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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.
Not only are there outward sravana (hearing of the truth) and manana (thinking over what has been heard) but there are also inward sravana and manana. They must occur to a person as a result of the maturity of his mind. Those that are able to do that antara sravana (hearing inwardly) do not have any doubts.
Look at your Self or Atma, rather than anywhere else. The eyes may be kept open or closed – it is immaterial. There is only one I, whether you spell it ‘I’ or ‘eye’. There is no point in opening or closing the eyes. Attention must be focused on the inner ‘I’. You are not an eye that can be opened or closed. You may close or open the eyes according to your liking or inclination. It is immaterial, and not important. You will cease to think of the world when you think of the Self. If you are in a room and close your eyes and do not look out, it is immaterial whether you close the windows or keep them open. (The body is the room, the eyes are the window.)
The Self does not move. The world moves in it.
At present we are conscious of ourselves as a set of adjuncts with object knowing consciousness in which our attention seemingly move away from the self towards the object with separation between knowing subject and known object. In self-enquiry we withdraw our attention from thoughts and objects so that attention rests in self without any oscillation. To posit our attention in this state is the aim of self-enquiry.
Self-enquiry is the one infallible means, the only direct one, to realize the unconditioned, Absolute Being that you really are.
The Self does not need to be made happy. It is itself happiness.
Take no notice of the ego and its activities, but see only the light behind.
There is nothing wrong with God's creation. Mystery and Suffering only exist in the mind...
CONTROL OF MIND Vs DESTRUCTION OF MIND
D: When I am engaged in enquiry as to the source from which the 'I' springs, I arrive at a stage of stillness of mind beyond which I find myself unable to proceed further. I have no thought of any kind and there is an emptiness. a blankness. A mild light pervades and I feel that it is myself bodiless. I have neither cognition nor vision of body and form. The experience lasts nearly half an hour and is pleasing. Would I be correct in concluding that all that was necessary to secure eternal happiness (i.e. freedom or salvation or whatever one calls it) was to continue the practice till this experience could be maintained for hours, days and months together?
B: This does not mean salvation; such a condition is termed manolaya or temporary stillness of thought. Manolaya means concentration, temporarily arresting the movement of thoughts; as soon as this concentration ceases, thoughts, old and new, rush in as usual and even though this temporary lulling of mind should last a thousand years it will never lead to total destruction of thought, which is what is called salvation or liberation from birth and death. The practicer must therefore be ever on the alert and enquire within as to who has this experience, who realises its pleasantness. Failing this enquiry he will go into a long trance or deep sleep (Yoga nidra). Due to the absence of a proper guide at this stage of spiritual practice many have been deluded and fallen a prey to a false sense of salvation and only a few have, either by the merit of good acts in their previous births, or by extreme grace, been enabled to reach the goal safely.
- Crumbs from His Table
D: When I am engaged in enquiry as to the source from which the 'I' springs, I arrive at a stage of stillness of mind beyond which I find myself unable to proceed further. I have no thought of any kind and there is an emptiness. a blankness. A mild light pervades and I feel that it is myself bodiless. I have neither cognition nor vision of body and form. The experience lasts nearly half an hour and is pleasing. Would I be correct in concluding that all that was necessary to secure eternal happiness (i.e. freedom or salvation or whatever one calls it) was to continue the practice till this experience could be maintained for hours, days and months together?
B: This does not mean salvation; such a condition is termed manolaya or temporary stillness of thought. Manolaya means concentration, temporarily arresting the movement of thoughts; as soon as this concentration ceases, thoughts, old and new, rush in as usual and even though this temporary lulling of mind should last a thousand years it will never lead to total destruction of thought, which is what is called salvation or liberation from birth and death. The practicer must therefore be ever on the alert and enquire within as to who has this experience, who realises its pleasantness. Failing this enquiry he will go into a long trance or deep sleep (Yoga nidra). Due to the absence of a proper guide at this stage of spiritual practice many have been deluded and fallen a prey to a false sense of salvation and only a few have, either by the merit of good acts in their previous births, or by extreme grace, been enabled to reach the goal safely.
- Crumbs from His Table
You make all kinds of sweets from various ingredients and in various shapes, and they all taste sweet because there is sugar in all of them, and sweetness is the nature of sugar. In the same way, all experiences and the absence of them contain the illumination, which is the nature of the Self. Without the Self they cannot be experienced, just as without sugar not one of the articles you make can taste sweet.
