Ramana Maharshi says Mere book learning is of no use

Once some very learned Sanskrit scholars were sitting in the old hall discussing portions of the Upanishads and other scriptural texts with Bhagavan. Bhagavan was giving them proper explanations and it was a sight to remember and adore! At the same time, I felt genuinely in my heart, ‘Oh, how great these people are and how fortunate they are to be so learned and to have such deep understanding and be able to discuss with our Bhagavan. Compared with them, what am I, a zero in scriptural learning?’ I felt miserable. After the pundits had taken leave Bhagavan turned to me and said, “What?”, looking into my eyes and studying my thoughts. Then, without even giving me an opportunity to explain, he continued, “This is only the husk! All this book learning and capacity to repeat the scriptures by memory is absolutely no use. To know the Truth, you need not undergo all this torture of learning. Not by reading do you get the Truth. BE QUIET, that is Truth, BE STILL, that is God”.

Then very graciously he turned to me again and there was an immediate change in his tone and attitude. He asked me, “Do you shave yourself?” Bewildered by this sudden change, I answered, trembling, that I did.

“Ah, for shaving you use a mirror, don’t you? You look into the mirror and then shave your face; you don’t shave the image in the mirror. Similarly all the scriptures are meant only to show you the way to realization. They are meant for practise and attainment. Mere book learning and discussions are comparable to a man shaving the image in the mirror”. From that day onwards the sense of inferiority that I had been feeling vanished once and for all.

Source: RAMANA SMRTI Book

Selected Sayings From Complete Works Of Swami Vivekananda

Posted by: "bhakta_dhruva@yahoo.com"

They alone live who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive.

Whatever you think, that you will be. If you think yourself weak, weak you will be, if you think yourself strong, strong you will be.

Faith in God, Faith in ourselves, this is the secret of greatness.

How can we see evil unless it is in us?

Only those who want nothing are masters of Nature.

You cannot believe in God, until you believe in yourself.

Everything can be sacrificed for truth, but truch cannot be sacrificed for anything.

Seek the science of the maker, and not that of the made.

Work on with the intrepidity of a lion, but at the same time, with tenderness of love.

Impure imagination is as bad as impure action.

Truth must have no compromise.

Thirst for name and fame is the worst filth.

There is nothing holier in the world than to keep good company.

What we want is neither happiness nor misery; If the mind is pleased with praise, it will be displeased with blame.

To work you have the right, but not to the result.

The greatest sin is to think yourself weak.

Dare to come to Truth even through hell.

What we call nature, fate, is simply God's Will.

Choose the highest ideal and live your life up to that.

The whole ocean is present at the back of each wave.

Ramana Maharshi says Our body is like the shop rented by the businessman

Knowing that all misery arises only as a result of the fundamental error – the original sin – of attending to second and third persons instead of attending to and knowing the true nature of the first person, Bhagavan Sri Ramana graciously appeared on earth to advise humanity, “Throughout the waking and dream states you attend only to second and third persons, and in consequence you experience endless misery. But in sleep, when you do not attend to any second or third person, you do not experience any misery. Overlooking the peaceful happiness that you experienced while asleep, you search for happiness in the waking state by attending to innumerable external objects. However, does not the fact that you experienced happiness during sleep in the absence of those objects, indicate that happiness lies not in the objects but in you, the first person or subject? Therefore why not you try, even in the waking state, to attend not to second and third persons but to the first person ‘I’ ?”

On hearing this, however, some devotees wonder whether it is necessary then to withdraw from all activities in order to be able to practise Self-attention. “If we are to follow this sadhana of Self--attention in all earnestness, will not work prove to be an obstacle? But if we give up all work, how are we to provide the food, clothing and shelter required by the body?” they ask. However, whenever devotees asked Sri Bhagavan such questions, He used to reply that work need not be a hindrance to spiritual practice (sadhana). This does not mean, of course, that an aspirant should work in the same spirit as a wordly man or that he should work with the same aim in view. The spirit in which and the aim with which an aspirant should work in this world, can be illustrated by the following example:

Suppose a businessman rents a shop in the heart of a big city for Rs. 1,000/- a month. If from his business he aims to make only sufficient money to pay the rent for the shop, will it not be a worthless business? Should not his aim in renting the shop be to earn a profit of Rs. 10,000/- a month? On the other hand, if he does not make sufficient money even to pay the rent, will he be able to remain in the shop to earn his profit?

Our body is like the shop rented by the businessman.The aim with which we rent this body is to realize Self, while the rent we have to pay for the body is food, clothing and shelter. In order to pay this rent, it is necessary for us to work, using the mind, speech and body as our instruments. If we do not pay the rent, we cannot live in the body and earn the great profit of Self-knowledge. However, we should not spend our whole life-all our time and effortin working to pay the rent. The mind, speech and body should work only for that amount of time and with that amount of effort which is required for paying the rent – for providing the food, clothing and shelter necessary for the body. If instead we devote all our time and effort towards accumulating comforts and conveniences for the body, as worldly people do, we would be just like the worthless businessman who works only to pay the rent and who never tries to make a profit. Therefore, a sincere aspirant should arrange his work in such a way that he will spend only a portion of his time and energy for maintaining the body, so that he can utilize the remaining time and energy in striving to earn the great profit of Self-knowledge.

For some aspirants prarabdha will be arranged by God or Guru in such a way that they need to do little or no work to maintain their body, whereas for other aspirants it may be arranged in such a way that they have to spend most of their time in working for the maintenance of the body. But in whatever way the prarabdha is arranged, it is arranged only for the aspirant’s own good, that is, for his ultimate attainment of Self-knowledge. Moreover, since prarabdha determines only the outward activities of the body and mind, it can in no way obstruct the inward desire and yearning for Self-knowledge. If one has an intense yearning for Self-knowledge, the Guru’s Grace will certainly help one in all ways, both from within and without, to enable one to attend to Self.

Source: The Path of Sri Ramana Part 1 Book By Sri Sadhu Om

Ramana Maharshi suggests eating Strict Vegetarian food

Just like pranayama, meditation upon a form of God (murti-dhyana), repetition of sacred words (mantra-japa) and regulation of diet (ahara-niyama) are mere aids for controlling the mind (but will never by themselves bring about its destruction). Through murti-dhyana and through mantra-japa, the mind gains one-pointedness (ekagram). Just as when a chain is given to an elephant to hold in its trunk,which is always wandering (here and there trying to catch hold of things), that elephant will go along holding only the chain instead of trying to catch any other thing, so also when the mind, which is always wandering, is trained to hold on to anyone name or form (of God), it will cling only to that. Because the mind branches out into innumerable thoughts, each thought becomes very weak. As thoughts subside more and more, one-pointedness is gained, and for the mind which has thereby gained strength, Self-enquiry (atma-vichara) will easily be attained. Through mita sattvika ahara-niyama, which is the best of all regulations, the sattvic quality of the mind, having been increased, becomes an aid to Self-enquiry.

Although tendencies towards sense-objects (vishaya-- vasanas), which have been recurring down the ages, rise in countless numbers like the waves of the ocean, they will all perish as Self-attention (swarupa-dhyana) becomes more and more intense. Without giving room even to the doubting thought, ‘Is it possible to destroy all these tendencies (vasanas) and to remain as Self alone ?’, one should persistently cling fast to Self-attention, However great a sinner one may be, it, not lamenting Oh, I am a sinner ! How can I attain salvation ?’ but completely giving up even the thought that one is, a sinner, one is steadfast in Selfattention, one will surely be saved.

Mita satvika ahara-niyama means regulating one’s diet by taking only moderate quantities of food (mita ahara) and by strictly avoiding nonsattvic foods, that is, all non-vegetarian foods such as eggs, fish and meat, oil intoxicants such as alcohol and tobacco, excessively pungent, sour and salty tastes, excess onions and garlics, and so on. Furthermore, the Sanskrit word ‘ahara’ means ‘that which is taken in’, so in a broader sense ahara-niyama means not only regulation of diet, but also regulation of all that is taken in by the mind through the five senses.

As long as there are tendencies towards sense-objects (vishaya-vasanas) in the mind, so long the enquiry ‘Who am I?’ is necessary. As and when thoughts rise, one should annihilate all of them through enquiry then and there in their very place of origin. Not attending to what-is-other (anya, that is, to any second or third person object) is nonattachment (vairagya) or desirelessness (nirasa); not leaving Self is knowledge (jnana). In truth, these two (desirelessness and knowledge) are one and the same. Just as a pearl-diver, tying a stone to his waist, dives into the sea and takes the pearl lying at the bottom, so everyone, diving deep within himself with non-attachment (vairagya), can attain the pearl of Self. If one resorts uninterruptedly to Self-remembrance (swarupa-smaranai, that is, remembrance of or attention to the mere feeling ‘I’) until one attains Self, that alone will be sufficient. As long as there are enemies within the fort, they will continue to come out. If one continues to cut all of them down as and when they come, the fort will fall into our hands.

Source: The Path of Sri Ramana Part 1 book By Sadhu Om

Talk 22.

Mrs. Piggott returned from Madras for a further visit. She asked questions relating to diet regulation.

D.: What diet is prescribed for a sadhak (one who is engaged in spiritual practices)?

M.: Satvic food in limited quantities.

D.: What is satvic food?

M.: Bread, fruits, vegetables, milk, etc.

D.: Is it not killing life to prepare meat diet?

M.: Ahimsa stands foremost in the code of discipline for the yogis.

D.: Even plants have life.

M.: So too the slabs you sit on!

Source: TALKS WITH SRI RAMANA MAHARSHI Book

Further more anyhow Lord krishna clearly says in Gita Chapter 9 Text 26

If one offers Me with love and devotion a leaf, a flower, fruit or water, I will accept it.


More over i suggest reader to see these shocking videos
Shocking Video of Animal Cruelty

Ramana Maharshi says efforts towards knowing various worlds by mind are waste

“Although the world and the mind rise and set together, it is by the mind alone that the world shines...”. -- ‘Ulladhu Narpadhu’, verse 7

Let us suppose that a man in the dark room wants to stop observing the objects in the room, which are seen by means of the reflected light, and is possessed instead by a longing to see its source, ‘Whence comes this light ?’. If so, he should go to the very spot where the reflected beam strikes the wall, position his eyes and look back along the beam. What does he see then ? The sun ! But what he now sees is not the real sun; it is only a reflection of it,Furthermore, it will appear to him as if the sun is lying at a certain spot on the ground outside the room! The particular spot where the sun is seen lying outside can even be pointed out as being so many feet to the right or left of the room (like saying, “Two digits ‘to the right from the centre of the chest is the heart”). But, does the sun really lie thus on the ground at that spot ? No, that is only the place whence the reflected beam rises ! What should he do if he wants to see the real sun ! He must keep his eyes positioned along the straight line in which the reflected beam comes and, without moving them to either side of it. follow it towards the reflected sun which is then visible to him.

Just as the man in the dark room, deciding to see the source of the reflected beam which has come into the room, gives up the desire either to enjoy or to make research about the things there with the help of that reflected beam, so a man who wants to know the real Light (Self) must give up all efforts towards enjoying or knowing about the various worlds which shine only by means of the mind-light functioning through the five senses, since he cannot know Self either if he is deluded by cognizing and desiring external objects (like a worldly man) or if he is engaged in investigating them (like our modern scientists). This giving up of attention towards external sense-objects is desirelessness (vairagya) or inward renunciation. The eagerness to see whence the reflected ray comes into the room corresponds to the eagerness to see whence the ego. ‘I’, the mind-light, rises. This eagerness is love for Self (swatma-bhakti). Keeping the eyes positioned along the straight line of the beam without straying away to one side or the other corresponds to the one-pointed attention fixed unswervingly on the ‘I’ – consciousness. Is not the man now moving along the straight line of the reflected beam from the dark room towards the piece of mirror lying outside? This moving corresponds to diving within towards the Heart.

Source: The Path of Sri Ramana Part 1 book

Ramana Maharshi explains why japa is roundabout method

Let us suppose a man buys a cow and for various reasons keeps it tied up in another man’s shed for quite some days. When the owner one day tries to bring the cow to its own shed after it has become accustomed – through force of habit (abhyasa bala) – to its former surroundings, will it come to its own place and keep quiet? No, it will run back to the other man’s shed.So any intelligent farmer buying a new cow will train it to remain in its own shed by tying it only there. Similarly. aspirants who have developed mental strength by concentrating on second and third person objects (which are other than Self) struggle and find it difficult even to understand what Self-attention – knowing one’s own existence – is, and how to take the feeling of one’s own existence as the target ! It is often said, “Let me first gain strength of mind by training it in other practices, and then let me take to Self-enquiry”; but it is the experience of anyone who has trained his mind in other practices over a long period of time that such a mind is still weaker to turn Self wards than even an ordinary mind untrained in any other practice.

“When the truth is such,why did Sri Bhagavan say in ‘ Who am I’,’ By meditation upon forms of God (murti-dhyana) and by repetition of sacred words (mantra-japa), thoughts subside more and more, and for the mind which thus gains one-pointedness and strength, Self-enquiry will easily be attained’? Therefore, will not Self-enquiry become easy for those who do japa or dhyana ?”


We should scrutinize deeply what is actually meant in the work ‘Who am I?’. Since the perpetually wandering mind expands into innumerable thoughts, each thought becomes extremely weak. Just as when an iron chain is given to the restless trunk of an elephant, the elephant will cling fast only to that and will not do any mischief with its trunk, so if the mind is trained to hold on to anyone of the names or forms of God, it will gain one-pointedness, that is,the strength to cling to one thing only. In this way, the mind merely loses the nature of branching out into many thoughts.

Though through japa and dhyana the mind achieves the strength not to branch out into many thoughts and thereby become weak, it is still dwelling only upon a second person. Thus the practice of japa or dhyana develops the power of the mind to cling with great attachment only to one second person or another. In this way, the second great impediment, namely the inability to turn the mind from second persons to the first person is unknowingly increased. Therefore, when such a mind is to turn Selfwards, it will find it to be a very difficult task. This is the truth we have to learn from the personal experience of Sri Ganapati Muni. Let us now explain with a simile how acquiring the power of one-pointedness of mind through such practices as japa and dhyana becomes a great obstacle to Self-attention.

