Showing posts with label Upadēśa Undiyār. Show all posts

Wednesday, 25 December 2024

Aruṇācala Tattuvam and Dīpa-Darśaṉa Tattuvam: The Reality of Arunachala and Seeing Deepam

Friday 13th December 2024 was Kārttikai Deepam, which is an annual festival celebrated in the Tamil month of Kārttikai (mid-November to mid-December) on the day on which the moon is in conjunction with the constellation Pleiades (known in Sanskrit as kṛttikā and in Tamil as kārttikai), which always coincides with the full moon or comes one or two days before or after it. At 6pm on this day a beacon light or dīpam (popularly spelt deepam) is lit on the summit of Arunachala, and continues to burn for about ten days.

Thursday, 12 September 2024

Pure intransitive awareness alone is real consciousness and what actually exists

In section 16.1 of A landscape of consciousness: Toward a taxonomy of explanations and implications Robert Lawrence Kuhn quoted some extracts from personal communication I had with him regarding what Bhagavan taught about consciousness or awareness, so this article is a copy of what I had written to him (with references added in the body of the text instead of in footnotes):

Tuesday, 10 September 2024

Introduction to Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu

Last year Sandra Derksen asked me to write an introduction for Ramana Maharshi’s Forty Verses On What Is, a book that she had compiled and edited from various explanations that I had given about each verse of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu in my writings and talks, so this article is adapted from the introduction I wrote for it.

Tuesday, 3 September 2024

How to know and to be what we actually are

In June my website, which was previously called ‘Happiness of Being’, was renamed ‘Sri Ramana Teachings’, so in August this blog was likewise renamed, and the respective URLs were also changed accordingly. Since the homepage had hardly changed since the website was launched in 2006, it was also in need of updating, so I have drafted a new homepage with a more detailed introduction to and overview of Bhagavan’s teachings, which I hope to post within the next few days, and in the meanwhile I am posting here this extract from it, namely sections 11 to 14.

Tuesday, 16 May 2023

Wednesday, 9 November 2022

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 16

This is the sixteenth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Thursday, 27 October 2022

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 15

This is the fifteenth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Friday, 23 September 2022

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 13

This is the thirteenth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Wednesday, 24 August 2022

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 11

This is the eleventh in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Saturday, 2 July 2022

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 8

This is the eighth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Friday, 22 April 2022

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 5

This is the fifth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Thursday, 31 March 2022

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 2

This is the second in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Thursday, 24 March 2022

Upadēśa Sāraḥ: Sanskrit text, transliteration and translation (with the original Tamil text)

उपदेश सारः (Upadēśa Sāraḥ), ‘The Essence of Spiritual Teachings’, is Bhagavan’s Sanskrit translation or adaptation of one of the poetic texts that he originally wrote in Tamil, namely உபதேச வுந்தியார் (Upadēśa-v-Undiyār). Like all his original writings, both these versions of this poem are extremely deep and rich in meaning and implication, so in order to understand them clearly and correctly we need to do careful śravaṇa (hearing, reading or studying attentively), manana (considering and thinking deeply about what is meant and implied) and nididhyāsana (deep contemplation on that towards which all these teachings are ultimately pointing, namely our own real nature, which is sat-cit, our fundamental awareness of our own existence, ‘I am’).

Tuesday, 8 February 2022

Āṉma-Viddai verse 1: thought is what causes the appearance of the unreal body and world

In continuation of my previous article, Āṉma-Viddai: Tamil text, transliteration and translation, in this article I will explain and discuss the meaning and implications of the first verse of this text, and in subsequent articles I will do likewise for each of the other four verses:

Saturday, 4 December 2021

What are vāsanās and how do they work?

A friend wrote to me asking whether the following is ‘a reasonable terse description of the meaning of the term vāsanā’:

vāsanā: an inclination, which has been imprinted through one’s past actions and experiences, to desire having a particular or type of experience
This article is adapted from the reply I wrote to this friend.

Friday, 26 November 2021

The Ramaṇa mahāvākya: ‘நான் நான்’ (nāṉ nāṉ) or ‘अहम् अहम्’ (aham aham), ‘I am I’

I have recently been trying to complete a detailed explanation about the song Āṉma-Viddai that I began to write more than two years ago but never had time to complete, so if it is Bhagavan’s will I hope to be able to post that here within the next few weeks. In the meanwhile, since the teaching ‘நான் நான்’ (nāṉ nāṉ) or ‘अहम् अहम्’ (aham aham), ‘I am I’, is such a fundamental and central principle of his teachings, but one that is sadly so overlooked and neglected due to a widespread misinterpretation of it and a consequent failure to recognise its profound significance, I decided to post this extract from the explanation I have written for verse 2 of Āṉma-Viddai:

Thursday, 18 November 2021

Appaḷa Pāṭṭu (The Appaḷam Song): Tamil text, transliteration, translation and explanation

Bhagavan lived mostly in Virupaksha Cave on the eastern slopes of Arunachala from 1899 till sometime around the middle of 1916, when he moved higher up to Skandasramam. A few months before this move, in about January 1916, his mother, Aṙagammaḷ, came to live with him, and it was during the brief period when she lived with him in Virupaksha Cave that he composed this song, அப்பளப் பாட்டு (Appaḷa-p-Pāṭṭu), ‘The Appaḷam Song’. One of the most detailed accounts of how he came to compose this song is what has been recorded by Suri Nagamma in Letter 102 of Letters from Ramanasramam (2006 edition, pages 208-11), but in brief the story is as follows:

Sunday, 29 August 2021

Is anything other than ourself intrinsically existent?

A friend wrote to me:

Thank you very much for all your contributions to elucidate Bhagavan’s teachings. One of the points (or implications?) of the teachings that confuses me the most is the statement that the world that I’m so sure exists independently of ‘me’ is exactly a dream (yes, the difficulty is "exactly", or maybe "literally"?). In fact, strangely, that statement didn’t shock me too much in the sense that I naturally had some acceptance for it the first time I heard about it. However, after much thinking (although I know that one can’t intellectually figure this thing out), I still can’t figure out how one can reject the following alternative hypothesis. Please help explain if you find some time. Sorry for the English because I’m not a native speaker.

Tuesday, 29 June 2021

The nature of ego and its viṣaya-vāsanās and how to eradicate them

A friend wrote to me about an experience that happened to him one evening in a particular set of circumstances:

As I was walking home, my mind suddenly entered into a very quiet state. The rate of new thoughts arising became very slow, and I found that with only a tiny amount of effort, I could just remain in the quiet space without verbal thoughts.

Thursday, 13 May 2021

Learning how to be self-attentive

A friend sent me a series of three emails, in the first of which he wrote:

With regards to Self-investigation, I have a few questions:

1. Am I investigating the ego/individual self, with the aim of finding the falsity of it?
2. Or am I investigating the true Self, with the aim of uncovering my true nature?
3. What is the best approach to achieve the goal?





Monday, 22 March 2021

The second and third paragraphs of Nāṉ Ār?

In this article I will discuss the history behind the second paragraph of Nāṉ Ār? and the practical and philosophical significance of what Bhagavan teaches us in the third paragraph.

Thursday, 18 February 2021

In what sense is ego actually just pure awareness?

In my previous article, In what sense is it true to say ‘everything is one’?, I wrote:

So Bhagavan is the ultimate reductionist: All phenomena are just thoughts; thoughts are just mind; mind is just ego; and if instead of looking at anything else we look keenly at ourself alone, we will find that ego is actually just pure awareness. Therefore pure awareness is all that actually exists: it is ‘one only without a second’ (ēkam ēva advitīyam).

Tuesday, 2 February 2021

In what sense is it true to say ‘everything is one’?

A friend wrote to me recently, ‘I think I got this part wrong: “Everyone is oneself”. You would say I am saying “Many is one”, right? What would you say? There is just one?’, in reply to which I wrote:

Saturday, 30 January 2021

Is it possible for us to have a ‘glimpse of Self’?

A friend wrote to me asking, ‘Can the practice become constant? Turning attention inward, I remain there (I-AM). Where does effort stop? I had glimpses of Self, how to remain there? Is it at all possible?’, in reply to which I wrote:

Friday, 18 December 2020

If everything is predestined, how can the law of karma be true?

Last month a friend wrote to me posing two questions, ‘If everything is predestined, how can the law of karma be true? And if it is true, how can everything be predestined?’, to which he offered his own answers based on his understanding of Bhagavan’s teachings. This article is adapted from the replies I wrote to this and several subsequent emails, because what Bhagavan taught us about the law of karma in general and the scope of predetermination in particular is an area of his teachings that have been widely misunderstood and misinterpreted, and hence I am often asked about this subject.

Sunday, 1 November 2020

We can practise self-abidance only by being self-attentive

A friend asked me to adjudicate on a disagreement that he and another friend had about self-abidance and self-investigation. One of them believed that “the terms ‘self-abidance’ and ‘self-investigation’ mean two different things. That is, according to his understanding, in self-abidance we do not use our sharp mind (nun mati or kurnda mati). However, in self-investigation, we are using our sharp mind (nun mati or kurnda mati)”, whereas the other believed that “both these terms, ‘self-abidance’ and ‘self-investigation’ mean the same thing as long as we are practising self-attentiveness. These terms — self-abidance and self-investigation — are just two different ways of describing the practice of atma-vichara”.

The following is adapted from the reply I wrote to them:


Friday, 16 October 2020

The direct path to direct perception of our real nature

A friend wrote to me recently:

I wondered if you could shine some light on something regarding Ramana’s Enlightenment for me. I’ve always thought that when the moment of Enlightenment transpires for anyone that it is instantaneous & does not involve time, even though there may have been a Spiritual progression up to that point. It is commonly said that when Ramana laid down & watched the death of his self at that point he was instantly Enlightened.

Saturday, 19 September 2020

How is ego to be destroyed?

A friend wrote to me recently:

I came across the following quote supposedly by Bhagavan:
Question: How is the ego to be destroyed?

Maharshi: Hold the ego first and then ask how it is to be destroyed. Who asks this question? It is the ego. Can the ego ever agree to kill itself? This question is a sure way to cherish the ego and not to kill it. If you seek the ego you will find it does not exist. That is the way to destroy it.

Monday, 24 August 2020

Praising or disparaging others is anātma-vicāra

In a comment on 18 July 2020 at 11:27 I appealed to everyone writing comments on this blog:

I have not had time to read most of the comments that have been posted here recently, but a friend has written to me pointing out that of late many of the comments have been blatantly transgressing the Guidelines for Comments, so could I please ask you all to abide by these guidelines for the sake of all who read your comments. That is, please do not allow any discussion about Bhagavan’s teachings to deteriorate into a series of ad hominem attacks and abuse. If you disagree with any idea expressed by anyone else, you are welcome to explain why you disagree with it, but please do not criticise personally whoever has expressed whatever ideas you disagree with.
I still have not had time to read most of the recent comments, but from the few I have read and from emails I have received from several friends deploring the tone of many of them I understand that what I wrote in this comment had little or no effect, because the same behaviour seems to have been continuing. This is very sad, because it shows a lack of respect for Bhagavan and his teachings, and it is inconsiderate, because it deters many serious aspirants from taking part in what could otherwise be useful discussions about his teachings.

Sunday, 21 June 2020

How do we remember being asleep?

A friend wrote to me today asking, ‘In the deep sleep state, it is said that there is no mind. In that case, what is it that carries through the information back to the waking state that one has experienced deep sleep? Is the mind present but it is dormant (thereby registering experience and creating memory)? In other words, is there anything other than the true I (I-I) in the deep sleep state?’, in reply to which I wrote:

Wednesday, 17 June 2020

What exists and shines in sleep is nothing other than pure awareness

Yesterday I discussed with a friend called Murthy what Bhagavan pointed out to us about what exists and what we are aware of in sleep, and our discussion is recorded in the video 2020-06-16 Michael and Murthy discuss the non-existence of ego and its five sheaths in sleep:

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?

Thursday, 28 May 2020

Though we are not aware of any phenomena in sleep, we are aware of our own existence, ‘I am’

A friend recently wrote to me:

There is something I find hard to “understand”. You say that Sri Ramana Maharshi said that when we are in deep sleep, without dreams, that we have let go of the ego and are still aware of our self existence.

How can we know that, when seemingly there is no awareness in that time? It leads me to think that if the oneness of the true self, of existence/god itself is nothing, no experience at all, then why would I want to get there? While there is suffering in this life with the ego here, there is also pleasure. As I get closer to non-attachment I suffer far less (I witness the suffering), but if I achieve complete non-attachment I will cease to exist in this way. In my form as a human I reach states of freedom and happiness but I am experiencing/aware of that. In sleep (and therefore death) am I really experiencing that?

Wednesday, 15 April 2020

The dreamer is ourself as ego, not whatever person we seem to be in a dream

A friend called Reinhard recently sent me what he described as ‘a pleasant exchange with David [Godman] about ajata and the discrepancy to ‘our’ ordinary perception’ and wrote, ‘If you have some comments, they are always welcome’.

Tuesday, 31 March 2020

How can we just be?

In a comment on my previous article, What can be simpler than just being self-attentive?, a friend called Chandra asked: ‘how to practice self enquiry sir? has just to be not doing anything without activity of mind and body, just be?’ The following is my reply to this:

Monday, 9 March 2020

Though we appear in two distinct modes, we are just one awareness

When I woke up on Saturday morning, a fresh clarity occurred to me. If I try to put this clarity into words, as I will do in this article, it is what I knew already, but somehow on that morning I saw it with a fresh clarity. In words I cannot actually express this clarity, but I can explain what it is about: that is, what it is that somehow became more clear.

Monday, 24 February 2020

Though we now seem to be ego, if we look at ourself keenly enough we will see that we are actually just pure awareness

A question that troubles some people when they want to understand the practice of self-investigation (ātma-vicāra) is whether the ‘self’ or ‘I’ we are to investigate is ego or our real nature (ātma-svarūpa), but as I will try to make clear in this article, investigating ego is itself investigating our real nature, because what seems to be ego is just our real nature, just as what seems to be a snake is just a rope. We are just one self or ‘I’, not two different selves or ‘I’s, but when this one ‘I’ remains just as it is, without any adjuncts, it is pure awareness, which is our real nature, whereas when it seems to be conflated with adjuncts, it is what is called ego.

Sunday, 2 February 2020

There are many interpretations of advaita, but Bhagavan’s teachings are the simplest, clearest and deepest

In a comment on my previous article, To know what we actually are, we need to cease being interested in any person, a friend called Mouna referred to one of my recent videos, 2020-01-19 Yo Soy Tu Mismo: Michael James discusses why Bhagavan’s path is a path of unlearning, and wrote:
Michael mentioned in one of his recent videos (I’ll be paraphrasing) that one of the problems of vedantic teachings is that historically, the simple teachings of the Upanishads started to be complicated to understand because all the commentaries, and the commentaries on the commentaries (and the commentaries on the commentaries on the commentaries!) appeared...

