HUNTING THE ‘I’
according to
Sri Ramana Maharshi
By
LUCY CORNELSSEN
not... and go on with your task. You have perceived the event,
but it has not made an impression on you, has not altered your
quiet state of consciousness. You cut it short after the second
stage.
This attitude of aloofness, of detachment, has to be kept
and practised as often as possible throughout the day.
Because the moment you are perceiving something and
re-acting on it, being interested or emotionally involved,
positively or negatively, you have covered up the silent, neutral,
pure, witnessing ‘I’ by the reactive aggressive, personal ‘I’.
Accordingly the sadhana of hunting the ‘I’ includes the
practice of attention to our own perceiving, with the purpose
of cutting it short just before the stage of reacting sets in. In
practising this kind of detachment the seeker will soon get to a
state of pure awareness, which is no longer ‘perceiving’.
To ‘perceiving’ in the customary meaning of the term
belongs ‘grasping’, i.e., reacting; it has an object and is an act
within time and space. Pure awareness has no object and is
beyond time and space. It is the highest wakefulness without all
the other characteristics of the waking state.
This is one means to carry over the absolute Silence of
deep sleep into the absolute, the pure awareness of the waking
state. Sri Ramana Maharshi named it the sleepless sleep, the
wakeful sleep or sleepwaking.
MEDITATION
In dealing with the teachings of Ramana Maharshi, one
occasionally comes across pieces of advice which seem to
contradict each other. To recognise the real meaning of such
apparent inconsistencies one has to keep in mind one main
principle of the sage: he never discouraged the visitor in his
own spiritual endeavour, whatever the outer form may be.
Because he knew that the sincere seeker after Truth is always
guided from within, and that his inclinations to particular
practices not only indicate the degree of his spiritual maturity,
but at the same time, in most cases, are also the means best
suited for the person concerned. He never advised a questioner
to drop whatever practice he had followed up to that point; he
only showed, if necessary, how to make it more effective.
When he stressed again and again the superiority of
investigation compared with all other methods, he was not
motivated by a kind of bigotry, but did it because there is a very
important reason behind it, rocklike, insurmountable: all other
methods of sadhana have to keep the personal ‘I’ to be practised:
vichara, the investigation into this ‘I’, is the best possible method
to remove it.
Meditation, as a yoga practice almost a parlour game
nowadays, was also foremost among the subjects about which
questions were put before Ramana Maharshi. His answers point,
as usual, to the way already mentioned... how to make it most
effective.
The purpose of meditation is known: Quieting the
restlessness of the mind, also the method, fixing the attention
on one thought only, until finally this thought also vanishes.
Ramana Maharshi’s interpretation of meditation is different
“Meditation is your true state...now. You call it meditation,
because there are other thoughts distracting you. When these
thoughts are dispelled, you remain alone, i.e., in the state of
meditation free from thoughts; and that is your real nature which
you are now attempting to gain by keeping away other thoughts.
Such keeping away of other thoughts is now called meditation.
When the practice becomes firm, the real nature shows itself as
the true meditation.” (Talks, 310).
Somebody utters doubt: ‘Meditation is with mind. How
can it kill the mind in order to reveal the Self?’
The answer keeps in line with the former one: “Meditation
is sticking to one thought. That single thought keeps away other
thoughts; distraction of mind is a sign of weakness. By constant
meditation it gains strength, that is to say, its weakness of fugitive
thought gives place to the enduring background free from
thoughts. This expanse devoid of thought is the Self. Mind in
purity is the Self.” (Talks, 293).
Another question: “Shall I meditate on ‘I am Brahman’?”
(‘I am Brahman’ is one of the four Great Sayings or
Mahavakyas of the Upanishads.)
“The text is not meant for thinking ‘I am Brahman’. ‘I’ is
known to everyone. Brahman abides as ‘I’ in everyone. Find
out the ‘I’. The ‘I’ is already Brahman. You need not think so.
Simply find out the ‘I’!” (Talks, 266).
The same question turns up repeatedly.
“ ‘I am Brahman’ is only a thought. Who says it? Brahman
himself does not say so. What need is there for Him to say
it? Nor can the real ‘I’ say so, for ‘I’ always abides as Brahman.
To be saying it is only a thought. Whose thought is it? All
thoughts are from the unreal ‘I’, i.e., the ‘I’-thought. Remain
without thinking. So long as there is thought there will be
fear.” (Talks, 202).
So what should one think of when meditating?
“What is meditation? It is the expulsion of thoughts. You
are perturbed by thoughts which rush one after another. Hold
on to one thought so that others are expelled. Continuous
practice gives the necessary strength of mind to engage in
meditation.