Let us suppose that a certain man has decided to go by cycle from Tiruvannamalai to Vellore, a town fifty miles north of Tiruvannamalai, but does not know the art of cycling. If he trains himself to cycle by practising along the road leading to Tirukoilur, a town twenty miles south of Tiruvannamalai, after many hours he will have learnt the skill of cycling. But he will now be twenty miles south of Tiruvannamalai, that is, seventy miles away from Vellore,his destination. So will he not now have to make far more effort and waste far more time in order to reach Vellore? Instead of this, if he had from the very beginning started to train himself to cycle by practising along the road towards Vellore, after the same number of hours he would have travelled twenty miles closer to Vellore. Besides. since he would have learnt the skill of cycling by that time, he could have easily completed the remaining thirty miles and reached his destination without undue expenditure of time and effort.

Since the practice of japa or dhyana prevents the mind from branching out into various thoughts pertaining to sense-objects and thereby becoming weak, Sri Bhagavan said in ‘Who am I?’ that they give strength to the mind. But He said so taking into consideration only one benefit,namely that of saving the mind from the calamity of branching out into innumerable thoughts caused by the tendencies towards sense-objects (vishaya-vasanas).Moreover, the strength mentioned thereby, Sri Bhagavan is not that strength which is required for Self-enquiry and which He had mentioned earlier in the work ‘Who am I?’ when He wrote, “By repeatedly practising thus, the strength of the mind to abide (or dwell) in its source increases”. It is only a strength to dwell upon an object other than Self, that is, upon a second person.

The help towards success in Self-enquiry which is derived from japa and dhyana is similar to the help in reaching Vellore which is gained by learning cycling along the road to Tirukoilur, for just as in the long run practising cycling on the road to Tirukoilur may be an indirect aid towards reaching Vellore, so in the long run practising japa and dhyana may be an indirect aid towards attaining Self.Likewise, the hindrance towards success in Self-enquiry which is created by japa and dhyana is similar to the hindrance which is created by learning cycling along the road to Tirukoilur, for, just as practising cycling on the road to Tirukoilur takes the man far away from his destination, so practising japa and dhyana hinders one by taking one far away from Self.

Source: The Path of Sri Ramana Part 1 book

Ramana Maharshi says The sastras are like the words of the father in the story

One evening a young boy went for a stroll with his father. When dusk had almost set in, he beheld a tree-trunk from which the branches and leaves had been cut off. He was terrified and screamed, “Oh Father! There, see, a ghost!” Though his father knew the truth that it was just the stem of a tree, he assured the boy,” Oh, that ghost! It cannot do you any harm. I am here and will see to it, Come on”; so saying, he led the boy away. On hearing the encouraging words of his father, the boy took them to mean, ‘My father is stronger than the ghost and that is why he says that it can do me no harm’. This conclusion of the boy is similar to the understanding of the pandits about the meaning of the Yoga and Vedanta sastras !.

Next evening, while going, for a stroll with his teacher along the same path, the boy exclaimed, “Sir, look ! There’s the ghost; we saw it yesterday also ,” The teacher pitied him for his ignorance and said, “That is not a ghost”, But the boy persisted, “No sir, my father also saw it yesterday; he even assured me that he would see to it that it could do me no harm; but sir, you say it is not a ghost at all’” Would the teacher yield so easily? He said, “Go near it and see for yourself; I will shine the flashlight on it. If it turns out to be a ghost, I too will see to it !”

The sastras are like the words of the father in the story. The father also knew well that it was not a ghost. Similarly, the great Sages who gave these sastras also knew well the absolute truth (paramarthika satya) that nothing such as the ego, body, or world has ever come into existence at all. The father, knowing that his son was quite unfit to make a closer examination on account of his much frightened state at that time, talked to him as if he were also accepting the existence of the false ghost imagined by his son. Even while talking like that, he was not telling a lie. To allay quickly the fear of his son, he said, ‘The ghost cannot do you any harm: That was indeed the truth! However, what the teacher told him the next day was the absolute truth (paramarthika satya). Although the, teacher’s statement that it was not a ghost seems to contradict the father’s statement, does it not in fact lend more support to the objective of the father’s statement that the ghost could do the boy no harm, by making him see for himself that it was after all only the stem of a tree? By thus fulfilling the father’s objective does not the statement of the teacher breathe new life into that of the father”? Instead of understanding thus, if the boy were to conclude,’ Either my teacher has condemned my father, Of my father has told me an outright lie’, it would be utterly wrong on his part. Similarly, Sri Bhagavan has neither condemned the sastras, nor shown them to be false; nor have the sastras stated untruths. If any reader were to come to this mistaken conclusion about Sri Bhagavan, ‘he would be just as much wrong as would have been the boy in our story.

“Reason does not contradict, but fulfils. No Sage has ever come to contradict”. Jesus Christ meant the very same thing when He said, “I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil” (Sermon on the Mount) !

Source: The Path of Sri Ramana Part 1 book By Sri Sadhu Om

Ramana Maharshi About Social Service

If one tries to see everything as God before realizing the true nature of self by surrendering the mind to him, all one’s efforts will be a mere act of imagination by the mind.Without knowing God as he really is, how to see everything as his form? If you want to see this pen as a tiger, by an act of imagination you may do so: this end is its head, this end is its tail, here is its mouth, there are its eyes, and so on. Because you have seen a tiger, you can imagine like this. But if you have never seen a tiger and if you have no idea what a tiger is,you cannot even imagine this pen as a tiger. If you say, “I see this pen as a tiger: here are its wings, there are its wheels”, and so on, is it not clear that you have never seen a tiger? Equally meaningless and laughable are the claims of those people who have not realized self but who say, “I see everything as God; I see this stone as God; I see that table as God; I see God in every object and in every person; I see God in the beggars and poor people; I love all people as myself”.

The ideal of the karma yogi is to see, to love and to worship everything as the form of God.But so long as he tries to achieve this ideal while still retaining the mind, his seeing, loving and worshipping everything as God is a mere imagination and cannot be real. Therefore in this verse Sri Bhagavan teaches that if the karma yogi is truly to see, to love and to worship everything as God, he must first surrender his mind to God. Only after surrendering his mind can he know God as he really is, and then only can he see and love everything as God. That is why Sri Bhagavan used to say, “An atma-jnani alone is a true karma yogi”.

Nowadays there are so many people who claim, “We are karma yogis. We have surrendered ourselves to God. We are able to see God in everything, and hence we love all people.Since we see all people as God, who is the form of bliss, we are doing social service to remove their sufferings! For us work is worship, and therefore we are busy building schools and establishing hospitals. If any areas are affected by floods or by drought, we have to do relief work by taking food packets to the afflicted people. Doing such activities is truly loving all people as God. Doing such social service is the best means to attain moksha (liberation)”. People who talk in this manner are not only cheating others but also cheating themselves.Not knowing what God is, they imagine that they are able to see God in everything. When they cheat themselves wantonly in this manner, a subtle egoism begins to grow in their mind making them feel that they are right in all their actions and even that they are spiritually more advanced than other people. Only when death comes will they receive the proper whiplash –then they will be made to feel, “We have been cheating ourselves all along. What will become of us now? Where are we going now?” Without being able to understand anything clearly, they will end their life in a state of mental confusion. If a state of clarity is to come at the time of death, now itself they should give up cheating themselves.

Source: SRI ARUNACHALA PANCHARATNAM book

Q: But how can I help another with his problem, his troubles?

A: What is this talk of another - there is only the one. Try to realize that there is no I, no you, no he, only the one Self which is all. If you believe in the problem of another, you are believing in something outside the Self. You will best help him by realising the oneness of everything rather than by outward activity.

Source: I Am That Book

What progress mankind made so far?

A dog went to the cremation ground. It picked up a sharp piece of bone from which the flesh had been completely burnt off and started munching it. The sharp edges of the bone pierced the dog’s mouth in many places and there was bleeding. The dog dropped it, but seeing blood smeared all over it, it thought that the blood was coming from the bone because of its ravenous munching. It licked the blood and again started chewing the bone even more ravenously, with the result that there were more wounds in its mouth and more bleeding. The foolish dog went on repeating this process of dropping the bone, licking the blood and again chewing the bone. Little did that foolish dog realize that in fact the blood came from its own mouth and not from the bone!

“A foolish dog picked up a bone,
Bereft of flesh because ‘twas burnt,
Masticated many a round
Till its mouth was filled with wounds,
Licked end praised the blood, its own,
‘No thing on earth equals this bone’,
-- ‘Guru Vachaka Kovai’, verse 585

Similarly, when a man enjoys external objects, he only experiences a little of the happiness that is already within him. But, on account of ignorance, he thinks that the happiness comes from the external objects, and thus he behaves like the dog in the story. Exactly like the dog that munched the bone again and again, throughout his life man repeatedly searches for and accumulates external objects. What is the result of all this? Alas ! Untold heaps of misery, with a few iotas of pleasure in between – that is all! Indeed, all this is ignorance, otherwise called maya!

All the researches and efforts of mankind, from the stone age to the modern atomic age, in different fields of endeavour, be they intellectual, scientific or social – are they not all similar to the efforts of the dog which untiringly munches the bone? Do not feel offended by this statement, which may seem to be a sweeping one, for when told without reserve, this is the plain truth! Tell me, what indeed has mankind done in the name of progress so far, other than improving and accumulating external objects for the satisfaction of the five senses? All the aforesaid human efforts are based upon nothing but the wrong assumption that happiness comes from external objects. Is there any difference between the dog which thinks that more blood will come out of the dry bone the more it is munched, and the man who thinks that humanity will be made increasingly happy by accumulating more and more external objects through the improvements of scientific and industrial progress? Certainly not!

Thus, not knowing the right path for obtaining everlasting happiness, humanity has gone too far and is racing still further in the wrong direction! There is no wrong in man’s love for happiness. It is his birthright. It is in fact the birthright of all living beings. Thus happiness should be obtained and should never be suppressed! But do not toil to achieve objects of worldly pleasure, which give only an iota of fleeting happiness. Direct all your efforts only to towards obtaining happiness in full. By desiring petty external objects you get only a transient and limited happiness. Therefore, be not a person of petty desire! Be a person of full desire! Until perfect happiness is obtained, do not give up your efforts. Know the way to experience always and uninterruptedly that happiness (ananda) which is you,and which exists (sat) and shines (chit) within you as your real nature. This is the goal supreme (purushartha), the very purpose for which you were born.

Source: The Path of Sri Ramana Part 1 book by Sadhu Om

Ramana Maharshi behavior to thieves

It was at 11-30 in the middle of the night of the 26th of June 1924. Though at that time Sri Ramanasramam consisted of only a few thatched sheds, some thieves came thinking it to be a rich mutt. They tried to break in through the windows by smashing them, and threatened to destroy everything. The noise woke up the devotees who were sleeping in the shed where Sri Bhagavan was Iying. Sri Bhagavan invited the thieves to come in through the proper doorway and asked the devotees to give them a hurricanelamp so that they could look for whatever they wanted, yet they shouted angrily, “Where are you keeping your money?”. “We are sadhus who live by begging, we have no money. From what you can find here, you may take away anything you want. We will come outside,” so saying, Sri Bhagavan came and sat outside followed by the devotees. As they came out of the shed, the thieves beat them with sticks, and one blow even fell on the thigh of Sri Bhagavan. “If you are still not satisifed, beat the other thigh as well,” said Sri Bhagavan, feeling sorry for them!

The Sage not only bore their attack patiently, but requested them to take a meal before they departed. He actually offered them some food.

Was this to be the limit of His kindness towards the thieves? No, He also prevented a young devotee who,unable to bear the sight of Sri Bhagavan being beaten,jumped up with an iron bar in retaliation. Sri Bhagavan advised him, “Let them do their dharma [i.e. role]. We are sadhus, we should not give up our dharma. In future, the world will blame only us if any wrong happens. When our teeth bite our tongue, do we break them and throw them away?”

“Though others do wrong to one, it is best not to return the same in wrath.” ‘Tirukkural’, verse 157

Some days later the police caught the thieves and brought them before Sri Bhagavan, and an officer asked Him to identify the one who had beaten Him on that night. Sri Bhagavan at once replied with a smile, “Find out whom I beat [in a previous birth], for it is he who has beaten me now!”. He never denounced the criminal!

“Conquer the foe by your worthy patience and for ever forget the wrong done to you on account of ignorance.” ‘Tirukkural’, verse 157

“The right way of punishing the wrong-doer is to do good to him and to forget his wrong.” ‘Tirukkural’, verse 314

Source: The Path of Sri Ramana Part 1 book By Sri Sadhu Om

Source: The Maharshi and His Message By Paul Brunton

Ramana Maharshi comments about Lord krishna Universal Form

V - Visitor in Ramana Asharam
Bh - Ramana Maharshi


V. Arjuna saw the Divine Form of Sri Krishna. Was that vision true?

Bh. Sri Krishna started the discourse in Chapter II of the Bhagavad Gita with: “I have no form,” etc., but in Chapter XI, He said: “I transcend the three worlds . . . ,” yet Arjuna saw these in Him. Again Sri Krishna said: “I am Time.” Does time have a form? If the universe is His form, should it not be uniform and changeless, He being the Changeless One? The solution to these apparent contradictions lies in His statement to Arjuna: “See in Me all you desire to see. . . ,” which means that His form varies according to the desires and conceptions of the seer. Men speak of divine visions, yet paint them differently with the seer himself in the scene. Even hypnotists can make one see strange scenes and phenomena, which you condemn as tricks and jugglery,whereas the former you extol as Divine. Why is this difference? The fact is that all sights are unreal, whether they come from the senses or the mind as pure concepts. THIS IS THE TRUTH.

