The previous 'Open Thread' appear to be malfunctioning by posting each comment twice. I am starting a new one to see if that solves the problem.
I omitted to mention earlier that a new feature has been added to the 'Recent Comments' box. Near the top there is an icon of two people. If you click on it, you will see a list of the users who have made the last twenty-five comments. If you then tick the white box to the left of the user's name, the recent comments of that particular user will be featured. You can then open them all with the 'expand all' option, or open them one by one by clicking on the plus sign.
If you want to do a search for older comments, click on the 'next' box and comments 26-50 will display. Click again and 51-75 will appear. And so on. The same search facility is available inside each twenty-five comment block.
I omitted to mention earlier that a new feature has been added to the 'Recent Comments' box. Near the top there is an icon of two people. If you click on it, you will see a list of the users who have made the last twenty-five comments. If you then tick the white box to the left of the user's name, the recent comments of that particular user will be featured. You can then open them all with the 'expand all' option, or open them one by one by clicking on the plus sign.
If you want to do a search for older comments, click on the 'next' box and comments 26-50 will display. Click again and 51-75 will appear. And so on. The same search facility is available inside each twenty-five comment block.
5,000 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 2401 – 2600 of 5000 Newer› Newest»THE SELF WITHIN WAITS FOR YOU:
Devotee: You often say, 'the whole world does not exist without you', 'everything depends upon you', 'what is there without you?' etc., This is really baffling. The world was there before my birth. It will be there after my death, even as it has survived the deaths of so many who once lived as I am living now.
Maharshi: Did I ever say that the world is there 'because' of you? But I have put to you the question,
'what is there without your 'self'? You must know that by the 'self' the body, subtle or gross, was not meant.
Besides, the idea is put to you that if once know the Self in which
all the ideas move, not excluding the idea of yourself, of others like yourself and of the world, you can realize the truth that there is a Reality, a supreme Truth which is the Self of all the world you now see, the Self of all the selves, the one Real, which is the Parama Atman, the supreme Eternal, as distinguished from the Jiva, the ego-self or the bodily idea for the Atman.
Devotee: Then you mean the Atman is God?
Maharshi: You see the difficulty. The Vichara 'to know the Self' is different in method from the meditation 'Sivoham' or 'Soham', 'Lord Siva I am' or 'He I am'. I rather lay stress upon the Self Knowledge, for you are first concerned with yourself before you proceed to know the world and its Lord. The 'Soham' meditation or 'I am Brahman' meditation is more or less a mental thought. But the quest for the Self I speak of, is a direct method, indeed superior to the other meditation; for, the moment you get into a movement of quest for the Self and go deeper and deeper, the real Self is waiting there to take you in, and then whatever is done is done by something else and you have no hand in it. In this process, all doubts and discussions are automatically given up, just as one who sleeps forgets, for the time being all his cares.
(Sat-Darsana Bhashya and Talks with
Maharshi - Kapali Sastri)
Subramanian. R
Speaking about Guru:
In speaking of spiritual men, the question also arises of their recognition. It is not uncommon to hear some one express confidence that he would recognize a spiritual man if he met one. This, however, is not always possible. High spiritual attainment, even complete liberation, is not always recognizable. Naturally it is not easy to give examples of this, for this very reason that they are recognized, but one, very striking one is that of Christ before he set forth on his mission. According to Christian doctrine, he was born without original sin (which means Self Realization from birth) and attained no new state when he went forth on his Father's business. And he exerted no influence on others before that but went completely unrecognized. Not only is there no record of crowds flocking to Nazareth, as they would have in any country or age to the seat of one recognized as a holy man, but, on the contrary, when he returned there with his disciples, his fellow townsmen expressed surprise, if not in incredulity that the local carpenter should have turned out a prophet. The Maharshi also was also not recognized when he first attained Realization but only later when He began to shed Grace on others and act as a Guru.
The reason for this is that it is not a man's inner state which is felt by others but the Grace flowing through him towards them. Perceptible Grace may thus flow through one who has not attained the Supreme Identity (as has been the case with many saints) or even through one who has not attained any spiritual state at all; and again it may not through one who has. There may be other spiritual functions besides the guidance of disciples, for some of which anonymity is desirable. If so it will be maintained.
With a Guru, of course, the question of recognition ought not to arise, since it is, so to speak, his function to be recognized. It is important that he should be, because my saying that perceptible grace can flow through one who has not attained does not mean that he can guide others farther than he has gone himself. There may be other and more exoteric purposes for which Grace is channeled through him, but as a guru he can only guide as far as he has gone. And that was why Martin Lings warned me off my first murshid. That was the real ground for the Buddha's dissatisfaction with the gurus he went to before attaining Enlightenment. Finally (as may happen with the opener of a new path) he attained Enlightenment with no outer guru. The disciple who sets no limits to his aspiration needs a guru to whose achievement there are none.
Actually, recognition of a guru is complicated by impurities in the disciple which make him imagine perfection where it does not exist and overlook it where it does. There were many who did not recognize the Maharshi as a Guru and there are many who ascribe a high or the highest state to gurus who have only a formal legitimacy, if that.
Sri Bhagavan said that the ego is the individuality and is not the same as the Lord of all. When it approaches the Lord with sincere devotion, he graciously assumes name and form and takes it to Himself. Therefore they say that the Guru is none other than the Lord. He is human incarnation of Divine Grace.
A human incarnation, yes; but He also said that the Guru need not necessarily take human form; and since He shed the body, the meaning of this saying has become clear.
It is obvious that this supreme definition of the Guru can apply only in a very limited way to one whose legitimacy depends on human appointment. In its fullness, it can apply one to Sri Bhagavan, to the Jivan Mukta. Sri Bhagavan is indeed the universal divine Guru.
(Arthur Obsborne - My Life and Quest)
Subramanian. R
SAKTI AND SHAKTA:
(THE ETERNAL POWER AND THE IMMUTABLE PRESENCE)
Devotee: The trinity (triputi) of knower, known and knowledge is an appearance. You say that there is a unity, behind it, supporting it. What is this unity? Is it a powerful one?
Maharshi: It is an All-powerful existence, sarvashaktam.
Devotee: You have often said, and the books also say, that Brahman is immobile. Now you say, it is all powerful. Does it not move?
Maharshi: Power implies movement. Though Iswara moves by His power (Sakti), which is movement. He transcends movement. He is achala, atita.
Devotee: Is there no difference between Sakti and Shakta, the Power and the Powerful?
Maharshi: No. That depends upon your attitude. There is only one Truth. Looking at the movement, one calls it a Sakti, Power; settling himself in the support of the movement, Ashraya, another calls it Achala. If the former is activity, vyapara, the latter is its support,
Ashraya, Substance. Sakti and Vastu, force and substance, are inseparable, are indeed two aspects of one and the same Truth. Only without Sakti vyapara or the movement of the power, the Real Substance, Vastuswarupam is not apprehended. (Ramana Gita 12.20.)
Devotee: What is the true character of Sakti?
Maharshi: It is co-eval with the eternal Iswara. It has no existence apart from Him. It is the eternal activity (vyapara) of Iswara, creating the myriads of worlds.
Devotee: Worlds are created and they perish. How can you say that this activity (vyapara) is eternal?
Maharshi: Supposing all the worlds in course of timed are dissolved, still they persist in activity though lying latent,(leenavathu).
That is to say, Sakti does not perish. What then is this movement? Every moment there is no absolute creation, no no absolute destruction. Both are movement, and that is eternal.
Devotee: Then shall I take it that Sakti and vastu, vayapara and Ashraya, both are aspects of the same Truth?
Maharshi: Yes, but this whole movement, the creation, called a play of Sakti is a formulation of Kalpana of the Lord, Ishakalpana. If this Kalpana is transcended, what remains is Swarupam.
(Sad Darsana Bhashya and Talks with
Maharshi - Kapali Sastri.)
Subramanian. R
LIFE AND GOAL:
The discovery that life is a pilgrimage, that it has a goal and therefore a meaning, is an immense blessing, but it does not necessarily mean that the goal will be attained in this lifetime. The number of days still required would depend partly on the distance from the goal, partly on the energy with which the pilgrim presses forward. Such advance as he does make is not wasted, even though he grows tired and relaxes his efforts before the end of the day. He will wake so much further forward for the next day's journey. This is expressly guaranteed in the Bhagavad Gita: "He who fell from yoga is born again in a pure and fortunate house. Or he even comes into a family of wise yogis, though a birth such as this is hard to obtain in this world. There he obtains the buddhic attainments of his previous incarnations, and thence he again strives for full accomplishment." (BG.6.40-43).
But what of objections of Christian and Muslim readers who say that they do not believe in reincarnation but in an afterlife of heaven or hell? "Believe in" is such an unsatisfactory term. It is better to understand. There is indeed an afterlife of heaven or hell, on the relative plane, as Buddhism and Hinduism also teach. "All this is as real as you are to
yourself," Sri Bhagavan said in a reply to a question. This is the state in which the soul reaps the good or evil karma which it has laid up for itself in the life on earth., But after this has been exhausted it comes back to continue
its course, to make new karma, good or bad, in a new life, starting at the level it had arisen or sunk in its previous life.
For one who has intuitively understood the ultimate truth of Oneness it is not a matter of belief or even argument; it follows
naturally that the ultimate and eternal state cannot be a state of multiplicity and diversity. "In the beginning there was God alone". On that they agree. That is the eternal reality. Apart from that, whatever is called into being had
a beginning and is therefore not eternal. Whatever had a beginning must have an end, attained consciously and therefore in pure Beatitude, which is the goal towards the which the pilgrim strives. If any say that they do not want to attain it because it means giving up their individuality, they have Christ's blunt reply; that he who clings to his life will lose it. And in any case, what they are clinging to is an illusion, and an illusion is not eternal. Sooner or later, if not in this lifetime, they will understand. But they may create much suffering for themselves on the way. At least one would say, he might let them be happy during their brief moment of fate-creating life. But from a higher viewpoint the question fades out and ceases to exist. Since life has a purpose, the attainment of the supreme goal, the measuring rod is not the amount of enjoyment obtained or of pain avoided but the distance traveled towards the goal or away from it, that is to say, the development of favourable or unfavourable latent qualities, leaving man in a better or worse state than before. The real gauge of success or failure in life is the state in which a man is when his time comes to leave it.
(Arthur Osborne - My Life and quest.)
Subramanian. R
Thakur at Ram's House: Saturday, June 13, 1885:
Master: A man came here on the other day. He sat a few minutes and then said, 'Let me go and see the 'moon-face' of my child. I could not control myself and said: 'So you prefer you son's moon-face to God's moon-face! Get out, you fool!
(then to M): The truth is that God alone is real and all else are unreal. Men, universe, house, children -- all these are like the magic of the magician. The magician strikes his wand and says: "Come delusion! Come confusion!" Then he says to the audience, 'Open the lid of the pot; see the birds fly into the sky.' But the magician alone is Real and his magic unreal. The unreal exists for a second and then vanishes.
Siva was seated in Kailas. His companion Nandi was near Him. Suddenly a terrific nose arose. 'Revered Sir', asked Nandi, 'what dos that mean?' Siva said: "Ravana is born. That is its meaning'. A few moments later another terrific nose was heard. 'Now what is this noise?' Nandi asked. Siva said with a smile, "Now Ravana is dead." Birth and death are like magic; you see the magic for a second and then it disappears. God alone is Real and all else unreal. Water alone is real; its bubbles appear and disappear. They disappear into the very water from which they arise.
"God is like an ocean, and living beings are its bubbles. They are born there and they die there. Children are like the few small bubbles around a big one.
"God alone is real. Make an effort to cultivate love for Him and find out the means to realize Him. What will you gain by grieving?
.....
.....
Captain arrived with his children.
Master: I was telling the devotees about you - your devotion, worship and arati.
Captain (bashfully) What do I know
of worship and arati? How insignificant I am!
Master: "Only the ego that is attached to 'woman and gold' is harmful. But the ego that feels it is the servant of God does no harm to anybody. Neither does the ego of a child, which is not under the control of any guna. One moment children quarrel, and the next moment they are on friendly terms. ...There is no harm in the 'I-consciousness' that makes one feel oneself to be a child of God or His servant. This ego is really no ego at all. It is like sugar candy, which is not like other sweets. Other sweets make one ill. But sugar candy relieves acidity. Or take the case of Om. It is unlike other sounds.
"With this kind of ego one is able to love Satchitananda. It is impossible to get rid of the ego. Therefore it should be made to feel that it is the devotee of God, His servant. Otherwise, how can one live? How intense was the love of the gopis for Krishna?
****
Subramanian.R
Dear David,
The Mahadeepam photos in your http://www.ustrea,.tv/recorded/199006316, can it not be recorded as DVD with some background commentary? I am not tech savvy. But, if this could be done, like you have done Annamalai Swami conversations, it will be wonderful. Thanks.
Subramanian. R
Bhagavan: "Really there is no manifestation of Sakti apart from the Self. It is the Self that becomes all these saktis. When the Yogi attains the highest state of spiritual awareness (Samadhi) it is the Self in the heart that supports him in that state, whether he is aware of it or not. But if his awareness is centered in the heart he realizes that, whatever centers or states he may be in, he is always the same Truth, the same Heart, the one Self, the Spirit that is present throughout, eternal and immutable."
More specifically, He explained on another occasion: "The sushumna is thus a curve. It starts from the solar plexus, rises through the spinal cord to the brain, and from there bends down and ends in the heart. When the yogi has reached the heart, the Samadhi becomes permanent. Thus we see that the heart is the final center." (It is interesting to note that Lama Govinda explains similarly in his Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism that on the Tibetan path epitomized by the incantation of 'Om Mani Padme Hum' the initiate, after attaining the highest center, which is in the brain, comes down to the heart for final stablization. Unfortunately, he presents this knowledge as exclusive to Tantric Buddhism. Obviously, no truth of general application can be confined to any one religion or path).
The above dialogue indicates a technical explanation why there are no stages on the direct path. There is no successive development of the various subtle centers, each of which has its own types of power and perception; instead there is concentration from the beginning on the Self to which all powers belong and the Heart from which all centers radiate and by which they are supported.
Self Enquiry is, of course, not a new method. Being the most direct path, it must be the oldest. In ancient times, however, it was a path for the recluse striving in silence and solitude; but in more recent ages diminishing spirituality has caused it to be little used. What Bhagavan did was to restore it as a method that can be used in the conditions of the modern world. Its independence of doctrine and ritual, in fact, its premordiality, already made it possible, adapted it by combining it with karma-marga, that is with progress through activity. Not only did He not expect His followers to renounce the world, but also when they asked His sanction to do so, He refused.
"Why do you think you are a householder? The similar thought that you are a hermit will haunt you if you go forth as one. Whether you continue in the household or renounce it and go to live in the forest, your mind haunts you. The ego is the source of thought. It creates the body and the world and makes you think you are a householder. If you renounce, it will only substitute the thought of renunciation for that of family, and the environment of the forest for that of the household. The mental obstacles are always there for you. They even increase greatly in new surroundings. Change of environment is of no help. The only obstacle is the mind, and this must be overcome whether in the home or in the forest. If you can do it in the forest, why not in home? So why change environment? Your efforts can be made even now, whatever the environment."
And when asked whether it is possible to experience Samadhi or spiritual awareness while working He replied: "It is the feeling 'I work' that is the hindrance. Ask yourself 'Who works?' Remember who you are. Then the work will not bind you. It will go automatically."
(Arthur Osborne - My Life and Quest)
Subramanian. R
THE MASTER AND M:
When Sri Ramakrishna came out of the mosquito net and sat on the small couch, the devotees saluted him.
Master (to M): 'I was meditating inside the net. It occurred to me that meditation, after all, was nothing but imagining of a form, and so I did not enjoy it. One gets satisfaction if God reveals Himself in a flesh. Again, I said to myself, 'Who is it that meditates, and on whom does he meditate?'
M: 'Yes, sir. You said that God Himself has become everything -- the universe and all living beings. Even he who meditates is God.'
Master: 'What is more, one cannot meditate unless God wills it. One can meditate when God makes it possible for one to do so. What do you say?'
M: True, sir. You feel like that because there is no 'I' in you. When there is no ego, one feels like that.'
Master: 'But it is good to have a trace of ego, which makes it possible for a man to feel that he is the servant of God. As long as a man thinks that it is he who is doing his duties, it is very good for him to feel that God is the Master and he God's servant. When one is conscious of doing work, one should establish with God the relationship of servant and
Master.'
M. was always reflecting on the nature of the Supreme Brahman.
Master to M.: 'Like akasa, Brahman is without any modification. It has become manifold because of Sakti. Again, Brahman is like fire, which itself has no color. The fire appears white if you throw a white
substance into it, red if you throw a red, black if you throw a black. The three gunas - sattva, rajas, and tamas -- being Sakti alone. Brahman Itself is beyond the three gunas. What Brahman is cannot be described. It is beyond the Vedantic process of 'Not this, not this', and which is the nature of Bliss, is Brahman.'
'Suppose the husband of a young girl has come to his father-in-law's house and is seated in the drawing room with other young men of his age. The girl and and her friends are looking at them through the window. Her friends do not know her husband and ask her, pointing out to one young man. 'Is that your husband?' 'No', she answers, smiling. They point to another young man and ask if he is her husband. Again she answers No. They repeat the question referring to the third, and she gives the same answer. At last they point to her husband and ask, 'Is he the one?' She says neither yes nor no, but only smiles and keeps quiet. Her friends realize that he is her husband.,
'One becomes silent on realizing the true nature of Brahman.'
(The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna.)
Subramanian.R
Punarvasu VaNNam:
Today is the day of Punarvasu Star in the month of Kartigai. There will be special pujas for Sri Ramaneswara Maha Lingam, which will be adorned with golden casket. On next Punarvasu, that is in Dhanur month, 9th Jan 2012, will be the celebrations of Sri Bhagavan's Jayanti, birthday anniversary. He was born in the year 1880 in the month of December, on a Dhanur month, Punarvasu day.
A few verses from Sri Ramana Sannidhi MuRai, Tirupadam KaNda ThiRan, to remember Sri Bhagavan's Punarvasu star. There are six verses under this title, all can be sung in the Nadanamakriya Ragam, the ancient Seekamaram Tamizh PaN.
The English rendering is by Prof. K. Swaminathan.
Seeing the Sacred Feet:
406. Lord whose star is Ardra, Master of Vedas
Who brought as bright experience to my heart
The truth the Ancients taught, He made me
His own out of sheer kindness. This
Quick, mercurial magic, this transforming
Glory manifest in broad daylight, I witnessed !
410. I know and I, beside myself,
Bowed low and worshipped what I saw;
The Plane of Siva, which is pure
Blissful Awareness sweet to taste,
The Guru's Plane, which with the wealth
Of Self enriches all beholders,
The all transcending Hill of radiance
Beyond the reach of human speech, I witnessed.
411. The highest heaven of pure Awareness
From which there is no return,
The rare beatitude extolled
By the ultimate sacred word as far
Beyond thought or reach of dark,
deluded
Mind, Kaivalya grand, the state
Of Brahman, this, even this I witnessed !
This thirupadam kaNada thiRan, the beauty of the Feet and the bliss that swelled in the heart of Muruganar on seeing Feet, resulted in singing of Padamalai in later years.
Subramanian. R
VEGETARIANISM:
After two or three years at Tiruvannamalai, it became necessary to earn an income again and I took a job as an assistant editor of a newspaper in Madras. I took with me a life sized photograph of Sri Bhagavan, a gift from a devotee with me. It was only now, in my Madras period, that I became a complete vegetarian. Physical disciplines are, of course, much less important on the direct path of Self Enquiry than on any other, but one which Sri Bhagavan did lay stress on was vegetarianism. The most obvious motive for it is compassion -- not merely personal compassion for the beasts slaughtered; that also, of course, but beneath it is the more intellectual compassion of equal mindedness, seeing the same sanctity in all life and not consenting that other creatures should be deprived of theirs in order to sustain mine own. Even apart from that, however, vegetarianism is in one's mind as well as body. Animal food is deleterious for spiritual development. It sets up an undesirable vibration or magnetism and the mind imbibes the wrong qualities. Whenever anyone asked Sri Bhagavan about it, He always and quite definitely recommended vegetarianism. It is also characteristic of His wisdom and patience that if any one did not ask, He did not enjoin it. It is the tree that produces the fruit, not the fruit the tree. To impose vegetarianism from above might lead to suppressed resentment which would smoulder and increase. It was better to wait till the inner development demanded it.
I had been a meat eater all my life, taking meat daily, often, in one form or another, three times a day, morning, noon and night, except for a short period at Oxford when I had been a vegetarian as a result of reading Leonardo da Vinci's saying that we are all cemeteries of dead animals. At Tiruvannamalai we ate less meat even before but did not completely renounce it. By the time we moved to Madras, we had given up cooking meat at home, but every Tuesday I used to go to town at lunchtime to lay my weekly stock of tobacco, and I would eat a meat lunch at a restaurant. One Tuesday I ordered a chicken pilau but when it arrived I felt that I just could not face the thought of eating it. It was not any theoretical objection or even any feeling of compassion for this chicken, just an inner revulsion. So I sent it back and ordered fried fish instead. Next Tuesday I repeated this order, but I had the same feeling about that also and sent it back. I never ate meat or fish again. The meditation sets up a finer vibration and in some ways makes one more sensitive to food and environment. The point had been reached when vegetarianism had become a necessity. Another effect of the quest is that the repercussion of one's actions favorable or unfavorable, recompense or retribution, becomes more swift and recognizable. As one becomes more deliberately equipoised, much less impurity is sufficient to cause disequilibrium. My Tuesday lunches in town soon ceased to be necessary in any case, because I gave up smoking too.
(My Life and Quest, Arthur Osborne.)
Subramanian. R
THE SATTVIC FOOD:
In every country in this wide world, there are a good number of people who lead a virtuous life and attempt to tread the path of true religion and piety, each according to his light. Of these not a few aspire to follow the Vedantic tradition, and are eager to know the kind of diet they should adopt for this purpose. Their eagerness is quite understandable, considering the distinct effects of food and drink on our physical and moral well being -- effects which can be by not means minimized. Who has not been a witness to the injuries of strong liquor to oneself and one's near and dear, or to the suffering caused by certain articles of diet to a constitution which is not suited to them? And when the body is struck down by a disease, or becomes upset the mind, which is our most precious asset, goes down the same slope. This is what caused the ancients to prescribe a regimen for the yogi and warn him against indiscriminate feeding.
To perform sadhana a sound health is of paramount importance. We cannot be too careful to avoid anything which is likely to disturb the balance of our physical economy. The quantity of food we ingest is not of less importance than its quality. And no food can be expected to yield the desired nourishment but the simplest, which is easily digestible, prevents accumulation, fermentation and general discomfort. This food we call sattvic (harmonious, compatible, agreeable) and is not of much help to the sadhana. No hard and fast rule can be made for the articles which should be used in the diet. Constitutions differ. So do climatic conditions. What is good for one person and in one part of the world may not be good for another and in another part of the world. The question of availability must also be considered. Yet so much can be said about the diet in general, namely that animal food is discouraged in this path, especially if the animal concerned is developed in bulk or low and loathsome in habits. One need hardly specify. He who has chosen this spiritual line will not fail to distinguish between the clean and unclean, and between what is good for him to eat and what is not.
In India the food served in ashrams and temples as well as in most brahmin houses consists of the following: rice, wheat, pulses, milk, butter, ghee, fresh vegetables, nuts, etc., cooked in simple style, in addition to fruits and moderate quantities of tea and
coffee. There are also very large non-Brahmin communities all over the country which consider it a sacrilege to feed on flesh, so that a very high percentage of the Hindu population is pure vegetarian and, notwithstanding, keeps a robust health and sturdy constitution. As for the drink, nothing can be healthier than pure, fresh water. Intoxicants are strictly prohibited. For they fuddle and muddy up the mind which with extreme care we are preparing for the supreme experience. It is only when the body is healthy and in perfect ease, and the mind clear, happy and alert that this yoga can succeed.
Yoga killeth all pain for him who is regulated in eating and leisure, regulated in working, regulated in sleeping and waking. When his subdued mind is fixed in the Self, free from longing for desirable objects, then he is said to be harmonized. (Bhagavad Gita, VI. 17-18)
(The Advaitic Sadhana - S.S. Cohen.)
Subramanian. R
Subramnanian
If I do a Deepam broadcast again, I will try to get a better camera, one that lets in more light. I will also try to source a microphone that registers the ambient noise of the occasion. The online version I gave a link to is, in my opinion, a bit too primitive and low-resolution to be used as raw material for a DVD.
Dear David,
Thank you for your clarification.
Arunachala and Mahadeepam can never
be a boring spectacle. Arunachala is Atma and Mahadeepam is the Light (Bliss) emanating from Atma. Anyway, I thank you for your clarification.
Angi uruvaayum oLi mangu giriyahath
Thangal aruLal ulaham thaanguvathaRu anRi......
Subramanian. R
LEARNING AND SADHANA:
Sometime during my stay at Bangkok I stopped reading. I had read voraciously ever since first discovering Guenon. But the time came when I felt: "I know the theory now; it is practice that is needed." It was not just an option but also something deeper. I felt an actual aversion to the books which had so attracted me. This was a sound intuition. In almost all cases, some doctrinal understanding is necessary at the beginning, and this needs to be more or less elaborate according to the temperament of the seeker and the nature of the path followed. From the beginning I was drawn to the direct path, which I will describe in a later chapter. Because this is known as Jnana Marga or Path of Knowledge, some have supposed it to be more theoretical than other paths, but the opposite is true. What is meant by 'Knowledge' is not learning but direct intuitional understanding. In fact, the more direct a path is the less theory it requires. It is the indirect path, such as hermeticism and tantrism, that are based on elaborate theory.
In any case, whatever the path followed, there is no benefit from learning and re-relearning once the mind is convinced. Not only does it not help, but it is one of the ways in which the aspirant can be sidetracked, turning away from the spiritual effort to the easier alternative of mental exertion. Not only individual seekers but communities also deteriorate in this way. Often the followers of unscholarly ecstatics become scholars, but it marks a spiritual
decline. This is a mode of decline that is apt to be found in all religions -- from the saint to the scholar.
After from providing an easy alternative to spiritual effort, excessive study actually do positive harm by breeding pride in one's learning. I have even seen people reading to enjoy the self satisfaction of feeling that they understood better than the writer.
The Maharshi was immensely learned but He became so unintentionally and without valuing learning. Devotees brought Him books to read so that He could expound them, and His memory was such that He retained whatever He read. But He warned against barren erudition.
"What use is learning of those who do not seek to wipe out the letters of destiny (from their brow) by enquiry 'Whence is the birth of us who know the letters?'. They have
sunk to the level of gramaphone. What else are they, O Arunachala?
"It is those who are not learned who are saved rather than those whose ego has not yet subsided in spite of their learning. The unlearned are saved from the relentless grip of self infatuation. They are saved from the malady of a myriad whirling thoughts and words. They are saved from running after (mental) wealth. It is from more than one evil that they are saved.
(Ulladu Narpadu - Supplement, Verses 35 & 36.)
By the 'unlearned' He means, of course, the simple-minded, not merely the ignorant, and by the 'learned those who value and accumulate learning, not all who possess it.
For some years after this I scarcely read a book. To read books of no spiritual value - travel, fiction, politics and so forth - would have been even more a turning aside from the quest, degrading it
to the level of a hobby or part time activity or an activity among others, one aspect of life, instead of the goal and purpose of life. Therefore I did not read at all. Does this mean that I was a fanatic? No more than a man climbing Everest is a fanatic for not indulging in violin practice at the same time. I was one pointed, not fanatical - and not one pointed enough or the progress would have
been greater.
When I started reading again it was a different way and for a different reason....
(Arthur Osborne, My Life and Quest.)
Subramanian. R
BHAGAVAN'S PRESENCE:
Sri Bhagavan did not immediately reveal Himself to me. I felt far less from His bodily presence than I had from His invisible support in camp. His photograph had been more real and vivid to me than any person, and yet now that I saw Him face to face I felt His presence much less. This did not unduly worry me. It seemed a merely a confirmation of what I had been told, that He was not a Guru. I will give my impressions as I wrote them down at a time when they were fresher in my mind.
'I entered the Asramam Hall on the morning of my arrival, before Sri Bhagavan returned from His daily walk on the Hill. I was a little awed to find how small it was and how close to Him I should be sitting. I had expected something grander and less intimate. And then He entered the Hall and, to my surprise, there was no great impression. Certainly far less than His photograph had made. Just a white haired, very gracious man, walking a little stiffly from rheumatism and with a slight stoop, As soon as He had eased Himself on to the couch He smiled at me and then returned to those around and to my young son and said: 'So Adam's prayer has been answered. His daddy has come back safely.' I felt His kindness but no more. I appreciated that it was for my sake that He had spoken English, since Adam knew Tamizh.
The change came a few weeks later at one of the big festivals of the Asramam year. There were huge crowds for the festival and we were sitting in the courtyard outside the Halll. Sri Bhagavan was reclining on His couch and I was sitting in the front row before it. He sat up, facing me, and His narrowed eyes pierced into me, penetrating, intimate, with an intensity I cannot describe. It was as though they said: "You have been told; why have you not realized?" And then quietness, a depth of peace, an indescribable lightness and happiness.
Thereafter love for Sri Bhagavan began to grow in my heart and I felt His Power and beauty. Next morning, for the first time, sitting before Him in the Hall, I tried to follow His teaching by using the Vichara, 'Who am I?' I thought it was I who had decided. I did not at first realize that it was the initiation by look that had vitalized me and changed my attitude of mind. Indeed, I had only vaguely heard of this initiation and paid little heed to what I had heard. Only later did I learn that other devotees also had had such an experience, and that with them also it had marked the beginning of active sadhana (quest) under Sri Bhagavan's guidance.
Then, for the first time in my life, I began to understand what the grace and blessing of the Guru could mean. My love and devotion to Bhagavan deepened I went about with a lilt of happiness in my heart, feeling the blessing and mystery of the guru repeating, like a song of love, that he was the Guru, the link between heaven and earth, between God and me, between the Formless Being and my heart. I became aware of the enormous grace of His presence. Even outwardly He was gracious to me, smiling when I entered the Hall, signing me to sit where He could watch me in meditation.
(Arthur Osborne, My Life and Quest.)
Subramanian. R
THE MASTER AND NARENDRA:
(The World and God)
Master: When have worldly people time
to think of God? A man wanted to engage a pundit who could explain the Bhagavata to him. His friend said: I know of an excellent pundit. But there is one difficulty. He does a great deal of farming. He has four ploughs and eight bullocks and is always busy with them. He has no leisure. Thereupon the man said: I don't care for a pundit who has no leisure. I am not looking for a Bhagavata scholar burdened with ploughs and bullocks. I want a pundit who can really expound the sacred book to me.
There was a king who used to listen daily to a pundit's exposition of the Bhagavata. Everyday at the end of their study the pundit would ask the king, 'O King, have you understood what I have read?'. To this question the King would daily give the same reply. 'Sir, you had better understand it first yourself.' Each day, when the pundit returned home, he would ponder the meaning of the king's words. He was a pious man, devoted to prayer and meditation. Gradually he came to his senses and realized that the only real thing in the world is the Lotus Feet of God, and that all else is illusory. He felt dispassion for the world and took up life of a monk. As he was leaving the world he sent a man to the king with the message: Yes, O King! Now, I have understood.
But do I look down on worldly people? Of course not. When I see them, I apply the Knowledge of Brahman, the Oneness of Existence. Brahman Itself has become everything. All are Narayana Himself. Regarding all women as so man of forms the Divine Mother. I see no difference between a chaste woman and a streetwalker.
Alas! I find no customer who want anything better than kalai pulse. No one wants to give up woman and gold. Man, deluded by the beauty of woman and power of money, forgets God. But to one who has seen the beauty of God, even the position of Brahma, the Creator, seems insignificant.
A man said to Ravana, 'You have been going to Sita in different guises. Why don't you go to her in the form of Rama? 'But', Ravana replied, 'when I meditate on Rama
in my heart, the most beautiful women - celestial maidens like Rambha and Tilottama -- appear no better than ashes of the funeral pyre. Then even the position of Brahma appears trivial to me, not to speak of the beauty of another man's wife.
Alas! I find that all the customers here seek worthless kalai pulse. Unless the soul is pure, it cannot have genuine love of God and single minded devotion to the ideal. The mind wanders away to various objects.
(The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna)
Subramanian. R
What are the characteristics of a Witness?
To take an example from the world, the state of a Witness is that in which one sees, without any perturbation or inclination or impression in any way, the various movements of one's own body and mind as also those of others. But though we have stated above 'to take an example from the world', we are aware that no example of such a kind can be found among ordinary men in this world. Only a Sthitaprajna as described in the Bhagavad Gita, can ever be an example. A Sthitaprajna of this description can remain unmoved by all scenes of the outside world that come before him or even affect his body. In the same way the Atman sees or witnesses unmoved the three states of the Jiva, in their activities and the Jivas themselves.
I shall illustrate this witness-hood with another example. The waking state is like a great city. The dream state is like the outhouses (prakaras) of the palace in that city. The deep sleep state is like the central palace of that city, where the king of the city lives. The king has the feeling that all these - the place, the building and the whole city - belong to him. The Jiva with identification with the three states is like this king. The king goes out of the palace into the city and meets with many enjoyments and sufferings in the city. Then he enters into some of the outhouses and there also he is subjected to enjoyments and sufferings. Then he returns to his main palace and there gets complete peace and rest.
In the same way, the Jiva enjoys and suffers in the waking state by the operations of his three fold organs, mind, speech and gross body.When the Jiva is in this waking state, it is known in the Vedanta as Visva. Then the Jiva enters into the subtle body in the dream state. There also he enjoys
and suffers in the dream body and its three fold organs. In the dream state the Jiva is known as Taijasa. Next the Jiva assumes the causal body, withdrawing all the three organs into their causes and finds himself in dreamless deep sleep. He is then perfectly happy. Then the Jiva is known as Prajna.
