kovil Tirupadigam [Decad on Kovil], 22.7:
"Lord Siva of holy Perunturai, who wore me down, more, to an atom's size, till I becoming less and less, became one with Him."
This is bhakti and surrender, which deflates the ego.
Dear Anon.,
Saint Manikkavachagar in another song of Tiruvachakam, Setthilapathu,
Decad of Not Yet Dying, Verse 5:
I shall ignore the rules of Brahma
Vishnu and Indra - He calls them in
Tamizh, Attu devar, those who rock you here and there in life!
*
Lord, I shall ever be in your gracious way,
Oh, you are even rare substance
for the brahmins who do pujas and sacrifices. - Here he calls them in Tamizh as Nattu devar, gods of
the land!
*
Please show me your anklet wearing feet, O Lord and then remove this
bodily life which is only ignorance. Here he says, for alliteration, Kattu Deva, please
show O Lord.
*
Settai devar tham deva pirane!
Siva of Tiruperundurai!
Here Settai devar means, all smaller gods, like Mariamma, Pidari, Pratyangara. and such and all planets and their controllers. Settai is a typical Pandya Kingdom word, which means mischief. Both the poet and Sri Bhagavan who are from Pandya lands uses this word!
Dear Mr. Broken Yogi
I again found yourself commenting and reminding about eradication of caste system to Ravi one week back.
I am not qualified to suggest you anything. But very humbly with folded hands, as a brahmin guy of 21st century let me tell you one thing:
The caste system I dont know how it affected your SC/ST friends in olden days. Current situation, ground level sitatuion, in India and especially in Tamil Nadu is far far different from what you perceive it to be.
It is we the brahmin priest class that is suffering in every quarter. We have been rejected admission to Govt. Medical and Engg. colleges by unusally setting high level of score to be achieved.
We have been denied Govt. jobs and off late even the right to perform poojas in big temples.
This thing being so -- your wish that caste should be eradicated had already taken place. There is no one who hears somebody who glorfies sanathana dharma.
Nobody prevents the non brahmins from reading or hearing vedic chants CDs. But most of the non brahmin class dont care to listen or read vedas and vedanta. They live their own life, enjoy sensual pleasures (Not all but majority).
So please dont create a illusionary granthi within yourself about caste discrimination.
Any theory is relative to the particular time period where it is applied.
Whatever may be the past , things are exactly opposite now. So if you cannot emphathize current day brahmins, that is perfectly fine. But atleast dont hurt us further by telling about untouchability.
We are the untouchables now.
Ravi has long back forgotten the discussion on caste and so I am.
Please dont hurt us further by quoting and arguing on caste.
I write all this myself being a direct victim.
I am Krishna (Mr. Confused here)
I take complete liberty on my brothers and sister devotees and write this. Please dont mistak me -- I love you all, I am very happy to be among you, so I write like a child.
Few days back there came an argument between loving bhagavan with motive or without motive, with S quoting that (in summary) self enquiry alone is important for him.
Let me tell all from my personal experience. There is nothing greater than Guru Bhakthi -- whether done with a motive or without motive. And all our self enquiry, meditation and other exercises is on the very outer layer. Suddenly if we see a cobra or get caught into a tough life situation, automaticaly our inner being will rush towards either Ishwara or Guru. All other practices however effective they seem, for we people we cannot catch hold of them continuously.
I generally observered that Maneesha, S and few others more inclined towards jnana (Maneesha, well not exactly, but somehow my final conclusion is that).
Ravi on other hand is always a melting sugar candy.
But whatever may be-- I request all concerned to drop this agnostic, questioning attitude on God and take based on faith and devotion. We need not think too much, saying before 100% everything is sentimental nonsense etc.
A sentimental non-sense and a blind faith on Ishwara and Ramana even if it is just 0.00001% -- it is far far better than years of self enquiry.
It does not mean self enquiry is inferiror, we are inferior to perform it continously. So we have to do self enquiry all the time but we need to adore Bhagavan in flesh and blood, in his own form all the time. Even if Bhagavan tells not to believe in forms like he advised to Annamalai swami, in this quarter we can take liberty and go to his form again and again
With Mathru Sri Sarada and Lakshmana I have personally felt this -- after doing lot of Guru Bhakthi, when I sit occasionally for 5 minutes self enquiry it becomes more and more effective.
One more thing also -- I regard David Godman as Bodhana Guru. So many times I have asked David so many personal questions, stupid questions and all unncessary and curiosity type information. David sometimes will not reply and sometimes will reply in a line correcting my attidue. To this day, I consider all of his mails with so much love and respect that once I consider my as my Bodhana Guru the person who showed the fingers towards Reality.
One may perform so much penance, discuss about Ajata and all that,but the peace one gets by even being scolded by Guru is the greatest of all.
This does not mean that I am opposed to vichara margaa or jnana margaa. But to our level, all of us in our lives, will be shattered into pieces and exploded part by part even by a small pinch of maya shakthi of the Divine Mother.
So we must all put down our collar, go behind forms of Bhagavan and Ishwara like a beggar, get scolded by them, only to go back again and again.
I sincerely tell this -- what agnostic belief? Shiva, Vishnu they exist in flesh and blood, so many has performed tapas and has seen them -- why we should take that position at all? By infinite grace all this great vichara margam, vendanta knowledge has come to us atleast in intellectual level. It is our duty to preserve them and be ever grateful to Ishwara and Guru. After reading all this still we say "I am agnostic", then a poor unruly villager who has blind faith will far far surpass us.
In this regard, the old brahmins of 1950s are worth notable. They will show a gesture of hands near the mouth when they speak with perivayavaas. That is vinayam, that is humbleness. To learn from Ajata to Irulan poosai -- one should have that respect. Not only outward respect, a full inner faith and belief hammering our doubting mind. Even it meants pressurizing our brain and losing shanthi, it is far better to lose shanthi that way.
Krishna here on definitions, notations and words while describing Self.
Let me tell something referring to Sri Lakshmana Bhagavan and Mathru Sri Sarada.
We all say that people commit mistake when they say a jnani is under tapas or intense meditation and he is all the tiem in Sahaja samadhi whatever he does.
While this statement is true and so all other terminologies like no individual will, dissolution of I, automatic response from a jnani etc, it is not entirely false to say that a jnani is performing tapas.
For example, my elders in my house are very orthodox. They generally dont acknowledge anybody and everybody as Guru. For that matter they regard Ramana as great and brahma jnani only because the most Orthodox Paramacharya of Kanchi said so. "Maha perivaale sollitaa" "Maha Perivaa himself told" they will glorify like that. Not only in my house but a section of brhamins like that.
SO in this situation, I started looking into photos of Lakshmana Bhagavan when my elders came.
They asked who is he. I thought of telling that he is a great jnani. But instead I told them that he is a great yogeeshwarar who did intense tapas for 13 full years without speaking after seeing Ramana Maharishee. Even scorpion bite him in his eye.
That is it. Immediately they became very curious, had a respect and devotion towards my Guru Lakshmana. That is it. A jnani cannot be capable of something so he can very well do tapas.
In this way I felt that all our terminologies and glossaries have only limited relevance
Sometime back Ravi told that Ramakrishna Paramahamsa will re-incarnate in 2078 and arvind can see him if he is steadfast.
But David Godman's opinion is of the opposite.
So now what stand we should take --below is the visualization.
One side all great diskhitars, sastris, even jnanis sit and tell one point.
Other side another set of great diskhitars, sastris, jnanis like Ramakrishna Paramahamsa sit and argue another point.
We all innocent devotees can take any side and sit with any row -- but all the time with folded hands, hand on the mouth, enjoying our side's points -- at the same time bowing down before the otehr group simply because of one thing --- "all people in this vidvat satas is great persons by their austerities,truth simultaneously expresses itself its different aspects in thier dialogues" To say in tamil "nambala vida andha perivaa elaam anushtanam, tapas, shradhhai idhula elaam romba usandha vaa, adhunaala naama romba adakamaa kettukanum"
There is a story of naichkedha jnani visiting hell after his body dies and relieves the sinners there. Now why it is not possible? A jnani is all pervading and Divine can continue to be in the same form even after a jnani's deham perishes.
I dont know how much sense I am making here , but the bottom line is that "shradhaa bhakthi samanvitah:"
For instance if any of us saw Ramanuja Charya or Madhva charya or Chaitanya Mahaprabhu we would have immediately accepted what they told and would have become vaishnavites. Reason -- because their anushtanam, the strength of devotion is more powerful than our intellectual knowledge. That is the point.
salutations to all:
today is "thy poosam" (most famous for its association with vaLLalAr or rAmalinga adigalAr, perhaps the greatest tamil saint of the 19th century and who like the nAyanmArs of old sang thousands of melodious soul-stirring verses)...
here is an absolutely beautiful verse:
பெற்ற தாய்தனை மகமறந் தாலும்
பிள்ளை யைப்பெறும் தாய்மறந் தாலும்
உற்ற தேகத்தை உயிர்மறந் தாலும்
உயிரை மேவிய உடல்மறந் தாலும்
கற்ற நெஞ்சகம் கலைமறந் தாலும்
கண்கள் நின்றிமைப் பதுமறந் தாலும்
நற்ற வத்தவர் உள்ளிருந் தோங்கும்
நமச்சி வாயத்தை நான்மற வேனே
[peRRa thAi thanai maga maRanthAlum
piLLayai peRum thAi maRanthAlum
uRRa thEkathhai uyir maRanthAlum
uyirai mEviya udal maRanthAlum
kaRRa nenjagam kalai maRanthAlum
kaNkaL ninRu imaipathu maRanthAlum
naRRavathhavar uLLirunthOngum namachivAyathhai nAn maRavEnE]
[even if a child were to forget its mother;
even if the mother who gave birth were to forget her child;
even if one's prANa were to forget one's body;
even if the body that houses the prANa were to forget the latter;
even if the mind that has learned the arts were to forget it all;
even if the eyes forget to pause & blink;
the "namachivAya" which emanates/ radiates from the hearts of those immersed in great penance - that I will never forget] :-)))
ravi/subramanian: as always, kindly correct the errors you may find in the above translation. thanks.
I don't mean by discussing astrology to imply that it has any great value in spiritual terms. It's more like a "weather report". It tells you what the upcoming psychic weather conditions might be. None of that is anything to be fearful or joyous about. A spiritual point of view on astrology would assert, I think, that there are no "bad" signs or aspects, and no "good" ones either, they are all for our benefit and we are simply challenged to adapt to them in that spirit. Death is just another weather pattern we must adapt to.
Someone did make a comment asking skeptically why we would want to give Ramana our burdens to work through, and suggested that Ramana wouldn't want that. I have to disagree entirely there, and there's a wonderful set of quotes from David's site (I don't have the link, but I do have the quote saved, because I cherish it so much I display it near my desk).
Ramana's Promises
1. My devotees have the qualifications to rejoice abundantly, like children of an emperor.
2. Abandon the drama [of the world] and seek the Self within. Remaining within, I will protect you, [ensuring] that no harm befalls you.
3. If you inquire and know me, the indweller, in that state there will be no reason for you to worry about the world.
4. For the cruel disease of burning samsara to end, the correct regimen is to entrust all your burdens on me.
5. In order that your needless anxieties cease, make sure that all your burdens are placed on me through the brave act of depending totally on grace.
6. If you completely surrender all your responsibilities to me, I will accept them as mine and manage them.
7. When bearing the entire burden remains my responsibility, why do you have any worries?
8. Long ago you offered your body, possessions and soul to me, making them mine, so why do you still regard these things as 'I' and 'mine' and associate yourself with them?
9. Seek my grace within the Heart. I will drive away your darkness and show you the light. This is my responsibility.
To the Broken Yogi: 'Death is just another weather pattern we must adapt to'
May I suggest the above statement you made sounds superficial and way premature.
thank you for the responses
regarding http://www.nonduality.com/berna.htm
it was interesting to read of Christ's suffering as representative of the suffering endured shedding the self
regards
s/Friends,
Wonderful song of the Great Saint sri Ramalinga adigaL-vaLLalaR.To think of these great ones itself is a blessing.vaLLalar used to wrap himself with just one piece of white cloth-a perfect symbol of purity,Humility and compassion.His arutperunjyOti agaval(Hymn to Grace Light) is a Veda.It is said that the Great one walked without his feet touching the ground!a few inches off the ground!so that he does not trample on anything that crawls and moves.
Some of the temples that he used to frequent are in the neighbourhood of the old george town in Madras.
Namaskar.
Dear Anon. [Mr. Confused],
Forget about agnostics and atheists. As regards Jnana Marga and Bhakti Marga, many think that Jnana Marga is dry and not emotional. The hidden
reason for their attitude is not this 'dry' business, but their unwillingness to submit the ego. They love and operate the ego so much in life that if some teachings of Sri Bhagavan say that
'Forsake the ego', they are reluctant to them. The mind/ego are so dear to them. In Bhakti, however, one can go ahead with ego, till one reaches the point of self surrender.
All the same, as Sri Bhagavan had said: Bhakti and Jnana are the two sides of the same coin. The moral is - You should jettison the ego,
right now, or a little later. You can enter the gates of liberation with the carry bag of ego.
Friends,
Here is an excerpt from the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna:
Wednesday, May 2, 1883
About five o'clock in the afternoon Sri Ramakrishna arrived at the temple of the Brahmo
Samaj in Nandanbagan, accompanied by M., Rakhal, and a few other devotees. At first the
Master sat in the drawing-room on the ground floor, where the Brahmo devotees gradually
assembled. Rabindranath Tagore and a few other members of the Tagore family were
present on this occasion.
Sri Ramakrishna was asked to go to the worship hall on the second floor. A dais had been
built on the eastern side of the room. There were a few chairs and a piano in the hall. The
Brahmo worship was to begin at dusk.
Why temples are holy
As soon as the Master entered the worship hall he bowed low before the dais. Having taken
his seat, he said to M. and the other devotees, "Narendra once asked me, 'What good is
there in bowing before the Brahmo Samaj temple?' The sight of the temple recalls to my
mind God alone; then God-Consciousness is kindled in my mind. God is present where
people talk about Him. One feels there the presence of all the holy places. Places of
worship recall God alone to my mind.
"Once a devotee was overwhelmed with ecstasy at the sight of a babla-tree. The idea
flashed in his mind that the handle of the axe used in the garden of the temple of
Radhakanta was made from the wood of the babla. Another devotee had such devotion for
his guru that he would be overwhelmed with divine feeling at the sight of his guru's
neighbours. Krishna-consciousness would be kindled in Radha's mind at the sight of a
cloud, a blue dress, or a painting of Krishna. She would become restless and cry like a mad
person, 'Krishna, where art Thou?' "
GHOSAL: "But madness is not desirable."
MASTER: "What do you mean? Was Radha's madness the madness that comes from
brooding over worldly objects and makes one unconscious? One attains that madness by
meditating on God. Haven't you heard of love-madness and knowledge-madness?"
A BRAHMO DEVOTEE: "How can one realize God?"
MASTER: "By directing your love to Him and constantly reasoning that God alone is real
and the world illusory. The aswattha tree alone is permanent; its fruit is transitory."
How to spiritualize the passions
BRAHMO: "We have passions like anger and lust. What shall we do with these?"
MASTER: "Direct the six passions to God. The impulse of lust should be turned into the
desire to have intercourse with Atman. Feel angry at those who stand in your way to God.
Feel greedy for Him. If you must have the feeling of I and Mine, then associate it with God.
Say, for instance, 'My Rama, my Krishna.' If you must have pride, then feel like
Bibhishana, who said, 'I have touched the feet of Rama with my head; I will not bow this
head before anyone else.'"
-----------------------------------
The Beauty of Sri Ramakrishna lies in his acknowledinging how seemingly 'trivial' things can be helpful-Human Nature is such that it is bent on trivilaizing all things,caught up as it is in the world of Grandiose 'ideas'.The 'ajAta' vada is one such 'idea'.If Truth is indescribable how 'ajAta' can be the 'Final' word and mAndukya ,the 'ultimate' upanishad!
Namaskar.
Dear Anon., [Krishna]
I fully agree with you. Most people think that a realized person, who ever sits without any work [from the point of view] and go with begging bowl, is a not a great person. But they think a person who materializes Vibhuti, Kumkum, who makes other miracles like raising a dead person from death or having clairvoyance, telepathy, speaking about past,present and future are all great Yogis. Even in Sri Bhagavan's times this had happened. McIver went behind such a cheap juggler and even caused disturbance to Arthur Osborne, through that juggler. But the truth is that even such jugglers who bring in vibhuti and kumkum CANNOT BE IN TOTAL SILENCE FOR 13 YEARS, because their egos are so tough.
Dear S.,
Thanks for telling the members about Thai Poosam. I was remembering VaLLalar yesterday, though I did not read even one song of his, despite having a small volume of Tiru Arutpa. Sri Bhagavan while talking about Jnanis leaving the body before maha-nirvanam, has said: "There are various types. One can leave the body without even leaving a trace of it, behind, like VaLLalar." I saw the moon from my balcony on the night of Wednesday and Thursday and also the full moon on Arunachala at 6.56 PM and 7.49 PM on two days, [through Graham Boyd's webcam].
Dear S.,
A true Brahma Jnani is one who is
unaware of his bodily pains when they
come about, in a total egoless state.
Not the one who cures others left
and right due to some siddhic powers,
and remains helpless when ailment comes to him.
Kanchi Maha Swami was staying in cowshed in his last days. Due to cowdung and other unclean items, the shed had an army of mosquitoes at night. Once a devotee wanted
to sleep in the cow shed, somewhere near Maha Swami. He could not lie down even for 15 minutes. He came out. On the next morning, he asked Maha Swami: How is that Swami, you could speak in that cowshed? Mosquitoes are swarming like an army. Maha Swami said: Mosquitoes? Where are they? Were they biting at night?
Sri Bhagavan had done the same thing in His years of sarcoma.
Dear Broken Yogi,
I agree with you. What is wrong in giving our burdens to our Guru, in times of utter helplessness? These human burdens - are they burdens at all for a Brahma Jnana Guru or God? Did not Sri Bhagavan Himself say the same thing to Arunachala in Verse 9
of Sri Arunachala Padigam? Sri Bhagavan went one further step and told Arunachala: "I am not having Jnana. I have only love You and I feel wearisome in my quest of attaining Jnana. Please confer me
the Jnana." [Sri AAMM 40.]