Thursday, 23 January 2020

To know what we actually are, we need to cease being interested in any person

A friend wrote to me recently saying he wants to know more about me as a person, including about my family background, such as whether my parents were devotees of Bhagavan and whether all my siblings are also interested in his teachings, and he asked me whether he should try to convince his brothers and sisters to learn about his teachings, because they have other interests and opinions, some of which he disagrees with. This article is adapted from the reply I wrote to him.

Thursday, 16 January 2020

What does Bhagavan mean by the term ‘mind’?

In a comment on my previous article, Self-investigation is the only means by which we can surrender ourself entirely and thereby eradicate ego, a friend called Rajat referred to two sentences in the fifth paragraph of Nāṉ Ār?, ‘மனதில் தோன்றும் நினைவுக ளெல்லாவற்றிற்கும் நானென்னும் நினைவே முதல் நினைவு. இது எழுந்த பிறகே ஏனைய நினைவுகள் எழுகின்றன’ (maṉadil tōṉḏṟum niṉaivugaḷ ellāvaṯṟiṟkum nāṉ-eṉṉum niṉaivē mudal niṉaivu. idu eṙunda piṟahē ēṉaiya niṉaivugaḷ eṙugiṉḏṟaṉa), ‘Of all the thoughts that appear [or arise] in the mind, the thought called ‘I’ alone is the first thought [the primal, basic, original or causal thought]. Only after this arises do other thoughts arise’, and asked, ‘I am unable to understand this. Isn’t the “thought ‘I’” same as the mind, or ego? If yes, then how does the I-thought appear or arise in the mind, because they are the same thing? Should this be understood to mean that the first thing the I-thought sees is itself?’, and in a subsequent comment he referred to this and asked ‘Since “the thought I” is nothing but “our mind”, how to understand Bhagavan’s statement that the thought ‘I’ alone is the first thought that appears in our mind? If I-thought were to arise in the mind, then mind must exist prior to the arising of I thought’.

This article is written primarily in reply to these two comments, but also in reply both to a later comment in which Rajat asked some other questions related to the nature of the mind, and to another related subject that was discussed in other comments on the same article.

Saturday, 21 December 2019

Self-investigation is the only means by which we can surrender ourself entirely and thereby eradicate ego

A mutual friend recently wrote to David Godman and me asking us to confirm his understanding on various points concerning Bhagavan and his teachings, including that silence is his highest teaching, that he gave ‘Realization’ to his mother and Cow Lakshmi, that some other people got ‘enlightenment’ just being in his presence, that he ‘said that people come to him in various maturity levels’, that he ‘did not speak about “Atma-Vichara” unless someone asked [him] the easiest and quickest way for Realization’, but that ‘at the same time he has guided few others towards realization’ (referring to what seems to me to be a dubious claim that he ‘never mentioned about Atma-Vichara to Natesa Iyer’ but ‘mentioned to him to look at “Nothing”’), that ‘Time and again Bhagawan said that HE is not the body, which implies that he is LOVE & Awareness’, that he is therefore ‘available to anyone Here and Now’, that ‘on the “Karma” theory/aspect anyone who is destined to succeed in “Atma-Vichara” will get irrespective of they want it or not’, and that ‘He also have mentioned that the effective way for MUKTI/ liberation is either by practice of Atma-vichara or Self Surrender’.

Sunday, 15 December 2019

Why do we need to distinguish ourself as ego from whatever person we seem to be?

A friend recently wrote a comment saying ‘I cannot easily see the importance of stressing the necessity of a clear distinction between ego and person’, and while considering what to reply to him I remembered a reply that I had written to another friend back in April regarding the importance of this distinction, which at the time I had intended to adapt as an article, but in the midst of other work it had somehow slipped down my mental list of priorities. Therefore in the first four sections of this article I will reproduce the reply I wrote in April, and then in the final section I will reply specifically to the recent comment asking about this distinction.

Tuesday, 10 December 2019

Why should we try to be aware of ourself alone?

Referring to two sentences I wrote while explaining the second sentence of verse 5 of Śrī Aruṇācala Aṣṭakam in one of my recent articles, How to merge in Arunachala like a river in the ocean?, namely ‘How can we grind the mind on the stone called mind? By attending to ourself alone’, a friend wrote to me asking what exactly I meant by ‘alone’ here, and though there is only one in enlightenment, how we can be alone while making an effort to turn 180 degrees. In reply to this I wrote:

Thursday, 28 November 2019

Upadēśa Undiyār verse 16: a practical definition of real awareness

In the article I posted a couple of days ago, Is there any difference between being self-attentive and sitting down quietly in meditation?, I ended by quoting and explaining verse 16 of Upadēśa Undiyār:
வெளிவிட யங்களை விட்டு மனந்தன்
னொளியுரு வோர்தலே யுந்தீபற
      வுண்மை யுணர்ச்சியா முந்தீபற.

Tuesday, 26 November 2019

Is there any difference between being self-attentive and sitting down quietly in meditation?

A friend wrote to me recently asking, ‘Is there a difference in being self-attentive and sitting down quietly in meditation? Do they both help in dissolving the ego gradually as we continue to practice being self-attentive?’, in reply to which I wrote:

Friday, 8 November 2019

Ego seems to exist only when we look elsewhere, away from ourself

In a comment on one of my recent videos, 2019-11-02 Sri Ramana Center, Houston: discussion with Michael James on Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 34, a friend asked, “At 50:50 you say that asking why the ego has arisen or how it has arisen is like asking how was the son of the barren woman born. Isn’t ‘how the ego arose’ a permissible question, considering that Bhagavan has explained it in Uḷḷadu Narpadu himself, this question of how the ego came into existence? Can a good understanding of how the ego came into existence also help us in our attempts to destroy it with vichara?”, in reply to which I wrote:

Friday, 25 October 2019

Can we as ego ever experience pure awareness?

In a comment on my previous article, Is it possible for us to attend to ourself, the subject, rather than to any object?, a friend called Asun referred to one of my videos, 2018-03-19 Conscious TV interview with Michael James: The Real Behind All Appearances, and wrote:
In an interview when you were asked “When you talk to me now, is there feeling of pure awareness?” you responded that “it is always there in the background” (because of many years of practice) even though you don’t experience it in its purity. Then you added that “the distinction between pure awareness and the awareness that we call mind or ego, the awareness of things, that distinction becomes clearer and clearer.”

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?’

Monday, 5 August 2019

The role of grace in all that ego creates

In a comment on one of my recent articles, Is there any such thing as ‘biological awareness’?, an anonymous friend suggested that it is not correct to say that ego has projected or created anything, because though the world appears when ego emerges, it ‘appears by the power of higher power and is also the higher power’, and ‘The higher power enables everything and manifests as everything’. Therefore this article is written in reply to that comment.

Monday, 29 July 2019

Why does ego rise again from manōlaya and not from manōnāśa?

In a comment on my previous article, Is there any such thing as ‘biological awareness’?, a friend called Abhilash wrote: ‘Could you clarify this confusion on deep sleep. We understand that in deep sleep ego is subdued, given this is the case when we wake up, how the memory that I slept well and did not know anything is obtained. If only awareness and ignorance were present during deep-sleep who reports this experience of absence back to ego in the waking state. As awareness transcends time/space/causality how can we say “awareness” possesses memory? Kindly clarify’.

Friday, 28 June 2019

How can there be any experience without something that is experiencing it?

In four comments on one of my recent articles, In what sense and to what extent do we remember what we were aware of in sleep?, a friend called Lewis asked several questions about awareness, experience, ego and appearance that can be adequately answered only by carefully considering some of the fundamental principles of Bhagavan’s teachings, so in this article I will try to answer his questions in the clear light of those principles.

Monday, 24 June 2019

How can we be sure that we can wake up from this dream of our present life?

Yesterday in a comment on one of my videos, 2019-01-12 Ramana Maharshi Foundation UK: discussion with Michael James on Nāṉ Ār? paragraph 14, a friend called Saroj wrote:
Thank you for this video, Michael. We can think of the dream state only with respect to (what seems to be) the waking state. So when Bhagavan says that waking state also is only a dream, how to understand this statement? Since we know the dream state only with respect to this waking state, if the waking state too is a dream, then there is no longer any standard left against which to place dream and thus to make sense of it. Typing this question, it seems like the standard must be the state of deep sleep. So basically, there is no state that can be called the waking state? Only dream and sleep? Also, it seems like no rational person will deny that this world is quite possibly only a dream or mental imagination. But how can we be sure that we can ‘wake’ up from this dream, and how? Bhagavan has taught that this is possible, should we take this on faith? And try to experience it ourselves through our practice? I ask because previously, I have followed several different people, some whose teachings were very superficial although at that time I may have felt otherwise, but with Bhagavan’s teachings I feel sure that I don’t have to search any further, I don’t have to dig any more wells, as Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa said in an analogy. But this feeling is not sufficiently empowered by a clarity of understanding Bhagavan’s teachings or doing deep self-investigation, but largely just a feeling in my heart, if [I] may put it like that. So I am still very immature and lacking in both bhakti and vairagya.
The following is my reply to this:

Thursday, 30 May 2019

How can we refine and sharpen our power of attention so that we can discern what we actually are?

In a comment on my previous article, How to practise self-enquiry (ātma-vicāra)?, a friend called Rajat Sancheti wrote:
Desires, fears, etc belong to the ego or to the person? The person is insentient and cannot desire or fear anything, so they must belong to ego, I suppose. But then why do these desires and fears have such a personal nature? For example, the desire for money, lust, status, etc, they are only the body’s desires. Is it that when ego identifies this body as ‘I’, it takes this body’s desires and fears to be its own? Or are desires and fears only the ego’s desires and fears?

Wednesday, 8 May 2019

The ultimate truth is ajāta, but because we seem to have risen as ego and consequently perceive a world, Bhagavan, Gaudapada and Sankara teach us primarily from the perspective of vivarta vāda

In several comments on one of my recent articles, Whatever jñāna we believe we see in anyone else is false, there was a discussion about ajāta vāda, so in this article I will reply to some ideas that a friend called Venkat expressed in the course of that discussion, and in particular I will highlight the distinction between ajāta vāda (the contention that nothing has ever arisen, appeared or come into existence) and vivarta vāda (the contention that whatever has arisen, appeared or come into existence is just an illusion or false appearance), because in some of his comments he seemed to confuse the former with the latter, of which it is actually a denial.

Friday, 19 April 2019

Can there be any viable substitute for patient and persistent practice of self-investigation and self-surrender?

As I wrote in the introduction to my previous but one article, Is it possible to have a ‘direct but temporary experience of the self’ or to watch the disappearance of the I-thought?, in which I adapted a reply that I had written to a friend who had asked about a portion from 13.31 to 18.04 of a video that David Godman made about ‘Papaji’ (H W L Poonja), there was another issue raised in that portion that I did not specifically discuss in that article but that I said I would discuss in a later one. That issue is the idea that Poonja could somehow give people an experience that bypassed the need for ‘a rather intense, vigilant practice that took place over a long period of time’, which David acknowledged (at 13.53) was what Bhagavan used to recommend, so this is the issue that I will discuss in this article.

Wednesday, 20 February 2019

What is the relationship between the ‘I-thought’ and awareness?

Recently a friend wrote asking me to ‘clarify the relationship between the I-Thought and Awareness’, and after I replied to him he wrote asking some further questions on the same subject, so this article is adapted from the two replies I wrote to him.

Thursday, 31 January 2019

To understand consciousness can we rely upon the observations and theories of neuroscience?

Recently a friend wrote to me saying that he was caring for his mother, who was in the final stages of dying because of a brain tumour, and that for a year he had been watching the effect it had on her: ‘I followed every moment of her conscious disappearance and with all her reports about that till three days ago when she fell into a terminal coma, just breathing. [...] Layer by layer I observed her fading away: abstract reasoning, language, sight, taste, calculation, self-perception, memory, emotions, equilibrium, movement, then faces recognition, space time comprehension, till the sleeping mode during the day, sudden change of mood, personality, then fear, sorrow, and now coma, tomorrow death’.

He also wrote about the connection between the changes that had been taking place in his mother’s perception, behaviour, understanding, character, response to stimuli and so on and the parts of her brain that were progressively affected by cancer cells, and what neuroscience says about such things, including the idea that ‘consciousness is only an emergent property of the brain’. He wrote that therefore ‘I have to surrender to the hard fact of the causal relation between brain and consciousness’, and asked what Bhagavan’s teachings have to say about such matters. The first section of this article is adapted from my reply to this, and the second section is adapted from my reply to what he wrote in response to my first reply.

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).

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.

Sunday, 7 October 2018

When Bhagavan says that we must look within, what does he mean by ‘within’?

Last month a friend wrote me an email in which he asked me to clarify certain aspects of Bhagavan’s teachings, including what he means by ‘within’ when he says that we must look within, and whether the source of the individual self can be within that same individual self, so this article is adapted from the reply I wrote to him.

Tuesday, 25 September 2018

Must we purify our mind by other means before we can practise ātma-vicāra?

This article is adapted from a series of messages that I exchanged with a friend via WhatsApp.

Saturday, 1 September 2018

Like everything else, karma is created solely by ego’s misuse of its will (cittam), so what needs to be rectified is its will

In the comments on my previous three articles there was an ongoing discussion about the role of free will and the law of karma in general, and various friends have expressed differing views about this matter, so this article was originally intended to be a reply to some of those views but it has developed into a broad and detailed discussion about the key role of our will and the paramount need for us to rectify or purify it.

Sunday, 13 May 2018

The ego is the sole cause, creator, source, substance and foundation of all other things

In a comment on one of my recent articles, The ego does not actually exist, but it seems to exist, and only so long as it seems to exist do all other things seem to exist, a friend called Salazar wrote, ‘Did anybody on this blog wonder who is perceiving the thoughts which come into awareness? That what is aware of thoughts cannot be the creator of these thoughts, because a thought is an object apart from that “observer”’. This article is written in reply to this comment and another one written by him.

Monday, 30 April 2018

The ego seems to exist only because we have not looked at it carefully enough to see that there is no such thing

For a few days last week I was in a place where I did not have any internet connection except on my phone, but on and off during that time I had a conversation via WhatsApp with a friend called Frank about Bhagavan’s teachings, philosophy, ego and other related matters. The first fifteen sections of this article are compiled from edited extracts of our conversation, and the final section is a reply that I subsequently wrote to him by email (as also are the five paragraphs in earlier sections that I have enclosed in square brackets).

Wednesday, 18 April 2018

The ego does not actually exist, but it seems to exist, and only so long as it seems to exist do all other things seem to exist

A friend recently wrote a series of emails expressing his views and asking questions about the ego and other related matters, so this article is adapted from the replies I wrote to him.