In this way the Atman, who is always aloof and unchanging (Kutastha) remains unaffected like the Space and as witness of the Jiva who assumes varying attributes in the states of waking, dream and deep sleep. This is the conclusion arrived at by the proofs given by scriptures, reasoning and experience. The scripture says Sakshi cheta kevalo nirgunas cha, the Atman is the Witness Consciousness, aloof and without any defining attributes. The reasoning regarding this is seen in the examples of the city and the Space. We remember our experiences of daily waking, dreaming and sleeping states. Remembrance or memory can be had only of what we have experienced. From this fact, we can understand that the experiencer of these must be eternal and deathless. Thus it is proved that the Atman is the Witness of the three states.
(Vasudeva Mananam - Swami Tapasyananda, Sri Ramakrishna Math,
Chennai 600 004)
Subramanian. R
The Equality of the Jnani:
Devotee: You have said that the Jnani can be and is active, and deals with men and things. I have no doubt about it now. But you say at the same time, that he has no feeling of difference,
bheda bhava. To him all is one, he is always in the consciousness....If so, how does he deal with the differences, with
men, with things which are surely different?
Maharshi: He sees these differences as but appearances, he sees them as not separate from the True, the Real, with which he is one.
Devotee: The Jnani seems to be more accurate in his expressions, he appreciates the differences better than the ordinary men...If sugar is sweet and wormwood is bitter to me, he too seems to realize it also. In fact, all forms all sounds, all tastes, etc., are the same to him as they are to others. If so, how an it be said that these are mere appearances? Do they not form part of his life experience?
Maharshi: I have said that equality is the true sign of Jnana. The very term equality, samatva, implies the existence of differences, which I call equality. Equality does not meet ignorance of distinctions. When you have the Realization, you can see that these differences are very formal, they are not at all substantial or permanent, and what is essential in all these appearances is the one Truth, the Real. That I call unity...You referred to sound, taste, form, smell, etc., True the Jnani appreciates the distinctions, but he always perceives and experiences the one Real in all of them. That is why he has no preferences. Whether he moves about, or talks or acts, it is all the One Real in which he acts or moves or talks. He has nothing apart from the one Supreme Truth.
(Sat Darsana Bhashya and Talks with Maharshi - Kapali Sastri.)
Subramanian. R
THE CONTINUING QUEST:
(Arthur Osborne - My Life and Quest)
The quest still continued. Progress was still in waves. They were more visible now and followed one another more closely, while the troughs between them were shorter and less deep and gloomy. Nevertheless, any trough at all had become intolerable. Even a day or part of a day deprived of the current of awareness was like being thrust down into an underground cell with no sunlight or fresh air, no freedom of movement. The time had come when the very concept of any other mode of life was unthinkable.
After about three years, a series of great waves started, each one beginning at the crest and gradually subsiding into a level stretch, when it was necessary to cling to it tenaciously till the next wave arose. Each continued a new mode of approach, one might almost say, a new revelation, not to be lost in the end but rather absorbed as another strand in the totality of meditation. Such stages are not merely successive but can be progressive also.
First came a wave of concentration on pure being. Sri Bhagavan had said that what is necessary is not to be conscious of being a man or woman or a father or son or a businessman or office goer, but simply to BE. And now, like floodgates opened over arid land, it was suddenly easy. It happened naturally, without effort. How can there be effort to be oneself? One cannot do other than slipping off unobserved into thought or bringing up some urgent problem which would not be in the least urgent if one had a visitor to talk or a book to read, or simply feeling sleepy. The only way is to persevere.
With the persistence of the mind can be both strengthened and disciplined in this way and its intuitive powers developed.
This practice of self awareness is close to the Buddhist practice of
mindfulness. Whatever you are doing, be mindful of doing it. When you shave, don't speculate what letters will come with the morning post. When you eat, eat; don't read the paper or chatter while doing so.
These two exercises are not alternatives to Self enquiry but can supplement it. If Self enquiry is a concentrated effort when you are alone, morning and evening, these can be practiced unobserved at anytime.
To return to my story. Some weeks later, when the power of this meditation had waned, I woke up slowly one morning. To be more precise, consciousness returned without being focused at once on the I-thought. The dream sequence just left behind was seen on one side and the waking sequence soon to come on the other.
One cannot be other than oneself. Only one's restless thoughts entangle being in a cocoon of multiform anxiety. Now, quite suddenly, but with gradually diminishing force and clarity over
the ensuing weeks, it was possible to feel the simple being, the simple I-am-ness. There was no need to sit in a fixed position for it.
continued...
THE CONTINUING QUEST:
Arthur Osborne: continues....
It could be evoked, or came spontaneously without evocation, at anytime, while sitting, walking, even talking, while getting breakfast in the morning or tea in the afternoon (because I took over these lighter chores). My day began with meditation from five to six in the morning, and then I got up, had my bath, pottered about the garden till seven and then got breakfast. From eight till nearly nine I sat in meditation at the Asramam during the chanting of Vedas, then waited for the post, which came between nine and half past.
Man has got three states or functions - action, thought and being. And of these, being is is obviously the essential, since he cannot act or think unless he first is, whereas he always is whether he thinks and acts or not -- for instance, in deep sleep. And yet thought and action so cover over being that he is usually unaware of it.
The awareness of being is a very useful spiritual exercise that can be practiced daily. Sitting in your armchair or on a bus seat, or standing in a queue, just be aware of yourself. There is no need to close your eyes, because the environment also can be noticed, no need for strain or tension. Indeed, it is an exercise rather in relaxation than concentration. There is only one condition: that the mind should not be allowed to wander away from this awareness into any train of thought. For instance, you can the clock on the shelf or hear it ticking, but not think that you paid too much for it or wonder whether Aunt Jane will like it or whether you forgot to wind it up. If some more definite focus for the attention is needed, the most suitable is your own breathing; not trying to regulate it or force it into any pattern, just watching it.
Simple as this exercise is, it may not be easy at first, because the mind is as restless as a monkey and resists quiet in every way it can, like floating on the surface of consciousness without affecting it. Sri Bhagavan had said that the state to be aimed at is a sort of waking sleep; also that it can be experienced at the moment between waking and sleeping. I prolonged the state as long as possible. During the weeks that followed, this formed my mode of meditation; particularly, of course, while waking from sleep (while falling asleep I found it more difficult) but also throughout the day -- retiring into impersonal consciousness, seeing the flow of events drift past on its surface. Paradoxically, this state of 'sleep' is also the true waking state -- 'sleep' because untroubled by differentiation (although in consciousness, not like physical sleep, in darkness); 'waking' because truly aware, despite the twofold veil of illusion, that of dreams of night and that of apparent waking world by day.
Some weeks later, this meditation also had lost its vigor and one morning, soon after waking, an old vasana asserted itself. It is said that the last go is the sexual urge. Angry and disappointed at this resurgence of a vasana, I turned to Self Enquiry. There can't be a vasana unless there is some one to have it. Who is it that has this vasana? Who am I?
continued....
R.Subramanian/Friends,
Yes,it is important part of Sadhana to learn to hanle the 'dry' periods that are almost inevitable.
Here is what the Great Bengali Dramatist and disciple of Sri Ramakrishna had to say:
"Girish Chandra Ghosh, the famous Bengali dramatist who became a disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, tells the following anecdote about Maharaj’s extraordinary power: ‘Compared to myself, Rakhal is the only lad , I know that Sri Ramakrishna regarded him as his spiritual son, but that is not the only reason why I feel such a deep reverence for him. Once, while I was seriously ill, I found that I had lost my faith in Sri Ramakrishna. My heart felt dry. Many of the brother-disciples came to see me, and I told them about the unhappy state of mind, but they only kept silent. Then, one day, Rakhal came. He asked me how I felt, and I described the dryness and lack of devotion from which I was suffering. Rakhal listened attentively, then he laughed aloud. ‘Why worry about it?’ he asked me. “The waves of the ocean rise high, then they go down again, and again they rise. The mind is like that. But please do not be troubled. Your present mood is due to the fact that you are about to rise to a much higher level of spirituality. The wave of the mind is gathering strength.” When he left me, all the dryness in my heart had gone. My faith had returned and my mind rose to a higher level than even before.’
-----------------------------------
One of the simplest ways to counter dryness is to listen to devotional songs.Music has this power to restore one to oneself.
Namaskar.
Dear Ravi,
I agree with you. The dryness - the waning of sadhana, comes occasionally and it produces (at least in me) several villainous thoughts like, whether teaching of the Guru itself is not perfect and whether I am not following the correct path etc., etc., Major Chadwick also met with this dryness after two years. He felt that he had unconquerable vasanas and those are the reasons for his failure in the middle of the road. He went asked several questions to Sri Bhagavan, one afternoon when He was alone. He slowly moved the punka and asked Him. Sri Bhagavan was reading a newspaper but He heard him. After some time, He asked Major Chadwick: Who is that who is feeling dry? Who is that who is having unconquerable sadhanas? Who is that who says that he would back to his native land leaving the quest? Ask who is this, who is asking these several questions? Find out that 'I' and everything will be alright. Major Chadwick returned quietly to his room. In a few weeks, he had the 'breakthrough', while taking bath. He rushed to the Hall with a wet
around his waist and cried before Sri Bhagavan: Bhagavan! Is is it so simple? Is it so simple? Sri Bhagavan said: Yes, it is.
Mouniyai kal pol malaarathu irunthaal,
Mounam idhu thaano Arunachala!
Yes. Music would be an antidote to restore one's sadhana from out of the dry patch.
Several saint poets scolding God is
also due to this dryness and their inability to overcome it. Grace plays the role of restoration.
Subramanian. R
The Continuing Quest:
(Arthur Osborne - continues...)
This time, however, the use of Self Enquiry as a weapon proved unnecessary. When at 8 O' Clock that morning I sat down as usual before the tomb of Bhagavanat the Asramam to meditate during the chanting of Vedas, the thought came: "Why occupy your mind with physical union when you can turn it to the universal spiritual union?" Therewith a flood of Grace swept over me, setting up a meditation on all things going out from the One, as a man's breath spreads out when he exhales in frosty air and at the
same time yearning back towards the unity in the One.
Thought? Meditation? What word can one find to describe an inner certitude which is not clearly defined like a theory and which is so far from being merely mental that it carries with it a wave of joy and a tingling of the body reaching to the very toes and fingertips? Not 'realization', because it seems best to reserve that for the supreme state of realized unity. When modern philosophers pride themselves on having progressed beyond the saints and philosophers of earlier times who put faith above reason, they are misunderstanding the meaning of the word 'faith'. They regard it as simply believing something is true because one has been told so, whereas, at least in some cases, it must be referring to an inner certitude such as I am trying to describe, which is really beyond reason.
Even as this meditation started I appreciated, despite its magnificence, that it was on a lower level than Self Enquiry or the two previous approaches, since it presumed the existence of 'all this'. Nevertheless, I told myself, it was usual because it supplied the element of prema (love) and ananda (bliss), which had hitherto been rather lacking in my sadhana. Also it served the immediate purpose of dissolving the sexual urge. Just as, at an earlier stage of sadhana, the desire to smoke had vanished as soon as the true substitute for it appeared, so now with this.
If anyone should ask why this meditation on unity should be presumed 'right' and dwelling on physical union 'wrong', the answer is simple. On the spiritual path whatever hardens and exaggerates as illusion of a separate individual being is harmful, whatever weakens or dissolves it is beneficial.
continued....
Subramanian. R
Hi David,
I was going thru "Who am I?" after a really really long time. I was surprised by what I noticed in one of the answers given therin.
Below I am copy-pasting part of the Q and A:
9. What is the path of enquiry for understanding the nature
of the mind?
That which rises as ‘I’ in this body is the mind. If one
inquires as to where in the body the thought ‘I’ rises first, one
would discover that it rises in the Heart. That is the place of
the mind’s origin.
I was surprised to read that Bhagavan has mentioned that we need to search for the "I" in the body. Is this a miss in translation or is it the same in Tamil version too, since Bhagavan Himself has checked, corrected and also recommended this book, I am wondering if the translation is correct or not. Elsewhere, like in Talks, there is no mention of Him asking us to search for the "I" specifically in the body.
Or has He said it because of the previous sentence which says that "That which rises as ‘I’ in this body is the mind."?
The Continuing Quest:
(Arthur Osborne - continues....)
The second great command of Judaism and Christianity - to love your neighbor as yourself - is a corollary of the first - to love God wholeheartedly; because it is only when you yearn towards the One and see all beings as emanations from or manifestations of the One that equal love flows out to them.
There is tremendous wealth and power in the meditation on unity. All the events of your life, and those still to be enacted, all the people you have known, yourself among them, all the epochs of history, the eons of the geologist, the inscrutable worlds of the astronomers, all expanding from the focal point within you. And all this is no dull, earthy union but an incandescent white flame. Powers and experiences could probably be achieved this way; to one in whose nature it was they might come unsought. It is better to avoid them.
This continued to be my sadhana for some weeks, and then towards morning one night I repeatedly woke or half work from sleep, reminding myself that I must pull my mind away from current of dreams it was pursuing and fix it in meditation. On finally awakening, I saw that the same applied to the daytime sequence of events also. All this, including thinking about it, writing about it, trying to awake from it, is a current of dreams. One has to renounce it and fix the mind in meditation. This now became my mode of approach.
It is a wonderful weapon against directing thoughts and against any regret or desire -- not wanting to change the course of the dream but simply to wake up from it.
The Self which I am dreaming me -- the individual me -- and all this world, as well as other individuals and their worlds. (That is the meaning of the story of Krishna embracing at the same time every one of his 16000 wives, each in her own room of the palace). Therefore what has to be done is to submit, take life as it comes, let things happen, while at the same time striving to wake from it all. As long as it is taken to be real, the dream cannot be recognized as one and therefore there is no awakening.
continued.....
Subramanian. R
The Continuing Quest:
(Arthur Osborne - continues....)
In fact the one thing necessary is to eliminate by any and every means the sense of being an individual entity. Gradually over the course of two days the attempt to wake up changed this. There is consciousness but not a me who is conscious; there is action but no one who acts.
The mind is like a mill grinding the thoughts that we constantly feed into it in an unbroken though ever-changing flow, like the stream of consciousness types of novel that James Joyce originated. It does not care whether the grave or trivial so long as it is kept constantly supplied. And at night, in dreams, it chews over the cud of what was supplied to it by day. Nearly all this activity is wasted energy. It prevents concentration and does not really clarify one's mind. And all of it is based on the very assumption one is trying to destroy, of an individual being who decides and acts. So I began instead to suspend thought, refusing to feed anything into the mill, retaining only the pure consciousness -- and, of course, observation of things happening. The mind was allowed to deal with anything requiring thought as and and when it arose, but not to prefigure it before it arose or re enact it after it was finished. I was surprised how simple and what a relief this was and wondered why I had not started doing it systematically long before; and then it occurred to me that without a good deal of previous meditation, it would not have been feasible. Until it has been brought well under control the mind abhors a vacuum. Even now this practice proved far from easy one the surge of Grace that always accompanied a new approach had passed. On the other hand, it began to occur spontaneously without effort.
And the result? Not boredom, as might suppose. Boredom is in the mind. In fact is the mind's defense against anything approaching a vacuum. Rather there was an immense euphoria. Not any sort of vision or experience, for that would imply duality of knower and known, or, more correctly the triplicity of seer, sight and seen, whereas pure consciousness is the unity beyond this. This flow of idle, ceaseless thoughts is as much a hindrance to meditation as are attachments; in this way it is stilled.
The mind by nature is feminine, that is, passive, and receptive; instead it takes itself masculine, imagining itself to be originating and creating. In doing so, it postulates a fictitious ego. It becomes so busy and so persistently turned out towards its imaginary creations that it makes itself oblivious to the higher perceptions it should receive. The task is to turn it right again from creating a mirage, to receive impressions of reality.
continued...
Subramanian. R
Maneesha
'Place' is a translation of the word 'idam', which generally denotes a physical location. However, Bhagavan sometimes seemed to use the term more generically to mean 'state' as well as 'place'. Later in 'Who am I?', for example, he writes 'The place [idam] where even the slightest trace of the I-thought does not exist alone is Self [swarupam]'. I don't think that Bhagavan would ever say that swarupam has a physical location. It is one's own innate state of dimensionless being.
This interesting usage is discussed in some detail in a note on page 185 of 'The Path of Sri Ramana' in the appendix that contains Sadhu Om's translation of 'Who am I?'
The instruction to find the source of the 'I' in the body can be a confusing one unless one understands other aspects of Bhagavan's teachings on enquiry. He has clearly mentioned on a number of occasions that one should not focus on the heart-centre during enquiry, even though he has stated that this is the place in the body where the I-thought rises and subsides. Why not? Because if you are externalising attention onto a bodily location (in this case the heart-centre), you are not becoming absorbed in the subjective sense of 'I', which is the goal and point of enquiry.
Bhagavan teaches that holding onto the I-thought to the exclusion of all other thoughts eventually causes the I-thought to subside into its source, the Heart. One therefore finds the source of the 'I' by tenaciously holding onto it, not by looking for it in a particular physical location. 'Holding onto the I' and 'searching for the source of the I' are therefore two descriptions of the same process.
One finds the source of the 'I' in the body through a persistent attention to it that compels it to subside to its point of origin. When it disappears in its source, one experiences its source directly. If you merely focus on a place in the body, the mind is still extroverted and unaware of it place of origination.
Annamalai Swami had a nice analogy for this. He said once that staring at the meter box (the originating place from where electricity spreads out to all the wires in one's house)will not give one the direct experience of electricity. In the same way, he said, looking at the place where the power of the Self arises in the body will not give you a direct experience of the Self.
David,
I guess, Sri. Bhagavan's picture, before the introduction of the blog, is not loading. I tried to reload the page, deleted cookies, cache etc. Can you please fix it?
Thank you.
Anonymous,
Please check if your PC is blocking the picture from loading.Seems to be working fine on my PC as well as Laptop- with Explorer or Firefox.
Namaskar.
Dear Anon,
The google chrome in my new Acer PC - desktop is also doing fine in displaying the photograph of Sri Bhagavan.
Subramanian. R
Friends,
An excerpt from The gospel of Sri Ramakrishna:
A DEVOTEE: "What is the vision of God like?"
MASTER: "Haven't you seen a theatrical performance? The people are engaged in
conversation, when suddenly the curtain goes up. Then the entire mind of the audience is
directed to the play. The people don't look at other things any longer. Samadhi is to go
within oneself like that. When the curtain is rung down, people look around again. Just so,
when the, curtain of maya falls, the mind becomes externalized."
Namaskar.
Hi David,
Thankyou very much for recording the Deepam celebrations.
29. The Durga Puja Festival:
Master: Never mind. One can realize God in the world too, if only one is sincere. 'I' and 'mine' -- that is ignorance. But, 'O God! Thou and Thine' -- that is Knowledge.
"Live in the world like a maidservant in a rich man's house. She performs all the household duties, brings up her master's child, speaks of him as 'my Hari'.
But in her heart she knows quite well that neither the house nor the child belongs to her. She performs all her duties, but just the same her mind dwells on her native place. Likewise, do your worldly duties but fix your mind on God. And know that house, family, and son do not belong to you. They are God's. You are only His servant.
"I ask people to renounce mentally. I do not ask them to give up the world. If one lives in the world unattached and seeks God with sincerity, then one is able to attain Him.
(To Vijay) "There was a time when I too would meditate on God with my eyes closed. Then I said to myself: Does God exist only when I think of Him with my eyes closed? Doesn't He exist when I look around with my eyes open? Now, when I look around with my eyes open, I see that God dwells in all beings. He is the Indwelling Spirit of all -- men, animals and other living beings, trees and plants, sun and moon, land and water."
(The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna.)
Unnaik kaNdu ellaamum un uruvaai,-
anniyamil
Anbu seyyum annon Arunachala,velhum
Inburuvaam unnil aazhnthe.
(Arunachala Pancharatnam 5)
Subramanian. R
Laghu Vasudeva Mananam:
How are we to distinguish between the Atman and the Kosas (sheaths)?
In this world, we know particular cattle, son, relatives, wife, house, property, etc., as our own. In the same way we feel that this is my body, this is my vital power, this is my mind, this is my intellect, this is my ignorance etc., By merely feeling in this way, that these faculties are 'mine' as objects that are known, they do not become one with you. In the same way, by merely because we take these five Kosas as 'mine', they do not become one with the Atman. Just like the cattle and other objects mentioned above, they are Anatman i.e. entities separate from the Atman. It is reasonable in this way to distinguish Atman from Anatman in respect of the Atman and all the Kosas. The Srutis describe the Atman as having no body. You know from the experience that changes occurring in cattle, house, relatives etc., that are seen do not affect their seer. In the same way the changes occurring in the five sheaths do not affect the Atman who is their Seer. For the seen is always from its seer. This is how to distinguish the Atman and the five Kosas.
(Vasudeva Yati - tr. Swami Tapasyananda, Sri Ramakrishna Math,
Chennai 600 004)
Subramanian. R
The Continuing Quest:
(Arthur Osborne - My Life and Quest)
It is very hard for the mind to understand that it has to do nothing to attain Realization. In fact it is itself the hindrance and has only to stop interfering. That is why Sri Bhagavan said that you have only to disrealize unreality and Reality will be realized. It is the mind that creates the unreality. The Koran repeatedly enjoins not to make mischief in the land, and the Tao Te Ching says that the less the emperor governs, the happier and more prosperous the people are. The meaning is the same. The mind is the emperor or the mischief maker. It has only to keep quiet and one's nature, the empire, will develop in all its pristine purity.
The purpose of mediation is to steady the mind and prevent it jumping and chattering like a monkey by holding it to one thought. If you suspend its activity without the one thought that is still better. If it becomes too restive the best way of controlling it is either by an act of Self Enquiry, turning steadily to see whether it really exists or not, and what it is that exists, or by an act of faith and submission, resigning yourself to keep still and let the Unknown take charge. That is what Christ meant by laying down one's life for His sake. He who lays down his conscious mind for Christ's sake, for the Spirit, the Unknown, will find it. But also he who clings to it, seeking to preserve it, will lose it.
This approach continued for over eight weeks and was then replaced by humdrum, pedestrian, but very necessary technique introduced by a new surge of Grace, as previous ones had been, but by a dream.
I dreamed that Sri Bhagavan came to the house for me, but as I was leaving with Him I saw a low fire burning on the drive outside and understood that I must first put it out for fear that the strong wind that was blowing might carry sparks to the house and start a conflagration. The fire, of course, was the ego, made up of vasanas -- desires, interests, attachments. The dream might be called satisfactory insofar as it was only embers, not a blaze, and not in the house but outside. However, I felt it dismal that there should still be a fire to put out at all.
Thereupon I started a straight fight with vasanas, or I hoped, a mopping up operation -- hunting them out of their hide-outs and setting on them -- any desires or attractions, any thoughts, however slight, of what would happen (since the future exists as definitely as the past), any dwelling on book I had read -- a state of constant vigilance. The heathen was weak and scattered when the Israelites conqurerd the Holy Land, but they should have been exterminated. Because they were not they grew strong and became a menace later -- an excellent allegory of the remaining vasanas. They were the embers which might spark a fire.
This was in November 1961. The previous winter I had suffered from a severe bronchial infection leading to suffusion of the lungs and suffocating attacks, and for a while recovery was considered doubtful. It was cured through my wife's homeopathic treatment but there was continued shortness of breath and liability to relapse. At this time a relapse did occur -- perhaps due to my carelessness in continuing to sleep with open windows once the cool night winds had set in. Anyway, giving no thought to the outcome was a good opportunity for the attack on vasanas.
continued...
The Continuing Quest:
(Arthur Osborne - My Life and Quest)
continues....
From renunciation of vasanas to abnegation of the ego that has them. Then what remains? Only the experience of Being, with the mind as a servant registering impressions, not an independent being reliving the past or anticipating the future. But it required continuous effort and alertness to retain this state. Particularly was this so now, because there was no new surging of Grace, while the vitality was lowered by sickness and the whole day was free for the task -- no books came for review, no work of any kind, and I was not well enough to lend a hand in the house or garden.For three days old vasanas rose up again, such as I had believed long dead -- even regret for my youthful folly for the loss of an Oxford career.
The next day I was able to go to the Asramam again for the first time since my illness. Entering the Old Hall, where I had sat so often before Sri Bhagavan, I sat down in the same place before His couch, on which His full length portrait now rested, and waited for an answer, puzzled and dejected by this new counter attack but determined not to give in to it. The thought arose in my mind as an answer: "This is like the assault of the old vasanas upon Buddha during his night vigil under the bodhi tree before his final Awakening."
With some clear understanding of the meaning I felt better. Physically my cough was clearing out old deposits from the lungs. Spiritually old vasanas were being cleared out from the mind.
I found that it was equally possible to maintain impersonal awareness or to let the mind display its magic box of tricks. There was attraction both ways. But it was possible to choose awareness and hold it.
No new approach came. None was needed now that simple being, impersonal awareness, was possible. It became a straight fight with thoughts. Some, the powerful, emotion-laden ones, would crash through the hedge and have to be met head on and driven back. Others, more subtle, would wriggle in like serpents and get a grip before they could be observed. It was like a ding dong battle. Day and night it went on. At night the defences are weakened, and I would wake up and catch the mind rambling
through a useless sequence of dreams -- there is the clear, vivid, symbolical dream that can be a useful indicator of one's state, but there is also the endless, worthless, confused dream sequence which merely picturises the daytime thoughts and impulses. It was tis that I was at war with. I would wake up and pull the mind back to quiet. It might be necessary to sit up in meditation for awhile to clear out the rubbish. With effort, control was established and the dream rambling stopped. By daytime also the revolt of the vasanas died down.
Sat Chit Ananda the true state is called - Being Consciousness Biss. Ultimately they fuse into One. In fact they are three aspects of the same. There was already the experience of Being and the impersonal awareness, but not the Bliss which should draw the mind of its own volition to this state and make it abide there effortlessly, over riding any counter attraction that might seek to draw it outwards.
There are cases, on a devotional and ecstatic path, where the aspect of Bliss develops first. Despite the intense joy, this is more dangerous and less satisfactory. The times of joy are interspersed with periods of black misery when the Face of the Beloved is veiled. Moreover the violent alternation and passionate longing may induce irrational behavior or even over balance the mind. Therefore, for instance it is a dictum of the Sufi Masters that the path of sobriety is preferable to that of inebriation. Even so powerful a master as Sri Ramakrishna was thought mad when he first became immersed in ecstasy.
continued......
Subramanian. R
The Continuing Quest:
(Arthur Osborne: My Life and Quest)
continues...
At this stage, I had a sudden impulse to be afraid and draw back. This is a temptation which must be unhesitatingly cast aside or it may vitiate a lifetime's striving. It is as though a man were to toil through dense forest and craggy mountain, in hardship and frequent danger, seeking the heavenly city, and then, when its outer ramparts at last loom up, separated from him only by a narrow chasm, were to turn aside, fearing to jump. Henceforth he sits listlessly by the wayside or wanders without aim, unable to return to the state of spiritual ignorance from which he started but without initiative to press forward. There are many such derelicts.
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea we are now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our venture.
-(Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, IV.3)
However, it should be added that this depressing prospect (like I said twice before about the many who are called but not chosen) is depressing only from the narrow viewpoint of this lifetime. Actually, a man's whole course or life-sequence is a journey leading through however many twists and turns, ravines and bare hillsides, marshy jungles and thirsty plains, many a Charybdis and Scyllas, to the goal of supreme bliss that is his true nature. It is a pilgrimage lasting many days, each day being one lifetime. A whole day may be wasted; a man may scramble down the hillside after gleaming berries that turn out sour or poisonous when plucked, or he may play around
and reach no shelter by nightfall. But the Path remains, ineluctable.
He has only made the next day's journey more arduous.
The discovery that life is a pilgrimage, that it has a goal and therefore a meaning, is an immense blessing, but it does not necessarily mean that the goal will be attained in this lifetime. The number of days still required would depend partly on the distance from the goal, partly on the energy with which the pilgrim presses forward. Such advance as he does make is not wasted, even though he grows tired and relaxes his efforts before the next day's journey. This is expressly guaranteed in the Bhagavad Gita: "He who fell from Yoga is born again in a pure and fortunate house. Or he even comes into a family of wise Yogis, though
a birth such as this is very hard to obtain in this world. There he obtains the buddhic attainments of his previous incarnations, and thence he again strives for full accomplishment." (Ch. V. 40-43 Tr.
Earnest Wood.)
......
......
One last explanation is to remove another barrier that theorists unnecessarily raise up against one another. How does this doctrine of a path trod over many lifetimes accord with the Buddhist doctrine
of anatta, that there is no ego to experience heaven or hell or to be reborn or tread the path? Hindu teachers say the same. When Sri Bhagavan was asked about rebirth, He would be quite likely to answer: "First find out whether you are born now." The whole point of Self Enquiry is to break through the apparent reality of the ego to its true unreality. "There is no existence of the unreal and no non-
existence of the Real." Therefore the realized man does not go to heaven at death and is reborn on earth. He is just is. However, for one who has not realized the Self an illusory ego appears to exist in this life and therefore appears to survive it and follow stage after stage of the Path. It may be good to remember in theory that this is only an appearance, but what is needed is to realize it.
concluded.
Dhanur Month (Dec-Jan) - The month
of early morning songs on the Divine:
Today is the first day of Dhanur month, equivalent to the early morning of gods to pray to Siva / Narayana. On the earth, particularly in Tamizh Nadu and Karnataka, men and women get up very early in the morning and go around the streets singing the glory of Siva/Narayana, and reach the nearest temple, have darshan of god and also receive prasad. They sing Tiruvembavai (Manikkavachagar)
and Tiruppavai (Andal) where the picture of young girls are described singing songs in glory of Siva/Narayana and go for bath and the temple darshan. This is called bridal mysticism. Sri Kanchi Kamakoti Sankaracharya, Sri Chandrasekhara Sarsawathi revived this age old system in 1960s and even encouraged this singing by distributing booklets containing these songs free. There is also two other decads, both called Tirupalli Ezhuchi, where Manikkavachagar and
Tondar Adipodi Azhwar go to the temples and request Siva/Narayana, the eternal vigilant gods, (!) to wake up and bless with them with worldly benefits and also liberation. Manikkavachagar's songs were composed in Tiruvannamalai and Andal's and Tondar Adipodi Azhwar's in Sri Rangam.
In the Asramam, right from Sri Bhagavan's days, these songs were sung in the Hall very early in the morning at 5 am. Sri Bhagavan used to wake up early, finish His bath and sit on the sofa to listen to these songs. With the mild fragrance of incense and dasangam,
the atmosphere was divine.
Sri Muruganar has composed on the
model of Manikkavachagar, one Tiruvembavai of 33 verses and one Tirupalli Ezhucchi of 10 songs. Prof. K. Swaminathan has translated all the 33 songs of the first one and about 5 songs of the second one.
The First Song - Annamalai Ramanan
Anbarku AruL Maari...
(1453 of Sri Ramana Sannidhi Murai)
Sing Ramana's eyes' compassionate power
That shower such grace on devotees.
Sing His ministry that quenches
His servants' burning cares and griefs.
Sign the true wealth of bliss that wells up
In hearts turned inward and away from differences.
All creatures alike, male or female
Or hermaphrodite, with hearts turned inward
His praises sing in song nectarine, sweet,
And in its coolness, stillness and sweetness,
Dive and bathe, O maidens, dive and bathe.
Tirupalli Ezhucchi:
Thulakka mihuthoLir sooriyan unRan
Jothi mukam peRath thunni ezhunthaan.....
(1443 of Sri Ramana Sannidhi Murai)
With this bright, beaming face of the sun
Has risen, the Nagas and their mates
Have gone back to the netherworld,
Therefore your devotees afraid of
Numerous ills in numerous bodies
Seek Freedom; wake up bright eyed
Venakta Ramana and end their anguish.
Om Sri Ramanarpanamastu.
Subramanian. R
R.Subramanian,
AndAL's TiruppAvai is recited not just by those who know tamizh(this wonderful set of 30 verses is strung in sanGath tamizh-classical Tamil)but I am given to understand that even Telugu,kannada,bengAli,marrAta speaking devotees recite these verses using transliterated version!
Of all the Saints,AndAl(considered as Divine Mother herself born on Earth)has the unique place in having a Temple dedicated to her in srivilliputtur,where she is worshipped.
Notwithstanding mAnikkavAchakar's wonderful thiruvempAvai,for sheer richness of imagery and felicity of expression AndAl's TiruppAvai is indeed incomparable.AndAl was in a position to dictate to the lord and she does it with authority ,ordering that he withhold not the Grace!(Azhimazhai kaNNA!Onrum nee kai karavAle!).
AndAl's Tiruppavai has been set to music by the stalwart carnatic musician Ariyakudi RAmanuja iyengar and has been well rendered by top performing artists-in this manner it has reached the man in the street and has its sway.
Namaskar.
R.Subramanian/Friends,
There is an excellent article by Sri sudarshan(I understand that he is the son of the Late carnAtic musician mani krishnaswAmy)on the theme of satsangh in tiruppAvai.
Here is an excerpt:
The principle and practice of collective worship is a
timeless one in India. "Satsangh" is as old as the
very idea of Bhakti and the two are, in fact,
inseparable. If Bhakti is seed, 'satsangh' is soil. If
God is the destination and Bhakti is the journey, then
'satsangh' is the ticket. If Bhakti were regarded as a
holy game of life that God-seekers engage in, then
'satsangh' would be the field on which it is played.
And as in most games of the world, in this one where
the Almighty is the goal, it is team-effort that
accomplishes what is beyond individual capacity.
Mahatma Gandhi once echoed this very principle of
'satsangh' in truly stirring words:
"I want to find God, and because I want to find God, I
have to find God along with other people. I don't
believe I can find God alone. If I did, I would be
running to the Himalayas to find God in some cave
there. But since I believe that nobody can find God
alone, I have to work with people. I have to take them
with me. Alone I can't come to Him."
The preponderant theme of AndAl's Tiruppavai is a
joyous celebration of the 'satsangh' tradition.
