Showing posts with label Guru Vācaka Kōvai. Show all posts

Monday, 27 May 2024

Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu Anubandham: Tamil text, transliteration and translation

In continuation of my translations of other works of Bhagavan, such as Nāṉ Ār?, Upadēśa Undiyār, Upadēśa Sāraḥ, Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu, Upadēśa Kaliveṇbā, Appaḷa Pāṭṭu and Āṉma-Viddai, this is my translation of உள்ளது நாற்பது அனுபந்தம் (Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu Anubandham), and in the coming months or years I hope to be able to revise and post here my translations of all his other original writings.

Saturday, 14 November 2020

Dīpāvali Tattva: the reality of Deepavali

In Guru Vācaka Kōvai there is a chapter called Naraka Jaya-t-Tiṟaṉ (Explaining the Conquest of Naraka), which consists of five verses, three composed by Muruganar and two composed by Bhagavan. The former are verses 181 to 183, in which Muruganar recorded what Bhagavan explained about the real import of Naraka Caturdaśi and Dīpāvali, and the latter are verses B4 and B5 (and verses 2 and 3 of Upadēśa Taṉippākkaḷ), in the first of which Bhagavan summarised the ideas expressed in verses 181 and 182, and in the second of which he expressed the same idea as verse 183 but in a simpler and clearer manner.

Tuesday, 2 June 2020

We can be self-attentive in waking and dream but not in sleep

A friend recently wrote to me:

It seems to that “Self-Attention” as taught by Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharishi is possible only when I am in the Waking State, and not when I am in the Sleeping State and in the Dreaming State. In that case, what do I have to do in the latter two states, according to the teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharishi? If I cannot do anything in those two states, will that be a problem or should I take it that as long as I am doing “Self-Attention” correctly during the Waking State, that will be enough?

Saturday, 24 August 2019

Is any external help required for us to succeed in the practice of self-investigation?

In a comment on my previous article, The role of grace in all that ego creates, a friend called Asun wrote: ‘I’ve been watching these days David Godman’s youtube channel. He, as well as yourself, enjoys talking about Ramana’s teachings and telling tales about him, the ashram and devotees. They are beautiful tales illustrated with very good documentaries. His understanding and interpretation of the teachings is very similar to your understanding and explanations yet, regarding to the practice he claims that there are some results only at first and that from then on it is as if one got stuck so that the only way to really reach somewhere is to sit in front of some realized being able of transmitting and making you to experience the state this being is in. Is this your experience too, Michael? Or do you completely disagree with him?’

Sunday, 30 December 2018

Which is a more reasonable and useful explanation: dṛṣṭi-sṛṣṭi-vāda or sṛṣṭi-dṛṣṭi-vāda?

In a series of two comments on one of my recent articles, Everything depends for its seeming existence on the seeming existence of ourself as ego, a friend called ‘Unknown’ referred to the twelfth section of it, Ego projects and simultaneously perceives itself as all forms or phenomena, and quoted the following two paragraphs from it:
The philosophy of advaita is interpreted by people in various ways according to the purity of their minds, so there are many people who consider themselves to be advaitins yet who do not accept dṛṣṭi-sṛṣṭi-vāda [the contention (vāda) that perception (dṛṣṭi) is causally antecedent to creation (sṛṣṭi), or in other words that we create phenomena only by perceiving them, just as we do in dream], because for them it seems to be too radical an interpretation of advaita, so they interpret the ancient texts of advaita according to sṛṣṭi-dṛṣṭi-vāda, the contention that creation is causally antecedent to perception, and that the world therefore exists prior to and independent of our perception of it. Those who interpret advaita in this way do not accept ēka-jīva-vāda, the contention that there is only one jīva, ego or perceiver (which is one of the basic implications of dṛṣṭi-sṛṣṭi-vāda), and since they believe that phenomena exist independent of ego’s perception of them, they do not accept that ego alone is what projects all phenomena, and hence they interpret ancient texts to mean that what projects everything is not ego or mind but only brahman (or brahman as īśvara, God, rather than brahman as ego).

Saturday, 22 December 2018

Why is self-investigation the only means to eradicate ego but not the only means to achieve citta-śuddhi?

In a recent comment on my previous article I wrote:
Today a friend wrote to me:
I noticed today in GVK verse 622, Bhagavan is recorded as saying: “When rightly considered, nothing will be more wonderful and laughable than one’s toiling very much through some sadhana to attain Self in the same manner as one toils to attain other objects, even though one really ever remains as the non-dual Self.”

Thursday, 8 November 2018

Everything depends for its seeming existence on the seeming existence of ourself as ego

In the comments on one of my recent articles, Like everything else, karma is created solely by ego’s misuse of its will (cittam), so what needs to be rectified is its will, there was a discussion about the nature of ego and whether or not it is antecedent to the appearance of all phenomena, so this article is written in an attempt to clarify what Bhagavan taught us in this regard.

Wednesday, 28 June 2017

There is absolutely no difference between sleep and pure self-awareness (ātma-jñāna)

After I wrote the reply that I reproduced in the article I posted here yesterday, namely Māyā is nothing but our own mind, so it seems to exist only when we seem to be this mind, the friend to whom I wrote it replied, ‘Thank you, Michael, but I assume ‘realisation’ is not quite the same as deep sleep?’, to which I replied:

Tuesday, 2 May 2017

Does anything exist independent of our perception of it?

In a comment on my previous article, Why is effort required for us to go deep in our practice of self-investigation?, a friend called Samarender Reddy asked:
Take the case of anesthesia. I may be undergoing an operation, for which anesthesia is given. Under the influence of anesthesia, I am unaware or do not perceive the world. But once the operation is done and the anesthetic wears off and I wake up, I might see a big scar with stitches on my abdomen. Can I not thereby conclude that the world existed during the anesthesia for the operation to have taken place even though I was not perceiving it due to the effect of anesthesia. Otherwise, how to account for the fact of the scar on the abdomen, and the consequent relief from pain I might be experiencing. If the world did not exist when I was under anesthesia, then how did the operation take place, as evidenced by the scar and relief of symptoms, and maybe, say, even a specimen of my gallbladder taken out. And if we so concede that the world existed during anesthesia, then analogously can we not conclude that the world exists even during deep sleep. Perception is not the only means to establish a fact, right, with inference and verbal testimony being the other means of knowledge to establish a fact. In the case of anesthesia and deep sleep, while I cannot resort to perception as a means of knowledge to establish the fact of the existence of the world during those states, but surely inference (with regard to cause-and-effect) and the verbal testimony of others can lead me to conclude that the world does indeed exist during anesthesia and deep sleep, right?
In reply to this I wrote the following comment:

Sunday, 22 January 2017

Sunday, 15 January 2017

What is aware of everything other than ourself is only the ego and not ourself as we actually are

In a comment on one of my recent articles, Why does Bhagavan sometimes say that the ātma-jñāni is aware of the body and world?, a friend called Ken wrote, ‘Ramana states: “The ego functions as the knot between the Self which is Pure Consciousness and the physical body which is inert and insentient.” Therefore, there is nothing that can experience other than the Self. [...] since the body is insentient (cannot experience), and only the Self can experience, then any experience that occurs, can only be experienced by the Self’, but contrary to what he argues in this comment and in several other ones, what experiences everything (all forms or phenomena) is not ‘the Self’ (ourself as we actually are) but only ourself as this ego, as I will try to explain in this article.