Dear Peter,
Yes. Sri Bhagavan has also said the crucifixion of Christ is symbolic of shedding the ego.
Dear Ravi,
There are many wonderful events like this about Saint Ramalinga VaLLalar.
He started with worshipping Tiruttani
Muruga. He used to walk about 100 kms from Tiruvottiyur [now part of Chennai] to Tiruttani and have darshan of Muruga. Later it evolved into worship of Nataraja - the King of Ambalam. Ambalatharase! Hall of Consciousness. He used to say that Muruga is six faced Siva and there is no difference between son and father. [Son is the father of the Man!] Finally it culminated in to worship of Light, the Effulgence, the mark of Siva in many scriptures. Rig Veda calls it Agni worship. Saint Ramalinga VaLLalar had an immense love and respect of Saint Manikkavachagar. He used to keep a palmyra leaf having a Tiruvachakam verse kept between his crown and the white dhoti covering the head and limbs.
Dear Ravi,
It is interesting to note that KaNNudaiya VaLLalar, the author of
Ozhivil Odukkam [Staying in the Endless] was living before Saint
Ramalinga VaLLalar. Saint Ramalingam had written a special very detailed foreword to this work, covering only the first invocation verse on Tiru Jnana Sambandhar. Later Tiruporur Chidambara Swamigal wrote the commentary on other 252 Venbas [verses].
Dear Ravi,
Saint Ramalinga VaLLalar has written
one composition titled Siru PiLLai ViNNappam, of about 40 verses. [A
small child's submission].
In his very first verse of Tiru Arutpa, he says:
If a father beats his erring son,
The mother would rush to him and embrace.
If a mother beats her erring son,
The father would rush to him and embrace.
Here, You, the vibuti smeared dancer of hall of consciousness, the Pure,
Do not beat me, enough. Embrace me, I can bear no more.
This Satputra Bhava is heart melting.
salutations to all:
broken yogi/subramanian:
broken yogi said: "...Someone did make a comment asking skeptically why we would want to give Ramana our burdens to work through..." -
i wasn't sceptical at all when i had said (after all, if one loves bhagavAn, why would one cast the burden of cleansing his/her 'aegean stables' on him?)... folks, there can be 'ways' of loving, which need not be restricted to what you people subscribe to, isn't it? for me, if you are loving somebody, there is no question of causing any trouble to that beloved one, straight & simple - in the glorified name of 'surrender', if all that one wants is a free super-servant who will be a super-cure for our laziness in cleaning up our self-created garbage, that, for me, is "not" love :-)
for a change, let me write as if i were a bhakta :-), then this what i would say: i love bhagavAn and my chosen style is to love him for the beauty he is! period. he has given us the wonderful 'vichAra' and that's enough. if you folks remember, in the few days before bhagavAn passed away (you may dig out the story), there is an episode of a devotee telling bhagavAn that he/she isn't able to bear the pain bhagavAn is going through and also wishes to take on that pain on him/herself - to this bhagavAn said to the effect of 'from where do you think that this so-called pain has come from to begin with?'! i will gladly & bravely work through a hundred lives, if need be, rather than thrust it in on bhagavAn in the name of surrender :-) this is the lover's attitude i understand :-) [nAyamAtma balahInena labhyah]
subramanian said "...The hidden reason for their (agnostics & atheists) attitude is not this 'dry' business, but their unwillingness to submit the ego..." -
i may be an agnostic and this need not be the case - i may simply not know how to submit the ego instead of any 'unwillingness' to do so! :-) again, for me, to recite hymns (which i do), to shed tears (which also i may do!), to read the kathAmrita or the tiruvAchakam (which too i do!) or reading ramaNA's promises (which also i have read) are all "not" 'surrender' :-) surrender has to imply in some way the sublimation of the i (not in some assumed hypothesis but in tangible reality), and for me, is realisable through bhagavAn's vichAra :-)
Dear S.,
I want to write about one part of your post. Regarding Sri Bhagavan getting sarcoma, due to others bad karmas. There are also stories that He took His Mother's vasanas to make her clean and ready for liberation. One devotee had even a vision [!]
that His mother's face was coming out from the sarcoma wound. I do not believe in this. Because Sri
Bhagavan has clearly said: During her last minutes, the vasanas came out one by one and then got dissolved quickly like a cinema film. Then she got absorbed into the Self within.
Secondly no one can carry other man's karmas and sins. Each one has to put up with his lot. Babar's story of taking Humayun's
sufferings and dying is all not correct. But God's/Guru's case is different. The loads can be taken by god/guru because it is not a load at all for him, since god/guru is taking the entire load of this universe. See Sri Arunachala Padigam. I don't think we can ever "burden" Him. How can a child's weight be a burden for the mother who is taking it on her shoulder?
salutations to all:
subramanian:
not that i disagree with you... just said how i look at 'loving'. yes, i totally agree about the 'child' you mentioned but that's possible only for someone who is indeed childlike (we are all childish, not childlike!) :-). to him/her who is as innocent as a child, casting all burden on its mother is perfect, perhaps the only way the child knows. but are we like that child in everything else what we do? to me, there is no point in 'assuming' to be a child only when it comes to praying! one may ask 'what about mahAtmAs as mANikkavAsagar etc.'? i would say 'to them, what we call as marvelous poetry just flowed spontaneously & naturally as fragrance emanates from a blooming flower or as heat radiates from a blazing fire - there wasn't any effort involved'. this is clearly not the case with us - either there is 'effort' in whatever we do or, even if cry with spontaneity, it is as short-lived as a water-drop on a red-hot pan! after all self-surrender is to be a 'child' and such a thing may be possible when one is left with nothing but the thin film of an ego a child has, and to get there sAdhanA such as self-enquiry is necessary (as far as i see it) :-)
salutations to all:
subramanian:
you said "...Regarding Sri Bhagavan getting sarcoma, due to others bad karmas..."
this is not something i am trying to say but whatever incident i mentioned is what bhagavAn had to say! (to me, i hold the kArmic cycle itself to be something worthy of suspicion - what to talk of 'taking someone's karmAs'!) - my reference was limited to the essence of loving as i see it, nothing more. :-)
"To the Broken Yogi: 'Death is just another weather pattern we must adapt to'
May I suggest the above statement you made sounds superficial and way premature."
Well, death may be a hurricane to some, or a bright sunny day to others, but it's still just weather. It comes and goes, and you can never really predict it very well.
Dear S.,
Sorry. If you say you meant only
giving the love back in good measure
by guru is only because he has taken it from the devotee - I fully agree with you. Sri Bhagavan has also said
that AruL is always flowing from Him, only when the ego [by way of doubting His Jnanam, or due self pride], does not come in between. If one goes with open heart to Him, He gives love in abundance.
They used to say that Siva is always indebted to the devotee. Even if once he utters Siva, he is conferred liberation. But if the devotee says Siva, Siva, Siva, three times, three occasions on every day, Siva is greatly indebted. This comes in some old poem. So also Rama. Rama Japa is quite famous. If a devotee says more than once Rama, then he is indebted greatly to that devotee, since the first utterance itself confers moksha. Sri Krishna says to someone in Srimad Bhagavatam: I am still indebted to Draupadi. She gave me once a piece saree
tearing it from her saree, when I had some bleeding on the finger. I gave her endless length of saree in the gambling court. But she had once given me one rice grain and a piece of green [that is all remained after serving her husbands], and that debt, I am yet to clear!
KaruNaiyal ennai aaNda nee....
S,
I think it's important to realize from reading Ramana's Promises that the role of Guru is far more profound and loving than we can imagine or possibly emulate. Yes, if Ramana were an ego then it would be a terrible burden to give him our troubles. But because he is not, it gives him no trouble at all. Even his cancer gave him no trouble.
To see his loving sacrifice is to be inspired to surrender our own ego. That is the burden he is asking us to give him. The burden of thinking of ourselves as egos, as being responsible for our pain and suffering, of identifying with that whole round. He is suggesting we give these egoic sufferings and burdens to him, the very Self, out of sheer love. And that is okay, because he is not an ego who will suffer these burdens, he is able to surrender them in the Self, something we have much difficulty with because we identify with ego and body.
So this is what the Guru does, and we do not help the Guru by preventing him from doing what he does. It is a supreme and loving sacrifice, but one performed not only willingly, but egolessly. Hence, the suffering does not adhere to him. It passes on through and is gone. It is something to shed many tears over in appreciation and gratitude. But it is not something to refrain from doing our part in, which is to give over our burdens to the Guru. Our role is to surrender all our darkness to him, and his role is to accept it and reveal to us the Light. That is how we love him. If we do not do this, we are not truly loving the Guru. He is not here to receive our praise, but to receive our sufferings and to dissolve them. That is how our love reaches the Guru. And that is how his grace reaches us.
Dear Broken Yogi,
Nice to see your post.
In Crumbs from His table, the following conversation is recorded:
Q: But isn't the Guru's grace necessary for one's progress in Vichara?
Bhagavan: Yes. But the Vichara that you are making is itself the
Guru's grace or God's grace.
From Sad Darsana Bhashya:
Q: Can I then dispense with outside help and by my own effort get into the deeper truth myself?
Bhagavan: The very fact that you are possessed of the quest of the Self is a manifestation of the divine grace, AruL. It is effulgent in the Heart, the inner being, the real Self. It draws you from within. You have to attempt to get in from without. Your attempt is Vichara, the deep inner movement is grace, AruL. That is why I say that there is no real Vichara without grace nor grace active for him who is without Vichara. Both are necessary.
salutations to all:
broken yogi:
i wonder whether the person who simply wishes to love will ratiocinate to the extent to which you described! i doubt it, i doubt if all great bhaktAs would have deliberated in this manner prior to their immersion in prema or love! :-)
you also said "...to give over our burdens to the Guru. Our role is to surrender all our darkness to him, and his role is to accept it and reveal to us the Light. That is how we love him. If we do not do this, we are not truly loving the Guru..."
how will you 'give your burden' or 'surrender all your darkness'? with all respects to you, this sounds as a 'refined bargain', a trade nonetheless! why cover it up with benign words as 'love'!
salutations to all:
subramanian/others:
thanks for quoting bhagavAn ["You have to attempt to get in from without...That is why I say that there is no real Vichara without grace nor grace active for him who is without Vichara. Both are necessary."]
as i indicated earlier, bhagavAn has given us vichAra plus we are inclined to it - isn't that enough of grace? the rest is for us to do self-enquiry to the best of our abilities and 'be' :-). this is the only 'surrender' i understand. the rest all either appear to me as fanciful assumptions or imagined impositions :-)
[please note that if bhagavAn had told a specific person 'submit, and i will do the rest', that may have been applicable only to that specific person, and cannot be appropriated to one and all - that which bhagavAn recommended to one and all are in uLLadu nArpadu & upadEsa undiyAr, and i doubt if he said anywhere here 'submit and i will do the rest', did he? (i could be wrong, if so, kindly quote the verse where he says so - will gratefully accept it)...all writings other than what bhagavAn wrote, regardless of whoever wrote them, however great they may be, are only for secondary reference & not primary instruction]
S,
"how will you 'give your burden' or 'surrender all your darkness'? with all respects to you, this sounds as a 'refined bargain', a trade nonetheless! why cover it up with benign words as 'love'!"
I'm not sure what you think vichara is. To me it is not an intellectual exercise, but a deep and moving feeling exercise that goes deeply into the core of the egoic self-sense, our "darkness", and offers this to the Guru. Perhaps you simply do not know the despair of this life that brings one to their knees. To me, vichara is a direct way to be brought to one's knees, to be broken in mind and spirit, and in that manner to approach the Guru and his grace. And yes, this is love. Perhaps not what you imagine in the story books, but it is what real love means. And it is what vichara means also. The grace of vichara is not other than the grace of being brought to one's knees, and placing one's head in abject despair at the feet of the Guru, and depending entirely on his grace.
How does one "do" such surrender? Out of deep and unanswerable need. Spontaneously, because one has no real choice, because all one's options lead to more suffering, because one is desperate and incapable of overcoming one's own burdens. Not as a victorious conquerer, but as a man who is defeated, and thus, surrendered. As Jesus said, blessed are the poor in spirit, for they will see God. If one is not willing to go so low, one will not find that most humble love of God. That is where vichara leads us, not to glorious heaven, but to the grace of surrender.
Dear S.,
In ULLadu Narpadu, in the second
benedictory verse, Sri Bhagavan says:
When those who are in dread of death seek refuge at the feet of deathless, birthless Lord Supreme, their ego and attachment die. And they, now deathless, think no more of death.
This is the essence of surrender, which comes only out of devotion. Death here includes all pains and miseries, anxieties about sins committed, etc., etc.,
For the Lord Supreme, Sri Bhagavan uses the word Mahesan, i.e. Siva.
Devotion starts with ego. Slowly when it blossoms into self surrender, the ego is jettisoned.
Why discuss so much abuout what to surrender, how much to surrender and all that. I challenge anyone here to first make the surrender. The Acid test of Surrendering your problems to your Lord is: no thought/worry of your problem should ever rise again in your mind or atleast there should be progressive decrease in the worry about your problem that you have surrendered.Every time the worry arises one should think: why I am foolishly worrying about the problem; haven't I surrendered that problem to God;Let him do what he wishes with it and I shall accept all he decides with it.If the problem gets worse then the Lord is the loser not me.If I worry about it again then it means I do not trust in the wisdom and capability of my Lord.It is an insult to him.This should be the attitude.Even discussing about whether you have done the right thing is an insult to God because that tells, you do not trutst your Lord completely.
There is nothing wrong in trading with God.Each to his own capacity.How else can anyone begin any relationship?You move into a new colony and your neighbour tells you such and such man in our colony is a very great man.You say I see; at best you have respect for him but not love.But if there comes a time when you are in dire need and you approach that great man or he approaches you and steps out his way and helps you; your previous respect for him starts changing into Love.It is the cause that eventually leads to causeless.
Ihamu lone paramu nosaguta kaanaro(From This Comes That)-Yogi Vemana
But that Love at one point develops to a greater extent where you do not want to trouble your Lord with all your personal problems; just like any serious problem we may have we want to hide it from our parents lest they should worry.
Even to a greater extent is when you want to bear the burden of your Guru(his disease etc).This may not have been thought out well but it shows one's thoughtless Love or causeless Love.
Dont worry about what Great Saints did.I once surrendered a personal problem to Shirdi Sai Baba.I had a dream with his so powerfully luminous eyes which seemed as if each contained the universe in them and a darker body(although he is fair coloured in live).I took this as I have listened to your prayer but for now it cant be granted.Everyone to his own capacity.Surrender whatever you can and dont compare yourelves with others.Lord will be happy to bear it just like our family likes to share our burden.The next stages of Love will automatically flow.One cannot work on them as attaining grades in college.
Also Vichara is enquiring as to who is it that is making all these deliberations.Nothing more.Nothing less.
Lastly why discuss about the sweet in front you so much.Just eat it.That is why UG used to say:It is always about it but not it.
-z
Friends,
An excrpt from The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna:
Parable of the three friends
MASTER: "It is not possible to develop ecstatic love of God unless you love Him very
deeply and regard Him as your very own.
"Listen to a story. Once three friends were going through a forest, when a tiger suddenly
appeared before them. 'Brothers,' one of them exclaimed, 'we are lost!' 'Why should you say
that?' said the second friend. 'Why should we be lost? Come, let us pray to God.' The third
friend said: 'No. Why should we trouble God about it? Come, let us climb this tree.'
"The friend who said, 'We are lost!' did not know that there is a God who is our Protector.
The friend who asked the others to pray to God was a jnani. He was aware that God is the
Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer of the world. The third friend, who didn't want to trouble
God with prayers and suggested climbing the tree, had ecstatic love of God. It is the very
nature of such love that it makes a man think himself stronger than his Beloved. He is
always alert lest his Beloved should suffer. The one desire of his life is to keep his Beloved
from even being pricked in the foot by a thorn."
Namaskar.
Folks,
An after thought about Surrender.A good test for Surrender is not to worry about the problem that you have surrendered.But this is not the Acid Test but a very good test.Practically speaking most of the wishes/problems will go unanswered or atleast delayed and some will see the situation deteriote temporarily before getting better.Now in that moment of rejection, dejection, desperation and madness can you not accuse or swear at your Lord?Can you tell yourself that as you have surrendered your problem to your Lord he is the one to worry about the failure not you or can you take it as the best decision that your Lord has decided for you. This is where even good devotees fail.This is the ACID TEST.
-z
salutations to all:
broken-yogi/(z.)/subramanian:
my apologies if anything below doesn't sound 'polite' :-)
BY says "...I'm not sure what you think vichara is. To me it is not an intellectual exercise, but a deep and moving feeling exercise that goes deeply...Perhaps you simply do not know the despair of this life that brings one to their knees. To me, vichara is a direct way to be brought to one's knees, to be broken in mind and spirit, and in that manner to approach the Guru and his grace... not what you imagine in the story books, but it is what real love means. And it is what vichara means also..."
hahaha... surely, i don't know what vichAra truly is - the only one who knew what vichAra was is bhagavAn! :-) my elementary attempts at vichAra are based on the 3 verses of uLLadhu nArpadu where bhagavAn very clearly says how to do vichAra (verses 27 to 29), and that's all i know. my rudimentary efforts are attempted, to the extent possible, without any room whatsoever for any kind of feelings/emotions or thoughts/ intellections. you used words such as "deep", "moving" etc. - sorry, i have no clue what you mean by such words; you are simply using 'fillers' which don't mean anything to me :-)
to be broken by despair & brought to one's knees? it sounds as if your god or guru is some ruthless dictator reveling in a sadistic streak! i have known rank atheists who have remained calm & composed amidst severe adversity. their serenity & sagacity was a display of practical wisdom, and it had nothing to do with 'god'! to not get worked-up by what has happened or what will happen is simply to be sensible and can be done without any need for a god :-) sorry - i will not beg for freedom; 'that' which is the only 'kingdom' to which am 'heir to', that i shall not plead; freedom is my (everyone's) birthright which i will get in the royal way; whatever i need for it, that shall come from & through vichAra (from when did humility get equated with begging?)