Implicit in her song is the affirmation of what I call
the all-embracing 'collectivism' of the Vedantic
faith? best expressed in the words of the Mahatma --
"Nobody can find God alone, I have to work with
people. I have to take them with me. Alone I can't
come to Him."
Those interested may visit this thread,where this article is spread over 15 posts.please visit:
http://www.ibiblio.org/sripedia/srirangasri/archives/dec03/author.html
and scroll down to the list of posts by the author sudarshan mAdabushi.
---------------------------------
Sri Ramakrishna also emphasized this aspect of satsangha and often encouraged aspirants to keep in touch with each other in this spirit.
Namaskar.
At the Star Theatre II:
Girish: I often ask myself, 'Why bother about the theatre anymore?'
Master: No, no! Let things be as they are. People will learn much from your plays.
The performance began, Prahlada was seen entering the schoolroom as a student. At the sight of him, Sri Ramakrishna uttered once or twice the word 'Prahlada' and went into samadhi. During another scene Sri Ramakrishna wept to see Prahlada under an elephant's feet. He cried when the boy was thrown into the fire. The scene changed. Lakshmi and Narayana were seen seated in Goloka. Narayana was worried about Prahlada. This scene, too, threw Sri Ramakrishna into an ecstatic mood. After the performance Girish conducted Sri Ramakrishna to his private room in the theatre. He said to the Master, 'Would you care to see the farce, Vivaaha Vibharaata (The Confusion of Marriage)?
Master: No, no! Why something like that after the life of Prahlada? I once said to the leader of a theatrical troupe, 'End your performance with some religious talk.' We have been listening to such wonderful spiritual conversation, and now to see The Confusion of Marriage! A worldly topic! We should become our old selves again. We should return to our old mood.
(The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna.)
Subramanian. R
R.subramanian/friends,
wonderful post from The gospel of Sri Ramakrishna-the utterly guileless,simple,sweet and accessible Master accompanied devotees to circus ,plays and even the zoo!He saw a Lion and was lost in samAdhi and had to return without seeing anything!
Namaskar.
The Quest: Lucia Osborne:
Part I - Childhood
To say that childhood is the best and happiest period of one's life is a cliche'. Children lack a sense of proportion and though they live in the present they can be desperately unhappy. Life is seen in stark black and white. From the talk of my sisters and their friends I gathered that one's appearance: face, figure, form, being attractive or beautiful was of paramount importance for happiness and here I was, a squat little figure with a prominent chin, a nose like a button and a forehead already starting to wrinkle and worry. I must have had a strongly developed sense of perfection and been far too sensitive or self conscious of the way I looked and was deeply disturbed by imperfection. One should be perfect. I felt almost guilty compared with the rest.
My mother was the only surviving child out of seven or eight and was brought up, so to speak, in cotton wool. Loveable and lovely she was, although incapable of running a household and so things went on in a happy go lucky way which was far from happy with a generous gullible, improvident father to add to the disarray. One of the rooms in our house had a large, old fashioned mirror and the moment I opened the door I was confronted with my outer reflection and the inner dismal reflection following as a matter of course. In my teens things improved a little. For one thing I shot up suddenly, became proficient in disguising my shortcomings and, what is more important, I realized that other values mattered more than just mere good looks. People's faces are like mirrors.
The questions 'What is the purpose of life?' 'Why are we born?' began to occupy my mind. One day I felt so strongly that I was missing something of tremendous importance and I began running in the street under its impact. I did not know what I was missing nor who I really and truly was. Surely there must be some stability behind this unsure vacillating creature being censured inwardly by whom? By what?
Different from the other children, I was teased that I must have been changed by the wet-nurse with her own baby or another one. It seemed to have been the fashion at the time for mothers not to nurse their babies but employ healthy peasant woman straight after confinement as wet nurses, who nursed them together with their own children.
I learned to ready practically on my own. I am not sure how. Someone must have shown me the letters and how to form words. I still remember how astonished my mother was when one day she got hold of me to try to teach the alphabet and discovered that I could read! Books opened a new world for me. I identified myself with the characters and lived the stories which were more real to me than life. 'One could shoot around her and she would not notice when reading' was the comment of my mother. In this I followed her footsteps. She found her escape from problems in reading, always reading. I remember Zola and Maupassant, books which I used to steal from under her pillow at night, hidden most probably on my account. Under the curtained kitchen table with a candle for light one could read unnoticed. However little I understood, seems to have been enough to absorb me.
continued....
The Quest - Lucia Osborne:
Part I - continues....
Two stories enchanted me:
Pharaoh was sitting on the highest terrace of his palace with a crystal ball in his hand which had a peculiarity that in whatever direction he turned his gaze the scene approached him as if on a screen and he could easily see and hear what was going on. It was time for evening prayer. Pharaoh saw through his crystal ball a man stranded in the desert praying to God for some rain. Another scene showed a peasant in prayer for good weather to protect his harvest. Somewhere else he saw two armies fighting, each side praying for victory. A thief prayed for an easy haul and the householder for protection from thieves. All these conflicting prayers went up in the shape of birds of varying hues, met midway, fought and fell back to earth. Amon-Ra was sitting on his heavenly throne, impassive, no prayer reached him. Then Pharaoh
turned his crystal ball in a direction in which a hamlet appeared, a woman was calling her little boy to prayer. 'It is getting late, you good-for-nothing, come quick.' When the boy was brought in at last he folded his hands and prayed. 'Thank you Amon-Ra for the palm trees which give us lovely dates to eat and for all other trees which give us fruit and shade and for the birds which sing and the flowers which look so bright. It's enough', he said to his mother, jumping up to resume his play. 'What sort of prayer is that, you good-for-nothing', his mother said but his prayer went up into the sky in the shape of a dove, not encountering any obstacles and nearing Amon-Ra's throne the dove sang in the voice of the little boy, 'Thank you Amon-Ra for the palm trees which give us lovely dates to eat.' Amon-Ra heard the prayer, opened his eyes and a ray of light fell on the earth bringing relief to all the afflicted.
Another story which I loved to read and re-read was about a mother who was very ill and her son who, wanting to save her, set out to find the water of life. In his wanderings he came to a hill at the foot of which dwelt a very old man in a cave. From him he got the directions on how to reach the source of the water of life. He was advised to go straight to it without looking right or left and not to be distracted by whatever may happen on the way. If he deviated from his straight course he would turn into a stone as many others have done. Having thanked the old man, he set out. Many stones he saw on the way. Beautiful singing reached his ears, and his mother's voice calling him but he plugged his ears and went on. Suddenly there was a huge fire in front of him, he plunged right through it and the fire was cool. He went through a flood which threatened to engulf him but it disappeared like a mirage. At last he reached his goal and having drunk a little of the water of life he felt he completely restored. He filled his jar with water in a hurry to return to his mother and on his way sprinkled some of it on the stones which came to life. They all followed him and elected him their king. Thus he returned to his mother whose life was restored.
continued...
Subramanian.R
Friends,
Today is the birthday of Holy mother Sri sAradA devi,the divine consort of Sri Ramakrishna.I came across these simple words describing her:
"Worshipped during her lifetime as a manifestation of Divine Motherhood, Sri Sarada Devi's throne was the earthen floor. Her adornments were the white sari with a thin red border and two simple gold bracelets. In place of bow, trident and other divine weapons, Mother carried a broom and basket.
To take darshan of Mother was to help her with the daily chores of cleaning and preparing food for offering. Her principal concern was that her children have enough to eat. All who came were her children. Mother's benediction was an outstretched hand of welcome which bade one always to come again."
----------------------------------
"I tell you one thing. If you want peace of mind, do not find fault with others. Rather see your own faults. Learn to make the whole world your own. No one is a stranger, my child; the whole world is your own." -sAradA mA
Namaskar.
Dear Ravi,
Thanks for informing about Saradamani's birthday. If possible,
I shall make it to Sri Ramakrishna Math, Sankarapuram, Bangalore, this evening.
Subramanian. R
R.Subramanian,
We are set to go to R K mutt today evening.Here is an interesting excerpt from Swami Prabhavananda's talks on The Hly Mother:
1." I will tell you how Swamiji, Maharaj, and Swami Yogananda who was her attendant, would touch her feet. Swamiji would dip himself in the Ganges six or seven times. He thought he was not pure enough to touch her feet. And then only he would go and touch her feet. But you see we didn’t know. We went under any condition. But Maharaj would go just like a little boy who had done something wrong and was afraid to approach his mother. So he would compose himself first by saying, “Hello Radhu, how are you?” Then he would bow down to her and try to go away. And the Mother would say, “Rakhal sit down.” On other occasions, Swami Brahmananda would approach Holy Mother with spiritual emotion and fervor and his whole body would be shaking. That is, he would be in ecstatic consciousness whenever he would approach to touch the feet of Holy Mother. Swami Yogananda who was her attendant, would not touch her feet. Where she would stand, there he would take the dust after she left. "
-----------------------------------
2.There was a Muslim robber [Amjad], what we call a “dacoit.” He had great respect and reverence for Holy Mother and his whole life changed. He used to bring fruits for Mother. When a woman of the household was offering him food, she was almost throwing the foodstuff at him. Holy Mother was shocked. She said, “What is this? He is as much my child as Sarat,” Swami Saradananda. Then she herself served him food.
In this connection there is a very interesting story that I remember. There was a drunken man and Swami Saradananda never allowed him to go and see Holy Mother, because he did not know how he would behave. He remained drunk almost all of the time. At twelve o’clock midnight, he would come and roll on the ground near the Udbodhan where Holy Mother lived upstairs and sing a song to this effect.
“Cherish my precious Mother Shayma, tenderly within, O mind. May you and I alone behold Her, letting no one else intrude.” And then he would add the line, “Let not the rascal Sarat intrude.” As he would sing that song, Holy Mother suddenly would open the door and come out and bless him.
Holy Mother disobeyed Sri Ramakrishna at one time. There was a woman of ill character, and she wanted to offer food to Sri Ramakrishna. So she carried the food to him and Holy Mother followed her. Then Sri Ramakrishna could not touch that food. Holy Mother said, “No, you have to take that food. Whoever calls me ‘Mother,’ he is my son or she is my daughter. You have to eat that.” And he had to. She saw no sinner, no saint. Of course, this woman was completely transformed."
Such is our sAradA mA.
Namaskar.
The Quest - Lucia Osborne:
(Part I - continues....)
At school I lived in a world of my own. Introspective, oversensitive, self conscious; life created problems. Learning came easy enough. This helped a bit. One of the girls was particularly beautiful. Large blue eyes, golden wavy hair and perfect features. Just as my idea of beauty. That she was rather stupid did not seem to matted. I was wondering how it would feel to be so beautiful and whether we could change over at least for a while. Would it be the brain (mind) or the heart which would be decisive for the change if it could be transplanted? I could not decide which. Am I the heart or the brain? Who am I? Who is watching? I watch myself being envious, resentful, having happy or worrying thoughts, disapproving (mostly of my own ways) acting up to people so as not to disappoint them, to please them, not so sincere, uncertain always uncertain. Surely there must be something steady not vacillating in one. Who is watching and judging? Who is trying to fight laziness and not succeeding? Who am I? Who am I?
This questioning kept on coming up again and again and nobody to answer till one day my mother said:
If you want to know so much one day, you will know. It helped.
After finishing school I enrolled at the University of Warsaw to study astronomy. Mathematics was my 'forte', not at all composition or languages and yet out of necessity I acquired several as most Polish people tend to do. Like in most things later in my life I was also frustrated in studying astronomy as things at home came to such a passe that it had become necessary to start work immediatley.
When Arthur came down from Oxford his travels brought him to Poland, Katowice where I was working at the time as a translator and secretary to a general manager of an international combine of heavy industry, supplying among other things armed components occasionally to opposite fighting armies!
A university professor from Krakow arranged English courses in Katowice with Arthur as teacher. I joined this course. Arthur attached himself to me from the start. Unpractical, charming, obviously vulnerable he needed looking after. I did not yet know English, and so we communicated in French. His food, which made him ill, needed changing amongst other things.
After a time, he proposed to me but I had no intention of getting married to him as technically I was still engaged to somebody else, a young Czech with whom I was not in touch at the time. It was I who suggested that we should not see or write to each other for a time till my feelings crystallized themselves and then I became disillusioned and unhappy when he did not even write. Torn between attraction and repulsion emotionally I was in a bad way. One particular night I prayed with all my heart just to be at peace, not torn by such conflicting emotions subject to change. Arthur must have been the reply to my prayer.
In the end this led to our marriage
which proved a blessing, Arthur expressed it for himself as a foreshadowing of divine Grace. It was so for both of us.
(Part I - concluded.)
(Retrieved from Asramam Archives - First Part published in Mountain Path, October-December 2009.)
Subramanian. R
salutations to all:
Maneesha/Others:
('dha' and 'tha' refer to the non-aspirated equivalents of sanskrt)
you'd asked about paragraph 9 in bhagavAn's 'nAn yAr' or 'who am i'. since you'd also expressed the likelihood of a translation error, here is how that particular line reads: "indha dEgatthil (in this body) nAn enRu kiLambuvadhu edhuvO (that which arises as 'i') ahdhE manam (that is the mind). nAn engira ninaivu (this thought 'i') dEgatthil (in the body) mudhalil (first) endha iDatthil thOnRugiradhu enRu (arises in which place) vichAritthAl (if enquired into) hrudayatthil enRu (it's the Heart) theriya varum (will be known)."
the tamizh is extremely clear :-) obviously, if the 'i am the body' idea is ignorance then the enquiry also has to commence only from & within this body; the source of the 'i' is very much to be sought in the body, if not, where else would anyone enquire? it's an entirely different thing to discover that the body is not 'the' self & that the 'i' has no existence of its own. in this context, as a learned friend pointed out to me, please also see verse 17 of the uLLadhu nArpadhu, where one finds the following: [thannai uNarArkku uNarndhArkku (to both the ajnAnI and the jnAnI) udal nAnE (the body is 'i'); than uNarArkku (to one who hasn't realised the self) nAn udal aLavE (the self is restricted to just the body), udal uLLE than uNarndhArkku (to one who has realised the self in the body) nAn thAn ellai aRa oLirum (the self shines sans all limitations)]. now, some may interpret the 'in the body' here to mean 'in the life-time of the body' but it isn't necessary as such, for bhagavAn would have mentioned it if it were so! to remove any ambiguity, the essence here is just this - to the ajnAnI, the body is the self; to the jnAnI, the the body is included in the self (if everything is the self, the body is very much the self, just as everything else is!) :-)
'nAn yAr' was written by bhagavAn in the simplest tamizh that can be understood by literally anybody who can read the language, i.e., the most common among the so-called 'common man'. the words mean just what they are supposed to mean in the most ordinary usage of the language and does not require understanding of any other work (neither of bhagavAn's nor of any other text so far as one needs to get the crux and get on with the quest). our bhagavAn came to simplify and every original work of his is complete in itself (so is the case with upadEsa undhiyAr or uLLadhu nArpadhu or the stuti panchakam). this is not akin to reading sankara bhAShyam where a consolidated understanding is imperative, i.e, to understand his brahmasUtra bhaShyam it's a 'must' to also read his commentaries on the upaniShads (at least the brhAdAraNyaka, if not all). that's obvious because of the way the message is scattered & compiled among the upaniShads but that doesn't hold for bhagavAn's compositions.
while i agree that to love bhagavAn no language is necessary yet if one desires to read & refer bhagavAn's works, the best way is to learn tamizh and dispense with all translations or commentaries. bhagavAn's works can be understood directly and with self-enquiry, it only gets better! if one were to say 'there is no time' that can only imply unwillingness rather than any inability (the same logic that holds for self-enquiry holds here). if bhagavAn is the 'main course' in the 'meal of life', then spending a year or two in systematically learning tamizh will happen with a little of effort, a lot lot more easily for any indian as linguistic structures within the indian languages have a lot of things in common! just as one requires sanskrt to appreciate kAlidAsa or english to admire shakespeare, one requires bAngla to soak in thAkur & tamizh to drown in bhagavAn... :-)))
s/maneesha /shiba/friends,
s has clarified the passage from Sri Bhagavan's 'nAn yAr' succinctly.
Interestingly the doubts expressed by aspirants has nothing to do with translation of these works-although aspirants not familiar with Tamil, frequently wonder what the 'Orginal' Tamil reads like!
Translating logical seed ideas is easier than translating contextual ideas related to cultural,symbolic,linguistic,phonetic differences.It is precisely in this context that learning the 'Original' lingo is indispensable.
Sri Bhagavan's language is the language of the self-all those aware of 'I' in whatever form;in this way he talks to each in his or her language.The problem for most is while the 'Beginning' is easy enough to grasp and seems to be elementary,the trail seems to disappear soon afterwards!Seekers imagine that there is a map with clear coordinates and with a 'You are Here' type of a Blue Print!This obviously cannot be.
The Process of 'Enquiry' is more akin to this-Like when someone blurts out an Angry epithet in a heated moment and when we calmly ask him to explain 'what he means',after a couple of 'repetitions' the person if at all he is sensitive enough,would get to realize the absurdity of his statement and come to his senses.
It is just the flame of attention that does the trick-and this attention is Love.There is no process in the ordinary sense that starts with a 'Beginning' and exits with an 'ending' with a transformation wrought in between.Most of the doubts that seekers experience belong to this imagining that self enquiry is a process.
Namaskar.
(Sri Ramana) Tiruvembavai:
Versed 1454 of Sri Ramana Sannidhi Murai:
Thangaai maNikadhvam thaazh thiRavaai
than kazhaLgaL
Singaaramaaha en chenni mel servitha...
The above is the second verse for today, the second day of Margazhi,
Dhanur month.
Sister, what has happened to you?
Get up, unlatch the jewelled door.
'I shall be', last night you told us,
'The first to wake up, and my song,
Praising Gangaadhara Ramana whose Feet
Join as a coronet on my head,
My song shall soar and fill the heavens,
Spread to all the quarters eight,
And rouse you, lazy, slumbering maidens'.
This you said, and now you lie there,
Tightly tied up in you bed.
Wake up, wake up, join us, quick.
The sleeping girl said last morning
that she would wake up first next morning and sing the praise of Ramana. But she is today still sleeping tied to you her bed. Hence her friends make fun of her about her false promise!
(Sri Ramana) TirupaLLi Ezhucchi:
Verse 1444.
Kizhakku veLuthadhu kiLarnthana kiLigal
KiLar oLic chevalhal koovina sangin...
This is almost on the same lines of
Song 3 of Manikkavachagar's TirupaLLi Ezhucchi, where the saint poet says, Koovina poonkuyil koovina kozhi kurugugaL iyambina iyambina sankam....
The order of sounds is first from koel, then the cock, then the stork
and then the sound of conch shell.
The koel is totally black, representing thamo guna, then the cock, red and black, representing thamo-rajas mix, then the stork, white and black, thamo sattvic mix, and then the conch shell, which is pure white, totally sattvic. Muruganar refers to parrots, cocks, and then connchshells, representing
green or black, tamo guna, cock, black and red, tamo-rajas and then the conchshell, white, sattva.
Bright in the East, the parrots chatter,
Cocks crow announcing light, while
conches blow
The sun's lame charioteer*
Is up and active; darkness flees.
The monkey damsels** stand as usual
Adoring you and praying for your blessings.
Wake up Venkata Ramana whose Feet
Illumine the whole universe.
* sun's lame charioteer is mudavan
or aruNan, the red sky that is
seen before sunrise. He is lame, because he is slow.
** Vanara magaLir - the mandhis, the feminine monkeys, which are in
large number on the Hill. If you take the phrase as Vanava MagaLir,
it may refer to damsels of the heaven!
Vanara - monkey clan
Vanava - the heavenly.
Subramanian. R
The Quest: Lucia Osbrone:
Part 2: Arrival at Arunachala:
Our stay in Kashmir was nearing its end in September 1941 as Arthur's six month leave from the Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok was nearly up. We were getting ready to return to Siam without having seen Sri Ramana Maharshi because our friends maintained that it would have been far too hot for the children to go there from April to September. Unexpectedly we received a letter from the British High Commissioner that women and children should not go back as there was the likelihood of the war extending to Siam. Men holding positions of prestige should return. One of our friends, David McIver, had a cottage in Tiruvannamalai and it was arranged for me and the children to stay as he himself would be travelling most of the time. I was delighted, probably because of the possibility of making a sculpture of the Maharshi. We all left Kashmir and parted at Lahore, Arthur on his way back to Bangkok, our friends on their travels and the children and myself to Tiruvannamalai. David had already informed the Asramam about our visit. At the station in Tiruvannamalai we took two horse carts (jutkas), one for luggage and the other for us. I did not notice much on the way not even the mountain Arunachala, as I was too preoccupied with the children, three live wires, and seeing to it that they did not fall out of the cart and that street urchins hanging on to the back of the running cart did not get hurt. There was also excitement over Fernia who was nearly one year old suddenly starting to speaking for the first time and fiercely telling the little boys, 'Jao, Jao' in Hindi which means 'Go, Go', or 'let go'.
Our friends commodious cottage was in a spacious garden full of flowers; a riot of colors, red and yellow predominating. That first few days I was very busy getting settled and did not go to the Asramam. Kitty who was five years old then was the first to see Him. A sadhu swami of David's was also living in one of the rooms and he took Kitty to the Hall of the Maharshi. She was the first Western child to come to the Asramam and created quite a stir with her golden locks and appearance. She was used to being stared at and admired and blest. There was a small table or stool before the couch on which the devotees put their offerings but when Kitty stood with her tray of fruits, not quite sure what to do with it, the Maharshi smilingly pointed to the stool and so Kitty, still holding the fruit, sat herself down on it with her back towards the Maharshi!
Someone, possibly Bhagavan Himself remarked that Kitty was making an offering of herself! I wonder how Marpa the Translator the Guru of the great Milarepa, would have interpreted it.
Before leaving Bangkok for our holiday in India, Arthur showed a booklet probably Who am I? or Spiritual Instruction received from India with a picture of the Maharshi in it. The picture impressed me greatly as a model, so caught up in sculpture was I at the time. Perhaps this was a sort of Vichara (self enquiry), in clay to express the essence of the model 'Who are you?' Never have I seen a face so alive, so serene and wise, so interesting. Even as a child I used to watch myself and wonder who I was and here was a book showing the way to find out but I was not interested to read it, or simply it did not occur to me to do so. If Arthur was disappointed he never showed it. After arriving in Tiruvannamalai I still had the conceited attitude of ever having gone deeply into His teaching.
contd.,
(Retrieved from the Asramam Arhives and published in Mountain Path, Jan-Mar. 2010)
Subramanian. R
The Quest: Lucia Osborne:
Part II - continues....
On entering the Asramam Hall for the first time, from the door I perceived a figure reclining on a couch. Actually I did not see anything much except His extraordinary eyes transparent like water, looking at me. There was no more any question of judging for myself or finding out. Genuine, so transparently genuine, was He that to doubt it would have been like doubting the innocence of a baby; an extraordinary combination of such innocence and great wisdom. I greeted Him in Indian fashion with the palms folded in Namaskaram and sat down on the floor among others near the couch. I closed my eyes and the thought came to me or it had, I could almost say 'recalled itself to me'. "There is only God. All is one." There was a feeling of great ease mixed with unease. Those eyes could see through me. I sat like for ten or fifteen minutes. Someone told me that the Maharshi never shifted His eyes from me and that it was very remarkable. But it was not initiation. This happened later.
I started going to the Hall mornings and evenings and concentrated on the Heart, the spiritual heart on the right side. I did not find meditation difficult but sitting cross legged was another matter. How painful it could be in beginning. But I persisted.
One early morning, I sat down in the Hall a few yards from the couch to meditate. Sri Bhagavan was busy with some letters and papers brought from the office. Suddenly it happened. What actually happened is very hard to say. Indescribable bliss of not being weighed down any more, waves of bliss and fear, of lightness, as if my heart was expanding, expanding. In the midst of it I noticed Sri Bhagavan suddenly turning to me with a searching, almost startled look, letters and papers forgotten. Afterwards I tried to describe this experience and it turned out to be a poem which was surprising, as I was not given to writing poetry and find it hard enough to express myself even in prose. The beginning of it I have forgotten. It was something about my confined heart trying to free itself; like a fluttering bird flying out of its cage into the boundless sky, into the freedom void.
High, higher so near,
Over the waves of bliss and fear
High, higher so near,
fly heart shrank in fear of death
Was it Life?
continued....
The Quest - Lucia Osborne:
Part II - continues....
Actually the expression 'high' does not express it. It was without dimensions or embracing all dimensions, including a bottomless precipice or void. Nothing to hold on to it in fearful blissfulness. Words are so limited. I showed it to Sri Bhagavan in the evening. He read it with obvious interest, sat from His reclining position to read it, then put it under the pillow. A little later, I saw Him read it again. He did not give it back to me. It felt very much like a near miss.
Soon afterwards, the war extended to Siam, the Japanese having invaded the country and all communications from Arthur ceased. Not a single letter for four years. No news at even though the Red Cross. Prompted by me, Adam, who was about three years old, went up to Sri Bhagavan and asked Him: 'Bhagavan, please bring back my daddy safely.' Sri Bhagavan nodded, graciously assenting. That was enough. It was astonishing how we did not worry on the whole. Really strange, for someone like me who was given to anxiety and worrying over matters of scarcely any import, watching my anxious thoughts angrily, unable to shut them off. Yes 'to shut them off' like a tap, that is what I felt one should be able to do. Worrying never helps, never changes anything, so why harbor and activate such negative feelings?
Often the children would come into the Hall. Frania still in the crawling stage on all fours, as if prostrating. Once she crawled first to Sri Bhagavan, then to me. He patter her saying to those around, obviously delighted: "You see, she did not go first to her mother; Bhagavan comes first with her!" This He said in a most impersonal way. Adam would run jumping for joy and breathing loud like a little colt up and down in the Hall between the two rows of seated devotees, men and women apart, occasionally in his tracks to give
me a brief hug. Sri Bhagavan looked on with a smile which Kitty described to her father probably in the last letter to reach him with us: "O Daddy, I am so happy to be here. When Sri Bhagavan smiles everyone must be happy.'
A most amazing vital period of my life had started.
Part II - concluded.
Subramanian. R
The Quest - Lucia Osborne:
Part III: (Retrieved from the Asramam
Archives - First published in Mountain Path, April - June 2010)
Arunachala:
After coming to Tiruvannamalai, I was at first so preoccupied with getting settled and having to take care of three small children, the youngest not yet one year old, that I did not pay much attention to the Hill. Soon however, Arunachala made me aware of Itself. In a dream I saw a dark blue enormous moving mass -- the Hill, alive, awe-inspiring. Messengers from It were heading towards the room in which the children and I were sleeping. The door was rattling with their banging. There was to be a sacrifice. I was afraid to open up. 'Why me? There are the children. I am not fit.' Of course I understood later that it is the ego which has to be sacrificed, the greatest of mischief makers to get rid of, so that our true divine state may blissfully shine forth in all its glory. The banging on the door increased till it became deafening and then I awoke into a cyclone. The banging noise was real enough. Half of the roof had blown off but the other half, over our heads, remained untouched. In the morning we found a number of trees uprooted, there was havoc everywhere. The gardener's cottage collapsed into a heap and he stood there lamenting, not the cottage, which was not his property, but his supply of onions and chillies buried under it.
I asked about the Hill from a swami, who occupied one of the rooms in the cottage. He was the future author of the Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi. He said its name was Arunachala, a manifestation of Siva. Dark blue is the throat of Siva, who had swallowed the terrible poison from the churning of the sea of existence for amrita
(nectar) in order to save the world. Krishna is also depicted as dark blue.
Now Arunachala became alive drawing me like a magnet. There is something truly magical about Arunachala. Just to sit there on a rock watching the sunset or sunrise or anytime in an experience in itself. The Hill vibrant and yet
still at the same time. The rocks became imbued with life. At first it could be quite terrifying, particularly when alone at dusk or at night. I used to go there at all hours. With time this aspect diminished and gradually the Hill became friends, protective, and gracious.
Occasionally, there would be moments of anxiety over Arthur's fate, after news of atrocities perpetrated on prisoners of war kept in concentration camps. Soon after Arthur's return to Siam the Japanese invaded the country and imprisoned all Westerners at the Chulalongkorn University where he was a lecturer. So I would runto the Hill for solace, and be solaced. The very air was welcoming in such friendly, loving reassurance. In the early days there were still leopards and black faced monkeys on the Hill. One evening, while I was leaning against a rock, a fairly large animal jumped down from a rock on the opposite side of the footpath. It must have been a cheetah. There was not enough light to see properly and I had forgotten to bring a torch but no calf or monkey would jump like that. I knew I must not show fear and run. I must not feel fear. Slowly I started walking back, not looking back, and not letting fear get the better of me:
"There is only the Self....All is One. Any moment it might attack if it is following behind. Everything is the Self-Bhagavan-Arunachala." It certainly kept me concentrated!
Arunachala revealed itself as more and more significant, alive, and gracious. Already in March, the weather in the plains of India, particularly in the south, becomes very hot, too hot for the children who were becoming very fretful. A visitor to the Asramam who lived in Kodaikanal arranged for us to rent a cottage there for the hot season.
continued.....
Subramanian. R
R.Subramanian,
"Sri Bhagavan looked on with a smile which Kitty described to her father probably in the last letter to reach him with us: "O Daddy, I am so happy to be here. When Sri Bhagavan smiles everyone must be happy.'"
Lucia Osborne's 'The Quest' is intensely human and wonderful to read.What a contrast from the pedantic philosophical dissertations of the rest!Arthur Osborne acknowledged this simple trust and devotion that his wife had in Sri Bhagavan.
Thanks for posting.
Namaskar.
Dear Ravi,
Thanks. In fact, after a long gap,
Lucia Osborne's article made me cry. Here was a lady, whose husband's whereabouts are not known clearly, having three young children, and living in Tiruvannamalai, an alien
town where she does not understand the local language. What made her to stick to that place? It is Sri
Bhagavan's abundant grace towards her and her children. That was the boat on which she travelled for about three years and Sri Bhagavan as a boatman took her ashore to live with her husband re-united and she and her husband continued to live in Sri Bhagavan's Presence, for long years thereafter. She was even an editor of Mountain Path for about 3 years after Arthur Osbrone merged with Sri Bhagavan.
KaruNaiyal ennai aaNda nee enakku un
Katchi thanthu aruLilai enRaal....
( Padigam Verse 1)
Om Sri Samasararnava tharakaya Namah ||
Salutation to that One (boatman) who helps you cross the ocean of samsara ||
- Ashottaram.
Sri Arunagiri Natha also calls Muruga as boatman who helps you to cross the ocean of samsara.
Yadhu nilai aRRu alaiyum ezhu piRavi kadalai
ERaviduum naRkarunai odakkaranum.....
(TiruveLaikaran Vahuppu,
Tirupugazh.)
We are fortunate to get this long article dug out from Asramam Archives.
Subramanian. R
Friends,
An excerpt from The Rubaiyat of omar khayyam:
"Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument
About it and about; but evermore
Came out by the same Door as in I went.
With them the Seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with my own hand labour'd it to grow:
And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd --
"I came like Water and like Wind I go."
Into this Universe, and Why not knowing,
Nor Whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing:
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing.
What, without asking, hither hurried whence?
And, without asking, whither hurried hence!
Another and another Cup to drown
The Memory of this Impertinence!
Up from Earth's Centre through the Seventh Gate
I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate,
And many Knots unravel'd by the Road;
But not the Master-Knot of Human Fate.
There was a Door to which I found no Key:
There was a Veil through which I could not see:
Some little Talk awhile of Me and Thee
There seemed -- and then no more of Thee and Me."
Master TGN quotes this in one of his talks and this is how I realized the beauty of this wonderful verse.
Namaskar.
Hello.
To Mr. David Godman
I translated 'Dialogue on self-enquiry' on your blog into Japanese.And I also tranlated part of 'Living the inspration of Sri Ramana Maharshi' into Japanese.I put up the articles on my blog, which I have started recently.But I have not taken copyright of the articles into consideration.I am very sorry.Should I delete the articles on my blog?
Shiba
No problem. Send me a link to your translation and I will post it on my site.
(Sri Ramana Tiruvembavai) -
Muruganar - Sri Ramana Sannidhi Murai:
Today is the third day of Margazhi,
Dhanur month. The Verse 3 of (Sri
Ramana) Tiruvembavai is as under:
(1455)
ThannaLavillaath thalaimaiyan venkatavan
EnnaLavillar izhichinar enReLlathu..
Prof. K. Swaminathan's translation:
'Incomparable, high Master Venkata
Would not scorn the meanest mortal,
Me. No! To His Presence summoning me,
He kindly made me His own servant.'
All this you forget and as of yore,
You slumber late. It is morning,
Wake up. See, sing the Master's glorious face.
Sing maidens, dive and bathe, bathe
In the flowery sweetness of the song.
(Sri Ramana) TiruppaLLi Ezhucchi:
Verse 1445 of Sri Ramana Sannidhi Murai:
Nalathahu thaamarai nayakan ezhunthaan
NaLLiruL ahanRathu naathihar uLLath
Thalathaha mootiya vadichiyar vaanin...
Prof. K. Swaminathan's Transaltion:
The beloved Lord of lotus has risen;
Darkness has fled from atheist's hearts.
Slave girls with hennaed nails have come
From heaven eager to serve.
Ocean of grace, who washes clean
Mortals on earth and governs them,
Beyond the reach of strictest penance,
Wake up, come and save us, Venkata-
Ramana.
Muruganar uses the phrase valiya vanthu aaLkoLum ma aruL kadale!
Sri Bhagavan, of His own comes and takes hold of devotees and rules over them. Not only that. He
beforehand, also removes the malam, the three impurities, of devotees, which are obstructions before the 'take over'.
Subramanian. R
shiba,
We are delighted to know that Sri Bhagavan's teachings are available in Japanese,Thanks to your meticulous effort;Appreciate the care that you have taken to spell and pronounce 'Sri Ramana maharshi'.I also recall your persistent enquiries here to get to the true meaning of words.
All this is the manifestation of Sri Bhagavan's Grace.