Sunday, 27 November 2016

When the ego seems to exist, other things seem to exist, and when it does not seem to exist, nothing else seems to exist

In several comments on one of my recent articles, The difference between vivarta vāda and ajāta vāda is not just semantic but substantive, a friend called Ken argued that the ego does not exist even in a relative sense, but that vāsanās and other phenomena do exist in a relative sense, though not in an absolute sense. However one of the fundamental principles of Bhagavan’s teaching is that since all phenomena seem to exist only in the view of this ego, they seem to exist only when it seems to exist (as in waking and dream), and when it does not seem to exist (as in sleep) nothing else seems to exist. Therefore in this article I will reply to some of Ken’s comments and try to explain this fundamental principle to him in more detail.

Wednesday, 23 November 2016

Why does Bhagavan sometimes say that the ātma-jñāni is aware of the body and world?

In the comments on several of my recent articles there has been an ongoing discussion regarding the question of whether or not the ātma-jñāni is aware of the world, because many friends are convinced by Bhagavan’s teachings that all phenomena (second and third persons) seem to exist only in the self-ignorant view of the ego (the first person), and that therefore when the ego is dissolved forever in the clear light of ātma-jñāna (pure self-awareness) no phenomena will seem to exist, whereas other friends seem to believe that even though the ātma-jñāni is nothing but brahman itself, it is still somehow operating through a body and mind and is therefore aware of that body and of the surrounding world. The latter group of friends often cite passages from Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi and other records of his oral teachings that seem to support their point of view, and they have even found verses in Guru Vācaka Kōvai and passages in Sadhu Om’s writings that likewise seem to support it.

During the course of this discussion, a friend called Bob wrote a comment on one of my recent articles, The difference between vivarta vāda and ajāta vāda is not just semantic but substantive, in which he cited a passage from The Path of Sri Ramana that had been referred to several times by other friends and remarked ‘Hopefully Michael can shed some light on the deep meaning of this passage for us’, because he conceded that it seems to support the belief that ‘the jnani still experiences the world / multiplicity but experiences everything as itself’, even though his own belief is that ‘the jnani / myself as I really am does not experience the world / body or duality of any kind’, in support of which he cited a translation by Sadhu Om and me of the kaliveṇbā version of verse 26 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu and a note regarding it from pages 58-9 of Sri Ramanopadesa Noonmalai. Therefore the following is my reply to this comment.

Wednesday, 19 October 2016

As we actually are, we do nothing and are aware of nothing other than ourself

In several comments on one of my recent articles, What is the ‘self’ we are investigating when we try to be attentively self-aware?, a friend called Ken wrote:
Note that the Self is what is watching the movie [...] (4 September 2016 at 17:45)

[...] the ego is actually the Self in another form. (4 September 2016 at 23:27)

The Self is God [...] The Lila (play) of the Self (Brahman/Atman) is that it “veils” itself so it itself thinks it is limited. As “veiled”, it is watching the movie. When it decides to stop watching the movie, and the lights go on, it then sees it is actually the Self. Hence “Self-” “realisation”, i.e. realizing that it is the Self. (5 September 2016 at 04:16)

The ego stops giving attention to “2nd person and 3rd person”, i.e. sense perceptions and thoughts. The Self sees this and if it is convinced of complete sincerity, then it terminates the ego (this is the “action of Grace performed by the Self” according to Ramana — paraphrased). [...] since the Self IS your own basic awareness, then it is entirely aware of everything you have ever thought, said or done. (5 September 2016 at 04:26)

The Self (atman) is: The present moment [and] That which is looking. (7 September 2016 at 03:26)

This is what is called “The Play of Consciousness” (lila in Sanskrit). [...] The Self makes the “mistake” of identifying with a character in the world. (8 September 2016 at 02:09)

The Self definitely wants to see the movie, otherwise the movie would not even exist. (8 September 2016 at 17:49)

Because there is nothing other than the Self, so there is nothing that can force the Self to do anything. The Self is alone, so it decides to “veil” itself and limit itself as a multitude of “individuals”. This is the Lila, the play. (9 September 2016 at 00:04)
Ken, in these remarks you have attributed properties of our ego (and also properties of God) to ‘the Self’, which is ourself as we actually are, so in this article I will try to clarify that our actual self does not do anything and is neither aware of nor in any other way affected by the illusory appearance of our ego and all its projections, which seem to exist only in the self-ignorant view of ourself as this ego.

Tuesday, 31 May 2016

What is the logic for believing that happiness is what we actually are?

In a comment on my previous article, How to attend to ourself?, a friend called Sundar referred to my reply to his previous comment and wrote, ‘You have not explained the logic by which you say that we can get infinite peace and happiness when we manage to be attentively aware of ourself alone’, and regarding Bhagavan’s argument that we can understand that happiness is our real nature because in sleep we are perfectly happy just being aware of nothing other than ourself, he objected, ‘I can only be certain of having had a sleep with dreams. Because I can recall some of these dreams in the morning. But, I can not be sure of even having had a dreamless sleep. Hence, I can not speak of a ‘perfectly happy’ time during the dreamless sleep’. This article is therefore addressed to him in reply to this comment of his.

Thursday, 24 March 2016

Why is it necessary to make effort to practise self-investigation (ātma-vicāra)?

In two comments on one of my recent articles, Why should we believe what Bhagavan taught us?, a friend who writes under the pseudonym ‘Viveka Vairagya’ quoted extracts from the teachings of HWL Poonja (who is referred to as ‘Papaji’ by his devotees) as recorded on the Satsang with Papaji website, in both of which he expressed ideas that directly contradict the teachings of Bhagavan. In one of these extracts Poonja said regarding sleep, ‘This is a dull state because there is no awareness at all so you may not recognize it. In deep sleep you forget yourself completely’, which contradicts what Bhagavan taught us about sleep, as I explained in the fourteenth and fifteenth sections of my previous article, We are aware of ourself while asleep, so pure self-awareness alone is what we actually are, and in both of these extracts he contradicted in several ways what Bhagavan taught us about the practice of self-investigation (ātma-vicāra), as I will explain in this article.

Saturday, 31 October 2015

The logic underlying the practice of self-investigation (ātma-vicāra)

In a comment on my previous article, Self-investigation (ātma-vicāra) is just the simple practice of trying to be attentively self-aware, an anonymous friend asked, ‘Does this practice work?’ and went on to explain why he or she asked this question, saying, ‘There are so many Gurus each offering a unique method — a method that might have worked for them. The real question is does it work for others? Michael, from your writings I gather you have been practicing this for more than two decades (?). What is your realization so far? Have you been able to achieve what Bhagavan describes? Honestly, if the answer is no, then I will be very skeptical of this method’.

Saturday, 22 August 2015

‘That alone is tapas’: the first teachings that Sri Ramana gave to Kavyakantha Ganapati Sastri

In the comments on one of my recent articles, Can we experience what we actually are by following the path of devotion (bhakti mārga)?, a friend argued that self-investigation (ātma-vicāra) is a two-stage process, and though I tried to explain in my latest article, Trying to distinguish ourself from our ego is what is called self-investigation (ātma-vicāra), that it is actually a single seamless process with no distinct stages, various friends have continued discussing this idea, and at one point this discussion branched off into a discussion about the reliability of what is recorded in the ‘Talks’ section of Sat-Darshana Bhashya, which prompted me to explain (here, here and here) why I generally do not consider anything written or recorded by Kavyakantha Ganapati Sastri or Kapali Sastri to be reliable.

Since discussion of these two separate subjects continued side by side for a while, in one comment a friend called Wittgenstein suggested that it would be useful to consider the first teaching that Bhagavan gave to Kavyakantha in order to see whether he gave any indication at that time that ātma-vicāra is a two-stage process. Wittgenstein concluded that there was no such indication, but asked me to correct him if he had drawn any wrong conclusions from that teaching, so this article is written in reply to him.