Wednesday, 28 February 2018

Our existence is self-evident, because we shine by our own light of pure self-awareness

In a comment on one of my recent articles, Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu: Tamil text, transliteration and translation, a friend called Sanjay wrote:
Michael once wrote to me (in reply to one of my emails):

The mind knows that the chair is a chair, an object of wood, etc., but this is not what the chair actually is. If we analyse a little deeper, both the chair and the wood are ideas in our mind, and we have no way of proving to ourself that any chair or wood actually exists independent of our ideas of them. Hence Bhagavan says that the whole world is nothing but ideas or thoughts, as for example in the fourth and fourteenth paragraphs of Nan Yar?:
Except thoughts [or ideas], there is separately no such thing as ‘world’.

What is called the world is only thought.
Referring to this, another friend using the pseudonym ‘ādhāra’ wrote a comment saying:
However, Bhagavan did not say that we as an ego are excluded from the “world”. On the contrary it is said that we are part of the world in waking and dreaming. So we can conclude that we too are only an idea or a thought or a projection.

We definitely do not even have proof/evidence that we exist independent of our idea of that. Therefore we cannot reasonable/well-founded have to presume that we are more than an idea. There is no evidence to support this thesis.

Nevertheless we can put our trust in Bhagavan Ramana because he inspires confidence and looks trustworthy. To follow Bhagavan’s teaching is even urgently necessary.
The following is my reply to this:

Friday, 29 September 2017

Upadēśa Undiyār: Tamil text, transliteration and translation

The three main sources that I cite in articles on this blog are Nāṉ Ār?, Upadēśa Undiyār and Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu, because these are the three texts in which Bhagavan expressed the fundamental principles of his teachings in the most comprehensive, systematic, clear and coherent manner, but though there is a complete translation of Nāṉ Ār? on my website, I have not till now given a complete translation of all the verses of either Upadēśa Undiyār or Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu in one place, so since friends often write to me asking for such a translation of these texts, I have decided to give a complete translation of each of them here. Therefore in this article I give a translation of all the verses of Upadēśa Undiyār (which Bhagavan composed first in Tamil and later translated into Sanskrit, Telugu and Malayalam under the title Upadēśa Sāram, ‘The Essence of Spiritual Teachings’), and in a subsequent article I will likewise give a translation of all the verses of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu.

Monday, 18 September 2017

What creates all thoughts is only the ego, which is the root and essence of the mind

In a comment on one of my recent articles, If we choose to do any harmful actions, should we consider them to be done according to destiny (prārabdha)?, a friend called Salazar wrote, ‘Robert Adams, a Jnani, said that the mind cannot create thoughts. Frankly, I believe rather him than any ajnani’, so since Bhagavan taught us that all thoughts are created only by the ego, which is the root and essence of the mind, I am writing this in an attempt to clear up this and certain other related confusions.

Tuesday, 5 September 2017

If we choose to do any harmful actions, should we consider them to be done according to destiny (prārabdha)?

In the comments on my previous article, The ego is a spurious entity, but an entity nonetheless, until we investigate it keenly enough to see that it does not actually exist, several friends have been passionately engaged in a discussion about whether we should consider that all our actions, including our making ethical choices such as whether or not to eat meat, are determined solely by prārabdha (fate or destiny) or whether free will plays any role in the choices we make and actions we do.

The discussion began with two comments in which Sanjay Lohia paraphrased something I had said about jñāna, karma, prārabdha and free will in the video 2017-07-08 Ramana Maharshi Foundation UK: discussion with Michael James on the power of silence, to which Salazar wrote a reply in which he said: ‘Prarabdha goes on in every second of our lives, every scratch, every little thing is prarabhda, and no outward action is determined by the ego. If we are vegetarian or eat meat, that’s prarabhda too. So if anybody of Bhagavan’s devotees still eats meat, don’t beat yourself up, that’s as much destiny as if a Hindu eats beef what may create inner turmoil unless one does atma-vichara. So we seem to be a puppet, at least what happens to the body, however we are not victims of prarabhda because we can transcend prarabdha with atma-vichara. The actions of the body will go on as destined, but the inward identification loses its hold’. This triggered a series of other comments in which various friends expressed their understanding of Bhagavan’s teachings in this regard, and during the early stages of this discussion Sanjay wrote an email to me asking me to clarify whether the type of food we eat is decided by our destiny, so this article is written in response to this.

Thursday, 27 July 2017

Any experience that is temporary is not manōnāśa and hence not ‘self-realisation’

A recent post on the Facebook page of the Ramana Maharshi Foundation UK was a partial quotation of a paragraph in A Sadhu’s Reminiscences of Ramana Maharshi (3rd edn, 1976, pp. 52-3), in which Alan Chadwick wrote:
Before I came to India I had read of such people as Edward Carpenter, Tennyson and many more who had had flashes of what they called “Cosmic Consciousness.” I asked Bhagavan about this. Was it possible that once having gained Self-realization to lose it again? Certainly it was. To support this view Bhagavan took up a copy of Kaivalya Navanita and told the interpreter to read a page of it to me. In the early stages of Sadhana this was quite possible and even probable. So long as the least desire or tie was left, a person would be pulled back again into the phenomenal world, he explained. After all it is only our Vasanas that prevent us from always being in our natural state, and Vasanas were not got rid of all of a sudden or by a flash of Cosmic Consciousness. One may have worked them out in a previous existence leaving a little to be done in the present life, but in any case they must first be destroyed.
Referring to this, a friend wrote to me: ‘Having once attained is there a chance of unattaining again? This question has confused me for many weeks. I was under the impression that once the ego had been completed annihilated it will never rise again. Yet discussions with fellow devotees on the Ramana Maharshi Foundation page seem to indicate that even once attained it is possible to be lost again if all vasanas [are] not destroyed. What was Bhagavan’s view on this? It disturbs me immensely that having attained one can fall again into the illusion, it also seems to render our practise quite meaningless if that is the case’. The following is my reply to her.

Friday, 7 July 2017

The non-existence of the ego, body and world in manōlaya is only temporary, whereas in manōnāśa it is permanent

In a comment on one of my recent articles, There is absolutely no difference between sleep and pure self-awareness (ātma-jñāna), a friend called Roger asked me why, if there is no difference between sleep and self-awareness, Gaudapada says in Māṇḍukya Kārikā 3.44 that (in Roger’s words) ‘when during meditation the mind becomes inactive in oblivion (susupti / sleep) the mind should be awakened again, just the same as if the mind is distracted’. From this verse and Sankara’s commentary on it Roger inferred that ‘It seems you teach that sleep is the highest state, your whole teaching is oriented toward this, but Shankara explicitly warns against it’. Therefore this article is written in reply to this and a subsequent comment by Roger.

Thursday, 6 July 2017

What we actually are is just pure self-awareness: awareness that is aware of nothing other than itself

A friend recently wrote to me:
You say that the Self is always self-aware. What about then the concept of Parabrahman (where awareness isn’t aware that it is aware). Isn’t this a contradiction? Ramesh Balsekar used this phrase a lot in his teaching for instance.

Can you comment on this please.
The following is adapted from the reply I wrote to him:

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, 27 June 2017

Māyā is nothing but our own mind, so it seems to exist only when we seem to be this mind

A friend wrote to me today:
Someone wrote this on FB yesterday and I am getting confused again because I thought the idea of becoming realised is to put an end to Maya:

“According to Adi Shankara (7th century father of modern non-dual philosophy), Maya is eternal. At no point does “form” cease to exist. It (maya/form) never had a beginning because it is eternal. It will also never have an end. The difference between enlightened and unenlightened is in the mind only. The universe doesn’t disappear. The mind ceases to be confused about the nature of one’s own Self. Bodies may come and go but the enlightened mind is not attached to them or identified with them. Yet they come and go like clouds in the sky.”

Why do people have different ideas on self-realisation?
The following is adapted from the reply I wrote to her:

Tuesday, 20 June 2017

Concern about fate and free will arises only when our mind is turned away from ourself

What I wrote in one of my recent articles, Do we need to do anything at all?, triggered a discussion about the roles of destiny (prārabdha) and the ego’s own volition or free will (though free will was referred to only implicitly, not explicitly) and how we can determine whether any particular thought arises due to destiny or due to free will. This discussion started from the first comment, in which a friend called Samarender Reddy wrote:
There seems to a problem with what you say. If whatever is to happen is decided by my prarabdha, then whatever motions the body is to go through and whatever the mind has to “think” to get the body to do actions as per prarabdha are also predetermined and “I, the ego” have no say in it. But you also say, “therefore we need not think”. And yet the mind will necessarily think some thoughts as per prarabdha. How do I distinguish thinking or thoughts associated with prarabdha and the other non-prarabdha associated thinking I seem to indulge in? Whenever any thought occurs, how do I know if it is prarabdha or the ego thinking? If I say, ok, whatever thoughts have to occur will occur to make the body do whatever it has to do, then it would seem that one has to be totally silent and not thinking and whenever any thought arises involuntarily I have to consider that as prarabdha thought and act accordingly? Is that what you are saying? Also, in that case will only such prarabdha thoughts then occur which require the body to do something or will such thoughts also occur which do not require the body to do something? I would really appreciate if you can clarify these doubts of mine.
This article is my reply to this comment, and also less directly to some of the ideas expressed in subsequent comments on the same subject.

Sunday, 16 April 2017

Why is effort required for us to go deep in our practice of self-investigation?

A friend recently wrote to me asking:
My question about I-Alone is this: in relaxing attention from objects I can be keenly aware of my existence as Sat Chit. That is effortless, but it is not completely and exclusively ‘I’-Self-aware. Other objects are also ‘known’.

But, today I have read from you [in Our aim should be to experience ourself alone, in complete isolation from everything else]: “Our real aim should not be just longer durations of self-attentiveness but should be more deep, intense and clear self-attentiveness — that is, attentiveness that is more keenly and exclusively focused on ‘I’ alone, without the least trace of any awareness of anything else.”

First of all, wow! My experience so far is that this is not effortless, but an intense, actively engaged ‘focusing down’, so to speak, on Self.

I just wanted to ask you if that is correct. That intense active focusing is required.
The following is adapted from what I replied to him:

Friday, 24 March 2017

After the annihilation of the ego, no ‘I’ can rise to say ‘I have seen’

In Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 33: the ‘I’ that rises to say ‘I have seen’ has seen nothing, which is the final section of one of my recent articles, There is only one ego, and even that does not actually exist, I quoted a Tamil saying, ‘கண்டவர் விண்டில்லை; விண்டவர் கண்டில்லை’ (kaṇḍavar viṇḍillai; viṇḍavar kaṇḍillai), which means ‘those who have seen do not say; those who say have not seen’, and then verse 33 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu, in which Bhagavan says:

Tuesday, 21 March 2017

To eradicate the mind we must watch only its first thought, the ego

A friend recently wrote to me saying that a friend of his had advised him that the way to quieten the mind is to watch it, and he implied that watching it means watching whatever thoughts flow through it, because he claimed that ‘once you start watching it [the flow of thoughts] you get separated from your thoughts’, thereby implying that we can detach ourself from thoughts by watching them. This article is adapted from the reply that I wrote to him.

Sunday, 19 March 2017

What is ‘remembering the Lord’ or ‘remembrance of Arunachala’?

This article is adapted from the reply that I wrote to a friend who asked: ‘In Hinduism, it is written that if one remembers the Lord at the time of death one will obtain Moksha. Ramana Maharishi seems to endorse the same teaching with regards to Arunachala. I have read the path of Sri Ramana by Sadhu Om and practiced for many years what he calls Jnana japa. I have visited the holy mountain Arunachala many years ago. I am now over 60 and in the last years of my life. I am wondering whether it would be better to change my practice to remembering the Name of Arunachala. Any advice you can give me would be appreciated’.

Wednesday, 8 March 2017

There is only one ego, and even that does not actually exist

A friend recently wrote to me asking various questions about what I had said in some of the videos on my YouTube channel, Sri Ramana Teachings, and also about several other related topics, so this article is adapted from my reply to her.

Sunday, 19 February 2017

What is the difference between God and the ego?

After I wrote the article What is the difference between pure awareness and the ego, and how are they related? yesterday, the same friend replied asking me to explain to her the difference between īśvara and the ego, so the following is what I replied to her:

Monday, 6 February 2017

How can we see inaction in action?

A friend recently wrote asking me to explain Bhagavad Gītā 4.18, in which Krishna says that whoever sees inaction (akarma) in action (karma) and action in inaction is wise (buddhimān), and how to apply this in practice in the context of Bhagavan’s teachings, so the following is an elaboration of my reply to him:

Saturday, 28 January 2017

Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 12: other than the real awareness that we actually are, there is nothing to know or make known

In section 16 of one of my recent articles, What is aware of everything other than ourself is only the ego and not ourself as we actually are, I quoted and discussed verse 12 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu, after reading which a friend who has translated many of my articles into Italian and posted them on his blog , La Caverna del Cuore, wrote asking me to explain the exact meaning and implication of a word in the third sentence that I had translated as ‘for causing to know’. Since this is a very significant word that has a deep and broad meaning in this context, I will explain its significance in this article.

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.

Tuesday, 27 December 2016

The jñāni is only pure awareness (prajñāna) and not whatever person it may seem to be

In a series of two comments on one of my recent articles, Is it possible for us to see anything other than ourself as ‘the Self’?, a friend called Ken cited some passages from Maharshi’s Gospel and Day by Day with Bhagavan in support of his view that the jñāni still retains the ego in some form and does action in the world, so this article is my reply to this belief of his.

Friday, 23 December 2016

Whatever experience may arise, we should investigate to whom it arises

A friend recently wrote to me describing an experience she had had, saying “Whilst in the middle of doing my chores, there arrived a sudden ‘clarity’ that there was no solidified ‘I’ or ego. That ‘I’ — my ‘ego’ — was just a bunch of synapses firing away in the brain. That it was just the result of conditioned experiences and habitual patterns”, as a result of which ‘a spontaneous self-enquiry’ arose, and then explained her interpretation of this experience. This article is adapted from the replies I wrote to this and a subsequent email.

Wednesday, 14 December 2016

Is it possible for us to see anything other than ourself as ‘the Self’?

On one of my recent articles, The observer is the observed only when we observe ourself alone, a friend called Zubin wrote a comment in which he ended by saying:
I also think it is possible (and I don’t say this to be proud, it is just what I experience) that any adjunct of the ego can be seen as the Self, and as such it is still self-attendance. For example, I can see a thought (frustration, sadness, etc.) running through and I can immediately see that that thought-feeling is infused with, made up of, awareness/consciousness, and it subsides back into awareness/consciousness when it is looked at directly.