Source: GURU RAMANA MEMORIES AND NOTES book

Testimony of Islam to Ramana Maharshi’s Life and Teachings

The devotees of Ramana are acquainted with his simple and uneventful life. He lived a plain life to the end. He was without any pose or pretensions. Not only that he was a great teacher and lived in a high plane of his own but he was utterly human in every day life. He had love and sympathy for every living creature as a true Brahmin should have. He mended his own stick, took part in the cutting of vegetables and cooking some food now and then. His sense of unity and equality of mankind was so great that he never accepted anything prepared for himself but had it distributed equally to all persons present in his hall. Men of every race, caste, creed, sex, high and low,rich and poor, visited him and to him all were alike. He never showed any preference to men of position or looked down upon a pariah or a panchama. To him all were accessible.

So was the Prophet of Islam. He believed in the brotherhood of man and treated all men alike. He used to say to his followers, Ana mislakum, that is “I am one like you”. To him Jew or gentile, Muslim or non- Muslim were alike. Whenever a non-Muslim visited him when he was sitting in his mosque engaged in prayer he would at once rise up from his seat, spread his own cloak and seat him respectfully. He mended his own shoes and patched up his own worn-out garment. Nothing was left in his household for the morrow. All that he received during the course of a day was distributed to the needy and the poor. He often said Al faqr fakhri, that is to say, ‘poverty is my pride’. He took keen interest in the welfare of human beings and used to retire to a cave for spiritual meditation. Thus we see there is a close similarity between his life and that of our beloved Maharshi.

We all know how Maharshi repeatedly enjoined us to surrender completely to God’s will and be at peace with all, sink and bury our differences. In fact once he said, “Burn them and turn to the abode of peace, your own heart.” Islam is derived from the root Salama which means peace, tranquillity and finally surrender of oneself to the Divine. ‘The word Islam’, says Deutch, a German writer, ‘implies absolute submission to God’s will’. Hazrat Ali, the fourth Caliph, the son-in-law of the Prophet said that “No one can have any conception of God unless he knows his own Self.” Thus confirming Bhagavan’s repeated teachings in all his well known books.

Further it is said in the Quran, “We are of God and to Him shall we return”(Quran, Chapter II, verse 156). This clearly indicates whence we came and whither we are going. Man’s inherent divinity is expressed in these unequivocal words of the Quran. “God breathed His own breath in the nostril of man.Man was created after the face of God.”

The man who says,‘Ana’l-abd’ ‘I am the slave of God,’ affirms two existences, his own and God’s, but he that says ‘Ana’l-Haqq’ ‘I am God’ has made himself non-existent and has given himself up and says, ‘I am God,’ i.e.‘I am naught, He is all: there is no being but God’s.’ This is the extreme of humility and selfabasement.”

These two quotations bear fullest and clearest testimony to Bhagavan’s teachings as embodied in his books Self Enquiry and Who am I? and others.

Source: The Silent Power of Ramana Maharshi book

Important Events in Sri Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi's Life

1879 December 30, Monday – corresponding to 16, Margali of Tamil Year Pramadi – Star Punarvasu – Ardra Darshan Day – Born at 1 a.m. at Tiruchuli (‘Sri Sundara Mandiram’).

1891 Moves to Dindigul, after completing elementary education at Tiruchuli.

1892 February 18: Death of father, Sundaram Iyer. Moves to Madurai. Studies at Scott’s Middle School and American Mission High School.

1895 November: Hears of ‘Arunachala’ mentioned to him by an elderly relative.

1896 (about middle of July): ‘Death Experience’ at Madurai ending in complete and permanent Realisation of the Self (‘Sri Ramana Mandiram’).

August 29, Saturday: Leaves Madurai for Arunachala.

September 1 – Tuesday: Arrives in Arunachala – Stays in the Temple premises within the Thousand-pillared Hall,beneath the Illupai Tree, in Pathala Linga (underground cellar), sometimes in the Gopuram.

1897 Moves to Gurumurtam in the outskirts of the town (early in the year).
Stays in the shrine and the adjoining Mango grove.

1898 May: Uncle Nelliappa Iyer visits Bhagavan at Mango grove.

September: Moves to Pavalakkunru.

December: Mother Alagammal visits Bhagavan at Pavalakkunru.

1899 February: Moves to the Hill, Arunachala. Stays in various caves up the Hill, but mostly in Virupaksha Cave, using Mango Tree Cave as summer residence.

1900 Replies to questions put by Gambiram Seshayya, at Virupaksha Cave.

1902 (The above published as Self-enquiry)
1902 Answers to questions asked by Sivaprakasam Pillai (Who am I?)

1905 Moves to Pachaiamman Koil for six months during the plague epidemic — returns to the Hill.

1907 November 18: Momentous meeting between Bhagavan and Kavyakanta Ganapati Muni. Bhagavan imparts upadesa to Muni.

1908 (January to March): Stays at Pachaiamman Koil (with Ganapati Muni and others) and again goes back to Virupaksha Cave.

Translates into Tamil prose Adi Sankara’s Viveka Chudamanai and Drik Drisya Viveka.

1911 November: F.H. Humphreys, the first Westerner, meets Bhagavan.

1912 Second death experience at Tortoise Rock in the presence of Vasudeva Sastry and others.

1914 Offers prayers (songs) to Arunachala for Mother’s recovery from illness.

1915 The Song of the Pappadum written for the sake of mother. The following were also written during Virupaksha days:Arunachala Aksharamanamalai, Arunachala Padikam, Arunachala Ashtakam, Translation of Devi Kalottara,Translation of Adi Sankara’s Hymn to Dakshinamurti,Guru Stuti and Hastamalaka Stotra.

1916 Moves to Skandashram.

1917 Composes Arunachala Pancharatnam in Sanskrit. Mother settles at Skandashram. Sri Ramana Gita in Sanskrit written by Ganapati Muni.

1922 May 19, Friday: Mother’s Maha Samadhi.

Middle of December: Moves to the present site of Sri Ramanasramam.

1927 Composes Upadesa Sara in Tamil, Telugu, Sanskrit and Malayalam.

April 24: Composes Atma Vidya (Self Knowledge).

1928 Composes Ulladu Narpadu (Forty Verses on Reality) in Tamil and Malayalam (Sat Darshanam).

1930 Sat Darshanam in Sanskrit (translated from Tamil by Ganapati Muni).

1933 Translated into Tamil the Agama: Sarvajnanotharam – Atma Sakshatkara.

1939 September 1, Thursday: Foundation laid by Bhagavan for the Matrubhuteswara Temple.

1940 Selects 42 verses from The Bhagavad Gita (now entitled The Song Celestial) and translates them into Tamil and Malayalam.

1947 February: Composes Ekatma Panchakam (Five Verses on the Self ) in Telugu and Tamil.

1948 June 18: Cow Lakhsmi attains Nirvana. Translates into Tamil Atma Bodha of Adi Sankara.

1949 March 17, Thursday – Kumbabhishekam of Matrubhuteswara Temple in the presence of Bhagavan.

1950 April 14, Friday: Brahma Nirvana of Bhagavan at 8-47 p.m. At that moment a shooting star, vividly luminous,coming from the South (the present Nirvana Room) and moving slowly northward across the sky and disappearing behind the peak of Arunachala was observed by many in various parts of India.


Source: The Silent Power of Ramana Maharshi book

Ramana Maharshi about complete Surrender to God

Remaining firmly in Self-abidance (atma-nishtha),without giving even the least room to the rising of any thought other than the thought of Self (atma-chintanai),is surrendering oneself to God. However much burden we throw on God, He bears all of it. Since the one Supreme Ruling Power (parameswara sakti) is performing all activities, why should we, instead of yielding ourself to it,constantly think. ‘I should act in this way; I should act in that way’? When we know that the train is bearing all the burdens, why should we who travel in it, instead of placing even our small luggage in it and being happily at ease,suffer by bearing it (our luggage) on our own head?

Source: The Path of Sri Ramana PART ONE The Jñana aspect of the teaching By Sri Sadhu Om

D - Devotee
B - Ramana Maharshi

D.: What is unconditional surrender?

B.: If one surrenders completely, there will be no one left to ask questions or to be considered. Either the thoughts are eliminated by holding on to the root thought, ‘I’, or one surrenders unconditionally to the Higher Power. These are the only two ways to Realisation.

B.: There are only two ways to conquer destiny or to be independent of it. One is to enquire whose this destiny is and to discover that only the ego is bound by it and not the Self, and that the ego is non-existent. The other way is to kill the ego by completely surrendering to the Lord, realising one’s helplessness and saying all the time: ‘Not I, but Thou, oh Lord!’, giving up all sense of ‘I’ and ‘mine’ and leaving it to the Lord to do what he likes with you. Surrender can never be regarded as complete so long as the devotee wants this or that from the Lord. True surrender is the love of God for the sake of love and nothing else, not even for the sake of salvation. In other words, complete effacement of the ego is necessary to conquer destiny, whether you achieve this effacement through Self-enquiry or through bhakti-marga.

The spark of spiritual knowledge (Jnana) will consume all creation like a mountain-heap of cotton. Since all the countless worlds are built upon the weak or non-existent foundations of the ego, they all disintegrate when the atom-bomb of knowledge falls on them. All talk of surrender is like stealing sugar from a sugar image of Ganesha and then offering it to the same Ganesha. You say that you offer up your body and soul and all your possessions to God, but were they yours to offer? At best you can say: ‘I wrongly imagined till now that all these, which are Yours, were mine. Now I realise that they are Yours and I shall no longer act as though they were mine.’ And this knowledge that there is nothing but God or the Self, that ‘I’ and ‘mine’ do not exist and that only the Self exists, is Jnana.

It is enough that one surrenders oneself. Surrender is giving oneself up to the original cause of one’s being. Do not delude yourself by imagining this source to be some God outside you. One’s source is within oneself. Give yourself up to it. That means that you should seek the source and merge in it. Because you imagine yourself to be out of it, you raise the question, ‘Where is the source?’ Some contend that just as sugar cannot taste its own sweetness for there must be someone to taste and enjoy it, so an individual cannot both be the Supreme and also enjoy the Bliss of that State; therefore the individuality must be maintained separate from the Godhead in order to make enjoyment possible. But is God insentient like sugar? How can one surrender oneself and yet retain one’s individuality for supreme enjoyment? Furthermore they also say that the soul,on reaching the divine region and remaining there, serves the supreme Being. Can the sound of the word ‘service’ deceive the Lord? Does He not know? Is He waiting for these people’s services? Would He not – Pure Consciousness – ask in turn: ‘Who are you apart from Me that presume to serve Me?’

As often as one tries to surrender, the ego raises its head and one has to try to suppress it. Surrender is not an easy thing. Killing the ego is not an easy thing. It is only when God Himself by His Grace draws the mind inwards that complete surrender can be achieved.

Dr. Syed asked Bhagavan: Doesn’t total or complete surrender imply that even desire for liberation or God should be given up?

B.: Complete surrender does imply that you should have no desire of your own, that God’s will alone is your will and you have no will of your own.

Dr. S.: Now that I am satisfied on that point, I want to know what are the steps by which I can achieve surrender?

B.: There are two ways; one is looking into the source of the ‘I’ and merging into that source; the other is feeling ‘I am helpless by myself. God alone is all-powerful and except for throwing myself completely on Him there is no other means of safety for me,’ and thus gradually developing the conviction that God alone exists and the ego does not count. Both methods lead to the same goal. Complete surrender is another name for Jnana or Liberation.

D.: I find surrender impossible.

B.: Complete surrender is impossible in the beginning but partial surrender is possible for all. In course of time that will lead to complete surrender.

B.: Whoever objects to his having a separate God to worship so long as he needs one? Through devotion he develops until he comes to feel that God alone exists, and that he himself does not count. He comes to a stage when he says. ‘Not I but Thou; not my will, but Thine’. When that stage is reached,which is called complete surrender in bhakti marga, one finds that effacement of the ego is the attainment of the Self. We need not quarrel whether there are two entities or more or only one. Even according to dualists and according to bhakti marga, complete surrender is necessary. Do that first and then see for yourself whether the one Self alone exists or whether there are two or more.

Source: The Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi in His Own Words book

Ramana Maharshi answers why are so many gods in hinduism

D - Devotee
M- Ramana Maharshi


D.: I come from God. Isn’t God distinct from me?

B.: Who asks this question? God does not. You do. So find who you are and then you may find out whether God is distinct from you.

D.: But God is perfect and I am imperfect. How can I ever know Him fully?

B.: God does not say so. It is you who ask the question.After finding out who you are, you may know what God is.

D.: But you have found your Self. Please let us know if God is distinct from you.

D.: Why are so many gods mentioned?

B.: The body is only one, but how many functions are performed by it! The source of all these functions is one. It is the same with the gods.


D.: But you are addressing God. You are specifying this Arunachala Hill as God.

B.: You can identify the Self with the body, so why shouldn’t the devotees identify the Self with Arunachala?

D.: If Arunachala is the Self, why should it be specifically picked out among so many other hills? God is everywhere. Why do you specify Him as Arunachala?

B.: What has attracted you from Allahabad to this place? What has attracted all these people around?

D.: Sri Bhagavan.

B.: How was I attracted here? By Arunachala. The Power cannot be denied. Again Arunachala is within and not without. The Self is Arunachala.

Source: The Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi in His Own Words book

Ramana Maharshi says All suffering in the world is for good sake

D - Devotee
M - Ramana Maharshi


D.: I have a toothache; is that only a thought?

B.: Yes.

D.: Then why can’t I think that there is no toothache, and so cure myself?

B.: One does not feel the toothache when one is absorbed in other thoughts or when asleep.

D.: But still it remains.

B.: So strong is man’s conviction of the reality of the world that it is not easily shaken off. But the world is no more real than the individual who sees it.

D.: But why should there be suffering now?

B.: If there were no suffering, how could the desire to be happy arise? If that desire did not arise, how could the quest of the Self arise?

D.: Then is all suffering good?

B.: Yes. What is happiness? Is it a healthy and handsome body, regular meals and so on? Even an emperor has endless troubles although he may be in good health. So all suffering is due to the false notion ‘I am the body’. Getting rid of this is knowledge.