Saturday, 30 May 2015

In order to understand the essence of Sri Ramana’s teachings, we need to carefully study his original writings

In various comments that he wrote on one of my recent articles, Dṛg-dṛśya-vivēka: distinguishing the seer from the seen, a friend called Joshua Jonathan expressed certain ideas that other friends disagreed with, so the comments on that article include some lively discussions about his ideas. I will not quote all of his comments here, but anyone who is interested in understanding more about the context in which this article is written can read them here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. The following is my reply to some of the ideas he expressed in those comments:

Wednesday, 20 May 2015

Dṛg-dṛśya-vivēka: distinguishing the seer from the seen

In a comment that he wrote on my previous article, ‘Observation without the observer’ and ‘choiceless awareness’: Why the teachings of J. Krishnamurti are diametrically opposed to those of Sri Ramana, a friend called Venkat quoted two passages that record what Bhagavan replied on two occasions, first in response to a question that he was asked about the teachings of J. Krishnamurti and second in response to a comment about them.

Tuesday, 28 April 2015

Witnessing or being aware of anything other than ourself nourishes our ego and thereby reinforces our attachments

After reading my previous article, What is meant by the term sākṣi or ‘witness’?, a friend wrote to me expressing some thoughts that he had after reading it cursorily for the first time, so this article is adapted from the reply that I wrote to some of his ideas.

Tuesday, 21 April 2015

What is meant by the term sākṣi or ‘witness’?

When I attended a meeting of the Ramana Maharshi Foundation UK in London earlier this month, one of the questions I was asked was about the concept or practice of sākṣi-bhāva or ‘being a witness’. I do not remember exactly what I replied at the time, but after seeing the video that was made of that meeting, a friend wrote to me saying that he agreed that the term sākṣi or ‘witness’ as it is often used is a misnomer, and he recalled that Bhagavan said in certain contexts that we should take this term to mean just ‘presence’ (as in the presence of our real self) rather than ‘witness’. He also added his own reflections on this subject, saying:

Tuesday, 31 March 2015

All phenomena are just a dream, and the only way to wake up is to investigate who is dreaming

In the seventeenth paragraph of Nāṉ Yār? (Who am I?) Sri Ramana advises us that if we wish to know what we really are, we should completely ignore and reject everything else:
குப்பையைக் கூட்டித் தள்ளவேண்டிய ஒருவன் அதை யாராய்வதா லெப்படிப் பயனில்லையோ அப்படியே தன்னை யறியவேண்டிய ஒருவன் தன்னை மறைத்துகொண்டிருக்கும் தத்துவங்க ளனைத்தையும் சேர்த்துத் தள்ளிவிடாமல் அவை இத்தனையென்று கணக்கிடுவதாலும், அவற்றின் குணங்களை ஆராய்வதாலும் பயனில்லை. பிரபஞ்சத்தை ஒரு சொப்பனத்தைப்போ லெண்ணிக்கொள்ள வேண்டும்.

Wednesday, 25 March 2015

Is there any real difference between waking and dream?

A couple of months ago a friend wrote to me asking:
You often say that there is, in essence, very little difference between the dream and waking states. Upon reflection it indeed does seem to be so.

However, there does seem to be one substantial difference. There is continuity in the waking state both of location and body. When we enter the waking state we always find ourselves in the same place we left it at. We also find ourselves with the same body that went to sleep.

The dream state, on the other hand, is not like that at all. When we enter the dream state we often find ourselves in completely different places. One time we may find ourselves in the UK, another time in America or some place of our youth, etc. We may even find ourselves travelling somewhere in the outer space.





Sunday, 23 November 2014

Other than ourself, there are no signs or milestones on the path of self-discovery

A few months ago a friend wrote to me asking in Tamil:
ஆத்ம விசாரம் என்பது ‘தன்மையுணர்வை நாடுதல்’ எனப் புத்தகங்கள் கூறுகின்றன. இதையே நானும் நேரம் கிடைக்கும்போதெல்லாம் பயின்றும் வருகிறேன். இவையெல்லாம் மிகச் சுலபமாக தோன்றினாலும் உண்மையில் இது ஓரு சூட்சுமமான பாதையாகவே இருக்கிறது. நான் சாதனையைச் சரியாகத்தான் செய்துக்கொண்டிருக்கிறேனா, பகவானின் வாக்குகளை சரியாகப் புரிந்துக்கொண்டிருக்கிறேனா என்ற சந்தேகம் எப்போதும் என்னை வாட்டி வதைக்கிறது. இந்தப் பாதையில் சரியாகப் போய்க்கொண்டிருக்கிறேன் என்று அறிந்துக் கொள்ள ஏதேனும் அறிகுறிகள் அல்லது மைல்கற்கள் உள்ளனவா?
which means:
Books say that self-investigation (ātma-vicāra) is ‘investigating the first person awareness’. I too am practising only this whenever time is available. Though all these appear to be very easy, in truth this is such a subtle path. The doubt ‘Am I doing sādhana correctly? Am I understanding Bhagavan’s words correctly?’ is always vexing and tormenting me. Are there any signs or milestones [to enable me] to know that I am proceeding correctly on this path.
The following is adapted from the reply I wrote (in English):

Sri Ramana’s path is a path of vicāra — investigation or exploration — so we can follow it only by trying to investigate what this ‘I’ is and thereby learning from our own experience what following it correctly actually entails.




Sunday, 5 October 2014

We can believe vivarta vāda directly but not ajāta vāda

In a comment on my previous article, The perceiver and the perceived are both unreal a friend called Sanjay asked whether advaita vāda is a synonym of vivarta vāda, to which I replied in another comment:
Sanjay, advaita means ‘non-two-ness’ (a-dvi-tā), so advaita-vāda is the argument or theory that there is absolutely no twoness or duality. The most complete and radical expression of advaita-vāda is therefore ajāta-vāda, because according to ajāta-vāda not only does twoness not actually exist but it does not even seem to exist.

However, vivarta vāda is also compatible with advaita-vāda, because according to vivarta vāda twoness does not actually exist even though it seems to exist. That is, vivarta vāda accepts that distinctions (dualities or twonesses) such as the perceiver and the perceived (the ego and the world) seem to exist, but it argues that their seeming existence is just a false appearance (vivarta) and hence unreal.



Sunday, 28 September 2014

The perceiver and the perceived are both unreal

In a comment that he wrote on one of my earlier articles, What should we believe?, a friend called Venkat asked:
Bhagavan said that ajata vada was the ultimate truth, in his experience. He also said that eka jiva vada (drsti srsti vada) was the 'closest' to ajata vada.

How did Bhagavan see these two being different, given that eka jiva vada says there is no existent creation, it is just the perceiving of it (i.e. it is a dream)?

I replied to this in another comment:
Venkat, you should be able to understand the answer to your question by reading my latest article, Metaphysical solipsism, idealism and creation theories in the teachings of Sri Ramana, so I will give just a brief reply to it here.

According to ēka-jīva-vāda and dṛṣṭi-sṛṣṭi-vāda, there is one ego or jīva who perceives this world, which does not exist except in the view (the perception or experience) of that one ego. Therefore what causes the appearance of creation (sṛṣṭi) is only the perception (dṛṣṭi) of the ego.