'real love' - is there anything called 'unreal' love? in any case, if you aren't realised, you also cannot have any clue about 'real love' (real love is the attribute of the 'real'ised!) :-) the 'authority' with which you define 'real love' and say 'this is what vichara means' implies you are no way different from bhagavAn - if true, then we are fortunate to have you in our midst; if not so, please exercise caution with what you say! i sort-of do understand bhagavAn's vichAra but sorry, i have little inclination for anybody else's theoretical speculations on what vichAra 'really means'! :-)
S,
I said this is what vichara means to me, not what it is. For you it might mean something different. I could be completely different, but at least I am trying to describe what I actually feel and experience.
Again, if you think vichara has nothing with feeling, your understanding and experience of it has little to do with mine. It's not about platitudes about either love or being "already free". It's about investigating the ego, which is not such a pretty thing. It creates an encounter between egoity and the ego's source, and that is where grace flows and vasanas and samskaras are released by grace.
And yes, there are false forms of love, just as there are false forms of everything else. Have you not noticed? There are also false forms of vichara. Perhaps mine is one. If so, I am sure grace will help reveal the true form of vichara to me and dispel my illusions. But please, ask yourself sincerely, if perhaps you are missing something here.
If what I say has no meaning to you, I am sorry, I have no control over that, I am can only describe what I understand and experience. My God is not a sadist, but he does require that I face reality honestly and openly, including the darkness of egoity and the need for surrender to grace. That is not enslavement, but freedom. I am not sure what you are looking for, but real equanimity that transforms us in our feeling and experience comes from this. The equanimity that comes from deadening ourselves to or disassociating from feeling and creating a sense of calm in the mind is not something I wish to pursue. Been there, done that. Vichara does not proceed in that direction, but goes within, to the heart. If you don't understand what that means, I suggest you find out. But if you simply don't care, then don't.
Friends,
Here is an excerpt from Sri Aurobindo's Letters on Yoga:
It is not surely the Bhakta but the man of knowledge who
demands experience first. He can say, “How can I know without
experience?” but he too goes on seeking like Tota Puri even
though for thirty years, striving for the decisive realisation. It
is really the man of intellect, the rationalist who says, “Let God,
if he exists, prove himself to me first, then I will believe, then I
will make some serious and prolonged effort to explore him and
see what he is like.”
All this does not mean that experience is irrelevant to sadhana
– I certainly cannot have said such a stupid thing. What I
have said is that the love and seeking of the Divine can be and
ordinarily is there before the experience comes – it is an instinct,
an inherent longing in the soul and it comes up as soon as certain
coverings of the soul disappear or begin to disappear. The
next thing I have said is that it is better to get the nature ready
first (the purified heart and all that) before the “experiences”
begin rather than the other way round and I base that on the many
cases there have been of the danger of experiences before the
heart and vital are ready for the true experience. Of course,
in many cases there is a true experience first, a touch of the
Grace, but it is not something that lasts and is always there but
rather something that touches and withdraws and waits for the
nature to get ready. But this is not in every case, not even in the
majority of cases, I believe. One has to begin with the soul's
inherent longing, then the struggle with the nature to get the temple
ready, then the unveiling of the Image, the permanent Presence
in the sanctuary.
Namaskar.
Friends,
An excerpt from The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna:
"There lived in a village a young man named Padmalochan. People used to call him 'Podo',
for short. In this village there was a temple in a very dilapidated condition. It contained no
image of God. Aswattha and other plants sprang up on the ruins of its walls. Bats lived
inside, and the floor was covered with dust and the droppings of the bats. The people of the
village had stopped visiting the temple. One day after dusk the villagers heard the sound of
a conch-shell from the direction of the temple. They thought perhaps someone had installed
an image in the shrine and was performing the evening worship. One of them softly opened
the door and saw Padmalochan standing in a corner, blowing the conch. No image had been
set up. The temple hadn't been swept or washed. And filth and dirt lay everywhere. Then he
shouted to Podo:
You have set up no image here,
Within the shrine, O fool!
Blowing the conch, you simply make
Confusion worse confounded.
Day and night eleven bats
Scream there incessantly. …
Purification of mind
"There is no use in merely making a noise if you want to establish the Deity in the shrine of
your heart, if you want to realize God. First of all purify the mind. In the pure heart God
takes His seat. One cannot bring the holy image into the temple if the droppings of bats are
all around. The eleven bats are our eleven organs: five of action, five of perception, and the
mind."
Namaskar.
Don't get stuck too long in the discussing inquiry and the teachings in only an intellectual way. Really go for the experience!
Folks,
I would agree with S. in that a true bhakta cannot surrender his “problems” and his “burdens” before the Guru.
That is, very simply put, because the true bhakta cannot have any “problems” whatsoever in the first place. Even if life is ripping him apart, it should seem like amrtam to him as it all is coming from his Guru. In fact, the so called “problems” or “burdens” are welcomed with open arms by the bhakta as they are a sign of his beloved Master’s love for him!
One of my favourite bits of poetry is from Shah Latif (1689 -1752), an Indian Sufi Master (I remember having posted this once many years ago on the blog somewhere):
“Beloved! Let not Thy knife be sharp but rather blunt,
So that softly and for long Ye may go on
Striking me slowly with it.
That it may cut into twain the bones of my body,
And the delay of Thy performance may make it
Possible for me to enjoy the smart and torture
At Thy hands longer.
If the Beloved would once strike the wound of Love,
I shall not approach the physician for cure,
And shall kiss and tend the wound with love and tenderness.”
[In Sufi poetry, Beloved = Lord, Master, Guru]
--------------------------
Marvellous lines! They exemplify the bhakta’s approach towards the Lord. There is an old example sometimes related, which goes like: “When the rain is pelting down, the Guru provides an umbrella to his disciple to take shelter under”. Sorry, this traditional example misses the point. For the true disciple, there IS NO RAIN AT ALL, what use of an umbrella then? It is all nectar that is pouring down from the Guru, in which the disciple dances and revels in joy.
And so when Sri Bhagavan says: “Cast all your burdens upon me”, we, if we are true bhaktas, should perhaps say with tears in our eyes, “O Lord, whatever comes to me, whether as a problem or a burden or a happy event, comes from you only, and is your nectar-like prasadam for me for my good; where are there any burdens for me to cast upon you?!”
Best wishes
"a true bhakta cannot surrender his “problems” and his “burdens” before the Guru."
First, I would say not to allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. A true Bhakta is fully enlightened, and thus he has no problems or burdens. But for the rest of us, bhakti coincides with the life of struggle, difficulty, and so on, and the challenge is to give these struggles and difficulties over to the Guru.
Second, the true bhakta simply does what his Guru tells him to do. So if the Guru tells him to give the Guru all his burdens and troubles, that is what the bhakta does. He doesn't argue with the Guru or look for justifications for doing things differently. His devotion to the Guru makes him trust the Guru's instructions.
So if Ramana clearly instructs us to give over our burdens and troubles to him, who are we to say no? Clearly no genuine bhakta would refuse him. Even if we don't understand it, the bhakta has faith and trust in Ramana's instruction, and so does it anyway, trusting that it is the correct way to proceed. At that point the intellect has to bow down as well, and give over even its intellectual burdens to Ramana.
Friends,
To discuss on the True Devotee-based on his 'strengths' and 'weaknesses'!!!
The way of Devotion is the way of Faith-and the Devotee does not depend on his 'qualifications' ,however sublime and noble,heroic or otherwise.He simply trusts and loves God-as father,Mother,Friend,or Guru and in this relationship does not withhold anything whatsoever from God.
The Relationship is the key thing and all other things are secondary.
More later.
Namaskar.
There is a story about a man who used to play with his
young daughter every evening after work. One evening he
was tired and just wanted to sit down and read the
newspaper. He found a picture of the world in the
newspaper and tore it into pieces and, giving the pieces
to his daughter, told her when she had put the puzzle
together they would play. He thought he would be able to
relax for a while, but his daughter was back in a very
short time.
He asked her how she was able to put the picture
together so quickly. She said, “It was simple - on the
back was a picture of a man. I put the man together and
the world took care of itself.
glow
"Sri Bhagavan did recall an incident about a
little girl who used to live in Ramana Nagar. She had
observed people bringing food and offering it to Sri
Bhagavan and then distributing it to the people in the
hall. One day she approached Sri Bhagavan hesitatingly,
and upon asking he found out that she had wrapped a few
papads in her dress, having got them from her kitchen
at home. Sri Bhagavan and the girl shared the papads.
The next day she repeated the act by bringing fruits
from her garden. After sharing the fruits with her, He
asked her if there was a picture of him in their house.
The girl said that they had one. Sri Bhagavan asked her
to henceforth offer the food to the picture and eat it
herself and think that he ate it"
You may offer food or flowers to the Guru so it is also possible to lay your burdens at his feet. For this sort of surrender You really have to believe with all your heart.
Friends,
Sadhana is not a flash in the pan-it is not a question of 1 or a 0 as in Digital technology.Each one has to start where one is(forget all definitions of 'Ego',as if it is there out somwhere and one has to hunt it,subdue it!)and proceed from there.Only general guidelines can be given and the only way progress can be measured are in terms of a Growing equanimity,peace ,love-these become more or less a central fact of one's consciousness and all other happenings,good and bad,pleasant and unpleasant,success and failure-become peripheral and do not have any hold over the devotee.
This certainly is not reached in a day and is not a 'result' of anything that one has done.
To reach here,it does require arduous efforts,sincerity,Faith-all of these sustained by the Grace of the Divine.These things grow in small increments only and with so many stumblings and apparent failures-with many ups and downs,until the level plain is reached from where the ascent is on a surer footing.
It is easy to dismiss everything as 'mind'-yet the fact remains that Sadhana has to be done by the mind only.The power of the mind is the power of self or god,and this is something worth being recognized.
As the Gita says,the mind is one's friend or foe depending on how it is directed.
continued....
Friends,
On Sadhana,I will refer this excerpt from Sri Aurobindo's 'Letters on Yoga' -these are a collection of letters that the Great Master wrote to his disciples when they had expressed a Difficulty or doubt,seeking guidance in Sadhana.I will add that these responses are wonderful 'Road maps' and can be recognized as such by one's who have pursued Sadhana.
"If one wanted the Divine, the Divine himself would take up the
purifying of the heart and develop the sadhana and give the necessary
experiences; it can and does happen in that way if one
has trust and confidence in the Divine and the will to surrender.
For such a taking up involves one's putting oneself in the
hands of the Divine rather than relying on one's own efforts alone
and this implies one's putting one's trust and confidence in the
Divine and a progressive self-giving. It is in fact the principle
of sadhana that I myself followed and it is the central process
of yoga as I envisage it. It is, I suppose, what Sri Ramakrishna
meant by the method of the baby-cat in his image. But all cannot
follow that at once; it takes time for them to arrive at it – it
grows most when the mind and vital fall quiet.
What I mean by surrender is this inner surrender of the mind
and vital. There is, of course, the outer surrender also: the giving
up of all that is found to conflict with the spirit or need of
the sadhana, the offering, the obedience to the guidance of the
Divine, whether directly, if one has reached that stage, or
through the psychic or to the guidance of the Guru. I may say that
prÀyopaveÙana (fasting for a long time) has not anything to do
with surrender: it is a form of tapasya of a very austere and, in
my opinion, very excessive kind, often dangerous."
continued....
Friends,
Sri aurobindo continued...
The core of the inner surrender is trust and confidence in
the Divine. One takes the attitude: “I want the Divine and nothing
else. I want to give myself entirely to him and since my soul
wants that, it cannot be but that I shall meet and realise him. I
ask nothing but that and his action in me to bring me to him, his
action secret or open, veiled or manifest. I do not insist on my
own time and way; let him do all in his own time and way; I
shall believe in him, accept his will, aspire steadily for his light
and presence and joy, go through all difficulties and delays,
relying on him and never giving up. Let my mind be quiet and
trust him and let him open it to his light; let my vital be quiet
and turn to him alone and let him open it to his calm and joy.
All for him and myself for him. Whatever happens, I will keep
to this aspiration and self-giving and go on in perfect reliance
that it will be done.”
That is the attitude into which one must grow; for certainly
it cannot be made perfect at once – mental and vital movements
588 Letters on Yoga
come across – but if one keeps the will to it, it will grow in the
being. The rest is a matter of obedience to the guidance when it
makes itself manifest, not allowing one's mental and vital movements
to interfere.
It is not my intention to say that this way is the only way
and sadhana cannot be done otherwise – there are so many others
by which one can approach the Divine. But this is the only
one I know by which the taking up of sadhana by the Divine
becomes a sensible fact before the preparation of the nature is
done. In other methods the Divine action may be felt from time
to time, but it remains mostly behind the veil till all is ready. In
some sadhanas the divine action is not recognised: all must be
done by tapasya. In most there is a mixing of the two: the tapasya
finally calling the direct help and intervention. The idea and
experience of the Divine doing all belong to the yoga based on
surrender. But whatever way is followed, the one thing to be
done is to be faithful and go on to the end.
continued....
Friends,
Sri Aurobindo continued...
All can be done by the Divine, – the heart and nature purified,
the inner consciousness awakened, the veils removed, –
if one gives oneself to the Divine with trust and confidence and
even if one cannot do so fully at once, yet the more one does
so, the more the inner help and guidance come and the experience
of the Divine grows within. If the questioning mind becomes
less active and humility and the will to surrender grow,
this ought to be perfectly possible. No other strength and tapasya
are then needed, but this alone.
Namaskar
Dear Anon., [z]
I agree that we get angry with good
in times of extreme misery, which
is outright blasphemy. We even scold at him stating that I shall not come to your temple and pray etc., But we should also remember that there are many, many who are in dire distress, and wrote poems which both scolded/praised god, at the same time! Ninda stuti.
There is one poet by name KaaLamegam. He went to Chidambaram. It was late afternoon and the food-shelters had exhausted their food, and he had to remain hungry till the evening meal. He was contemplating and said, O Nataraja, have you also become poor like me, with no stocks of food for late-comers? Then he sang:
Yes. You are really poor in many respects. One girl is sitting on your head. One fellow gave a garland of sandal. One fellow shouted at you and hit you with his arrow. One son left you and is living near tanks/rivers. Another son got married to a huntress and lives in his own house on hill.
What can you do?
Dear S.,
1. People use words like "true love", "genuine surrender" etc., only to highlight the quality. It is something like Paramatma and Para Brahman. Do not, please, question the usage.
2. Vichara and Devotion or love of god should always go together. One cannot use half hen for today's biryani and keep the other half for tomorrow's hatching. It is concorporate. It is a single unit. Sri Bhagavan even after realization went to Meenakshi Temple in Madurai and wept before Sundareswara and 63 saints. He came to 'see' Arunachala with great difficulty. One cannot simply take Verses 27 to 29 of ULLadu Narpadu and say that it is His only teaching. One should see it along with 2nd benedictory verse and also Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam.
3. All great Brahma Jnanis are like this. Sri Sankara even after realization, did not stop with prakarana granthas. He wrote cart-load of bhakti poems on various gods. Guhai Namasivaya went to Arunachaleswara Temple everyday, before meal to worship.
Dear arvind,
If you decide to keep the load yourself, it is fine, God is happy.
If you want to transfer the burden to God so that you will have relief,
then God is equally happy. If a child wants to walk on its own or wants to walk keeping a hand with his father's, father is happy. He only wants that you do not fall.
Dear Anon.,
That is a heart-melting story. Sri
Bhagavan did not tell the girl: "Why are you bringing such things? Do not bring them hereafter." Instead,
He said: "You place these papads before the photo and then take them yourself." That is, He appreciated her love but at the same time, did not want her to come all the way and instead place it before the photo.
There is another story. One gentleman used to bring some camphor every day. He could not bring it one day to Sri Bhagavan and so stayed back. Sri Bhagavan told him: "Do not keep away just because you do not have money to buy camphor for me." God/Guru only wants true love and devotion. [why this true, do not ask]. Presents do not matter. If one present one's heart to him, it is more than sufficient.
Saints and Jnanis even after their
realization want the care and love of
god, unfailingly.
Saint Manikkavachagar sings in Verse 50.5 of Tiruvachakam, Ananda Maalai. {He had become Siva-Consciousness even after the poem No. 20}
As a mother you ever give me your breasts for my feed;
If you fail to give me, this weakling,
Shall perish like a uncared cur,
In love henceforth, show your
goodness to me,
I have called You had no grace for me,
But now you have no grace for me,
Make me amidst others your own,
I am ever yours, should you not save me?
Folks, Broken Yogi, Sri Subramanian,
Yes. “Cast all your burdens on me” is the advice from Sri Bhagavan for the “rest of us”, those who are entwined in the world and are thus just masquerading as “bhaktas”. And the “rest of us” must carry out the Guru’s instructions faithfully and blindly in this respect. By all means “the rest of us” should make a list of all their woes and lay them at Sri Bhagavan’s feet.
But for the true “bhakta” (which includes the “vicharist”), there is nothing wrong with the world, there are no woes. Everything that is happening is just and right and exactly as it should be. And the true bhakta and vicharist thanks Sri Bhagavan every minute from every pore of his being for the glorious “problems” that He has chosen for him. That is acceptance, that is surrender.
Why don’t you all try it for a change?
Best wishes
Dear arvind,
Yes. a true devotee should put up with his sufferings, as if these are gift from god or test of god. This is the highest devotion. But many become helpless and cry before God when it becomes only unbearable. Who can be a greater devotee than Echammal? She had death after death of all her kith and kin. Finally she adopted a girl and married her off. Even this girl after giving birth to a male child, passed away. Echammal came running to Sri Bhagavan and placed the baby on His lap and cried uncontrollably. Sri Bhagavan too cried. He did not want to raise the dead. But His empathy through His tears was a great blessing for Echammal.
Arvind,
I don't know why you think one can't do both. I practice thanking the lord for everything that comes my way, regardless of whether it is good or bad. I think him even for my own troubles with things. And I also give my troubles and burdens to him. It is all part and parcel of the same attitude of surrender. Why do you divide the world into true bhaktas and false ones, and define each according to your whims and moods?
It is all fine and good to say you see everything as perfect and good, but do you have no real difficulties that make it hard to see that at times? I can't imagine anyone who isn't fully enlightened who has achieved that state of grace. Difficulties and struggle is a part of this life, and what Ramana asks is that we not identify with it, but give it to him. And likewise, to give him all that is pleasurable and good in our lives. In other words, give all of it over. It isn't merely the bad that we give over, but the whole lot.