Source: The Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi in His Own Words book

Ramana Maharshi says It is the ego which has come between deep sleep and waking state

D -- Devotee
B - Bhagawan Ramana Maharshi

D.: I don’t know whether the Self is different from the ego.

B.: In what state were you in deep sleep?

D.: I don’t know.

B.: Who doesn’t know? The waking self? But you don’t deny that you existed while in deep sleep?

D.: I was and am, but I don’t know who was in deep sleep.

B.: Exactly. The waking man says that he did not know anything in the state of deep sleep. Now he sees objects and knows that he exists but in deep sleep there were no objects and no spectator.

And yet the same person who is speaking now existed in deep sleep also. What is the difference between the two states? There are objects and the play of the senses now, while in deep sleep there were not.

A new entity, the ego, has arisen. It acts through the senses, sees objects, confuses itself with the body and claims to be the Self. In reality, what was in deep sleep continues to be now also. The Self is changeless. It is the ego which has come between. That which rises and sets is the ego. That which remains changeless is the Self.

B.: Waking, dream and sleep are mere phases of the mind, not of the Self. The Self is the witness of these three states. Your true nature exists in sleep.

D.: But we are advised not to fall asleep during meditation.

B.: It is stupor which you must guard against. That sleep which alternates with waking is not the true sleep. That waking which alternates with sleep is not the true waking. Are you awake now? No. What you have to do is to wake up to your true state. You should neither fall into false sleep nor remain falsely awake.

Source: The Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi in His Own Words book

Ramana Maharshi says the four qualities required to succeed in Self Enquiry

D.: What are the sadhanas or requisites for this process?

M.: The knowers say that the sadhanas consist of an ability to discern the real from the unreal, no desire for pleasures here or hereafter, cessation of activities (karma) and a keen desire to be liberated. Not qualified with all these four qualities, however hard one may try, one cannot succeed in enquiry.

D - Devotee
M - Ramana Maharshi


Source: BOOK EXTRACTS OF ALL BOOKS OF RAMANA MAHARSHI

Ramana maharshi reasons Why few scholars in Vedanta have not succeeded

d - Devotee
M - Maharshi Ramana


D: What are the sadhanas or requisites for this process?

M.: The knowers say that the sadhanas consist of an ability to discern the real from the unreal, no desire for pleasures here or hereafter, cessation of activities (karma) and a keen desire to be liberated. Not qualified with all these four qualities, however hard one may try, one cannot succeed in enquiry. Therefore this fourfold sadhana is the sine qua non for enquiry.


Discernment (viveka) can arise only in a purified mind. Its ‘nature’ is the conviction gained by the help of sacred teachings that only Brahman is real and all else false. Always to remember this truth is its ‘effect’. Its end (avadhi) is to be settled unwavering in the truth that only Brahman is and all else is unreal. Desirelessness (vairagya) is the result of the outlook that the world is essentially faulty. Its ‘nature’ is to renounce the world and have no desire for anything in it. Its ‘effect’ is to turn away in disgust from all enjoyments as from vomit. It ends (avadhi) in treatment with contempt of all pleasures, earthly or heavenly, as if they were vomit or burning fire or hell.

Desire to be liberated (mumukshutva) begins with the association with realised sages. Its ‘nature’ is the yearning for liberation. Its ‘effect’ is to stay with one’s master. It ends (avadhi) in giving up all study of shastras and performance of religious rites.

D.: How is it that even scholars in Vedanta have not succeeded in the pursuit of enquiry?


M.: Though they always study Vedanta and give lessons to others yet in the absence of desirelessness they do not practise what they have learnt.

D.: And what do they do otherwise?

M.: Like a parrot they reproduce the Vedantic jargon but do not put the teachings into practice.


D.: What does Vedanta teach?

M.: The Vedanta teaches a man to know that all but the non-dual Brahman is laden with misery, therefore to leave off all desires for enjoyment, to be free from love or hate, thoroughly to cut the knot of the ego and to remain fixed in the perfect knowledge of the equality of all and making no distinction of any kind, never to be aware of anything but Brahman, and always to be experiencing the Bliss of the nondual Self.

Though Vedanta is read and well understood, if dispassion is not practised, the desire for pleasures will not fade away. However well read one may be, unless the teachings are put into practice, one is not really learned. Only like a parrot the man will be repeating that Brahman alone is real and all else is false.

D.: Why should he be so?

M.: The knowers say that like a dog delighting in offal,this man also delights in external pleasures. Though always busy with Vedanta, reading and teaching it, he is no better than a mean dog.

D.: What authority is there for saying that a man not otherwise qualified but intensely desirous of liberation remains ever unhappy?

M.: In the Suta Samhita it is said that those desirous of enjoyments and yet yearning for liberation are surely bitten by the deadly serpent of samsara and therefore dazed by its poison. This is the authority.

Source: ADVAITA BODHA DEEPIKA book

Ramana Maharshi explains how can the single Reality manifest as innumerable jivas?

D.: If the Supreme Self had by joining the I-mode of the mind become the illusory jiva he should appear as a single jiva. But there are many jivas. How can the single Reality manifest as innumerable jivas?

M.: As soon as the illusion of a single jiva becomes operative in the Pure Supreme Self, it naturally begets other illusory jivas in the Pure Ether of Knowledge. If a dog enters a room walled by mirrors, it first gives rise to one reflection in one mirror which by a series of reflections becomes innumerable and the dog finding itself surrounded by so many other dogs growls and shows fight. So it is with the Self of pure, non-dual Ether of Consciousness. The illusion of one jiva is perforce associated with illusion of several jivas.

Again, the habit of seeing the world as you-I-he etc., forces the dreamer to see similar illusory entities in dreams also. Similarly the accumulated habits of past births make the Self which is only pure Knowledge-Ether see numberless illusory jivas even now. What can be beyond the scope of Maya which is itself inscrutable? Now this done, listen to how the bodies and the spheres were created.

Just as the Supreme Self is presented as “I” by the I-mode of Maya, so also It is presented by the ‘this’ mode as this universe with all its contents.

D.: How?

M.: The power of multiplicity is the ‘this’ mode whose nature is to be imagining ‘this’ and ‘that’. In the Ether of Consciousness it recollects the millions of latencies, as ‘this’ and ‘that’. Being stirred up by these latencies, the jiva though itself the Ether of consciousness, now manifests as the individual body
etc., the external worlds and the diversities.

D.: How can the latencies themselves appear as this vast universe?

M.: A man remaining unmoving and happy in deep sleep, when stirred up by the rising latencies, sees illusory dream visions of creatures and worlds; they are nothing but the latencies in him. So in the waking state also he is deluded by the latencies manifesting as these creatures and worlds.

D.: Now, master, the dream is but the reproduction of mental impressions formed in the waking state and lying dormant before. They reproduce past experiences. Therefore dream-visions are rightly said to be only mental creations. Should the same be true of the waking world, this must be the reproduction of some past impressions. What are those impressions which give rise to these waking experiences?

M.: Just as the experiences of the waking state give rise to the dream world, so also the experiences of past lives give rise to this world of the waking state,nonetheless illusory.


D - Devotee
M - Maharshi


Source: ADVAITA BODHA DEEPIKA book

Ramana Maharshi about Vedas And Universe

D: Not only does Western empirical science* consider the world real, but, the Vedas etc., give elaborate cosmological descriptions of the world and its origin. Why should they do so if the world is unreal?

M: The essential purpose of the Vedas etc., is to teach you the nature of the imperishable Atman, and to declare with authority “Thou art That”.

D: I accept. But why should they give cosmological descriptions spun out at great length, unless they consider the world real?

M: Adopt in practice what you accept in theory, and leave the rest. The sastras have to guide every type of seeker after Truth, and all are not of the same mental make-up. What you cannot accept treat as artha vada or auxiliary argument.

D - Devotee
M - Maharshi

Source: Maharshi’s Gospel book

When Ramana Maharshi Physical body left

By April 1950, Sri Ramana was too weak to go to the hall, and visiting hours were limited. Visitors would file past the small room where he spent his final days to get one final glimpse. Swami Satyananda, the attendant at the time, reports, "On the evening of 14 April 1950, we were massaging Sri Ramana's body. At about 5 o'clock, he asked us to help him to sit up. Precisely at that moment devotees started chanting 'Arunachala Siva, Arunachala Siva'. When Sri Ramana heard this his face lit up with radiant joy. Tears began to flow from his eyes and continued to flow for a long time. I was wiping them from time to time. I was also giving him spoonfuls of water boiled with ginger. The doctor wanted to administer artificial respiration but Sri Ramana waved it away. Sri Sri Ramana’s breathing became gradually slower and slower and at 8:47 p.m. it subsided quietly." At that very moment, all over India, there were independent reports of seeing a bright light rising into the sky. Henri Cartier-Bresson, the French photographer, who had been staying at the ashram for a fortnight prior to Sri Ramana’s passing, recounted the event:

"It is a most astonishing experience. I was in the open space in front of my house, when my friends drew my attention to the sky, where I saw a vividly-luminous shooting star with a luminous tail, unlike any shooting star I had before seen, coming from the South, moving slowly across the sky and, reaching the top of Arunachala, disappeared behind it. Because of its singularity we all guessed its import and immediately looked at our watches – it was 8:47 – and then raced to the Ashram only to find that our premonition had been only too sadly true: the Master had passed into parinirvana at that very minute."


Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramana_Maharshi

Don’t be a spiritual Donkey

Source: http://folknet.in/SS2008/html/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=318&Itemid=339


Once a sculptor in a village made a beautiful idol of a goddess and thought of selling it at a good price in the city. So he loaded the idol on his donkey and started towards the city. When he was going through the village, the villagers bowed in front of the idol as it looked like a real goddess. Whichever street he crossed, a crowd would bow in front of the idol.

But a strange thing happened. The donkey, which was carrying the idol, thought that he was special and that was the reason why people were bowing to him. He was thrilled with his newfound respect.

Soon the sculptor returned after selling the idol. While he was crossing the village, the donkey stopped in the middle of the road, expecting a warm welcome. But nobody paid attention to him. The donkey felt insulted and started braying, so much so, that the villagers drove him away.

The same mistake, what the donkey did, is what most of us do. When we are on the divine path of self-realization, with God's grace, a glow enters our demeanor and we stand out in the crowd. People respect such persons and often bow in respect. But we should realize that people are bowing not to us but to that glimpse of God whom they realize resides within us. So the credit of this respect goes, solely to God, not to us. If we start taking the credit, we cross the thin line of demarcation and enter into an area of false ego, which God dislikes most.

The basic difference between material and devotional lifestyle is that, in material life the more we progress, the more ego we develop. In a devotional lifestyle, the more we progress, the more ego we shed.

Purport:

The person in material consciousness is convinced by false ego that he is the doer of everything. He does not know that the mechanism of the body is produced by material nature, which works under the supervision of the Supreme Lord. The materialistic person has no knowledge that ultimately he is under the control of Krishna. The person in false ego takes all credit for doing everything independently, and that is the symptom of his nescience.

-Bhagavad-gita 3.27

Ramana Maharshi About Sannyasam

This fact was behind Ramana Maharshi’s somewhat enigmatic reply to a question as to whether the questioner should embrace sannyasa:

“If you should, you would not have asked.”

The traditional idea about sannyasa is explained in Narada’s sermon to ‘Yudhisthira in Bhagavatam, book 7, chap. X... XII: “The sannyasi’s whole endeavour should be directed towards the discovery of the true Self at the point of contact between deep sleep and the waking state. He should look upon both bondage and freedom, birth and death, as unreal. He should not read profane books nor live by any profession, nor indulge in polemics, nor take side in a partisan spirit, nor accept disciples, nor do much reading, which would divert his mind from his spiritual practice, nor make speeches, nor undertake any responsible work. After attaining enlightenment he may continue to behave as before or alter his ways as will suit his convenience. To give no signs by which other can recognise his attainment, he retains his usual mode of life or pursuit...”

Sri Ramana Maharshi never encouraged people who thought of assuming formal sannyasa, though he hereby seemingly contradicted himself. When pointed out that he himself had cut all connections with his family life and home, he simply replied that it is a matter of karma. Discussing the subject, he saw the motivation...in most cases it is escapism, due to disappointment with a weary and unsuccessful life. Almost as often it is a matter of self-importance. Being in modest or even poor circumstances, you are nobody; as a sannyasi you are somebody...at least in the eyes of some people. There might be a third motive with a minority...impatience. They are not satisfied with the slow rate of their spiritual progress.

All three kinds of motivation, and all others as well, respond to the promptings of the ego-I. Therefore Ramana Maharshi gave the typical reply:

“Why do you think you are a householder? If you go out as a sannyasi, a similar thought that you are a sannyasi will haunt you. Whether you continue in the household, or renounce it and go to the forest, your mind haunts you. The ego is the source of thoughts. If you renounce the world, it will only substitute the thought ‘sannyasi’ for ‘householder’ and the environments of the forest for those of the household.

But the mental obstacles are always there. They increase in new surroundings. There is no help in the change of the environment. The obstacle is the mind. It must be gotten over whether at home or in the forest. If you can do it in the forest, why not in the home? Therefore why change the environment? Your efforts can be made even now...in whatever environment you may be.

“The environment never abandons you according to your desire. Look at me. I left home. Look at yourselves. You have come here leaving the home-environment. What do you find here? Is this different from what you left?” (Talks, 34).

As an answer to another question he replied:

“Sannyasa is to renounce one’s individuality. This is not the same as tonsure and ochre robes. A man may be a householder; yet, if he does not think he is a householder, he is a sannyasi. On the contrary a man may wear ochre robes and wander about; yet if he thinks he is a sannyasi he is not that. To think of sannyasa defeats its own purpose.” (Talks, 427).

“Sannyasa is meant for one who is fit. It consists in renunciation not of material objects but of attachment to them. Sannyasa can be practised by any one even at home. Only one must be fit for it.” (Talks, 588).