I think looking at anger as anger gives the ego life, but looking at the Self in everything, including anger is, I hope, still self-enquiry.
What sees adjuncts or any other phenomena is only the ego, and since the ego is a mistaken awareness of ourself, how can it ever see ‘the Self’ (ourself as we actually are)? If it did see ‘the Self’ even for a moment, it would cease to be the ego and would therefore cease seeing any adjuncts or other phenomena. Therefore in this article I will try to explain to Zubin the fallacy in the beliefs that he has expressed in this comment.

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.

Monday, 21 November 2016

What is the correct meaning of ajāta vāda?

In a comment on my previous article, The difference between vivarta vāda and ajāta vāda is not just semantic but substantive, a friend called Venkat questioned my understanding of the meaning of ajāta vāda, citing something that I wrote in the sixth section of that article, What is unborn (ajāta) is only pure self-awareness, and since it is the infinite whole, nothing else actually exists, namely ‘ajāta vāda is the contention that no creation has ever occurred even as an illusory appearance’, and then arguing:
Michael I think that you might be incorrect in your understanding of the advaitic meaning of ajata vada. I cannot argue with you on what Bhagavan Ramana meant by it.

Gaudapada’s famous ajata verse occurs in the second chapter of his karika. If this verse is taken in context of the verses that precede and follow it, it is clear that Gaudapada does indeed mean that there is no real creation of the world or the jiva, and that both are illusions.

30: This Atman, though non-separate from all these, appears as it were separate. One who knows this truly interprets the meaning of the Vedas without hesitation
31: As are dreams and illusions or a castle in the air seen in the sky, so is the universe viewed by the wise in the Vedanta
32: There is no dissolution, no birth, none in bondage, none aspiring for wisdom, no seeker of liberation and none liberated. This is the absolute truth.
33: This (the Atman) is imagined both as unreal objects that are perceived as the non-duality. The objects are imagined in the non-duality itself. Therefore non-duality alone is the highest bliss.

Sankara’s commentary on v32 is also worth reading, though quite long. Relevant extracts:

“This verse sums up the meaning of the chapter. When duality is perceived to be illusory and Atman alone is known as the sole Reality, then it is clearly established that all our experiences, ordinary or religious, verily pertain to the domain of ignorance.”

“Thus duality being non-different from mental imagination cannot have a beginning or an end . . . Therefore it is established that duality is a mere illusion of the mind. Hence it is well-said that the Ultimate Reality is the absence of destruction, etc, on account of the non-existence of duality (which exists only in the imagination of the mind”.

My understanding is that srsti-drsti vada says first the world is created and then jivas evolve from it thereafter. Then, vivartha vada takes a step back to say that actually the jiva’s perceiving creates the world. And ajata vada then takes a further step back to point out that the jiva itself is an illusion, a superimposition on the atman.
In this article, therefore, I will try to explain more clearly why the correct meaning of ajāta vāda is the contention that no vivarta (illusion or false appearance) has ever been born or come into existence at all.

Tuesday, 25 October 2016

The difference between vivarta vāda and ajāta vāda is not just semantic but substantive

I wrote my previous article, As we actually are, we do nothing and are aware of nothing other than ourself, in reply to various comments written by a friend called Ken, and in reply to it he wrote another comment in which he argued:
Thank you for your thorough research on these topics, they are a significant aid in understanding Ramana’s teaching.

[…]

Beyond that, it seems to me that we are getting into an area ruled by semantics.

For example, Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character. As such, he “is unreal and never existed”. However, his lack of existence is a semantic one. From our viewpoint, we certainly find a difference between our current world (with at least two different Sherlock Holmes series in production) and an alternative universe where Conan Doyle never invented the character Sherlock Holmes.

In a similar way, we go to sleep and have a dream. When we wake up, we realize that the events in the dream were unreal. “Nothing ever happened”. But we cannot say that our night was the same as a night where we did not dream at all.

And, if we go into the dark garage and mistake the coiled rope for a snake, we can certainly say “the snake is unreal and never existed”. However, there is a difference between going into the garage and immediately recognizing the rope, or else going into the garage and mistakenly seeing the snake. If there were no difference, then Ramana would not have advised, in Ulladu Narpadu 35:

“The subsided mind having subsided, knowing and being the Reality, which is (always) attained, is the (true) attainment (siddhi). [...] (Therefore) know and be (as) you (the Reality) are.”

If there were no difference between seeing the snake and seeing the rope, then he would have said instead:

“The mind is unreal and does not exist, so do not practice self-attention, go home, watch cricket and stop bothering me.”

So, a universe where there was never any appearance of temporary phenomena, never any maya, never any mistaken identification, never any ego... just satchitananda.... is perhaps theologically, metaphysically, and/or philosophically identical to this universe.... but it is not entirely identical, otherwise Ramana would have never answered Pillai’s question of “Who Am I?”.

The Advaita Vedanta standard of “real” and “exists” is very meaningful — it tells us what is important. But if we use it in all contexts, we end up with “Neo-Advaita”, i.e. “Nothing ever happened, the ego never existed, so go home and watch T.V., that will be $50, thanks.”

In Path of Sri Ramana, Sadhu Om is careful to apply absolute metaphysical standards to theology and philosophy, but not otherwise. For example, he stated:

“The sole cause of all miseries is the mistake of veiling ourself by imagining these sheaths to be ourself, even though we are ever this existence-consciousness-bliss (sat-chit-ananda).”

This is similar to my statement quoted from 9 September 2016:

“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.”

The Upanishads, Shankara and Ramana all agree that there is nothing other than the Self. So, there cannot be anything that forces the Self to do anything.

Sadhu Om characterizing veiling as a “mistake”, while I characterize it as a “decision”. Well, certainly those two things are compatible. Plenty of decisions are found to be mistakes (such as deciding to drive when you have drunk far too much alcohol).

Before the “veiling”, there was no ego, so Sadhu Om can only be referring to the Self as the one who veils.
Therefore in this article I will try to explain to Ken why these arguments of his do not adequately address the issue I was discussing in my previous article, namely the confusion that arises if we believe that our actual self veils itself and sees itself as numerous phenomena.

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.

Wednesday, 12 October 2016

An explanation of the first ten verses of Upadēśa Undiyār

For nearly five years I have been editing notes I made in 1977 and 78 of useful ideas and explanations that I heard Sadhu Om telling me or other friends, and since April 2012 these have been serialised in each issue of The Mountain Path under the title ‘The Paramount Importance of Self-Attention’. Since the notes I made at that time were intended just to remind myself of some of the explanations Sadhu Om gave, they are too sketchy to publish as they are, so I have had to edit and elaborate them in order to make them more understandable and to represent more faithfully and in more detail the type of explanations and clarifications he used to give, so while editing them I have freely drawn on my memory of what he would generally say about each subject. Therefore the final edited form in which my notes are published in The Mountain Path does not record the exact words of Sadhu Om, but it does convey reasonably faithfully ideas that I remember him frequently expressing.

Recently while preparing the next instalment for the January 2017 issue I came across the notes I had made on 19th August 1978 of an explanation that Sadhu Om had given about the first ten verses of Upadēśa Undiyār, but as usual my notes were not very detailed and I could see that in some respects I had not accurately recorded what he used to explain about each of those verses, so I had to edit and elaborate them in order to convey what I remember him explaining about them on various occasions. Since in its final edited form this portion of my notes conveys quite clearly what he often used to explain about these verses, I decided to reproduce it here:

Thursday, 6 October 2016

God is not actually the witness of anything but the real substance underlying and supporting the illusory appearance of the witness and of everything witnessed by it

A friend wrote to me recently and asked me whether ‘the witnessing or observing consciousness within’ is the same as the ultimate ‘I’, referring in particular to the clause ‘he [God] exists within us as the witness of all our thoughts’ in the following passage of one of my earlier articles, Dhyāna-p-Paṭṭu: The Song on Meditation:
In accordance with this important teaching of Sri Ramana in verse 8 of Upadēśa Undiyār, in this song Sri Sadhu Om gently weans the minds of those who may consider God to be other than what they experience as ‘I’ away from that idea, firstly by emphasising that his real form is suddha-mauna-cit or ‘pure silent consciousness’ (verse 3); secondly by implying that he is the ‘one blissful substance’ that exists within our heart and that we can experience by seeking it with love (verse 4); thirdly by saying that only after we experience him within ourself will we be able to experience that everything that exists is him (verse 5); and fourthly by saying that he exists within us as the witness of all our thoughts, and that he will appear clearly within us only where and when all our thoughts subside (verse 6).
The following is what I wrote in reply to her question:

Tuesday, 4 October 2016

Why does the term ‘I am’ refer not just to our ego but to what we actually are?

In a comment on my previous article, ‘I am’ is the reality, ‘I am this’ or ‘I am that’ is the ego, a friend called Mouna raised several objections to what I had written in it, so in this article I will try to reply to his objections.

Sunday, 2 October 2016

‘I am’ is the reality, ‘I am this’ or ‘I am that’ is the ego

In a comment on my previous article, What is the ‘self’ we are investigating when we try to be attentively self-aware?, a friend called Viveka Vairagya quoted an extract from chapter 99 of I am That in which it is recorded that Nisargadatta Maharaj said, ‘Relax and watch the ‘I am’. Reality is just behind it’, which prompted another friend who wrote under the pseudonym ‘Extremely Simple’ to ask, ‘But why should reality be “just behind the ‘I am’”?’

Saturday, 13 August 2016

Why is it so necessary for us to accept without reservation the fundamental principles of Bhagavan’s teachings?

In a comment on my previous article, The observer is the observed only when we observe ourself alone, a friend called Sivanarul wrote: ‘Only in things pertaining to phenomenal world, one can say there is a direct or indirect method that applies to everyone (For example, reaching from point A from point B). In the spiritual journey, there is no direct or indirect method that applies to everyone. The very usage of direct or indirect is simply a play of the ego that has assumed a spiritual identity and to satisfy its need for superiority, it must label its method as the “direct” method. (Jnanis and/or saints saying that, is very different, since they are promoting the way they attained the goal in this life. Also when they promote it, they are very careful to tailor the promotion based on the seeker)’. This article is my answer to these contentious ideas.

Wednesday, 13 July 2016

Asparśa yōga is the practice of not ‘touching’ or attending to anything other than oneself

In a comment on my previous article, Names and forms are all just thoughts, so we can free ourself from them only by investigating their root, our ego, a friend called Roger cited extracts from two verses of Māṇḍūkya Kārikā, namely 3.44 and 3.46, saying that the practice Gaudapada describes in them is similar to what he is practising, and after writing some reflections on this practice he invited me or anyone else to comment on what he had written, so this article is my response to his invitation and is therefore addressed to him.

Saturday, 2 July 2016

Names and forms are all just thoughts, so we can free ourself from them only by investigating their root, our ego

A friend recently sent me a long email in which she began by saying, ‘The ego generates words in consciousness. The ego presents in consciousness as streams of words which form the so-called “stream of consciousness”’, and then went on to express her reflections on this idea, saying for example, ‘We all know how the mind races at times with endless streams of words which form thoughts of countless subjects, fears, hopes, memories, etc.’, and ‘Language forms words into thoughts, objects, events, time, space, memories, etc. creating the dream of a populated earth in a vast universe’, and she explained how she tries to apply such ideas in her practice of self-investigation (ātma-vicāra). The following article is my reply to her.

Sunday, 19 June 2016

What is ‘the I-feeling’, and do we need to be ‘off the movement of thought’ to be aware of it?

In a comment on one of my recent articles, How to attend to ourself?, a friend called Viveka Vairagya wrote, ‘I think I have finally been able to figure out the I-feeling or “I am” feeling. It seems to be nothing but the inner sense of awareness (or consciousness or being)/self-awareness one has when one is off the movement of thought, correct?’ There are several points in this statement that need to be clarified, so this article is addressed to Viveka Vairagya and will seek to provide more clarity on this subject.

Sunday, 8 May 2016

The ego is the thinker, not the act of thinking

In a comment on my previous article, The person we seem to be is a form composed of five sheaths, a friend called Ann Onymous wrote, ‘Ego is the very thinking that there is, or even seems to be an ego’, but this is confusing an action with the actor, mistaking the former (the thinking) to be the latter (the thinker). Thinking that there is an ego or that there is no ego, that it actually exists or just seems to exist, or thinking any other thought about it or about anything else cannot be the ego, because thinking is an action, whereas the ego is the thinker, the one who does that action.

If the ego were the act of thinking, we could investigate it simply by observing our thinking, which is obviously not the case. To investigate this ego we must ignore all thinking and observe only the thinker, the one who is aware of thinking and of the thoughts produced by thinking. Therefore it is necessary for us to clearly distinguish the thinker from its thinking, and also from whatever it thinks.

Thursday, 5 May 2016

The person we seem to be is a form composed of five sheaths

In a pair of comments that I wrote in reply to some other comments on my previous article, Self-investigation (ātma-vicāra) entails nothing more than just being persistently and tenaciously self-attentive, I explained:
What is a person? It is a set of phenomena centred around a particular body, and it has both physical and mental features. Though its physical and mental features change over time, however extreme those changes may be we identify it as the same person because it is the same body that displays those changing features. It starts its life as a baby, and it may end it as an old man or woman, but throughout its life and in spite of all its changes it is the same person. As we all know, there seem to be many people in this world, and each of them seem to be sentient, but what makes them seem to be so?

Friday, 8 April 2016

Self-investigation (ātma-vicāra) entails nothing more than just being persistently and tenaciously self-attentive

In a comment on my previous article, Why is it necessary to make effort to practise self-investigation (ātma-vicāra)?, a friend called Pachaiamman referred to the first section of it, We must practise ātma-vicāra for as long as it takes to destroy all our viṣaya-vāsanās (in which I had cited extracts from the sixth, tenth and eleventh paragraphs of Nāṉ Yār?), and asked:
May I give a short description what happens in my poor experience of practising self-investigation in the following passage: The attentiveness with which one investigates what one is has to be accomplished by the ego. The ego is a bundle of thoughts. So attentiveness is also a thought. The attentive thought ‘who am I’ is entrusted to try to extinguish/erase other rising thoughts and simultaneously or after that to investigate to whom they have occurred. It is clear that it is to me. By further investigation ‘who am I’, I do not clearly recognize if the mind subsided or returned to its birthplace, that is myself. Because the same (my) attentiveness has to manage to refuse the spreading/developing of other thoughts (without giving room [place/field] to other thoughts) and rather eliminate them, other thoughts are on my mind well waiting for refusal of their completion. Thus I am far away from grabbing the opportunity that the thought ‘who am I’ itself is destroyed in the end (like the fire-stir-stick). What is wrong in my strategy or where I am on the wrong track?
The following is my reply to this:

Wednesday, 16 March 2016

We are aware of ourself while asleep, so pure self-awareness alone is what we actually are

In many of my articles in this blog, including my most recent one, The role of logic in developing a clear, coherent and uncomplicated understanding of Bhagavan’s teachings (particularly in sections six and twelve), I have written about Bhagavan’s teaching that we are aware of ourself while asleep, but it is such a crucial aspect of his teachings that I do not hesitate to write about it repeatedly, because it is a concept that many people seem to have difficulty grasping, and because thinking about it deeply and understanding it clearly is an extremely valuable aid to us in our practice of self-investigation (ātma-vicāra). In fact, until we are able to recognise clearly that we are aware of ourself even when we are aware of nothing else whatsoever, as in sleep, while trying to investigate ourself we will not be able to distinguish our fundamental self-awareness from our awareness of all other things, including our body and mind.