And I think you have it all very much backwards when you say we are merely masquerading as bhaktis. Quite the opposite, we are masquerading as suffering egos. That is our false mask. That is why Ramana asks us to give to him our suffering egos. It is not who we really are, and we are merely giving up something that is not ours to begin with.
Friends,
An excerpt from Swami Vivekananda's 'Inspired Talks'
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 !"
Namaskar.
Z,
"I think the message is clear.Do you know what you are asking for?"
I have had two kinda such dreams. I was panicking in dream(both the times) when the thot of Arunachala came and I immediately woke up from dream. So, my immediate response was "oh! so this is how it works!". So, to me this is how releiving Lion's appearance is for an elephant!
Subramanian,
"Do not send it here, lest people like Maneesha may be bored."
:) I am not sure why you felt that I would be bored, but I surely dint mind reading them! Appreciate your concern for others!
Krishna (Mr. confused),
:) Honestly, I am in middle of nothing... neither do I feel Love for Bhagavan perennially/eternally nor do I enquire continuously.
Z,
UG's quote - "It is always about it but not it."
One person likes this. :)
S.,
NOM, but ur "my apologies if anything below doesn't sound 'polite' :-)" kind of openings always make me smile...
Subramanian,
Superlike for the verse you quoted from KaaLamegam!
Friends,
"Why do you divide the world into true bhaktas and false ones, and define each according to your whims and moods? "
I agree with Broken Yogi here.This sort of a division is the usual mischief of the intellect that as Swami Vivekananda(please see my previous post)says- makes a big fuss.This is just another version of the 'jnani','ajnani' divide -old wine in a new bottle.
The way of Bhakti is the way of the 'heart',the seat of feeling-and this naturally accommodates everything,in the same manner that a mother loves all her children equally despite their different temperaments.
This is what Sri Ramakrishna says:
Different paths to suit different tastes
(To the pundit) "Please don't say anything to Mani Mallick. You must know that there are
different tastes. There are also different powers of digestion. God has made different
religions and creeds to suit different aspirants. By no means all are fit for the Knowledge of
Brahman. Therefore the worship of God with form has been provided.
"The mother brings home a fish for her children. She curries part of the fish, part she fries,
and with another part she makes pilau. By no means all can digest the pilau. So she makes
fish soup for those who have weak stomachs. Further, some want pickled or fried fish.
There are different temperaments. There are differences in the capacity to comprehend."
Does the divine mother distinguish between 'true children' and 'false children'?How absurd is this idea?absolutely kiddish.
Whoever feels that he is a'child' or 'servant' or 'disciple' or 'friend' or 'self' of the Divine-as long as he 'Feels' so-irrespective of whatever may be his shortcomings - that person is a true Bhakta in as much as a tiger cub is also a 'Tiger' and not a goat.
This is quite simple to understand and does not require any great intelligence or discernment.
Namaskar.
Friends,
An excerpt from Swami Vivekananda's 'Inspired Talks':
Love concentrates all the power of the will without effort, as when a man falls in love with a woman.
The path of devotion is natural and pleasant. Philosophy is taking the mountain stream back to its force. It is a quicker method but very hard. Philospophy says, "Check everything." Devotion says, "Give the stream, have eternal self-surrender." It is a longer way, but easier and happier.
"Thine am I for ever; henceforth whatever I do, it is Thou doing it. No more is there any me or mine."
"Having no money to give, no brains to learn, no time to practice Yoga, to Thee, O sweet One, I give myself, to Thee my body and mind."
No amount of ignorance or wrong ideas can put a barrier between the soul and God. Even if there be no God, still hold fast to love. It is better to die seeking a God than as a dog seeking only carrion. Choose the highest ideal, and give your life up to that. "Death being so certain, it is the highest thing to give up life for a great purpose."
Love will painlessly attain to philosophy; then after knowledge comes Parâbhakti (supreme devotion).
Namaskar.
Dear Broken Yogi,
That is quite right. Thanking Him
for every happiness and thanking Him again during every suffering [for making it light so that I can bear], is the right approach in devotion.
Saint Manikkavachagar sings in Kuzhitha Pathu, Decad of Melting,
Verse 5:
You know what I want
You wholly grant what I want
To Brahma and Vishnu desiring you,
you were hard to reach;
You wanted me and took hold of me,
You graced me even when I do not want,
If there is any other want in me,
Even that is your want.
Dear Ravi,
Yes. Different Paths suit to different tastes. Kavyakanta Ganapati Muni said that there are 8 roads that lead to Tiruvannamalai.
Sri Bhagavan showed us among these the direct path. But this path is not simply vichara, it is vichara soaked in bhakti.
Dear Maneesha,
I said "People like Maneesha may be bored." This is only about findings on my horoscope. We are
not quite interested in the horoscopes of others, who are not directly connected with us. Is it not?
Once Sri Bhagavan had an interesting visitor. He had some siddhic powers to know the people's halo, the light around their head. He came and told Sri Bhagavan: "Swami, I have measured Buddha's halo [!]. It is about a mile long. I have measured Aurobindo's. It is about half a mile long! For you, the halo is going miles and miles on all directions and is immesurable!"
Sri Bhagavan smiled and said: It is all right about measuring other's halos. Did you measure yours at anytime?
@Subramanian,
O... u meant it w.r.t. ur horoscope... Thot it referred to the geeneral talk on horoscopes/astrology etc.
salutations to all:
subramanian/maneesha:
subramanian said "...One cannot simply take Verses 27 to 29 of ULLadu Narpadu and say that it is His only teaching..." - did i say that? :-), of course not!
within the context of 'how to practise vichAra', i had only said that for me (& whoever else wishing to practise vichAra), bhagavAn's verses 27-29 in uLLadhu nArpadhu are primarily sufficient with no need as such to look elsewhere... that's all :-)
maneesha said: "...kind of openings always make me smile..." - hahahahahaha, but whenever i say it, i also really mean it :-). i do write my responses typically smiling all the way but at times my writings could appear to be 'harsh' and i have no intention whatsoever to hurt anyone here or elsewhere. despite the absence of intention, i could yet end-up offending someone, thus an opening apology :-)))
that there are no divisions among bhaktAs is not acceptable to me. to compare ourselves with those who were overflowing with devotion to bhagavAn, is nearly blasphemy to me :-). if you say, it's only a matter of degree and not of kind (i disagree to that too), i would say - yes, of degree indeed, the same difference of degree as is between the himAlayAs and the mud-castles made on the seashore! :-)
(i may take on a contrarian stance and i hope you folks don't want me to conform to what you say, right?) for me, bhakti begins not when one thanks the lord for the fortunes & adversities but instead when one neither wonders at the fortunes nor worries at the adversities, and thus ceases to 'thank' the lord :-) please don't misunderstand - am not saying (in any case am nobody to say!, saying in the spirit of sharing), it isn't good (in fact it's very nice) to thank for the '+'s & '-'s, just that 'that' may just be a way to 'cope' with the situation in hand (good/bad), and coping is not bhakti... be it fortunes/ adversities, the one who can naturally slip into vichAra then is better than the one who needs to say/think 'let thy will be done' :-)))
Dear S.,
Once I asked David Godman through a personal e mail, whether Who am I? - alone is sufficient. He said yes, for serious sadhakas, Who am I? alone is adequate. In fact there is one story of a Moslem boy, a blind, came all the way from Karachi to Tiruvannamalai, spent a day or two with Sri Bhagavan and then left. When inmates asked him whether he wanted any other book of Sri Bhagavan, he said, No, I have got Who am I? And that is sufficient.
But weaklings we are, we need a lot of elaboration. Not only that, we want bakti, karma, yoga,
why even aerobics and gym. Most of us somehow like roundabout route to Tiruvannamalai. However, I am of still of the view, while Vichara is the central teaching of
Sri Bhagavan, He did not lower the importance of bakti.
Other than bakti and Vichara, various side dishes will leave us one day, but till such time it goes of its own, we should not deliberately keep them away. When M. Sivaprakasam Pillai, came his fully tonsured, Sri Bhagavan chided him, saying that one should not leave his acharam [he was a Saivite, with tuft of hair], without letting it go on its own.
At the same time, He told Muruganar who was continuing yearly ceremonies for his mother, 'have you still not left such things?' Muruganar stopped the ceremonies from that year.
s/Friends,
" to compare ourselves with those who were overflowing with devotion to bhagavAn, is nearly blasphemy to me :-). "
I understand that the emphasis is on discrimination and dispassion(viveka and vairagya).Yet,I should also say that there is no question of any comparison entering the mind of a devotee.A devotee feels in a spontaneous way that he is close to God,feels his presence-and this gives him the simple trust and assurance that God loves him as much as he Loves any so called 'Great Saint'.His only concern will be that he should not lose this presence and trust.
Comparison of who is 'Great' and who is 'Low' ,etc are left behind and do not figure at all.The sense of comparison is a product of admiration' which is not Love.comparisons are totally meaningless,however much the mind may give reasons-for the simple reason that one can only be oneself!
Namaskar.
Dear Ravi,
Yes. One can neither compare different Brahma Jnanis as also sadhakas. Each one has got a pattern of their own during their Sahaja stithi [in case of Jnanis] and approaches to god/guru [in the case of sadhakas]. Sri Bhagavan used to narrate a story about KaduveLi Siddhar. Siddhar was a brahma jnani and was living in a cave. The king doubted his genuineness. A dancing girl in the court challenged that she would prove that KaduveLi Siddhar was a fake. She went to the cave,
offered to marry him. He did not say no. They were married and in a year's time she also got a child through him. One day, she left the cave without telling him and told the king that the Siddhar was a fraud and he had a baby through her! All laughed. The Siddhar was left alone with the baby and he could not take care of it properly particularly when the baby cried for mother's milk. He came to the king's court and waited when the girl was dancing. Everyone looked at him with disrespect particularly when he was holding the baby. The dancer also saw him. He told her through a look to come and take the baby.
She came near to the corner of the stage, and in the guise of setting right her loosened anklets, he handed over the baby. The dance was stopped. The king called KaduveLi Siddhar and made fun of him: Is it all your Brahma Jnanam? To get married to this dancing girl is also a brahma jnani's leela? The Siddhar replied: Whether I remain single or married whether I have a baby or not - I am still a Brahma Jnani. He then suddenly rushed near a huge pillar and exclaimed: O Pillar which is also Brahman. If I am a true Brahma Jnani, please give me final deliverance! The Pillar opened as if it was a gate, and Siddhar simply disappeared into it.
How can one know understand a Brahma Jnani's sahaja stithi? How can one know another sadhaka's approach in his sadhana?
I would like readers to read original Tamizh, Tirupadai Atchi of Tiruvachakam, [only 8 verses]
or English translation of Dr. G.U. Pope, a Jesuit Bishop who loved Tiruvachakam and made a free verse commentary. There are some inaccuracies, it does not matter. Kindly read. There the Saint Poet says: What can I or cannot I do, when my Jiva-upadhi is totally lost? Beautiful verses.
contd.,
Dr. G.U. Pope was working in Tirunelveli as a Jesuit Bishop in charge of churches. To communicate
better with locals, he started learning Tamizh through a Saiva Pillai Tamizh Pandit. Slowly his love for Tamizh increased and he started reading Tamizh works like Avvaiyar's songs and Tiru KuraL. The pandit then gave him Tiruvachakam. He loved every verse and became totally involved in that work of divine. Then he undertook free verse translation
of all the 656 verses [in to Victorian style]. Later it was published by Clarendon Press, U.K. I bought it for about Rs 300 in 1995 [At that time A pound was
about Rs 50.00]. Dr. Pope later became the Principal of Bishop Cotton Boys' School, Bangalore.
When he was in death bed, he asked his attendant to bring Tiruvachakam, and asked him to chant the Verse 8 of Adaikala Pathu [Decad on Refuge]. Tears welled from outer ends of his eyes, and he passed away, peacefully, keeping the book on his chest.
O the Consort of the woman with eyes like split baby mangoes!
You call me to your flower decked feet,
Or place me in dire hell,
I do not know your idea,
My mind is moving here and thither like a weaver's shuttle,
O I am lost, my Master, I am at your refuge!
http://bewley.virtualave.net/fut19.html
****************************
Increase in knowledge is knowledge of the nobility of slowness in the revelation
****************************
These knowledges are those in which Allah commanded His Prophet to seek increase. Allah said, "and do not rush ahead with the Qur'an before its revelation to you is complete and say, 'O Lord, increase me in knowledge!'" (20:114) i.e. increase me with Your words that You want me to know. Here increase in knowledge is knowledge of the nobility of slowness in the revelation, out of adab with the teacher who brings it to him from his Lord. For this reason, He put this verse after His word, "and faces will be humbled unto the Living, the All-Sustaining," (20:111) i.e. humbled. He meant the knowledges of tajalli. Tajalli is the noblest path for obtaining knowledges - they are the knowledges of immediate tasting.
-Ibn Arabi
****************************
The above lines are by Ibn Arabi; a Jnani. The above lines confuse me as to their practicality.I think a lot of lines in spirituality are an after analysis of the evolution but not meant to be taken as ideals to be practised in sadhana.This question of every single devotee/aspirant praying or striving for an increase in the rate of evolution/knowledge/removal of ignorance/removal of tamas is all too common.This signifies effort and restlessness for an increased rate of evolution.The above lines say that even Prophet Mohammed faced the same problem.We know even saints like Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa were increasingly restless for the the completion of evolution.But in the above lines Allah instructs Mohammed not to ask him to increase the rate of evolution before it is complete (by Allah at his own pace) or is it just an after-analysis of the evolution.Although I have read these lines many times I do not understand them.I suspect there is a profound truth hidden in the above clipping.The contradiction of effort and patience and at what level(of evolution for eg:beginner,ripe etc) is it applicable.Any serious sadhakas please give a try and tell us.Thanks.
-z
S/friends,
Just as a true jnani sees all others as jnanis, a true bhakta sees all others as bhaktas. This is because true bhakti is founded in the reality of who we truly are, and we are all in reality bhaktas and jnanis. Likewise, even the spirit of bhakti as it moves through us helps us see one another as true bhaktas, not divided into true and false bhaktas. So as we grow in bhakti we become less and less identified with our egoity and we identify others less and less with their seeming egoity. We see through that to the heart of one another, and there we see one another as true bhaktas, all equal. There are no "great bhaktas" we are to see as superior to us. Those are merely the people who see not only themselves, but us, as we truly are.
For me, bhakti means coming from that place where all are bhaktas. The great bhaktas do not separate themselves from others and look down on them as lesser bhaktas. The whole path of bhakti is not about becoming a great bhakta. It is about realizing that we are all true bhaktas, and shedding all the illusions that make us think otherwise about both ourselves and one another. It is the illusion of ego and identification with body and mind that make us think we are not true bhaktas. That is what we must renounce and relinquish. We do not become true bhaktas, we merely shed the illusion that we are not already true bhaktas.
The process of shedding that illusion is what the practice of bhakti is about. The bhakta lets go of the illusion that he is not a true bhakta. He also lets go of the illusion that others are not true bhaktas. He gives that illusion over to his Guru. That is the truest expression of his devotion to the Guru. He gives all that he has identified with and caused him misery and suffering - the burden of the body-mind - to the Guru, and he is left with only his true and real identity as a bhakta of God, a jnani of the highest kind because he has come to the lowest point and given up all at the feet of his Guru.
We are all in that process of relinquishment of our illusions, and we can say that some have relinquished more of their illusions than others, but not that any are more "true bhaktas" than the others. That would go against the very principle of devotion itself.
Dear Z and friends, "why discuss so much abuout what to surrender, how much to surrender and all that. I challenge anyone here to first make the surrender"
Z I really enjoyed and was uplifted by everything you had to say.
glow
Broken Yogi:
I would like to email you if I may about some of the points you have made in your comments.
I also read your blog, by the way.
I'm sorry if your email address is readily available somewhere here but I can't locate it. Please reply so we can correspond.
caledonia8@yahoo.com
Arguing about Maharshi's teachings did very little good for me. But maybe comparing notes on practice is helpful. Still we can be little more than the blind leading the blind. Comparing our mixed understandings and confusing each other. But I found this blog nice for having like-minded people who were all into Sri Bhagavan's teachings.
But ultimately, I benefited from pursuing with utmost dilligence the experience of egolessness, even though from my misguided understanding, the intention was what led me deeper. And then there is the relationship with the Guru. At that point this discussion with ajnanis serves little purpose. Even ajnani devotees of same Guru. Only the Guru Knows. The Knowing is so clearly beyond anything the mind or intellect can even remotely touch. and Inquiry is so beyond a mere act of concentration or shift of mental attention. But that was all I knew at the time.
Friends,
Swami Vivekananda's 'inspired Talks' as recorded by his disciple Miss S.E Waldo captures Swamiji at his free flowing best.These were like a soliloquy,with the blessed small group of disciples at the Thousand Isles park treated to the multidimensional aspects of a jivanmukta.If today it is all wisdom,the next day it will be all thrown aside as useless and the emphasis will be devotion to the avatara;only to be set aside the very next day that the Buddhas and Christs are just waves on the ocean of 'I am'!Only to be followed by emphasis on the Service to man,etc,etc-a kaleidoscopic,ever whirling fount of irrepressible inspiration.Here is an excerpt:
THURSDAY, August 1, 1895.
The real Guru is the one through whom we have our spiritual descent. He is the channel through which the spiritual current flows to us, the link which joins us to the whole spiritual world. Too much faith in personality has a tendency to produce weakness and idolatry, but intense love for the Guru makes rapid growth possible, he connects us with the internal Guru. Adore your Guru if there be real truth in him; that Guru-bhakti (devotion to the teacher) will quickly lead you to the highest.
Sri Ramakrishna's purity was that of a baby. He never touched money in his life, and lust was absolutely annihilated in him. Do not go to great religious teachers to learn physical science, their whole energy has gone to the spiritual. In Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa the man was all dead and only God remained; he actually could not see sin, he was literally "of purer eyes than to behold iniquity". The purity of these few Paramahamsa (Monks of the highest order) is all that holds the world together. If they should all die out and leave it, the world would go to pieces. They do good by simply being, and they know it not; they just are. . . .
Books suggest the inner light and the method of bringing that out, but we can only understand them when we have earned the knowledge ourselves. When the inner light has flashed for you, let the books go, and look only within. You have in you all and a thousand times more than is in all the books. Never lose faith in yourself, you can do anything in this universe. Never weaken, all power is yours.
continued...
Friends,
'Inspired Talks' continued...