I also recall our good friend Clemens Vargas Ramos who had shown similiar dedication in translating such works into German.
Thanks very much.
Namaskar.
The Quest: Lucia Osborne:
Part III - Arunachala - continues....
Reluctantly I was getting ready to leave. Around the Asramam there was a sick dog suffering from incessant tremors of one side of its body, the hind leg being most affected after an encounter with a cheetah. This prevented him from fighting for a share of the Asramam leftovers and so he was in a miserable condition, just skin and bones. A day before leaving I took some bread for him as I used to do every day when going to the Asramam for meditation, but the dog was not there. I went into the Hall for meditation and sat down. After a while the dog came to the door looking for me, so I went out and gave him the bread. Sri Bhagavan noticed it from His couch through the window and looked at the dog with compassion. I was sure that the misery of the dog would come to an end. It would probably die, I thought.
Next day we left for Kodaikanal. The little bungalow chosen for us was situated on the outskirts of the hill-station proper. The view which confronted us when we were brought there was breathtaking. I paid little attention to the house itself which looked neglected even from outside. The hill in front of us more than made up for any defects. The house stood on a little plateau with terraced fields sloping down towards a valley which rose the hill called Perumal out of a sea of clouds to a great height. It dominated the whole landscape with its grandeur and strange wild beauty.
After a while, we entered the house which was even more neglected inside. We unpacked after cleaning out the accumulated dust and arranging it as best as we could. The air was crisp and invigorating. From the glassed-in veranda one could gaze at the hill in bad weather also.
Here too life settled into a sort of routine. Kitty and Adam started attending a nearby kindergarten and school run by Irish nuns. An ayah, a sort of nanny, helped to look after Frania who was too young to go to a kindergarten. the ayah was a simple village woman from Tiruvannamalai, not one of those trained professionals, some of whom would not mind giving opium to a child to keep it quiet. Most of my free time was spent sitting in meditation before the hill and learning Tamizh.
I wanted to read The Five Hymns to Sri Arunachala composed by Sri Bhagavan in the original. The English translation of it had already made a tremendous impression. It was a spontaneous outpouring during a pradakshina written as though coming from our own heart. This applies to The Necklet of Nine Gems, The Eleven Verses on Arunachala and The Eight Stanzas on Sri Arunachala.
"Ah! What a wonder! It stands as an insentient Hill. / Its action is mysterious, past human understanding / Only to convey by silence Thy transcendent State / Thou standest as a Hill shining from heaven to earth.. / When I approach Thee regarding Thee as having form, / Thou standest as a Hill on earth...."
"Only to make Thyself known as Being and Consciousness, / Thou dwellest in different religions under different names and forms.... /It is Thou in Thy Unity who penetrates all the diversity of beings and religions."
"Thou art Thyself the One Being ever aware of the self luminous Heart..O benign and dazzling Aruna Hill, / Is there anything apart from Thee?"
continued....
(Retrieved from Asramam Archives. Published in April-June 2010 of Mountain Path)
Subramanian. R
Thank you very much for your kindness, Mr.Godman. I'll send links when I translate articles in your blog from now on.
The following link is the translation of 'Living the inspration of Sri Ramana Maharshi'. I translated it from the third question of Maarok of p3 to the sentence 'I don't think I need to burnish Sri Ramana's image at all because the uncensored truth of his life speaks for itself'.I like the portion very much.
http://arunachala-saint.blogspot.com/2011/12/living-inspiration-of-sri-ramana.html
The following link is full translation of 'Dialogue on self-enquiry'.
http://arunachala-saint.blogspot.com/2011/12/dialogue-on-self-enquiry.html
Ravi, thank you very much for your encouragemnt. There are a lot of books and articles about Bhagavan which have not translated into Japanese. I would like to introduce them to the Japanese.
The Quest: Lucia Osborne:
Part III - Arunachala - continues....
Sadhana, spiritual striving, is a succession of ups and downs, particularly in the beginning. In my difficult moments, when I felt lost, groping in darkness, I sometimes approached Sri Bhagavan for help by handing Him a slip of paper with one of the slokas on Arunachala copies as if coming from me. How He understood! It worked: "O Love in the shape of Arunachala! Now that by Thy Grace Thou has claimed me, what will become of me unless Thou manifest Thyself to me, and I, yearning wistfully for Thee and harassed by the darkness of the world, am lost?
"Lord who art Consciousness Itself, reigning over the sublime Sonagiri, forgive the grievous faults of this poor self and by Thy merciful glance save me from being lost once more in the dreary waste (the world) or else I cannot cross the terrible ocean of births and deaths....
"Deign to ease me in my weariness struggling like a deer that is trapped..."
I missed the presence of Sri Bhagavan and Arunachala. A few days after our arrival at this hill station, I had a strange dream. Arunachala and the hill facing our
cottage, stood side by side and merged into one hill. From the summit a figure emerged growing...growing till it seemed to support the sky. The extraordinary majesty of it, awe inspiring made my hair stand on end. I had read about hair standing on end but I never thought it could be experienced. Somehow the word 'Guru' came to my mind. I prostrated myself before the immense figure and woke up.
Next day I asked my Tamizh teacher the name of the hill and told him about my dream,. He explained that I was blessed with a vision of Perumal (the great man) which was another name for Mahavishnu and also the name of the hill. I have seen hikers moving round the bend of the path and stopping as if transfixed by the view of Perumal which confronted them. One could watch endlessly the play of the clouds, shadows and their changing expressions. Perumal is alive, its summit a gigantic face. Most of the time was spent was spent meditating under its shadow. Thus Arunachala graciously followed me to Kodaikanal, revealed Itself there. Arunachala is a living vibrating Presence everywhere. "Heart is Thy Name" writes Sri Bhagavan.
The power of a sacred mountain, of Arunachala is so great that people are drawn to it without compulsion as if by the force of some invisible magnet. Its mere presence is overwhelming. It is like coming Home. Arunachala breathes and pulsates with life. It has become a symbol of the highest aspirations of seekers, a signpost that points beyond earthly contents towards Infinity, our origin to which we belong. We have forgotten our divine origin, and so we need the presence of such mighty signposts to arouse us from self complacency. Fortunate are those whom the call has reached. Arunachala Siva-Ramana.
Part III - concluded.
(From Asramam Archives. Mountain Path, April-June 2010)
Subramanian. R
The Quest - Lucia Osborne:
Part IV - (Retrieved from Asramam
Archives - July-Sept. 2010 of Mountain Path)
OM
Apart from meditation, I was using incantations, mostly silently, seldom aloud. The mind needs some diversion even in sadhana. While in the hill station one evening I felt very strongly the urge to switch over to the incantation of OM but I hesitated, not having received such initiation. I knew by then that one should be properly initiated into a mantra by someone authorized to do so who has the power to transform the recipient. A mantra is a revelation from the depth of eternal silence. Reality turned towards manifestation reveals itself as Sabdha, a vibration of primordial sound, which translates itself into various forms on various levels. A mantra becomes truly potent when the physical sound does not deviate from the vibrations of the sound origin as revealed to Rishis who transmit them to recipients only when they are ready. If a mantra is concocted to be used as a convenient means for concentration and imparted by people who are ill equipped to do so, it can do great harm and lead astray into confusion. Sound-vibrations are known to have shattered glasses. This applies to people also.
Pythagoras explains that all beings and things produce sounds according to their nature, aggregates of dancing sound producing atoms whose perpetual song creates dense or subtle forms.
The urge to switch over to OM from another incantatin into which I have been initiated by a Western Guru became stronger. I sat musing. All was quiet, the children having gone to sleep. Suddenly I heard it, OM...OM...OM... a low reverberating sound like the humming of a bee going on and on. OM...OM...OM... I listened spellbound, how long I could not say. Then to my great surprise I realized that the sound came from myself, deep down from my own heart. This must be initiation, I thought, and from then on I used this incantation without compunction. Actually OM can be used as an incantation by anyone without initiation. Far safer than to be initiated into it by self styled teachers not authorized to do so. OM is the substratum of all sound. It is pronounced at the beginning of every rite, prayer or undertaking.
Sitting on a rock on the plateau at Kodaikanal facing Perumal hill one day, everything joined in this incantation like a low steady vibration at the heart of the cosmos. It went on and on, a low vibration sound on which the whole of creation seemed to be strung.
continued...
Subramanian. R
Hello,
Pardon me if this is not the right forum for this question.
I have heard that Lakshmana Swamy gives darshan to the public only on 2 days of the year: deepam and on his birthday - 25 December. The source I got this info from is pretty old. Is this information true even now? Can someone confirm?
Thank you.
Lakshmana Swamy stopped giving public darshans in 2006. Since then it has been virtually impossible for anyone to get to see him. Nowadays he is a complete recluse.
The Quest: Lucia Osborne:
Part IV - OM - continues....
According to Gaudpada, OM is to be known as the Lord present in the heart of all. He defines it as the Pranava, as the immutable; the beginning, middle and end of all and the best and most efficacious of all mantras. It may reveal itself to a devotee in a paean, an Alleluiah of praise and thanksgiving at the throne of God, the sky rent asunder with the glory of it. Wagner might have been inspired by such an experience, as in some of his compositions, there seems to be an echo. In Mozart's The Magic Flute the lovely quiet voice of the flute comes through calling....calling.... throughout the din of the world (samsara) which again and again drowns it. But the voice will not be stilled. Krishna's flute, a reminder from the inner witness in the heart watching what we think or do.
"The best is repetition with the mind," Sri Bhagavan reminds us. "The point is to keep out all other thoughts except the one thought of OM...Then by conscious effort or invocation or meditation we prevent our minds from thinking of other things, then what remains is our real nature which is OM..."
In Virupaksha Cave, where Sri Bhagavan spent a number of years sometimes the sound of OM becomes audible, always like the humming of a bee.
The enlightened Virupaksha lived and is buried here. In the inner shrine a Lingam was erected over his samadhi. The Cave is said to be in the shape of OM.
Once on Sivaratri (the night of Siva) a group of us went round the Hill (pradakshina). On the way back, we stopped at Virupaksha Cave. The swami who lived there had just finished a fast of one week and a number of people came to see him and bring food to break his fast. There was quite a hubbub. I was sitting in meditation in the inner shrine when suddenly I heard the sound of OM, a low humming sound quite unaffected by the considerable noise. A devotee asked Sri Bhagavan about hearing this sound in the Cave and Sri Bhagavan told him to go and find out. It does not reveal itself.
When the spark in the ashes of the heart bursts into flame, fanned by the invocation in a breathless moment, one may swallow the whole universe -- mountains, rivers, seas and whales elongating themselves to enter more easily into one point in the heart. It all starts from there, a projection. Such is the reality of this world. Sayings of sages from diverse sources confirm it. "The vast orb of heaven with its myriads of outgoings and incomings was concealed in a single point." (Rumi). For the Chinese Zen Master Huang Po, a grain of dust is identical with all the vast world
systems: "All phenomena are intrinsically void and yet this mind with which they are identical is no mere nothingness. It does exist but in a way too marvelous for us to comprehend. It is an existence, which is no existence, a non existence which is nevertheless existence. So this true Void does in some marvelous way exist."
Part IV - concluded.
Subramanian. R
Thank you David for your prompt response on Lakshmana Swamy's darshan. Is it the same case with Mathru Saradamma also? Does she give darshan to the public these days?
Thank you.
There are no times when Saradamma is available to the public. If you want to see her, you have to go to her gate and send in a note saying who you are and why you want to see her. Mostly, such requests are rejected.
They are both very private people who are disinclined to meet with anyone. They live in a private house, not an ashram.
This is frustrating for all the people who want access. Lakshmana Swamy used to quote Bhagavan when he was asked about his predilection for privacy and solitude: 'Self is the only reality. There are no "others" to mix with.'
The last time he appeared in public, he said, 'I like solitude and I like silence. I will not be giving darshan again.'
That was in 2006. He has not appeared in public since.
Thank you David - appreciate your quick response on Saradamma's darshan as well.
salutations to all:
on a lighter yet heavier note, was wondering what will happen if aruNAchala were to say the same that lakshmaNa svAmI seems to have said "I like solitude and I like silence. I will not be giving darshan again" :-)))
s/friends,
" what will happen if aruNAchala were to say the same"
We now know the consequences of Arunachala not saying so!Arunachala was not worldly wise.It "attracted all" and sundry to set up shops and ashrams all around it and perhaps allowed some hawkers to peddle their wares enroute to Skandasramam with their Radio blaring some of the latest released songs.
I think Sri Lakshmana swami and Sarada amma are forewarned by arunachala not to underestimate the 'Devotion' of 'devotees'-so wisely they have decided to heed to this warning!
Namaskar.
Dear All,
In the context, I am thinking of Sri Bhagavan who was available 24 X 7 for more than five decades, for the rich, for the poor, for the downtrodden, for the children, for monkeys, dogs and squirrels! Even one frog suddenly jumped and hit Him on His eyes and when devotees were anxious, He said: Oh, Nothing! He is saying 'hello'
to me!
Kallaarkkum KaRRavarukum
KaLipparuLum KaLippe....
Subramanian. R
(Sri Ramana) Tirvembavai -
Fourth Verse, Sri Ramana Sannidhi Murai, 1456.
PongamaLi melaaR purandu purandasaiyum
Thangaichee thaazh kuzhalaai sankaravam kettilaiyo....
Translation of Prof. K. Swaminathan:
Long haired sister, rolling, rolling
On the billowy mattress, don't you
Hear the conch sound? If you, idler,
Floating ship-like, yield to languor,
You will in penury pine and fade,
Venkata, lion like, lotus eyed,
With golden hands has made us His
Holds us close and gives us bliss.
Sing, sing this bliss and in the sweetness
Of the song, O maidens, dive and bathe.
Muruganar uses the phrase thanga kai, golden hands. Sri Bhagavan's
hands were really golden right from
His days and whatever He started, that work did complete with total success! In games that He played
during His school years, His side always tasted victory. One of the Ashtotaram names is:
Om Swarna hasthakaaya Namah |
Salutations to the One with golden
hands |
(Sri Ramana) TirupaLLi Ezhucchi,
Verse 1447 in Sri Ramana Sannidhi Murai:
Pangayam malarnthana parithiyin oLiyaal
Panimadhi manginan payinRana paadal
Sankodu berihai thazanguRum oliyaal
Satthira kaRpanai saaynthana amma....
Prof. K. Swaminathan:
Sunlight had made the lotuses blossom,
The cool moon has faded. Songs are sung,
The sounds made by conch and drum
Have set aside sastras imaginary tales,
Stringed instruments spread music,
People from all quarters have come now.
Wake up, O Venkata Ramana, who have taken a
Vow to save us!
Murugnar says 'saathira kaRpanai'.
All sastras are based on illusions.
They are like darkness and misty morning, not clear on anything. The mere presence of Sun and the sounds of conch and drum, seem to say, Forget all these tales. The light
of the Sun and the sounds of conch
and drum are the Reality.
Satyamangalam Venkataramana Iyer also compares all these sastraic tales as misty and dark.
KaRpanai ozhinthathu kamalangaL
alarnthana
ViRpana Ramanare vaarum;
Vedanta roopare vaarum.
(Kalai Pattu, Verse 7)
Subramanian. R
It is only the mind that conceives the availability and non availability of the Guru. The Guru is ever illuminating pratyaksham and ever present. The mind limits the unlimited grace of the Guru.
Bhagavan said - "The grace of the Guru is like an ocean. If one comes with a cup he will only get a cupful. It is no use complaining of the niggardliness of the ocean. The bigger the vessel the more one will be able to carry. It is entirely up to him."
And there are no barriers such as the physical availability of the Guru if one truly discerns the Guru Tatva.
Nagaraj
Hi,
I had been to Tiruvannamalai last week for about four days. I saw the Deepam light in the evening from about six p.m onwards. However, it was not visible during the daytime. Is it because of the Sun or is the Deepam re-lit every evening ?
I also went on Pradakshina twice; however, I have not yet mustered enough courage to do it without footwear. I saw a large number of foreign devotees walking around bare-foot. Truly, I think their dedication and bhakti exceeds that of we Indians.
Or as one of my friends put it, we Indians are only involved while the foreign devotees are committed.
Ravi,
I left on Saturday the 17th; it slipped my mind that it was Holy Mother's birthday; it would have been really nice to have done Pradakshina on Holy Mother's birthday.
Thank you,
shiv
The Quest - Lucia Osborne:
Part V - Swami Ramdas and Incantation:
Swami Ramdas followed the path of devotion. He was a bhakta who throughout his life adopted the invocation of 'Sri Ram, Jay Ram, Jaya Jaya Ram OM, Sri Rama Jaya Ram Jaya Jaya Ram OM.'
A French journalist and writer, Arnaud Desjardin, came to Tiruvannamalai with his wife and child. They stayed with us. After a week or so they were proceeding to Anandashram, the abode of Swami Ramdas and Mother Krishnabai. Arthur thought I needed holiday from the samsara of housekeeping,
including the many visitors who came and feeding some who could not eat food hot with chillies which was all the Asramam provided at that time. It would be a good idea if I went with the Desjardins in their caravan-car which was like a little house on wheels. Swami Ramdas had written a foreword to Arthur's book The Incredible Sai Baba of Shirdi and invited us to visit him. On the way Arnaud asked several people the directions because if two agreed then it would be wise to follow. 'To oblige they might tell you anything,' he said.
A beaming Swami Ramdas greeted us and put us immediately at our ease. He seemed completely without guile, a squat figure past middle age, full of joy. A devotee from Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry sent a desperate letter to Swami Ramdas asking for secrecy. He read it out to all present. To Mother Krishnabai he was literally all in all. A raconteur par excellence he told two of us sitting in his room some story which made us burst out laughing. At this moment Mother Krishnabai came into the room and told him reproachfully: "Again you are making them laugh." "If not they will be meditation all day," was his retort. She epitomized love through service. Swami Ramdas told us a characteristic story about her. A poor man came to her complaining, of his abject poverty. She gave him a cow from the Ashram. A few shed for her. So she gave him the materials that now he had a cow but no shed for her. So she gave him the materials to build one. A few days later he came back complaining that he had no fodder for the cow. So she offered him daily fodder. A few days later he came again and said: "Mataji, now I have a cow, a shed for her and daily fodder but nobody to buy milk", so it ended up by the Ashram buying his milk. "We can always use a little more", she assured him.
The invocation 'Sri Ram Jaya Ram Jaya Jaya Ram Om...' was being chanted at the Ashram from morning till night by devotees in relays. They were also asked by Krishnabai to write it out up to one hundred thousand times or more.
Swami Ramdas, who always spoke about himself in the third person, describes how he came to Sri Ramana Maharshi.
continued.....
(Retrieved from Asramam Archives - Published in Oct-Dec 2010 of Mountain Path.)
Subramanian. R
The Quest: Lucia Osborne:
Part V - continues....
"One day the kind sadhuram took Ramdas for the darshan of a famous saint of the place Arunachala Hill,
Tiruvannamalai, by name Sri Ramana Maharshi. His asramam was at the foot of Arunachala. It was a thatched shed. Both us entered the asramam and prostrated at the holy feet of the saint. He was young but there was on His face a calmness and in His large eyes passionless look of tenderness which cast a spell of peace and joy on all those who came to Him. Ramdas was informed that the saint knew English so he addressed Him thus: "Maharaj, there stands before you a
humble slave. Have pity on him. His only prayer to you is to give him your blessing."
The Maharshi turned His beautiful eyes towards Ramdas and looked intensely for a few minutes into his eyes as though He was pouring into Ramdas His blessing, then nodded His head to say He had blessed. A thrill of expressible joy coursed thorough the frame of Ramdas, his whole body quivering like a leaf in the breeze. The Maharshi did not speak a word.
Now Ramdas desired to remain in solitude. From there Ramdas went straight to the Arunachala Hill, selected a small cave and remained there for twenty days, living on a meal of rice boiled without salt. Day and night he was repeating the Ram Mantra without a break. After twenty days when Ramdas came out of the cave one morning he saw the light of God-Ram everywhere. The entire landscape changed, all was
Ram, nothing but Ram wherever Ramdas looked. Everything was Ram - vivid, rapturous, marvelous -- the trees, the shrubs, the ants, the cows, the cats, the dogs, even inanimate things pulsated with joy... he rushed at a tree in front of him which he embraced because it was not a tree but Ram Himself. A man was passing by. Ramdas ran towards him and embraced him, calling out: "Rama, O Rama." The man got scared and bolted but Ramdas gave him a chase and dragged him back to his cave. The man noted that Ramdas had not a tooth in his head and so felt a little reassured. At least the looney would not be able to bite him, Ramdas said laughing.
The bliss and joy became permanent. This experience is called Sahaja Samadhi in which you are one with all because you have perceived that all is He, the One without a second.
About forty years later, Ramdas commented: Ramdas went to Sri Ramana Maharshi in a state of complete detachment from the world. How intense was his longing." He felt thrills of ecstasy in His presence. The Maharshi made the awakening permanent in Ramdas.
continued....
salutations to all:
Nagaraj(Anonymous):
you said ["...The Guru is ever illuminating pratyaksham and ever present...."]
not that i diasgree but are you saying this from your experience, or is it more from your imagination, or just another repetition of a cliche one anyhow comes across in scores of empty utterances? to 'imagine' or 'believe' that the so-called god is all that there is and nothing else has got little to do with actually knowing it to be the case, isn't it? :-)
The Quest - Lucia Osborne:
Part V continues....
Swami Ramdas and the devotees used to sit in the front of hall for an hour or so after the evening meal asking questions or listening to his lively discourses and reminiscences. When he was silent for a time it was enough to put some question to set him off again, like pressing a button. Once he said that after giving up the body he will come back to earth for the sake of his devotees. "Papa", I asked him, "did you or did you not say that those who see you or come to you will not be reborn?" "Ram made me say it", he replied. "Then for whom you will come back?" "How they catch us", he exclaimed after a momentary silence, completely unruffled and added: "Saints like to be caught like that." He also said in reply to a question on kundalini that if kundalini reaches the sahasrara, the person is realized. This reminded me of my own experience of kundalini.
I was in the midst of packing to return to Tiruvannamalai from Kodaikanal with the children. It was a terrific rush and had to be done with very little help. All the household things also had to be packed properly so as not to be broken on our way down to Kodai Road railway station. One had to be ready for the bus.
It was in the thick of this that it had happened. A sort of lassitude came over me, but a most pleasant lassitude. From the base of my spine a tingling feeling arose as if a thousand ants were creeping up. I must have fever, I thought, but a most delightful fever, so let it be. All thoughts of packing or leaving or any urgent work just vanished. I simply rested, whether sitting or lying down I do not remember. The ascent of the ants or tingling continued, stopping at various points along my spine. I particularly remember some difficulty at the base of my neck.
Then it burst through the crown of the head with the blaze of a million suns -- the splendor of it. Ecstasy which no words could describe. Only this indescribable feeling of blissful well being; radiant all embracing flaming Consciousness. - I-Am-ness and nothing else. "So that's it." How long did it last? A second, an eternity? Then I returned to normal body consciousness and the world emerged again. It felt like being thrust back into a cage. At that time, I knew nothing of kundalini. I had never read about it or practiced it.
On my return to Tiruvannamalai, I came across Sir John Woodroffe's The Serpent Power and there read about the chakras and verified my
astounding experience. I did not mention it to the Maharshi until sometime later when He asked me to go through Heinrich Zimmer's German work Der Weg zum Selbst (The Way of the Self) in which he speaks also about kundalini from what seemed to me an intellectual standpoint. In this connection I told the Maharshi that my experience was different and wrote out an account of it. He perused it attentively and did not return it to me but gave to the attendant to file.
Remembering my experience of the merging of Arunachala with Perumal, the sacred hill at Kodiakanal, I asked the Maharshi whether there was any connection between them. The reply was in the affirmative. Arunachala was once worshipped as the Hill of Mahavishnu. They were one. Arunachala-Siva withdrawn, Perumal, a majestic outer manifestation.
continued....
Subramanian. R
salutations to all:
Ravi/Others:
you said ["...We now know the consequences of Arunachala not saying so!Arunachala was not worldly wise...."]
hahahahahaha... laughed a great deal on reading your comment :-))) while we all despise the 'crowd' with all its noise, we often forget that we are part & parcel of that very 'crowd'! :-) on the other side, it's all aruNAchala's fault! (ravi - now, don't support aruNAchala for he isn't 'paying' you for coming to his aid) :-) if aruNAchala is the source of all, that includes this world, this so-called mAyA, the 'ignorant', the 'seeker', the 'devotion' of 'devotees' etc. (the same nonsensical 'devotion' in support of which you have argued so often in the past!) :-); so, why find fault with the hawkers & peddlers? let's pin the blame on aruNAchala :-)))
lakshmaNa svAmi of course is entitled to do whatever he wants to (no complaints at all), but to 'copy' bhagavAn by saying "the self is the only reality and there are no 'others' to mix with" and suddenly stop his bi-annual spectacle in 2006 (were there 'others' earlier and had they disappeared in 2006 or what?) sounds rather hilarious to me!
Dear S,
{in context to your response: not that i diasgree but are you saying this from your experience, or is it more from your imagination, or just another repetition of a cliche one anyhow comes across in scores of empty utterances? to 'imagine' or 'believe' that the so-called god is all that there is and nothing else has got little to do with actually knowing it to be the case, isn't it? :-) }
There is no possibility of you to verify if I am saying this from my own expeience and at the same time, it is absolutely no use to you, is it not? :)
Nevertheless, it is quite clear that the true Guru is ever present within and quite clear too.
It is illuminating, pratyaksham, whether we believe it or not or whether we are able to see it yet or not. Oneself alone knows!
Adi Shankara's Eka Shloki is a testament to this.
It is the verifyer of everything. When we listen or see the Guru within, he does not shy away to point to me, whether i am deluding myself or not. It is Satyasya Satyam! It is fool proof! One can delude oneself but not ones own Conscience.
He is.
Nagaraj
Nagaraj
The Quest: Lucia Osborne:
Part V - continues...
When I heard Swami Ramdas tell his disciples that when kundalini bursts through the sahasrara in the crown of the head, the person is realized. I spoke with him privately about it afterwards. I told him about my experience and said that with me it was only a temporary a not a permanent change of state, as my mind not being still enough re-asserted itself. He asked med about it in great detail and was surprised but obviously convinced and said it was a sign of grace. Sri Bhagavan said that we are never out of the operation of grace, only we have to come out of the shade. My experience was probably a culmination of such practice in a previous incarnation. With some it would be final if their mind were ready in stillness. Once or twice this experience tried to repeat itself after returning to Tiruvannamalai but it never went beyond the ajna chakra. Obviously I was not detached or passive enough, anticipating a repetition eagerly.
After our return I was confronted in the Asramam with a powerful looking dog who seemed to know me. I could not him till a slight tremor of his hind leg disclosed that it was my formerly decrepit dog so metamorphosed. Now he could easily hold his own among other dogs in the Asramam left overs.
Following a spiritual path with absolute faith in the Guru renders life simple if we do all that life demands of us, that is perform whatever duties fell to our lot as best as we can with detachment as to results. Outer circumstances conform to our needs for spiritual development. Somehow people need troubles to turn them inwards or make them concentrated; and so they get them. Others turn away from the pleasures and trivialities of life, even from a life of luxury, like the Buddha and some saints to seek a meaning to life, to seek the truth behind appearances. Progressively as thoughts become more concentrated they gain more power. Sri Bhagavan said that no thought form is ever lost. Each desire gets fulfilled in due course. In this life or a future one. That's how the world revolves as per the Tibetan Wheel of Life. Fulfillment of desires is not a criterion for happiness.
A modern writer-painter Beh Shahn understood that the Wheel of Life is the objectivization of all the vasanas (predispositions) and delusions in the mind of man, more clearly than some scholars in Buddhism.
"In a monastery near the border of Tibet I found a portrait of myself. Someone in saffron told me that it was called The Wheel of Life, the Round of Existence, but it was myself, exact and representational. There were all the many aspects of myself painted crude and clear: the pig, the lion, the snake, the cock, all animals, angels, demons, titans, gods and men, all heaven and hell, all pleasures and pains, all that went to make me and all as it were within the round of myself, within the wall exactly as I had found it. All that I could be was within the enclosure of myself; all that I cold do would only turn the wheel around and around. There was no way out. I would go on and on, now up, now down, never ceasing, never changing. The mechanism was perfect."
The world would be a better place to live in if human beings were taught to concentrate their destructive energy to subdue their ego-centricity, the root of all trouble. The aim of spiritual striving (sadhana) is just that. It is the ego which hides our divine primordial state. Dr. Bucke experienced it as a sense of exaltation, an immense joyousness, bliss which accompanied by an intellectual illumination the splendor of which he finds impossible to describe. He comes to the conclusion that the moments of illumination experienced by all of the great religious leaders (also mystics and seekers) have much in common. It is a case of cosmic Consciousness, illumination with a sense of immortality. The soul of man is immortal. The cosmos is not dead matter but a living Presence.
continued....
salutations to all:
Nagaraj:
oh no! no verification at all needed, sir :-) the issue is not that of 'use' here! nor did i ask with any intention to argue :-) since you uttered a few superlatives, wanted to know the basis of it :-) what i was interested in is whether you are saying this out of an often-found intellectual conviction or a rarely-found irrefutable experience (the former means little, the latter a lot), that's all. what sankara said in this or that scripture is not relevant here. your claims are valid if and only if you have realised the self otherwise you are simplying parroting somebody (be it sankara, be it bhagavAn!). you are of course absolutely free to give vent to your emotional beliefs but there is little reason to claim it as if it were the 'satyasya satyam' (honestly i've no clue what a meaningless thing like 'satyasya satyam' can mean, so when someboody else utters it, naturally i'm circumspect) :-)))
s,
I will leave Arunachala to his fate!:)
Meantime I read this line in your post:
" your claims are valid if and only if you have realised the self "
How do you know there is the 'self' to be realised?:)
Namaskar.
This is typical human mentality.If somebody argues from Left we pick up the Right thread and if they argue from Right then we pick up the Left.
There were arguments that how could Sankara and Bhagawan go and establish Ashrams and and all that and in the case of Sankara much more than a mutt he wrote Devotional songs on Gods, modified and codified a lot of Hindu Dharma etc.Then how could he be a Jnani?
Now when there is an argument that Swamy and Saradamma are puritanical in that they do not see a world to help out we take the opposite thread and say they are very cold hearted.
Even more confusing is one Jnani(Lakshmana Swamy) literally crying and begging another Jnani(Sri Saradamma) to stay alive to help the world.
and we love this intellectual, rationalization Entertainment.
I really love the incident when some devotee accidentally dropped more incense powder and the whole hall was filled with excessive smoke and Bhagawan said something like If the same happens to God in a temple it may be fine becuase it is a stone there.What to do here,Pains of Swamitvam.(Not exact words)
I realize that asking and worrying about what we want practically is time best spent.If you want something it is better to go to their gate, hand in a note and try your luck/suitability.If nothing happens that is what you deserve at that point in time or you do not know what you asking for or the wholistic ramifications of what we are asking for.
One will not get anything that he does not deserve.Even if he gets one he might think it is piece of glass stone and throw it away.
If they opened their gates in today's world of quick transport I guess one million people will gather there everyday.It will become a huge Empire and great Spiritual Tourism.What use it?Dont forget that in the 1970s round ten thousand people used to gather for Swamy's Birthday and whole paraphernalia around it like shops and the like.
My friends Mr.S, If Arunachala is already there then why do you need Swamy?
Dear S,
I see your paradigm, but don't you also see that ultimately one has to stake claim to the clarity oneself by the grace of Self? (really there is no claiming too) the cycle of neti neti is endless, the cycle of observations is endless unless, oneself sees that there is nothing more to neti neti but just stopping oneself from doing so (stopping is just recognition)! There is a luminous light of intelligence within but in what other way, can one say this? other than being a parrot? :-), that does not care even if we may be repeating just like parrot. There is no 'repetition' or 'instance' to 'That' This cycle will never end unless we discern and recognise & off-course with the true spirit of humbleness and submissively to ones Guru.
There is no way one can verify if oneself is realised, wouldn't it be ridiculous to say, "Ah, yes, this is it! I have realised the Self!" to convey this, I have to just become a parrot and just repeact what Jnaneshwar has said -
"But can that pure consciousness be conscious of itself?
Can the eye look at itself?"
Jnaneshwar asks, can the taste, taste itself? Can the fragrance smell itself?
Likewise, he says, that which is Consciousness itself, Does not possess the quality of being conscious, And is, therefore, not conscious of itself.
Do we have any other choice other than being a parrot? Yes, everything has become a cliche, but, do we have any other option? :-) There is nothing new... and anything new isn't really new! No matter what ever we say, somebody has already said it!
oneself alone knows! It is futile and impossible to know if one is realised, it is an endless cycle. Like they say, when ignorance dies, knowledge also has to die with it, else it is birth again, and again. Don't you also think so?
Sometimes, our own intelligence becomes a great barrier.
There is no way to know if oneself is realised or deluding oneself by ones own self, as that alone is!
There is victory and loss at the same time! There is clarity and obscurity at the same time, there is Witness and witnessed at the ame time but remains untouched even at these!
There is no way for myself also to know or anybody, if these are just superlative words and just mere repetition as there is no other option! Is there any other?
Nagaraj
zee,
Interesting and instructive post.
Reminded of Aesop's fable of Father,son and Donkey!
Namaskar.
salutations to all:
Zee:
you asked ["...My friends Mr.S, If Arunachala is already there then why do you need Swamy?..."]