“Meditation differs according to the degree of advancement
of the seeker. If one is fit for it one might directly hold the
thinker, and the thinker will automatically sink into his source,
namely Pure Consciousness. If one cannot directly hold the
thinker one must meditate on God; and in due course the same
individual will have become sufficiently pure to hold the thinker
and sink into absolute Be-ing.”(Talks, 453).
The natural consequence of this answer would be:
‘What then is the difference between meditation and
investigation?’
The answer is:
“Both amount to the same. Those unfit for investigation
must practise meditation. In this practice the aspirant forgetting
himself meditates ‘I am Brahman’ or ‘I am Siva’; thus he
continues to hold on to Brahman or Siva; this will ultimately
end in the residual Being as Brahman or Siva, which he will
realise to be the Pure Being,... the Self.”
“He who engages in investigation starts holding on to
himself asks ‘Who am I’ and the Self becomes clear to him.”
(Talks, 172).
Here we have one of the above mentioned ‘contradictions’:
Though seemingly undermining such meditation by this method
of enquiry, Ramana Maharshi himself recommends meditation
on ‘I am Brahman’. But at the same time his answer contains
the clue to the method, showing to convert meditation into
self-enquiry: ‘Forgetting himself...’
The following quotation can be taken as a summarizing
by Ramana Maharshi of the technique and effect of meditation:
“To be in one’s natural state on the subsidence of thoughts
is bliss; if that bliss be transient, arising and setting... then it is
only the sheath of bliss (anandamaya kosha), not the pure Self.
What is needed is to fix the attention on the pure ‘I’ after the
subsidence of all thoughts and not to lose hold of it. This has to
be described as an extremely subtle thought; else it cannot be
spoken of at all, since it is no other than the Real Self. Who is
to speak of it, to whom and how?
“This subtle mental state is not a modification of mind
(called vritti). Because the mental states are of two kinds: One
is the natural state and the other is a transformation into forms
of objects. The first is the Truth, and the other is according to
the doer. When the latter perishes, the former will remain over.
“The means for this end is meditation. Though meditation
is with the triad of distinction (the meditator, the meditated
object and the meditation), it will finally end in pure awareness
(jnana). Meditation needs effort; jnana is effortless. Meditation
can be done, or not done, or wrongly done; jnana is not so.
Meditation is described as ‘doer’s own’, jnana as the ‘Supreme’s
own’.” (Talks, 624).
The only answer consistent with his Great Experience is:
“Who is the meditator? Ask that question first. Remain as
the meditator. There is no need to meditate.” (Talks, 205).
Thus far we have considered meditation as a sheer
technique with the purpose of getting the process of automatic
thought under control. But according to Ramana Maharshi it
means more i.e., our true nature. However, no special
technique whatsoever can reveal our true nature to us as long
as there is our wrong ‘I’ as the motive power behind our acting
in everyday-life.
In all kinds of spiritual practice there is the principle:
‘The siddhi of the sage is the sadhana of the sadhaka’, which
means that the seeker after truth has to mould his own
behaviour according to the behaviour of the sage, whom he
looks upon as his guide or teacher. Of course not like the
hypocrite, who merely pretends, but in order to get at the
inner attitude, the motivation of the master’s behaviour. Our
present pattern of acting is the result of a lifelong egocentrism
which has penetrated all our feeling, thinking and acting, our
socalled mind. To get rid of it, it is not enough to sit daily for
some time in meditation. Because even when we are already
advanced in this technique in a certain degree by practice and
able to put the thought-process at rest, it is merely a trick. The
ego-mind has realised, as it were, that we insist on being quiet,
and it yields to be ‘the meditator’, for the time being. Because
it ‘knows’ quite well that when the habitual time of meditation
is over it will be free again to roam about as usual.
If we do not resolve to attack the deadly enemy in every
nook and corner of our daily life, we shall never get rid of this
ghost which we have pampered unconsciously for so long. But
what is the means?
We can analyse ourselves, find out our personal
shortcomings and weaknesses, and try to overcome them one
by one. It is a very tedious and long process, and the result
rather poor. Can we expect our enemy, the ghost...‘I’, to commit
suicide to please us?
Or we can take refuge in the wise Patanjali and adopt the
first two steps of his Ashtanga Yoga, Yama and Niyama.
Yama represents the five Mahavratas, the ‘great vows’ of
self-restraint: non-violence, truthfulness, honesty, continence
and abstemiousness. They are not only meant in their gross
sense, but in subtler ways also. Thus non-violence means not
causing injury in thought, word or deed; truthfulness, avoiding
not only sheer lies but exaggeration as well and making false
impressions on others. Halftruths are worse than whole lies.
Honesty does not only mean non-stealing, but covers at the
same time the possession of things in a quantity exceeding our
momentary needs and not entertaining desires for things we
don’t need.
Brahmacharya is not confined to sexual continence in acting,
word or thought. Its real meaning is the quest for Brahman, to
live and find our happiness only in Brahman. Abstemiousness
means freedom not only from greed, but from all desires.