Friday, 26 September 2014

Metaphysical solipsism, idealism and creation theories in the teachings of Sri Ramana

In a comment that he wrote on one of my recent articles, What should we believe?, Sankarraman referred to an article on David Godman’s blog, Swami Siddheswarananda’s views on Bhagavan’s Teachings on Creation, in which David discussed some opinions that Swami Siddheswarananda (former president of the Mysore branch of the Ramakrishna Math and founder of the Centre Védantique Ramakrichna in France) expressed about Sri Ramana’s views on solipsism and the idealistic theory of creation known as dṛṣṭi-sṛṣṭi-vāda in the third section of an article that he wrote in 1946 for the Golden Jubilee Souvenir, in which he claimed:
The philosophical outlook of Maharshi tends very often to be confused with that of solipsism or its Indian equivalent, drishti-srishti-vada, which is a sort of degenerated idealism. That Maharshi never subscribes to that view can be known if we study his works in the light of orthodox Vedanta or observe his behaviour in life. [...] (Golden Jubilee Souvenir, third edition, 1995, p. 69)
In his article David explains in his own way why Swami Siddheswarananda was wrong to believe that Sri Ramana did not teach dṛṣṭi-sṛṣṭi-vāda, and in his comment Sankarraman expressed his own views on this subject and asked me to explain my understanding in this regard, so the following is my reply to him:

Swami Siddheswarananda had genuine love and respect for Sri Ramana, but from what he wrote in the Golden Jubilee Souvenir it is clear that his understanding of some crucial aspects of Sri Ramana’s teachings (and also of what he called ‘orthodox Vedanta’) was seriously confused. Dṛṣṭi-sṛṣṭi-vāda (or drishti-srishti-vada, as he spelt it) is the argument (vāda) that creation (sṛṣṭi) is a result of perception or ‘seeing’ (dṛṣṭi), as opposed to sṛṣṭi-dṛṣṭi-vāda, which is any theory (whether philosophical, scientific or religious) that proposes that creation precedes perception (in other words, that the world exists prior to and hence independent of our experience of it). The classic example of dṛṣṭi-sṛṣṭi is our experience in dream: the dream world seems to exist only when we experience it, so its seeming existence is entirely dependent on our experience of it. Since Sri Ramana taught us that our present so-called waking state is actually just a dream, and that there is no significant difference between waking and dream, it is obvious that he did teach dṛṣṭi-sṛṣṭi-vāda.



Thursday, 5 June 2014

Self-investigation, effort and sleep

In the final paragraph of a comment that he wrote on my previous article, Since we always experience ‘I’, we do not need to find ‘I’, but only need to experience it as it actually is, Wittgenstein wrote:
From point 4 above [Due to the opposing nature of consciousness and non-consciousness, laya and vichara (self attention) are mutually exclusive], it is clear that one can not be self attentive while in sleep. That being so, there is a statement [believed to be made by Bhagavan] in Mudaliar’s book [DDWB] that if self attention is maintained and one drifts into sleep, it would continue even in sleep, which is difficult to understand. Does this simply mean that one would sooner or later wake up with a reminder to be self attentive? Or is there something else meant [assuming Bhagavan really made this statement]?
As Wittgenstein says, we obviously cannot make any effort to be self-attentive while we are asleep, but if we try to be self-attentive now while we are awake we will eventually be able to experience sleep in this waking state, as Sri Ramana says in verse 16 of Upadēśa Taṉippākkaḷ (in which he summarised what Sri Muruganar recorded him as having said in verses 957-8 of Guru Vācaka Kōvai):

Saturday, 31 May 2014

Since we always experience ‘I’, we do not need to find ‘I’, but only need to experience it as it actually is

In my previous article, The mind’s role in investigating ‘I’, I replied to some of the comments on my earlier article, How to attend to ‘I’?, and in this article I will discuss some of the other issues raised in the comments on that article.

In some of the later comments on that article, mention is made about the difficulty some people have in ‘finding I’ in order to attend to it, which suggests that what I tried to explain in that article was not sufficiently clear. What I tried to explain there was that the idea ‘I cannot find I’ or ‘I have difficulty experiencing I’ implies that there are two ‘I’s, one of which cannot find or experience the other one, whereas in fact there is only one ‘I’, which we each experience clearly, and which there is therefore no need for us to find.

Sri Ramana used to say that trying to find ‘I’ as if we do not already experience it is like someone searching to find their glasses when in fact they are already wearing them. Whatever else we may experience, we always experience it as ‘I am experiencing this’, so any experience presupposes our fundamental experience ‘I am’. We have never experienced a moment when we have not experienced ‘I’, but because we are so interested in the other things that we experience, we tend to take ‘I’ for granted (just as we take the screen for granted when we are watching a film), and hence we usually overlook the fact that we always experience ‘I’.




Sunday, 25 May 2014

The mind’s role in investigating ‘I’

In a comment that he wrote on my previous article, How to attend to ‘I’?, Jacques Franck referred to a sentence in which I wrote, “Therefore our aim is to experience ‘I’ alone, in complete isolation from all other things, and in order to experience it thus, we need to try to be aware only of ‘I’ and thereby to ignore everything else”, and commented: ‘It sounds simple and complicated at the same time [...] Because when I try to do this, I have the feeling that my mind is trying to do this. So is it normal that in first place the mind is a little involved or much involved [...]?’

Yes, since our mind or ego is what we now experience as ‘I’, the ‘I’ that investigates itself is only our mind. One obvious reason for this is that our real self (what we actually are, or in other words, ‘I’ as it actually is, rather than as the mind that it now seems to be) always experiences itself as it actually is, so there is no need for it to investigate itself. The mind seems to be ‘I’ when I do not experience myself as I actually am, so it is only this mind that needs to investigate itself in order to experience ‘I’ as it actually is.

When we try to investigate ourself by attending only to ‘I’, it is our mind that is trying, but in its attempt to attend to ‘I’ it is actually undermining itself — that is, it is undermining our illusion that it is ‘I’, and when this illusion is dissolved our mind itself ceases to exist, since it seems to exist only when we experience it as ‘I’.




Thursday, 20 March 2014

Ātma-vicāra is the only means by which we can experience ourself as we really are
(Interview on Celibacy: Part 2)

This is the second of the following five instalments, which are a slightly modified reproduction of an interview in which I answered seven questions asked by the editor of the online Non-Duality Magazine for their current issue entitled The Celibacy Question:

Saturday, 15 March 2014

Self-investigation and sexual restraint
(Interview on Celibacy: Part 1)

Recently I was interviewed (via email) by the editor of the online Non-Duality Magazine for their current issue entitled The Celibacy Question, and the entire interview is posted here. Since it is a very long interview, running to more than 17,000 words, I will reproduce it here (with slight modifications) in five instalments:

Thursday, 26 December 2013

The unique clarity and simplicity of Sri Ramana’s teachings

Yesterday a friend wrote to me quoting verse 579 of Guru Vācaka Kōvai:
Because of the non-dual nature of [our] enduring self, [and] because of the fact that excluding self there is no other gati [refuge, means or goal], the upēya [the aim or goal] which [we are to] reach is only self and the upāya [the means or path] is only self. Know them to be non-different.
and saying ‘I think only Bhagavan has provided such clarity on the path, as well as the goal that we should aim for’. To this I replied:

Yes, I too believe that ‘only Bhagavan has provided such clarity on the path, as well as the goal that we should aim for’. He has provided unsurpassed clarity on the goal we should seek and achieve, on the path by which we should seek and achieve it, and on the reason why seeking and achieving it is more important than anything else that we can do in this life.

I believe that the reason why his teachings are so clear and convincing is that they are so simple and so coherent, by which I mean that they all tie together so logically. They are also based on premises that are self-evident once he has pointed them out to us: that is, they are based on the following simple and clear analysis of our experience of ourself in our three states of experience, waking, dream and sleep.