:-) where did i say i needed 'Swamy'? i'd only said i found lakshmaNa svAmI's statement hilarious... i doubt if i need anyone at all! :-))) neither did i come to aruNAchala nor to bhagavAn or thAkur; they came to me, for i'm quite incapable of coming to them :-)))
salutations to all:
Ravi:
you asked ["...How do you know there is the 'self' to be realised?:)..."]
very interesting question :-) and of course i don't know anything about it, i admit :-)... then why did i say so? for me the only yardstick here is bhagavAn. so, what attracts me to him? - here was a man who was, as far as i could understand, in an unshakeable happiness - if there be such a state, i'd know what that thing really is... i don't approach vichAra with any faith (i'm very happy to be an atheist who melts at the tiruvAchakam - it's said to melt stone, nothing surprising if it melts me!) :-) but rather with a curiosity to try out what this wonderful man had to say. here is a man who says (in my words) - do vichAra, know who you are, you will be in the same state as i'm - there is no reason in dismissing it without giving it a real try, that's all there is to it :-) yes, i don't know what this 'self' is; i definitely don't believe in any so-called god :-))) i don't have to prove any god's non-existence (a thing's absence can't be proven!!) and you folks know nothing (excepting sophistry) to prove such a god's existence :-)))
salutations to all:
Nagaraj:
there is obviously nothing wrong with repeating (or parroting) what others have said :-), it's just that i doubt whether such a repetition can be accompanied with the conviction your statements had initially sounded... so often we utter things with a confidence that simply can't be true, for such a conviction is not supported by one's own experience. truth is truth only if one has known it for oneself, not because somebody says so (even if that somebody were to be bhagavAn or thAkur), and of course we have a choice there, don't we?
contrary to what folks say, for me, at this stage, to realise the self is very much a goal, a goal which can be pursued, and a pursuit that's fascinating in itself :-) things such as 'how can the self know itself' or 'can that pure consciousness be conscious of itself?' etc. have little relevance to the stage i'm in, and this is what i'd label as 'intellectual deception' :-) jnAnesvar can say, bhagavAn can say but i don't know for now what they knew in order to say whatever they said! :-) there is to me an absolutely irrefutable way of knowing the self - one will be in bliss & one will be free of the 'body' - till i solve this puzzle, for me the self will be a goal with vichAra as the means...
s,
"yes, i don't know what this 'self' is"
Are you sure?May be we are imagining the 'self' to be some unknown thing which we want to know-and be 'happy' ever afterwards!Happy like what we 'imagine' Sri Bhagavan to be!
If as Sri Bhagavan says that there are no two selves in one(and it is our experience as well!)and what is ,is the self-how is it said 'yes, i don't know what this 'self' is'?
May be we should be asking -'How to be happy'!Perhaps the reply is - 'stop imagining that one is unhappy'!Perhaps then there will not be an 'ego' to enquire into!
Namaskar.
Dear S,
yes, to realise the self is very much a goal, a goal which can be pursued! I see what you say when you said "intellectual deception"
But I am able to see from that light from behind (which is the Adhaara - ever present, pratyaksham), that by which we are able to discern things as deception or truthfulness, (both)... That is the Guru wihin, that is the luminous light. That I see! Also, by its own grace alone!
That, whose presence remains at all times, as the 'background' is that luminous light, and there is no need for that to assert itself but only I am asserting That, also, through its own light (like I see the sun from the light of Sun) I see That and have nothing else to...? perhaps just say that, That does not even care for bliss or freedom from body but only I have been looking for bliss and for some freedom, having seen that luminosity, I just bow down to that, and, write poerty? :-) what else to do?! Who am I? That am I - I sing... till That wills! And, I can never touch That as, it is only through That alone, I even sing, That am I... That am I...! Without mother there is no child, the child is because of the mother! And, it is only I that says - That is ever free from Body That is ever in bliss, Not 'That' it does not say anything, though, It never knows or cares about bliss or freedom from body and there is no need foor That and I have no way of knowing That bliss or That feedom.
You are able to say that jnaneshwar can say, Bhagavan can say, and that you don't know for now what they knew through the light of That luminous light alone from within! That it is deception or truthfulness is also said from that light alone. Through that alone I sing, so long you want an irrefutable way of knowing That luminous light, Guru or Self, so long you shall see that and discern all from Its own light alone which is the Adhaara. Goal remains so long we want desire the goal, so long we want to solve the puzzle, that Luminous light is ever gracious - I sing to myself, I say to myself :-) for You am I, I am You! What I say is your own and what you say is my own! This also I sing from that light alone!
I just am doing this (exercise) whenever I am present. Whenever I ask who am I, through that light, I sing again, That am I!
Friends,
An excerpt from Sri Aurobindo's 'The synthesis of Yoga':
"The full recognition of this inner Guide, Master of the Yoga, lord, light, enjoyer and goal of all sacrifice and effort, is of the utmost importance in the path of integral perfection. It is immaterial whether he is first seen as an impersonal Wisdom, Love and Power behind all things, as an Absolute manifesting in. the relative and attracting it, as one's highest Self and the highest Self of all, as a Divine Person within us and in the world, in one of his -- or her -- numerous forms and names or as the ideal which the mind conceives. In the end we perceive that he is all and more than all these things together- The mind's door of entry to the conception of him must necessarily vary according to the past evolution and the present nature.
This inner Guide is often veiled at first by the very intensity of our personal effort and by the ego's preoccupation with itself and its aims. As we gain in clarity and the turmoil of egoistic effort gives place to a calmer self-knowledge, we recognise the source of the growing light within us. We recognise it retrospectively as we realise how all our obscure and conflicting movements have been determined towards an end that we only now begin to perceive, how even before our entrance into the path of the Yoga the evolution of our life has been designedly led towards its turning point. For now we begin to understand the sense of our struggles and efforts, successes and failures. At last we are able to seize the meaning of our ordeals and sufferings and can appreciate the help that was given us by all that hurt and resisted and the utility of our very falls and stumblings. We recognise this divine leading afterwards, not retrospectively but immediately, in the moulding of our thoughts by a transcendent Seer, of our will and actions by an all-embracing Power, of our emotional life by an all-attracting and all-assimilating Bliss and Love. We recognise it too in a more personal relation that from the first touched us or at the last seizes us; we feel the eternal presence of a supreme Master, Friend, Lover, Teacher. We recognise it in the essence of our being as that develops into likeness and oneness with a greater and wider existence; for we perceive that this miraculous development is not the result of our own efforts; an eternal Perfection is moulding us into its own image. One who is the Lord or Ishwara of the Yogic philosophies, the Guide in the conscious being (caitya guru or antaryamin), the Absolute of the thinker, the Unknowable of the Agnostic, the universal Force of the materialist, the supreme Soul and the supreme shakti, the One who is differently named and imaged by the religions, is the Master of our Yoga.
To see, know, become and fulfil this One in our inner selves and in all our outer nature, was always the secret goal and becomes now the conscious purpose of our embodied existence."
Namaskar.
(Sri Ramana) Tiruvembavai:
Fifth Verse for Fifth day of Dhanur
month, Margazhi in Tamizh:
Verse 1457 in Sri Ramana Sannidhi Murai:
KaLLamilai pol karanthuraiyal vanchitha
KaLvee ezhunthiraai kaN kazhuvi thaazh thiRavaai...
Prof. K. Swaminathan:
Innocent seeming hypocrite, cheat,
Get up and wash your face, unlatch
The door. She says, 'Don't laugh at me
In scorn. 'Have all the other maidens
Singing hymns in praise of Venkata
Come?' 'Yes! Take it truly. Duly
Promptly they have come.' She asks,
'Has Venus risen?' The sun rose
Long ago! Don't sprawl abed. Get up
And join us quickly. Do.'
This is a nice pageant. One girl is lazy. In the cold winter she does not want to get up early. She asks many questions to the girls waiting at the door, ready to go for bath and then to the temple.
She asks: Have every one come?
KeLirelam pondhaaro?
Yes. All have come quite in time..
come, and count them if you want!
PoLLenru anaivarum tham ponthaar pontheNNikkoL...
Saint Manikkavachagar also says in
Verse 4 of his work,
VaNNak kiLimozhiyar ellaarum vanthaaro?
EnnikoduLlava, sollukom avvaLavum...
Andal also says in Verse 11 of Tiruppavai:
SuRRathu thozhimaar ellaarum vandhu nin,
MuRRam puhunthu mukil vaNNan per paada,
SiRRathe pesaathe selva pendaati nee,
ERRukku uRangum....?
Again Muruganar says:
VeLLi udhithatho viLLai viLangiravi
PaLLi ezhhunthaan....
In Dec-Jan, that is, Magazhi, in the very early morning the planet Jupiter hides and Venus begins to
shine. Then only Sun rises.
The girl asks: Whether VeLLi (Venus) has begun to shine?
Andal's girl also asks and the other girls reply:
VeLLi ezhunthu Vyazham uRangiRRu...
in Versed 13 of Tirupavai.
***
Subramanian. R
The Quest: Lucia Osborne:
Part V - continues....
There is a state so happy, so glorious that all the rest of life is worthless compared to it, a pearl of great price to buy which a wise man willingly sells all that he has. This state can be achieved. Stilling the mind means the same. "Be still and know that I AM God" or rather that God is I AM. When Christ said 'I am the way...perhaps the original in Aramic was I AM IS THE WAY.
Stilling the mind, Sri Bhagavan said, simply means that the mind gets clear of impurities and becomes pure enough to reflect the Truth, the real Self, the I Am. This is impossible when the ego is assertive...
"Where I am there is God; this is the naked truth
Man is in truth God and God is in truth man
In this breakthrough I experience I and God are One."
Meister Exkhart.
In the language of physics Schrodinger defines Consciousness as a singular that means the same in all with an illusory plural. We function only through the divine Light of the Self, Sri Bhagavan says. It enlivens the inert body like a current passing through inert electric bulbs and makes them glow. But this Light is clouded by our pre-dispositions, thoughts, and desires and so on, so it is a mixed light.
God forgets himself in man and man remembers himself in God. The Koran: 'There is no God save Him. Unto Allah is the journeying.' 'In the beginning was Allah and nothingness beside Him and now He is as He was.' It struck me like a flash of lightning. Nobody doubts that he exists. His existence is beyond the shadow of doubt then,
WHO AM I?
With the greatest patience, Sri Bhagavan would explain and reply to questions of sincere seekers. He knew who sincerely wanted to have a doubt cleared and who wanted to engage Him in a discussion for the sake of discussion. The first year I was in Tiruvannamalai there was also an author of travel books there who liked discussions. She had prepared a long list of questions which were handed over to Sri Bhagavan. After one look He put them aside without replying. Then He asked the attendant to bring Him a book from the revolving bookcase, opened it and sent it to me. I had not asked any question but I had been wondering for several days whether it was right to combine the atma vichara with invocation and hesitated to ask in public. The book opened on a page which positively answered my unasked question. It started with Saint Namdev saying: "The Name permeates the whole universe...." and ended with extolling the invocation. It was very helpful at the time.
Sri Bhagavan said that in the sphere of speech the mystic sound AUM represents the transcendental aspect. When invoking the Name one-pointedly a feeling of devotion arises after a while till one may dissolve in tears. When the invocation becomes mental it is contemplation; that is, when one thought persists to the exclusion
of all others. This is its object confining oneself to one thought only, then that one thought too vanishes into the Source which is Pure Consciousness. Pure Consciousness is always in the first person. It is I-am-ness on the subtratum of which 'you', 'he' and all otherness arises.
contd.....
(Retrieved from the Asramam Archives. Published in Mountain Path, Oct-Dec 2010.)
Subramanian. R
The Quest - Lucia Osborne:
Part V - continues....
In Svetasvatara Upanishad it is said:
"Fire is not perceived through present until one stick is rubbed against another. The Self is like that fire." It is realized in the body by meditation and whatever spiritual practices help one to be one pointed and to still the mind, whether by invocation, self inquiry, dhyana and so on. With dervishes it is sacred dancing. Dilip Kumar Roy, a famous singer who used to pour out his heart in songs of devotion, asked Sri Bhagavan whether this way was right for him. Sri Bhagavan assented.
It is said also that continuous chanting of the Name or mantra which has intrinsic power in it creates harmonious vibrations and makes the mind serene. Sometimes diseases get eradicated in this way.
After a while meditation and stilling the mind through atma vichara or letting thoughts pass over one like waves unmoved by their influence is sufficient.
"The truth is", Sri Bhagavan reminds us, "that you are always united with the Lord (you are invoking) but you must know this."
True bhakti (devotion) leads to Jnana, Jnana embraces bhakti. Perseverence and steadfastness in either reveals it. Even if there is only a spark in the ashes of the heart to start with, slowly, one pointedly, invocation will fan it into flame. The heart melts. Some say the very bones melt.
What counts in sadhana is perseverance and steadfastness. After a time, meditation recalls itself spontaneously. 'Whether or not results of meditation are obtained is of no importance", Sri Bhagavan states. "The essential is to arrive at stability. It is the most precious thing that one can gain In any case one must trust with confidence in the Divinity, the Guru, and await His Grace without impatience...." The same rule applies to all spiritual practices. They are cumulative and the result will come at the right time when the heart is empty enough to be flooded with Grace.
One night I had a vision of waiting in an enchanting dream-garden, so peaceful that no a leaf stirred. I was waiting for someone, Arthur? (I had been several years without any news from him, kept in a concentration camp in Bangkok by the Japanes during the war). On the horizon a figure was slowly emerging, a majestic, radiant figure. Like a bride I was waiting, my heart astir, rooted to the spot for him to come. He was not only Arthur but all mankind condensed in this glance more gentle, more loving than words could say.
Arunachala-Siva-Ramana formless, all pervading, able to take any shape to lead one back to Itself abiding in all hearts.
One day on the Hill after a lengthy absence:
'Softly, gently, caressingly
The Mountain breeze surrounds me
In embrace of greeting
Touches my head, my face
Long have you been in coming
The heart stirs
Oh, My Beloved.'
Part V - concluded.
Subramanian. R
The Quest : Lucia Osborne:
Part VI - Vichara:
(Retrieved from the Asramam Archives,
Published in Mountain Path, Jan-Mar.
2011)
There comes a time when the Vichara, "Who am I?" takes over and becomes all sufficient for sadhana. Those who can do it from the beginning are on the direct road, a shortcut. Sri Bhagavan said that all paths lead to the Vichara, which is the royal path.
The quest for the Self, the Vichara, is a direct method superior to any other, for the moment you go deeper with the quest of for the Self, the real Self is waiting there to take you in and then your effort ceases. In this process all doubts and discussions are automatically given up just as one who sleeps forgets all his cares.
Then there would shine in the heart a wordless illumination of 'I-I', that is, there would shine of its own accord the pure consciousness which is unlimited and one, the limited and the many thoughts having disappeared. If one remains still the individual sense of the form "I-am-the-doer" will be destroyed. This is release.
"Vichara is the process and the goal also. I AM is the goal and final Reality. To hold it with effort is Vichara. When spontaneous and natural, it is realization." A devotee once asked the Maharshi:
"What is that one thing, knowing of which all doubts are solved?" The reply was: "Know the doubter. If the doubter is known, the doubts will not arise."
It is only the mind which entertains doubts. Doubts must be uprooted. The method for accomplishing this is the investigation, 'Who am I?'. On another occasion He said that the purpose of Self Enquiry is to focus the entire mind at its Source, to turn it inwards upon itself at the same time focusing the attention on the spiritual heart on the right, which is the centre of spiritual experience to the testimony of sages. Those who follow His injunctions have found it to be so.
How to eradicate thoughts? This is where Self Enquiry comes in. Whence do these thoughts come? To whom? Who am I? The whole mind is focused in alertness over this question, which should not be repeated like a mantra. The elimination of thoughts brings us to a deeper awareness that is behind and beyond thoughts.
In the Hall in Sri Bhagavan's presence one meditated and relaxed, without fixing one's thought on any particular subject or idea. It brought peace. The simple terse words and answers in Who am I? and other books were like rain falling on parched earth, fully satisfying. If one can say, 'my mind, my body, my thoughts' and so on, wherever this possessive pronoun can be applied, it does not indicate the true Self. Who is it that says, 'My?' 'Whose?' So I am not the mind or the body, or thoughts, or feelings. All that has been plaguing me for so long is not myself. Who am I then? The enquiry becomes the basic theme often submerged and recalled by life or sadhana.
"What happens when you make a serious quest for the Self?", Sri Bhagavan explains, "is that the I-thought as a thought disappears. Something else from the depth takes hold of you and this is not the 'I' which commenced the quest. This is the real Self, the import of 'I'. It is the Supreme Being Itself."
continued.....
The Quest - Lucia Osborne:
Part VI - continues....
Sri Bhagavan guides those who would follow Him on the most direct central
path, the quest of the Self and for this any religion could serve as a foundation. He also guides on other paths also as explained later.
"The Bible and the Gita are the same", was His reply to a question by a visitor to the Asramam. all great religions of the world have divine revelation as their common basis. They all testify to the Oneness of Being, the unity of God. Differences arise only in their external application to suit different people in different ages. Esoterically the message is the same. On scrutiny one may find that injunctions and prohibitions motivated by sound therapy 'good for body, good for mind' and on a lower theistic level were likely to be followed more strictly. Though in essence a religion is divine, as an institution, it is human and as
such carries within itself the seeds of imperfection.
Although Sri Bhagavan's teachings hinges on Self Enquiry, seekers find guidance on whatever path they follow from their own level of attainment. The guidance given to each disciple was ad hominem, intensely direct and adapted to each temperament. It still is. His guidance continues as He assured us and the teachings in the books are inspired living words. Everyone sincerely seeking finds what he needs. The theme of Self Enquiry or of surrender recurs like a refrain in varying stanzas or the cadence in a symphony ending in Silence. Vichara is the process and the goal also. "I AM" is the goal and final Reality. Reality is That which is. All attempts resolve themselves finally into the all-pervading Reality, That which Is. "Bhakti (devotion), Japa (invocation) and Vichara (enquiry) are only different modes of our effort to keep out the unreality." Sri Bhagavan says that the unreality is an obsession. Reality is our true nature. As pointed out, Sri Bhagavan guides seekers on all paths. The four margas are not exclusive of one another. to a famous singer pouring out his heart in songs of devotion and who wanted to know whether his way was right,
Sri Bhagavan saikd: "Yes, what you are doing is just what you have to do. Carry on and it will lead you to the goal. Through devotion to God we discharge our emotions and that is a sure way to reach Him." That was the right way for the singer. Those who were ready He would ask to follow the path of Self enquiry or of surrender, the royal road. A simple peasant who fell at His feet asking to be saved He told to on repeating 'Siva', as he had been doing. So it became a mantra given by Sri Bhagavan.
continued.....
(Sri Ramana) Tiruvembavai:
Sixth Verse in Sri Ramana Tiruvembavai, Verse 1458 of Sri Ramana Sannidhi Murai:
Ethirkuthiraa veRRidiye Rarthathirnthaal enna
Madhikadhir thoy sonai malai muzhainju koova
Adhirkuralal anbar ahavuthudhi osai
Udhiayavume kaathai uRangaluNarvaamo...
Prof. K. Swaminathan's translation:
As thunder in the Heavens above
Reverberates and echoes, so
In the moonlit Sonai Hill, the caves
Resound with devotees' hymns of praise
So loud that they assault our ears.
How then could we afford to sleep?
Chaste maidens, Ramana the Mighty
Governs us with sweetest love.
Surrender to Him, to His beauty
And under His high Mastery
Reach Kadirgama and bathe in bliss.
Muruganar says that the devotees' hymns in the early morning of Margazhi assault one's ears. He uses the phrase 'ahavu thudhi osai'
i.e their singing is like peacocks
cooing! But loud enough to hit one's ears, who is sleeping. He also says "udhaiyavume" that is, the sound is kicking one who is still in sleep! Swaminathan translates it as 'assaulting'. One is reminded of Andal's Tiruppavai where she says that the "rains come down like arrows from the bow of Narayana, as if they are kicking the earth."
Saarngam udhaitha sara mazhai pol...
Muruganar also uses the phrase 'Ramaneeyak kadhirgamam' the Kadhirgamam of Ramana's presence.
Kadhirgamam is one of the abodes of
Muruga, the last one, which is in
Sri Lanka. Saint Arunagiri Natha also has sung songs on Kadhirgamam Murugan. Nakkirar in his TirumurugaRRupadai, speaks Kadhirgamam as "Pazhmudhir Solai"
the garden in which the ripe fruits are dropping from the trees.
Muruganar has in many places said that Sri Ramana is Muruga and so this phrase Ramaneeya Kadhirgamam
is noteworthy.
Sri Ramana Gita also says, in Chapter 11 Verse 7 and 8: I see you, by the divine vision given to me, again and again, as Subrahmanya, the foremost among the knowers of Brahman in human form. You are not in Swamimalai, nor in Tiruttani, nor on the top of Venkatachala (Venkatachalapathy in
Tirupati, is also Muruga). You dwell now in reality in Arunachala.
Again in Chapter 18, he says: "..He is wedded to VaLLi, who is Consciousness in all fullness. In a few words he conveys the substance of scriptures." In Verse 14 of Chapter 18, he says: "Even now, Devasena lovely in looks and mind, shines in the thousand petaled lotus of His head, in the form of auspicious thoughts....."
VaLLi is Consciousness; Devasena is the Pure Mind and auspicious thoughts of a Jivan Mukta, who is in Brahmic state.
Subramanian. R
Friends,
An excerpt from The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna:
"December 1882
It was afternoon. The Master was sitting in his room at Dakshineswar with M. and one or
two other devotees. Several Marwari devotees arrived and saluted the Master. They
requested Sri Ramakrishna to give them spiritual instruction. He smiled.
MASTER (to the Marwari devotees): "You see, the feeling of 'I' and 'mine' is the result of
ignorance. But to say, 'O God, Thou art the Doer; all these belong to Thee' is the sign of
Knowledge. How can you say such a thing as 'mine'? The superintendent of the garden
says, 'This is my garden.' But if he is dismissed because of some misconduct, then he does
not have the courage to take away even such a worthless thing as his mango-wood box.
Anger and lust cannot be destroyed. Turn them toward God. If you must feel desire and
temptation, then desire to realize God, feel tempted by Him. Discriminate and turn the
passions away from worldly objects. When the elephant is about to devour a plaintain-tree
in someone's garden, the mahut strikes it with his iron-tipped goad.
"You are merchants. You know how to improve your business gradually. Some of you start
with a castor-oil factory. After making some money at that, you open a cloth shop. In the
same way, one makes progress toward God. It may be that you go into solitude, now and
then, and devote more time to prayer.
"But you must remember that nothing can be achieved except in its proper time. Some
persons must pass through many experiences and perform many worldly duties before they
can turn their attention to God; so they have to wait a long time. If an abscess is lanced
before it is soft, the result is not good; the surgeon makes the opening when it is soft and
has come to a head."
Namaskar.
The Quest - Lucia Osborne:
Part VI continues....
Whether one followed the path of Jnana or of Bhakti, Sri Bhagavan, taught that this should not interfere with the proper and effective discharge of our duties in life. It is not advisable to create an artificial vacuum of the mind by depriving it of its natural occupation. When a seeker is ready for renunciation or a life of pure contemplation, a change in outer circumstances takes place spontaneously to make this possible. Things simply fall into place.
Saints have designated bhakti as the mother of jnana. The two paths
lead to the same goal. Perfect devotion means complete total surrender of the ego to God or Guru, while Self enquiry leads to the dissolution of the ego, so the two paths converge. There is no true wisdom without love nor true love without wisdom. Sri Bhagavan agreed with a visiting swami that God is required for sadhana by most people. But the end of the sadhana even in bhakti is attained only after complete surrender. "Whatever path one may choose, the 'I' is the inescapable, the 'I' that does selfless service, the 'I' that pines for her lord from whom it feels, it has been separated, the 'I' that feels it has slipped from its real nature. When the source of that 'I' is found out, all questions will be solved.
When shall I become like the ether and reach Thee
Subtle of being, that the tempest of thought may end,
Oh Arunachala - AAMM V 57
or
When will waves of thought cease to rise?
When shall I reach Thee, subtler than the subtle ether,
O Arunachala!
Unite with me to destroy Thou and me
And bless me with the state of ever vibrant joy. - AAMM Verse 56
Look within ever seeking the Self with inner eye,
Then will I be found. Thou didst direct me,
Beloved Arunachala! - AAMM Verse 44
Sri Bhagavan also admitted of pranayama or breath control, as a legitimate help towards attaining thought control although He never actually enjoined it. 'Breath control can also help the wandering mind attain one-pointedness, but one should not stop there. Quiescence lasts only so long as the breath is controlled. So it is transient. Control of mind spontaneously effects control of breath. Their source is the same."
Preoccupation with occult powers was not encouraged by Sri Bhagavan and He warned devotees not to indulge in them. They usually serve to enhance the ego.
On the subject of hearing, the Zen Master Hui Hai explains that the nature of hearing being eternal we continue to hear sounds whether they are present or not. It is our own nature which hears and it is the inner cognizer who knows. Wisdom means that your stillness of mind is not disturbed by giving any thought to that stillness.
Part VI - concluded.
(Retrieved from the Asramam Archives - Published in Mountain Path, Jan-Mar. 2011
****
Friends,
In this excerpt from The Gospel,the Master sings a different tune and emphasizes 'Strong Renunciation' :
Bondage removed by strong renunciation
VIJAY: "What must the bound soul's condition of mind be in order to achieve liberation?"
MASTER: "He can free himself from attachment to 'woman and gold' if, by the grace of
God, he cultivates a spirit of strong renunciation. What is this strong renunciation? One
who has only a mild spirit of renunciation says, 'Well, all will happen in the course of time;
let me now simply repeat the name of God.' But a man possessed of a strong spirit of
renunciation feels restless for God, as the mother feels for her own child. A man of strong
renunciation seeks nothing but God. He regards the world as a deep well and feels as if he
were going to be drowned in it. He looks on his relatives as venomous snakes; he wants to
fly away from them. And he does go away. He never thinks, 'Let me first make some
arrangement for my family and then I shall think of God.' He has great inward resolution.
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. (To Vijay) Why don't you come here now as
frequently as before?"
VIJAY: "Sir, I wish to very much, but I am not free. I have accepted work in the Brahmo
Samaj."
MASTER: "It is 'woman and gold' that binds man and robs him of his freedom. It is woman
that creates the need for gold. For woman one man becomes the slave of another, and so
loses his freedom. Then he cannot act as he likes."
Namaskar.
The Quest - Lucia Osborne:
Part VII - Silence:
The silent teaching of Sri Bhagavan is a direct spiritual influence on the mind and the heart. The impact can be overwhelming since Sri Bhagavan is not limited to the body. One has to be attentive and listen with the inner hearing and be silent and passive to His Presence or, if you would have it, to the ever present God or Christ in you, your own Self, the core of your being. "God, Guru and the Self
are the same", Sri Bhagavan affirmed. "His Silence is more vast
and more emphatic than all the sastras put together. Grace is always there. We are never out of its operation. It is only the clouded mind which does not feel it. Yet through effort it can experience Grace."
The physical guru leads one back to the inner guru, to Grace, a living Presence always abiding with us even if we are unaware of it. We do not exist apart from it.
"You bear God about with you, poor wretch and know it not. You bear Him about within you and you are unaware that you are defiling Him with unclean thoughts and actions. When God Himself is present within you and sees and hears all the things you do, are you not ashamed of thinking and acting thus?" -
Epicetus.
Plotinus realized that when intellectual denudation is achieved
the One, who is not a being, but the source of being appears to the soul and they are no longer two but one and the soul is no longer identified with the body or mind, but knows....
Plotinus wrote to Flaccus in 260 A.D. "You ask, how can we know the Infinite? I answer, not by reason. It is the office of reason to distinguish and define. The Infinite, therefore, cannot be reached among its objects. You can only apprehend the Infinite by a faculty superior to reason, by entering a state in which you are your finite self no longer."
Sri Ramana Maharshi was always ready to clear the doubts of sincere seekers whilst avoiding unnecessary discussions. He never gave talks as such nor did He set out to teach. In His teens He was already followed by devotees when He came to the small temple on the eastern spurts of Arunachala. Devotees had doubts and asked questions. The replies were noted down and constitute the teaching. His words carried power but as mentioned the most powerful impact of His teaching is in Silence. By Silence, eloquence is understood, He used to say. It is a direct transmission of the knowledge depending on the disciple's receptivity. The first European visitor, Frank Humphreys, has thus described it:
"On reaching the cave we sat before Him at His feet and said nothing. We sat thus for a long time and I felt lifted out of myself...I could feel only that this body was not the man, it was the instrument of God, merely a sitting motionless figure from which God was radiating terrifically. My own feelings were indescribable."
continued...
(Retrieved from the Asramam Archives. Published in Mountain Path, April - June 2011)
****
The Quest - Lucia Osborne:
Part VII - continues...
Another visitor, Paul Brunton, who arrived more a sceptic than a believer, has given the following account of the first impact that the silence of Sri Ramana Maharshi made upon him. "I cannot turn away my gaze from Him. My initial bewilderment, my perplexity at being totally ignored, slowly faded away as this strange fascination begins to grip me more firmly. But it is not till the second hour of this uncommon scene that I become aware of a silent resistless change which is taking place within my mind. One by one the questions which I prepared in the train with such meticulous accuracy drop away For it does not seem to matter whether they are asked or not and it does not matter whether the problems which have hitherto troubled me are solved or not. I only know that a steady river of quietness seems to be flowing near me, that a great peace is penetrating the inner reaches of my being and that my thought-tortured brain is beginning to arrive at some rest."
And another description:
"I know no other man whose mere Presence has thus enabled me to make the personality drop down into abyss of nothingness where it belongs. I have found no other human being who so emanates His grace that it can plunge one into ecstasy of timeless omnipresent Being."
Many more such instances could be quoted. Some of them are recorded in the chapter on Glimpses of Reality; among them Swami Ramdas, Swami Chinmayananda, the doctors who treated Him, sceptics and non believers to start with, who became devotees without a word spoken. Bereaved and distressed people found solace again without a word spoken. Simple people, who could not understand or follow Sri Bhagavan's teachings, children, and animals loved to be in His Presence. They felt at peace, happy.
A genuine Guru expresses His divinity with his mere presence, his silence which can be awe inspiring, with every action. He the Self in our hearts has taken shape in order to lead us back to Himself, the Source, which is
I-AM-NESS.
Part VII - concluded....
****
The Quest: Lucia Osborne:
Part VIII - Science:
(Retrieved from the Asramam Archives.
Published in Mountain Path, July-
September 2011.)
Visitors, seekers from all walks of life came here during Sri Bhagavan's lifetime on earth and they continue to do so now. Sri Bhagavan is identified with Arunachala; the place is alive, vibrating with His Presence. If anything sadhana has become easier now. The attraction to the physical body of a guru may even be a hindrance, preventing the remembrance of the universality of the living inner Guru in the heart. The outer guru is a sort of decoy. That is why Sri Bhagavan kept on reminding us that He was not the body.
Some visitors, particularly if they
were scientists, would ask for proof. We were sitting out in the garden one afternoon with one such scientist who kept on saying that He wanted to know but had no faith and must have proof. His wife had faith and sat there beside him patiently, serenely watching him fuming with frustrations. She must have been used to such outbursts. He was exasperated and exasperating.
Having reached the outermost periphery of the mind and unable to go beyond it a scientist stands baffled before the mystery of this vast universe into which he has been cast and which he cannot unravel because what he does not understand is himself.
Ultimate Reality has been and can
be experienced intuitively by stilling the mind in order to unravel the mystery of being, and of this vast veiled universe. Rationally those experiences of sages of various races widely separated in time and space show surprising uniformity which comes through in trying to give expression to what transcends the mind. Finite vocabulary cannot describe adequately the Infinite, yet unanimity comes through in what they have to say. This in itself is the proof of their validity. For those who have experienced even a glimpse of Reality-Eternity, it is a dead Certainty 'the surest of the sure' as Tennyson expressed it.
Science with all the tremendous strides it has made in this century, does not reach beyond the confines of the mind so it cannot become a yardstick. Sir Arthur Eddington says: "In this world of physics we watch a shadow graph performance of the dram of familiar life." The achievements of science and technology have brought not happiness to mankind. Rather insecurity, violence and fear amidst increasing comfort. We may have almost acquired mastery of speed but without much sense of direction. The progressive interference with nature called progress is bound in the long run to create impoverishment and chaotic conditions.
"It is evident that the teachings embodied in the verses of Genesis are of tremendous importance for the people of the twentieth century when we come to realize that science and the rational view of life are products of the function of creative intelligence, the domain of which is the element of Fire", writes Dr. Mees, a writer on symbolism. "Modern man is grappling with a world of ethical problems which have sprung from the creations of his intelligence. The man of this age is new Prometheus, who has stolen the fire from Heaven in a form much more dangerous than that of the Prometheus of old. The atom, neutron bombs or weapons are the present form of the fire stolen by man at his own peril."
continued.....
Someone said to Ramana....I want peace. Ramana replied "Drop the I, drop the want and what is left is peace"
Dear hey jude,
Paul Brunton asked Sri Bhagavan:
Then, should I leave all the possessions?
Sri Bhagavan replied:
The possessor too.
Ahandhai uru azhithale mukti -
last verse of Ulladu Narpadu.
The destruction of ego is liberation.
***
Friends,
An excerpt from The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna:
MASTER: "Just try to find out who this 'I' is. While you are searching for 'I', 'He' comes
out. 'I am the machine and He is the Operator.' You have heard of a mechanical toy that
goes into a store with a letter in its hand. You are like that toy. God alone is the Doer. Do
your duties in the world as if you were the doer, but knowing all the time that God alone is
the Doer and you are the instrument.
"As long as the upadhi exists there is ignorance. 'I am a scholar', 'I am a jnani', 'I am
wealthy', 'I am honourable', 'I am the master, father, and teacher' -all these ideas are
begotten of ignorance. 'I am the machine and You are the Operator' - that is Knowledge. In
the state of Knowledge all upadhis are destroyed. When the log is burnt up entirely, there is
no more sound; no heat either. Everything cools down. Peace! Peace! Peace!"
Namaskar
Friends,
Excerpt from The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna:
Master:"If one analyses oneself, one doesn't find any such thing as 'I'. Take an onion, for instance.
First of all you peel off the red outer skin; then you find thick white skins. Peel these off
one after the other, and you won't find anything inside.
"In that state a man no longer finds the existence of his ego. And who is there left to seek
it? Who can describe how he feels in that state-in his own Pure Consciousness-about the
real nature of Brahman? Once a salt doll went to measure the depth of the ocean. No sooner
was it in the water than it melted. Now who was to tell the depth?