These five yamas are completely obligatory for any one
undertaking the yogic path, and they are important for any
one who wants results of his meditation practice.
The niyamas are rather positive directions in so far as they
demand abidance in the right, while the yamas lay stress on the
renunciation of the wrong. The five niyamas are: purity, external
and internal, contentment, tapas, concerning body, speech and
mind, study of scriptures and surrender to God.
Practising these yogic virtues sincerely would certainly bring
some improvement in the course of time, but it will not root
out the enemy, the personal ‘I’, because again it is just the same
‘I’ which is practising them. Maybe it will even become stronger,
a ‘yogic I’, as will be seen later. So what can we do?
There is only one way to ovecome the ghost...to watch it.
Do not fight, do not resist. Only try to watch it, quietly but
ceaselessly. In other words, develop an unconcerned witnessconsciousness
towards men, things and happenings without,
but particularly towards yourself within. It means to carry on
the calmness of the mind gained in your meditation to cover
your whole day. You will distinctly feel it as an undercurrent of
peace and detachment.
Of course, as soon as you succeed, the ghost-‘I’ will
immediately try to hide itself in this witness-consciousness at
the feeling ‘I am the witness’. This again is only a thought. But
to be the witness without any I-consciousness is the pure mind
at the threshold of Reality.
same time the possession of things in a quantity exceeding our
momentary needs and not entertaining desires for things we
don’t need.
Brahmacharya is not confined to sexual continence in acting,
word or thought. Its real meaning is the quest for Brahman, to
live and find our happiness only in Brahman. Abstemiousness
means freedom not only from greed, but from all desires.
These five yamas are completely obligatory for any one
undertaking the yogic path, and they are important for any
one who wants results of his meditation practice.
The niyamas are rather positive directions in so far as they
demand abidance in the right, while the yamas lay stress on the
renunciation of the wrong. The five niyamas are: purity, external
and internal, contentment, tapas, concerning body, speech and
mind, study of scriptures and surrender to God.
Practising these yogic virtues sincerely would certainly bring
some improvement in the course of time, but it will not root
out the enemy, the personal ‘I’, because again it is just the same
‘I’ which is practising them. Maybe it will even become stronger,
a ‘yogic I’, as will be seen later. So what can we do?
There is only one way to ovecome the ghost...to watch it.
Do not fight, do not resist. Only try to watch it, quietly but
ceaselessly. In other words, develop an unconcerned witnessconsciousness
towards men, things and happenings without,
but particularly towards yourself within. It means to carry on
the calmness of the mind gained in your meditation to cover
your whole day. You will distinctly feel it as an undercurrent of
peace and detachment.
Of course, as soon as you succeed, the ghost-‘I’ will
immediately try to hide itself in this witness-consciousness at
the feeling ‘I am the witness’. This again is only a thought. But
to be the witness without any I-consciousness is the pure mind
at the threshold of Reality.
OBSTACLES AND PITFALLS
Hunting the ‘I’ means trying to overcome the only obstacle
before Awakening to the Truth... but how many faces it has!
The one which soon will betray itself as a great deposit of
obstacles is the so-called mind, with its main qualities, restlessness
and dullness.
The cardinal remedy has been mentioned: To develop an
attitude of unconcerned witnessing, watch the restless thoughts
and the rushing torrent will slow down; recognize, watch your
laziness, and it will sneak away.
The method works, but actually it means to treat the
symptoms, leaving the disease, which seems to be the mind,
undisturbed.
Have a closer look. Try to locate this opponent to the
most important decision of your life, your search for the Self.
Where does the mind come in?
Ramana Maharshi says:
“There is no entity by name mind. Because of the
emergence of thoughts we surmise something from which they
start. That we term ‘mind’. When we probe to see what it is,
there is nothing like it. After it has thus vanished, Peace will be
found to remain eternal.” (Talks, 239).
Then are thoughts, feelings and will produced by the brain?
No. Science dropped that hypothesis, which it once held,
and declared the brain to be a sheer receiving and reacting organ.
Western psychology talks about subconscious regions within
the individual as the source of much material for the so-called mind;
but there is also assumed a vast ocean of a collective consciousness,
which contains an infinite mass of concepts and ideas, subtle urges
and passions, holy and unholy, and which is ceaselessly sending out
corresponding signals that can be caught by anybody who is just
tuned in as a receiver. This hypothesis seems to be confirmed by
the fact that important inventions and striking new ideas have
turned up in different brains at the same time.
Ancient eastern tradition took notice only of the seeming
independence of thoughts, ideas, etc., from the thinking person
and developed an intricate theory of their ‘roots’...latent past
impressions, hidden tendencies and suppressed desires... calling
them vasanas.