It is the sovereign wisdom of this mysterious land, lost in the sea, in the 20th century just as it was millenniums ago, when it was expressed in ‘Manu’s Law for Sannyasins’:

“He should not wish to die, nor hope to live,
But await the time appointed, as a servant awaits his wages.
He must not show anger to one who is angry.
He must bless the man who curses him.
He must not utter falsehood.
Rejoicing in the things of the spirit, calm,
Caring for nothing, abstaining from sensual pleasure,
Himself his only helper,
He may live on in the world, in the hope of eternal bliss.”


Thus sannyasa is neither showy, nor brilliant, nor very attractive a path, but just the one on which Truth is likely to meet the wanderer, provided he is a true sannyasi.

Source: HUNTING THE ‘I’

Ramana Maharshi about seeking powers

“The powers are sought by the mind which must be kept alert, whereas the Self is realised when the mind is destroyed. The powers manifest only when there is the ego. The Self is beyond the ego and is realised after the ego is eliminated. Where is the use of occult powers for a Self-realised Being?

“Self-Realisation may be accompanied by occult powers or it may not be. If the person has sought such powers before Realisation, he may get them after Realisation. There are others who have not sought such powers and have attempted only Self-Realisation. They do not manifest them.” (Talks, 597). Among the visitors of the sage was Mr. Evans-Wentz, the wellknown Tibetologist. He too asked for an explanation on
the value of occult powers.

Ramana Maharshi replied:

“The occult powers are only in the mind; they are not natural to the Self. That which is not natural, but acquired, cannot be permanent and is not worth striving for.

“They denote extended powers. A man is possessed of limited powers and is miserable; he wants to expand his powers so that he may be happy. But consider if it will be so; if with limited perception one is miserable, with extended perceptions the misery must increase proportionately. Occult powers will not bring happiness to anyone, but will make him all the more miserable!

“Moreover what are these powers for? The would-be occultist desires to display the siddhis so that others may appreciate him. He seeks appreciation and if it is not forthcoming he will not be happy. He may even find another possessor of higher powers. That will cause jealousy and breed unhappiness.


“Which is the real power? Is it to increase prosperity or bring about peace? That which results in peace is the highest perfection (siddhi).” (Talks, 20).

Source: HUNTING THE ‘I’ book.

SRI RAMANA – THE SUPREME INCARNATE

prof laxmi narain (prof_narain@rediffmail.com)

Source and courtesy: Sri Ramana Kendram, Hyderabad
This article was published in Sri Ramana Jyothi,
monthly magazine of the Kendram.

SRI RAMANA – THE SUPREME INCARNATE By Swami Rajeswarananda

Swami Rajeswarananda, born in Madras, a great devotee of Sri Ramana, got his name as a sannyasi of the Ramakrishna Order. He edited The Call Divine during its first twelve years. He was mentor of Prof. T.M.P.Mahadevan who was Head, Department of Philosophy, Madras University, and a well-known devotee of Sri Ramana. He authored Erase the Ego and Teachings. He writes:

Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi is no concept in mind and no form in matter. He is no theory in name nor practice in form. He is the substratum, the berock of Truth in all names and forms. He is the life in all individuals and the only light in all souls. He is the Divine Presence in one and all. He is the Basic Principle, the fundamental fact in our everyday existence.

He is not external to us but ever present in us though we might fail to realize Him as such. He is awake in us while we are asleep. He is the very embodiment of Existence-Knowledge-Bliss ( ) ever and ever. We cannot see Him anywhere but can see (realize ) Him everywhere. He is the wisdom of the wise, the strength of the strong, the brilliance of brain and the illumination of soul. He is the real "I", the One in all our apparent "I-s" of many.

He is the Supreme Consciousness that includes and transcends all the lesser forms of consciousness. He is the absolute and lives in the Infinite. He is the eternal rooted in Immortality. He is the Centre of an infinite circle without a circumference. He is the harmony and peace in the melody of the cosmos. He is the Seer in all sights, the hearer in hearing, and the knowledge in knowing.

He sees without eyes, speaks without tongue, hears without ears and thinks without mind. He is far, He is near. He is the means and He is the end in the goal of life. He is the underlying Unity in the midst of all diversities that exist on the surface. He is immortal and eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient.
Eminent poet Harindranath Chattopadhyaya reflects the same feeling poetically:

Eternity has worn a human face,
Contracted to a little human span,
Lo, the Immortal has become a man,
A self-imprisoned thing in time

(Source: The Call Divine and Golden Jubilee Souvenir.)

Ramana Maharshi On Brahmacharya

Devotee:

Is naishthika brahmacharya (life-long celibacy) essential as a sadhana for Self-Realisation?

Bhagavan:

Realisation itself is naishthika brahmacharya. The vow is not brahmacharya. Life in Brahman is brahmacharya and it is not a forcible attempt at it.

Devotee:

It is said that kama (desire), krodha (anger), etc.. vanish in the presence of the Sadguru. Is it so?

Bhagavan:

It is correct. Kama and krodha must vanish before Self-Realisation.
Source: Talk 491

Om Namo Bhagavate Sri Ramanaya!

The self (ego) and the TRUE SELF By Ramana Maharshi

When man learns -the hard way- that he is powerless over all things. Man cannot even get a glass of water for himself. Man cannot even move from here to there. Then his ego is subdued, trimmed, all conceit and all his possessive instincts melt away. This trimmed up ego or self, this powerless ego is my true identity, my true self. This is how man was created just a powerless infant.

Man will recognize beyond doubt, that this ego of his, this self of his, has always been powerless and impotent. I have imagined that this self of mine, this ego of mine, that which I consider "Me"; is powerful and potent. The dreams of power and potency are only attributed to this "Me" through a wrong understanding, a wrong interpretation to the good things that happened to "Me" in the past. I cannot deny that good things did happen to "Me", but it is the misguided attribution of these good things to this "Me" is the cause of my delusion and ignorance. That is how I have built up and fortified this "Me". I build it up and fortified its boundaries by words, by concepts, just by speaking, words, words and more words.

Now, since I have discovered that I am absolutely powerless in the face of anything, since day one till now and I cannot but be that forever. Then who is the agent responsible for these good things that happened to "Me"?

One might say it is God. Another might answer, it is chance. A third will say it is fate. Words and labels do not count. The important thing that I am powerless in the face of anything. By being powerless I have been living perfectly well the last 60 years or so. Then I understood that there is no need to put up the garment of power and potency to live perfectly well. I have laid down my arms. My surrounding conditions and circumstances always came to my aid. The Whole Cosmos came to my aid. I have always been the child of this Cosmos, but I took no note of it and instead I thought that I was taking care of myself. I came from that Cosmos. Then all my defenses are laid down, I do not need them to live, I have been living without them for years, but I kept my powers and defenses because I imagined that I needed them.

That is how the conceit and the possessive instincts of the ego are abandoned. That is how Man returns to his powerless original self. This powerless original self is supported by the Cosmos. This powerless original self was never separated from the Cosmos for one second; even when I imagined that I am alone and separate depending on my own powers and potencies. This self that was never separated from the Cosmos for one moment, this self/cosmos integration is the True SELF of Sri Ramana Maharshi. This is the One Reality Seekers for Truth has been searching for.

How do I stop my negative thoughts?

"How do I stop my negative thoughts?" - is a question that I have been asked many times. If you have ever asked this question then you will feel such enormous relief in knowing the answer, because it is so simple. How do you stop negative thoughts? You plant good thoughts!

When you try to stop negative thoughts, you are focusing on what you don't want - negative thoughts - and you will attract an abundance of them. They can never disappear if you are focused on them. The "stop" part is irrelevant - the negative thoughts are your focus It doesn't matter if you are trying to stop negative thoughts or control them or push them away, the result is the same. Your focus is on negative
thoughts, and by the law of attraction you are inviting more of them to you.

The truth is always simple and it is always easy. To stop negative thoughts, just plant good thoughts! Deliberately plant good thoughts! You plant good thoughts by making it a daily practice to appreciate all the things in your day.Appreciate your health, your car, your home, your family, your job, your friends, your surroundings, your meals, your pets, and the magnificent beauty of the day. Compliment,praise, and give thanks to all things. Every time you say "Thank you" it is a good thought! As you plant more and more good thoughts, the negative thoughts will be wiped out. Why? Because your focus is on good thoughts, and what you focus on you attract.

So don't give any attention to negative thoughts. Don't worry about them. If any come, make light of them, shrug them off, and let them be your reminder to deliberately think more good thoughts now.

The more good thoughts you can plant in a day, the faster your life will be utterly transformed into all good. If you spend only one day speaking of good things and saying "Thank you" at every single opportunity, you will not believe your tomorrow. Deliberately thinking good thoughts is exactly like planting seeds. As you think good
thoughts you are planting good seeds inside you, and the Universe will transform those seeds into a garden of paradise. How will the garden of paradise appear? As your life!

Ramana Maharshi about Brahma Jnana

Disciple: Not having realised the truth that the Self alone exists, should I not adopt bhakti and yoga margas as being more suitable for purposes of sadhana than vichara marga? Is not the realization of one’s Absolute Being that is, Brahma jnana, something quite unattainable to a layman like me?

Maharshi: Brahma jnana is not a knowledge to be acquired, so that acquiring it one may obtain happiness. It is one’s ignorant outlook that one should give up. The Self you seek to know is verily yourself. Your supposed ignorance causes you needless grief like that of the ten foolish men who grieved the ‘loss’ of the tenth man who was never lost.

The ten foolish men in the parable forded a stream and on reaching the other shore wanted to make sure that all of them had in fact safely crossed the stream. One of the ten began to count, but while counting others, left himself out. “I see only nine; sure enough, we have lost one. Who can it be?” he said. “Did you count correctly?” asked another, and did the counting himself. But he too counted only nine. One after the other each of the ten counted only nine, missing himself. “We are only nine” they all agreed, “but who is the missing one?” they asked themselves. Every effort they made to discover the ‘missing’ individual failed. “Whoever he be that is drowned”, said the most sentimental of ten fools, “we have lost him”. So saying he burst into tears, and the rest of the nine followed suit.

Seeing them weeping on the river bank, a sympathetic wayfarer enquired for the cause. They related what had happened and said that even after counting themselves several times they could find no more than nine. On hearing the story, but seeing all the ten before him, the wayfarer guessed what had happened. In order to make them know for themselves that they were really ten, that all of them had come safe from the crossing, he told them “Let each of you count for himself but one after the other serially, one, two, three and so on, while I shall give you each a blow so that all of you may be sure of having been included in the count, and included only once. The tenth ‘missing’ man will then be found.” Hearing this they rejoiced at the prospect of finding their ‘lost’ comrade and accepted the method suggested by the wayfarer.

While the kind wayfarer gave a blow to each of the ten in turn, he that got the blow counted himself aloud. “Ten” said the last man as he got the last blow in his turn. Bewildered they looked at one another, “We are ten” they said with one voice and thanked the wayfarer for having removed their grief.

That is the parable. From where was the tenth man brought in? Was he ever lost? By knowing that he had been there all the while, did they learn anything new? The cause of their grief was not the real loss of any one of the ten, it was their own ignorance, rather their mere supposition that one of them was lost (though they could not find who he was), because they had counted only nine.

Such is also the case with you. Truly there is no cause for you to be miserable and unhappy. You yourself impose limitations on your true nature of infinite Being, and then weep that you are but a finite creature. Then you take up this or that sadhana to transcend the non-existent limitations. But if your sadhana itself assumes the existence of the limitations, how can it help you to transcend them?

Hence I say, know that you are really the Infinite, Pure Being, the Self Absolute. You are always that Self and nothing but that Self. Therefore, you can never be really ignorant of the Self; your ignorance is merely a formal ignorance, like the ignorance of the ten fools about the ‘lost’ tenth man. It is this ignorance that caused them grief.

Know then that true knowledge does not create a new Being for you, it only removes your ‘ignorant ignorance’. Bliss is not added to your nature, it is merely revealed as your true and natural state, eternal and imperishable. The only way to be rid of your grief is to know and be the Self. How can this be unattainable?

(From Maharshi's Gospel, published by Sri Ramanasramam and available for download from http://www.ramana-maharshi.org/ )

Ramana Maharshi About Begging

Bhagavan says, “Hiranyagarbha is only another name for the sukshma sarira or Ishwara. The books use the following illustration to help explain creation. The Self is like the canvas for a painting. First a paste is smeared over it to close up the small holes that are in any cloth. This paste can be compared to the antaryami in all creation. Then the artist makes an outline on the canvas, and this can be compared to the sukshma sarira of all creation, for instance the light and sound, nada, bindu, out of which all things arise. Then the artist paints his picture with colours etc., in this outline, and this can be compared to the gross forms that constitute the world.”

In connection with this, G.V.S. asked Bhagavan about his early days and whether he ever went about accepting alms. Then Bhagavan related how it was T.P. Ramachandra Aiyar’s father who first took him by mere force to his house and fed him, and how the first time he begged for food was from Chinna Gurukal’s wife. He went on to tell how after that he freely begged in almost all the streets of Tiruvannamalai. He said:“You cannot conceive of the majesty and dignity I felt while so begging. The first day, when I begged from Gurukal’s wife, I felt bashful about it as a result of habits of upbringing, but after that there was absolutely no feeling of abasement. I felt like a king and more than a king. I have sometimes received stale gruel at some house and taken it without salt or any other flavouring, in the open street, before great pandits and other important men who used to come and prostrate themselves before me at my Asramam, then wiped my hands on my head and passed on supremely happy and in a state of mind in which even emperors were mere straw in my sight. You can’t imagine it. It is because there is such a path that we find tales in history of kings giving up their thrones and taking to this path.”

In illustration of this, Bhagavan told us a story of a king who renounced his throne and went begging, first outside the limits of his State, then in his own State, then in its capital city, and finally in the royal palace itself, and thus at last got rid of his ego-sense. After some time, when he was wandering as an ascetic in another State, he was chosen to be its king and accepted because now that he had completely lost the sense of ‘I’ he could act any part in life as a mere witness and the cares of kingship no longer worried him. When his own former State heard of it, they also asked him to resume his kingship, and he did so, because however many kingdoms he might rule over, he realized now that he was not the doer but simply an instrument in God’s hands.