Sign of Perfect Knowledge
"There is a sign of Perfect Knowledge. Man becomes silent when It is attained. Then the 'I',
which may be likened to the salt doll, melts in the Ocean of Existence-Knowledge-Bliss
Absolute and becomes one with It. Not the slightest trace of distinction is left.
"As long as his self-analysis is not complete, man argues with much ado. But he becomes
silent when he completes it. When the empty pitcher has been filled with water, when the
water inside the pitcher becomes one with the water of the lake outside, no more sound is
heard. Sound comes from the pitcher as long as the pitcher is not filled with water."
Namaskar.
Friends,
I wish to place the following line of thought for exploration.
1.Is Devotion an aid to concentration of mind?
2.Is concentration of Mind then 'Devotion'?
Is it concentration of mind,when the mind discards thinking about 'many' and holds onto 'one' idea?Does this lessening of the Horizon of 'Thought'necessarily lead to heightening of awareness.
Putting it simply,let us say a Python that has just preyed and is free from Hunger,and at peace with itself and the environment;Is it in its natural state of the 'Self'?
----------------------------------
In other words let us say that a primitive man who has no family affiliation and who , like that Python is without any want or care(even if temporarily so)
-is there a possibility of such a one to be in the Natural state?!If no,what prevents him from experiencing it?Just what is the obstacle?What needs to be overcome?
Namaskar.
Hi Ravi, Putting it simply,let us say a Python that has just preyed and is free from Hunger,and at peace with itself and the environment;Is it in its natural state of the 'Self'
The above of course is an interesting concept: Should the mind busy itself with the Python puzzle or just keep quiet. If one cannot keep quiet can one pursue the idea that the Python has eaten just enough to keep itself alive and does not succumb to greed or avarice is therefore the pure 'self'.
Keeping still after its meal, it knows nothing. Is the snake then open to grace?
If a Python just is, with very few thoughts or blank mind... is it the 'self'?
Are we testing truth by discussion?
We don't know our own mind so how can we possibly understand the mind and impulses of a Python?
hey jude,
I have not initiated the discussion for 'time pass' as they call it!
"We don't know our own mind so how can we possibly understand the mind and impulses of a Python? "
Mind cannot be understood in isolation;it needs to be understood in 'Relationship'only.
Namaskar.
(Sri Ramana) Tiruvembavai: Sri Ramana
Sannidhi Murai - Seventh Verse:
Today is the seventh day of Margazhi month. The Seventh verse of (Sri
Ramana) Tiruvembavai (Verse 1459 of Sri Ramana Sannidhi Murai) reads:
Attama moorthiyan atta dhisaambarathaan
Attma siddhiyan atta guna chalathaan
Atta veerattathum annamalaiyahathum
Sittarathu nenjathum ser venkataramanan.....
Prof. K. Swaminathan transaltes as:
Eight are His forms. His garments bright,
Are the eight quarters, Eight the siddhis
He commands, eight His peak virtues.
Eight His sacred shrines and the scenes of His exploits.
He abides in Aruna Hill and His devotees' hearts.
Venkata, finally, once for all
Has made us His, His servants; we
Have no more births. Of His compassion
Think, think of His gracious face,
The full round moon. His noble Feet,
Think, think of those, bathe in this bliss,
Stillness, peace profound and thus
Find your fulfillment.
Muruganar sings the eight aspects of Siva here and attributes them to Sri Bhagavan also. Finally he says think of His gracious face and also of his noble Feet and bathe in this bliss.
His eight forms, ashta moorthis: Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Space, Sun, Moon and Purusha.
His garments are only the eight directions, the compass points. In Kanchipuram, Siva is called Ekambaranathan, with one attire called the directions.
His eight siddhis are, anima, mahima, laghima, praakaamya, garimaa, isitaa, vasitaa, praapti.
This is mentioned in Kaivalya Navaneetam also. Sri Dakshinamurthi
Stotram also refers to this.
His eight peak virtues, ashta gunas are independence from identification, purity of form, Self awareness, omniscience, natural freedom from all bonds, infinite grace, infinite efficient power, boundless bliss. Muruganar says 'you bathe in His bliss'.
Eight shrines, ashta veerasthanams,
places of Siva's heroic deeds.
These are:
1. Tirukandiyur - where Siva plucked one of Brahma's heads. This is in the bus route of Tiruvaiyaru-
Thanjavur. Siva is called Brahma sira kandeesar.
2. Tiruvadhikai - where Siva smiled and burnt the Tripura, the three cities. This is also the birthplace of Tirunavukkarasar and Tilakavadhi. This is about 2 kms from Panrutti Railway Station. Siva is called Veerattanathar.
3. Tirukovalur - where Siva vanquished Andhakaasura. This is in Vilupuram - Katpadi railway route, where there is a railway station. Siva is called Veeratteswarar. This is the birth place of MeiporuL Nayanar, one of the 63 Saiva Saints.
4. Vazhuvur - This is where Siva killed and skinned Gajamukasura and used his skin as upper garment. This is also spoken of in Skandam, Dadhisi Uttara Patalam. Siva is called Veeratteswarar, Keerthi vaaheswarar. This place is in the bus route of Tiruvarur - Mayiladuthruai. There is a Yantra pradhishta behind the Siva Lingam.
5. Tirukadavur: where Siva kicked Yama, the god of death, to protect Markandeya. This is a few kilometres from Mayiladuthurai. Siva is called Amrita Lingeswarar, and Sakti is called Abhirami. Famous place where Abhirami Bhattar, a Sakta saint lived. It is also the birth place of Kunguliya kalaya Nayanar.
6. TirupaRiyalur: This is about 2 kms from Semponaar Kovil, near Mayiladuthurai. Siva is called Dakshapureeswrar. Siva as Veerabhadrar went to Daksha's yajna and created havoc, punishing everyone who had attended the yajna.
7. TirukuRukkai: This is in the rail route between Mayiladuthurai and Manalmedu, 8 km from Needur railway station. Siva is called Veeratteswrar. There is a sthala puranam by Mahavidwan Meenakshi Sundaram Pillai.
8. TiruviRkudi: Where Siva killed Chalandhaasura, the demon, by placing a circle (chakra) on the ground. Siva is called Veerattaneswrar. This is in the rail route of Tiruvarur and Mayiladuthurai.
contd.,
(Sri Ramana) Tiruvembavai:
7th verse - continues....
Of the above 8 places, near Tirukovilur, is Kilur, where Sri
Bhagavan stopped his journey and He was given food by the temple drummer.
There is a beautiful Tamizh verse describing all the 8 places and the heroic exploits of Siva in these places.
Bhooman chirangandi andhakan koval puram adhikai
Maman paRiyal chalntharan viRkudi ma vazhuvur
Kaman kuRukkai yaman kadvaur ikkasiniyil
Themannu KonRaiyum Thingalum choodhithan sevakame.
Saint Arunagiri Natha has sung on Muruga of all these 8 places. Saint
Tiru Jnana Sambandha and Saint Tirunavukkarasar have sung most of these places, perhaps excepting ViRkudi.
****
Dear Ravi -
{in context to your post -
1.Is Devotion an aid to concentration of mind?
2.Is concentration of Mind then 'Devotion'?
..... etc...}
I feel, devotion and concentration (both, are two sides of the same coin) are only by-products of grace. Therefore, the more one tries to achieve devotion or concentration progresses slower and the more and more one begins to see Swaroopam, Bhakti/devotion and concentration is easily achieved without even putting conscious effort to it. Peace/devotion/concentration is the result of jnana. The more clearer the jnana, the more the peace, bhakti, concentration.
The daily practice of devotion/concentration is only for the purposes of Chitta Shuddhi.
cittasya suddhaye karma na tu vast'upalabdhaye
vastu-siddhir vicarena na kimcit karma-kotibhih. (Vivekachoodamani 11)
Action is for the purification of the mind, not for the understanding of reality. The recognition of reality is through discrimination, and not by even tens of millions of actions.
Therefore, the clearing of the mind from impurities (agitation) cannot be termed as abidance of Self. The analogy of the python which has just preyed and which is free from hunger cannot be termed as its natural state as the hunger is bound to occur again!
whereas, the python which has just satiated itself from hunger, is now at peace, it only clears the garbage for the one to contemplate on the Swaroopam without any disturbances of mind.
That peace of mind which is temporary cannot be understood as the natural state. One should not remain idle in the relaxed state after Chitta Shuddhi but one has to utilise the serene and sharp intellect to enquire further into the reality of its origination or Swaroopam.
Nagaraj
The Quest - Lucia Osborne:
Part VIII -
Science: continues...
When the elements are misused scientific advances result in such monstrosities as napalm bombs, nuclear warheads, with thermonuclear devices and so on. The crises that face man are then magnified a thousand fold by the power of science. The writing on the wall is clear enough. Scientists themselves watch helplessly the increasing power of weapons of destruction, setting the stage for genocide. However, nothing happens by accident or in a haphazard way. The world is not a realm of chaos in spite of man's efforts to make it so. It is a cosmos in which everything acts with precision and purpose. At every turn one finds safety devices keeping the balance even. There is order and rhythm in the universe. Perfect harmony is the substratum of the present state of violence: apparent chaos, natural disasters, lack of discipline and so on, it is the uncertainty of life, the insecurity which goads us to the search for Certainty for the immortal in us.
By giving prominence to the mind as the weaver of the illusion of matter science is approaching India's traditional philosophy; Brahman as pure consciousness in Advaita Vedanta. There is only the Self, all else is unreal, an illusion. this is the affirmation of Sri Bhagavan and the enlightened seers. In physical science it is called field-energy or force accepted as the substratum of the world. The frank realization that it is concerned with a world of shadows is a significant advance of modern science. Yoga Vasishta: "All things in the world are the one, whole and divisionless Brahman. The one Ether of Consciousness appears as the concrete many of the world without ceasing to be Itself. As the nature of water is not changed by the rise and fall of waves in it, so is the case with the Absolute in spite of creation and destruction of the world..."
Kabir says: "What you think is wakefulness is your dream/This is the truth that can never be doubted/On whosoever you contemplate, He is ever with you."
No one has as yet been able rationally to prove or demonstrate that things exist independent of the perceiver's mind. Where is the world when under an anesthetic or asleep, unless one is dreaming? You may say that it exists for others but you do not say so in your sleep or under anesthetic, you yourself must be there to perceive the others or the one who says so.
Vajrachedika Sutra says, "As stars, a fault of vision, as a lamp, a mock show, dew drops or a bubble, a dream, a lightning flash or cloud so should one view as ephemeral what is conditioned."
Science concerns itself with exploring and unveiling the mysteries of the outer world using intellect as the highest instrument. The unveiling or rather the realization of the mystery of existence, of Reality is out of its reach as this is possible only when
the mind is still, having turned to its Source which is also the All-source of all existence according to the testimony of sages, mystics and those who had even only a glimpse of Reality.
continued....
Friends,
An excerpt from The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna that does have a bearing on our point of discussion.
"The conversation turned to money.
MASTER (to Dr. Sarkar): "I don't think about it at all. You know that very well, don't you?
This is not a pretence."
Absent-mindedness of worldly people
DR. SARKAR: "Even I have no desire for money-not to speak of yourself! My cash-box
lies open."
MASTER: "Jadu Mallick, too, is absent-minded. When he takes his meals he sometimes
becomes so absent-minded that he doesn't know whether the food is good or bad. When
someone says to him, 'Don't eat that; it doesn't taste good', Jadu says: 'Eh? Is this food bad?
Why, that's so!'"
Was the Master hinting that there was an ocean of difference between absent-mindedness
due to the contemplation of God, and absent-mindedness due to preoccupation with worldly
thoughts?
Namaskar.
The Quest - Lucia Osborne:
Part VIII - Science - continues....
Faith, religion, intuition or spiritual insight cover ground which science cannot explore. The majority of people feel insecure without faith in God as a living force for guidance in life. We are slaves of the intellect and thoughts. Spiritually they can be mastered or stilled and then having reached the very source of thought
one knows what is to be known, one becomes all knowing by being with an inner certainty which admits no doubt. Then the thought machinery can be used like any other instrument without identifying oneself with it. Actions and responses are spontaneous, perfect as they should be in all instances and through the vicissitudes of life which cease to be vicissitudes. Our true state is unalloyed happiness, far more than earthly happiness as its acme. Perhaps ecstasy unending comes nearest to describe it through it is still more than finite vocabulary could express. Such is the testimony of those who have realized their true state or have had even only a glimpse of Reality, having penetrated the veil of illusory appearances which is the world as we know it.
continued....
Nagaraj,
Thanks for your response.Bhakti is not a result of Jnana but synonymous with the it.
"The daily practice of devotion/concentration is only for the purposes of Chitta Shuddhi."
This needs to be understood in proper context.This 'devotion' is more of an 'observance' and 'Practice'-What is called Vaidi Bhakti.
Here is an excerpt from The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna:
Master:"But it isn't any and every kind of bhakti that enables one to realize God. One cannot
realize God without prema-bhakti. Another name for prema-bhakti is raga-bhakti. God
cannot be realized without love and longing. Unless one has learnt to love God, one cannot
realize Him.
"There is another kind of bhakti, known as vaidhi-bhakti, according to which one must
repeat the name of God a fixed number of times, fast, make pilgrimages, worship God with
prescribed offerings, make so many sacrifices, and so forth and so on. By continuing such
practices a long time one gradually acquires raga-bhakti. God cannot be realized until one
has raga-bhakti. One must love God. In order to realize God one must be completely free
from worldliness and direct all of one's mind to Him.
"But some acquire raga-bhakti directly. It is innate in them. They have it from their very
childhood. Even at an early age they weep for God. An instance of such bhakti is to be
found in Prahlada. Vaidhi-bhakti is like moving a fan to make a breeze. One needs the fan
to make the breeze. Similarly, one practises japa, austerity, and fasting, in order to acquire
love of God. But the fan is set aside when the southern breeze blows of itself.
Such actions as japa and austerity drop away when one spontaneously feels love and
attachment for God. Who, indeed, will perform the ceremonies enjoined in the scriptures,
when mad with love of God?
"Devotion to God may be said to be 'green' so long as it doesn't grow into love of God; but
it becomes 'ripe' when it has grown into such love.
"A man with 'green' bhakti cannot assimilate spiritual talk and instruction; but one with
'ripe' bhakti can. The image that falls on a photographic plate covered with black film is
retained. On the other hand, thousands of images may be reflected on a bare piece of glass,
but not one of them is retained. As the object moves away, the glass becomes the same as it
was before. One cannot assimilate spiritual instruction unless one has already developed
love of God."
More later.
Namaskar.
Nagaraj/Friends,
"one has to utilise the serene and sharp intellect to enquire further into the reality of its origination or Swaroopam."
When the mud is removed from the needle,it feels the attraction of the Magnet and is drawn towards it and becomes one with it.This is Bhakti (as well as jnana-For how else does one know this source!).
The Nature of 'Self Enquiry' is this pull that is exercised on the
mind,when its attention is singularly focussed on the source of this 'pull'.No degree of concentration,exercising of the will or 'fierce' holding onto 'I' thought or feeling can be a substitute for this 'Pull'.
Most easily this 'pull' is felt (although momentarily at first)when a moving Hymn is read(as our friend 's' had mentioned about mAnikkavachakar's tiruvAchakam)-A lot of 'Hardened crust' is easily removed like mud from a needle-and the pull is spontaneously experienced.
Without this 'pull' there is no possibility of transcending the Body consciousness.This is why the Great ones pray-'ooninai urukki,uLL oLi perukki'-meaning 'melt the Flesh,Inundate the inner Light'.
Namaskar.
Dear Ravi, Nagaraj,
Sivananda Lahari, Verse 61 describes the devotion beautifully:
As the Ankola seed is attracted to its stem, the iron to the magnet, the chaste wife to his lord, the creeper to its tree, the river to the ocean, so the soul (Jiva) attracted stands ever at the feet of the Lord. This attraction is named, devotion, Bhakti.
Sri Ramana Gita goes as under:
Kavyakanta: Will the Maharshi please enlighten us on the subject of devotion, bhakti?
Maharshi: To everyone the dearest object is himself. He loves himself always, and with the greatest love possible. Such an unbroken current of love, frequently compared in sacred books to a flowing stream of oil (thyla dhara), is styled devotion, if it is directed towards God. Bhakti is the unshakable attachment to the Supreme God. (Shandilya Bhakti Sutras, Verse 2.)
Ordinarily people regard God as existing outside of themselves and as having a personality like their own. The Jnani however regards the personal god as none other than himself. And Self-love, in this case, is or becomes the love of
God. In his case devotion is defined as Self realization.
Others, who treat the personal god as something outside themselves, develop devotion to such a god and finally sink their personality in Him. (Hunter Kannappa in Periya Puranam.)
The Love-smitten chord of Self, trembles and passes in music out of sight. (Thenna thenna ennam munnam thee ser muzhugoppai....Tiruvembavai)
Munnam avanudaiya namam kettaaL, moorthi avan irukkum aarur kettaL... pinnai avanukke pichi aanaaL...(Navukkarasar Tevaram)
In fact, worship, all intense concentrated thought or feeling, is the merging of the mind in the object worshipped or concentrated on. Intense faith in the personal god however carries the devotee easily and naturally to faith in and devotion to the impersonal Absolute, Swarupam.
The weak aspirant's first efforts at devotion, through name and form at broken intervals, and for attaining lower and finite ends, ultimately carry him beyond all name and form, into an unbroken current of love to the Absolute. This is Salvation, Mukti.
Subramanian. R
Friends,
The central theme of what we discussed -Excerpt from The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna:
TRAILOKYA: "Is it ever possible, sir, to have true knowledge of God while living in the
world? Can one realize God here?"
MASTER (with a smile): "Why do you worry? You are enjoying both treacle and refined
sugar. (All laugh.) You are living in the world with your mind in God. Isn't that true? Why
shouldn't a man realize God in the world'? Certainly he can."
TRAILOKYA: What are the signs of a householder having attained Knowledge?"
MASTER: "His tears will flow, and the hair on his body will stand on end. No sooner does
he hear the sweet name of God than the hair on his body stands on end from sheer delight,
and tears roll down his cheeks. "A man cannot get rid of body-consciousness as long as he
is attached to worldly things and loves 'woman and gold'. As he becomes less and less
attached to worldly things, he approaches nearer and nearer to the Knowledge of Self. He
also becomes less and less conscious of his body. He attains Self-Knowledge when his
worldly attachment totally disappears. Then he realizes that body and soul are two separate
things. It is very difficult to separate with a knife the kernel of a coconut from the shell
before the milk inside has dried up. When the milk dries up, the kernel rattles inside the
shell. At that time it loosens itself from the shell. Then the fruit is called a dry coconut.
Signs of God-vision
"The sign of a man's having realized God is that he has become like a dry coconut. He has
become utterly free from the consciousness that he is the body. He does not feel happy or
unhappy with the happiness or unhappiness of the body. He does not seek the comforts of
the body. He roams about in the world as a jivanmukta, one liberated in life. 'The devotee
of Kali is a jivanmukta , full of Eternal Bliss.'
-----------------------------------
'DehAtma Buddhi' or 'I am the Body' thought or feeling is the stubborn obstacle to be overcome.Tremendous Energy/intensity is needed to overcome this instinctive adjunct.
Namaskar.
(Sri Ramana) Tiruvembavai:
The eighth verse, of (Sri Ramana)
Tiruvembavai, the Verse 1460 of Sri
Ramana Sannidhi Murai reads:
Meedharvamodu pala vinnorai chevithum
Edhaha vendum ena ennaikkaNNokkathaar
AdhaLi yanRi aruLaRRal ilaraai yozhia
Adhara Venaktane anjal enRaan aathalaal....
With zeal I served the gods of heaven.
None would look at me, none would listen.
Empty names, mere words they were.
But Venkata, firm, strong, said, 'Fear Not.'
Now no more words no disputes.
Devoted to this gracious Master,
Heads bent low at His lotus Feet,
Him we shall serve, His friendship earn.
Come maidens, in this bless let us
Bathe and rejoice.
Muruganar says that he served the gods of heaven but none would look at listen, they are all empty names, mere words they were! But Sri Bhagavan firmly and strongly said, Fear Not.
This is called Uyarvu NaviRchi ANi, in Tamizh, in order to praise a person, (here Sri Bhagavan), the poet would speak low or ill of others. For that matter Muruganar considered Sri Bhagavan as Siva Himself. Further he has said in another Sri Ramana Sannidhi Murai verse: Shall I say He is Primordial? Or shall I say He is Christ? Or Prophet Mohammad? Or Gautama, the Buddha? Or the Father
Siva or Muruga, His son? So this verse is only to praise Sri Bhagavan to the exclusion of all.
There is one more interesting anecdote about this song. Devaraja Mudaliar asked Muruganar: Sri Bhagavan only graces with His eyes. He has never said to any one Fear Not. Why are you writing like that?
Muruganar said: Yes. His eyes are telling me, Fear Not.
****
The Quest - Lucia Osborne:
Part VIII - continues...
From Pythagoras to Plotinus we find the same view taken that the world is illusory. Great philosophers, prophets, poets have in some way come to the same conclusion.
Xenophanes, Parmenides and Plato asserted that time, motion, space are phantoms of the imagination - vain deception of the senses, our world a world of shadows. The great exponent of Neo Platonism, Plotinus
asserts the external world is nothing else than a mere phantom, a dream, a hallucination pure and simple. Christian philosophers of the early days, the Gnostics expressed the same view. Alghazali, the greatest exponent of the Saracen philosophy, considers our senses fallible: "I said to myself during sleep you give to visions a reality and consistence and you have no suspicion of their untruth. On awakening you are made aware that they were nothing but visions."
The English mystic William Blake writes: "The soul of sweet delight
can never be defiled for the essence of the soul is unadulterated Divine Reality. All else is but a dream."
What assurances have you that all you feel and know when you are awake does actually exist? It is all true in respect of your condition at that moment, but it is nevertheless possible that another condition should present itself which would be to your waking state that which is your awakened state is now your sleep. "So that in respect of the higher condition, your waking is but a sleep." Jami, a prominent exponent of Sufism echoes this: "I and thou have here no place and are but phantoms, vain and unreal."
Kant assigns in his Critique of Pure Reason, a mental existence to Time, Space and Causality without any objective existence. Herbert Spencer maintains that none of these scientific ideas which are "Time,Space, Matter, Motion, Force and Mind can be proved to have a real existence though they are representative of realities that cannot be comprehended" so that this solid seeming world which surrounds us vanishes into thin air." (From 'The First Principles' and 'Data of Philosophy'.)
continued....
The Quest - Lucia Osborne:
Part VIII - Science - continues....
The poets write:
"We are such stuff as dreams are made of." (Shakespeare in Tempest)
"...He hath awakened from the dream of life./'T' is we who lost in stormy visions keep/With phantoms an unprofitable strife..." (Shelley)
"Dreams are true while they last; and do we not live in dreams?" (Tennyson)
"...Blank misgivings of a creature/ Moving about in a world not realized." (Wordsworth)
"...What was, is, and shall be / Time's wheel runs back or stops; / Potter and clay endure." (Robert Browning)
"This so solid seeming world, after all, is but an image over me and nature with its thousand fold productions and destinations is but the phantasy of our dreams." (Carlyle)
The self evident inferences from these unanimous views is the same as from the testimony of mystic experience of saints and sages of different races, traditions and times. According to the Avadhuta Gita the poetical overflow in the heart of the ascetic Avadhuta who has realized his primordial, natural, true state, runs:
"Brahman (Atma, the Self) is the innermost essence of all that exists. It is the underlying life of the universe, the one absolute all pervading energy, boundless as it is infinite, manifesting itself through the variegated phenomena of the universe. All nature is the illusive wonder play of this divine magician, and the visible world is a cipher by which those who have the key may read a secret message; the flowing garb of appearances is bust the embroidered veil which clothes ultimate Reality, the goal and resting place of pure intellectual apperception.
"It sings in the throat of the nightingale, smiles in the bed of the violet, shines in the eye of the star, laughs in the golden waves of the field, sports in the fragrance of a flowerbed, roars in the thunderclaps of heavens, whispers in the soft motions of the conscience, rages in the stormy billows of the ocean...It gives fleetness to the foot of the deer, vigor and fury to the lion, humility to the lamb and keenness of sight to the eagle...."
Part VIII - concluded.
(Retrieved from the Asramam Archives, Published in July-Sept.
2011 of Mountain Path.)
****
The Quest - Lucia Osborne:
PART IX - Spiritual Life.
(Retried from the Asramam Archives. Published in Mountain Path, Oct-Dec. 2011)
Before a child can walk it is supported on both sides and held up. As it gains strength and confidence, the support diminishes and finally ceases so that it can learn to walk alone not without falls and stumbles, till walking becomes natural. Similarly with Sadhana. When I first came to Sri Bhagavan and started to meditate according to His teaching, the Grace and support were tremendous, a time of discovery of sheer wonder. Such undeserved Grace may also be vouchsafed to those who need more encouragement than others to make them know what the real aim is.
Normally we are submerged in the innumerable shifts and changes of life and so we are caught up in the world with its troubles and confusions. To be deluded and to suffer belongs to the state of all human beings interspersed with a little unsteady happiness. We live in a belt of illusory time with birth, old age and death. It is in this state, which is said to be superior to the state of angels that we can work out our destiny and awaken to our primordial divine state in timelessness where there is no birth or death. It is a return to the All-source relatively speaking because the departure was an illusion, a dream from which one has to wake up. If a man is well he takes it for granted. When he returns to well being after severe illness or suffering how great and precious is his well being. How much more so, how sublime the return to the All-source after suffering of embodied existence which is said to be the greatest suffering.
Meditation that leads to Self Realization is neither idle reverie nor vacant inaction but an intense inner struggle to master the mind and then use it like any other instrument, like a silver missile to penetrate the barrier of the five senses and the discursive intellect.
It is the greatest, the most worthwhile effort to a human being is capable of. It demands determination, steadfastness and courage, particularly so when after a period of Grace one feels abandoned, desperate at being left alone to struggle like a deer that is trapped. That is the time when one can rise much higher than when one is made to feel good and successful by self styled gurus with some siddhis (supernatural powers) like thought-reading and hypnotic or magnetic powers. It is the ego which feels good and 'special'.
"God, Guru and the Self are the same" Sri Bhagavan affirmed. 'Grace is always there. We are never out out of its operation. It is only the clouded mind which does not feel it. Yet, through effort it can experience Grace...'
Questions about renunciation were also asked frequently and the explanation that Sri Bhagavan gave usually was that true renunciation is in the mind and is neither achieved by physical renunciation nor impeded by lack of it. The lift of action need not be renounced. If one meditates for an hour or two everyday then the current of mind induced will continue to flow in the midst of work. It is possible to perform all the activities of life with detachment and regard only the Self as real. Actions tend to express and follow the line taken in meditation.
People sometimes assume ochre robes and play the part of renunciates when they have comfortable assured incomes or looked after by someone who has to work to. With others it may be escapism from performing their duties in life.
continued....
Dear Ravi, Subramanian sir,
{in context to your post excerpts - Without this 'pull' there is no possibility of transcending the Body consciousness.This is why the Great ones pray-'ooninai urukki,uLL oLi perukki'-meaning 'melt the Flesh,Inundate the inner Light'.}
Bhagavan would say, the pull is ever there, only we spoil it, like Bhagavan said to Sri Devaraja Mudaliyar. We are ever being pulled to the source, only we force ourselves away from it, because out of avidya/ignorance, unconsiously, being unable to clearly see the pull of grace, we push ourselves to vishaya Vasanas believing them to relieve us from the confusion at that moment.
It is more so because we still have the remnants of Vishaya Vasanas within us. Therefore like the python analogy, the hunger occurs again.
Nagaraj
The Quest - Lucia Osborne:
Part IX - continues....
Sri Bhagavan never encouraged young people to leave home and give up their duties in life. When a man is ready for a life of pure contemplation everything falls into place of its own accord for him to do so. 'Sannyasa means renouncing one's individuality, not shaving one's head and putting on ochre robes', Sri Bhagavan affirmed. "A man may be a householder but if he does not think he is one, he is a sannyasin. On the other hand, he may be wearing ochre robes and wander about but so long as he thinks he is a sannyasin, he is not one. To think about one's renunciation defeats the purpose of renouncing. Why should your occupation or duties in life interfere with your spiritual effort? It is wrong to suppose that if one is fixed in the Self one's duties in life will not be properly performed."
Nowadays one comes across so-called communes, usually in the countryside, where a group of people lead a spiritual life and practice sadhana. If combined with work which it usually is, it has more chance of success.
In the selfless performance of plain duty man mounts higher spiritually. Huang Po cautions not to permit the events of our daily life to bind us but never to withdraw from them. Only by thus acting, can one become liberated.
Reading books on spiritual matters and the sayings of wise men explained my questioning attitude in childhood and many things become clear. In the Genjokan Shobogenzo writes: "In the feeling of inadequacy of the body and mind the dharma is fulfilled. But one should know also that in the feeling that the dharma has been fulfilled by body and mind something is still lacking." I also read that Plotinus was ashamed of having a body.
In Plato's Dialogues, Lady Diotima confirmed my conviction that whatever life has to offer will not quench the thirst in our soul for true fulfillment. "Wise men know that so great is the human heart that nothing less than God, the return to the Source, their divine Self will satisfy it." Seeking happiness, true happiness, means seeking one's true state. But it is one thing to try to get happiness for oneself and quite another thing to try to establish the Kingdom of Heaven in the heart....
Even if all so called good things in life are at one's disposal for enjoyment, it does not satisfy the deepest longing of the human heart and more often than not ends up in boredom. In the depth of the heart remains an unfulfilled longing which only the Unconditioned can fill it. Modern man flies to the planets and seeks to conquer space due to the unconscious urge to transcend his earthly finitude. This he does in a physical manner which is the only one the majority believe to be possible. There is no joy or pleasure so great in this life that it can quench the thirst in our soul. The efforts to conquer mountains, speed and to fly into space prove that man does not live by bread alone. There is the urge to escape from tyranny of finitude. The urge for the Infinite, for the Sublime, to seek the Holy Grail.
To illustrate: at the height of her career the greatest Russian ballerina, Anna Pavlova, said, "There is desert in my heart."
Happiness derived from relationships, worldly success, acquisition, circumstances in general usually has an element of restlessness combined with insecurity.
"Happiness", said Aristotle, "is the object of the good, but peace is the object of happiness." "Where is happiness without peace?" asks the Gita.
Part IX concluded.
Dear Nagaraj,
Yes. There are three vasanas - deha vasana, vishaya vasana, sastra vasana. Sri Bhagavan said all the three vasanas should go. Once Kavyakanta said to Sri Bhagavan: Bhagavan! If there is only Rs 3/- available per month, one can do self enquiry. Sri Bhagavan replied: Nayana! Why Rs. 3/? The body alone would be adequate for sadhana and realization! Here what Sri Bhagavan mentioned as body, is that one should have the body to realize the Self. It is not deha vasana.
"To those who within the body know the Self the "I" shines boundless."
(Ulladu Narpadu Verse 17)
****
Nagaraj,
Yes,the wind of Grace is ever blowing.I have used the word 'pull' in the sense that the sadhaka is conscious of it.The very same Grace is what pushes and buffets until one learns to orient in the Homeward direction.This pull or attraction then felt is what is Bhakti.
Namaskar.
Nagaraj/friends,
I have not used the python example as analogy.There is no difference between a python and a man's DehAtma buddhi-'I am the body' consciousness.Humans and animals are on par only in this regard.This identification is deeply ingrained and cannot be shaken off easily.
It will help to figure it out for ourselves what this is-actually forgetting for a while quotations from Sage X or Saint Y about this or That.
How does one cope up with this primeval adjunct?Can this be consciously willed and dropped?Frontally tackled?Possibly not!How do we say this for sure?
Sleep is one such instance when the Body consciousness is shed in its gross form-and one cannot consciously enter sleep.One may utmost only facilitate its onset by resting quietly ,eyes closed,etc and allow Nature to take over.
In the same manner,what facilitates the dropping of Body consciousness?It is when the mind operates outwards through the senses that this Body consciousness gets strengthened.
Two of the senses stand foremost -the sense of Taste and the sense of Touch.These are closest to the physical realm.This is the reason that Satwic food and mastery over Sex impulse is advocated as in the absence of these two,there is simply no possibility of getting over the Physical animality-'Iam the Body' idea.
Again these cannot be tackled frontally(although a certain degree of conscious control is also indispensable)-The chain can be broken only by a powerful counter pull that is beyond the realm of conscious thought and Ratiocination.
Bhakti is such a powerful counter-pull that annuls the strong identification with Body consciousness and brings the senses into subjugation in a natural way.In fact one then does not feel the need to consciously control any of these senses.
In fact a Bhakta or devotee then does not look back to see if the Body consciousness is dropping off,just like a person who is overcome by sleep does not care.
Namaskar.
Dear Ravi, Subramanian Sir,
The only basic thing required by us is being 'conscious' - that is the whole sadhana about - to remain consious at all times, unbroken consciousness. What happens due to his is not our botheration. It does not fall in our realms!
So many scriptures, so many Gurus, so many forums, so many satsangs have really evolved only for oneself to regains ones glory of unbroken consciousness.
Vasanakshayam Moksham (destruction of Vasanas itself is Moksham). To be able to remain conscious at all times, destruction of Vasanas is essential. Otherwise the "he Pull" happens in bits and pieces, i.e. temorarily & repeats itself with breaks in between, because of our desire to enjoy Vasanas.
Therefore, I felt, to enable oneself to remain conscious at all times, without any breaks, it is important to win over Vasanas by way of Jnana proper discernment or Bhakti by way of Sharanagati.
If one recognises the pull, no matter what obstacles one may face, he would face them without losing hold on the discernment of the pull from the source. Like Kunti Devi asked for 'suffering' for it is only during suffering, that one is able to easily remember and contemplate on God. when Krishna granted her boon.
If one is conscious of the pull, then this consciousness is like an umbrella, when it rains, one cannot stop the rain, but one can use the umbrella and which helps him to not get drenched. Like this, problems of Vasanas will not trouble one who uses the umbrella of wisdom of the pull of Source. He remains like a lotus in water.