Friday, 26 June 2009

Upadesa Tanippakkal – an explanatory paraphrase

In continuation of my previous six articles, which were explanatory paraphrases of Upadesa Undiyar, Ulladu Narpadu, Ulladu Narpadu Anubandham, Ekatma Panchakam, Appala Pattu and Anma-Viddai (Atma-Vidya), the following is the last of seven extracts from the introductory page that I have drafted for Sri Ramanopadesa Noonmalai (an e-book copy of which I will be uploading to the Books section of my website within the next few days, along with e-book copies of Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam, Sadhanai Saram and Part Two of The Path of Sri Ramana):

Besides these six poems that form உபதேச நூன்மாலை (Upadesa Nunmalai), there are a total of twenty-seven separate verses of upadesa (spiritual teaching) that Sri Ramana composed, which are not included in the Upadesa Nunmalai section of ஸ்ரீ ரமண நூற்றிரட்டு (Sri Ramana Nultirattu), the Tamil ‘Collected Works of Sri Ramana’, but which could appropriately be included there.

However, as I explain in the introduction that I wrote for this English translation of Sri Ramanopadesa Noonmalai, which is contained in the printed book and in the e-book copy of it (and also in a separate article in my blog, Sri Ramanopadesa Nunmalai – English translation by Sri Sadhu Om and Michael James), Sri Sadhu Om gathered these twenty-seven verses together and arranged them in a suitable order to form a work entitled உபதேசத் தனிப்பாக்கள் (Upadesa-t-tani-p-pakkal), the ‘Solitary Verses of Spiritual Teaching’, and he included this work at the end of his Tamil commentary on Upadesa Nunmalai, which is a book called ஸ்ரீ ரமணோபதேச நூன்மாலை – விளக்கவுரை (Sri Ramanopadesa Nunmalai – Vilakkavurai).

Thursday, 27 November 2008

Advaita sadhana – non-dualistic spiritual practice

Towards the end of his long and interesting second comment on my recent article, Guru Vāchaka Kōvai – a new translation by TV Venkatasubramanian, Robert Butler and David Godman, with reference to verse 579 of Guru Vachaka Kovai Haramurthi wrote:

In my view, this verse has a very pronounced non-dualistic emphasis, it speaks from the non-dual perspective: there is simply no mode of existence ever apart from the Self — and then it explicates a mode of existence under the aspect of a path/means for attaining something and under the aspect of being the result of actions (karmaphala), here technically designated as upeya, that which may be attained by some means. And all this is ever already inseparable from the Self — a suggestion which, at least for an awareness deeply engaged in a sAdhana (e.g. of self-enquiry), has profound implications!

If a translator suddenly introduces the essentially dualistic notion of a “refuge”, it means turning the verse into partially speaking from the altogether unenlightened perspective of a self-estranged and confusing consciousness, thereby actually destroying the sublime beauty, suggestiveness and logical integrity of the verse.

It may be part of the agenda, say, of Christian piety to adopt its phantasy of a god as a consoling refuge, but it is less sure whether such a model and its implication, to quote Michael, of “clinging firmly to self as our sole refuge” is a particularly useful strategy in terms of an Advaitic practice, to say nothing of being the “only” method.
I agree with Haramurthi that verse 579 of Guru Vachaka Kovai ‘has a very pronounced non-dualistic emphasis’ and that ‘it speaks from the non-dual perspective’. In fact the absolutely non-dual nature of self, which is expressed by the word அத்துவித (advaita) in the first clause and reiterated by the word அபேதம் (abhēdam) in the final sentence, is the very foundation upon which the teaching given in this verse is based.

Sunday, 23 November 2008

Self-attentiveness, effort and grace

Yesterday the following anonymous comment was posted on my previous article, Atma-vichara and the ‘practice’ of neti neti, with reference to a sentence that I had written in it, “Since thoughts can rise only when we attend to them, they will all subside naturally when we keep our attention fixed exclusively in our own essential self-conscious being, ‘I am’”:

… I try to fix my attention on the feeling ‘I am’, which is present all the time. However, this attention, even when sustained for a considerable amount of time, does not result in the melting away of body consciousness, and as a result of this, other thoughts occasionally arise and sense perceptions are constantly active. Sometimes, I feel the practice is futile because the melting away of body consciousness seems like an act of grace and not something which I can accomplish by attempting to focus on ‘I am’ as much as possible. Exclusive attention to ‘I am’ doesn't seem like something the spurious ‘I’ can accomplish but something which may or may not happen, depending on if an act of grace occurs or not. I’m not sure if I’m practicing correctly. How long should I keep my attention on ‘I am’ before body consciousness abates? If done correctly, should it abate immediately, in a few seconds, in a few hours? Please help.
When practising self-attentiveness, our sole aim should be to experience the perfect clarity of pristine non-dual self-consciousness.

Wednesday, 19 November 2008

Guru Vachaka Kovai verse 579 and Anubhuti Venba verse 610

When I wrote my previous article, Guru Vāchaka Kōvai – a new translation by TV Venkatasubramanian, Robert Butler and David Godman, I unfortunately overlooked an important fact, namely that Sri Muruganar himself had written a brief urai (explanation) for verse 579 of Guru Vāchaka Kōvai in Anubhūti Veṇbā.

I overlooked this partly because I do not have a copy of Anubhūti Veṇbā, and partly because I forgot to check the appendix on page 536 of David’s version of Guru Vachaka Kovai, in which he has given the corresponding verse numbers in Guru Vāchaka Kōvai and Anubhūti Veṇbā for the 95 verses that are included in both these works.

Fortunately David has sent me an e-mail attaching a scanned copy of a letter written to me by a mutual friend, in which he pointed out that verse 579 of Guru Vāchaka Kōvai is included in Anubhūti Veṇbā as verse 610, and in which he also copied by hand the urai that Sri Muruganar wrote for it in Anubhūti Veṇbā, which is as follows:

Wednesday, 12 November 2008

Guru Vāchaka Kōvai – a new translation by TV Venkatasubramanian, Robert Butler and David Godman

A new English version of Guru Vāchaka Kōvai has recently been published. It is translated by Dr T.V. Venkatasubramanian, Robert Butler and David Godman, and is edited and annotated by David Godman.

More information about this new book and where it can be purchased is given by David on his website at www.davidgodman.org/books/gvknew.shtml and on his blog at www.sri-ramana-maharshi.blogspot.com/2008/10/guru-vachaka-kovai.html.

In his lengthy and interesting introduction David has not only given a detailed history of the original Tamil text and the various translations of it, but has also explained why he felt there was a need for this new translation.

Since I have recently received many e-mails from people asking me for my opinion about this new translation, and in particular whether I thought there was really any need for it, I would like to take this opportunity to put on record my support for this new book and for what David has written in his introduction.

Thursday, 17 July 2008

God as paramarthika satya – the absolute reality

In continuation of three of my earlier articles, God as both nirguna brahman and saguna brahman, Experiencing God as he really is and God as purna – the one infinite whole, the following is the fourth extract from the second chapter, ‘God’, of The Truth of Otherness:

Thus, these three verses of Guru Vachaka Kovai are an emphatic refutation of our separation from God, the one infinite purna, the unlimited and absolute reality, who alone truly exists, and who is perfectly non-dual and therefore completely devoid of parts. In verse 888, Sri Ramana emphasises that the infinite purna alone exists by quoting this Vedic mantra, which says that even “when purna is taken out of purna, purna whole alone remains”, and by adding that purna alone remains not only then but also when purna has united purna. That is, whether anything appears to separate from it or unite with it, the infinite purna in truth always exists alone, because whatever appears to separate from it or unite with it is in truth nothing but that purna itself.

Then in verse 889 he explains that, since nothing other than that real purna exists, there is nothing that could ever either separate from it or unite with it, and that therefore everything that appears to exist as other than it is in truth one with it. However, he does not conclude his explanation of this Vedic mantra by saying merely that everything is one with the infinite reality, but goes one step further by stating clearly in verse 890 that everything except the infinite reality is a mere imagination and is therefore completely unreal.