If religion and life depend upon books or upon the existence of any prophet whatsoever, then perish all religion and books! Religion is in us. No books or teachers can do more than help us to find it, and even without them we can get all truth within. You have gratitude for books and teachers without bondage to them; and worship your Guru as God, but do not obey him blindly; love him all you will, but think for yourself. No blind belief can save you, work out your own salvation. Have only one idea of God — that He is an eternal help.
Freedom and highest love must go together, then neither can become a bondage. We can give nothing to God; He gives all to us. He is the Guru of Gurus. Then we find that He is the "Soul of our souls", our very Self. No wonder we love Him, He is the Soul of our souls; whom or what else can we love? We want to be the "steady flame, burning without heat and without smoke". To whom can you do good, when you see only God? You cannot do good to God! All doubt goes, all is, "sameness". If you do good at all, you do it to yourself; feel that the receiver is the higher one. You serve the other because you are lower than he, not because he is low and you are high. Give as the rose gives perfume, because it is its own nature, utterly unconscious of giving.
-----------------------------------
Again,on the same day,swamiji says:
THURSDAY AFTERNOON.
There are endless series of manifestations, like "merry-go-round", in which the souls ride, so to speak. The series are eternal; individual souls get out, but the events repeat themselves eternally; and that is how one's past and future can be read, because all is really present. When the soul is in a certain chain, it has to go through the experiences of that chain. From one series souls go to other series; from some series they escape for ever by realising that they are Brahman. By getting hold of one prominent event in a chain and holding on to it, the whole chain can be dragged in and read. This power is easily acquired, but it is of no real value; and to practise it takes just so much from our spiritual forces. Go not after these things, worship God.
Namaskar.
Friends,
In this talk give the very next day,(Friday)Swamiji lets us in on one of of his charming aspects:
FRIDAY, August 2, 1895.
Nishthâ (devotion to one ideal) is the beginning of realisation. "Take the honey out of all flowers; sit and be friendly with all, pay reverence to all, say to all, 'Yes, brother, yes, brother', but keep firm in your own way." A higher stage is actually to take the position of the other. If I am all, why can I not really and actively sympathise with my brother and see with his eyes? While I am weak, I must stick to one course (Nishthâ), but when I am strong, I can feel with every other and perfectly sympathise with his ideas.
The old idea was: "Develop one idea at the expense of all the rest". The modern way is "harmonious development". A third way is to "develop the mind and control it", then put it where you will; the result will come quickly. This is developing yourself in the truest way. Learn concentration and use it in any direction. Thus you lose nothing. He who gets the whole must have the parts too. Dualism is included in Advaitism.
"I first saw him and he saw me. There was a flash of eye from me to him and from him to me."
This went on until the two souls became so closely united that they actually became one. . . .
There are two kinds of Samadhi — I concentrate on myself, then I concentrate and there is a unity of subject and object.
You must be able to sympathise fully with each particular, then at once to jump back to the highest monism. After having perfected yourself, you limit yourself voluntarily. Take the whole power into each action. Be able to become a dualist for the time being and forget Advaita, yet be able to take it up again at will.
-----------------------------------
Sri Ramakrishna is perhaps the most striking exemplar of what Swamiji says.
Namaskar.
Send this poem as I remember Ramanas love for the squirrels. "I once spoke to my friend, an old squirrel, about the Sacraments –
he got so excited
and ran into a hollow in his tree and came
back holding some acorns, an owl feather,
and a ribbon he had found.
And I just smiled and said, “Yes, dear,
you understand:
everything imparts
His grace.”
~ Saint Francis of Assisi
To Mr Ravi, This sounds very bookish, it's all theory! "you must be able to sympathise fully with each particular, then at once to jump back to the highest monism. After having perfected yourself, you limit yourself voluntarily. Take the whole power into each action. Be able to become a dualist for the time being and forget Advaita, yet be able to take it up again at will"
Broken Yogi, folks,
An opening clarification folks: I have full respect for the views of each & everyone here, whether I agree with them or not. There is never one universal right regarding an issue. To each his own!
BY, we cant do both (“accept” the problems, and also “place” the problems at His feet) because the two are opposing things. It is only because we have really not “accepted” the situation, that we “place” it before Sri Bhagavan. Sneakily, deep within us, we want our problems resolved, whether we say so or not in so many words. Even if one says, “this is not my problem Lord, it is yours, do what you will with it”, there is an unsaid appeal to the Lord to tackle that problem. Otherwise, why raise the problem in the first place? We do not raise the point, “O Lord, the Sun has arisen, please do what you will with it”, do we? And thus, deep within us tho’ not admiited overtly, there is a non-acceptance of the way things are, of the way things have been arranged by the Guru in the first place. Otherwise, if there really was an acceptance and surrender to the Guru, the existence of a problem would be just as humdrum as the rising of the sun every day, and not worth remarking about.
And it is no use adding, “take my good things as well” (and so everything is surrendered unto the Lord). Because the “good things” are a little different from the “bad things”. In that, with the good things, we anyway have the option within ourselves to give them up, which, alas, we don’t usually have with the problematic bad things. And thus this “good things” appeal is naught but a camouflage for our sneaky attempts to get our problems solved by the Lord.
Part II
[An example: So we have been left a million bucks by our great aunt? Why go then to Sri Bhagavan and say, “O Lord, all my good things are yours too, the million bucks are yours, do what you will with them”? And then continue to make use of the money ourselves howsoever nobly that might be. We have an option of our own, anyway, to simply donate that million bucks to Sri Ramanasramam and live in penury as earlier. But will we do that? Point is, the offering of one’s good things is a realistic option anyway actionable by us if we are really sincere about it. But, suppose we have an incurable cancer and are dying? Now that’s a problem we cant do anything about ourselves. So we go to the Lord and sneakily ask Him for help in the roundabout way. Why not do it openly and bluntly then, rather than doing the “I accept the cancer, but my problems are your problems Lord, and therefore cure me”, thing? Simply say, “I have cancer; I do NOT accept it and am terrified; O Lord, cure me”.
Nothing wrong about it all, really. But then we are “rest-of-us-bhaktas” wanting things-of-the-world sorted out, and not serious aspirants for God or Self-Realisation, thats all.]
It is as Rabbia says in Ravi’s post:
He who sees his Master's face,
Will not in his prayers recall
That he is chastised at all!
Best wishes
PS: So, why and how did Bhagavan say “place all your burdens unto Me”? Like the traveller in the train or the figure in the temple pillar? Some other time perhaps.
salutations to all:
Anonymous:
you said "...To Mr Ravi, This sounds very bookish, it's all theory!..." -
firstly, ravi wasn't saying it, he was merely quoting svAmijI (svAmI vivekAnanda) :-) secondly, what you called as 'bookish' is exactly how bhagavAn & thAkur lived! it's enough to read a little about them to get a hint of this 'theory' :-) to the 'bound', much of vedAnta is bound to be bookish; to the free, there is none bound to be 'bound'! the bound can't know the free but the free knows all :-)))
Dear Broken Yogi,
Yes. All are true baktas and all are true jnanis. The non existent illusory ego hides both. When the ego is surrendered bakti becomes saranagati and jnana becomes jnana
bodham - self realization. All rocks contain within a beautiful sculpture. It is for us to chisel out the unwanted portions of the rock and make it a beautiful sculpture.
Dear Losing M. Mind,
Yes. This blog keeps the Ramana devotees together like a string of
pearls. The understanding may be less or even wrong for someone, may be high for another. Still it can help each other. In another blog someone asked me how can a sadhaka help another sadhaka, is it not Sri Bhagavan who helps us? I said: Sadhaka can help another Sadhaka since all messages and corrections come from Sri Bhagavan.
If someone writes the correct post, then it is through Sri Bhagavan. If someone writes an incorrec thing, it is due to ego.
In the second case too, Sri Bhagavan helps by corrections.
Dear Losing M. Mind,
Your second post of 23rd. Yes, it is the guru who corrects us. Sri Bhagavan had corrected the incorrect understanding of many like Kavyakanta, Mother Azhagamma, Jatini Sundarambal and others. Only the guru should be impeccable as Sri Bhagavan is. If the guru himself is incorrect, then it is like a blind leading the blind, and both fall into the pit, as Tirumoolar and KaNNudaiya VaLLalar had said.
Dear Ravi,
Your first post. Yes. Book reading can help only to some extent. Limitless book reading is not recommended by Sri Bhagavan in Who am I? He had said limitless book reading is like having many wives and families, while even one wife and a small family is sometimes more than adequate.
Dear Ravi,
In Thousand Island Park, when Swamiji said: You are all Brahmaswarupam, the people there were astounded, because they had all along been hearing in churches: O sinners, O sinners. But some felt that Swamiji had been hypnotizing them with some new thoughts. One girl stood up and said: Swami, you are hypnotizing us. Swamiji
replied: No Child, I am not hypnotizing you. I am rather de-
hypnotizing all of you, showing your real form.
Anonymous,
"To Mr Ravi, This sounds very bookish, it's all theory!"
Friend,Swamiji said-'i know every inch of the way'.Whatever he said has to be viewed from this angle-if we do not understand what it is,it is quite likely that it is our limitation.Swamiji was no meek adherent of any book or person(Sri Ramakrishna included!),and all that he said came from his first hand experience and the strength of his Realization.
Please refer to my post on December 18,2010 to fully understand in a explicit way what Swamiji meant by these words-through the experience of one fortunate devotee who questioned Swamiji on what mAyA is!Please visit :
http://sri-ramana-maharshi.blogspot.com/2010/11/open-thread.html?commentPage=2
Please scroll down half way down the scroll bar to reach my post on December 18,9:38 PM
Yes,as s has summarized,the lives of Sri Ramakrishna and Sri Ramana bears full testimony what swamiji has said.
Namaskar.
Just look away from all that happens in your mind and bring it to
the feeling "I am". The "I am" is not a direction. It is the negation
of all direction. Ultimately even the "I am" will have to go, for
you need not keep on asserting what is obvious. Bringing the
mind to the feeling "I am" merely helps in turning the mind away
from everything else. When the mind is kept away from its
preoccupations, it becomes quiet. If you do not disturb this quiet
and stay in it, you find that it is permeated with a light and a love
you have never known; and yet you recognize it at one as your
own nature. Once you have passed through this experience, you
will never be the same man again; the unruly mind may break its
peace and obliterate its vision; but it is bound to return, provided
the effort is sustained; until the day when all bonds are broken,
delusions and attachments end, and life becomes supremely
concentrated in the present
Nisargadatta
Dear Anon.,
Two terms are often used by Sri
Bhagavan to denote the state of just
being. These are atma-nishta, which means self abidance [the state of I am ness] and atma-chintana, which literally means 'self thought' or 'thought of our self'. The first of these two terms, 'self abidance' is particularly significant, because it implies the truth that abiding to and knowing our self is not an action, but is just the state of consciously abiding as our real self, or in other words, simply being what we really are, which is totally thought free self-conscious being. However, the other term, 'self thought', could be easily mistaken to imply that self attention is an act of 'thinking' of our self. Though these two terms seem to imply conflicting meanings, Sri Bhagavan uses both of them in the first sentence of the 13th paragraph of Nan Yaa?, in the context of describing the state of complete self surrender. - "Being completely absorbed in atma-nishta [self abidance], giving not even the slightest room to the rising of any thought except atma-chintana [the thought of our own real self], is giving our self to god.
The reason why He uses the term atma-chintana in this context is to emphasize the fact that in order to abide in the state of perfect self-surrender, we should not attend to or to "think of" anything other than our own essential being, " I am". If we think of anything else, we rise as this separate object-knowing consciousness that we all our 'mind'. Therefore, if we try to 'think' of our self - of our true being or "I am" - our mind will become motionless, all our thinking will cease, and we will remain in the state of just being.
R.Subramanian,
Interestingly you mention Jatini sundarambal-she was the sister of my maternal grandpa.Her husband was also a truly noble soul-who used to carry eatables and distribute it to poor urchins.Looks like he realized that JS was not cutout for life as a householder,and treated her with love and sympathy,until she left to lead a life of a Renunciant.Every now and then,she used to return to her parental home in tiruvallur,about 30 kilometres from Chennai.Although she was a jatini,she used to lovingly braid the hair of my mom and her sisters.Her visits became less and less frequent until it stopped altogether.
namaskar.
Arvind,
I suppose this is a case where I see the situation as “both/and” rather than “either/or”. Even duality need not be starkly black and white, and the attitude of loving acceptance is not opposed to the attitude of depending on grace. In fact, it is through dependence on grace that we can lovingly accept what is given to us by life. The two approaches are not contradictory, they are complimentary.
The notion that we are responsible for our lives as egos and body-minds is simply not true, and thus giving over that responsibility to God and Guru's grace is merely acknowledging reality. This does not give the ego an excuse to be irresponsible, however, since it is the ego that is being given over along with all its burdens. To accept the body mind and the world as it comes does not mean that we are to identify with it and think that now we are responsible for it. I think that is where you have made your mistake, in thinking that we must assume an identity based on what we accept and then a responsibility as that identity. Acceptance of conditions does not mean identification with them, it means non-reaction to them. It means loving whatever comes our way unconditionally, not even seeing it as either good or bad.
If we are poor, we accept that with love and gratitude. If we are given a million dollars, we accept that with the same love and gratitude. But in neither case do we identify with it or accept the “burden” of it. If we do feel a burden, we are to give that burden over to the Guru, because the sense of burden means we are identifying with it, which means ego is behind it. We don't give the thing itself to the Guru, either the poverty or the wealth, we give the burden, the sense of identification and responsibility for it. We live by grace, therefore. We act appropriately. We let grace guide us, rather than the ego's sense of attachment or aversion. We allow grace to enter our minds and help us find the right course of action. This is not counter to the attitude of loving acceptance and gratitude. It is complimentary to it.
cont.
The ego's endless irresponsibility and failure comes from usurping God's role over us and taking on a burden it cannot perform. And that is the source of most of our problems in this world – trying to assume responsibility for matters that we are not qualified to be responsible for. If you look around, you will see that the world is massively screwed up because people are trying to handle their lives themselves, and they simply don't know how to do that and they really have no capacity to do so. They get in the way of grace, and thus screw everything up. If instead of trying to take responsibility for what they cannot actually do, they were to live by grace and allow God to do his will, they would not have so many problems. We simply get in the way and foul most things up. If we stopped doing that, the world would be a much better place.
Now, with something like cancer, one has to accept that it was given for a reason, a test of our identification with the body, like everything else. That doesn't mean we don't get treatment for it, or don't look to regain our health. We do what is appropriate for life. We go to the doctor, we eat healthy food, we take medicine, maybe have surgery. But what is to be given over is both identification with the cancer and the body, and the responsibility for how this works out. We have to release our fear over the body-mind, and also release the sense that we are the ones who have to find a cure. Grace gave us the cancer, and if grace wills it, grace will also give us a cure. We are simply along for the ride. And for many people, cancer can be a real learning experience that helps them get over their fears and their obsession with controlling their own life. And death too can be just such a learning experience.
And everything in life is like that, the difficult and the easy, the painful and the pleasurable. It is always a test of whether we are going to identify with the body and respond as egos, or surrender the body-mind and give over the burden of its welfare to grace. We all have to learn how to live by grace. In my case, it's been a very, very slow process, but one I am very grateful for. All of us have to learn to live by grace and release identification with the body and its burdens. It can take a long time to learn this, as we all know. But that is what spiritual life means in the practical sense.
Ravi & to the memory of jatini "What is the soul? Consciousness. The more awareness, the
deeper the soul, and when
such essence overflows, you feel a sacredness around. It's
so simple to tell one who
puts on a robe and pretends to be a dervish from the real
thing. We know the taste
of pure water. Words can sound like a poem but not have
any juice, no flavor to
relish. How long do you look at pictures on a bathhouse
wall? Soul is what draws
you away from those pictures to talk with the old woman
who sits outside by the door
in the sun. She's half blind, but she has what soul loves
to flow into. She's kind; she weeps.
She makes quick personal decisions, and laughs so easily"
Rumi
Dear Ravi,
See, birds of the same feather flock together. Jatini has brought you to Bhagavan Ramana. She had tremendous yogic sadhana and it made her to go into the state of Sunya often. Sri
Bhagavan told her to leave the practice and come back to self inquiry. Whenever, she was in such a state of stupor, Sri Bhagavan asked Kunju Swami to take her for a stroll on the Hill and divert her attention and make her talk. The book says that her husband was a very understanding person and he used to send money orders of some amounts everymonth and in that M.O. he only would write: Jagadisa, Kapaleesa! Must be a lady of a great punya to have Sri Bhagavan as guru who directed from a hazardous raja yoga practice to simple self inquiry.
Dear Broken Yogi,
Yes. We try to assume the role of God and act according to our ego and as per God's way. There was one gentleman who was having moderate
diabetic problem. He refused to go the doctor further, after preliminary tests. He became so seriously food conscious, avoiding
all fruits, potatoes, sugar, candies, etc., and did vigorous exercises too. After about 2 months, the test revealed that he was no longer a diabetic. He told his wife: "Why doctor? If we take care of ourselves we do not even need a god." Next morning, while he went for jogging, he fell down and died of heart attack!
{ Heard from Nochur Venkataraman's
discourse, while explaining 2md
benedictory verse of ULLadu Narpadu].
Another recorded case is that of
Lakshmana Sarma. Apart from his new translation of ULLadu Narpadu, he was also a great naturopath. When some boy came to him for his deafness, he starved him for six weeks with all sorts of herbs and exercises with the result the boy died eventually.
Back to astronomy! The Earth will have a second sun, when one of the
brightest stars in the night sky,
Betelgeuse, explodes into a supernova. This cosmic phenomenon is said to occur either by end of 2011 or in 2012. The earth will have then two suns, the supernova showing stunning light for about a fortnight.
- This is the paper news. I request our friends to write more about this. Will the temperature of the earth go up, suddenly, say by 10 degrees C.? Or nights will be as bright as daylight? What about plants, trees and animals?
Will they wither faster?
I remember one story about astronomy from Arthur Koestler.
After checking out the details,
I shall write a post.
From Arthur Koestler's Darkness at
Noon:-
Two prisoners in a Russian prison camp were talking to each other. One asked another: What will you do, if you are released tomorrow itself? The prisoner replied: "I shall go to bed with a woman with breasts like champagne glasses."
