Enquiring `Who am I that is in bondage?' and knowing one's real nature [swarupa] alone is liberation. Always keeping the mind fixed in Self alone is called 'self-enquiry', whereas meditation [dhyana] is thinking oneself to be the absolute [Brahman], which is existence-consciousness-bliss [sat-chit-ananda].
Question : The yogis say that one must renounce this world and go off into secluded jungles if one wishes to find the truth.
Ramana Maharshi : The life of action need not be renounced. If you meditate for an hour or two every day you can then carry on with your duties. If you meditate in the right manner then the current of mind induced will continue to flow even in the midst of your work. It is as though there were two ways of expressing the same idea; the same line which you take in meditation will be expressed in your activities.
Question : What will be the result of doing that?
Ramana Maharshi : As you go on you will find that your attitude towards people, events and objects gradually changes. Your actions will tend to follow your meditations of their own accord.
Question : Then you do not agree with the yogis?
Ramana Maharshi : A man should surrender the personal selfishness which binds him to this world. Giving up the false self is the true renunciation.
Question : Why is concentration ineffective?
Ramana Maharshi : To ask the mind to kill the mind is like making the thief the policeman. He will go with you and pretend to catch the thief, but nothing will be gained. So you must turn inward and see from where the mind rises and then it will cease to exist.
Question : In turning the mind inwards, are we not still employing the mind?
Ramana Maharshi : Of course we are employing the mind. It is well known and admitted that only with the help of the mind can the mind be killed. But instead of setting about saying there is a mind, and I want to kill it, you begin to seek the source of the mind, and you find the mind does not exist at all. The mind, turned outwards, results in thoughts and objects. Turned inwards, it becomes itself the Self.
Question : How can I tell if I am making progress with my enquiry?
Ramana Maharshi : The degree of the absence of thoughts is the measure of your progress towards Self-realization. But Self-realization itself does not admit of progress, it is ever the same. The Self remains always in realization. The obstacles are thoughts. Progress is measured by the degree of removal of the obstacles to understanding that the Self is always realized. So thoughts must be checked by seeking to whom they arise. So you go to their source, where they do not arise.
Question : Doubts are always arising. Hence my Question.
Ramana Maharshi : A doubt arises and is cleared. Another arises and that is cleared, making way for yet another; and so it goes on. So there is no possibility of clearing away all doubts. See to whom the doubts arise. Go to their source and abide in it. Then they cease to arise. That is how doubts are to be cleared.
BHAGAVAN SPEAKS ON HUMILITY
The power of humility, which bestows immortality, is the foremost among powers that are hard to attain. Since the only benefit of learning and other similar virtues is the attainment of humility, humility alone is the real ornament of the sages. It is the storehouse of all other virtues and is therefore extolled as the wealth of divine grace. Although it is a characteristic befitting wise people in general, it is especially indispensable for sadhus.
Since attaining greatness is impossible for anyone except by humility, all the disciplines of conduct such as yama and niyama, which are prescribed specifically for aspirants on the spiritual path, have as their aim only the attainment of humility. Humility is indeed the hallmark of the destruction of the ego. Because of this, humility is especially extolled by sadhus themselves as the code of conduct befitting them.
Moreover, for those who are residing at Arunachala, it is indispensable in every way. Arunachala is the sacred place where even the embodiments of God, Brahma, Vishnu and Sakti, humbly subsided. Since it has the power to humble even those who would not be humbled, those who do not humbly subside at Arunachala will surely not attain that redeeming virtue anywhere else. The Supreme Lord, who is the highest of the high, shines unrivalled and unsurpassed only because he remains the humblest of the humble. When the divine virtue of humility is necessary even for the Supreme Lord, who is totally independent, is it necessary to emphasize that it is absolutely indispensable for sadhus who do not have such independence? Therefore, just as in their inner life, in their outer life also sadhus should possess complete and perfect humility. It is not that humility is necessary only for devotees of the Lord; even for the Lord it is the characteristic virtue.
NIRVANA
A visitor asked the meaning of Nirvana.
Bh. Nirvana is that state wherein the sense of separateness does not exist and where the ego has sunk in its source, the Heart.