Monday, 7 July 2008

God as purna – the one infinite whole

In continuation of my earlier two articles, God as both nirguna brahman and saguna brahman and Experiencing God as he really is, the following is the third extract from the second chapter, ‘God’, of The Truth of Otherness:

The reason why we said in the previous chapter [an extract from which is given in the article The world is a creation of our imagination] that this world is not created by God is that in his true nirguna form he is mere being, and therefore never does anything, and that in his imaginary saguna form he and this world are both created simultaneously. That is to say, God as a seemingly separate supreme being comes into existence only when we come into existence as a seemingly separate individual being.

When we rise as this mind, our limited individual consciousness, we perceive the world and all the other objective thoughts in our mind as being separate from and other than ourself, and thus we seemingly create duality and division in our non-dual and undivided real self. When we thus see ourself and this world as separate and finite entities, we transform our infinite real self into a seemingly infinite God, whom we consider to be separate from ourself and this world.

Sunday, 22 June 2008

Experiencing our natural state of true immortality

In a comment on my recent article Self-enquiry: the underlying philosophy can be clearly understood only by putting it into practice, Kirk Crist asked, “in death of the body what are the differences in the experiencing or knowing in the janni and the ajanni”. Though the answer to this question is quite simple, when I started to write it one idea led to another, as a result of which I ended up writing the following:

The death of the physical body makes absolutely no difference to a jnani, because jnana or true self-knowledge is the absolutely non-dual, undivided and therefore difference-free experience in which only ‘I am’ — our real self or essential adjunct-free self-conscious being — exists and is known by itself alone.

In other words, in the experience of a jnani, who is jnana itself, there is no such thing as a body or world, and therefore no such thing as birth or death. As Sri Ramana says in verse 21 of Upadesa Tanippakkal (verse B-24 of Guru Vachaka Kovai):

The body is impermanent [and therefore unreal]. Just as a person blinded with the intoxication of toddy [a drink of fermented palm sap] [is not aware whether] the fine cloth with which he was adorned [is still on his body or has fallen off], the siddha [that is, the jnani] who has known self does not know the body, whether [due to prarabdha karma or destiny] it rests or is active, and whether due to [that same prarabdha] karma it is joined or has separated [that is, whether it lives or has died].

Friday, 16 May 2008

Happiness and the Art of Being — complete Spanish translation is now available

Pedro Rodea has translated into Spanish many English books on the teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana, including Nan Yar? (Who am I?), Upadesa Undiyar, Sri Arunachala Pancharatnam (with the commentary by Sri Sadhu Om), Guru Vachaka Kovai (from the English translation by Sri Sadhu Om and me), Maharshi’s Gospel, Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, Day by Day with Bhagavan and Be As You Are, and his translations are posted either as PDF files or as zipped Word documents on his AtivarnAshram website. Some of his translations, such as Guru Vachaka Kovai, have also been published as printed books by Ignitus Ediciones.

In a post that I wrote on 22nd August of last year, Spanish translation of Happiness and the Art of Being, I said that Pedro was also translating Happiness and the Art of Being into Spanish, and that his translation of some of the chapters was available on the AtivarnAshram website. Recently he completed this translation, and it is now available on the AtivarnAshram website as a PDF e-book, which can be opened by clicking on the following link:

La Felicidad y el Arte de Ser:
Introducción a la filosofía y la práctica de las enseñanzas espirituales de
Bhagavan Sri Ramana

Some selected passages from this Spanish translation can also be accessed through links on the Michael James page of the AtivarnAshram website.

Thursday, 15 May 2008

Sri Ramanopadesa Nunmalai — English translation by Sri Sadhu Om and Michael James

In a post that I wrote on September 25th of last year, Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam — English translation by Sri Sadhu Om and Michael James, I announced the publication of the word-for-word meaning and English translation by Sri Sadhu Om and me of Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam, the 'Five Hymns to Sri Arunachala' composed by Bhagavan Sri Ramana, and I mentioned that within the next few months it would be followed by a similar book containing the word-for-word meaning and English translation by Sri Sadhu Om and me of Upadesa Nunmalai, the 'Garland of Teaching Texts' or 'Garland of Treatises of Spiritual Instruction', that is, the poems such as Ulladu Narpadu that Sri Ramana wrote conveying his teachings or upadesa.

This translation of Upadesa Nunmalai has now been published under the title Sri Ramanopadesa Noonmalai and is available for sale in Sri Ramanasramam Book Stall. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first book to contain the word-for-word meaning in English for each verse of these poems.

The following is a copy of the introduction that I wrote for this translation of Upadesa Nunmalai:

"So that we may be saved, [graciously] reveal to us the nature of reality and the means to attain [or experience] it." This is the prayer that Sri Muruganar made to Bhagavan Sri Ramana when requesting him to compose Ulladu Narpadu, and these are the words with which he begins the first verse of his payiram or preface to this great work.

Wednesday, 5 September 2007

Guru Vachaka Kovai – e-book

Yesterday I added an e-book copy of Guru Vachaka Kovai (English translation by Sri Sadhu Om and me) to my main website, Happiness of Being.

The following is an extract from my introduction to this e-book:

Guru Vachaka Kovai is the most profound, comprehensive and reliable collection of the sayings of Sri Ramana, recorded in 1255 Tamil verses composed by Sri Muruganar, with an additional 42 verses composed by Sri Ramana.

The title Guru Vachaka Kovai can be translated as The Series of Guru's Sayings, or less precisely but more elegantly as The Garland of Guru's Sayings. In this title, the word guru denotes Sri Ramana, who is a human manifestation of the one eternal guru – the non-dual absolute reality, which we usually call 'God' and which always exists and shines within each one of us as our own essential self, our fundamental self-conscious being, 'I am' –, the word vachaka means 'saying', and the word kovai is a verbal noun that means 'threading', 'stringing', 'filing' or 'arranging', and that by extension denotes a 'series', 'arrangement' or 'composition', and is therefore also used to denote either a string of ornamental beads or a kind of love-poem.

Saturday, 1 September 2007

Nan Yar? - complete translation now added to Happiness of Being website

Today is the 111th anniversary of Sri Ramana's arrival in Tiruvannamalai, to celebrate which I have added my English translation of Nan Yar? (Who am I?) to my main website, Happiness of Being.

I have also restructured my website, replacing the old Resources page with the following five new pages:


Within the next few days I will also add to my website an e-book version of the English translation by Sri Sadhu Om and me of Guru Vackaka Kovai, the 'Series of Guru's Sayings', which is the most comprehensive and reliable collection of the sayings of Sri Ramana, recorded in 1255 Tamil verses composed by Sri Muruganar, with an additional 42 verses composed by Sri Ramana.

Wednesday, 22 August 2007

Spanish translation of Happiness and the Art of Being

Pedro Rodea has translated into Spanish many English books on the teachings of Sri Ramana, including Nan Yar? (Who am I?), Guru Vachaka Kovai (from the English translation by Sri Sadhu Om and me), Maharshi’s Gospel, Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, Day by Day with Bhagavan and Be As You Are, and his translations are posted as zipped Word documents on his website, www.ativarnashram.com. Some of his translations, such as Guru Vachaka Kovai, have also been published in print by Ignitus Ediciones.

Recently Pedro has been translating Happiness and the Art of Being into Spanish, and he has now posted his translation of the introduction and first two chapters on his website in the zipped file La Felicidad y el Arte de Ser (Introducción, Capitulo I y II, por Michael James). He has also posted an extract from this book (a translation of pages 26 to 32) on the page Libro de enseñanzas seleccionado.