Then he asked the first prisoner. He replied: "I shall go and study astronomy and see whether I can reach god."
R.Subramanian,
" Jatini has brought you to Bhagavan Ramana."
It is said that the meritorious deeds(punya)(and also the opposite!)of seven generations are bequethed to one;in this sense,what you say is true.I have to add,if there is one person(in my family) who had a profound impact on my spiritual development,it was my paternal grandpa.
Yet,the book that introduced me to Sri Bhagavan is that wonderful and famous one by Paul Brunton:A search in Secret India, that I came across in my college library.
I still consider this as one of the very best introduction to Sri Bhagavan-i know there are many now,who do not view the author with the same respect.I choose to differ,notwithstanding whatever shortcomings he may have.
-----------------------------------Anonymous,
Thanks for that wonderful poem by rumi.
Namaskar.
Dear Ravi,
Many people asked me about one name
in Sri Ramana Ashottaram, Sri Sundararya tapa phalaya Namah:
Salutations to One who was the priceless fruit for Sundaram Iyer's
tapas. People ask me, "Sri
Sundaram Iyer passed away even before Sri Bhagavan attained self realization. No doubt, Iyer should have made tapas either in this birth or in previous birth to sire Sri Bhagavan. But did he get
moksha?" I used to answer: Why not? A Jnani's seven generations before him and after him attain moksha. Sundaram Iyer was His own father. If not he who else?
Tiru Jnana Sambandha had gone one step further. When he and his newly married wife, came round the sacrificial fire, they disappeared as light to Siva. Not only that, even the guests and visitors, parents and even drummers and cooks joined the light of salvation! In Hindu scriptures, this is perhaps the only case of group salvation.
Dear Ravi,
I had one Sivarajan IAS in our family. He was my mother's aunt's
son. When he was Chief Secretary,
Gujarat, he who had already deep love and reverence for Sri Ramana,
got the Ramana Kendra in Ahmedabad. However, immediately after his retirement, he came to Bangalore for some medical treatment and then passed away within a few months. Had he continued in Ahmedabad, with good health, he would have nourished that Ramana Kendra. Perhaps Sri Bhagavan willed it otherwise. This A'bad Ramana Kendra building had been taken over by some other organization. Sri Sivarajan, has written an article in Ramana Smtri - souvenir.
Anonymous,
" How long do you look at pictures on a bathhouse
wall? Soul is what draws
you away from those pictures to talk with the old woman
who sits outside by the door"
Reminded of this wonderful tirukkuraL(Is there anything that is not covered in this stupendous work!):
nuNmaN nuzhaipulam illAn ezhilnalam
maNmAN puNaipAvai yatRRu
meaning:
"the aesthetic appeal of one bereft of perspicacity
is likeunto a colourfully painted clay doll".
This is readily perceived in Music-we find singers and musicians endowed with amazing gift of a voice or Technique,yet something substantial is missing-this is the soul of all arts and sciences.Without this 'substance' or bhAva as it is called,all the rest of the rendition is that 'colourfully decorated clay doll' only-empty tinsel.
Namaskar.
I read with great attention your book "Be what you are. "
I try to live vichara a little every day for about thirty years.
Thank you for everything you gave me.
J'essaie de vivre vichara un peu tous les jours depuis environ trente années .
Je vous remercie pour tout ce que vous m'avez donné .
Broken Yogi/Arvind/s/Friends,
All viewpoints have their vaidity and utility.The entire gamut of these is presented in that wonderful poem on Rabbia-and indeed as the devotee gets closer to the Divine,all the thanks giving drops off!
As Sri Ramakrishna says so beautifully:
TUTOR: "One of the epithets of God is the 'Redeemer of the sinner'. That is our hope. God
is compassionate."
MASTER: "The Sikhs, too, said that God was compassionate. I asked, 'How is He
compassionate?' 'Why,' they answered, 'He has begotten us; He has created so many things
for us; He has brought us up to be men; and He protects us from danger at every step.'
Thereupon I said: 'After begetting us, God looks after us and feeds us. Is there much credit
in that? Suppose a son is born to you. Do you expect a man from another part of the city to
bring him up?' "
This is the point that s (when he said that he cannot fall on his knees and beg)and arvind has been emphasizing.Indeed ,this is a lofty point of view that totally eclipses all the usual viewpoints.
In fact Sri ramakrishna goes one step further and says that the devotee starts becoming 'protective' about his beloved!He does not want to 'trouble' the lord!
Parable of the three friends
MASTER: "It is not possible to develop ecstatic love of God unless you love Him very
deeply and regard Him as your very own.
"Listen to a story. Once three friends were going through a forest, when a tiger suddenly
appeared before them. 'Brothers,' one of them exclaimed, 'we are lost!' 'Why should you say
that?' said the second friend. 'Why should we be lost? Come, let us pray to God.' The third
friend said: 'No. Why should we trouble God about it? Come, let us climb this tree.'
"The friend who said, 'We are lost!' did not know that there is a God who is our Protector.
The friend who asked the others to pray to God was a jnani. He was aware that God is the
Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer of the world. The third friend, who didn't want to trouble
God with prayers and suggested climbing the tree, had ecstatic love of God. It is the very
nature of such love that it makes a man think himself stronger than his Beloved. He is
always alert lest his Beloved should suffer. The one desire of his life is to keep his Beloved
from even being pricked in the foot by a thorn."
We have a glorious example in the TiruupAvai of the incomparable saint AndAL:
Oruthi maganai piRandhu(verse 25)
"Being born to woman,
And in the same night in hiding.
You became the son of another,
But this he could not tolerate,
And wanted to cause more harm to you,
And you great one, became
The fire in the stomach of that Kamsa,
We have come here with desire for a drum(Grace-Ravi),
And if you give the drum to us,
We would sing about thine great fame and wealth,
And would end our sorrows and become happy,
And worship our Goddess Pavai."
Here the Great saint AndAL refers to lord Sri Krishna,the Baby without giving away the name,so that Kamsa the cruel King and uncle of the baby may not be in a position to identify the baby and go after him!This is how the Great ones in their Love become protective about the Lord!
(Kamsa was forewarned about the birth of Krishna and was killing all the offsprings of his sister Devaki;yet Sri Krishna was born in prison and was safely carried to be brought up by another 'mother' yashoda)
-----------------------------------
To the intellect,all this may appear as just 'legend' and empty paean;only a devotee can appreciate the beauty and Truth in this sort of 'mahAbhAvA'(prema).
Namaskar.
Friends,
The story of Arjuna and the Ascetic is an interesting one;I heard it from Master TGN.
Arjuna was very dear among Krishna's friends and disciples. Once pride entered into Arjuna, and Sri Krishna said, "Let us go for a walk." Both of them went out for a walk, and on the way they saw an ascetic who was eating a tiny blade of dry grass. Green grass was all around and available to him, but he was picking up dry grass. At the same time, a naked sword was dangling at his side. Arjuna could not comprehend. On the one hand he was not eating even green grass that has life because he would not harm or injure any living thing. Such was his compassion for living things that he was ready to eat dry grass, but not green grass. Yet at the same time, there was his sword at his side. So Arjuna asked Sri Krishna, "Please tell me what is wrong with this fellow. Why is his life a life of contradiction with a blade of grass and at the same time a naked sword?" Sri Krishna said, "You go and ask him." So he went and asked the ascetic, "Please tell me. I do not understand why you act this way. ?" The man answered, "You are right that I want to lead a pious life, I do not want to injure. But at the same time, I want to kill four persons on earth and for that I have kept this sword. Four persons, the moment I see them, I will kill them."Arjuna said, "Please let me know who they are."
"The first is Narada."
"What has Narada done to you?"
"Oh Narada! All the time he sings the glories of my Lord Krishna. There is no time for my Lord to take his rest. All the time he has to sing, and I hear the songs "singing, singing, singing. He always disturbs my Lord's sleep. I want to kill this wretched Narada if I see him."
continued.....
Friends,
Arjuna and the Ascetic continued...
"Then who is the second person?"
"The second is Draupadi, Arjuna's wife. All of a sudden, she spoke, "Lord, save me, save me!" My Lord had to go and apply his force in order to save her modesty. What kind of audacity she had!"
The story of Draupadi is that when Yudhishthira lost to Duhshasana, Duryodhana's younger brother, in a dice game, the last promise he gave was that Draupadi would be given to the winner. So, as he lost again, Draupadi, the wife, had to go to the other side and stay with the Kauravas. They wanted to undress Draupadi and do such an unthinkable thing in front of kings and potentates. Draupadi, in the beginning, tried to hold fast to her clothes, but finally she surrendered and said, "Oh Krishna, save me!" Immediately Krishna granted her an endless stretch of garments. They went on pulling her dress off, but it was endless, so it was useless for them to continue.
When the Pandava family was in the forest, it happened that the sage Durvasa came to their place with all of his followers and disciples. The enemies of the Pandavas had sent Durvasa to pronounce a curse on the Pandavas. Durvasa had once gone to the Kauravas and had been very nicely welcomed, given princely honour by the eldest of the Kauravas, Duryodhana. Since he was highly pleased with Duryodhana, Durvasa said, "Now ask me for any boon." At this time, Duryodhana asked him to go to the forest where the Pandavas were. Sri Krishna had given the Pandavas a pot out of which any number of people might be fed. However, they would be able to do so only before Draupadi had taken her last meal of the day. After Draupadi had eaten, the Pandavas would not be able to feed a single person on earth. Duryodhana asked Durvasa to go there one day after Draupadi had eaten, after she had finished her meal. Durvasa listened to Duryodhana?s prayer. He came after Draupadi had finished her meal only to torture her. In those days, when a spiritual master came, the first thing was to feed him. If you did not feed Durvasa, he would curse you and turn you into ashes. When Durvasa and his followers came in, poor Draupadi had no food left. Durvasa came in and said, "I am very hungry."
She knew that if she did not feed him, he would curse her and her husband. So she invoked Sri Krishna. Sri Krishna was at that time seated on his throne. He was nowhere near the forest, but he immediately saw with his occult vision, and he came physically to save her. Sri Krishna said, "Please give me something to eat. I am very hungry." Draupadi answered, "You are so hungry, and here I am, embarrassed. I have invoked you to help me, and you come here to torture me. How am I to give you food?" He said, "No, you have to give me food. Examine your pot." She replied, "There is nothing left. I am not telling you a lie. I have washed it. I have eaten. We have all eaten. There is nothing left. I can show it to you.? So she brought the pot, and he discovered that there was a grain of rice remaining. He ate it and said, "Now, I am satisfied. Now you ask me anything. I am pleased with you." She said, "Save me! The sage Durvasa has gone now, with his thousands of disciples, to bathe in the Ganges. When he comes back he will want food." So Krishna, with his spiritual power, immediately made ready food for thousands of people. Now Durvasa with his Yogic vision came to know that Sri Krishna had already arrived. He said, "It is useless for me to go there, because now they will be able to feed me. I don't want to go there. I am satisfied.
To come back to the story of Arjuna and the ascetic, the ascetic said, "I want to kill Draupadi. In season and out of season she asks for my sweet Lord's help. I will kill her. She should not invoke my Lord at any time.
continued....
Friends,
Arjuna and the Ascetic continued...
The third person is Prahlada. He was one of the greatest disciples of Sri Krishna. But his father used to hate Sri Krishna. The very name of Sri Krishna used to irritate him. His son was just the opposite, constantly following Krishna. So what did his father do? He threw Prahlada into a boiling tub of oil. Then he threw him on the ground and he placed him, his own son, under a mad elephant. He let the elephant crush the son because the son was not listening to his father. But the son was not crushed and the burning oil did not kill the boy. Sri Krishna was there. So, while the father wanted to kill the boy, Sri Krishna?s presence saved him.?
That is why the ascetic said, ?Whenever there is any danger, immediately Prahlada speaks the name of my Lord Krishna, who goes to save him. Prahlada has no right to invoke my Lord. He has to be punished.
?The fourth one is the wretched Arjuna, the ascetic went on. "I want to kill him here and now."
Arjuna said, "Arjuna! What has he done?"
The ascetic replied, "Look at his audacity. He asked my Lord Krishna to be his charioteer on the battlefield. Sri Krishna is the Lord of the Universe, and Arjuna asked him to be his charioteer. Look at his audacity! I want to kill him."
Arjuna came to realise that the ascetic was really devoted to Sri Krishna, and that he was all love and concern for Him.
-----------------------------------
It is said that the Glory of the devotees is greater than that of the Lord!
Namaskar.
Friends,
The story of Arjuna and the ascetic is a little modified from what Master TGN used to say-in essence it is okay,but for some inaccuracies.The story of Durvasa and Draupadi,is an interesting one-if the Lord is satisfied,all are satisfied.So no question of anything 'occult' about it.(Master TGN)
In master TGN's version,Arjuna and Krishna used to approach the Ascetic incognito-and after listening to the ascetic,arjuna gives a hurried slip from that place to a zone of safety!He then realises that there are devotees who love the Lord more intimately than him!
Namaskar.
Ravi,
Amusing story, but are we to take from this that we should go to all temples and churches and murder those who are praying to God or Guru? I think that would be a rather distorted understanding of bhakti. For one, would not killing Arjuna and the others be more disturbing to God than letting them go on pestering him with their devotions.
True, the guy has real devotion beneath his reactions, just as Arvind does, but there is also undoubtedly some serious delusion going on in him.
The first delusion is that Krishna or Ramana or any genuine jnani is simply a limited fellow who can be "disturbed" by devotion and prayer. That is identifying the jnani with his body-mind, which is precisely the opposite of the meaning of jnana in the first place. When we give our burdens and prayers to Ramana, we are not giving them to some limited though extraordinary being, we are giving them to the Very Divine Self of All, the Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer of All. That Being is beyond all disturbance, and beyond all creation. He is the Very Brahman who is responsible for everything and everyone. Hence, our troubles cannot possibly be a burden to Him. The life of a jnani who knows himself as such is mere lila, a play on his Very Self, and he makes himself available here through these bodies for the purpose of leading people beyond identification with the body and the realization that they are in reality the same Universal Brahman.
So while the motive to "protect" such jnanis from those who would give him their burden might be motivated by devotion, it is a misplaced concern. The jnanis themselves, like Ramana, are explicitly here for that very purpose. Why did Ramana not simply give up the body upon realization of the Self? For the sake of devotees. And yet, devotees are not supposed to make use of his explicit instructions and offering to relieve us of our burdens? If the Self is not allowed to relieve us of our burden, who will? We are certainly incapable of that job. So it is tanatamount to saying that we should go on in ignorance rather than shed it and see the light. That is not what Ramana was here for. He was here to devour our darkness and give us the Light of the Self. That is what all true jnanis who know themselves to be the Self do in one way or another.
Now, it would be different perhaps if Ramana had told his devotees to do otherwise. But he explicitly instructs his devotees to give to him the burden of their concerns and egoic identification. So the devotee has no choice in the matter, even if he is reluctant to "harm" his Guru by giving him these burdens. His devotion requires it of him. But he should take comfort in the reality of who his Guru is - the Divine Lord - not some limited soul who suffers what we surrender to him.
I do not wish to impugn anyone's motives, only to help make clear what the situation really is for us. We are bound and deluded by many illusions, and we have a true jnani here to help us, one who is able and willing to accept our burdens and worries, and surrender them in the Self. To refuse that help is not selflessness. To refuse to make that offering is not a virtue. It is the ego continuing to protect itself through an emotional rationalization that does not hold up when viewed in the Light.
Broken Yogi,
yes,it is an amusing story and certainly such devotees should know that the lord is not a limited entity!As I have said,that we cannot understand this sort of 'prema'through a logical mind-a serious shortcoming!Please go through sri Bhagavan reading the story of kannappa Nayanar from periapurAnam-to understand what this sort of a parAbhakti is.It does not mean that kannappa nayanar was a fool who did not know that the 'image' of siva cannot bleed.(our logical mind's conclusion-how silly it is!).It is to show that there is no limit to the devotion of the great ones-that they do not care about themselves and are only concerned about 'protecting' the Lord!Our silly intellect will definitely find it hard to understand this 'bhAva'.If this is all that silly,why should Sri Bhagavan read this story and be overwhelmed-the essence behind this cannot be captured by the intellect.
This does not mean that one will go about killing all the devotees who visit the temples-that is obviously missing the point.The point is not about Killing -but the point is about the limitless devotion of the Great ones that make them behave like 'madcaps'.It is to show that there is no limit to the Loving.Love is limitless.
Namaskar.
Broken Yogi,
Your point is understood;where you seem to be stuck is in not acknowledging that there are others who have outgrown this paradigm,not out of a sense of false self sufficiency,but as a natural growth in sadhana.You do not seem to understand this,perhaps you may doubt whether others are that advanced(!).The truth may be so,and we may never know these things;unless we move with some of these devotees intimately;even then it may not be easy!
If self is the only reality(even theoretically speaking!)where is the question of referring any happening to the Guru?The devotee reaches this state by his devotion.Love alone matters to him and not any happening whatsoever.
Namaskar.
Ravi,
I agree with you that devotion can show itself in all kinds of "crazy" ways, and that we should be more concerned for growing in devotion than in a particular expression of it. If Arvind is such a devotee, more power to him. That's just not my own "read" of this particular situation. I could of course be wrong. Keep in mind that this began with Arvind criticizing my and others' devotional path, not the other way around. So most of what I have been doing is explaining and defending my own devotional way, and not criticizing Arvind's. I merely criticize his arguments aimed at undermining my understanding and practice of devotion, and not his own path of devotion, whatever it may be.
Yes, there is certainly some criticism in what I have said that cannot help apply to Arvind, and that is just unavoidable, but I'm sure he is a mature individual who can handle it and reply respectfully in kind. We are not "killers" here. I think we both understand and respect one another as trying to find the best way to devote ourselves to Ramana and the path he teaches. Having lively disagreements like this can help us both, I am sure. Arvind is a wonderful and true devotee, and whatever path he takes must work for him and not merely satisfy me and my views on these things. And the same is true for my path. I hope we are both strengthened in our practice and understanding by exchanges like this.
Broken Yogi/Arvind/s/Friends,
I have always been fascinated by accounts when Great devotees meet(unlike the Great jnanis-who often do not acknowledge the presence of the 'other',as there is no 'other'!Not said to belittle them but that is how it is!).