Monday, 8 February 2016

Why should we believe what Bhagavan taught us?

In a comment on my previous article, Why do I believe that ātma-vicāra is the only direct means by which we can eradicate the illusion that we are this ego?, a friend called Maya explained why he was not convinced by what I wrote in it, so this article started off as a reply to some of the ideas he expressed in that comment. However when I began to discuss the logical reasons that Bhagavan gave us to explain why we should believe the fundamental principles of his teachings, this led to a series of reflections on aspects of his teachings that Maya did not refer to, so this article has developed into being more than just a direct reply to what he wrote in his comment.

Wednesday, 6 January 2016

Thursday, 10 December 2015

Thought of oneself will destroy all other thoughts

In a comment on my previous article, Is there more than one way in which we can investigate and know ourself?, a friend called Venkat wrote:
Given that the ego/mind is non-existent, and just a thought that pass across the screen of consciousness, what is it that choose to be attentively self-aware? Pure consciousness just is, and the body/mind/world are just thoughts/perceptions that flow across that screen. So the thought to be attentively self-aware is just another thought on that screen. I am struggling what is it that then directs attention. Apologies if I’m not being very clear.
When I read this comment, I noted it as one that I should reply to, but it soon led to a thread of more than thirty comments in which other friends responded to and discussed what he had written, so in this article (which has eventually grown into an extremely long one) I will reply both to this comment and to a few of the ideas expressed in other comments in that thread, and also to many later comments on that article that were not directly connected to what Venkat had written but that are nevertheless relevant to this crucial subject of self-investigation (ātma-vicāra).

Tuesday, 17 November 2015

Is there more than one way in which we can investigate and know ourself?

A friend recently sent me an email in which he asked:
I had mentioned to you that in my view there appear to be three different approaches to self-investigation, i) self-enquiry, which involves asking who am I and going to the root of the I thought, ii) meditating on I am, excluding the arising of any thought, and concentrating on I am, and iii) trying to notice the gap between two thoughts, expanding the gap, and being without any thought, summa iru. You had replied that these are not three different approaches but constitute only one approach. Could you please elaborate your comment?
This article is adapted from the reply that I wrote to him.

Wednesday, 11 November 2015

Sleep is our natural state of pure self-awareness

In the first comment on my previous article, What happens to our mind in sleep?, an anonymous friend wrote: ‘It cannot be correct that we experience ourselves in sleep and mind is absent. If that were true, everyone is realized during sleep. And once realized, he does not come back to the world. That is why it is said that the mind is in the dormant state. The I thought exists in its primitive form’.

As this anonymous friend wrote, this seemingly common sense reasoning is why it is generally said that our mind or ego exists in sleep in a dormant condition (known as the kāraṇa śarīra or ānandamaya kōśa), but such reasoning oversimplifies the issue, failing to recognise not only some important nuances but also some fairly obvious flaws in its own arguments. Let us therefore consider this issue in greater depth in order to see whether we can understand Bhagavan’s teachings in this regard more clearly.

Monday, 12 October 2015

Why is it necessary to be attentively self-aware, rather than just not aware of anything else?

A friend recently wrote to me asking:
I have a question if attention has to be drawn (intentionally) to the self, or is it enough if I just remain as I am, surrendering the filthy ego to God? No “fixing the mind into self”, nor “looking for the source” or “I-thought”, but just remaining?
I wrote a brief reply, and he replied asking some further questions, so this article is adapted from the two replies I wrote to him.

Tuesday, 22 September 2015

Self-knowledge is not a void (śūnya)

In a comment on one of my recent articles, The term nirviśēṣa or ‘featureless’ denotes an absolute experience but can be comprehended conceptually only in a relative sense, a friend called Bob asked several questions concerning the idea of a void, blank or nothingness and expressed his fear of such an idea. He started by asking why all we can now remember about what we experienced in deep sleep is a blank, or rather why we cannot remember anything at all except that we existed, and he suggested, ‘Is this because the illusory dualistic knowing consciousness [our mind or ego] cannot conceive the real non-dual being consciousness[?]’. He then went on to say, ‘I would be lying to you if I said that surrendering myself […] isn’t scary. It is very scary as I am scared of dissolving into the unknown. It is like letting go of the cliff and falling into nothingness, the complete unknown … the cold empty void’, but then asked, ‘is it more accurate to say that myself as I really am, the infinite non dual being consciousness that experiences everything as itself, is not a mere blank void or cold nothingness but is just a reality completely beyond the conceptualisation of my limited dualistic egoic mind[?]’, and added, ‘This seems to make letting go less scary as I am not falling into a cold empty void at all’.

To clarify what he was trying to express he also asked several other questions such as ‘is it right to say the non-dual infinite being consciousness is not a blank void of nothingness, it is just a reality beyond what the limited mind can understand so it appears a blank when tried to be recollected from the illusory dualistic waking state[?]’ and ‘is it right to say when I experience myself as I really am with perfect clarity of self-awareness this previous seeming blank empty nothingness / void I once linked to deep sleep will now be the one true reality as waking & dream would have dissolved into it and the deep sleep state will now be all there ever was / has been[?] The veil of lack of clarity would have been lifted for ever’, before finally expressing his hope that ‘this once seeming cold empty blank void perception of the deep sleep state will not be so but in contrast it will be a reality of pure bliss ... pure happiness of being where I experience everything as myself .. it won’t be cold empty void at all’.

This article is therefore an attempt to reassure Bob that the experience of true self-knowledge is not as scary as it may seem, and that it is something way beyond any idea that our finite mind may have of it.

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.

Friday, 31 July 2015

By attending to our ego we are attending to ourself

In certain contexts it is of course necessary for us to distinguish our ego from ourself as we actually are, because our ego is not what we actually are, but drawing this distinction is not necessary or helpful in every context, because what seems to be our ego is nothing other than ourself as we actually are. This seeming paradox can be reconciled by considering the analogy of a rope that seems to be a snake. The snake is not what the rope actually is, but what seems to be the snake is nothing other than the rope as it actually is.

If we were walking along a narrow path in semi-darkness and were to see what seems to be a snake lying on the path ahead of us, we would be afraid to proceed any further and would wait till the snake had moved away. However, if after waiting for a while we see that the snake does not move, we may begin to suspect that it is not actually a snake, in which case we would cautiously move forwards to look at it more closely and carefully. If it were not actually a snake but only a rope, our investigation or close inspection of it would reveal to us that what we had been looking at and afraid of all along was only a rope, so our fear of it would dissolve, and with a sigh of relief we would continue our walk along the path.

Our investigation or close inspection of the seeming snake would begin only after we have begun to suspect that it may actually not be a snake but only something else, such as a rope, so once this suspicion has arisen, we would stop insisting to ourself that it is a snake that we are looking at, but would instead consider it to be a seeming snake and perhaps a rope. This is similar to our position when we begin to investigate ourself, this ego. We investigate ourself or look closely at ourself only because we suspect that we may actually not be the ego that we now seem to be, but may instead be something else altogether. Now that this suspicion has arisen in us, we need not continue insisting to ourself that we are only an ego, but can with an open mind begin investigating ourself in order to find out whether we are this ego or something else.

Saturday, 18 July 2015

Can we experience what we actually are by following the path of devotion (bhakti mārga)?

In a comment on one of my recent articles, In order to understand the essence of Sri Ramana’s teachings, we need to carefully study his original writings, a friend called Sanjay wrote, ‘I have also noticed that many of the current devotees of Bhagavan somehow are not able to reconcile to the advaitic standpoint of Bhagavan, Shankara and others, but are more comfortable to accept and believe in all their own dualistic ideas’, and this triggered a long discussion, with some other friends defending the path of dualistic devotion against what was perceived to be criticism of it by those who are more attracted to Bhagavan’s non-dualistic path of self-investigation (ātma-vicāra). This article is written partly in response to that discussion.

However, I actually began to write this article before that discussion started, and I did so in response to a comment on one of my earlier articles, What is unique about the teachings of Sri Ramana?, in which a friend called Viswanathan wrote:
[...] I feel that if one continues with total faith in whatever path one goes in, be it Bakthi Margam or Jnana Margam, the destination will be the same — realization of self. [...] it appears to me that it might be just an illusory divide in one’s mind that the two paths are different or that one path is circuitous and the other path is shorter.
Though there is some truth in what he wrote, we cannot simply say that the path of devotion (bhakti mārga) and the path of knowledge (jñāna mārga) are not different without analysing what is meant by the term bhakti mārga or ‘the path of devotion’, because bhakti mārga encompasses a wide range of practices, of which only the ultimate one is the same as self-investigation (ātma-vicāra), which is the practice of jñāna mārga.

Thursday, 25 June 2015

The term nirviśēṣa or ‘featureless’ denotes an absolute experience but can be comprehended conceptually only in a relative sense

In a comment on one of my recent articles, The ego is essentially a formless and hence featureless phantom, a friend called ‘Sleepwalker’ quoted a sentence from its thirteenth section, Can self-awareness be considered to be a feature of the ego? (which I had quoted from We are aware of ourself even though we are featureless, the second section in one of my earlier articles, Being attentively self-aware does not entail any subject-object relationship), namely “When we say, ‘I slept peacefully last night’, we are expressing our experience of having been in a state in which we experienced no features”, and asked whether the peacefulness of sleep is not just a feature.

Since the concept of nirviśēṣatva (featurelessness or absence of any distinguishing features) is a significant and useful idea in advaita philosophy, and since it is very relevant to the practice of self-investigation, I decided to write the following detailed answer to this question:

Thursday, 18 June 2015

Prāṇāyāma is just an aid to restrain the mind but will not bring about its annihilation

In a comment on one of my earlier articles, The fundamental law of experience or consciousness discovered by Sri Ramana, a friend called Chimborazo wrote:
Michael, sometimes it is said that the source of the ego (all thoughts, ‘I’-thought) is the heart. And the same heart is said to be the source of the breath. Therefore thoughts and breath have the same source. So if one holds one’s breath no thoughts would rise.

I cannot confirm that and I did not learn it in my experience of meditation. Please could you comment on this or clarify.
In reply to this I wrote a comment in which I explained:

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:

Thursday, 28 May 2015

The ego is essentially a formless and hence featureless phantom

In the fourth section of one of my recent articles, ‘Observation without the observer’ and ‘choiceless awareness’: Why the teachings of J. Krishnamurti are diametrically opposed to those of Sri Ramana, I wrote:
The important principle that he [Sri Ramana] teaches us in verse 25 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu is that this ego is only a formless and insubstantial phantom that seemingly comes into existence, endures and is nourished and strengthened only by grasping form (that is, by attending to and experiencing anything other than itself), so we can never free ourself from this ego so long as we persist in attending to anything other than ourself (that is, anything that has any features that distinguish it from this essentially featureless ego). Therefore the only way to free ourself from this ego is to investigate it — that is, to try to grasp it alone in our awareness. Since this ego itself is featureless and therefore formless, and since it can stand and masquerade as ourself only by grasping forms in its awareness, if we try to grasp this ego alone, it ‘will take flight’ and disappear, just as an illusory snake would disappear if we were to look at it carefully and thereby recognise that it is not actually a snake but only a rope.

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, 14 April 2015

What is the difference between meditation and self-investigation?

A friend recently asked me several questions about meditation and self-investigation, such as what difference there is between them, so this article is adapted (and the third and fourth sections are considerably expanded) from the reply that I wrote to him.

Friday, 3 April 2015

Any experience we can describe is something other than the experience of pure self-attentiveness

Last month a friend wrote to me describing what he experiences when he tries to practise self-investigation (ātma-vicāra) and asking whether his description indicates that his practice is on the right track. This article is adapted from the reply I wrote to him.

The experience of self-attentiveness or self-awareness cannot be expressed in words, because it is featureless, so any words we use to describe what we experience when we are trying to be self-attentive are only a description of something other than pure self-attentiveness.

Friday, 6 March 2015

Intensity, frequency and duration of self-attentiveness

A friend recently sent me an email in which he wrote, ‘I now clearly see that it is bhakti alone that can make me better and stronger at atma-vicara’, to which I replied:

Yes, Sri Ramana used to say that bhakti (love or devotion) is the mother of jñāna (knowledge or true self-experience), and what he meant by bhakti in this context was only the love to experience nothing other than ourself alone, as he clearly implied in verses 8 and 9 of Upadēśa Undiyār:

Wednesday, 4 February 2015

The terms ‘I’ or ‘we’ refer only to ourself, whether we experience ourself as we actually are or as the ego that we now seem to be

In a comment on one of my recent articles, The fundamental law of experience or consciousness discovered by Sri Ramana, Palaniappan Chidambaram asked, ‘If the whole sadhana [spiritual practice] is in just being one self […] then why do we use the term vichara or investigation? When thoughts come we don’t investigate but just ignore and turn attention to ourselves. So ideally there is no investigation or enquiry?’, to which I replied in a comment:
Since pure self-awareness is our essential nature, being ourself entails being clearly aware of ourself alone. Therefore trying to be aware of ourself alone is the only means by which we can succeed in being what we really are.

Saturday, 13 December 2014

The need for manana and vivēka: reflection, critical thinking, discrimination and judgement

In many recent comments on this blog, particularly on articles such as Our memory of ‘I’ in sleep, Why should we believe that ‘the Self’ is as we believe it to be?, Is there any such thing as a ‘self-realised’ person? and Other than ourself, there are no signs or milestones on the path of self-discovery, various friends have shown a tendency and willingness to accept uncritically whatever certain other people have written or said. Believing uncritically whatever we may read or hear is dangerous, even if we believe that whoever wrote or said it is an authority, because if we do not use our powers of critical thinking and discrimination (vivēka) we are liable to be misled into believing many mistaken ideas and interpretations, which would cloud and confuse our understanding and could divert us away from the straight and narrow path of self-investigation (ātma-vicāra).

Thursday, 20 November 2014

Is there any such thing as a ‘self-realised’ person?