Since we have no direct access to the depths of subconscious
where the vasanas are stored, we can only treat the symptoms,
as it were, the thoughts and pictures, concepts and ideas, which
rise into our consciousness. And it is enough when we treat
them in the way already mentioned, watching them quietly as
they arise and disappear on their own.
Meditation without an object brings up more of them
than the habitual waking state. Vasanas from a depth of
unconciousness which is not touched even by meditation will
be settled by dreams. It seems to be the explicit purpose of the
dream state to deal with inaccessible vasanas and render them
harmless. We need not worry about them as obstacles to our
sadhana; to treat their ‘offsprings’ as and when they appear will
do to make them ineffective. After all, they cling to the personal
‘I’ only; when that disappears in the search for the Self they too
dissolve once and for all.
Looking out for other obstacles, we meet another one
which can trouble us a lot, our changing moods.
We are aware, that they change, much to our annoyance:
sometimes we are restless or inclined to flare up, at other times
we feel dull or even depressed, and sometimes we seem to be
the very embodiment of harmony, peace and happiness itself.
Of course, there always seems to be some reason for it.
And this idea is wrong.
For in respect to this change of mood, we are merely a
biological phenomenon, an organism, simply reacting to some
cosmic influence.
The Western concept of creation goes along the line or
origin, evolution, decline and destruction, whereas Indian
thinkers of yore did not allow a creation out of naught. Nothing
remains always nothing; something cannot come out of
nothing. Thus they preferred the theory of an infinite cycle of
an alternately manifest and unmanifest universe.
Sattva, corresponding to Light, peace and harmony; rajas,
communicating heat, movement, passion and wrath; and tamas,
which means dullness, ignorance, stagnation and depression are
three gunas (qualities) of nature itself, which are in perfect balance
among each other during the age-long unmanifested period of
the dormant universe; its manifestation into another period of
activity starts by a disturbance in the balance of the three gunas
and is kept in motion by them.
They cause the rhythm in which the universe is swinging,
and there is absolutely nothing which can withdraw from their
influence. Beyond the gunas is only Absolute Consciousness,
because it is beyond nature.
We are not asking the Western reader to accept all and every
Eastern theory about God, Man and World uncritically, merely
because they are Eastern. We ask him, however, in this case, to
examine this concept of the three gunas applied to himself, and he
will soon be convinced of its validity, at least as working-hypothesis.
Don’t all of us know morning-awakenings when we are in
a truly happy...or miserable...condition, without finding a
particular reason for it? And at other times, aren’t our poor
presumptive ‘reasons’ found limping behind?
The insight into the true nature of our ‘moods’ as the play
of the gunas will be of great advantage in our sadhana, insofar
as it undermines effectively our long cherished feeling of
individuality. Aren’t joy and sorrow, happiness and misery,
suffering and high elation the very ‘stuff ’ of our souls? Where is
our individuality, if all this is superimposed on some quite
impersonal changes, caused regularly by the rhythmic change
in the balance of the three gunas?
But how can we get control over this amazing mystery,
which reveals itself suddenly as a cosmic power far beyond the
reach of our poor personal ‘I’?
Again there is nothing which can be done immediately
against the working of the gunas on us. But we can renounce
the desire to seek and find and even invent reasons for the
changes in our conditions, bodily, mental and spiritual. We can
watch the coming and going of the gunas and each time just
make the best out of them.
Having once realised the true nature of your moods as
being the result of the play of the gunas, you take them no
more seriously than you take the rain or the wind. They are not
yours, still less ‘you’. They will pass by. This is the way to become
a gunatita, one beyond the gunas.
The Self does not know any obstacles; all of them are
obstacles only to the sadhaka, the practising personal ‘I’. And
there are general rules to be applied to all of them alike:
Learn that the body-mind-combination is your instrument.
You keep it functioning, but do not ask it about its ‘standard’,
neither with respect to the body, mind or spirit. It is
indispensable as an instrument for your spiritual intentions,
but absolutely, uninteresting in any other respect.
Don’t try to attain something! Sadhana is meant to remove
only. Deny reality to everything, including yourself. It is not
you who realises the Self; the Self reveals only itself. To whom?
To Itself only.
Don’t fight against your ‘I’! Every resistance is strengthening
the ‘I’ because the motive-power behind resistance is ‘Will’!
Don’t suppress either! Because a suppressed thought, feeling
or intention is bound to rebound!
Only watch yourself, without reacting, either positively or
negatively. In becoming the observer, you are no longer the
‘thinker’; you are going to become first ‘the witness’, and thereafter
pure ‘witnessing’, which is not any more ‘you’, but completely
impersonal. Then you are practically unassailable by obstacles.
Pitfalls are only a peculiar sort of obstacles, insofar as they
usually come in disguise, and in advanced stages, when the alert
awareness of the sadhaka tends to relax.