Source: DAY BY DAY WITH BHAGAVAN RAMANA MAHARSHI

Ramana Maharshi About Mayavadis

Bhagavan says When people from Sri Aurobindo’s Ashram come here and ask about the differences between our school and theirs, I always tell them, ‘There,complete surrender is advised and insisted upon before anything further could be hoped for or attained. So, do it first. I also advise it. After making such surrender, i.e., complete surrender and not any partial or conditional surrender, you will be able to see for yourself whether there are two purushas, whether power comes from anywhere and gets into anywhere, etc.’ For we know nothing about God or any source from which power comes and gets into us. All that is not known. But ‘I exist’ is known beyond all dispute by all men. So let us know who that ‘I’ is. If, after knowing it, there still remain any doubts such as are now raised, it will be time enough then to try and clear such doubts.”

From this point, the talk drifted to the various schools of thought, one saying there is only reality, others saying there are three eternal entities such as jagat, jiva and Ishwara, or pati, pasu and pasam. In this connection, Bhagavan observed humorously, “It is not at all correct to say that Advaitins or the Shankara school deny the existence of the world or that they call it unreal. On the other hand, it is more real to them than to others. Their world will always exist, whereas the world of the other schools will have origin, growth and decay and as such cannot be real. Only, they say the world as world is not real, but that the world as Brahman is real. All is Brahman, nothing exists but Brahman, and the world as Brahman is real. In this way,they claim they give more reality to the world than the other schools do. For example, according to schools which believe in three entities, the jagat is only one-third of the reality whereas according to Advaita, the world as Brahman is reality, the world and reality are not different. Similarly, even to God or Brahman, the other schools give only one-third sovereignty. The other two entities necessarily limit the reality of God. So, when Shankara is called mayavadi it may be retorted, ‘Shankara says maya does not exist. He who denies the existence of maya and calls it mithya or non-existent cannot be called a mayavadi. It is those who grant its existence and call its product, the world, a reality who should rightly be called mayavadis. One who denies Ishwara is not called Ishwaravadi, but only one who affirms the existence of Ishwara.’” Bhagavan went on to add, “All these are of course vain disputations. There can be no end to such disputations. The proper thing to do is to find out the ‘I’, about whose existence nobody has any doubt, and which alone persists when everything else vanishes, as during sleep, and then see if there is any room for such doubts or disputes.”

Source: DAY BY DAY WITH BHAGAVAN RAMANA MAHARSHI

Ramana Maharshi about Yugas

One Mr. Girdhari Lal, an old resident of Aurobindo’s Ashram, came here last evening and is staying at the Asramam. He asked Bhagavan this morning. “It is said in the puranas that the kaliyuga consists of so many thousands of years, and that so much of it has passed and that so much yet remains, etc. May I know when this yuga is to end?”

Bhagavan: I don’t consider time real. So I take no interest in such matters. We know nothing about the past or the yugas which were in the past. Nor do we know about the future. But we know the present exists. Let us know about it first. Then all other doubts will cease. After a pause he added, “Time and space always change. But there is something which is eternal and changeless. For example, the world and time, past or future, nothing exists for us during sleep. But we exist. Let us try to find out that which is changeless and which always exists. How will it benefit us to know that the kaliyuga started in such and such a year and that it would end so many years after now?”

Girdhari Lal: I know, from the standpoint of one whose level of consciousness is beyond time and space, such questions are useless. But to us, struggling souls, it may be important in this way. It is said that in the previous yugas e.g. satya yuga, man had not fallen to the low level in which he now is in this kaliyuga and that it was much easier for him then to attain liberation than now.

Bhagavan: On the other hand, it is said it is much easier to secure salvation in this yuga than in the satya yuga. Some days or hours of penance in this yuga would secure what several years of penance alone could have secured in those yugas. That is what the books say. Further, there is nothing to attain and no time within which to attain. You are always that. You have not got to attain anything. You have only to give up thinking you are limited, to give up thinking you are this upadhi or body.

Girdhari Lal: Then, why do these puranas give the exact duration of each yuga in so many years?

Bhagavan: There might be an allegorical meaning(moral story) in the number of years mentioned for each yuga. Or, the immensity of the periods of time assigned to each yuga may be a mere device to draw man’s attention to the fact that, though he should live up to his full span of a hundred years, his life would be such a trifling, insignificant fraction in the entire life of the universe, and that he should therefore take a proper view of his own humble place in the entire scheme and not go about with a swollen head, deeming himself as of great importance. Instead of saying, “What is man’s life compared to eternity?” they have taught him to consider how short his span is. Further, it is said there is a regular cycle of such yugas.And who knows how many such cycles have come and gone. Again, each yuga is sub-divided into four yugas. There is no end to all such calculations; and different schools have their theory as to when the present kaliyuga is to end. When time itself does not exist, as for instance in sleep, what is the use of bothering oneself with all such questions?

Source: DAY BY DAY WITH BHAGAVAN RAMANA MAHARSHI

Ramana Maharshi says Mukti or liberation is our nature

A visitor from Poona, who has been here for the last two or three days, asked some questions, and Bhagavan told him, “Mukti or liberation is our nature. It is another name for us. Our wanting mukti is a very funny thing. It is like a man who is in the shade, voluntarily leaving the shade, going into the sun,feeling the severity of the heat there, making great efforts to get back into the shade and then rejoicing, ‘How sweet is the shade! I have after all reached the shade!’ We all are doing exactly the same. We are not different from the reality. We imagine we are different, i.e., we create the bheda bhava (the feeling of difference) and then undergo great sadhana to get rid of the bheda bhava and realise the oneness. Why imagine or create bheda bhava and then destroy it?”

Dr. Masalawala placed in Bhagavan’s hands a letter he had received from his friend V.K. Ajgaonkar, a gentleman of about 35 (a follower of Jnaneswar Maharaj) who is said to have attained jnana in his 28th year. The letter said, “You call me purna. Who is not purna in this world?” Bhagavan agreed and continued in the vein in which he discoursed this morning, and said, “We limit ourselves first, then seek to become the unlimited that we always are. All effort is only for giving up the notion that we are limited.” The letter further said, “The first verse in the Isavasyopanishad says the world is purna. It simply cannot be anything else, as its very existence is built on the purna.” Bhagavan approved of this also, and said, “There is this typed letter, for instance. To see the world alone and not the purna or Self would be something like saying. ‘I see the letters, but not the paper,’ while it is the existence of the paper that makes the existence of the letters possible!” Dr. M. said, “In the letter we see the paper. But we are able to see only the world and we don’t see God!” Bhagavan replied: “What happens in sleep? Where did the world go then? Then you alone or the Self alone existed.”

The ajata doctrine says, ‘Nothing exists except the one reality. There is no birth or death, no projection or drawing in, no sadhaka, no mumukshu, no mukta, no bondage, no liberation. The one unity alone exists ever.’ To such as find it difficult to grasp this truth and who ask, ‘How can we ignore this solid world we see all around us?’, the dream experience is pointed out and they are told, ‘All that you see depends on the seer. Apart from the seer, there is no seen.’ This is called the drishti-srishti vada or the argument that one first creates out of his mind and then sees what his mind itself has created. To such as cannot grasp even this and who further argue, ‘The dream experience is so short, while the world always exists. The dream experience was limited to me. But the world is felt and seen not only by me,but by so many, and we cannot call such a world non-existent’, the argument called srishti-drishti vada is addressed and they are told, ‘God first created such and such a thing, out of such and such an element, and then something else, and so forth.’ That alone will satisfy this class. Their mind is otherwise not satisfied and they ask themselves, ‘How can all geography, all maps, all sciences, stars, planets and the rules governing or relating to them and all knowledge be totally untrue?’ To such it is best to say,‘Yes. God created all this and so you see it.’” Dr.M. said, “But all these cannot be true; only one doctrine can be true.” Bhagavan said, “All these are only to suit the capacity of the learner. The absolute can only be one.”

The letter further said, “Avyabhicharini bhakti is the only necessary thing.” As Dr.M. did not understand what avyabhicharini bhakti meant, Bhagavan explained that it only meant bhakti to God without any other thought occupying the mind. Bhagavan said, “This word, ananya bhakti, ekagrata bhakti, all mean the same thing.” The letter continued, “In the mind two things do not exist at the same time. Either God or
samsar. Samsar is already there. That is to be reduced little by little and God is to be entered in its stead.” Bhagavan remarked on this. “God is there already, not samsar. Only you do not see it on account of the samsar rubbish you have filled your mind with. Remove the rubbish and you will see God. If a room is filled with various articles, the space in the room has not vanished anywhere. To have space we have not to create it, but only to remove the articles stocked in the room. Even so, God is there. If you turn the mind inward, instead of outward on things, then you see the mind merges in the one unity which alone exists.”

Bhagavan also agreed with the writer when he said that to see God, Guru’s grace is necessary, for which again God’s anugraha is necessary, which in its turn, could be had only by upasana.

The letter conveyed the writer’s namaskar to Bhagavan.Thereupon, Bhagavan said, “The mind merging in its source, the one unity, is the only true namaskar.”

Source: DAY BY DAY WITH BHAGAVAN RAMANA MAHARSHI

Ramana maharshi about squirrels and monkeys

A squirrel came to Bhagavan and he was feeding it with cashew-nut pieces as usual. Turning to me, he said, “Shroff sent some cashew-nuts yesterday and said, ‘They were intended for my dumb friends’.” I said, “Probably Bhagavan would object to our calling these squirrels dumb.” Bhagavan said, “They communicate with me. Sometimes I am in a nap. They come and draw attention to their presence by gently biting my finger tips. Besides, they have a lot of language of their own. There is one great thing about these squirrels. You may place any amount of food before them. They will just eat what they need and leave the rest behind. Not so the rat, for instance. It will take everything it finds and stock it in its hole.”

I remarked, “Possibly it would be said that the squirrel is a less intelligent creature than the rat, because it does not plan or provide for the future but lives in the present.” Bhagavan said, “Yes. Yes. We consider it intelligence to plan and live wretchedly like this. See how many animals and birds live in this world without planning and stocking. Are they all dying?”

Bhagavan then began speaking of monkeys and said,“They too don’t build nests or stock things. They eat what they can find, and go and perch on trees when night falls. They are quite happy. I have known something about their organisation, their kings, laws, regulations. Everything is so perfect and wellorganised. So much intelligence behind it all. I even know that tapas is not unknown to monkeys. A monkey whom we used to call ‘Mottaipaiyan’ was once oppressed and ill-treated by a gang.He went away into the forest for a few days, did tapas, acquired strength and returned. When he came and sat on a bough and shook it, all the rest of the monkeys, who had previously illtreated him and of whom he was previously mortally afraid, were now quaking before him. Yes. I am clear that tapas is well known to monkeys.”

Source: DAY BY DAY WITH BHAGAVAN RAMANA MAHARSHI

Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi’s teaching regarding breath

WHY WE BREATHE

Bhagavan’s teaching regarding watching the breath is clearly given in Chapter Six of the Sri Ramana Gita:

“One should control the fickle mind by controlling the breath and then it, like a tethered animal, ceases to stray.”

“With the control of breath, control of thoughts also is achieved. When thoughts are controlled one stands established at their source.”

“Control of breath means merely watching with the mind the flow of breath. Through such constant watching kumbhaka does come about.”


But breath is much more than an individual matter, and therefore is more than a means to uncover the individual consciousness of which it is a manifestation. It is also a bridge to the Infinite Consciousness, being rooted in the Supreme Spirit. The breath is the living presence and action of God.

“O Prana, lord of creation, thou as breath dwellest in the body.” (Prashna Upanishad 2.7)
“When one breathes, one knows him as breath.” (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1.4.7)
“Self-luminous is that Being, and formless. He dwells within all and without all. He is unborn, pure, greater than the greatest. From him is born the breath.” (Mundaka Upanishad 2.1.2,3) Since the breath rises from God, it can be resolved back into God.
“Breath is a part of Brahman.” (Chandogya Upanishad 4.9.3)
“The being who is the breath within–him I meditate upon as Brahman.” (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 2.1.6)
“Breath is the Immortal One.” (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1.6.3)
“The breath is real, and He [Brahman] is the reality of the breath.” (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 2.3.6)
“The shining, immortal person who is breath is the Self, is Brahman.” (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 2.5.4)
“Which is the one God? The breath. He is Brahman.” (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 3.9.9)
“They who know the breath of the breath…have realized the ancient, primordial Brahman.” (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.4.18)
“The breath is the Supreme Brahman. The breath never deserts him who, knowing thus, meditates upon it. Having become a god, he goes to the gods.” (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.1.3)

Ramana Maharshi on the breath

In Maha Yoga, Sri Ramana says: “Pranayama is of two kinds: one of controlling and regulating the breath and the other of simply watching the breath.”

In the book Day By Day With Bhagavan, we find the following related to the just-cited passage from Maha Yoga: “[Seekers] are advised to watch their breathing, since such watching will naturally and as a matter of course lead to cessation of thought and bring the mind under control.”

When asked in the same conversation about actually controlling the breath, he commented: “Watching the breath is also one form of pranayama. Retaining breath, etc., is more violent and may be harmful in some cases…. But merely watching the breath is easy and involves no risk.”

In Talks With Sri Ramana Maharshi: “To watch the breath is one way of doing pranayama. The mind abstracted from other activities is engaged in watching the breath. That controls the breath; and in its turn the mind is controlled.” And further: “Breath and mind arise from the same source. The source can be reached by regulating the breath…. Regulation of the breath is accomplished by watching its movements.”

And from the third volume of The Power of the Presence: “It is the Atman that activates the mind and the breath.” (The Power of the Presence, III, p. 230)

"The breath will take you all the way to Nirvana."

Who Am I? (Nan Yar?) By Ramana Maharshi

Just now i completed reading Who Am I? (Nan Yar?) By Ramana Maharshi.