Self-enquiry is certainly not an empty formula and it is more than the repetition of any mantra. If the enquiry ‘Who am I?’ were a mere mental questioning, it would not be of much value. The very purpose of self-enquiry is to focus the entire mind at its source. It is not, therefore, a case of one ‘I’ searching for another ‘I’. Much less is self-enquiry an empty formula, for it involves an intense activity of the entire mind to keep it steadily poised in pure Self-awareness.
You may experience anything, but you should never rest content with that. Whether you feel pleasure or fear, ask yourself who feels the pleasure or the fear and so carry on the sadhana until pleasure and fear are both transcended, till all duality ceases and till the reality alone remains.
There is only one state, that of consciousness or awareness or existence. The three states of waking, dream and sleep cannot be real. They simply come and go. The real will always exist.
The experience of not forgetting consciousness alone is the state of devotion which is the relationship of unfading real love, because the real knowledge of Self, which shines as the undivided supreme bliss itself, surges up as the nature of love. Love itself is the actual form of God. That is pure bliss. Call it pure bliss, God, Self, or what you will. That is devotion, that is realization and that is everything.
By repeated practice one can become accustomed to turning inwards and finding the Self. One must always and constantly make an effort, until one has permanently realized. Once the effort ceases, the state becomes natural and the Supreme takes possession of the person with an unbroken current. Until it has become permanently natural and your habitual state, know that you have not realized the Self, only glimpsed it.
Because you give precedence to worldly things, God appears to have receded to the background. If you give up all else and seek Him alone, He will remain as the 'I', the Self.
God’s grace consists in the fact that He shines in the heart of every one as the Self; that power of grace does not exclude anyone, whether good or otherwise.Seekers should, overcome afflictions with a cool mind, and the firm faith that they occur by the grace of God, to help to steady the mind.
The enemy hates the ego, which the seeker wants to kill; thus, like the anvil to the goldsmith, he is actually a friend.
Peace is the inner nature of humankind. If you find it within yourself, you will then find it everywhere.
Is there a mind in the first place? What you call mind is an illusion. It starts from the 'I'-thought.
Without the gross or subtle senses, you cannot be aware of the body or the mind. Still, it is possible for you to be without these senses. In such a state, you are either asleep or aware of the Self only. Awareness of Self is ever there. Remain what you truly are and this question will not arise.
Without the gross or subtle senses, you cannot be aware of the body or the mind. Still, it is possible for you to be without these senses. In such a state, you are either asleep or aware of the Self only. Awareness of Self is ever there. Remain what you truly are and this question will not arise.
Question : Is nirvikalpa samadhi absolutely necessary before the attainment of sahaja?
Ramana Maharshi : Abiding permanently in any of these samadhis, either savikalpa or nirvikatpa, is sahaja [the natural state]. What is body-consciousness? It is the insentient body plus consciousness. Both of these must lie in another consciousness which is absolute and unaffected and which remains as it always is, with or without the body-consciousness. What does it then matter whether the body-consciousness is lost or retained, provided one is holding on to that pure consciousness? Total absence of body-consciousness has the advantage of making the samadhi more intense, although it makes no difference to the knowledge of the supreme.
Ramana Maharshi : Abiding permanently in any of these samadhis, either savikalpa or nirvikatpa, is sahaja [the natural state]. What is body-consciousness? It is the insentient body plus consciousness. Both of these must lie in another consciousness which is absolute and unaffected and which remains as it always is, with or without the body-consciousness. What does it then matter whether the body-consciousness is lost or retained, provided one is holding on to that pure consciousness? Total absence of body-consciousness has the advantage of making the samadhi more intense, although it makes no difference to the knowledge of the supreme.
If you ask, “What is the benefit of sacrificing the innumerable sensual pleasures and retaining mere Consciousness?”, [we reply that] the fruit of Jnana is the
eternal and unbroken experience of the Bliss of Self.
eternal and unbroken experience of the Bliss of Self.
In the kitchen he was the Master Cook, aiming at perfection in taste and appearance. One would think that he liked good food and enjoyed a hearty meal. Not at all. At dinner time he would mix up the little food he would allow to be put on his leaf - the sweet, the sour and the savory, everything together- and gulp it down carelessly as if he had no taste in his mouth. When we would tell him that it was not right to mix such nicely made up dishes, he would say:
"Enough of multiplicity. Let us have some unity."
"Enough of multiplicity. Let us have some unity."
You can be here or there or anywhere.
Fixed in silence, established in the inner I, you can be as you are.
The world will never perturb you if you are well founded upon the tranquility within.
Fixed in silence, established in the inner I, you can be as you are.
The world will never perturb you if you are well founded upon the tranquility within.
Beings
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