The most harmless among them is the idea that, though
we are not responsible for all the misery of the world...famine,
wars, suffering...we feel compelled to try to stop it. The problem
often takes the shape of the question to the sage:
‘How can the sage be happy in his Realisation in the face
of the desolate conditions of the world? What is he going to do
to alter it?’
The questioner never seems to think how many powerful
saints and sages have walked this globe throughout the centuries
without being able to ‘help’ it. If there is a Higher Power behind
the life of the individual, should it not also know what to do in
the case of the world? Is it waiting for and depending on you or
me for that purpose?
Maybe suffering and misery are just the means to remind
man that his destiny is higher than that of settling comfortably
in this world as his home; a happy person is seldom keen to
question his or her situation. Of course everybody should stretch
out a helping hand to everybody in need with whom he comes
in contact, and that is just what all saints and sages have done,
and every sadhaka will do, when he is keen to remove his ego...I.
If only everyone would try to care for poverty and misery in
his immediate surroundings, all the misery of the world would
have been removed long ago!
Why is it not done?
To be busy, theoretically, with the social reform of a country
or the world is only too often the means to escape from the
responsibility to reform oneself first.
There is another rather harmless mistake which happens
regularly to beginners. Many of them are blessed with various
glimpses of the higher life, which they have entered. These carry
the stamp of a genuine change of consciousness, and of course
the sadhaka is happy, and convinced that he has made real
progress. There is no harm in it, because he soon has to face the
fact that his ‘experience’ is fading away, never to return. When
this happens again and again, he learns to understand these
sparks as what they are, glimpses from another dimension which
want to teach him to discriminate between, the different
dimensions but which also lure him on in his spiritual endeavour.
They only become a pitfall, when he, by vanity or impatience,
gets stuck in one of them, taking it for final Realisation. Then
his further progress is blocked.
The mark by which this pitfall is recognised is ‘I’ have
realised...’ This ‘I’ can only be a ‘wrong I’, because it is not the
‘I’ that realises.
The duty of the sadhaka is to watch himself ceaselessly; he
has to know what is going on within himself. There is a serious
risk in doing this only when he looks too much at others. When
he does, his ‘personal I’ at once makes comparisons; and the
result will be: ‘I am holier than thou’.
With this idea he gives his ‘personal I’ a strong chance to
develop into a ‘spiritual I’, which is much worse than his
original quite ordinary ‘I’, strengthened by all his previous
spiritual effort. The result is a spiritual pride, the worse the
more advanced the sadhaka has become, because his
attainments, serve only to confirm his ‘right’ to be proud of
his success.
But even if he perceives the gentle Voice from within,
warning him against this trend going on in him and reminding
him of the secret of real ‘attainment’, silent humility, and even
if he is quite prepared to accept the warning, there is still the
risk that the cunning ego now is concealing itself behind his
pride in his humility!
There is only one remedy against these and all other pitfalls
on the Path to Realisation: Alert Awareness, relentlessly focussing
on the treacherous ego...I.
Luckily the sadhaka is not left alone in his secret struggle
against himself on his lonesome journey towards his high
destination. How could he ever reach It. Were It not already
within himself? And It never fails to send signals of warning
when the traveller is nearing a pitfall or has even been caught
by one due to inadvertance.
His is a journey like that in fairy-tales, when the hero has
to go through many adventures, to fight against many enemies
and even demons, to win the princess at the end. The further
he proceeds, the mightier the obstacles.
The most cunning pitfall on the path of the sadhaka is the
last one, hidden in Realisation Itself.
The first Revelation of the Self is temporary. “Jnana, once
revealed, needs time to steady itself.” (Talks, 141).
The danger is not in the sliding back; it is natural to
most sadhakas and is met quite naturally by continuing one’s
practice faithfully, which in its turn will lead to further
Revelations of the Self until finally there is no sadhaka left,
but the Self only.
If, on the other hand, the sadhaka tries to ‘hold on’ to that
first Revelation, in spite of his Inner Guide warning him, (Who
is holding on?), then the ego...I slinks again in where the Self is
veiled again and distorts the Revelation of the Self into the cry
of victory: ‘I have realised!’
Blindfolded by the Bliss of the final ‘success’ (‘whose
success?’) he never stops to scrutinize his condition and thus
never finds out the truth: That he became a yogabhrastha, one
who has fallen out of his yoga, his ‘union’.
The new and definitive disguise of his ego...I is ‘the Guru’,
and this last and most powerful pitfall never releases him, because
he never recognises that he is its victim.
There are nowadays many whose Guru-pitfall caught them
even much earlier on their path.
III
MAYA
Maya is that which makes us regard as non-existent the
Self, the Reality, which is always and everywhere present
and all-pervasive and self-luminous, and as existent the
individual soul, the world and God, which have been
conclusively proved to be non-existent at all times and
places.