In the comments on my previous two articles, Our memory of ‘I’ in sleep and Why should we believe that ‘the Self’ is as we believe it to be?, there has been some discussion about the subject of being a ‘self-realised’ person, with one friend claiming ‘I have realised who I am’ and others expressing doubts about that, so in this article I will examine this concept of being a ‘self-realised’ person and consider whether it accurately represents anything that truly exists.

Firstly I will consider the common use of the term ‘self-realisation’ as a translation of the Sanskrit terms ātma-jñāna or ātmānubhava, which respectively mean self-knowledge and self-experience in the sense of experiencing or being clearly aware of ourself as we really are. Though ‘realise’ can mean to recognise, understand, ascertain or become clearly aware of something, it is a rather vague and ambiguous term to use in this context, because it has various other meanings such as to accomplish, achieve, fulfil, actualise, effect, bring about, acquire or cause to happen, so ‘self-realisation’ is not the most appropriate term to use as a translation of ātma-jñāna or ātmānubhava, particularly since in psychology the term ‘self-realisation’ means self-actualisation or self-fulfilment in the sense of achieving one’s full personal potential.

Though he did not speak much English, Sri Ramana understood it enough to recognise that ‘self-realisation’ is not a particularly appropriate term to use in the context of his teachings. He therefore used to joke about it saying that ourself is always real, so there is no need for it to be realised, and that the problem is that we have realised what is unreal (that is, we have made the unreal seem to be real), so what we now need to do is not to realise our ever-real self but only to unrealise everything that is unreal, particularly our seemingly real ego, which is the root cause of the seeming reality of everything else.

Sunday, 9 November 2014

Why should we believe that ‘the Self’ is as we believe it to be?

In a comment on my previous article, Our memory of ‘I’ in sleep, a friend called Joel wrote:
Why do you talk of the Self remembering itself? It IS itself, so what is there to remember? The notion of the Self ‘remembering’ the Self during deep sleep when now awake is merely a creation of the mind to justify a continuity through the three states that actually is not in need of justification, because apart from the mind there are no three states.
The following is my reply to this comment:

One of the mistakes you are making here, Joel, is that you are taking an argument, assuming its conclusion to be true, and claiming that the argument is therefore unnecessary. But without the argument, what reason do you have for believing its conclusion to be true? If we believe a certain proposition to be true, but have no reason for believing it, our belief in it is unjustified. An argument is simply a reason or a set of reasons for believing a certain proposition or idea to be true, so when we consider whether or not a certain belief is true or justified, we need to consider whether the arguments or reasons for believing it are sound.

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.

Friday, 12 September 2014

Why did Sri Ramana teach a karma theory?

This article is the second half of my explanation of the first verse of Upadēśa Undiyār, the first half of which I posted in my previous article: The karma theory as taught by Sri Ramana.

According to Sri Ramana, what we should be concerned with is only being and not doing. We need be concerned with karma — that is, with what we do — only to the extent that we should try as far as possible to avoid doing any action that will cause harm (hiṁsā) to any sentient being, but our primary concern should be not with what we do but only with what we are. Therefore we need not investigate karma in any great depth or detail, but should focus all our effort and attention only on investigating the ‘I’ that feels ‘I am doing karma’ or ‘I am experiencing the fruit of karma’. As he says in verse 38 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu:

Friday, 5 September 2014

The karma theory as taught by Sri Ramana

Since I started my website one of my long-standing aims has been to include in it detailed and explanatory translations of all of Sri Ramana’s original Tamil writings, but amidst all my other work I have not yet had time to do so. Last month I decided to make a start by writing such a translation of Upadēśa Undiyār (உபதேச வுந்தியார்), but I have so far completed writing only an introduction and a detailed explanation for the first verse.

Due to circumstances that now make it necessary for me spend much more of my time working to increase my currently inadequate income, I will not have time to complete this translation and explanation of Upadēśa Undiyār in the near future, so I have decided in the meanwhile to post here my translation and explanation of the first verse, and since it is a very long explanation, I will post it as two consecutive articles, this and the next one: Why did Sri Ramana teach a karma theory?

Friday, 29 August 2014

The crucial secret revealed by Sri Ramana: the only means to subdue our mind permanently

A friend wrote to me recently asking in Tamil:
பகவான் அருளியபடி ஆத்ம விசாரம் செய்ய நாம் ‘நான்’ என்னும் எண்ணத்தின் மீது கவனம் செலுத்த வேண்டும் என பல புத்தகங்களில் கூறப்படுகிறது. ஆனால் ‘நான் யார்?’ என்ற கட்டுரையிலோ, மனம் எப்போதும் ஓர் ஸ்தூலத்தையே பற்றி இருக்கும் எனவும், மனமென்பது ‘நான்’ என்னும் எண்ணமே எனவும் குறிப்பிடப்பட்டிருக்கிறது. இது உண்மை எனில், அந்த எண்ணத்தை ஸ்தூலத்திலிருந்து எவ்வாறு தனியே பிரித்து அதன் மீது கவனம் செலுத்துதல் ஸாத்தியம் ஆகும்? இது அஸாத்தியம் என்பதால் ‘எண்ணங்கள் தோன்றும் இடம் எது?’ என கூர்ந்து கவனித்தலே விசார வழி என நான் நினைக்கிறேன்; பின்பற்றியும் வருகிறேன். இது சரியா?
which means:
In many books it is said that to do self-investigation (ātma-vicāra) as taught by Bhagavan we must direct our attention on the thought called ‘I’. But in the essay Nāṉ Yār? it is said that the mind exists by always clinging to a sthūlam [something gross], and that what is called mind is only the thought called ‘I’. If this is true, is it possible to separate that thought in any way from the sthūlam and to direct attention towards it [that thought]? Since this is impossible, I think that keenly observing ‘what is the place where thoughts rise?’ alone is the path of vicāra; I am also following [this]. Is this correct?
The following is adapted from the reply I wrote (partly in Tamil but mostly in English):

Friday, 15 August 2014

Establishing that I am and analysing what I am

In my previous article, We must experience what is, not what merely seems to be, I wrote:
‘I’ definitely does exist, because ‘I’ is what experiences both itself and all other things, so even if all other things merely seem to exist, their seeming existence could not be experienced if ‘I’ did not actually exist to experience it. The existence of ‘I’ is therefore necessarily true, whereas the existence of anything else is not necessarily true, because nothing else experiences either its own existence or the existence of anything else, so though things other than ‘I’ do seem to exist, it is possible that they do not exist except in the experience of ‘I’.
Referring to this paragraph, a friend called Sanjay asked in a comment:
You say here: ‘The existence of ‘I’ is therefore necessarily true…’, but you have also said earlier that: ‘…because ‘I’ is what experiences both itself and all other things…’. Therefore if ‘I’ experiences both itself and all other things then it is our mind, our limited or reflected consciousness, then how can ‘I’ be necessarily true, as you have said earlier in this above paragraph. Should we not consider this ‘I’ to be our imagination, though it is our first imagination – that is, our thought-‘I’?
The aim of this paragraph that Sanjay referred to was only to establish the fact that I am, and was not to analyse what I am. It is of course necessary for us to analyse what I am, because we need to distinguish what I actually am from what I merely seem to be, but the arguments that are used to analyse what I am are different to the arguments that are used simply to establish that I am, whatever I may be. That is, the latter arguments simply establish that something that we experience as ‘I’, ourself, does definitely exist, even though this definitely existing ‘I’ may not be whatever it now seems to be.

Friday, 8 August 2014

We must experience what is, not what merely seems to be

In a comment on one of my recent articles, How to attend to ‘I’?, Palaniappan Chidambaram asked: ‘Is being completely present to what is there is same like attending to “I”?’

Before attempting to answer this question, we need to consider what is meant by ‘what is there’, and whether this is the same as what should be meant by it. The obvious meaning of ‘what is there’ is what exists, but many things that we generally take to be existing may not actually exist, because they may only seem to exist. Therefore what we should mean by ‘what is there’ or ‘what exists’ is what actually exists and not what merely seems to exist.

‘I’ definitely does exist, because ‘I’ is what experiences both itself and all other things, so even if all other things merely seem to exist, their seeming existence could not be experienced if ‘I’ did not actually exist to experience it. The existence of ‘I’ is therefore necessarily true, whereas the existence of anything else is not necessarily true, because nothing else experiences either its own existence or the existence of anything else, so though things other than ‘I’ do seem to exist, it is possible that they do not exist except in the experience of ‘I’.

Friday, 1 August 2014

Self-awareness is the very nature of ‘I’

Last month a friend called Venkat asked me several questions in a series of three comments that he wrote on one of my recent articles, Is consciousness a product of the mind?, so this article is written in answer to his questions.

In his first comment he wrote:
Thanks very much for your response. I agree that it is not possible to know whether the external world (and the body-mind) exist independently of the perception of it. Equally, I don’t think that it is possible to prove that the world is just an illusion, a perception in consciousness.

So I agree that one has to examine / question what the ‘I’ is. You imply that the result of this is the certainty that only consciousness is real and all else (including ‘my’ body mind) is an illusion.

You commented in this blog, that Bhagavan’s ‘I am’ can be equated to the awareness that is aware of the awareness of a perception, and that we should turn our attention to this awareness. But is it possible to be ‘aware of the awareness that is aware’? since under Vedanta’s neti neti, one cannot be aware of this awareness, one can only BE this awareness, as I think Bhagavan says.

So two questions. Firstly, is the point of this attention on awareness to recognise that the feeling of ‘I’ is just another perception that arises, equivalent to all other perceptions and is neti neti [‘not this, not this’]? And second what does BEING awareness mean?
Yes, I agree that just as we cannot know that our body and this world exist independent of our experience of them, we equally well cannot know that they do not exist independent of our experience of them. In other words, we cannot know whether their seeming existence is a mind-created illusion or not, though there is no doubt that our mind does at least play a major role in creating the mental picture of this body and world that we experience. That is, what we actually experience is not any body or world as such, but only a mental picture of them consisting of ever-changing sights, sounds, tastes, smells and tactile sensations, and we seem unable to ascertain whether this mental picture is created entirely by our mind, as in dream, or is at least partly caused by anything (any actual body and world) that is external to or independent of our mind.

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’.

Friday, 2 May 2014

Ātma-vicāra: stress and other related issues

A friend recently wrote to me asking whether ātma-vicāra should be a state of relaxation or whether it can create stress, and also several other questions about the practice of ātma-vicāra and its relationship with Sri Ramana’s praise of Arunachala. The following is adapted from the reply I wrote to him:

When practising vicāra, our entire attention should be focussed only on ‘I’, and since such self-attentiveness is our natural state, it should not involve any stress whatsoever. It is only when we try to resist being self-attentive by thinking of anything other than ‘I’, that we unnecessarily create conflict, and as a result of such conflict stress may be experienced.

When our attention moves away from ‘I’ towards anything else, we create the appearance of multiplicity, and in multiplicity conflict and stress can arise. But when our attention does not move away from ‘I’, we experience no multiplicity and hence there is no scope for any conflict or stress. Therefore any stress that we may experience is a clear sign that we have allowed our attention to move away from ‘I’, so we should try to turn our attention back towards ‘I’ alone.

Friday, 11 April 2014

Ātma-vicāra and nirvikalpa samādhi
(Interview on Celibacy: Part 5)

This is the final 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:

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:

Monday, 3 March 2014

Does the practice of ātma-vicāra work?

In a recent comment on one of my old articles, How to start practising ātma-vicāra?, someone called Jas wrote:
The theory sounds amazing and very inspiring but does the practice work?

Are there many examples of people who have realised the self by using this practice alone? From my limited readings on the subject it seems most aspirants who have realised the self through this practice have had (sometimes) extensive experience of other practices prior to embarking on enquiry.

Michael, how about you own experience of this practice. Have you found or do you feel your practice has ‘progressed’ over the years. Is your experience of practice now different to when first you started? From what I understand, rarely does one or can one feel progression towards realisation but has enquiry had any other impact on your life positive or negative?

Monday, 24 February 2014

We should meditate only on ‘I’, not on ideas such as ‘I am brahman

Each of the four Vēdas contains a mahāvākya or ‘great saying’ that asserts that ‘I’ is brahman, the one infinite and absolute reality. The mahāvākya of the Ṛg Vēda is ‘prajñānaṁ brahma’, which means ‘pure consciousness is brahman’ (Aitarēya Upaniṣad 3.3); that of the Yajur Vēda is ‘ahaṁ brahmāsmi’, which means ‘I am brahman’ (Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 1.4.10); that of the Sāma Vēda is ‘tat tvam asi’, which means ‘it [brahman] you are’ (Chāndōgya Upaniṣad 6.8.7); and that of the Atharva Vēda is ‘ayam ātmā brahma’, which means ‘this self is brahman’ (Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad 2).

For hundreds of years a widely prevalent belief among those who have studied advaita vēdānta has been that meditating on these mahāvākyas, particularly ahaṁ brahmāsmi (I am brahman), or on words that convey the same meaning, such as sōham (he is I), is the means by which we can experience brahman. However Sri Ramana repudiated this mistaken belief, and explained that when these mahāvākyas assert that ‘I’ is brahman, we should understand that in order to experience brahman we must experience what this ‘I’ actually is, and that in order to experience this we must investigate this ‘I’, attending to it exclusively and thereby ignoring all thoughts or ideas: that is, everything other than it.

A friend wrote to me recently asking why Sri Ramana advised his devotees to meditate on self but not to meditate on any of the mahāvākyas such as ahaṁ brahmāsmi or ‘I am brahman’, and added: ‘Since Brahman is Self, I have not understood the reasons for his disapproval of this form of meditation. Perhaps you could throw light on this point’. The following is adapted from the reply I wrote to him:

Sunday, 16 February 2014

Self-attentiveness and citta-vṛtti nirōdha

In the second sūtra (aphorism) of his Yōga Sūtra Patanjali famously defines yōga as follows:
योगश्चित्तवृत्तिनिरोधः

yōgaś-citta-vṛtti-nirōdhaḥ.

Yōga is nirōdha [obstruction, stopping, restraint, constraint, confinement, control, suppression or destruction] of citta-vṛtti [mental modification or thought].
Citta means mind, and vṛtti is a noun derived from the verb vṛt, which means to turn, revolve, roll, move about, act, happen or occur, so whatever happens in the mind is a citta-vṛtti. In other words, citta-vṛtti means any type of thought, mental activity, mental modification or change that takes place in the mind, and encompasses all mental states, including (according to the sixth sūtra) even nidrā or deep sleep (though this view that sleep is a vṛtti or mental modification does not accord with Sri Ramana’s view of it, which is that it is a state that is devoid of mind). Therefore citta-vṛtti-nirōdha (or chitta-vritti-nirodha as it is often imprecisely transcribed in Latin script) means obstruction or stopping of all thoughts or mental modifications.