The meetings of appar and jnana sambandar are always a treat-it is said that when appar met sambandar for the first time,he fell at the feet of the younger one.Sambandar in turn fell at the feet of appar and called him 'appah'(father!).There is the other interesting story wherein appar carried the palanquin wherein sambandar was seated without his knowledge!
Most interesting is this incident in tirumaraikAdu(vedAranyam).Then they came to Tirumaraikadu or the present Vedranyam. Once upon a time, the Vedas themselves used to worship the Lord here. When people neglected the study of the Vedas, this was discontinued. From that time, the door by which the Vedas used to enter, remained closed. There was another door by which people would go in and worship. Appar and Sambandar heard of this when they came there. Sambandar desired to enter through the door which remained closed. He requested Appar to sing a song. The doors opened by themselves, by the Will of God. They went in and worshipped the Lord. When they returned to that entrance, Appar requested Sambandar to sing a song, so that the door could close again. Sambandar sang and the door closed again.
There is another interesting story wherein it is said that appar had to sing the entire set of 10 songs before the door opened and sambandar had to sing just one song to get it to close.(or the other way round).This was interpreted by appar to mean that it took longer for him to please the lord,whereas the lord was immediately pleased by sambandar's one song.Sambandar interpreted it to mean that the lord was so pleased with appar that he went on listening to the full set of ten songs in an uniterrupted manner whereas in his case,one song was enough for the lord to say ,'enough is enough' and he ordered the gates shut immediately.
-----------------------------------
One of the most absorbing story is that of Sri Ramakrishna meeting with Sri bhagawandas babaji;I have posted it earlier.
Namaskar.
Dear Ravi,
All your posts on the four 'wicked'
persons that the sage wanted to kill
- is quite interesting. Thanks.
Dear Ravi,
Draupadi's story has got an inner meaning. First she asked how can
Dharmaputra can pawn her after he had himself become a slave? He has
no right to pawn her. Then when she was disrobed, she was trying to hold the sari with one hand. At some point of time, it was found of no use. She then raised her two hands and then cried to Krishna for help.
This is total surrender. Where the ego is totally dissolved. When this had happened, Sri Krishna came for help immediatley.
Dear Ravi,
One Tamizh poet wrote the following:
Ottakaikum athinakkum aayiram kadham;
Aanalum nadkkuthaiya selai vyaparam...
Ottai in Tamizh means Dwaram. A hole.
Ottakai is Dwaraka. Sri Krishna was in Dwaraka.
Athinakkum - Hastinapur. Where
Draupadi was disrobed.
ayiram kadaham - roughly thousand miles.
Analum - even then.
Nadukkathaiya - happens
Selai vyapaaram - the brisk sales of saris!
Krishna sent saris from Dwaraka!
The buyer was in Hastinapuran. The distance in between is 1000 miles! Still there is brisk sales. Colours and varieties of saris were being sold!
Poet Subrahmanya Bharati says this different colours and varieties in
his famous Panchali Sabadham poem.
Dear Broken Yogi,
Sri Bhagavan Himself says that for god, any burden is no burden. Barithidum unakkethu baram? This applies to Jnani too. Nothing is a burden for him. His job is to receive these cartloads of burdens and keep on gracing the devotees.
He has said: I have come to grace
people. If I want to punish, then not even a crow can fly over this Asramam!
Dear Ravi,
The Tirumarai kaadu story is quite moving. Both Jnana Sambandha and Appar are trying to belittle themselves against the other. This is the greatest quality. When Sambandhar closed the door with one song: Appar said, where am I? You are the most pleasing devotee to Siva. One song was enough to close the door. Jnana Sambandhar replied: Appa, No. Siva is pleased to hear the entire decad from you, because your songs were quite pleasing to His ears. But my song, one was enough for Him, because it was not so pleasing for Him.
Sri Bhagavan gives the same element of humility in Verse 104 of Sri AAMM.
Broken Yogi,
Is that how you take comments that express a somewhat different take from yours? As made with just the intention of criticizing your views whether that was merited or not; as an attempt to undermine your belief system?
Well, I apologize from the bottom of my heart for the same. I think I understand now also (which I never did earlier) why you argue the way you do in your discussions.
Best wishes
Arvind,
No need whatsoever to apologize or feel you did anything wrong. I do not mind in the least being criticized or challenged or undermined, whether intentionally or not. In fact I welcome it and thank you for it. It's a good opportunity for me to examine my own feelings, beliefs, assumptions, etc. I was merely responding to your views with my own views, and trying to explain to Ravi that I enjoy and value such challenges. As with many Buddhists, I value dharma debate and find nothing counter-productive about it, if engaged seriously and respectfully, which you certainly do. It undermines me in a good way, and I wouldn't want you to ever think otherwise. I hope the feeling is mutual.
BrokenYogi/Arvind/Friends,
Yes,discussions are helpful as they are done here,in a spirit of mutual respect.I do agree that sometimes one has to stand firm on one's convictions,however mulish and obstinate that might seem.
Yet,when it comes to the devotional attitude,one tends to agree more often than otherwise!Everything seems right and valid,has its place.
This is what the Gita referes to as 'Bodayantaha parasparam'-spiritual synergy.
Sri Ramakrishna used to say 'Thank you' in English,whenever he comes across devotees expressing words of wisdom and Love.The master's vocabulary was limited to less than half a dozen words in English!
Namaskar.
Dear Broken Yogi, arvind, Ravi,
There will be time, there will be time,
When everything looks alike.
Friends,
Here is an excerpt from The gospel of Sri Ramakrishna:
the Master left the room abruptly and went to the northeast verandah.
Captain and the other devotees remained, waiting for his return. M. accompanied the
Master to the verandah, where Narendra was talking with Hazra. Sri Ramakrishna knew
that Hazra always indulged in dry philosophical discussions. Hazra would say: "The world
is unreal, like a dream. Worship, food offerings to the Deity, and so forth, are only
hallucinations of the mind. The aim of spiritual life is to meditate on one's own real Self."
Then he would repeat, "I am He." But, with all that, he had a soft corner in his heart for
money, material things, and people's attention.
Sri Ramakrishna smiled and said to Hazra and Narendra, "Hello! What are you talking
about?"
NARENDRA (smiling): "Oh, we are discussing a great many things. They are rather too
deep for others."
MASTER (with a smile): "But Pure Knowledge and Pure Love are one and the same thing.
Both lead the aspirants to the same goal. The path of love is much the easier."
Narendra quoted a song:
O Mother, make me mad with Thy love!
What need have I of knowledge or reason?
Narendra said to M. that he had been reading a book by Hamilton, who wrote: "A learned
ignorance is the end of philosophy and the beginning of religion."
MASTER (to M.): "What does that mean?"
Narendra explained the sentence in Bengali. The Master beamed with joy and said in
English, "Thank you! Thank you!" Everyone laughed at the charming way he said these
words. They knew that his English vocabulary consisted of only half a dozen words."
Namaskar.
Broken Yogi:
You said: ' Having lively disagreements like this can help us both'.
I would like to add that it was also helpful to lurkers, like myself, who followed this interesting discussion.As Ravi said, all the posters have valid points.
best Wishes,
m
Can somebody tell me the unbelievable inconsistency in the story of the great Dharmaraja who is revered as one of the all-time great Righteous person probably a bit below King Harischandra..Even today in Kali yuga the worst kind of human being or the most foolish would not gamble on his entire property at one go and worse even gamble his wife.What were the rest of the Pandavas doing?Surely there is something that I do not understand.What do the authentic sages say about this great inconsistency in the portrayal of the character of Dharmaraja.
Similar incident is that of Rama sending away Sita to forests.
Folks please enlighten us if you heard any reasons from authentic sources.
-z
Dear Anon [z],
In the ancient days, it was gambling
[perhaps there were no horse races,
cricket matches, or playing cards for similar purposes] that ruined the kings, and persons like NaLan,
and others. Gambling perhaps was considered as a royal sport. There
is an interesting back-ground story, for Dharmaraja's gamble. As usual he asked his brothers for opinion. All the brothers agreed in unison excepting Nakula. Nakula is a great Jnani and siddha.
He told Dharmaraja: "Why do you want my opinion? If I say, No, are you going to listen to me? Anyway Time will have to run its course." He meant by Time the inevitable prarabdha. Prarabdha is like an arrow already shot at.
That arrow does not know whether the target is a tiger or an innocent cow. It will hit the target. So thus it happened in case of Dharmaraja. Krishna kept quite on the issue since he is the play-wright of the whole drama.
In case of Sri Rama, he lost Sita
and went in search of her. He knows that Sita is with Ravana. It is only a pre-requisite to go for war with Ravana and kill him. Sri Rama here is a Jnani, he knows the entire script. But since he is also an avatara and he has to act as per the script, written by his own self.
Dear Anon., [z] and others,
In Hindu puranas, the demons are
an intelligent lot. First they do
enormous penance to gods and get
some trikcy boons. The purpose is that no one should vanquish them. Gods also agree. Ravana wanted a boon that he should, if at all, be killed, killed so, only by a human and not a god, and such fellow should be married but have not slept with his wife for 10 years. Sri Rama fulfilled all these conditons. He was a human, married but did not sleep with his wife, since he left Ayodhya. Thus gods outwit the demons.
Surapadma did tapas to Siva and said that he and his brothes should not be killed by any one who is born in a male-female union! Siva agreed. But Skanda came from his third eye and Skanda was the "real male child" - born to a male. He killed Surapadma and his two brothers.
Hiranyakasyap was the cleverest of all. He wanted a boon from Vishnu that he should be killed, if at all by neither a male nor a female, nor an animal nor by arms, neither in day nor in night, neither inside the palace nor on the road. Nrsimha fulfiled all these condtions. He killed him as man-lion, with his finger nails, at the meeting point of day and night, and at the main gate of the palace, which was neither the palace nor the road side.
David,
New post please. If you're not in the mood to publish a post, at least tell us when your next book (Frydman?) will be published. The mind needs some motivation to continue on this lonely path of seeking the Self. I just saw a video of Papaji in which he says the Self will reject those who aren't fit. How do I know if I'll ever be fit? I wish all of us would magically find a guru in whose presence our egos are swallowed leaving the Self as it is.
Hello Titus, "The mind needs some motivation to continue on this lonely path of seeking the Self."
Yes, one has to be ripe and what you say is so true!
I do vichara whenever I muster the energy (one pointedness) and yet at other times I ask myself 'What the????'
In other words what am I doing?
Indeed it would be a great blessing and give stability to sit at the feet of a great Jnani.
I sense that I had more devotion and belief at the beginning of this long road and now after many years I feel I am sometimes faltering.
Why don't you just sit at the feet of a great Jnani then? What, there aren't any currently living that are known about? There are.
I found one, in Nome, in the United States. Absolutely true jnani. I was thinking about commenting here on it. and how one of the things I've noticed, is that being in the presence of a great Jnani, a holy sage, the experience that is had, and more becomes natural, is not something that I could describe with words or concepts. And one mistake I know I made, was mistaking my own conceptualization of Maharshi's teachings, or my own use of the words in Maharshi's teachings, Vedantic language with having anything to do with actual deep experience, or the Self. I can't talk about those, and when a sage talks about the Self, the words are not apart from the experience, I can't do that. The Self is not a concept, a word, cannot be comprehended mentally, cannot be remotely understood with the mind. Is so much bigger, is Siva himself. I've learned the lesson. I formed an idea of the "Self", and approaching the Self, when the Self is not apart from me, and is my own Existence. And in Maharshi's presence, or any other jnani, I can't get away with that, my stance will get destroyed by the Presence. Even these words I'm saying are not it. My understandings intellectually of what a jnani is, were just little concepts in a little mind. And then I would argue about those concepts with other arrogantly deluded minds, and think somehow we were having a spiritual conversation, or a conversation about spirtuality.
http://www.srinannagaru.com/
If I lived in India, I'd go see him. Even if he has a larger crowd. Being a distance from a jnani makes no difference, there is no distance in the Self.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O_gz4bSIqY
Nannagaru, a Jnani:
Titus,
"I wish all of us would magically find a guru in whose presence our egos are swallowed leaving the Self as it is."
This is the 'spiritual holiday' syndrome-like how we wish all days are sundays.
Spiritual living requires arduos efforts in the beginning,and subsequently as well.Here is an excerpt from the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna:
Parable of the two farmers
"Let me tell you a story about strong renunciation. At one time there was a drought in a
certain part of the country. The farmers began to cut long channels to bring water to their
fields. One farmer was stubbornly determined. He took a vow that he would not stop
digging until the channel connected his field with the river. He set to work. The time came
for his bath, and his wife sent their daughter to him with oil. 'Father,' said the girl, 'it is
already late. Rub your body with oil and take your bath.' 'Go away!' thundered the farmer. 'I
have too much to do now.' It was past midday, and the farmer was still at work in his field.
He didn't even think of his bath. Then his wife came and said: 'Why haven't you taken your
bath? The food is getting cold. You overdo everything. You can finish the rest tomorrow or
even today after dinner.' The farmer scolded her furiously and ran at her, spade in hand,
crying: 'What? Have you no sense? There's no rain. The crops are dying. What will the
children eat? You'll all starve to death. I have taken a vow not to think of bath and food
today before I bring water to my field.' The wife saw his state of mind and ran away in fear.
Through a whole day's back-breaking labour the farmer managed by evening to connect his
field with the river. Then he sat down and watched the water flowing into his field with a
murmuring sound. His mind was filled with peace and joy. He went home, called his wife,
and said to her, 'Now give me some oil and prepare me a smoke.' With serene mind he
finished his bath and meal, and retired to bed, where he snored to his heart's content. The
determination he showed is an example of strong renunciation.
"Now, there was another farmer who was also digging a channel to bring water to his field.
His wife, too, came to the field and said to him: 'It's very late. Come home. It isn't
necessary to overdo things.' The farmer didn't protest much, but put aside his spade and said
to his wife, 'Well, I'll go home since you ask me to.' (All laugh) That man never succeeded
in irrigating his field. This is a case of mild renunciation.
"As without strong determination the farmer cannot bring water to his field, so also without
intense yearning a man cannot realize God."
Namaskar.
Titus,
I will share with you something that I used to do;i trust it will help you.
If you are devoted to Sri Bhagavan or any other Guru,just keep a picture in a room in your apartment or house.Even a nook or corner would do.Just light a small candle or incense and sit there for a few minutes.You may ,if you like read some words of Sri Bhagavan or the Guru.Trust that you are in the Guru's presence.
In fact as Sri Bhagavan told Kitty osborne,Bhagavan will remember Kitty if Kitty remembers Bhagavan.this is a fact.If we do this we will realize that this is so.This simple practise will lead to all the rest.
During the course of my official travels,I had to stay in Hotels in different places.I used to carry a small framed Picture(My Gurus)and first thing I used to do is to plant it prominently on a desk,so that it is visible from any place.This would immediately change the atmosphere of the room.
One may carry a small picture in one's pocket-all these are useful aids.As we progress deeper and deeper,just 'smarana'(Feeling the Presence)would do and just the practising of this presence should carry us like when we wear a perfume,we carry it with us wherever we go.
-----------------------------------
Soon we will come to realize that it is not at all lonely;yes,we may be alone with the Guru amidst a crowd.all these will come in its own time.Sincerity,aspiration is all that is needed.Just allow the Sadhana to mature in its own way.This is what is called 'acquiring fitness'.Later on ,one will forget 'fitness'!
Wish you all the Very Best.
Namaskar.
Titus
The Frydman project is still in its infancy. I have a lot more research and writing to do before a book will appear. Yesterday, coincidentally, I spent a very pleasant few hours with someone who knew him in the early 1970s. She brought me a huge stack of his letters which I will scan today. She wants them back before she leaves Tiruvannamalai in a few days' time.
My next published book will be a translation of Guhai Namasivaya's Arunachala poems. Once that is out, I will be able to spend more time on the Frydman project.
Apologies for the lack of a new post.
For those who are interested, I talked to Sundaram (Annamalai Swami's old manager and interpreter)and he has agreed to reprint the Tamil edition of Annamalai Swami's diaries if he can raise the necessary funds. I have given him a donation, and so has one of my friends. In total about half the required amount has so far been covered. If any of the contributors here would like to help, Sundaram can be contacted at gurudeva_000@yahoo.co.in.
an ice cube for your drink to an ice cube
from the glaciers of Greenland. This ice cube has been
in storage for several thousand years, and when it
melts, fresh air from the time that Cleopatra was a
little girl, is released. Even an ice cube can tell a
story.
glow
TO MY TEACHER
An old grave hidden away at the foot of a deserted hill,
Overrun with rank weeds growing unchecked year after year;
There is no one left to tend the tomb,
And only an occasional woodcutter passes by.
Once I was his pupil, a youth with shaggy hair,
Learning deeply from him by the Narrow River.
One morning I set off on my solitary journey
And the years passed between us in silence.
Now I have returned to find him at rest here;
How can I honor his departed spirit?
I pour a dipper of pure water over his tombstone
And offer a silent prayer.
The sun suddenly disappears behind the hill
And I'm enveloped by the roar of the wind in the pines.
I try to pull myself away but cannot;
A flood of tears soaks my sleeves.
~~Ryokan
Dear Titus & Anon.,
Perseverance and efforts are the essentials for self inquiry and eventual self realization. The self inquiry is not for the weak. It is
purely and totally one's own effort and perseverance. A competent guru has already come into your lives.
What else do you need?
Dear Losing M. Mind,
I have not heard much about Dr.Nome. But his book The Song of Ribhu has
endeared him to me. It is the classic verse translation of Guru
Gita [Tamizh Original by Ulaganatha
Swamigal]. I have developed a great respect for him.
Dear Losing M. Mind,
I have heard about Nanna garu, an
Andhra Jnani through some member of a
different forum. But details are not yet given by him, though he had promised.
However, another question that crops up here, is, Why should someone need a living guru?
Dear David Godman,
Thanks for the information about your forthcoming book of Guhai Namasivaya's poems. Also for the
news about Sri Sundaram bringing a
reprint of Annamalai Swami's diary notes, Sri Ramana NinaivugaL. This
book is a treasure of his experiences with and teachings of
Sri Bhagavan.
Dear everyone,
Annamalai Swami, like Paul Brunton
is a person directed by Kanchi Mahaswami Sri Chandrasekara Saraswati Swamigal to Sri Bhagavan.
Annamlai Swami was also given a lunch by Kanchi Mahaswami, in the Math, before he proceeded to Tiruvannamalai.
