Kategori: Sri Ramana Maharshi

God, on being worshipped, bestows steadiness in devotion which leads to surrender. On the devotee surrendering, God shows His mercy by manifesting as the Guru. The Guru, otherwise God, guides the devotee, saying that God is in you and He is the Self. This leads to introversion of the mind and finally to realization.

When a person has realized, a universal life-current takes possession of him and he becomes an instrument in its hands. His own separate will is gone. This is the real Self-surrender. This is the highest kundalini (the divine cosmic energy), this is real bhakti (devotion), this is jnana (knowledge of the Self).

– Sri Ramana Maharshi

”Q: ”What is the easiest way and most effective way to do atma-vichara, self-inquiry?”
Ramana Maharshi:”To always be aware consciously in all situations of the ”I Am”. No matter what you’re doing, where you are, be aware of the ”I Am” in your heart. This is the most effective practice.”

– Sri Ramana Maharshi

Become conscious of being conscious. Say or think “I am”, and add nothing to it. Be aware of the stillness that follows the “I am”. Sense your presence, the naked unveiled, unclothed beingness. It is untouched by young or old, rich or poor, good or bad, or any other attributes. It is the spacious womb of all creation, all form.

– Ramana Maharshi

This is the surest way to handicap oneself. This is burdening of one’s mind with the fear of failure and thought of one’s failing. That fear is not true. The greatest error of a man is to think that he is weak by nature, evil by nature. Every man is divine and strong in his real nature. What are weak and evil are his habits, his desires and thoughts, but not himself.

– Sri Ramana Maharshi

Devotee: The sleep state is the state when the mind is quiet. I consider it a worse state.
Maharshi: If that were so, why do all desire sleep?

Devotee: It is the body when tired that goes to sleep.
Maharshi: Does the body sleep?

Devotee: Yes. It is the condition in which the wear and tear of the body is repaired.
Maharshi: Let it be so.
But does the body itself sleep or wake up? You yourself said shortly before that the mind is quiet in sleep. The three states are of the mind.

Devotee: Are they not states of the soul functioning through the senses, etc.?
Maharshi: They are not of the soul or of the body. The soul remains always
uncontaminated. It is the substratum running through all these three states. Wakefulness passes off, I am;
the dream state passes off, I am;
the sleep state passes off, I am.
They repeat themselves, and yet I am.
They are like pictures moving on the screen in a cinema show.
They do not affect the screen.
Similarly also, I remain unaffected although these states pass off. If it is of the body, are you aware of the body in sleep?
Devotee: No.

Maharshi: Without knowing the body to be there how can the body be said to be in sleep?
Devotee: Because it is still found after waking up.

Maharshi: The sense of body is a thought; the thought is of the mind, the mind rises after the ‘I-thought’, the ‘I-thought’ is the root thought.
If that is held, the other thoughts will disappear. There will then be no body, no mind, not even the ego.
Devotee: What will remain then?
Maharshi: The Self in its purity.

– Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi. Talk 244.
An Excerpt.

If you surrender yourself to the Higher Power all is well. That Power sees your affairs through. Only so long as you think that you are the worker you are obliged to reap the fruits of your actions. If on the other hand, you surrender yourself and recognise your individual self as only a tool of the Higher Power, that Power will take over your affairs along with the fruits of actions. You are no longer affected by them and the work goes on unhampered.
Whether you recognise the Power or not the scheme of things does not alter. Only there is a change of outlook.

– Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talk 503

Sann verklighet (sat-cit-ananda) kan inte avstås. Insikten ska ske antingen via inquiry till självet. Eller genom surrender. Det senare är att ”dö” fortfarande i livet för de flesta.
(jivanmukti)

After we have renounced whatever
Can be renounced, That which abides,
And cannot be renounced, is
True Being shining in the Heart,
The fount, the flood of Bliss.

~ Guru Vachaka Kovai (Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi’s Teachings presented by Sri Muruganar)

Everybody knows and feels that he exists. There cannot be any time when a person feels, ”I do not exist”. Hence the main inherent attribute of the Self is ’Awareness of existence’ or ’Awareness and Existence (Chit and Sat)’ – ie. ’I AM’. As there is no doubt in anyone’s mind about one’s being or existence, it should be possible for one to practise daily for some time to remain merged in the feeling of ”amness” or ”existence” to the exclusion of all
thoughts, just like a new born baby.

A baby which is just born has no vocabulary of any language and so cannot think of any object. One has to think in one language or other. So a child just born cannot have any thoughts. It can only feel. When once its basic need of hunger and thirst are satisfied, the only feeling the child will possibly have is the feeling or knowledge of being or amness.

The knowledge that someone or something else ’is’ or exists (say, my neighbour or a pot) is an indirect knowledge derived through my senses like my eye and established by the conditioning of my mind which has learnt about what is a pot and how it looks like,
etc. On the contrary, the fact that ’I AM’ is a direct knowledge which has come to me instinctively directly from the very EXISTENCE and not through my senses.

Hence if a person manages initially to sit for a few hours daily directing his attention (through imagination) to the spiritual heart and get merged in the feeling of ”amness” or ”BEING” or ”I AM” like the newborn child, he is sure to get Self-Realisation.

One condition is that he should not think or repeat ”I AM” like a Mantra. Secondly, he should not add any more qualifications to ”I AM” – like, ’I am a man’, ’I am 40 years old’, ’I am an Engineer’, etc.

A new born child cannot add or think of such epithets. One of the recent philosophers of repute, late Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj of ’I AM THAT’ fame has claimed that by adopting the process of ’I am’ as directed by his Guru, he had attained Self realisation (enlightenment) in three years’ time. This method of remaining in one’s being or Self is nothing but another version of the other method of enquiry as to, ”Who am I ?” advocated by Bhagavan Ramana.

Ramana Maharshi has said that, ”Even if he thinks constantly I-I, one will be led to that place”, ie. the source of ’I’ or mind. This method has also been advocated by Ashtavakra as an instant ’Moksha capsule’ .

”Bereft of the body-sense, if you can remain resting in your Self alone, you will, here and now, become blissful, peaceful and free from bondage.”

According to Ramana Maharshi,
”There is nothing so simple as being the Self. It requires no effort, no aid. One has to leave off wrong identity and be in one’s eternal, natural and inherent state.”

(TALKS with Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talk No.101).

~ From Golden Guidelines to Who Am I? book by Swami Shantananda Puri