Wednesday, 5 February 2014

Spontaneously and wordlessly applying the clue: ‘to whom? to me; who am I?’

In the sixth paragraph of Nāṉ Yār? (Who am I?) Sri Ramana says:
[...] பிற வெண்ணங்க ளெழுந்தா லவற்றைப் பூர்த்தி பண்ணுவதற்கு எத்தனியாமல் அவை யாருக் குண்டாயின என்று விசாரிக்க வேண்டும். எத்தனை எண்ணங்க ளெழினு மென்ன? ஜாக்கிரதையாய் ஒவ்வோ ரெண்ணமும் கிளம்பும்போதே இது யாருக்குண்டாயிற்று என்று விசாரித்தால் எனக்கென்று தோன்றும். நானார் என்று விசாரித்தால் மனம் தன் பிறப்பிடத்திற்குத் திரும்பிவிடும்; எழுந்த வெண்ணமு மடங்கிவிடும். இப்படிப் பழகப் பழக மனத்திற்குத் தன் பிறப்பிடத்திற் றங்கி நிற்கும் சக்தி யதிகரிக்கின்றது. [...]

[...] piṟa eṇṇaṅgaḷ eṙundāl avaṯṟai-p pūrtti paṇṇuvadaṟku ettaṉiyāmal avai yārukku uṇḍāyiṉa eṉḏṟu vicārikka vēṇḍum. ettaṉai eṇṇaṅgaḷ eṙiṉum eṉṉa? jāggirataiyāy ovvōru eṇṇamum kiḷambumpōdē idu yārukku uṇḍāyiṯṟu eṉḏṟu vicārittāl eṉakku eṉḏṟu tōṉḏṟum. nāṉ-ār eṉḏṟu vicārittāl maṉam taṉ piṟappiḍattiṟku-t tirumbi-viḍum; eṙunda eṇṇamum aḍaṅgi-viḍum. ippaḍi-p paṙaka-p paṙaka maṉattiṟku-t taṉ piṟappiṭattil taṅgi niṟkum śakti adikarikkiṉḏṟadu. [...]

[...] If other thoughts rise, without trying to complete them it is necessary to investigate to whom they have occurred. However many thoughts rise, what [does it matter]? As soon as each thought appears, if [one] vigilantly investigates to whom this has occurred, it will become clear that [it is] to me. If [one thus] investigates who am I, the mind will return to its birthplace; the thought which had risen will also subside. When [one] practises and practises in this manner, to the mind the power to stand firmly established in its birthplace will increase. [...]
The source or ‘birthplace’ of our mind is only ourself, ‘I am’, so when he says here, ‘If [one] investigates who am I, the mind will return to its birthplace’ (நானார் என்று விசாரித்தால் மனம் தன் பிறப்பிடத்திற்குத் திரும்பிவிடும்: nāṉ-ār eṉḏṟu vicārittāl maṉam taṉ piṟappiḍattiṟku-t tirumbi-viḍum), he means that it will return to and rest in and as ‘I am’ alone. He then says that when we thus turn our mind or attention back to ‘I am’, ‘the thought which had risen will also subside’ (எழுந்த வெண்ணமு மடங்கிவிடும்: eṙunda eṇṇamum aḍaṅgi-viḍum), because thoughts can rise and persist only when we attend to them, so when we turn our attention away from them back towards the ‘I’ that experiences them, they automatically subside.

Friday, 24 January 2014

Only ‘I am’ is certain and self-evident

In a comment on my recent article, Investigating ‘I’ is the most radical scientific research, R Viswanathan quoted Nochur Venkataraman as saying: ‘a great philosopher stated I think and so I am, but it should be I am and so I think’, and he also referred to this in an email, to which I replied:

A comment that Bhagavan Sri Ramana made about this famous conclusion of Descartes, ‘Cogito ergo sum’ (I think, therefore I am), was recorded by Lakshmana Sarma in verse 166 of Sri Ramana Paravidyopanishad:
The existence of their own self is inferred by some from mental functioning, by the reasoning, ‘I think, therefore I am’. These men are like those dull-witted ones who ignore the elephant when it goes past, and become convinced afterwards by looking at the footprints!
‘I am’ is self-evident — in fact, it is the only thing that is entirely self-evident, because it is evident to itself rather than to anything else, whereas all other supposedly self-evident things are evident only to the mind that experiences them, and the mind experiences them as something other than itself — so only those who fail to recognise this obvious fact would believe that we need to think in order to know ‘I am’ or to logically assert that ‘I am’.

Monday, 30 December 2013

Dhyāna-p-Paṭṭu: The Song on Meditation

தியானப் பாட்டு (Dhyāna-p-Paṭṭu), the ‘Meditation Song’ or ‘Song on Meditation’, is a joyful song that Sri Sadhu Om composed for young children to help them learn the practice of meditation on self (svarūpa-dhyāna) or ātma-vicāra (self-investigation or self-enquiry), as it is also called. Because of its uplifting and joyful tune and its simple and clear meaning, it is very popular among devotees who like to sing Tamil songs on Sri Ramana and his teachings.

Although this song was written for the benefit of children, it explains the practice of ātma-vicāra in such a clear and simple manner that it is useful for any of us who are seriously trying to experience ourself as we really are.

Though at first glance the first two verses seem to be describing the practice of dualistic meditation — meditation on God as other than oneself (anya-bhāva) — between verses 3 and 9 the attention of the meditator is gradually and gently turned away from the idea that God is anything other than oneself towards his real nature, the suddha-mauna-cit or ‘pure silent consciousness’ (verse 3) that shines blissfully (verse 4) in our heart as ‘I am’, the ‘witness who knows [all our] thoughts’ (verse 6).

Friday, 7 October 2011

Manōnāśa – destruction of mind

Someone wrote to me recently saying that he thinks the use of the word ‘destruction’ in ‘destruction of mind’ (manōnāśa) is just ‘Indian hyperbole’ and should not be taken literally, because of it is obvious that Bhagavan and other jñānis think, since without thinking they could not walk or talk. I hope there are not many other people who have misunderstood Bhagavan’s teachings about manōnāśa in such a way, but since manōnāśa is the goal that he has taught us that we should aim to attain, I believe that the following adaptation of my reply to this person may be helpful to other devotees.

In order to understand what Bhagavan means by manōnāśa (the destruction, annihilation, elimination, ruin, disappearance or death of the mind), we should first consider what he means by ‘mind’ or manas. In verse 18 of Upadēśa Undiyār (the original Tamil version of Upadēśa Sāram) he says:

Mind is only thoughts. Of all thoughts, the thought called ‘I’ is the root. [Therefore] what is called ‘mind’ is [in essence just this root thought] ‘I’.
In verse 2 of Āṉma Viddai he indicates that what he means here by ‘the thought called I’ is the thought ‘I am this body’ (the illusion that the physical body is ‘I’):
Since the thought ‘this body composed of flesh is I’ alone is the one thread on which [all] the various thoughts are strung, if [one] goes within [investigating] ‘Who am I? What is [its] place [the source from which this ‘I’ has risen, and the ground on which it stands]?’ thoughts will cease, and in the cave [of one’s heart] ātma-jñāna [self-knowledge] will shine spontaneously as ‘I [am only] I’. This is silence, the one [empty] space [of consciousness], the abode of bliss.

Monday, 10 January 2011

Second and third person objects

Three significant Tamil words that Sri Ramana often used in his own writings and in his oral teachings are தன்மை (taṉmai), which literally means ‘self-ness’ (taṉ-mai) or ‘selfhood’ and which is used in Tamil grammar to mean ‘the first person’, முன்னிலை (muṉṉilai), which etymologically means ‘that which stands in front’ and which is used in Tamil grammar to mean ‘the second person’, and படர்க்கை (paḍarkkai), which etymologically means ‘that which has spread out’ and which is used in Tamil grammar to mean ‘the third person’.

Of these three words, the most significant is of course தன்மை (taṉmai), the first person, the subject ‘I’, but in this article I will focus more on the other two words in order to clarify their meaning in the context of Sri Ramana’s teachings.

Though these words are all grammatical terms, in his teachings Sri Ramana did not use them in their usual grammatical sense but in an epistemological sense. That is, தன்மை (taṉmai), the first person, is the epistemic subject, the knower or experiencer, whereas முன்னிலை (muṉṉilai) and படர்க்கை (paḍarkkai), second and third persons, are epistemic objects, things that are known or experienced by the subject as other than itself.

The question then is why Sri Ramana used these two terms — instead of just one term — to describe all objects? Which objects are second person objects, and which are third person objects? These are some of the principal questions that I will consider in this article.

Saturday, 9 January 2010

Sri Ramana’s mangalam verse to Vivekacudamani

When Sri Ramana translated Vivēkacūḍāmaṇi into Tamil prose, he composed a maṅgalam or ‘auspicious introductory verse’ for it.

Recently a friend asked me to translate this verse, because he was not satisfied with the translation of it on page 212 of The Collected Works of Ramana Maharshi, which is as follows:

Rejoice eternally! The Heart rejoices at the feet of the Lord, who is the Self, shining within as ‘I-I’ eternally, so that there is no alternation of night and day. This will result in removal of ignorance of the Self.
The original Tamil verse is:
அகமெனு மூல வவித்தை யகன்றிட
வகமக மாக வல்லும் பகலற
வகமொளி ராத்ம தேவன் பதத்தினி
லகமகிழ் வாக வனிசம் ரமிக்கவே.

ahameṉu mūla vaviddai yahaṉḏṟiḍa
vahamaha māha vallum pahalaṟa
vahamoḷi rātma dēvan padattiṉi
lahamahiṙ vāha vaṉiśam ramikkavē
.

Saturday, 11 July 2009

‘Just sitting’ (shikantaza) and ‘choiceless awareness’

A friend recently wrote to me as follows:

I have been reading chapter 9 (Self-Investigation) of your book Happiness and the Art of Being.

What you describe regarding the practice of atma-vichara as advocated by Ramana Maharishi, I interpret as being very similar to the practice of choice-less awareness, or shikantaza, as it is commonly referred to by Zen practitioners.

The significant difference between the two techniques is that I, as a Zen practitioner, am trained to use the power of attention in order to step back from ‘I’ thoughts and ‘I’ feelings. And thereby effectively return to the abiding silence.

The self-investigation technique in contrast uses the question, who?, whose?, where? etc in order to disentangle from ‘I’ thoughts and ‘I’ feelings, effectively returning to the abiding silence (and yes, I understand that you prefer to define self-investigation as the practice of being nothing other than oneself and not a process of mental questioning).

Some ‘I’ thoughts and feelings are so very powerful that challenging the validity of the ‘I’ by directly asking who? whose? where?, may very well be a more potent technique for disentangling from the ‘I’ chain, thereby returning to the abiding silence.
In reply to this I wrote as follows:

Saturday, 4 July 2009

Atma-vichara and metta bhavana (‘loving-kindness’ meditation)

A friend recently wrote to me asking:

I’ve got a question concerning atma-vichara in relation to some meditation techniques.

Before I came across Sri Bhagavan's teachings I practised some form of Buddhist meditation which is called ‘metta’ or loving-kindness meditation. In this meditation one develops the feelings of love and care, starting with oneself and expanding the range step by step to include teachers, friends and finally all living beings.

I never regarded myself as a Buddhist but nevertheless I still find this form of meditation very helpful and beneficial. That's why I do a daily loving-kindness meditation for about 45-60 minutes.

I also find that this is a help when I try to practice atma-vichara because self-attention seems to be easier with a mind which is not so noisy and turbulent.

Through reading and reflecting on Sri Bhagavan’s teachings I know that the only practice which leads to final liberation and experience of true self-knowledge is atma-vichara or self-abidance.

I also think that my other practice will naturally drop away when I get more experienced in atma-vichara. But as a beginner I find it difficult to practice self-attention, especially when there are difficult emotions, plenty of thoughts and the stress of day-to-day life.

My question is if this kind of sitting meditation is contradictory to practising self-attention or can even be a hindrance.
In reply to this I wrote as follows:

The only practice that will enable us directly to experience ourself as we really are and thereby destroy our mind is the action-free non-dual practice of ātma-vichāra or self-attentiveness. All other practices or forms of meditation are only mental activities, because they each involve our paying attention to something other than ‘I’ (which means that our attention is moving away from ourself towards whatever other thing we are thinking of), and hence they cannot enable us to experience our real action-free (thought-free) self.

Saturday, 27 June 2009

Sadhanai Saram – The Essence of Spiritual Practice (sadhana)

As I had intimated in several of my recent articles, today I have uploaded the following four new e-books to the Books section of my website:

I have also uploaded a PDF copy of La Félicité et l'Art d'Etre – Chapitre 1, ‘Qu’est-ce que la Félicité?’, which is a French translation of the first chapter of Happiness and the Art of Being, ‘What is Happiness?’.

The following is an extract from the introductory page that I wrote for Sadhanai Saram:

சாதனை சாரம் (Sadhanai Saram), the ‘Essence of Spiritual Practice’, is a collection of several hundred Tamil verses composed by Sri Sadhu Om on the subject of the practice of atma-vichara (self-investigation) and atma-samarpana (self-surrender).

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).

Sunday, 14 June 2009

Ulladu Narpadu – an explanatory paraphrase

In continuation of my previous article, Upadesa Undiyar – an explanatory paraphrase, the following is the second of seven extracts from the introductory page that I have drafted for Sri Ramanopadesa Noonmalai:

உள்ளது நாற்பது (Ulladu Narpadu), the ‘Forty [Verses] on That Which Is’, is a Tamil poem that Sri Ramana composed in July and August 1928 when Sri Muruganar asked him to teach us the nature of the reality and the means by which we can attain it.

In the title of this poem, the word உள்ளது (ulladu) is a verbal noun that means ‘that which is’ or ‘being’ (either in the sense of ‘existence’ or in the sense of ‘existing’), and is an important term that is often used in spiritual or philosophical literature to denote ‘reality’, ‘truth’, ‘that which is real’ or ‘that which really is’. Hence in a spiritual context the meaning clearly implied by ulladu is atman, our ‘real self’ or ‘spirit’.

Though நாற்பது (narpadu) means ‘forty’, Ulladu Narpadu actually consists of a total of forty-two verses, two of which form the mangalam or ‘auspicious introduction’ and the remaining forty of which form the nul or main ‘text’.

Monday, 8 June 2009

Upadesa Undiyar – an explanatory paraphrase

As I mentioned in my previous article, Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam – an overview, I am currently preparing to upload four new e-books to the Books section of my website, namely Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam, Sri Ramanopadesa Noonmalai, Part Two of The Path of Sri Ramana and Sadhanai Saram, and I am drafting introductory pages for each of these.