Brilliant book and well translated by Dr. T. M. P. MAHADEVAN.

I wanted to share few important quotations found from this book.

“Who am I?” is the title given to a set of questions and answers bearing on Self-enquiry. The questions were put to Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi by one Sri M. Sivaprakasam Pillai about the year 1902. Sri Pillai, a graduate in Philosophy, was at the time employed in the Revenue Department of the South Arcot Collectorate. During his visit to Tiruvannamalai in 1902 on official work, he went to Virupaksha Cave on Arunachala Hill and met the Master there. He sought from him spiritual guidance, and solicited answers to questions relating to Self-enquiry. As Bhagavan was not talking then, not because of any vow he had taken, but because he did not have the inclination to talk, he answered the questions put to him by gestures, and when these were not understood, by writing. As recollected and recorded by Sri Sivaprakasam Pillai, there were fourteen questions with answers to them given by Bhagavan. This record was first published by Sri Pillai in 1923, along with a couple of poems composed by himself relating how Bhagavan’s grace operated in his case by dispelling his doubts and by saving him from a crisis in life. ‘Who am I?’ has been published several times subsequently. We find thirty questions and answers in some editions and twenty-eight in others. There is also another published version in which the questions are not given, and the teachings are rearranged in the form of an essay. The extant English translation is of this essay. The present rendering is of the text in the form of twenty-eight questions and answers.

Along with Vicharasangraham (Self-Enquiry), Nan Yar (Who am I?) constitutes the first set of instructions in the Master’s own words. These two are the only prosepieces among Bhagavan’s Works. They clearly set forth the central teaching that the direct path to liberation is Self-enquiry.

The particular mode in which the enquiry is to be made is lucidly set forth in Nan Yar. The mind consists of thoughts. The ‘I’ thought is the first to arise in the mind. When the enquiry ‘ Who am I?’ is persistently pursued, all other thoughts get destroyed, and finally the ‘I’ thought itself vanishes leaving the supreme non-dual Self alone. The false identification of the Self with the phenomena of non-self such as the body and mind thus ends, and there is illumination, Sakshatkara. The process of enquiry of course, is not an easy one. As one enquires ‘Who am I?’, other thoughts will arise; but as these arise, one should not yield to them by following them , on the contrary, one should ask ‘To whom do they arise ?’ In order to do this, one has to be extremely vigilant. Through constant enquiry one should make the mind stay in its source, without allowing it to wander away and get lost in the mazes of thought created by itself. All other disciplines such as breath-control and meditation on the forms of God should be regarded as auxiliary practices. They are useful in so far as they help the mind to become quiescent and one-pointed.

For the mind that has gained skill in concentration, Self-enquiry becomes comparatively easy. It is by ceaseless enquiry that the thoughts are destroyed and the Self realized - the plenary Reality in which there is not even the ‘I’ thought, the experience which is referred to as “Silence”.

This, in substance, is Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi’s teaching in Nan Yar (Who am I?).

University of Madras - June 30, 1982


Om Namo Bhagavathe Sri Ramanaya

Who Am I? (Nan Yar?)

As all living beings desire to be happy always, without misery, as in the case of everyone there is observed supreme love for one’s self, and as happiness alone is the cause for love, in order to gain that happiness which is one’s nature and which is experienced in the state of deep sleep where there is no mind, one should know one’s self. For that, the path of knowledge, the inquiry of the form “Who am I?”, is the principal means.

1. Who am I ?

The gross body which is composed of the seven humours (dhatus), I am not; the five cognitive sense organs, viz. the senses of hearing, touch, sight, taste, and smell, which apprehend their respective objects, viz. sound, touch, colour, taste, and odour, I am not; the five cognitive senseorgans,viz. the organs of speech, locomotion, grasping, excretion, and procreation, which have as their respective functions speaking, moving, grasping, excreting, and enjoying, I am not; the five vital airs, prana, etc., which perform respectively the five functions of in-breathing, etc., I am not; even the mind which thinks, I am not; the nescience too, which is endowed only with the residual impressions of objects, and in which there are no objects and no functioning’s, I am not.

2. If I am none of these, then who am I?

After negating all of the above-mentioned as ‘not this’, ‘not this’, that Awareness which alone remains - that I am.

3. What is the nature of Awareness?

The nature of Awareness is existence-consciousness-bliss

4. When will the realization of the Self be gained?

When the world which is what-is-seen has been removed, there will be realization of the Self which is the seer.

5. Will there not be realization of the Self even while the world is there (taken as real)?

There will not be.

6. Why?

The seer and the object seen are like the rope and the snake. Just as the knowledge of the rope which is the substrate will not arise unless the false knowledge of the illusory serpent goes, so the realization of the Self which is the substrate will not be gained unless the belief that the world is real is removed.

7. When will the world which is the object seen be removed?

When the mind, which is the cause of all cognition’s and of all actions, becomes quiescent, the world will disappear.

8. What is the nature of the mind?

What is called ‘mind’ is a wondrous power residing in the Self. It causes all thoughts to arise.Apart from thoughts, there is no such thing as mind. Therefore, thought is the nature of mind. Apart from thoughts, there is no independent entity called the world. In deep sleep there are no thoughts, and there is no world. In the states of waking and dream, there are thoughts, and there is a world also. Just as the spider emits the thread (of the web) out of itself and again withdraws it into itself, likewise the mind projects the world out of itself and again resolves it into itself. When the mind comes out of the Self, the world appears. Therefore, when the world appears (to be real), the Self does not appear; and when the Self appears (shines) the world does not appear. When one persistently inquires into the nature of the mind, the mind will end leaving the Self (as the residue). What is referred to as the Self is the Atman. The mind always exists only in dependence on something gross; it cannot stay alone. It is the mind that is called the subtle body or the soul (jiva).

9. What is the path of inquiry 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. Even if one thinks constantly ‘I’ ‘I’, one will be led to that place. Of all the thoughts that arise in the mind, the ‘I’ thought is the first. It is only after the rise of this that the other thoughts arise. It is after the appearance of the first personal pronoun that the second and third personal pronouns appear; without the first personal pronoun there will not be the second and third.

10. How will the mind become quiescent?

By the inquiry ‘Who am I?’. 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.

11. What is the means for constantly holding on to the thought ‘Who am I?’

When other thoughts arise, one should not pursue them, but should inquire: ‘To whom do they arise?’ It does not matter how many thoughts arise. As each thought arises, one should inquire with diligence, “To whom has this thought arisen?”. The answer that would emerge would be “To me”. Thereupon if one inquires “Who am I?”, the mind will go back to its source; and the thought that arose will become quiescent. With repeated practice in this manner, the mind will develop the skill to stay in its source. When the mind that is subtle goes out through the brain and the senseorgans,the gross names and forms appear; when it stays in the heart, the names and forms disappear.Not letting the mind go out, but retaining it in the Heart is what is called “inwardness” (antarmukha).Letting the mind go out of the Heart is known as “externalisation” (bahir-mukha). Thus, when the mind stays in the Heart, the ‘I’ which is the source of all thoughts will go, and the Self which ever exists will shine. Whatever one does, one should do without the egoity “I”. If one acts in that way, all will appear as of the nature of Siva (God).

12. Are there no other means for making the mind quiescent?

Other than inquiry, there are no adequate means. If through other means it is sought to control the mind, the mind will appear to be controlled, but will again go forth. Through the control of breath also, the mind will become quiescent; but it will be quiescent only so long as the breath remains controlled, and when the breath resumes the mind also will again start moving and will wander as impelled by residual impressions. The source is the same for both mind and breath. Thought, indeed,is the nature of the mind. The thought “I” is the first thought of the mind; and that is egoity. It is from that whence egoity originates that breath also originates. Therefore, when the mind becomes quiescent,the breath is controlled, and when the breath is controlled the mind becomes quiescent. But in deep sleep, although the mind becomes quiescent, the breath does not stop. This is because of the will of God, so that the body may be preserved and other people may not be under the impression that it is dead. In the state of waking and in samadhi, when the mind becomes quiescent the breath is controlled.Breath is the gross form of mind. Till the time of death, the mind keeps breath in the body; and when the body dies the mind takes the breath along with it. Therefore, the exercise of breath-control is only an aid for rendering the mind quiescent (manonigraha); it will not destroy the mind (manonasa).

Like the practice of breath-control. meditation on the forms of God, repetition of mantras, restriction on food, etc., are but aids for rendering the mind quiescent. Through meditation on the forms of God and through repetition of mantras, the mind becomes onepointed. The mind will always be wandering. Just as when a chain is given to an elephant to hold in its trunk it will go along grasping the chain and nothing else, so also when the mind is occupied with a name or form it will grasp that alone. When the mind expands in the form of countless thoughts, each thought becomes weak; but as thoughts get resolved the mind becomes one-pointed and strong; for such a mind Self-inquiry will become easy. Of all the restrictive rules, that relating to the taking of sattvic food in moderate quantities is the best; by observing this rule, the sattvic quality of mind will increase, and that will be helpful to Self-inquiry.

13. The residual impressions (thoughts) of objects appear wending like the waves of an ocean. When will all of them get destroyed?

As the meditation on the Self rises higher and higher, the thoughts will get destroyed.

14. Is it possible for the residual impressions of objects that come from beginningless time, as it were, to be resolved, and for one to remain as the pure Self?

Without yielding to the doubt “Is it possible, or not?”, one should persistently hold on to the meditation on the Self. Even if one be a great sinner, one should not worry and weep “O! I am a sinner, how can I be saved?”; one should completely renounce the thought “I am a sinner”; and concentrate keenly on meditation on the Self; then, one would surely succeed. There are not two minds - one good and the other evil; the mind is only one. It is the residual impressions that are of two kinds - auspicious and inauspicious. When the mind is under the influence of auspicious impressions it is called good; and when it is under the influence of inauspicious impressions it is regarded as evil.

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.

15. How long should inquiry be practised?

As long as there are impressions of objects in the mind, so long the inquiry “Who am I?” is required. As thoughts arise they should be destroyed then and there in the very place of their origin, through inquiry. If one resorts to contemplation of the Self unintermittently, until the Self is gained, that alone would do. As long as there are enemies within the fortress, they will continue to sally forth; if they are destroyed as they emerge, the fortress will fall into our hands.

16. What is the nature of the Self?

What exists in truth is the Self alone. The world, the individual soul, and God are appearances in it. like silver in mother-of-pearl, these three appear at the same time, and disappear at the same time. The Self is that where there is absolutely no “I” thought. That is called “Silence”. The Self itself is the world; the Self itself is “I”; the Self itself is God; all is Siva, the Self.

17. Is not everything the work of God?

Without desire, resolve, or effort, the sun rises; and in its mere presence, the sun-stone emits fire,the lotus blooms, water evaporates; people perform their various functions and then rest. Just as in the presence of the magnet the needle moves, it is by virtue of the mere presence of God that the souls governed by the three (cosmic) functions or the fivefold divine activity perform their actions and then rest, in accordance with their respective karmas. God has no resolve; no karma attaches itself to Him. That is like worldly actions not affecting the sun, or like the merits and demerits of the other four elements not affecting all pervading space.

18. Of the devotees, who is the greatest?

He who gives himself up to the Self that is God is the most excellent devotee. Giving one’s self up to God means remaining constantly in the Self without giving room for the rise of any thoughts other than that of the Self. Whatever burdens are thrown on God, He bears them. Since the supreme power of God makes all things move, why should we, without submitting ourselves to it, constantly worry ourselves with thoughts as to what should be done and how, and what should not be done and how not? We know that the train carries all loads, so after getting on it why should we carry our small luggage on our head to our discomfort, instead of putting it down in the train and feeling at ease?

19. What is non-attachment?

As thoughts arise, destroying them utterly without any residue in the very place of their origin is non-attachment. Just as the pearl-diver ties a stone to his waist, sinks to the bottom of the sea and there takes the pearls, so each one of us should be endowed with non-attachment, dive within oneself and obtain the Self-Pearl.

20. Is it not possible for God and the Guru to effect the release of a soul?

God and the Guru will only show the way to release; they will not by themselves take the soul to the state of release. In truth, God and the Guru are not different. Just as the prey which has fallen into the jaws of a tiger has no escape, so those who have come within the ambit of the Guru’s gracious look will be saved by the Guru and will not get lost; yet, each one should by his own effort pursue the path shown by God or Guru and gain release. One can know oneself only with one’s own eye of knowledge, and not with somebody else’s. Does he who is Rama require the help of a mirror to know that he is Rama?

21. Is it necessary for one who longs for release to inquire into the nature of categories (tattvas)?

Just as one who wants to throw away garbage has no need to analyse it and see what it is, so one who wants to know the Self has no need to count the number of categories or inquire into their characteristics; what he has to do is to reject altogether the categories that hide the Self. The world should be considered like a dream.

22. Is there no difference between waking and dream?

Waking is long and a dream short; other than this there is no difference. Just as waking happenings seem real while awake. so do those in a dream while dreaming. In dream the mind takes on another body. In both waking and dream states thoughts. names and forms occur simultaneously.

23. Is it any use reading books for those who long for release?

All the texts say that in order to gain release one should render the mind quiescent; therefore their conclusive teaching is that the mind should be rendered quiescent; once this has been understood there is no need for endless reading. In order to quieten the mind one has only to inquire within oneself what one’s Self is; how could this search be done in books? One should know one’s Self with one’s own eye of wisdom. The Self is within the five sheaths; but books are outside them. Since the Self has to be inquired into by discarding the five sheaths, it is futile to search for it in books. There will come a time when one will have to forget all that one has learned.