Dear Ravi, S.,
You must have purchased Sri Ramanasramam Diary 2011. There I
find Guru Vachaka Kovai English translation of a few verses. But these are not David Godman's. Is it by any chance, those of Michael James's or some one else's. These
are also not of Prof. K. Swaminathan's either.
I have just has a look at the 2011 diary and the translation is the done in the early 80s by Sadhu Om and Michael James.
This edition is now out of print. Sankaran and Michael James have given the reprinting rights to Ramanasramam, but I don't think it is a high priority for them. If anyone wants this book back in print, I suggest having a word with either the president or the bookstore manager. I don't think it is likely to appear again unless enough people persuade the decision makers at Ramanasramam that there is some demand for it.
Dear David Godman,
Thank you very much for the information about the version of
GVK appearing in Sri Ramanasramam
Diary 2011.
Sri Ramana says that a human Guru is necessary for those whose minds experience the world dualistically. The Self thus manifests as a human individual for their sake, because they cannot find the Self otherwise. At a certain point of advanced practice, the human Guru is not necessary, but until then it is certainly a great help, as are the teachings of such Gurus. It's not that one has to be constantly around such a Guru, but some kind of initiatory contact seems necessary for most people.
Dear Broken Yogi,
Yes. Human guru and that too a living guru is necessary. But certain Jnanis even after their dis-embodiment helps and graces the devotees. One cannot expect a living guru to live for 1000 years.
For them, the guru's presence itself [even after his disembodiment] helps.
In Sri Bhagavan's case, many left
Tiruvannamalai, in 1950, after His
Maha Nirvana. They all found that by going somewhere else, either in pilgrimages or to home town, the mind again was jumping and creating a lot of nuisance. One by one they all came back and lived upto their own end. The Presence is equally beneficial for a serious sadhaka. That is why the Asramam attracts people every day and thousands visit Him on His Jayanti Day or Maha Nirvana Day or Mahaeepam Day. In Sri Bhagavan's times, Sri Bhagavan used to sit with extraordinary brilliance on His Jayanti days and Maha Deepam days. He used to project grace much more vigorously on such days.
One devotee calls it as Jayanti Gift or Maha Deepam Gift.
Dear Broken Yogi,
In Srimad Bhagavatam, there is a story about one Avadhuta [his name is Dattatreya]. He says he has got 24 gurus. By this, he only meant that each one had some teaching for him. The list includes even a vulture. The most moving story is that Pingala, who was a call girl also became his guru! This girl one day nicely adorned herself and was waiting at the entrance of her house for a customer. No one came. She went inside and changed her dress and again came out. Still no one came. Then she sees Avaduta going happily in the streets without even a dress. She goes inside the house, removes her dress, changes to a negligee and lies in the bed:
She says: "Without seeing the Purusha within me, I had all along been looking for a male outside. He is within me, very close to me, santham sameepam vitha pratham... he gives immense bliss to me... He is Ramaneeyam, one who makes me ever blissful, Rati pratam.. gives pleasure with in me, ma Ramayam, I have become more fortunate than Lakshmi herself! Avaduta who understood her change in outlook, says that Pingala is also his guru!
"At a certain point of advanced practice, the human Guru is not necessary, but until then it is certainly a great help, as are the teachings of such Gurus."
I've heard a sage say something along the lines of, "I'm sometimes asked, is there a stage at which the Guru ceases to be a necessity? To which I reply, there comes a time when the disciple is no longer necessary". The 'human' Guru is the Self, is Brahman, when could that ever cease being necessary? The disciple is just the ego, right? He/she can't become advanced, correct? But only cease to exist in their "greatest glory"
I've noticed people here, often share their viewpoint which consists of 99% misconception, 1% from deeper experience. And they share it authoritatively. Oh, I'm not judging, I spent a lot of time doing that too.
But it seems hard to really progress toward Realization (or happiness, or anything worthwhile, in any field), if one is stuck in one's own opinion or viewpoint about spirituality.
I think my "not-knowing" but being open to learn has been my greatest asset on this path. Not my wanting to present myself as spiritually knowledgable. I can say "Self, Self, Self, To whom did this thought arise?" until I'm blue in the face.
Another great asset I think has been that I'm not seeking some intellectual victory, or to somehow be better than others, or to arise to a position of authority but to be free of suffering and it's causes. To realize the highest intelligence, and stop being dumb.
I've realized the Supreme guru, Siva, the all-pervasive Jnani, that is where everything I want is. It contains within it, even the smaller desires. It's the smartest direction to go, no matter what I still want. If I want a girlfriend, than I should be all Bhagavad Gita about it. Action without attachment. This teaching is the key to everything. I no more want to replace it with a stale understanding, that I debate in trite fashion.
All the garbage has to go. Now, being in the presence of a true Jnani, if even my using that word could possibly do it justice.
I realize that my conceptualization of Maharshi's teachings and thinking that has anything to do with it. I realize I just don't know. All I know is in the presence of Nome, something truly profound happens, that is indescribable, and when he uses Maharshi terms, or Vedantic terminology, I experience (or glimpse or something) a supreme reality of great peace and great bliss. Even if I was really tormented before Satsang.
It's blown away like leaves before a strong gust of wind. When Nome says Self, or any of those words, I can tell that those words are far more magical than mere words or concepts, and in a way ajnanis have no right to them.
When a Jnani says Self, I don't think that's coming from the same place of thoughts, and conceptualization. The Jnani is something much deeper, and everything they do and say is of That. In their prsesence is obvious, and to try to replace it with something stale and undesirable, that is non-liberatory is highly undesirable.
Subrahmanian,
Yes, some Gurus can certainly continue to powerfully influence devotees long after their deaths, even devotees who never met them in the flesh. I had an experience like that with Sri Ramana when I was only fifteen, twenty-three years after his death. I called out to him to come to me, and he came in a most overwhelming fashion that felt like a true initiation of some kind. And then the next year I happened to bump into Papaji in Europe without even knowing he was, and had another initiatory experience. Looking back, these two experiences, one with the deceased Guru, the other with a living one, were very important to me. I had a living teacher after that who was perhaps not quite up to their level and even quite an obvious walking scandal, but perhaps because of those previous contacts I was able to make my way through all that eventually.
For everyone it is different and even unique. The Self manifests all the time to everyone, in different ways according to their needs. It's important that we recognize how the Self is manifesting to us presently and devote ourselves to That, rather than seek out the Guru in some particular form. If a human Guru will serve us at any particular time, the Self will provide one. If not, the Self will manifest in some other form. But the Self will always manifest himself to us, that we can have faith in. We just have to recognize him and be grateful to those forms as they come and go. So it's important to understand that what we need is what is already being given, and not seek something else. The human Guru is only needed when actually given to us. At various points in our development that will naturally occur. When it does we should be eternally grateful. When it doesn't, we should also be eternally grateful. By always being grateful for the forms of the Self that are given for our instruction and growth, we ensure our own salvation, regardless of what occurs.
Learning that has been a long and slow process for me, and I'm grateful even for that.
Get it right! Who is Dr Nome? Phd Nome?
Dear devotees,
My grand uncle Sri N R Subbaratnam Iyer aged 79 passed away near trichy at Jeeyapuram my native village.
N R Subbaratnam and his wife Sambooranam are great shiva bhaktas and never missed going to Shiva temple at evenings daily until NRS became seriously ill.
They dont know anything about Guru bhakthi or self enquiry or advaita.
But they are very very serious sadhaks in terms of visiting temples, performing Ishwara bhakthi and leading a very very simple life.
After NRS died, many people from various quarters and caste paid homage to him. He lived most part of his life in this village.
I wished Bhagavan Ramana been there in physical proximity during his death time, NRS would have surely observed the grace and realized self.
I read Ribhu Gitai and Thayumanavar's Paraa Para kanni a day before his death. Until that his suffering due to alzhemeirs disease and bed sore was unmeasurable.
After read it for some 5 hours last Sunday, he slowly opened his eyes where I could see that the pranic force was surrounded and thickened. Next day on Monday while I was praying at Thiruvanaikovil Ahilandeshwari temple and coming back I heard that he passed away.
People told his eyes were opened at the time of death. I saw that his chest was blown up showing an accumulation of pranic force around.
I really felt weak and incapable to ascertain where one could have reached after death. We are not bhagavan and we remain ajnanis only to mourn for the dead, but not knowing these vedantic details.
While cremation took place around 4 PM near the shores of cauver, waves of peace was felt by me and in the clouds an impersonal message to the effect that shiva ganas are dancing came to my mind unsough, undeluded by hallucination.
NRS would have reached Kailaya or Sathya lokha and he would not come back to the earthly plane.
In the same shores of cauvery I have so many a times taken bath with him during childhood. I looked into the waves of cauvery with blank eyes as I took dip after his last burial rites.
Arunachalam Smaraa mukthi
... While cremation took place around 4 PM near the shores of cauver, waves of peace was felt by me and in the clouds an impersonal message to the effect that shiva ganas are dancing came to my mind unsough, undeluded by hallucination. ...
Wonderful felt. Truly is the encounter with death the encounter with God.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
Rumi
To quieten the mind and purify the heart and generate the feeling of the divine, unseen power called God.
Yes unseen, as people say they saw God in a cloud, a painting or in a vision. It's wonderful but I'm yet to encounter the divine like that.
Friends,
Here is an excerpt from Papa Ramdas on Bhakti:
"What is bhakti? Bhakti is an intense longing to attain God. Bhakti is like a steady flame burning in our heart, and continuing to burn until God is reached.
The desire to reach God possesses us in such a manner that there would be no other ambition in life for us than that of realising God.
This longing consumes us like a fire day after day—nay, a veritable madness for God seizes our mind, and all our mental and physical energies are utilised exclusively for taking
possession of God.
When this bhakti has brought us face to face with the dearest object of our struggle and of the quest of our life, we shall have found peace once for all.
We shall have then realised a condition in which we have no desire of any kind left to be fulfilled. We are then one with the supreme Truth."
-----------------------------------
Namaskar.
Friends,
Here is an excerpt from Swami Vivekananda:
Bhakti-Yoga is a real, genuine search after the Lord, a search beginning, continuing, and ending in love. One single moment of the madness of extreme love to God brings us eternal freedom. "Bhakti", says Nârada in his explanation of the Bhakti-aphorisms, "is intense love to God"; "When a man gets it, he loves all, hates none; he becomes satisfied for ever"
-----------------------------------
Namaskar.
Friends,
An excerpt from Swami Vivekananda:
"The "books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything" is all very true as a poetical figure: but nothing can impart to a man a single grain of truth unless he has the undeveloped germs of it in himself. To whom do the stones and brooks preach sermons? To the human soul, the lotus of whose inner holy shrine is already quick with life. And the light which causes the beautiful opening out of this lotus comes always from the good and wise teacher. When the heart has thus been opened, it becomes fit to receive teaching from the stones or the brooks, the stars, or the sun, or the moon, or from any thing which has its existence in our divine universe; but the unopened heart will see in them nothing but mere stones or mere brooks. A blind man may go to a museum, but he will not profit by it in any way; his eyes must be opened first, and then alone he will be able to learn what the things in the museum can teach.
This eye-opener of the aspirant after religion is the teacher. With the teacher, therefore, our relationship is the same as that between an ancestor and his descendant. Without faith, humility, submission, and veneration in our hearts towards our religious teacher, there cannot be any growth of religion in us; and it is a significant fact that, where this kind of relation between the teacher and the taught prevails, there alone gigantic spiritual men are growing; while in those countries which have neglected to keep up this kind of relation the religious teacher has become a mere lecturer, the teacher expecting his five dollars and the person taught expecting his brain to be filled with the teacher's words, and each going his own way after this much has been done. Under such circumstances spirituality becomes almost an unknown quantity. There is none to transmit it and none to have it transmitted to. Religion with such people becomes business; they think they can obtain it with their dollars. Would to God that religion could be obtained so easily! But unfortunately it cannot be.
Religion, which is the highest knowledge and the highest wisdom, cannot be bought, nor can it be acquired from books. You may thrust your head into all the corners of the world, you may explore the Himalayas, the Alps, and the Caucasus, you may sound the bottom of the sea and pry into every nook of Tibet and the desert of Gobi, you will not find it anywhere until your heart is ready for receiving it and your teacher has come. And when that divinely appointed teacher comes, serve him with childlike confidence and simplicity, freely open your heart to his influence, and see in him God manifested. Those who come to seek truth with such a spirit of love and veneration, to them the Lord of Truth reveals the most wonderful things regarding truth, goodness, and beauty."
Friends,
An Excerpt from Swami vivekananda's
Bhakti Yoga:
Every soul is destined to be perfect, and every being, in the end, will attain the state of perfection. Whatever we are now is the result of our acts and thoughts in the past; and whatever we shall be in the future will be the result of what we think end do now. But this, the shaping of our own destinies, does not preclude our receiving help from outside; nay, in the vast majority of cases such help is absolutely necessary. When it comes, the higher powers and possibilities of the soul are quickened, spiritual life is awakened, growth is animated, and man becomes holy and perfect in the end.
This quickening impulse cannot be derived from books. The soul can only receive impulses from another soul, and from nothing else. We may study books all our lives, we may become very intellectual, but in the end we find that we have not developed at all spiritually. It is not true that a high order of intellectual development always goes hand in hand with a proportionate development of the spiritual side in Man. In studying books we are sometimes deluded into thinking that thereby we are being spiritually helped; but if we analyse the effect of the study of books on ourselves, we shall find that at the utmost it is only our intellect that derives profit from such studies, and not our inner spirit. This inadequacy of books to quicken spiritual growth is the reason why, although almost every one of us can speak most wonderfully on spiritual matters, when it comes to action and the living of a truly spiritual life, we find ourselves so awfully deficient. To quicken the spirit, the impulse must come from another soul.
The person from whose soul such impulse comes is called the Guru — the teacher; and the person to whose soul the impulse is conveyed is called the Shishya — the student. To convey such an impulse to any soul, in the first place, the soul from which it proceeds must possess the power of transmitting it, as it were, to another; and in the second place, the soul to which it is transmitted must be fit to receive it. The seed must be a living seed, and the field must be ready ploughed; and when both these conditions are fulfilled, a wonderful growth of genuine religion takes place. "The true preacher of religion has to be of wonderful capabilities, and clever shall his hearer be" —
आश्चर्यो वक्ता कुशलोऽस्य लब्धा ;
and when both of these are really wonderful and extraordinary, then will a splendid spiritual awakening result, and not otherwise. Such alone are the real teachers, and such alone are also the real students, the real aspirants. All others are only playing with spirituality. They have just a little curiosity awakened, just a little intellectual aspiration kindled in them, but are merely standing on the outward fringe of the horizon of religion. There is no doubt some value even in that, as it may in course of time result in the awakening of a real thirst for religion; and it is a mysterious law of nature that as soon as the field is ready, the seed must and does come; as soon as the soul earnestly desires to have religion, the transmitter of the religious force must and does appear to help that soul. When the power that attracts the light of religion in the receiving soul is full and strong, the power which answers to that attraction and sends in light does come as a matter of course.
Namaskar.
Ravi,
Thanks for the excerpt By Papa Ramdas!
Friends,
Today 'Amma'(Mataji Amritanandamayi)is in chennai.To have darshan of amma is to know what love is,in every sense of the term.I had the good fortune of seeing amma today.
I remember recalling Ramos asking whether there is anyone like Sri Ramakrishna today.If there is anyone,it is amma indeed.
Namaskar.
salutations to all
folks: in case you haven't read, it's a wonderful treat to read the 8 volumes of 'Arunachala Ramana' (published by Ramanasramam & runs into a few thousand pages!). the first mostly comprises translations of bhagavAn's works; the second till the eighth has almost all the talks, conversations, reminiscences, letters, memories etc. etc. - worth reading again & again (the 8th volume is the most difficult to read (at least for me) - for obvious reasons!!)
... the 8 volumes of 'Arunachala Ramana' (published by Ramanasramam ...
Where can we find it? I don't find it in the bookstall of Ramanasramam.
salutations to all:
clemens: by 'bookstall' do you mean the list of books on the 'website' or the 'actual' bookstore at the Aramam at tiruvaNNAmalai? if you write to the Asramam, they will let you know the total price and post the complete set to your address (the set is available both in tamil and english) :-)
Thank you, S., I meant the website. May I hear from you why you find the 8th volume the most difficult to read?
Ask the Awakened?
A few years back i read "The Master as i saw him" an account of Vivekananda by one his devoted disciples. Happy to pass time reading it, it was transparent what a frightful bore Vivekananda was.
Clearly an unabashed patriot whose spiritual practice didn't seem to impact on his outlook. I was also given some other books authored by him (my relatives hail from West Bengal).
Putting aside the incongruity of a vast literary output versus a spiritual vocation(think:Osho), my brief perusal of his works delivered a number of things that stuck in my craw: his justification of castism are the words of the unknowingly deluded.
And i can't speak for his 'understanding' of the Vedas and Upanishads, but his comprehension of Buddha and Buddhism was quite amiss too.
comment by:SwamiVista
salutations to all:
clemens: oh that! i find the 8th most hardest because it covers the period 1949-50! :-(
anonymous(Ask the Awakened?):
you said "...his justification of castism are the words of the unknowingly deluded...but his comprehension of Buddha and Buddhism was quite amiss too..."
your inferences are interesting & amusing - could you quote the precise lines (which 'justification'? & which 'comprehension'?) and explain why you find them 'deluded' and/or 'amiss'???
That is what I was about say S.Thanks.SwamiVista why dont you clearly explain and quote Vivekananda where you disagree with him on his comprehension of Budhdhism. And again which Budhdhism? There are so many varieties just like in Hinduism covering the whole spectrum.It is like some people in the west who think that Hinduism is worshipping cows and monkey gods or who know about India only as much as Gandhi and Kamasutra.
So if you explain with references then that will help you.
His complete works is online at http://www.google.co.uk/#sclient=psy&hl=en&q=vivekananda+wikisource&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&pbx=1&fp=975ed894378411e6)
About caste : his comments against the current practise of it and its degeneration are many more than his approval for it.This tells that you haven't briefly perused but very briefly flipped a few pages.
I agree that to non-Indians he can come across only as a patriot which he was.Gandhi was also denied Noble Prize based on the opinion that he was only a nationalist but today he is praised as a true devotee of Christ and his life story is studied in schools in almost all the countries of the world.
-z
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