Tuesday, 21 August 2007

The supreme compassion of Sri Ramana

Towards the end of chapter 10, ‘The Practice of the Art of Being’, on page 558 of the second e-book edition (page 589 of the forthcoming printed edition) of Happiness and the Art of Being, I give a translation of the nineteenth paragraph of Nan Yar?, which Sri Ramana concludes by saying:

... It is not proper [for us] to let [our] mind [dwell] much on worldly matters. It is not proper [for us] to enter in the affairs of other people [an idiomatic way of saying that we should mind our own business and not interfere in other people’s affairs]. All that one gives to others one is giving only to oneself. If [everyone] knew this truth, who indeed would refrain from giving?
On pages 559 to 562 of the second e-book edition (pages 589 to 592 of the printed edition) I discuss the meaning of this paragraph, and while doing so I write:
When Sri Ramana says that it is not proper for us to allow our mind to dwell much upon worldly matters, or for us to interfere in the affairs of others, he does not mean that we should be indifferent to the sufferings of other people or creatures. It is right for us to feel compassion whenever we see or come to know of the suffering of any other person or creature, because compassion is an essential quality that naturally arises in our mind when it is under the sway of sattva-guna or the quality of ‘being-ness’, goodness and purity, and it is also right for us to do whatever we reasonably can to alleviate such suffering.

Saturday, 18 August 2007

The question ‘who am I?’ as a verbalised thought

In continuation of my previous three posts, Atma-vichara is only the practice of keeping our mind fixed firmly in self, Atma-vichara and the question ‘who am I?’ and Sri Ramana’s figurative use of simple words, the following is what I have newly incorporated on pages 450 to 456 of the forthcoming printed edition of Happiness and the Art of Being:

We cannot ascertain who or what we really are by merely asking ourself the verbalised question ‘who am I?’, but only by keenly attending to ourself. If Sri Ramana were to say to us, "Investigate what is written in this book", we would not imagine that we could discover what is written in it by merely asking ourself the question ‘what is written in this book?’. In order to know what is written in it, we must open it and actually read what is written inside. Similarly, when he says to us, "Investigate ‘who am I?’", we should not imagine that he means that we can truly know who we are by merely asking ourself the question ‘who am I?’. In order to know who or what we really are, we must actually look within ourself to see what this ‘I’ — our essential self-consciousness — really is.

In order to experience ourself as we really are, we must withdraw our attention from everything other than our own real self — our essential self-conscious being, ‘I am’. Since the verbalised question ‘who am I?’ is a thought that can rise only after our mind has risen and is active, it is experienced by us as something other than ourself, and hence we cannot know who we really are so long as we allow our mind to continue dwelling upon it.

Thursday, 16 August 2007

Atma-vichara and the question ‘who am I?’

In continuation of my previous post, Atma-vichara is only the practice of keeping our mind fixed firmly in self, the following is what I have newly incorporated on pages 441 to 445 of the forthcoming printed edition of Happiness and the Art of Being:

However, though atma-vichara or ‘self-investigation’ is truly not any form of mental activity, such as asking ourself ‘who am I?’ or any other such question, but is only the practice of abiding motionlessly in our perfectly thought-free self-conscious being, in some English books we occasionally find statements attributed to Sri Ramana that are so worded that they could make it appear as if he sometimes advised people to practise self-investigation by asking themself questions such as ‘who am I?’. In order to understand why such potentially confusing wordings appear in some of the books in which the oral teachings of Sri Ramana have been recorded in English, we have to consider several facts.

Firstly, whenever Sri Ramana was asked any question regarding spiritual philosophy or practice, he usually replied in Tamil, or occasionally in Telugu or Malayalam. Though he understood and could speak English quite fluently, when discussing spiritual philosophy or practice he seldom spoke in English, except occasionally when making a simple statement. Even when he was asked questions in English, he usually replied in Tamil, and each of his replies would immediately be translated into English by any person present who knew both languages. If what he said in Tamil was seriously mistranslated, he would occasionally correct the translation, but in most cases he would not interfere with the interpreter’s task.

Wednesday, 15 August 2007

Atma-vichara is only the practice of keeping our mind fixed firmly in self

On page 431 of the second e-book edition (page 439 of the forthcoming printed edition) of Happiness and the Art of Being, chapter 9, ‘Self-Investigation and Self-Surrender’, I give the following translation of an important sentence from the sixteenth paragraph of Nan Yar?, in which Sri Ramana defines the true meaning of the term atma-vichara or ‘self-investigation’ by saying:

… The name ‘atma-vichara’ [is truly applicable] only to [the practice of] always being [abiding or remaining] having put [placed, kept, seated, deposited, detained, fixed or established our] mind in atma [our own real self]…
After this quotation, on pages 439 to 456 of the forthcoming printed edition I have incorporated some fresh material, and on pages 456 to 459 I have expanded what I had written on pages 431 to 432 of the second e-book edition. Since this new and expanded material comes to a total of twenty pages in the forthcoming printed edition, it is too long to give here in one post, so I shall divide it up into a series of five posts.

The following is the new explanation about the sentence from Nan Yar? that I have quoted above, which will come immediately after it on pages 439 to 441 of the forthcoming printed edition:

Sunday, 29 July 2007

Our real self can reveal itself only through silence

As I wrote at the end of my previous post, Happiness and the Art of Being – additions to chapter 5, on page 339 of the second e-book edition of Happiness and the Art of Being (pages 344 to 345 of the printed book) I have added a translation of verse 5 of Ekatma Panchakam and a brief explanation about it. This newly added portion, which I wrote in continuation of my explanation about the term mauna-para-vak, which Sri Ramana uses in verse 715 of Guru Vachaka Kovai, and which means 'the supreme word, which is silence', is as follows:

The power of the silent clarity of unadulterated self-consciousness to reveal itself as the absolute reality is expressed by Sri Ramana poetically in verse 5 of Ekatma Panchakam:

That which always exists is only that ekatma vastu [the one reality or substance, which is our own true self]. Since the adi-guru at that time made that vastu to be known [only by] speaking without speaking, say, who can make it known [by] speaking?
The word eka means ‘one’, atma means ‘self’, and vastu is the Sanskrit equivalent of the Tamil word porul, which means the absolute reality, substance or essence. Therefore the ekatma vastu, which Sri Ramana declares to be eppodum ulladu, ‘that which always is’, is the one absolute reality or essential substance, which is our own true self.

Saturday, 28 July 2007

Happiness and the Art of Being – additions to chapter 5

In the forthcoming printed edition of Happiness and the Art of Being, chapter 5, ‘What is True Knowledge?’, I have incorporated eight new portions that are not in the second e-book edition.

On page 304 of the second e-book edition, immediately after the first paragraph following verse 9 of Ulladu Narpadu, I have added two new paragraphs and modified the first sentence of the next paragraph. These three paragraphs, which will be on pages 306 to 307 of the printed book, are as follows:

The unreality both of these ‘triads’, which form the totality of our objective knowledge, and of these ‘pairs’, which are an inherent part of our objective knowledge, being objective phenomena experienced by our knowing mind, is emphasised by the word vinmai, which Sri Ramana added between the previous verse and this verse in the kalivenba version of Ulladu Narpadu. Being placed immediately before the opening words of this verse, irattaigal mupputigal, this word vinmai, which literally means ‘sky-ness’ — that is, the abstract quality or condition of the sky, which in this context implies its blueness — defines the nature of these ‘pairs’ and ‘triads’. That is, these basic constituents of all our objective or dualistic knowledge are unreal appearances, like the blueness of the sky.