24. What is happiness?

Happiness is the very nature of the Self; happiness and the Self are not different. There is no happiness in any object of the world. We imagine through our ignorance that we derive happiness from objects. When the mind goes out, it experiences misery. In truth, when its desires are fulfilled, it returns to its own place and enjoys the happiness that is the Self. Similarly, in the states of sleep, samadhi and fainting, and when the object desired is obtained or the object disliked is removed, the mind becomes inward-turned, and enjoys pure Self-Happiness. Thus the mind moves without rest alternately going out of the Self and returning to it. Under the tree the shade is pleasant; out in the open the heat is scorching. A person who has been going about in the sun feels cool when he reaches the shade. Someone who keeps on going from the shade into the sun and then back into the shade is a fool. A wise man stays permanently in the shade. Similarly, the mind of the one who knows the truth does not leave Brahman. The mind of the ignorant, on the contrary, revolves in the world, feeling miserable, and for a little time returns to Brahman to experience happiness. In fact, what is called the world is only thought. When the world disappears, i.e. when there is no thought, the mind experiences happiness; and when the world appears, it goes through misery.

25. What is wisdom-insight (jnana-drsti)?

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.

26. What is the relation between desirelessness and wisdom?

Desirelessness is wisdom. The two are not different; they are the same. Desirelessness is refraining from turning the mind towards any object. Wisdom means the appearance of no object. In other words, not seeking what is other than the Self is detachment or desirelessness; not leaving the Self is wisdom.


27. What is the difference between inquiry and meditation?

Inquiry consists in retaining the mind in the Self. Meditation consists in thinking that one’s self is Brahman, existence-consciousness-bliss.

28. What is release?

Inquiring into the nature of one’s self that is in bondage, and realising one’s true nature is release.

SRI RAMANARPANAM ASTU

Diksha

Devotee: Bhagavan’s is mowna diksha, is it not?

Bhagavan: Yes, this the highest form of diksha.

source: Talk 509

Om Namo Bhagavate Sri Ramanaya!

Ramana Maharshi about Body

Speaking to the attendants and to T.N. Krishnaswami,doctor and devotee, he explained: “The body is like a bananaleaf on which all kinds of delicious food have been served. After we have eaten the food from it do we take the leaf and preserve it? Do we not throw it away now that it has served its purpose?”

On another occasion he said to the attendants: “Who is to carry this load of a body even after it needs assistance in everything? Do you expect me to carry this load that it would take four men to carry?”

And to some of the devotees: “Suppose you go to a firewood depot and buy a bundle of firewood and engage a coolie to carry it to your house. As you walk along with him he will be anxiously looking forward to his destination so that he can throw off his burden and get relief. In the same way the Jnani is anxious to throw off his mortal body.” And then he corrected the explanation: “This exposition is all right as far as it goes, but strictly speaking even this is not quite accurate. The Jnani is not even anxious to shed his body; he is indifferent alike to the existence or non existence of the body, being almost unaware of it.”

Some of the devotees made it a plea for their own welfare. “What is to become of us without Bhagavan? We are too weak to look after ourselves; we depend on his Grace for everything.” And he replied, “You attach too much importance to the body,” clearly implying that the end of his body would not interrupt the Grace and guidance.

In the same vein he said: “They say that I am dying but I am not going away. Where could I go? I am here.”

Source: RAMANA MAHARSHI AND THE PATH OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE

Ramana Maharshi's Last Poem in 1947

It was in 1947 that Sri Bhagavan wrote his last poem. This time it was not in response to any request, and yet it had something of the appearance of a tour de force, since he wrote it first in Telugu, but to a Tamil metrical form, and then translated it into Tamil. It was called Ekatmapanchakam (‘Five verses on the Self ’).

Forgetting the Self, mistaking the body for the Self, going through innumerable births and finally finding and being the Self — this is just like waking up from a dream of wandering all over the world.

He who asks ‘Who am I?’ although existing as the Self, is like a drunken man who asks about his own identity and whereabouts.

When in fact the body is in the Self, to think that the Self is within the insentient body is like thinking that the cinema screen on which a figure is projected is inside the figure.

Has the ornament any existence apart from the gold (of which it is made)? Where is the body apart from the Self? The ignorant mistake the body for the Self, but the Jnani, knower of the Self, perceives the Self as the Self.

That one Self, the Reality, alone exists for ever. If even the Primal Guru (Adi Guru, Dakshinamurti) revealed it in silence, who can convey it in speech?

Source: RAMANA MAHARSHI AND THE PATH OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE

Ramana Maharshi says,It was sincerity that was required, not brilliance

Learning was not condemned in itself, just as material wealth and psychic powers were not; only, with all three alike, the desire for them and preoccupation with them were condemned as blinding a man and distracting him from the true goal. As is stated about psychic powers in an ancient text already quoted, they are like ropes to tether a beast. It was sincerity that was required, not brilliance; understanding, not theory; humility, not mental pride. Particularly when songs were sung in the hall one would see this,noticing the perfunctory interest Sri Bhagavan might show to some celebrity and the radiance of his Grace showered on one who sang with true devotion even if with little skill.

Source: RAMANA MAHARSHI AND THE PATH OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE

Ramana Maharshi on Celebrating Birthdays

A word should be said also about the great annual festivals. Most of the devotees were unable to live permanently at Tiruvannamalai and could only come occasionally, so that there were always crowds for the public holidays, especially for the four great festivals of Kartikai, Deepavali, Mahapuja (the anniversary of the Mother’s death) and Jayanthi (the birthday of Sri Bhagavan). Jayanthi was the greatest and most heavily attended of these. At first Sri Bhagavan was reluctant to have it celebrated at all. He composed the stanzas:

You who wish to celebrate the birthday, seek first whence was your birth. One’s true birthday is when he enters That which transcends birth and death — the Eternal Being.

At least on one’s birthday one should mourn one’s entry into this world (samsara). To glory in it and celebrate it is like delighting in and decorating a corpse. To seek one’s Self and merge in the Self: that is wisdom.

Source: RAMANA MAHARSHI AND THE PATH OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE

Ramana Maharshi says,God has no purpose. He is not bound by any action

Devotee: Is not this world and what takes place therein the result of God’s will? And if so why should God will thus?

Ramana Maharshi: God has no purpose. He is not bound by any action. The world’s activities cannot affect Him. Take the analogy of the sun. The sun rises without desire, purpose or effort, but as soon as it rises numerous activities take place on earth: the lens placed in its rays produces fire in its focus, the lotus bud opens, water evaporates, and every living creature enters upon activity, maintains it, and finally drops it. But the sun is not affected by any such activity, as it merely acts according to its nature, by fixed laws, without any purpose, and is only a witness. So it is with God. Or take the analogy of space or ether. Earth, water, fire and air are all in it and have their modifications in it, yet none of these affects ether or space. It is the same with God. God has no desire or purpose in His acts of creation, maintenance destruction, withdrawal and salvation to which beings are subjected. As the beings reap the fruit of their actions in accordance with His laws, the responsibility is theirs, not God’s. God is not bound by any actions.

Source: RAMANA MAHARSHI AND THE PATH OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE

Srila Prabhupada's Letter to Mahatma Gandhi

1947: July 12
Cawnpore
Mahatma Gandhijee
Bhangi Colony
New Delhi.
Dear Friend Mahatmajee,

Please accept my respectful Namaskar. I am your unknown friend but I had to write to you at times and again although you never cared to reply them. I sent you my papers “Back to Godhead” but your secretaries told me that you have very little time to read the letters and much less for reading the magazines. I asked for an interview with
you but your busy secretaries never cared to reply this.

Anyway as I am your very old friend although unknown to you I am again writing to you in order to bring you to the rightful position deserved by you. As a sincere friend I must not deviate from my duty towards a friend like your good self.

I tell you as a sincere friend that you must immediately retire from active politics if you do not desire to die an inglorious death. You have 125 years to live as you have desired to live but you if you die an inglorious death it is no worth. The honour and prestige that you have obtained during the course of you present life time, were not possible to be obtained by any one else within the living memory. But
you must know that all these honours and prestiges were false in as much as they were created by the Illusory Energy of Godhead called the maya.

By this falsity I do not mean to say that your so many friends were false to you nor you were false to them. By this falsity I mean illusion or in other words the false friendship and honours obtained thereby were but creation of maya and therefore they are always temporary or false as you may call it. But none of you neither your
friends nor yourself knew this truth.

Now by the Grace of God that illusion is going to be cleared and thus your faithful friends like Acarya Kripalini and others are accusing you for your inability at the present moment to give them any practical programme of work as you happened to give them during your glorious days of non-co-operation movement. So you are also in a
plight to find out a proper solution for the present political tangle created by your opponents.

You should therefore take a note of warning from your insignificant friend like me, that unless you retire timely from politics and engage yourself cent per cent in the preaching work of Bhagavad-gita, which is the real function of the Mahatmas, you shall have to meet with such inglorious deaths as Mussolini, Hitlers, Tojo, Churchill or Lloyd Georges met with.

You can very easily understand as to how some of your political enemies in the garb of friends (both Indian and English) have deliberately cheated you and have broken your heart by doing the same mischief for which you have struggled so hard for so many years. You wanted chiefly Hindu-Moslem unity in India and they have tactfully
managed to undo your work, by creation of the Pakistan and India separately. You wanted freedom for India but they have given permanent dependence of India.

You wanted to do something for the upliftment of the position of the bhangis but they are still rotting as bhangis even though you are living in the bhangi colony. They are all therefore illusions and when these things will be presented to you as they are, you must consider them as God-sent. God has favored you by dissipating the illusion you were hovering in, and by the same illusion you were, nursing those
ideas as Truth.

You must know that you are in the relative world which is called by the sages as Dvaita i.e. dual- and nothing is absolute here. Your Ahimsa is always followed by Himsa as the light is followed by darkness or the father is followed by the son. Nothing is absolute truth in this dual world. You did not know this neither you ever cared to know this from the right sources and therefore all your attempts to create unity were followed by disunity and Ahimsa. Ahimsa was followed by Himsa.

But it is better late than never. You must know now something about the Absolute Truth. The Truth with which you have been experimenting so long is relative. The relative truths are creations of the daivi maya qualified by the three modes of Nature. They are all insurmountable as is explained in the Bhagavad-gita (7.14). The
Absolute Truth is the Absolute Godhead.

In the Katha Upanisad it is ordered that one must approach the bona fide Guru who is not only well versed in all the scriptures of the world but is also the realised soul in Brahman the Absolute–in order to learn the science of Absolute Truth. So also it is instructed in the Bhagavad-gita as follows:–

tad viddhi pranipatena
pariprasnena sevaya
upadeksyanti tad jnanam
jnaninas tattvadarsinah
(4.34)

But I know that you never underwent such transcendental training except some severe penances which you invented for your purpose as you have invented so many things in the course of experimenting with the relative truths. You might have easily avoided them if you had approached the Guru as abovementioned. But your sincere efforts to
attain some Godly qualities by austerities etc surely have raised you to some higher position which you can better utilize for the purpose of the Absolute Truth. If you, however, remain satisfied with such temporary position only and do not try to know the Absolute Truth, then surely you are to fall down from the artificially exalted
position under the laws of Nature.

But if you really want to approach the Absolute Truth and want to do some real good to the people in general all over the world, which shall include your ideas of unity, peace and non-violence, then you must give up the rotten politics immediately and rise up for the preaching work of the philosophy and religion of “Bhagavad-gita”
without offering unnecessary and dogmatic interpretations on them. I had occasionally discussed this subject in my paper “Back to Godhead” and a leaf from the same is enclosed herewith for your reference. I would only request you to retire from politics at least for a month only and let us have discussion on the Bhagavad-gita. I am sure,thereby, that you shall get a new light from the result of such discussions not only for your benefit but for the benefit of the world at large–as I know that you are sincere, honest and moralist.

Awaiting your early reply with interest.

Yours sincerely,
Abhay Charan De.

From :
CONTROL ROOM ASSISTANT,
LMD/CABIN MAINTENANCE UNIT ()

The Victory of the Little Squirrel

http://express.ashram.org/?p=304

When coming to the rescue of Sita, Shri Rama was aided by Hanuman and the army of monkeys. They needed to build a bridge to cross the waters from India to Lanka where Sita was imprisoned. To do so, the monkeys began carrying huge boulders down from the hills and depositing them in the water.

Seeing such devotion in their work, a small squirrel was inspired to help. Yet, when he offered his help, he was laughed at by the monkeys. Being so small, how he could help to do such a task, they asked.

Instead of being discouraged, the small squirrel ran down to the sea and immersed himself in the water. Completely wet, he began to roll in the sand, so it would stick to his body. He then quickly ran to where the bridge was being formed and shook himself off, so that all the grains of sand he had collected would fall off amongst the huge boulders and contribute to the grand task. He continued to do so again and again.

Shri Rama noticed his work. Rama was so moved by the squirrel’s determination that he took the small animal in his hands and blessed him by stroking his back with three of his fingers. And that is why even today the Indian squirrel shows this blessing by wearing three stripes on its back.

“Everyone has different gifts and capacities. We should try to perform to the best of our ability however difficult the task may be.“

Carrot, Egg or Coffee?

http://www.robinsweb.com/inspiration/carroteggcoffee.html

A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved a new one arose.

Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water. In the first, she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs and the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil without saying a word.

In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl. Turning to her daughter, she asked, "Tell me what do you see?"

"Carrots, eggs, and coffee," she replied.


She brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they got soft.She then asked her to take an egg and break it.

After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg.

Finally, she asked her to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled, as she tasted its rich aroma. The daughter then asked. "What's the point, mother?"

Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity--boiling water--but each reacted differently.

The carrot went in strong, hard and unrelenting. However after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior. But, after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened.

The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water they had changed the water.

"Which are you?" she asked her daughter. "When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg, or a coffee bean?"

Think of this: Which am I?

Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity, do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength?

Am I the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but changes with the heat? Did I have a fluid spirit, but after a death, a breakup, a financial hardship or some other trial, have I become hardened and stiff?

Does my shell look the same, but on the inside am I bitter and tough with a stiff spirit and a hardened heart?

Or am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water, the very circumstance that brings the pain. When the water gets hot, it releases the fragrance and flavor. If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you.

When the hours are the darkest and trials are their greatest do you elevate to another level?

How do you handle Adversity? ARE YOU A CARROT, AN EGG, OR A COFFEE BEAN?

Don't tell GOD how big your storm is. Tell the storm how big your GOD is!

Thanks 'Bean'!