(Spiritual Instruction.)
THE SNAKE IN THE ROPE
In modern civilisation man is no longer at the centre
as Man; he is brought up to be a useful tool serving the
process of production. To further this purpose his training is
aimed at an intense development of his intellect. There would
be nothing to object to in this process if the intellect would
be kept within the limits of its own sphere. The realm of
theoretical knowledge only so far as it is leading to practical
application. That may include scientific thought, but it is a
poor and even dangerous guide in question of the hidden
truth of Man, World and God, which are to be discovered
only by faculties far subtler than those of the biologically
reacting mechanism of the brain. Still the human mind has
also tried to usurp this higher dimension for itself; the various
systems of philosophy are the results.
The dominating Hindu-philosophy of to-day is the
Advaita-Vedanta; and Ramana Maharshi is considered the most
prominent figure representing this philosophy.
‘A-dvaita’ means ‘not two’, the ‘One without a second’.
There is only One principle, Brahman, essence and substance
of all and everything; diversity is merely appearance. Brahman
as the ultimate nature of man is called Atman, the Self, merely
for convenience’s sake; Atman is Brahman. The world too is
Brahman; to see it as the world of diversity is Maya, illusion.
The idea of Maya is the point where the antagonists of
Advaita-Vedanta attack the system as showing inconsistency
against its principle of A-dvaita, Maya being ‘second’ to account
for diversity, which cannot be included in ‘the One’!
Ramana Maharshi supported Sri Sankara and the Advaitasystem
“The tantriks and others of the kind condemn Sri Sankara’s
philosophy as Maya-path without understanding him aright.
What does he say? He says: (1) Brahman is real; (2) the universe
is a myth; (3) Brahman is the universe. He does not stop at the
second statement but continues to supplement it with the third.
What does it signify? The universe is conceived to be apart from
Brahman, and that perception is wrong. The antagonists point
to his illustration of ‘the snake in the rope’. In dim light one
can think a coiled rope to be a snake. This is unconditioned
superimposition. After the truth of the rope is known, the illusion
of the snake is removed once and for all.
“But they should also take into account the conditioned
superimposition, i.e., ‘the water in the mirage.’
“The mirage does not disappear even after we know it to be a
mirage. The vision is there, but the man does not run to it for
water. Sri Sankara must be understood in the light of both these
illustrations. The world is a myth. Even after knowing it, it continues
to appear. It must be known to be Brahman and not apart.
“The antagonists continue. With the conditioned as well
as the unconditioned illusions considered, the phenomenon of
the water in a mirage is purely illusory because that water cannot
be used for any purpose, whereas the phenomenon of the world
is different, for it is purposeful. How then does the latter stand
on a par with the former?
“A phenomenon cannot be a reality simply because it serves
a purpose or purposes. Take a dream for example. The dreamcreations
are purposeful; they serve the dreampurpose. The
dream-water quenches dream-thirst. The dream-creation,
however, is contradicted in the two other states. What is not
continuous cannot be real. If real, the thing must ever be real,
and not real for a short time and unreal at other times.
“So it is with magical creations. They appear real and are
yet illusory.
“Similarly the universe cannot be real of itself...that is to
say apart from the underlying Reality.” (Talks, 315).
And: “Maya is used to signify the manifestation of the
Reality. Thus Maya is only Reality.” (Talks, 20).
But these explanations do not make Ramana Maharshi a
philosopher. His Great Experience was not a result of a study of
Advaita-philosophy, but the basic-event which enabled him to
confirm that great intuition of yore.
He simply states what he sees and that is the same as
Sankara and the ancient Rishis had seen and which everybody
will see who follows his Path up to the end. That behind the
appearance of the forms is the true nature of the world as
Brahman. However, all their explanation and deductions cannot
prove their vision, as long as he who doubts cannot see what
they see. And he cannot see it as long as both of them use
different ways of perceiving. No logical.. philosophical...
demonstration can prove what the realized one sees: That the
Self is not only his true nature, but also that of the world. And
he perceives it as distinctly as ‘a fruit on the palm of his hand’.
That was the reason, why Ramana Maharshi used to divert
the conversation as soon as it was convenient, when it had turned
to Maya. Actually the problem, Maya, is no problem at all,
being no obstruction in the Path.
When Suka, the son of the sage Vyasa, realized the Self, he
did not believe either himself or his father, who confirmed his
achievement, because he felt that he had not yet solved the riddle
of the world as Maya. Thus his father sent him to Janaka, the
royal sage.
King Janaka put him to several tests, which the youthful
Suka passed in the calm and composed way of a real sage.
Accordingly King Janaka confirmed his Self-realisation. Suka
remonstrated: ‘But there is still the problem of Maya...’
King Janaka smiled. “Drop it!”