Mr. Cohen had read a book called Nirvana, written by a prominent Theosophist, in which the author claimed to have experienced Nirvana after going to sleep, in which he “saw the Masters” as vivid centres of light in the ocean of Light which is Nirvana, which Mr. C. could not reconcile with Sri Bhagavan’s teaching. So he asked the Master about it.
Bh. : Nirvana is the Perfect State. There is neither seeing, hearing, nor experiencing in it. There is nothing but the pure “I am” awareness. The Nirvana you describe from your reading is sheer imagination.... Well, this and other similar movements are good, inasmuch as they make man unselfish and prepare him for the highest Truth. Service also leads to the same goal – Self- realisation – if it is selfless.
C. : But after how long and why should one who is ready for the Absolute knowledge go in for the relative?
Bh. : Everything happens in its own time. One who is ready for the Absolute will be made somehow to hear of it and then start the practice. He will immediately recognise the value of Atmavidya and will follow it up with determination.
TRUE SANNYASA
Sannyasa or renunciation is not the discarding of external things but of the ego. To such renouncers (sannyasins) there exists no difference between solitude and active life. The Rishi Vasistha says: ‘Just as a man, whose mind is preoccupied, is not aware of what is in front of him, so also the Sage, though engaged in work, is not the doer thereof, because his mind is immersed in the Self without the uprising of the ego. Just as a man lying on his bed dreams that he is falling headlong over a precipice, so also the ignorant person whose ego is still present, though engaged in deep meditation in solitude, does not cease to be the doer of all action.’
- Bhagavan, 'Self Enquiry'
GAYATRI
A visitor asked Bhagavan, with reference to the words dhimahi in the gayatri, “What is the idea meant? I am not able rightly to grasp it.”
B: The words only mean fixing the aham in the Self,though literally they mean, “We meditate”.
Visitor: I am not able to form a conception of the ‘Tat’ or the Self. Then, how am I to fix the aham in the Tat.
B: Why should you bother to conceive the Tat which you don’t know? Try to find out the ‘I’ that you know, what it is and whence it arises. That is enough.
- Day by Day with Bhagavan
BE STILL
The whole of Vedanta is contained in the two Biblical statements “I am that I am” and “Be still and know that I am God.” (Gems from Bhagavan, chapter 8.)
“I-Am-That-I-Am” sums up the whole Truth. The method is summed up by “Be still and know that I am God.” What does stillness mean? Cessation of thinking, which is the universe of forms, colours, qualities, time, space, all concepts and percepts whatever. (Guru Ramana)
Stop the thoughts, which are your enemy…, and the mind will remain as your pure being, the immortal “I.” (Guru Ramana.)
The thought “who am I?” will destroy all other thoughts, and like the stick used for stirring the burning pyre, it will itself in the end get destroyed. Then, there will arise Self-realization. (Ramana Maharshi, Who Am I?)
Remaining quiet is what is called wisdom-insight. To remain quiet is to resolve the mind in the Self. Telepathy, knowing past, present and future happenings and clairvoyance do not constitute wisdom-insight. (Ramana Maharshi, Who Am I?)
When the mind, which is the cause of all cognition and all actions, becomes quiescent, the world will disappear. (Ramana Maharshi, Who Am I?)
The Self is that where there is absolutely no “I”-thought. That is called “Silence.” (Ramana Maharshi, Who Am I?)