But one who has not recognised this wisdom gets drenched in the rain of problems and vasanas.
Nagaraj
salutations to all:
Nagaraj/Ravi/Others:
["...The only basic thing required by us is being 'conscious' - that is the whole sadhana about - to remain consious at all times, unbroken consciousness...."]
why? what's the point or where is the need to be conscious at all times? 'to be conscious' is no motivator at all :-)
as regards the 'loss of body-consciousness', which seems fundamental to self-abidance, one has to be there to talk about it, i.e., all talk of losing body-consciousness is wishful thinking unless one has 'tasted' what it is (besides deep sleep) :-)
Dear S,
{ in context to your post - "why? what's the point or where is the need to be conscious at all times? 'to be conscious' is no motivator at all :-) " }
If that is so, then the Self is not going to motivate you even a bit :-) it perhaps has to be the most boring thing to be in pursuit of!
But I see your point. haha... yes you are true, that is why we find happiness in our Vasanas! Because, being conscious is not fun, its rather killing every moment!
What is the need to be conscious at all times? I ask myself this... and there is no answer, the light is silent! This also is our making only! What needs be done? nothing really!
Why are we disussing here? what are we looking for? what is making us feel incomplete? or are these just cooked up by ourselves? The luminous light remains still, It does not even bother to answer these questions! It is.
All attempts to know the "Self" is burned! I am killed each time I pop up, but still I am.
Nagaraj
Nagaraj/s/friends,
"The luminous light remains still, It does not even bother to answer these questions! It is."
Wonder what light you are referring to.
The point in bringing up the discussion is to examine what is dubbed as 'Ego' sense-and while it is convenient to talk about it as if it is somebody else apart from us,it is not even grasped in the actual sense-seen as the limiting factor and main obstacle.This cannot be wished away,just like that by pretending that it is 'false'.
How does one get rid of this actual 'I am the Body' instinct?This is what we are exploring?How does the 'conscious at all times' recommendation that you advocated help here?Conscious of what?
Namaskar.
Nagaraj,
"Because, being conscious is not fun, its rather killing every moment!"
Just cannot make out anything of this abstraction.What is this and why is it 'killing'?
Serenity and cheerfulness are the basic outcome that one is oriented in the right direction.
Namaskar.
Dear Ravi,
That response was meant for S, for his response.
My response to you was different!
The responses are different for each person!
Its basically, sharing sweetmeats amongst ourselves. what I am basically doing is like this - giving Jamoon to x and giving Jalebi to y. But both are sweets only, only the names and forms are different. Both x & y enjoy the same sweetness.
Sometimes, one may want to experience the same sweetness by sweet pickle! There is no point to give a jalebi or jamoon such a one, because that person enjoyes the same sweetness in a different form :-)
However, what I meant by "Luminous light" - you can refer my earlier posts, also, in response to S only.
you can refer my responses as follows:
December 20, 2011 10:04 AM
December 20, 2011 1:19 PM
December 20, 2011 7:13 PM
December 21, 2011 8:47 AM
I agree, that which is common for all is the Serenity and cheerfulness, no matter the ways are different. It is language of heart, it is the language of silence. it is the language of Self.
Nagaraj
Dear Ravi:
{in context to your post: "The point in bringing up the discussion is to examine what is dubbed as 'Ego' sense-and while it is convenient to talk about it as if it is somebody else apart from us,it is not even grasped in the actual sense-seen as the limiting factor and main obstacle.This cannot be wished away,just like that by pretending that it is 'false'.
How does one get rid of this actual 'I am the Body' instinct?This is what we are exploring?How does the 'conscious at all times' recommendation that you advocated help here?Conscious of what?"
I believe, getting rid of "I am the body" has to be a by-product of grace only. It is basically like what Krishna sais in Gita:
"Karmanye Vadhikaraste Ma Phaleshu Kadachana,
Ma Karma Phala Hetur Bhurmatey Sangostva Akarmani"
You have a right to perform your prescribed action, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your action.
The same Bhagavan says:
Karturaajnaya Praaptaye Phalam
The real Karta is the "Self" of God. only on his command do we get fruits.
The same applies with our discernment too. In the process of of our sincere sadhana, we should have even forgotten the main purpose of our Sadhana to free ourselves of "I am the Body" and it results as a By-Products, fruits given by the Lord of Self.
I believe, the more we aspire to free ourselves from "I am the Body" idea, the stronger the "I am the body" idea gets.
Elders used to say, If you wish to make Sri Rama happy, approach Sri Aanjaneya, he will bestow all favours to you, or if you wish to make Sri Aanjaneya happy to get favours, approach Sri Rama. This is the secret!
That is why, to switch on the light within ourselves, even if we only have the switch in ourselves, if we approach the Guru, it switches it on for us for He knows. But if we were to switch on the switch ourselves, then we don't know how long it would take!
Nagaraj
and ultimately, when we would have genuinly have won over the "I am the body" idea (Sages say, we already are), 'I' would no longer remain to acknowledge that. The Self is not aware of the Body, but 'I' is aware of the Self. That is why a Jnani sees everybody as a Jnani, there is no Ajnani for a Jnani.
Nagaraj
Dear Ravi,
I missed out clarifying on this -
{ in context to your post excerpts: Just cannot make out anything of this abstraction.What is this and why is it 'killing'?"
Being conscious is killing, because, being conscious means not giving into the pull of Vasanas and its not going to be easy. It kills the Vasanas, it kills our belief of deriving happiness externally by some action.
Being Conscious without any break is killing of Sankalpas. Each time when Vasanas come about, staying awake and killing those sankalpas then and there. I referred it as killing because, it means not fulfilling the demands of our desires, not becoming prey to our desires.
Nagaraj
Dear all,
Sri Bhagavan answers all the points raised by you in the following verses of Upadesa Undiyar.
1. To remove all things starting from body consciousness, thoughtless state, egoless state, extinction of mind:
Thannai upadhi vittu orvathu than eesan
thannai unarvatham undhipara,
Thaanai oLirvatham undhipara. (25)
Seeing oneself free of all attributes,
Is to see the Lord
For He shines ever as the pure Self.
Once upadhis are conquered, it shines of its own.
2. Then what happens?
Thaanai iruthale thannai aRithalam
Thaan irandu aRRathal undhipara
Thanmaya Nishtai ithu undhipara.
(26)
To know the Self is but to be the Self
For It is non dual
In such knowledge
One abides as That
How is that state of Thanmaya Nishtai? How far it can be described to one who has no glimpse of it? What does it mean by It shines?
Thanaathiyal yathena thaan theRikiRpin
Anaadhi anantha sat undhipara
Akhanda Chitanadnam undhipara.
(28)
Having known one's true nature one abides
As being with no beginning and no end
In unbroken consciousness and BLISS.
It confers Bliss. In all other worldly happiness, (healthy body, wealth, sex, good progeny, Himalayan sastric knowledge) there is only happiness and not Bliss. Bliss is million times more satisfying than the 'worldly happiness.'.
Only up to this, a Guru can take you. The rest depends on one's own sadhana and finally it becomes experiential. Once it is experienced permanently, then one can come out of the bath tub and sing, Eureka, Eureka!
Like Major Chadwick came out of his bath tub, with a towel around his waist, crying, Bhagavan! Is it so simple? Is it so simple?
Sri Bhagavan said: It is.
Of course, one has to do tons of sadhana and attain barrels of Grace, which is more important, from the Guru.
Thannai thannil unara minnum thanuL
aanma praksame; aruL vilasame; aha vinaasame, inba vikasame.
Annamalai en aanma kaaNume; aruLum
veNume; anbu pooNume; Inbu thoNume...
*****
Dear Subramanian Sir,
excellent summary.
R.Subramanaian/nagaraj/Friends,
Thanks Nagaraj for your sweets.I will come back to you regarding the 'sugar' in it.
Friend Subramanian,your quotation of Sri Bhagavan's undhi paRa in response to my query 'How does one get rid of this actual 'I am the Body' instinct?' is like begging the question!
Friends,Are we trying to get rid of Body consciousness or trying to free ourselves from the 'I am the Body' instinct?
Are we trying to enter a thought free state or a thoughtless state?
Have we digested these things learnt?
A stone would also perhaps qualify for both these states(No Body consciousness and thoughtless),but that does not make it a Jnani!
Whatever we have learnt and have made it a part of ourselves will alone be with us;The rest is as good as useless.
My question still remains and the discussion is still open.
Nagaraj has said something about Grace,but for a moment I would like to swap positions with our good friend 's'-and say ,Why depend on some capricious thing?Why not call it 'Good Luck'?
Namaskar.
Friends,
Sri Ramakrishna used to say:
"You see, mere study of books avails nothing. One may recite the written part for
the drum glibly from memory, but to play the drum is exceedingly difficult."
Namaskar.
Nagaraj,
"Each time when Vasanas come about, staying awake and killing those sankalpas then and there"
If they are killed then and there,how come they keep coming?What sort of vasanas and how many numbers of them are in store?Are they the same stuff not killed properly?Just what is Killed?Please review and elaborate.
Namaskar.
Dear Ravi,
Killing is just.., can we say, a poetic expression? There is really nothing to kill per say! To kill meant the destruction of darkness and darkness is not destroyed per say, but at the dawn of light, the darkness is not! To remain conscious, is to remain with the awareness of True knowledge, to remain as the light, as Sun, where there is no darkness. When the Sun is around, Darkness cannot even Hide! So there by, there is no way losing oneself to Vasanas. There are no Vasanas stored. Vasanas are there only when we give in to them! When the Light is switched off, darkness pervades. Untill we give in, there are no Vasanas.
Can the sun desire to see the darkness? Is it possible for the Sun to meet darkness? If the Sun says, "please ask darkness to stay for a while, so that I can see what darkness is!" Can the darkness stay when the sun arrives? When Sun is around, there is no darkness! Darkness is when Sun isn't!
Thereby, constantly living as that luminous light of pure knowledge constantly, with the light of discernment, the Vasanas get destroyed, like darkness upon the rise of sun!
It is not that, just by knowing this, one will be free from Vasanas. Vasanas do come about, but with the light of knowledge, one has to go beyond the Vasanas by proper discernment then and there!
For instance in an heated situation, if one takes a moment and responds instead of reacting, then it results is peace and serenity will be the result. Whereas, if we react, along with the heat of the situation, then we are at loss, and there would be only agitation.
To kill the Vasanas is to restrain from succumbing to them and killing means in the same spirit of Avvaiyar's ஆறுவது சினம் Anger is to be controlled.
To kill is the killing of the urge with the weapon of wisdom, of discernment!
I felt it appropriate to say "kill" because, in a way it is the killing of our false self - "ego" and ego is our own super imposition.
the classic example is that of a dove and crow. The Dove watches the Crow eat its chick and yet remains a passive observer. This is the spirit of killing the Vasanas, of-course with true light of discernment.
Ultimately we are sacrificing our selves by way of not succumbing to vasanas. We know eating Satvic food is good, therefore, we sarcrifice our desires to not eat Junk Foods. In a way it is killing! Killing of Non Self.
Well, we can term Grace as Good luck, chance or anything! Whatever one wishes! But how different is Good Luck from Grace? This too is capricious, in the end :-) isn't it?
But i don't mind what ever we call!
Nagaraj
Dear Ravi,
{in context to excerpts from your post: "Are we trying to get rid of Body consciousness or trying to free ourselves from the 'I am the Body' instinct?
Are we trying to enter a thought free state or a thoughtless state?"
I believe, it is not even both, but getting rid of, trying to get rid of anything!
I do not know if that is thoughtless state of thought free state or whether it is free of any body instinct or otherwise! There is no way of knowing these!
I feel, as Bhagavan said, begin from what we all know for sure, like he said, everything apart, it is a sure feeling for anybody about ones own self, or, ones own existence which begins and ends with the expression of "I"
I ask myself, why do I want to free myself from "I am the body" idea or body consciousness, there is genuinely no answer. But if it had said, it wants to be free of Vasanas, free of body identification, then, too it is under delusion. But the real thing is to know oneself. This alone is resounding from within. It rejects everything else. Knowing it is winning everything, by knowing it, all else is won automatically! Why focus on freeing from body consciousness or I am the body idea?, why focus on a thoughless state or thought free state? instead it glares upon me, its rays and seems to say, instead know me, for, I am you. There is nothing else to do, so do not aspire for nothing less than me, your Self. The body exists because of That, Thoughts exists because of That. That is above all!
Look at me, it says, don't look elsewhere!
Nagaraj
salutations to all:
Nagaraj (Ravi/Subramanian):
["...If that is so, then the Self is not going to motivate you even a bit :-) it perhaps has to be the most boring thing to be in pursuit of!...the light is silent! The luminous light remains still, It does not even bother to answer these questions!...getting rid of "I am the body" has to be a by-product of grace only...I believe, the more we aspire to free ourselves from "I am the Body" idea, the stronger the "I am the body" idea gets...The Self is not aware of the Body, but 'I' is aware of the Self...so do not aspire for nothing less than me, your Self......"] etc. etc. etc.
you seem to keep labeling the self as some sort-of 'lumninous light' (wonder what's its 'candela'!!!) :-))) some kind of a bright bulb, i guess...hmmm :-) in vichAra, is it the self that's enquired into, or is it one's sense of identity what makes us so sure of our individuality? and that of course is extremely fascinating (what do i know of the self to pursue it?)... by the way, where does bhagavAn talk about 'being conscious at all times' as the goal? no talks/letters please - quote from bhagavAn's compositions...
neither subramanian's quotes from upadEsa undhiyAr nor your explanations have any direct bearing on the issues raised... you talk about the 'by-product of grace' - how do you know? one must have got rid of the 'i-am-the-body' thing to know it to be a result of grace; of course, you also prefix your statements with "i believe", which infers you are simply believing & hoping for them to turn out as 'true' but not know them to be 'true' from your experience... :-) likewise, how do you know that the self is not aware of the body but the 'i' is aware of the self - in fact, i'd ask how come the 'i' is aware of the self and the self 'not' aware of the body??? is it the self which is asking you to 'aspire for nothing less'? really? shouldn't the so-called self be out of its mind (out of its 'self', if it sounds better!) to be going around asking people from not giving attention to anything but itself? what's the self's vested interest in that? :-)))
bhagavAn is bhagavAn & thAkur is thAkur because they spoke from their experience (that that also tallied with vedAnta is incidental & secondary) - i'm not saying one must not quote but quoting ad nauseum is an indicator of one having nothing of substance to utter anything of any worth (anybody, even a fool like me, can quote from scriptures!). if you are going to make grandiose claims, people are bound to question you on it, so, either you validate it, at the least, with bhagavAn's works (as you appear to know tamizh, the onus is only that much greater!), or, even better, speak from your experience, which will necessitate one to adhere to a consistency in whatever one says... :-)
and yes, while you share your 'jamoons' and 'jalebis' with ravi & subramanian, let me enjoy my 'roshogullas' and 'rabris' (may take a sweet pickle between the two to heighten the experience) hahahahahaha :-)))
s,
"yes, i don't know what this 'self' is"
Are you sure? May be we are imagining the 'self' to be some unknown thing which we want to know-and be 'happy' ever afterwards! Happy like what we 'imagine' Sri Bhagavan to be!
If as Sri Bhagavan says that there are no two selves in one(and it is our experience as well!)and what is ,is the self-how is it said 'yes, i don't know what this 'self' is'?
May be we should be asking -'How to be happy'!Perhaps the reply is - 'stop imagining that one is unhappy'!Perhaps then there will not be an 'ego' to enquire into.
Mr Ravi the above statement indicates that perhaps all is well with you. There are people in the world who find themselves in unhappy circumstances so it's trite to dismiss it so easily or by just quoting from scripture.
Your attitude shows a 'quick draw Mcgraw' response.
Nagaraj/Friends,
"why do I want to free myself from "I am the body" idea or body consciousness, there is genuinely no answer."
Well,Is it not the fundamental question?This very instinct is the source of all problems-It is on account of this that there is limitation.This is what is constricting.It is on account of this there is pleasure and pain,happiness and sorrow,Fear of Dying,etc.It is on account of this that one is competing with others,there is jealousy,there is desire and anger when that gets thwarted.
Since you understand Tamil,the following Thayumanavar's Verse raises the same fundamental question.
அந்தகா ரத்தையோர் அகமாக்கி மின்போல்என்
அறிவைச் சுருக்கினவரார்
அவ்வறிவு தானுமே பற்றினது பற்றாய்
அழுந்தவுந் தலைமீதிலே
சொந்தமா யெழுதப் படித்தார் மெய்ஞ்ஞான
சுகநிட்டை சேராமலே
சோற்றுத் துருத்தியைச் சதமெனவும் உண்டுண்டு
தூங்கவைத் தவரார்கொலொ
தந்தைதாய் முதலான அகிலப்ர பஞ்சந்
தனைத்தந்த தெனதாசையோ
தன்னையே நோவனொ பிறரையே நோவனோ
தற்கால மதைநோவனோ
பந்தமா னதுதந்த வினையையே நோவனோ
பரமார்த்தம் ஏதுமறியேன்
பார்க்குமிடமெங்குமொரு நீக்கமற நிறைகின்ற
பரிபூர ணானந்தமே.
Who was it that converted my heart
Into a chamber of darkness
And then shortened my reason
Into a tiny spark
And submerged that reason by desire?
Who was it that decreed that
As the writing of fate on my head?
Who was it that
Without caring for attainment of Jnana-Bliss-Trance
Made me believe in the permanency of the body bag
And so to indulge in eating and sleeping?
Was it my desire that gave me my father, mother
And all the rest of worldly ties?
Shall I blame my own self, or others?
Shall I blame the present bad actions
Or the past karma for all this worldly bondage?
Forsooth I know nothing of Truth
Oh! Thou who filleth all visible space
In unbroken continuity!
Thou, the Bliss that is Perfect Full!
It is this 'dehAtma Buddhi' that is the source of all problems.Hence the question-'How to tackle it'?
-----------------------------------
Yes,there is the path of devotion,of Love that recognizes the 'antaryAmin'(the innermost one),savitri,Gayatri,etc but then one will not talk of it as 'passive Light',witness,etc.
Thayumanavar refers to this in another verse.
Namaskar.
Namaskar.
Nagaraj/s/R.subramanian/friends,
Here is that other wonderful verse of ThayumAnavar from paripooranAnadam:
சந்ததமும் எனதுசெயல் நினதுசெயல் யானெனுந்
தன்மைநினை யன்றியில்லாத்
தன்மையால் வேறலேன் வேதாந்த சித்தாந்த்த
சமரச சுபாவமிதுவே
இந்தநிலை தெளியநான் நெக்குருகிவாடிய
இயற்கைதிரு வுளமறியுமே
இன்நிலையி லேசற் றிருக்கஎன் றால்மடமை
இதசத்ரு வாகவந்து
சிந்தைகுடி கொள்ளுதே மலமாயை கன்மந்
திரும்புமோ தொடுவழக்காய்ச்
சென்மம்வரு மோஎனவும் யோசிக்கு தேமனது
சிரத்தைஎனும் வாளும்உதவிப்
பந்தமற மெய்ஞ்ஞானதீரமும் தந்தெனைப்
பாதுகாத் தருள்செய்குவாய்
பார்க்குமிட மெங்குமொருநீக்கமற நிறைகின்ற
பரிபூர ணானந்தமே.
Forever,What I do is what Your doing.
What I am is what You are,
None different.
This the truth of Vedanta -
Siddhanta Samarasa;
To realize this,
How I pined and melted
Thine Grace knoweth.
In this state I seek to be for awhile.
But, alas! Ignorance seizes my thought
As an enemy(disguised as a comforter).
Will mala, maya and karma depart?
Will birth in uninterrupted succession be my lot?
Thus is my mind in doubts tossed.
Do Thou grant the sword of diligence.
Do Thou grant the courage of wisdom true
To sever the fetters of desire.
Do Thou grant thy Grace and redeem me!
Oh! Thou who filleth all visible space
In unbroken continuity!
Thou, the Bliss that is Perfect Full!
----------------------------------
Wonderful verse!
The 'Nebulous ego' is more of an effigy that everyone can take a swipe at and dismiss(or surrender!).The 'Solid one' remains intact ,untouched and preserved,perhaps for eternity.
Similiarly the 'Light' is not passive or Transcendent but pervasive and supportive.
All the Great ones are referring to 'melting'-so looks like there is a clue to how to tackle the 'I am the Body' instinct.For it is only a 'solid crust' that can be melted and not a 'nebulous Ego'.
More Later.
Namaskar.
Anonymous,
"There are people in the world who find themselves in unhappy circumstances so it's trite to dismiss it so easily or by just quoting from scripture."
Yes,Friend.I agree wholeheartedly.Here is a moving incident from Swami Vivekananda's life:
After the passing away of Sri Ramakrishna in 1886, Swamiji traveled all over the country with a view to assessing first hand the condition of the poor and the needy. Sometime in 1888 he was traveling in the scorching summer of Uttar Pradesh(North India) and alighted from the train at a place called Tari Ghat. An ochre robe and a third class ticket someone had brought for him were his only possessions. When he alighted from the train, the railways refused him permission to stay in the waiting room. So, he sat down leaning against a post of the waiting room on bare ground. A little distance from the Swamiji sat a bania on his mattress. He had traveled together with the Swamiji in the same compartment, often making fun of the Swamiji for his Sanyasa.
After they had alighted at an intermediate station, both sat on a nearby ground almost near each other, but the bania spread his durrie and sat on it. He ordered some poories and laddus for lunch and began eating in front of the Swamiji. With a derisive smile curling his lips, he told the Swamiji “What lovely puris and laddus I am eating! You do not care to earn money and so you have to rest content with a parched throat and empty stomach and a bare ground to sit”.
While the one sided conversation went on for sometime, suddenly there appeared a local inhabitant carrying a Tiffin box and a glass in his right hand and a durrie and an earthen jug in his left hand. He spread the durrie , put all the belongings on it, called the Swamiji to join him and opened the Tiffin box he had brought. He requested the Swamiji to take food. As Swamiji was reluctant, the new comer went on insisting. Swamiji then replied “I am afraid you are making a mistake. You are mistaking me for a person known to you. I have never seen you before nor do I have vague memory of having seen you even once”. But the newcomer went on saying “No.No.Babaji, You are the same person I have seen”. “What do you mean?” asked Swamiji, his curiosity now fully aroused. while his jocose friend, the bania, stood gaping at the scene.
“Where have you seen me?” asked Swamiji. The man then replied “I am a sweetmeat seller. Yesterday Lord Sri Rama appeared in my dream while I was having a nap in the afternoon. He was pointing out at you to me and telling me that He was pained to see you without food and water from the day previous and that I should get up immediately, prepare food and take them to you at the railway station with water and a durry to sit on. I woke up thinking it was only a dream and returned to my sleep. But the Lord came in my vision again and actually pushed me to get up and do as commanded. I quickly got up, prepared all these eatables and ran here. I am happy to recognize you even at a distance. Babaji, you now come and have your meal while it is hot. You must be very hungry”
Swamiji was profoundly moved and thanked the stranger profusely. The kind-hearted stranger said “Babaji, do not thank me. It is all the will of Sri Ramji”
The jeering Bania was quite taken aback at this incident and, begging the Swamiji’s pardon for all the ill words used by him, prostrated before Swamiji and quietly left.
-----------------------------------
I heard from someone that Swamiji said:"even god dare not appear before the hungry man in the form of a roti"
I was playing a little bit of devil's advocate and at the same time,what I have mentioned is not without basis!
Namaskar.
Can anybody know/confirm the Postal Address of Lakshmana Swamy? I found the following address on the letterhead of their website: www.mathrusrisarada.org
Sri Mathru Sri Sarada
C/O Lakshmana Swamy,
Arunachala Hrudayam,
Sri Ramanasramam P.O
Tiruvannamalai - 606 603
Tamilnadu.
Thanks.Does Swamy or Sri Saradamma read letters??
-Z
Friends,
Correction!Swamiji had said:"I heard from someone that Swamiji said:"even god dare not appear before the hungry man except in the form of a roti"
Namaskar.
More on the python (snake)
Adam blamed Eve. Eve blamed the snake and the snake didn't have a leg to stand on!
(Sri Ramana) Tiruvembavai:
Sri Ramana Sannidhi Murai - Verse
1461:
The ninth verse of (Sri Ramana) Tiruvembavai reads:
KaNNavaai ninRa ganavaruLaan kaathalaar,
ENNavaai ninRa idhayathan en thalai mel
ThiNNamai inniyum theepiRavi seraame
VaNNamaai chootiya varkazhalan vaarithi soozh....
Prof. K.Swaminathan:
His eyes with rich grace overflow,
His heart becomes, for those who think of
Him with love, their heaven and home.
His Feet He planted on my head,
Firm promise of freedom from more births.
His greatness fills the earth,
His glory fills the heavens, musically
Sing, sing the praise of Venkata,
Bathe in this coolness, sweetness, bliss.
Here Muruganar says a few special features of Sri Bhagavan, the Guru.
The Guru's eyes are rich with overflowing Grace.
His heart, for those who think about Him with love, their heaven and home.
His feet planted on the head denotes the promise of freedom from births.
His greatness fills the earth.
His glory fill the heavens.
Grace is first mentioned. This is by seeing His eyes, one gets.
Again, thinking of Him lovingly, (mananam), confers heaven (liberation) which is the ultimate home. His Feet planted on the devotee's head (pada diksha) promies freedom from births,
His greatness fills the earth. Without any pracharam, going places and teaching, devotees came from different parts of the globe.
His glory fills the heavens, which
became evident by the shooting start moving towards the Hill.
This verse is similar to Manikkavachagar's last verse in
Tiruvembavai, where the saint poet mentions only Siva's Feet.
PoRRi aruLuga nin aadhiyam padamalar,
PoRRi aruLuga nin andhamaam senthaLirgaL,
PoRRi ella yuirukum thoRRamam poRpadam,
PoRRi ella yuirkum bhogamam poonkazhaLgal,
PoRRi ella yuirkum eeRaam iNai adigaL
PoRRi mal nonmukanum kaaNaatha pundarigal
PoRRiyam uyya aaL koNdaruLum ponmalargaL
PoRriyam margazhi neer aadelor Embavaai.
***
Christmas thoughts:
Matthew 7: 1-6:
Do not judge others, so that God will not judge you, for God will judge you in the same way as you judge others and He will apply to you the same rules you apply to others. Why, then, do you look at the speck in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the log in your own eye? How dare you say to your brother, 'Please let me take that speck of your eye', when you have a log in your own eye? You hypocrite! First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will be able to see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. Do not give what is holy to dogs -- they will only turn and attack you. Do not throw your pearls in front of pigs -- they will only trample them underfoot.
***
Mark 12. 13-17:
Some Pharisees and some members of Herod's party were sent to Jesus to trap him with questions. They came to him and said, 'Teacher, we know that you tell the truth, without worrying about what people think. You pay no attention to a man's status, but teach the truth about God's will for man. Tell us, is it against our Law to pay taxes to the Roman Emperor? Should we pay them or not?
But Jesus saw through their trick and answered, 'Why are you trying to trap me? Bring a silver coin, and let me see it.'
They brought him one, and he asked, 'Whose face and name are these?'
'The Emperor's', they answered.
So Jesus said, 'Well, then, pay the Emperor what belongs to the Emperor and pay God what belongs to God.'
And they were amazed at Jesus.
****
Christmas Thoughts: II.
Luke 19.18-25:
A Jewish leader asked Jesus, 'Good Teacher, what must I do to receive eternal life?'
'Why do you call me good?' Jesus asked him. 'No one is good except god alone. You know the commandments: Do not commit adultery. do not commit murder. Do not steal. Do not accuse anyone falsely. Respect your father and your mother.'
The man replied, 'Ever since I was young I have obeyed all these commandments.'
When Jesus heard this, he said to him, 'There is still one more thing you need to do. Sell all you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven; then come and follow me.' But when the man heard this, he became very said, because he was very rich.
Jesus saw that he was sad and said, "How hard it is for rich people to enter the Kingdom of God! It is much harder for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle."
***
John 15-1-10:
'I am the real vine, and my Father is the gardener. He breaks off every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and he prunes every branch that does bear fruit, so that it will be clean and bear more fruit. You have been made clean already by the teaching I have given you. Remain united to me, and I will remain united to you. A branch cannot bear fruit by itself. It can do so only if it remains in the vine. In the same way you cannot bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine, and you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit; for you can do nothing without me. Whoever does not remain in me is thrown out like a branch and dries up. Such branches are gathered up and thrown into the fire, where they are burnt. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, then you will ask for anything you wish, and you shall have it. My Father's glory is shown by your bearing much fruit; and in this way you become my disciples. I love you as the Father loves me; remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in His love.
****
Jesus Christ and Sri Bhagavan:
Sri Bhagavan mentions about 12 or 13 occasions in Talks, about Jesus Christ.
Talks No. 20:
Devotee: Was not Jesus a Perfected Being possessing occult powers (siddhis)?
Bhagavan: He could not have been aware of his powers (siddhis).
Talks No. 86:
The Master gave the true significance of the Christian faith thus:
Christ is the ego.
The Cross is the body.
When the ego is crucified, and it perishes, what survives is the Absolute Being (cf: I and my Father
are one) and this glorious survival is called Resurrection.
Talks No. 87:
Major A.W. Chadwick, an ardent English devotee, asked, 'Why did
Jesus call out, 'My God, My God'
while being crucified?
Maharshi: It might have been an intercession on behalf of the two thieves who were crucified with Him. Again a Jnani has attained liberation even while alive, here and now. It is immaterial as to how, where and when he leaves his body. Some Jnanis may appear to suffer, others may be in samadhi, still others may disappear from sight, before death. But that makes no difference to their Jnana. Such suffering is apparent only to the onlooker and not to the Jnani, for
he has already transcended the mistaken identity of the Self with the body.
Talks No. 88:
The same gentleman asked: What is the significance of Christ in the illumination of St. Paul?
Maharshi: Illumination is absolute, not associated with forms. After St. Paul became Self conscious, he identified the illumination with Christ-consciousness.
Devotee: But Paul was not a lover of Christ then?
Maharshi: Love or hatred is immaterial. The thought of Christ was there. It is similar to Ravana's case. Christ-consciousness and Self Realization are all the same.
Talks No. 90:
Again, the Trinity was explained:
God the Father represents Iswara.
God the Holy Spirit represents Atman.
God the Son represents Guru.
Isvaro gururatmeti murti bheda vibhagine vyomavad vyapta dehaya dakshinamurtaye namah |
Meaning that God appears to his devotee in the form of a Guru (son of God) and points out to him the immanence of the Holy Spirit. That is to say that God is Spirit, that this Spirit is immanent everywhere and that the Self must be realized, which is the same as realizing God.
continued...
We don't know what Jesus really said. Nothing was written down till approx 70 years after his crucifiction. What did this great Jewish Rabbi actually teach? We don't know. The 'sermon on the mount' sounds authentic but we are not sure.
After this the teaching or what was left of it was Romanized and he became the Christ figure.
Thankfully with Ramana Maharshi we know what he taught and said. Can we make 'it' a living, vibrant reality that will transform our small, selfish outlook on life.
Jesus Christ and Sri Bhagavan: II
Talks No. 96:
Major Chadwick: But people will not be content with simplicity; they want complexity.
Maharshi: Quite so.....For example, an ordinary Christian will not be satisfied unless he is told that God is somewhere in the far-off Heavens not be reached by us unaided. Christ alone knew Him and Christ alone can guide us. Worship Christ and be saved. If told the simple truth -- "The Kingdom of God is within you" -- he is not satisfied and will read complex and far fetched meanings in such statements. Mature minds alone can grasp the simple Truth in all its nakedness.
Talks No. 145:
Mr. P. Brunton asked: Why do religions speak of Gods, heaven, hell, etc.,
Maharshi: Only to make the people to realize that they are on a par with this world and that the Self alone is real. The religions are according to the view point of the seeker. Take the Bhagavad Gita for instance. When Arjuna said that he would not fight against his own relatives, his elders etc., in order to kill them and gain the kingdom, Sri Krishna said,
"Not that these, you or I, were not before, are not now, nor will not be hereafter. Nothing was born, nothing was dead, nor will it not be so hereafter" and so on. Later as he developed the theme and declared that He had given the same instruction to the Sun, through him to Ikshvaku, etc., Arjuna raised the doubt, "How could it be? You were born a few years ago. They lived ages ago." Then Sri Krishna understanding Arjuna's standpoint, said, "Yes. They have been so many incarnations of myself and yourself. I know them all but you do not know." Such statements appear contradictory, but sill they are correct according to the view point of the questioner. The Christ
also declared that He was even before Abraham.
Talks No. 189:
Mr. M. Oliver Lacombe:
.....why are there so many methods mentioned? For instance, Sri Ramakrishna says that bhakti is the best means for salvation.
Maharshi: It is according to the standpoint of the aspirant. You have studied Gita...... That Krishna who began saying there was not I, not were you, nor these kings, says now that he had several births before. Krishna does not contradict Himself, though it looks like it. He conforms to the outlook of Arjuna and speaks to him from his level. There is a parallel passage in the Bible where Jesus says, "Before Abraham, was I am." The teachings of the sages are suited to the time, place, people and other surroundings....
continued....
Dear hey jude,
Sri Ramana Maharshi whom you accept as "one who really lived and taught",
accepts Jesus Christ. Is it not enough?
Jesus Christ and Sri Bhagavan: III
Talks No. 215:
Maharshi was reading G.U. Pope's translation of Tiruvachakam and came across the the verses describing the intense feeling of bhakti as thrilling the whole frame, melting the flesh and bones, etc., He remarked: Manikkavachagar is one of those whose body finally resolved itself in a blazing light, without leaving a corpse behind.
A devotee asked how it could be?
Maharshi said the gross body is only the concrete form of the subtle stuff - the mind. When the mind melts away and blazes forth as light, the body is consumed in that process. Nandanar is another whose body disappeared in blazing light.
Major Chadwick pointed out that Elisha disappeared in the same way. He desired to know that if the disappearance of Christ's body from the tomb was like that.