The same moment Suka ‘saw’ that the Truth of the world
was the same as his own Truth.
In Reality in Forty Verses, v.3, Ramana Maharshi answers
the problem in a similar way:
“ ‘The world is real’... ‘No, it is a false appearance’; ‘The
world is sentient’... ‘No, it is not’; ‘The world is happiness’...
‘No, it is not’... ... what is the use of such disputes? That state is
agreeable to all in which, ignoring the world, one knows one’s
Self, abandoning both unity and duality, and the ego-sense is
gone.”
Realisation of the Self does not mean finding the solution
to each and every intellectual problem, but leaving them behind.
The Self does not see any problem. It is always the restlessness
of the mind that creates problems, in order to have a reason to
be busy in the attempt to solve them.
ON GURUS, SIDDHIS, SANNYASA
It is the mind, that creates questions and goes in search of
answers. It takes some time until it realises this fact and gives
up, but meanwhile it interferes continuously in the natural
expansion of the seeker’s spiritual dimension. Until then
question after question emerges, and Ramana Maharshi stood
patiently day by day against the flood. A collection of his replies
to stray questions is given in the last chapter. However, the
three themes mentioned in the heading above may ask for a
treatment in some detail.
There is a widespread hunting for the guru. And a lot of
so-called gurus make quite a good business out of the distorted
ideas about the guru and his function that are prevalent
everywhere. Who then is a guru?
“The sastras say that one must serve a guru for twelve
years for getting Self-Realisation. What does the guru do? Does
he hand it over to the disciple? Is not the Self always realized?
What does the common belief mean then? The man is always
the Self and yet he does not know it? He confounds it with
the non-self, viz., the body etc. Such confusion is due to
ignorance. If ignorance be wiped out the confusion will cease
to exist and the true knowledge will be unfolded. By remaining
in contact with realised sages the man will gradually lose the
ignorance until its removal is complete. The eternal Self is
thus revealed.
“The disciple surrenders himself to the master. That means
there is no vestige of individuality retained by the disciple. If
the surrender is complete, all sense of individuality is lost, and
there is thus no cause for misery. The eternal being is only
happiness. That is revealed.
“Without understanding it aright, people think that the
guru teaches the disciple something like ‘Tatwamasi’ and that
the disciple realises ‘I am Brahman’. In their ignorance they
conceive of Brahman as something more huge and powerful
than anything else. With a limited ‘I’ the man is so stuck up
and wild. What will be the case if the same ‘I’ grows up enormous?
He will be enormously ignorant and foolish! This false ‘I’ must
perish. Its annihilation is the fruit of gurusewa, the service to
the guru. Realisation is eternal and it is not newly brought about
by the guru. He helps in the removal of ignorance. That is all.”
(Talks, 350).
The real guru is one who has realised the Self. But how
can we recognise him? He does not talk about himself; he
behaves exactly as everybody else; and if he does not, there is
reason to be cautious. There is only one quality by which he is
revealed in his silence as well as in his talk.
If you are ready for him, he will meet you without any
searching for him on your part. And only then can you be sure
that he is the guru for you.
Meanwhile, you are not without guidance from without.
The inner guidance sends signals, as it were, ceaselessly...a certain
sentence in a book, a smile of an infant, the beauty of a flower or
a sunset all of them can become the means for a sudden
understanding, one of the minor enlightenments which adorn
the path of the sincere seeker after Truth. All of them could become
his or her Guru. The famous ancient saint Dattatreya said of
himself that he had 24 Gurus, including inanimate objects.
Even the first quest after the meaning of life is already
prompted by the inner, the real Guru. There is a beautiful
experience of Moses, preserved in the tradition of Islam. When
he complained, “O Lord, where shall I seek to find thee?” he
heard the answer, “Thou wouldst not seek Me if thou wouldst
not already have found Me!”
Who is it that is in search for the guru? The longing is
certainly prompted by the Self, as is indicated also in the answer
to Moses’ prayer. But it is the ‘personal I’ that goes out ‘hunting
the guru’. It is not punishment when he has to suffer the
disappointment of catching the wrong one, but an experience
which will teach him the proper way...to trust and wait!
If you want by all means to have an outer guru, you will
get exactly the kind of guru that corresponds to the stage of
your development. That usually means a rather low type, because
a guru of a higher standard is of no use to a disciple of limited
understanding; the receiver has to be tuned to the wavelength
of the transmitter for receiving, and vice versa. Thus even if
there is a meeting with a Realised Soul, the guru need not refuse
the disciple, because the disciple will not even perceive the
presence of Greatness, since his inner senses are still clouded.
He will be like the man who went in search for Chintamani,
the celestial gem that fulfils every desire, who found it and threw
it away when he saw a colourful pebble.
Of the worst kind among the many ‘gurus’ nowadays are
those who are deliberately exploiting those hunting for a guru.