Everybody, every book says “Be quiet or still.” But it is not easy. That is why all this effort is necessary. Even if you find one who has at once achieved the mouna (silence) or supreme state indicated, you may take it that the effort necessary has already been completed in a previous life. Such effortless and choiceless awareness is reached only after deliberate meditation. (Gems from Bhagavan)
TURNING THE MIND INWARD
”Whence does this “I” arise?” Seek for it within; it then vanishes. This is the pursuit of Wisdom. (Ramana Maharshi, Who Am I)
God illumines the mind and shines within it. One cannot know God by means of the mind. One can but turn the mind inwards and merge it in God. (Ramana Maharshi, Gems from Bhagavan)
The Divine gives light to the mind and shines within it. Except by turning the mind inward and fixing it in the Divine, there is no other way to know Him through the mind. (Ramana Maharshi, Forty Verses on Reality)
[Turning the mind inward] is done by practice and dispassion and that succeeds only gradually. The mind, having been so long a cow accustomed to graze stealthily on others' estates, is not easily confined to her stall. However much her keeper tempts her with luscious grass and fine fodder, she refuses the first time; then she takes a bit; but her innate tendency to stray away asserts itself; and she slips away; on being repeatedly tempted by the owner, she accustoms herself to the stall; finally even if let loose she would not stray away. Similarly with the mind. If once it finds its inner happiness it will not wander outward. (Ramana Maharshi, Talk with Sri Ramana Maharshi)
By repeated practice one can become accustomed to turning inwards and finding the Self. One must always and constantly make an effort, until one has permanently realized. Once the effort ceases, the state becomes natural and the Supreme takes possession of the person with an unbroken current. Until it has become permanently natural and your habitual state, know that you have not realized the Self, only glimpsed it. (Ramana Maharshi, Conscious Immortality)
The mind should not be allowed to wander towards worldly objects and what concerns other people. However bad other people may be, one should bear no hatred for them. Both desire and hatred should be eschewed. All that one gives to others one gives to one's self. If this truth is understood who will not give to others? When one's self arises, all arises; when one's self becomes quiescent, all becomes quiescent. To the extent we behave with humility, to that extent there will result good. If the mind is rendered quiescent, one may live anywhere. (Ramana Maharshi, Who Am I)
[The quest] has to begin with the mind turned inward to oppose the rushing thoughts and to understand the location of the “I.” When the mind eventually sinks in the Heart, undisturbed bliss is overwhelmingly felt. There is then feeling which is not divorced from pure awareness, i.e., head and heart become one and the same. (Ramana Maharshi, Guru Ramana.)
BHAGAVAN ON GANDHIJI'S THOUGHT-FREE STATE
The subject of silence and the thought-free state came up again after Bhagavan had cited, with great approval, a passage by Gandhi in which the latter had given a description of his own experience of this state:
Sri Bhagavan referred to the following passage of Gandhiji in the Harijan of the 11th instant:
‘How mysterious are the ways of God! This journey to Rajkot is a wonder even to me. Why am I going, whither am I going? What for? I have thought nothing about these things. And if God guides me, what should I think, why should I think? Even thought may be an obstacle in the way of His guidance.
‘The fact is, it takes no effort to stop thinking. The thoughts do not come. Indeed, there is no vacuum – but I mean to say that there is no thought about the mission.’
Sri Bhagavan remarked how true the words were and emphasised each statement in the extract. Then he cited Thayumanavar in support of the state which is free from thoughts:
The state in which you are not,
that is nishta [Self-abidance].
But, even in that state,
do you not remain?
You whose mouth is silent,
do not be perplexed!
Although [in that state] you are gone,
you are no longer there,
yet you did not go.
You are eternally present.
Do not suffer in vain.
Experience bliss all the time!
Two days after Bhagavan had cited Thayumanavar to illustrate Gandhi’s thought-free experiences, a visitor returned to the subject:
Devotee: Is not what Gandhi describes the state in which thoughts themselves become foreign?
Bhagavan: Yes, it is only after the rise of the ‘I’-thought that all other thoughts arise. The world is seen after you have felt ‘I am’. The ‘I’-thought and all other thoughts had vanished for him.
Devotee: Then the body sense must be absent in that state.
Bhagavan: The body sense is also a thought whereas he describes the state in which ‘thoughts do not come’.
Devotee: He also says, ‘It takes no effort to stop thinking’.
Bhagavan: Of course no effort is necessary to stop thoughts whereas one is necessary for bringing about thoughts.
Devotee: We are trying to stop thoughts. Gandhiji also says that thought is an obstacle to God’s guidance. So it is the natural state. Though natural, yet how difficult to realise. They say that sadhanas are necessary and also that they are obstacles. We get confused.
Bhagavan: Sadhanas are needed so long as one has not realised it. They are for putting an end to obstacles. Finally there comes a stage when a person feels helpless notwithstanding the sadhanas. He is unable to pursue the much-cherished sadhana also. It is then that God’s power is realised. The Self reveals itself.
Devotee: If the state is natural, why does it not overcome the unnatural phases and assert itself over the rest?
Bhagavan: Is there anything besides that? Does anyone see anything besides the Self? One is always aware of the Self. So it is always itself.
- Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi
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