Maharshi: No. Christ's body was left as a corpse which was at first entombed, whereas the others did not leave corpses behind.
Talks No. 268:
Dr. Syed: What is salvation? What did Christ mean by it?
Maharshi: Salvation for whom? and from what?
Devotee: Salvation for the individual and from the sorrows and sufferings of the world.
Maharshi: Whose sorrows, etc.,?
Devotee: Of the mind.
Maharshi: Are you the mind?
Devotee: I shall now explain how this question arose. I was meditating. I began to reflect on the Grace shown by Christ to some devotees who got salvation. I consider that Sri Bhagavan is similar. Is not the salvation the result of similar Grace? That is what I mean by my questions.
Maharshi: Yes. Right.
Devotee: The booklet Who am I? speaks of Swarupa drishti (seing the essence). Then there must be a seer and the seen. How can this be reconciled with the Ultimate Unity?
Maharshi: Why do you ask for salvation, release from sorrow, etc., He who asks for them sees them also. the fact is this. Drishti (sight) is Consciousness. It forms the Subject and object. Can there be drishti apart from the Self? The Self is all - drishti etc.,
Talks No. 396:
Maharshi:......Rebirth means discontent with the present state, and desire to be born where there will be no discontent. Births, being of the body cannot affect the Self. The Self remains over ever after the body perishes. The discontent is due to wrong identity of the Eternal Self with the perishable body. The body is a necessary adjunct of the ego. If the ego is killed the eternal Self is revealed in all its glory. The body is the Cross. Jesus, the son of man, is the ego or I-am-the-body idea. When he is crucified, he is resurrected as the Glorious Self, Jesus, the Son of God! - "Give up this life, if thou wouldst live!".
contd.,
Dear S,
{in context to your response: "you seem to keep labeling the self as some sort-of 'lumninous light' (wonder what's its 'candela'!!!) :-))) some kind of a bright bulb, i guess...hmmm :-) .... etc..}
I have previously clarified what is meant by that luminous light in my earlier post, I wonder why you still wonder on what i meant by luminous light. Picking up a seed from Ravi's post, that luminous light is the "Bhargho" of the Gayathri Mantra.
You seem to contradict yourslef from my observations. I feel you are caught up with the ideas of experience and truth and unless you put a full stop to this analyses, you can never see the beyond even if it is glaring itself with thunder and lightning! It is like one may be reading the news paper everyday but is only seeing the words and prints in it, but fails to become aware of the very paper itself.
But, honestly, I am able to see your questions. But also, your posts seem to keep on reflecting on the contraries. If it is black, you say, it is white, and if it is white, you say, it is black. This "Chakkar" will never end, unless you/we decide to end it!
Now, if I do quote Bhagavan, about 'being conscious at all times' you would next say, "oh, what is the point in parrotting what is already said by Bhagavan of Thakur or Jnaneshwarm ones own experience alone matters" But, you can possibly never know anybody else's experience at all, you can never know it because, verily I am not there apart from you. You define me, You only validate what I have to say here, not I. No matter what ever I say, is it not you, in the end who decides what?
You said, "neither subramanians quotes from ... etc..." have direct bearing on the issues raised. It does not bear any thing on the issues raised is based on your own experience, because, I felt, you are caught up with an unending chakkar of "non belief" of what ever anybody says. Just a personal observation, because You am I, in the end... (nothing offensive) :-)
You asked: "how do I know that it is by product of grace." I say again from the presence of that luminous light :-) I say what i see. It is said to be a By-Product so that we don't directly aspire for something in between, attaining "I am not the Body" is not a goal to be achieved. And one who has attained, can never know that he has attained. Which is why it is a By Product. It does not matter for such a person, if he has lost body identification or not? but it matters to the onlookers only! In the end, aspiring to cease from body identification also is one kind of Siddhi only.
You ask: "how do you know that the self is not aware of the body but the 'i' is aware of the self - in fact, i'd ask how come the 'i' is aware of the self and the self 'not' aware of the body???"
Well, you can never know. and only you decide, if I know or not. You has to ask yourself this! No matter what justification I give, you have to only discern if I know or not! Is it not becase, you See me different from Yourself.
(Contd..)
Nagaraj
When you ask "How do you know?" are you really asking someone else apart from yourself? Who is the You and who is the one who discerns if ones knows or knows not?
You said "shouldn't the so-called self be out of its mind (out of its 'self', if it sounds better!) to be going around asking people from not giving attention to anything but itself? what's the self's vested interest in that? :-)))
The mind is not different from Self. Jivatma is not different from Paramatma. In such a case, would not, after the realisation of Ramana or Shankara, all ignorance would have ended with them? or can we say, it is possible that no living being attained the ultimate knowledge (liberation) till now. Because, it is only the Self that acknowledges in the end, that Sri Ramana is realised, Sri Ramakrishna is realised, etc...
Therefore, at all times, I am only talking and responding to myself alone. I am You, You am I. When you respond to me, your response is my own response to myself and when I respond back to you, I respond to myself.
When you just posted your response. I read your post. what ever you have conveyed in your post and my response to this post is my own response to my own (your) post. And, When you now read my post as a response, if you have any response to it, it is your response to your own (my) post!
Upanishads say Self is everywhere. when you read this, you are here and you are reading this, and you understand it. and if there is a question in this post, its your own question which is already there in you. and if you are responding to that question, its your own answer to your own question.
I am You. You am I
Let me quote from Bhagavan in this regard, since you (myself) asked :-)
I have voiced my opinion about how there is only Mind and no your mind or my mind. There are no others and that all people at all times are only talking to themselves alone. When I ask you a question, it is your own question and when you respond it, it is only your answer to your own (my) question and similarly, when you ask me a question, it is verily my own question and when I post a response to it, it is only my answer to my own (your) question. I am you and You am I.
Bhagavan says thus in this regard:
“My” implies the “I”, which owns the senses. You take your existence for granted; at the same time ask others to prove it to you. Similarly you admit the certainty of your senses, which see others, whilst denying all certainty. You see how you contradict yourself. The fact is that there are no others: there is no such a person as “you”. Each man, although addressed as “you”, styles himself as “I”. Even the confirmation you demand from others comes only from the “I”. “You” and “they” occur only to the “I”, without which they are meaningless.
Will quote some more Bhagavan's quotes in the next.
Jesus Christ and Sri Bhagavan: IV:
Talks No. 436:
Devotee: What is Viswarupa?
Maharshi: It is to see the world as the Self of God. In the Bhagavad Gita God is said to be various things and beings, and also the whole universe. How to realize it or see it so? Can one see one's Self? Though not seen, can the Self be denied? What is the Truth?
Devotee: Is it then wrong to say that some have seen it?
Maharshi: Is true in the same degree as you are. The Gita begins saying that no one was born; in the fourth chapter it says, 'the numerous incarnations, yours and mine, have taken place. I know them but you do not.' Of these two statements, which is the Truth? The instruction is according to the listener's understanding. If the second chapter contains the whole
Truth, why should so many chapters follow it. In the Bible, god says, "I AM before Abraham." He does not say, "I was" but "I AM".
Talks No. 651:
The index says that there is a reference to Christ in Talks No. 651, where Major Chadwick has raised some questions on Kaivalya Navaneetam. Here of course, there is no mention about Jesus Christ or His sayings.
David, do you think it is incorrect?
*****
Subramanian and friends, Ramana Maharshi never criticised any religion or person. He always looked to see if there was bridge that could be mended or a unified
teaching found. If you look at vedanta and advaita the 'road map'is most clear. It is up to us how we read it and how much we can take in.
Dear Ravi, Subramanian Si, S and others.
picking from my primordial question "why do I want to free myself from "I am the body" idea or body consciousness, there is genuinely no answer." and Ravi's responses quoted from Thayumanavar. I remembered Jnaneshwar about complete refutation of Ignorance.
We are talking about how to over come Dehatma Buddhi and others. Here is Jnaneshwar who sings thus:
If it is claimed by some
That the sacred texts declare
That the Self contains ignorance
And is concealed by it,
I would answer:
If the seed of ignorance dwells
In that state where there is no rise of duality,
Who, then, knows that it exists?
Ignorance, being nescient,
Cannot know itself.
Can it be a witness to its own existence?
That there is Dehatma Buddhi - who knows this -> That which knows this, asserts this is the Light of knowledge within.
Jnaneshwar says:
If the clouds really eclipsed the Sun,
Who would illumine them?
If a person were really annihilated by sleep,
Who would experience it?
If the one in whom ignorance resides
Becomes ignorant,
That ignorance would be indiscernible;
For that by which ignorance is discerned
Can never be ignorance itself.
The Discerner of everything is untouched and EVER PRATYAKSHAM. Only on the forgetfulness of this, we begin to fight our Vasanas out, or we are trying to win over Dehatma Buddhi.
The snake that is imagined
When one sees a rope,
Cannot be bound by the rope;
Neither can it be driven away.
Darkness, being frightened
By the approaching daylight,
Might turn for help to the full Moon,
But it would be immediately
Swallowed up by that Moon.
In the same way,
The word, “ignorance,” is twice meaningless.
The nature of ignorance cannot be determined
Except by logical inference.
What, then, is its nature?
Is it only to be inferred
From the perceivable effects,
Or can it be directly apprehended?
Let us investigate.
Ignorance
Does not allow of any proof of its existence;
So how could one begin to discuss it?
From this, one should understand
The impossibility of ignorance.
Ignorance,
Being neither an object of perception,
Nor of inference,
Is therefore disproved.
I am afraid to believe in this ignorance,
Since it is neither the cause of anything,
Nor the producer of any effect.
I heard somewhere, where one who wanted to investigate the darkness in a cave took, a torch along with him to see what the darkness is, but he went and came back saying there was no darkness in the cave.
Nagaraj
Nagaraj/s/friends,
In a lighter vein:)))
"i' 'you' 'you' 'i' 'i' 'you' 'i' 'i' 'you' 'you' 'i' 'you' .......
finally felt my body and felt reassured 'I atlast'!Voila!For a moment lost all sense of 'who am I'!
Wonder if we can use our bank balance in similiar fashion!
Here is some vintage humour from The gospel of Sri Ramakrishna:
Master:"One day I went to see him and found him in a pensive mood. When I asked him about it,
he said: 'The tax-collector was here. He threatened to dispose of my brass pots, my cups,
and my few utensils, if I didn't pay the tax; so I am worried.' I said: 'But why should you
worry about it? Let him take away your pots and pans. Let him arrest your body even. How
will that affect you? For your nature is that of Kha!' (Narendra and the others laugh.) He
used to say to me that he was the Spirit, all-pervading as the sky. He had got that idea from
the Adhyatma Ramayana. I used to tease him now and then, addressing him as 'Kha'.
Therefore I said to him that day, with a smile: 'You are Kha. Taxes cannot move you!'
-----------------------------------
Namaskar.
Nagaraj/friends,
The veiling power of Maya is acknowledged by all the sages.The 'dehAtma Buddhi' needs no proof.
Sri Ramakrishna explains this in his inimitable fashion in a downright simple manner:
The world of duality & Transcendental nature of Brahman
Sri Ramakrishna's conversation now turned to the Knowledge of Brahman.
MASTER: "Brahman is beyond vidya and avidya, knowledge and ignorance. It is beyond
maya, the illusion of duality.
"The world consists of the illusory duality of knowledge and ignorance. It contains
knowledge and devotion, and also attachment to 'Woman and gold'; righteousness and
unrighteousness; good and evil. But Brahman is unattached to these. Good and evil apply to
the jiva, the individual soul, as do righteousness and unrighteousness; but Brahman is not at
all affected by them.
"One man may read the Bhagavata by the light of a lamp, and another may commit a
forgery by that very light; but the lamp is unaffected. The sun sheds its light on the wicked
as well as on the virtuous.
"You may ask, 'How, then, can one explain misery and sin and unhappiness?' The answer is
that these apply only to the jiva. Brahman is unaffected by them. There is poison in a snake;
but though others may die if bitten by it, the snake itself is not affected by the poison."
None of this changes anything at the actual level.
Namaskar.
Nagaraj/Friends,
This excerpt from The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna is key to understand what we have been discussing:
"The rishis of old attained the Knowledge of Brahman. One cannot have this so long as
there is the slightest trace of worldliness. How hard the rishis laboured! Early in the
morning they would go away from the hermitage, and would spend the whole day in
solitude, meditating on Brahman. At night they would return to the hermitage and eat a
little fruit or roots. They kept their minds aloof from the objects of sight, hearing, touch,
and other things of a worldly nature. Only thus did they realize Brahman as their own inner
consciousness.
"But in the Kaliyuga, man, being totally dependent on food for life, cannot altogether shake
off the idea that he is the body. In this state of mind it is not proper for him to say, 'I am
He.' When a man does all sorts of worldly things, he should not say, 'I am Brahman.' Those
who cannot give up attachment to worldly things, and who find no means to shake off the
feeling of 'I', should rather cherish the idea 'I am God's servant; I am His devotee.' One can
also realize God by following the path of devotion."
Namaskar.
Dear hey jude,
I agree with you. Both Sri Ramakrishna and Sri Bhagavan tried to unify the various faiths by taking the common undercurrent in all faiths. Tayumanavar also wanted to establish this samarasa-margam, a way by which there could be established a common ground between various faiths.
About our talks and views on the Self, what is the Self? What is Self-Consciousness, is there something called Grace (of guru or god) at all, and if so wherefrom it comes, what is bliss, how to understand bliss, what is its nature -- all will be only at discussions level only. What is important is prayoham, practice with faith, the teachings of great gurus like Sri Ramakrishna or Sri Bhagavan.
I think again it is Tayumanavar who said:
adhuve nee adhuvaanal adhuve sollum?
You are That. When you attain That,
That will tell.
The rest are all mere hearsay.
Tayumanavar also says:
Kannikai oruthi chiRRinbam vembu enninum, even if a unmarried girl says that she hates sex as neem fruit,
KaikkoLvaL pakkuvathil, she will get married once she attains the proper age,
KaNavan aruL peRin mune sonnavaarRu
en enak,
If you ask 'what about all that you spoke before you got conjugal bliss'? (that is, sex is neem fruit)
Karuthi nahaiyaavaL...
She will simply recollect her earlier statement and gives a smile.
I think this sums up every thing.
***
I am the Soul of all. I am all. I am beyond all. I am One without a second. I am one universal consciousness. I am perpetual
Blissfulness Itself.
This acme of blissful that is within me (my own property). I have become heir to now by YOUR GRACE and MERCY. O benevolent One. I bow down to thee. I bow down.
- Viveka Choodamani Verses 516-517
For weak aspirants, what is needed most is Grace from Guru and God.
***
Dear hey jude,
Tayumanavar's song (Verse 22 of Ahara Bhuvanam, Chidambara Rahasyam) is as under:
Thaan aana thanmayame allal onRai
thalai edukka ottathu; thalaipattu
aange
Ponalum kaRpura dheepam polap
poy iLippathu allaathu pulam veRu
inRaam.
Once a person becomes his own Self, nothing else will raise its head. If one achieves That (with great sraddha), there is only light as camphor burning, no other sensory objects,
Jnanakarathinodu Jneyam aRRa
Jnathuruvum nazhuvaamal nazhuvi
niRkum,
Apart from seeing, the objects that are seen, and the seer -- all will slide into the true Swarupam.
Aanaalum idhan perumai evarku aar solvar?, adhu aanaal adhu aavar, adhuve sollum.
Who can describe its glory to other persons? If That is That of what you have attained, you are That,
That alone will tell.
Next Verse 23 says:
Adhu enRaal ethu ena adukkum sangai
aadhalinaal adhu analum aRave
vittu,
If you develop a doubt, as to what is That, Which is That, then you should discard that doubt,
Madhu uNda vaNdu enavum janakan aadhi
Mannavargal sukar muthalor vaazhnthaar enRum
Pathi indha nilai enavaum....
You can be like honey drunk bee and can merely say that people like Janaka and Suka rishi and others lived like this.
****
Dear Ravi,
I agree that in this modern world,
where attractions for the out-turned
mind are aplenty, it is better to be
a servant of God and do devotion. Because the food we eat, the attractions around us (T.V.Cinama,
Cell phones, newspapers and magazines which publish more about Aiswaraya Rai's daughter than Anna Hazare, necessity to work in an office where the goal is profit making by cheating the consumers, temples looking crowded bus depots, as someone put it last month, are plentiful. But even in this mad mad
period, there are a few at least who makes serious efforts to turn the mind inward and do self inquiry
or self surrender. One can not say that Jnana Vicharam is totally absent. Even as late as 1980s, Annamalai Swami, Kunju Swami were there. Kanakammal who was still younger, attained liberation right inside the Samadhi Hall on the first of Jan. 2010. There could still be many more, who remain unnoticed since by outward look one can never identify a serious sadhaka or a self realized Jnani.
I at least know 3 or 4 people connected to the Asramam who are very mature sadhakas and they are sure to taste success. These people speak less but give you essential advice if you are serious enough to go to them and ask for clearance of doubts in a humble way. I do not want to give their names lest they should mistake me. I correspond with them occasionally. There is one old priest in Isanya Desikar Math on the eastern side of the pradakshina route. He is about 80 and he is also a very very mature sadhaka. He is hard of seeing and he is always sitting near the sanctum while the younger priest does the rituals.
****
"you seem to keep labeling the self as some sort-of 'lumninous light' (wonder what's its 'candela'!!!) :-)))
(posted by 's.')
:) :)
One can count on our friend 's.' to add a bit of levity to these discussions. :)
best wishes,
Dear 's' and 'm'
It is always the practice of Hindu
saints to describe the Self as Light,
Effulgence etc., Because they have experienced it so. Sri Bhagavan says:
1. Sowriyam kaattinai hazhakkaRRathu enRe
Chaliyai irunthaai Arunachala!
(AAMM 38)
You Sunlike splendor you revealed having destroyed my illusion, now you remain inert and unmoving as a Hill oh, Arunachala.
2. IrunthoLir unai viduthhu adutthidal deivam,
Iruttinai viLaketuthu aduthidale kaaN.. (Ashtakam, 4)
To search for God ignoring You, who stand as Being and shine as Awareness, is like looking a lamp in hand for darkness.
3. ULamathinil
Unnai dhyanithu yogi oLi kaaNum
Unnil uarvaRum eethu un.
(Pancharatnam, Verse 4)
Holds you deep with in the Heart,
Sees bright Aruna Lord in you,
The light and rises to great heights.
Sri Tayumanavar also says Light is experienced in his mind, in all his verses titled Tejo mayanandam.
Chittamisai kudi koNda arivu* aana
deivame,
Tejo* mayanandame!
*Sat and Light.
Again in udal poyyuRavu, he says in verse 50:
Sankakadhi aaya dhavathorku Jnana
Dhinakaran aam mouna Sivan.
For tapsivins like Sanaka and others, he is the Sun of Jnana, he
is the silent Siva.
Again Manikkavachagar says in Tiru ANdappahuti:
Paramaananda pazhank kadal adhuve,
Karumamutilin thonRith
Thiruvaar perunthurai varaiyileRi
Thirutthahu minnoLi thisai thisai
viriya
Aimbulapanthanai vaaLaruvu iriya...
From the ocean of bliss, rose the clouds, it reached my Heart (Tiruvar PerunthuRai), pure light
lightning spread all over the directions and conquered my five senses, which is five headed serpent...
Again in Tirupadai Atchi, verse 8:
Seer adiyaargaL sivanubhavangaL therintidum aahathe,
Engum nirainthu amudhu ooRum paran
chudar eithuvathu aahaathe,
EeRaRiya maRaiyon enai aaLa ezutharuLapeRile...
The experiences of great devotees, the Sivanubhavam is now understood by me,
I have attained all pervading great light with oozing nectar,
'Cause He, whom the Vedas do not know has taken over me.
There must also be verses from other saint poets including Muruganar. About them later.
One thing we should remember - the Light is experiential with in Heart, and not seen outside. Till we experience that experience, we can only trust such experiences with sraddha and faith and look for guru/god's grace with devotion and surrender.
*****
Dear Ravi or someone else,
Today you posted that the stone
has no body consciousness and thoughtless, (does it mean that stone is self realized?)
Stone has no innate existence of its own at all. A stone or a book or a Kepler planet for that matter, - its existence is known or seen only by us. Their existence really
becomes existence unless someone knows it. It is always the case. Even America had no existence till Columbus discovered it.
When such is the same, it is no wonder that such non living being have no body consciousness or have thoughtless state. Otherwise a smaller stone should cry when a bigger stone is hit against it. All roads in city should cry because thousands of vehicles are passing over them daily. An uninteresting book, when thrown away by me should weep and complain to Kiran Bedi for ill-treatment. And Anna Hazare should start a fasting for this act of violence by me.
Living beings have the innate feeling of I-am ness. Non living
beings do not have that I-am-ness. Somebody should only point out to such innate being, so that its existence at least is recognized,
be it Kepler or the thirteenth planet or the coalsacks of the galaxy.
*****
R.Subramanian,
"Stone has no innate existence of its own at all. A stone or a book or a Kepler planet for that matter, - its existence is known or seen only by us."
The Stone's existence is as valid as our existence!Have we not bought diamonds or any other 'precious stone' for our spouse?(Or atleast allowed money to be siphoned towards that).If the stone did not exist(innate or otherwise) why would we spend money!
Please see the absurdity of what is proposed.
If we question the stone's existence,we may have to question the nature of our existence as well!
By the same token ,one should be in a position to dismiss the body also as having no innate Existence-Do we perceive it as such.This brings us back to what we have been discussing all along for the last 3 days!
The point in my referring to freedom from thought or Body consciousness is to emphasize that it is only the identification with these that needs to be dropped;not to expect or imagine them to disappear.
Body and thoughts are useful to function in the world as long as life animates body.When life departs,the body may become a stone(fossil) if given a chance.
A stone also would be equally valid and helpful to break coconuts or build home for living!
so much for our vAdAs(sRshti-dRshti,dRshti-sRshti,ajAta,etc)!Better to take the world as real(and God as Real too!) and live life in right earnest.
Namaskar.
salutations to all:
Subramanian:
["...It is always the practice of Hindu saints to describe the Self as Light, Effulgence etc., Because they have experienced it so..."]
is the "light" what bhagavAn refers to the same 'light' that we 'see' and through which we get to 'see'? i doubt they are referring to the photon that travels at 186000 miles per second! :-)
verse 27 of upadEsa undhiyAr:
அறிவறி யாமையு மற்ற வறிவே
யறிவாகு முண்மையீ துந்தீபற
வறிவதற் கொன்றிலை யுந்தீபற
[aRivu aRiyAmaiyum maRRa aRivE
aRivAgum uNmaiyIdhu undhIpaRa
aRivathaRku onRilai undhIpaRa]
just as what we call knowledge is not the 'knowledge' bhagavAn is alluding to, similar is the case with this 'light' thing, isn't it? thus, when i come across people using such words, don't know if it is to impress others or is it something intrinsic to the one saying it...
salutations to all:
m:
["...One can count on our friend 's.' to add a bit of levity to these discussions. :).."]
hahahahahaha... i guess if ravi is a 'devil's advocate' (as he himself says so), then to at least a few here i'm perhaps the 'devil' itself (ravi is not 'my advocate' though!) :-)))))
Friends,
For those who wonder why I love The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna-Thought I will share a few of my thoughts here.
Firstly it annuls space and time and puts one in the palpable presence of the Great Master,right at his feet.The portrayal and narration is as vivid as that.
Leaving aside my adoration of the Master,which may well be my personal preference,what is it that I find in it that is of value to one and all?
1.Precisely in its huge emphasis on the practical aspects of sadhana-in not giving any scope for any sort of speculation in the minds of the seekers.
2.The Master knows all the kinks and bends of the human mind and pitches the teaching at just the right level;Nothing a notch below or above.
3.He does not give room for any sort of hierarchy in Sadhana-thus cutting off all grounds for 'ego trips'.
4.Truly there is nothing that is held back from the seeker;the master gives a clear assurance that a thing well began,however modest and insignificant be that,would inevitably lead to all that one needs to ever know or attain.
5.Even abstract Truths are made so simple and clear to those who are simply curious or interested, with simple and Homely similes or parables.
6.The wonderful songs that fill the volumes that are rich blend of Bhakti/JnAna.
7.The humor of the Master is infectious as well.This book abounds in this as well.
This is one book that I could never finish reading for well over 35+ years.
Namaskar.
s/m/friends,
"'devil's advocate' (as he himself says so), then to at least a few here i'm perhaps the 'devil' itself (ravi is not 'my advocate' though!)"
Sounds like the equation between Devil and advocate is that between Brahman and mAyA;Devil himself is his own advocate(being a light unto himself!) while the rest may need the services of Devil's advocate:)
Namaskar.
salutations to all:
Ravi:
["...For those who wonder why I love The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna ..."]
for a change, i agree, and that too wholeheartedly :-))) it's time you learn bAngla (should take less than 6 months at an hour per day!) and read it in the "original" :-)))
s,
"it's time you learn bAngla (should take less than 6 months at an hour per day!) and read it in the "original"
Yes,this does cross my mind and is very much on the cards.I am a little lazy to learn the alphabets.
It is my 'hunch' that someone would come up with the idea of an 'audio book' and I can then listen to this in bAngla!I love this language,the way it sounds-drawl and interjections,rounded 'o's and long drawn 'e's, and all that-animated sounds-very much like the lisping of children.
Namaskar.
R.Subramanian,
"I at least know 3 or 4 people connected to the Asramam who are very mature sadhakas and they are sure to taste success. These people speak less but give you essential advice if you are serious enough to go to them and ask for clearance of doubts in a humble way."
1.I wish these sadhakas all the very best.In this context,a passage from The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna:
Mystery of God's ways
Master:"Those who lead a householder's life should practise spiritual discipline; they should pray
eagerly to God in solitude. (To Mr. Choudhury) God cannot be realized through
scholarship. Who, indeed, can understand the things of the Spirit through reason? No, all
should strive for devotion to the Lotus Feet of God.
"Infinite are the glories of God! How little can you fathom them! Can you ever find out the
meaning of God's ways?
"Bhishma was none other than one of the eight Vasus, but even he shed tears on his bed of
arrows. He said: 'How astonishing! God Himself is the companion of the Pandava brothers,
and still there is no end to their troubles and sorrows!' Who can ever understand the ways of
God?
"A man thinks, 'I have practised a little prayer and austerity; so I have gained a victory over
others.' But victory and defeat lie with God. I have seen a prostitute dying in the Ganges
and retaining consciousness to the end."
2.Doubts are hardly the issue as much as lack of earnestness.Here is another wonderful gem from The Gospel.
Parable of pearl oyster
Master:"One should have faith in the holy name given by the guru and with it practise spiritual
discipline. It is said that the pearl oyster makes itself ready for the rain that falls when the
star Svati is in the ascendant. Taking a drop of that rain, it dives into the fathomless depths
of the ocean and remains there until the pearl is formed."
Namaskar.
Friends,
The humour element in The gospel of Sri Ramakrishna:
Jeevanmukta & Separation of body and soul
"He who has attained this Knowledge of Brahman is a jivanmukta, liberated while living in
the body. He rightly understands that the Atman and the body are two separate things. After
realizing God one does not identify the Atman with the body. These two are separate, like
the kernel and the shell of the coconut when its milk dries up. The Atman moves, as it
were, with the body. When the 'milk' of worldly-mindedness has dried up, one gets Selfknowledge.
Then one feels that Atman and body are two separate things. The kernel of a
green almond or betel-nut cannot be separated from the shell; but when they are ripe the
juice dries up and the kernel separates from the shell. After the attainment of the
Knowledge of Brahman, the 'milk' of worldly-mindedness dries up.
"But it is extremely difficult to attain the Knowledge of Brahman. One doesn't get it by
merely talking about it. Some people feign it. (Smiling) There was a man who was a great
liar; but, on the other hand, he used to say he had the Knowledge of Brahman. When
someone took him to task for telling lies, he said: 'Why, this world is truly like a dream. If
everything is unreal, then can truth itself be real? Truth is as unreal as falsehood.'" (All
laugh.)
-----------------------------------
Namaskar.
Nagaraj/Friends,
"I heard somewhere, where one who wanted to investigate the darkness in a cave took, a torch along with him to see what the darkness is, but he went and came back saying there was no darkness in the cave."
Let us say that we take that torch out into the Blazing sunshine.Is that 'torch' of any help?The 'Light' of the torch is part and parcel of Darkness-this is the significance of Sri Sankara's -'pradeepa jwAlapi'(wonderful verse 100 of Soundarya lahari)
Let us see how Sri Ramakrishna explains this in his inimitable and utterly simple fashion:
"The police sergeant goes his rounds in the dark of night with a lantern in his hand. No one
sees his face; but with the help of that light the sergeant sees everybody's face, and others,
too, can see one another. If you want to see the sergeant, however, you must pray to him:
'Sir, please turn the light on your own face. Let me see you.' In the same way one must pray
to God: 'O Lord, be gracious and turn the light of knowledge on Thyself, that I may see Thy
face.'
Namaskar.
Dear Ravi,
You say that diamonds which are also stones have existence since we buy them at a very high cost.
Now who gave 'importance' to these diamonds? Do diamonds say, "I am valuable, please buy me?" Do the
diamonds in deep mines of Africa tell you, "Please take me out. I am quite valuable." No. It is we who give them importance and existence.
During Napolean's days Aluminium was just then discovered. So it was considered very valuable. Napolean as a child was rocked in a aluminium cradle! Today no one touches Aluminium, perhaps they are using them in electric wires since copper has become costlier.
All inanimate objects have existence or assume importance because we know them or see them.
****
Ravi, Friend,
I began to wonder, what is the fine line between intellectual knowing and really knowing!
Because, out of delusion, one may even keep cutting the true knowing by way of just intellectual logic and be in an eternal search, without an end! One may end up keep travelling the journey, where there is even no Journey really!
What is the fine line? I contemplate!
Because, When eagerly he sought himself and later when he found himself, the tenth man in the story was the tenth man and none else (ten men crossed a stream and wanted to make sure they were all safe. In counting, each one left himself out and found only nine. A passerby
gave each a blow and made them count the ten blows).
Nagaraj
Dear S.,
The light we see is not the Light that is experienced by an Atma Jnani. The Light within is something more brilliant, if one has to trust Atma Jnani's words. For want of better comparison, we call God as Koti Surya Prakasan, the One who shines like a crore of suns. So also the experience of Light within is a million times more brilliant.
Don't ask me: how do you know?
It is like asking a young girl child about the pleasures of sex.
We are all girl children and we are yet to attain maturity to experience these things.
*****
Nagaraj/Subramanian/s/m/.../friends,
Having seen what Sri Ramakrishna had said,we may consider what Sri Bhagavan says-'Setting a thief to catch a thief'.
The torch light bearer is the mind and he will pretend to catch the thief!He will show that no thief is there in that cave.All that is required is to ask the bearer of the torch to show the torch on himself.The 'guy' has to switch off his light!
Self enquiry has elements of what Sri Ramakrishna and Sri Bhagavan has said-and all the shades in between,depending on the seeker.
I understand that Nagaraj belongs to the former approach predominantly-This is the reason he has said-'I do not find any motivation in examining the 'I am the Body' instinct'!
We need to hold onto whatever appeals to us(this is on account of Grace only!)and carry it forward(or backward!).
Wish you all the very best.
Namaskar.
R.Subramanian,
Why don't you stop in your tracks and consider what 's' has said?A million times addition of 'Negative' number will not yield a positive number.This is not a 'scale' related issue.It is the 'quality' and not 'quantity' that is in question.
Namaskar.
Just wanted to add,
that the passer by who gives blow is oneself really to himself? :-) , in the below quoted -
Because, When eagerly he sought himself and later when he found himself, the tenth man in the story was the tenth man and none else (ten men crossed a stream and wanted to make sure they were all safe. In counting, each one left himself out and found only nine. A passerby gave each a blow and made them count the ten blows).
Nagaraj
Ramana could discern spiritual maturity in both human and animals. One day Bhagavan's mother asked 'Why does the dog always want to stay in your lap?" Bhagavan turned to his old friend Rangan and said 'This dog is always in unwavering samadhi. A great soul has come in the form of a dog. Mother does not know this"
It really goes to show that Ramana's reality was very different from the 'ordinary' man or even the people who clustered around him.
(Sri Ramana) Tirvembavai: Verse 10.
Verse 1462 of Sri Ramana Sannidhi Murai:
Allatha vaaNa vanjer aaruiyirai vaaL
vizhiyal \
Kollathe konRu koLuthum meijnanathaan
Illathe uLLana pol thoRRum
elavaRRukkum
Illathath thoRRi uLathaahum
chemporuLaan.......
Prof. K. Swaminathan:
A sword, a fire, His glance
destroys
The ego dear but false. It does not
Kill, it saves, the true I-Self.
He is the true Being unseen,
sustaining
All that is false but seems to be.
He without learning learnt the
Truth
Which, without teaching, now He
teaches
In wordless silence bright and
clear.
Sing, sing the praise of Venkata,
Bathe in this coolness, sweetness,
bliss.
Muruganar says that Sri Bhagavan's piercing eyes, 'will kill without killing.' Kolamale konRu koLuthum.
The Guru's eye of grace only kills the ego of an ardent devotee. It does not take away his life. The devotee thereafter lives in egoless state of realization.
Kolamale Kollum - this phrase has also been used by Sri Bhagavan Himself in Verses 11 and 10 of Padigam:
Verse 11:
karuthiye thiriveer karuthinuL
orukaal
Karudhidak kolamale kollum
Arumarundhu onRuNdu avaniyil
adhuthaan
AruNam thiram ena aRiveer.
O men who, disguested with this life of endless misery, seek some means of giving up the body, there is on earth a medicine rare which kills without killing anyone who but contemplates of it but once. Know that this rare medicine is the mighty Aruna Hill and nothing else.
Verse 10:
Paarthanan pudhumai yuirvali
gaantha
Paruvatham orutharam idhanai...
Something new I have discovered. The soul attracting Hill-magnet stills the movements of any one that contemplates of it but once...
****
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