Friday, 27 July 2007

Actions or karmas are like seeds

In chapter 4 of Happiness and the Art of Being, on page 258 I have quoted verse 38 of Ulladu Narpadu, in which Sri Ramana says:

If we are the doer of action, we will experience the resulting fruit [the consequences of our actions]. When [we] know ourself [by] having investigated ‘who is the doer of action?’, kartritva [our sense of doership, our feeling ‘I am doing action’] will depart and the three karmas will slip off [vanish or cease to exist]. [This state devoid of all actions or karmas is] the state of liberation, which is eternal.
I have expanded the explanation that I previously gave in the three paragraphs after this verse, and my expanded explanation (which will be on pages 258 to 261 of the printed book) is as follows:

The compound word vinai-mudal, which I have translated as ‘the doer of action’, literally means the origin or cause of an action, but is used idiomatically, particularly in grammar, to mean the subject or agent who performs an action. In the context of karma or action, the word ‘fruit’ is used idiomatically in both Tamil and Sanskrit to mean the moral consequences that result from any of our actions, whether good or bad, in the form of correspondingly pleasant or unpleasant experiences that we must sooner or later undergo.

Saturday, 10 March 2007

The transcendent state of true self-knowledge is the only real state

In chapter 6 of Happiness and the Art of Being I explain on page 342 of the present e-book version that our fundamental state of true self-knowledge is sometimes described in advaita vedanta as the state of 'wakeful sleep' or 'waking sleep' (jagrat-sushupti in Sanskrit, or nanavu-tuyil in Tamil) because, since it is a state in which we experience no duality, it is a thought-free state like sleep, but since it is at the same time a state in which we experience absolute clarity of self-knowledge, it is also a state of perfect wakefulness. I then write:

Since this state of 'wakeful sleep' is beyond our three ordinary states of waking, dream and deep sleep, in advaita vedanta it is also sometimes referred to as the 'fourth state' or turiya avastha. Somewhat confusingly, however, in some texts another term is used to describe it, namely the 'fourth-transcending' or turiyatita, which has given rise to the wrong notion that beyond this 'fourth state' there is some further 'fifth state'. In truth, however, the non-dual state of true self-knowledge is the ultimate and absolute state, beyond which no other state can exist.
On pages 343 to 344 of the present e-book version I then quote and explain verse 32 of Ulladu Narpadu Anubandham and verses 937 to 939 of Guru Vachaka Kovai, but while revising Happiness and the Art of Being in preparation for print I decided that I could improve my translations and explanation of these verses. I have therefore revised my translations and expanded my explanation as follows:

Wednesday, 7 March 2007

The true import of the word 'I'

In Happiness and the Art of Being, chapter 5, 'What is True Knowledge?', on pages 309 and 311-312 of the present e-book version I quote verses 20 and 21 of Upadesa Undiyar, in which Sri Ramana says:

In the place [the core of our being] where 'I' [our mind or individual self] merges [or becomes one], the one [true knowledge] appears [or shines forth] spontaneously [or as ourself] as 'I [am] I'. That itself [or that, which is ourself] is the whole [the infinite totality or fullness of being, consciousness and happiness].

That [one infinite whole that shines thus as 'I am I'] is at all times [in the past, present and future, and in all eternity] the [true] import of the word 'I', because of the absence of our non-existence even in sleep, which is devoid of [any separate or finite sense of] 'I'.
On pages 312 to 314 of the present e-book version I discuss the meaning of verse 21, and I conclude my explanation with the following paragraph:

Tuesday, 6 March 2007

'I am' is the most appropriate name of God

In a recent post, Contemplating 'I', which is the original name of God, I quoted verse 716 of Guru Vachaka Kovai and while explaining it I referred to verses 712 to 715, saying that I would translate and explain them in a later post.

While revising Happiness and the Art of Being in preparation for its forthcoming publication in print, I have incorporated my translation and explanation of these four verses in chapter 5, 'What is True Knowledge?'. That is, on pages 304 to 305 of the present e-book version there are two paragraphs in which I write that Sri Ramana often said that the words that express the true nature of the absolute reality most accurately are 'I' and 'am', and I have now enlarged upon those two paragraphs as follows:

Though the absolute reality is given many names and descriptions such as God, allah, brahman, the absolute, the eternal, the infinite, the fullness of being, purna or the whole, pure knowledge, sat-chit-ananda or being-consciousness-bliss, tat or 'it', nirvana, the kingdom of God and so on, Sri Ramana often said that the words that express its real nature most perfectly and accurately are 'I' and 'am', or their combined form 'I am'.

Friday, 2 March 2007

Contemplating 'I', which is the original name of God

In Happiness and the Art of Being, chapter 3, 'The Nature of Our Mind', there is a paragraph (on page 190 of the present e-book version) in which I write:

In whatever way he may describe this process of self-investigation or self-scrutiny, the sole aim of Sri Ramana is to provide us with clues that will help us to divert our attention away from our thoughts, our body and all other things, and to focus it wholly and exclusively upon our fundamental and essential consciousness of being, which we always experience as 'I am'. In his writings and sayings there are many examples of how he does this. In this fifth paragraph of Nan Yar? for instance, after first suggesting that we should investigate in what place the thought 'I' rises in our body, he goes on to give us a still simpler means by which we can consciously return to the source from which we have risen, saying, "Even if [we] remain thinking 'I, I', it will take [us] and leave [us] in that place".
While revising Happiness and the Art of Being in preparation for its forthcoming publication as a printed book, after this paragraph I have added several new paragraphs, and have also amended the paragraph that currently comes immediately after it, as follows:

Wednesday, 14 February 2007

Our waking life is just another dream

In continuation of my earlier posts Our imaginary sleep of self-forgetfulness or self-ignorance and Are we in this world, or is this world in us?, the following is the third instalment of the additional matter that I plan to incorporate after the paragraph that ends on the first line of page 127 of my book, Happiness and the Art of Being:

In the eighteenth paragraph of Nan Yar? Sri Ramana says:

Except that waking is dirgha [long lasting] and dream is kshanika [momentary or lasting for only a short while], there is no other difference [between these two imaginary states of mental activity]. To the extent to which all the vyavahara [activities or occurrences] that happen in waking appear [at this present moment] to be real, to that [same] extent even the vyavahara [activities or occurrences] that happen in dream appear at that time to be real. In dream [our] mind takes another body [to be itself]. In both waking and dream thoughts and names-and-forms [the objects of the seemingly external world] occur in one time [that is, simultaneously].

Sunday, 7 January 2007

Which spiritual teachings are truly credible?

In a comment on the post Who has attained 'self-realisation'?, Innerself quoted the last two paragraphs of that post, and then commented:

Although I can understand your point of view and the arguments in the above quote, the reason why this knowledge would be helpful is in the credibility one can put into the teachings.

Nisargadatta and Ramana were Self-Realized, Jnani. I don't think that anyone [would] contest this. Thus one can trustfully read their books and/or written answers published.

There are so many out there saying they are Enlightened...
It is true that, as Innerself observes, there are many people who claim to be 'enlightened', but sadly many of them are probably either self-deluded or are deliberately trying to deceive people. One of the easiest ways to gain the respect and adulation of other people is to make them believe that one has attained jnana, the experience of true knowledge, since this is widely recognised to be the ultimate spiritual attainment. It is therefore very tempting for the human ego to pose as if it had attained such jnana, 'enlightenment' or 'self-realisation', so it is not surprising that there are people who fall a prey to this temptation. And since it is impossible for those of us who have not attained jnana to know whether or not another person has attained it, it is very easy for a person who wishes to be considered as 'enlightened' or 'self-realised' to deceive other people, making them believe this to be so.



Last updated: 7th November 2024