Their method of catching the trustful ignorant is often a
mystifying show of ceremonies, incantations, dark hints, and
even threats of black magic powers, with references to tradition.
Sri Ramana Maharshi says about these means:
“The books say that there are so many kinds of initiations.
They also say that the guru makes some rites for him with fire,
water, japa, mantras, etc., and call such fantastic performances,
dikshas, initiations, as if the disciple becomes ripe only after
such processes are gone through by the guru.
“The most potent form of work is silence. However vast and
emphatic the sastras may be, they fail in their effect. The guru is
quiet and peace prevails in all. This silence is more vast and more
emphatic than all the sastras put together...” (Talks, 398).
But when the fake-guru is clever enough, he may even
feign this attitude also.
Another type of self-styled guru may not only deceive
the would-be disciple but also himself. He might have some
intellectual knowledge of the Truth and be able to teach the
same as far as this limited knowledge goes. The sincere seeker
after Truth will, one day or other, by the silent Grace of his
inner guidance recognise the limitation of the would-be guru
and leave him... perhaps for another one, or perhaps he has
ripened enough in the meantime so that he will now recognise
the Voice of the Inner Guru...the Self...and accept It
unreservedly. Or he might follow the way of Dattatreya and
learn to see the Guru in all and everything, which amounts
practically to the same.
Now there is the strange fact that Ramana Maharshi
himself refused to be ‘the Guru’ of his devotees...or to be
exact, he never initiated any of them in the traditional way.
Some of them are known to have left him, though they
loved and worshipped him, because they thought themselves
unable to proceed spiritually without an outer guru. How
is this strange attitude of his to be understood? Did the
sage shun the responsibility which the guru is expected to
take over in respect to his devotee? According to tradition,
the guru who accepts a disciple also takes over his karma,
bad as it may be.
No. Sri Ramana Maharshi was only being consistent; he
lived what he taught...the realisation of the One without a
second! When there is only One, Brahman, where is the place
for guru and disciple? A guru presupposes a disciple, a disciple a
guru; they are invariable ‘two’.
Can there be two Selves, the one guiding the other? True
guidance is possible only when the Self of the guru and that of
the disciple is one and the same Self.
The real function of the guru, higher and more efficient
than his teachings, is his power of contact, removing the
ignorance of the disciple by direct transmission.
This is of course possible only when the guru has himself
realised the Truth. This power is so ‘real’ that Ramana Maharshi
always gave the greatest importance to Satsanga, the contact
with highly advanced souls, because their purity, wisdom and
compassion are contagious like health and peace.
This is the actual danger of surrender to a ‘wrong’
guru...that his cunning, his vanity and selfishness are just as
contagious. Even the experience of everyday-life shows the
danger of evil company; though it is usually taken as an evil
example only. But even in that case the bad influence goes
deeper. It is immediately contagious like a disease.
May the Inner Guru protect us!
This mysterious land, lost in the sea, granting the gift
of the supreme Truth to those who find the path into its
hidden depths, also still keeps many of the secrets of magic
techniques and powers, called siddhis. The number of seekers
after these secrets will probably outnumber those who are in
search after Truth. Though it is widely known that Ramana
Maharshi did not appreciate such tendencies, usually
connected with yoga-sadhana, now and again he was asked
about the position of siddhis within the frame of the search
for the Self. Once he declared:
“The Self is the most intimate and eternal Being whereas
the siddhis are foreign. The one requires effort to acquire, the
other does not.
“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).
The root-idea in Sri Ramana’s attitude to the phenomenon
of ESP, or extra sensory perception, as siddhis nowadays are
scientifically labelled, is easily discovered.
ESP-experience belongs to the ‘personal I’. The teachings
of the sage of Arunachala revolve around “hunting the ‘I’” until
it submits. To seek and attain siddhis means to strengthen it.
That settles the matter once and for all.
Sannyasa was in ancient India the fourth and last of the
asramas, the stations of life. The first of them was represented
by the boy, who was sent to live as a brahmachary with the guru,
to serve him and be trained in the scriptures. The second stage
was his life as a householder, after an early marriage, in which
he carried out his duty to those around him and made his
contribution to the collective. When his sons were settled and
his daughters married, he was free to retire. However his was
not the idea of retirement to a comfortable life of enjoying the
well-earned fruits of a life of work and trials. The third stage of
the asramas was a quiet life of renunciation ‘in the woods’,
vanaprastha, in meditation and prayer, in longing for
enlightenment.
These first three periods conformed to custom and
convention, but the last one, sannyasa, the total renunciation
was expected to assert itself at its own time and under its own
conditions.
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.
(Continued ..)
My humble salutations to the lotus feet of Bhagavan Sree Ramana Maharshi
and also gratitude to Bhagavan’s great devotees for the collection)
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