The second of these four new e-books, Sri Ramanopadesa Noonmalai (ஸ்ரீ ரமணோபதேச நூன்மாலை), is an English translation by Sri Sadhu Om and me of உபதேச நூன்மாலை (Upadesa Nunmalai), the ‘Garland of Texts of Spiritual Teachings’, which is the second section of ஸ்ரீ ரமண நூற்றிரட்டு (Sri Ramana Nultirattu), the Tamil ‘Collected Works of Sri Ramana’, and which is a collection of the six principal philosophical poems that Sri Ramana composed, namely உபதேச வுந்தியார் (Upadesa Undiyar), உள்ளது நாற்பது (Ulladu Narpadu), உள்ளது நாற்பது – அனுபந்தம் (Ulladu Narpadu – Anubandham), ஏகான்ம பஞ்சகம் (Ekanma Panchakam), அப்பளப் பாட்டு (Appala Pattu) and ஆன்ம வித்தை (Anma-Viddai).

The following is the first of seven extracts from the introductory page that I have drafted for Sri Ramanopadesa Noonmalai that I will be posting here during the next few weeks:

Wednesday, 21 January 2009

What is self-attentiveness?

A couple of weeks ago a person called Jon posted the following comment on one of my recent articles, Self-attentiveness and time:

I’m having a hard time understanding exactly what Self-attentiveness is. I just don’t see where the ‘attentiveness’ part comes from. The way I understand it Self-attentiveness is the practice of simply remaining without thought while not falling asleep (being keen and vigilant to prevent any thoughts from rising). However, as I noticed, Sri Ramana says this isn’t so because if this were the case, one could simply practice pranayama [breath-restraint], and Sri Ramana said that the effect of this was only a temporary subsidence of mind and not the annihilation of it. So getting back to my question, what am I supposed to be attentive to? Self. Well what is Self? Self is the I thought. Unfortunately, I can’t find this I thought anywhere! How am I to be attentive to it? Please elaborate. As I said earlier, the way I understand Self-attentiveness currently is simply being keen and vigilant not to let any thoughts rise. Yet I don’t think that when I remain without thoughts I am being self-attentive, because when I remain without thought I am actually not paying attention to anything! (I believe) Yet, isn’t the goal of self-attentiveness merely to destroy all thoughts? Can’t I do that without focusing on some obscure “Self”? Am I supposed to be additionally Self-attentive? If so, can you please really break it down for me so that there is absolutely no doubt as to whether I’m doing it right?
In reply to this, an anonymous friend wrote another comment:
“Am I supposed to be additionally Self-attentive? If so, can you please really break it down for me so that there is absolutely no doubt as to whether I’m doing it right?”

With reference to the above comment of John, I might state that self-attentiveness and eschewing thoughts would constitute a unitary process, there being no additional self-attentiveness over and above not paying attention to thoughts.
Jon replied to this answer in his second comment, in which he wrote:
Thank you anonymous for your comment. Just to be clear, you’re saying that the sole purpose of self-attentiveness is to ignore thoughts, therefore if I simply ignore thoughts I would be Self-attentive? Michael’s opinion on this would be greatly appreciated as well.

Tuesday, 30 December 2008

Our basic thought ‘I’ is the portal through which we can know our real ‘I’

Last week the following anonymous comment was posted on an old article in this blog, The transcendent state of true self-knowledge is the only real state:

Very frequently reference is being made in works purporting to explain the teachings of Bhaghavan that the very fundamental thought, subsequent to which all the other thoughts arise, is the thought, ‘I’. My question is can there be a thought at the level of the pure I. Any thought can be of the form of the modification of the I, attaching it to a phenomenal object with a relative subject being there. So is it not a fact that tracing all thoughts to the basic I thought presupposes the idea of steering clear of thoughts by knowing the unassociated I. Apart from thoughts there can be no I thought. Hence there is no question of tracing everything to the I thought. Bhaghavan has given this method, I feel, out of compassion to direct individuals to the feeling of subject. Otherwise it would delude us into the idea that there is an I thought as a hiatus from which one should proceed further to one’s real being, which may not be correct. Ramana himself says that there are no two ‘I’s one trying to know the other. This also holds good in regard to the further oft repeated idea that only after the arising of the first person, that is the I, the other persons arise, and hence one should remain with the first person. The first person itself is a form of thought, a modification as it were, unless one has reached the feeling of pure, ‘I AM’.
What Anonymous asks in this comment is to a certain extent answered by what I explained about our primal thought ‘I’ in connection with verse 18 of Upadēśa Undiyār and verse 2 of Āṉma-Viddai in my previous article, Self-enquiry, self-attention and self-awareness, and in greater detail in chapter three of Happiness and the Art of Being (particularly on pages 167-83, 192-3, 213-9, 225-7 and 234-6). However the following is a more specific answer to his or her comment:

Saturday, 27 December 2008

Self-enquiry, self-attention and self-awareness

A few weeks ago a very long anonymous comment was posted on one of my recent articles, Self-attentiveness, effort and grace. Though this comment was posted under the identity ‘Anonymous’, the name ‘Michael Langford’ was written at the end of it.

I do not know whether or not this comment was actually posted by Michael Langford (though I suspect it probably was not), but except for his name at the end of it, the entire comment is a verbatim copy of a webpage that he wrote entitled Sri Sadhu Om - Self Inquiry, which is one of the many pages in the Awareness Watching Awareness section of the Albigen.Com website.

Most of this webpage, Sri Sadhu Om - Self Inquiry, is an edited copy of chapter seven of Part One of The Path of Sri Ramana, a PDF copy of which is available on my website, Happiness of Being. However, before his edited copy of chapter seven, Michael Langford has written the following two introductory paragraphs:
Sri Sadhu Om spent five years in the company of Sri Ramana Maharshi and decades in the company of Sri Muruganar. Sri Sadhu Om wrote a book called The Path of Sri Ramana, Part One, which contains what has been called the most detailed teaching on the method of Self-inquiry ever written. Sri Sadhu Om points out that:

Self-inquiry is only an aid to Self-Awareness;
only Self-Awareness is the True Direct Path.

However, Sri Sadhu Om never actually wrote or said that ‘Self-inquiry is only an aid to Self-Awareness; only Self-Awareness is the True Direct Path’, either in this chapter of The Path of Sri Ramana or elsewhere, and to say that he pointed out such an idea is misleading and confusing. Before explaining why this idea is misleading, however, I should first say something about the way in which Michael Langford has edited the copy of this chapter on that webpage.

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.

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.

Friday, 27 June 2008

Cultivating uninterrupted self-attentiveness

In a comment on one of my recent articles, Self-enquiry, personal experiences and daily routine, an anonymous friend wrote:

“...uninterrupted self-attentiveness...”

This is not quite possible in my daily work life. I work as a software developer where I have to constantly think to write programs. I try to do be self-attentive while using elevators, walking the corridors... sometimes even while smoking, and also try to be self-attentive while driving.

So please tell me how to hold on to the “I” while working.
Here the words “... uninterrupted self-attentiveness ...” refer to a sentence that Sri Ramana wrote in the eleventh paragraph of Nan Yar? (Who am I?), which I quoted in that article, namely:
… If one clings fast to uninterrupted svarupa-smarana [self-remembrance] until one attains svarupa [one’s own essential self], that alone [will be] sufficient. …
As I explained in a subsequent article, Where to find and how to reach the real presence of our guru?, the adjective that Sri Ramana actually used in this sentence to qualify svarupa-smarana or ‘self-remembrance’ is nirantara, which means ‘uninterrupted’ in the sense of ‘having no interval’, ‘incessant’, ‘constant’, ‘continuous’ or ‘perpetual’. When we read this sentence, many of us wonder like our anonymous friend how it could be possible for us to hold on to self-remembrance or self-attentiveness continuously in the midst of all our usual daily activities, some of which appear to require our undivided attention.

Friday, 20 June 2008

The true nature of consciousness can be known only by self-enquiry

The anonymous friend whose comment I replied to in my previous article, Self-enquiry: the underlying philosophy can be clearly understood only by putting it into practice, has replied to that article in another comment on the earlier article I think because I am, but I am even when I do not think. In this latest comment Anonymous writes:

First of all, your reply in the form of a separate article is greatly appreciated. It makes me imagine the level of clarity you have on the subject. I confess that I was not very serious when I wrote my earlier comments, though I believe whatever I wrote was true/correct to me. I’m not sure whether I should be writing this reply now or perhaps after thoroughly reading and thinking about it... but I’m writing this as I keep reading your article and getting questions/doubts in between:

‘... sleep is not absolute unconsciousness …’. It would be good if you further clarify what is meant by ‘relative unconsciousness’. Does it mean some part of consciousness still remains?

This question from your reply: “... if we really did not know anything in sleep...would we not just have to say ‘... I do not know whether or not I knew anything in sleep’?” is a good one. It made me for a moment think how could we ascertain that we do not know anything in sleep. (I explained whatever I think as the answer towards the end of this reply — last but one paragraph.)

Thursday, 5 June 2008

Experiencing God as he really is

In continuation of my previous post, God as both nirguna brahman and saguna brahman, the following is the second extract from the second chapter, ‘God’, of The Truth of Otherness:

In order to experience the nirguna form of God — that is, God as he really is — we must experience ourself as we really are. In our essential nature we are just the one absolutely non-dual self-conscious being, ‘I am’, which is devoid of all gunas. Therefore only when we remain steadfastly as our infinitely clear self-conscious being, ‘I am’, thereby refraining from rising as this imaginary object-knowing consciousness that we call our ‘mind’, will we be able to experience God as he really is — as our own true self, which is the one infinite nirguna reality.

This truth is clearly expressed by Sri Ramana in verses 24, 25 and 26 of Upadesa Undiyar:

By [their] irukkum iyarkai [their ‘nature which is’ or ‘being nature’] God and souls are only one porul [substance, essence or reality]. Only [the soul’s] upadhi-unarvu [adjunct-consciousness] is [what makes them appear to be] different.

Knowing [our real] self, having relinquished [all our own] upadhis [adjuncts or gunas], itself is knowing God, because [he] shines as [our real] self.

Being [our real] self is indeed knowing [our real] self, because [our real] self is devoid of two. This is tanmaya-nishtha [the state of being firmly established as tat or ‘it’, the one absolute nirguna reality called ‘God’ or brahman].

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.

Friday, 23 November 2007

The Path of Sri Ramana - Part One e-book copy now available

Yesterday I posted an e-book copy of Part One of The Path of Sri Ramana on my main website, Happiness of Being, and in the near future I hope to add an e-book copy of Part Two.

As a prelude to this e-book copy of Part One I have written an introductory page, in which I give a detailed overview of both Part One and Part Two. The following is a copy of the introduction and the overview of Part One that I give in this introductory page:

The Path of Sri Ramana is an English translation of ஸ்ரீ ரமண வழி (Sri Ramana Vazhi), a Tamil book written by Sri Sadhu Om, in which he explains in great depth and detail the philosophy and practice of the spiritual teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana.

Sri Ramana taught us that the only means by which we can attain the supreme happiness of true self-knowledge is atma-vichara — self-investigation or self-enquiry — which is the simple practice of keenly scrutinising or attending to our essential self-conscious being, which we always experience as 'I am', in order to know 'who am I?'

Tuesday, 25 September 2007

Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam — English translation by Sri Sadhu Om and Michael James

Recently the English translation by Sri Sadhu Om and me of Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam, the 'Five Hymns to Sri Arunachala' composed by Bhagavan Sri Ramana, has been published as a book, and it is now 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 the entire Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam, and within the next few months it will 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', that is, the poems such as Ulladu Narpadu that Sri Ramana wrote conveying his teachings or upadesa.

The following is a copy of the introduction that I wrote for this translation of Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam:

Bhagavan Sri Ramana taught us that the only means by which we can attain the supreme happiness of true self-knowledge is atma-vichara — self-investigation or self-enquiry — which is the simple practice of keenly scrutinising or attending to our essential self-conscious being, which we always experience as 'I am'.

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, 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.

Wednesday, 7 March 2007

What is True Knowledge? - additions to chapter 5 of Happiness and the Art of Being

I have posted the five largest additions that I will be incorporating in chapter 5 of Happiness and the Art of Being in my five most recent posts, namely:

I will also incorporate the following three smaller additions in this chapter, 'What is True Knowledge?'

In my discussion about the meaning of verse 22 of Ulladu Narpadu I have split the paragraph that begins on the bottom of page 291 and ends on the top of page 292 of the present e-book version, and have added a new sentence, so the two resulting paragraphs will read as follows:

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:

Thursday, 1 March 2007

Everything is only our own consciousness

While revising Happiness and the Art of Being in preparation for its forthcoming publication as a printed book, in chapter 3 (on page 182 of the present e-book version) after the paragraph that ends, "... Whenever we perceive a world, we always do so from within the confines of a particular body, which we feel to be ourself", and before the next paragraph, which now begins, "Our primal imagination that we are a physical body is the foundation upon which our mind is built. Whenever it rises, whether in a dream or in a so-called waking state, our mind always imagines itself to be a body...", I have added the following:

Hence our perception of any world is dependent upon our imagining ourself to be a body in that world, which in turn is dependent upon our mind, the finite consciousness that imagines itself to be that body. Therefore in verses 5, 6 and 7 of Ulladu Narpadu Sri Ramana says:

[Our] body [is] a form [composed] of five sheaths [the pancha kosas or five adjuncts that seemingly cover and obscure our consciousness of our real self when we imagine any of them to be ourself]. Therefore all five [of these 'sheaths' or adjuncts] are included in the term 'body'. Without [some kind of] body, is there [any such thing as a] world? Say, having left [all kinds of] body, is there [any] person who has seen [this or any other] world?

Monday, 26 February 2007

Our body, mind and other adjuncts are not 'I'

In preparation for the forthcoming publication of Happiness and the Art of Being as a printed book, I have expanded the final three paragraphs of chapter 2, 'Who am I?', (which are on pages 145-146 of the present e-book version) as follows:

Since none of these other tattvas [that is, none of the so-called tattvas or ontological principles other than our own essential self-conscious being] are real, neither they nor anything composed of them can be our true self, and therefore we should not waste our time and energy thinking about them, enumerating them, classifying them or examining their properties, but should ignore them entirely and instead attend only to our real 'I' — our fundamental and essential consciousness of our own true being. The only need we have to consider our body, our mind and all our other adjuncts is to understand the fact that they are unreal, and are therefore not 'I'.

Hence in verse 22 of Upadesa Undiyar Sri Ramana briefly states the essential conclusion that we should arrive at by means of the rational process of self-analysis, which in the ancients texts of advaita vedanta is called neti neti or 'not thus, not thus':

Since [our] body, mind, intellect, life and darkness [the seeming absence of knowledge that we experience in sleep] are all jada [inconscient] and asat [unreal or non-existent], [they are] not 'I', which is [chit or consciousness and] sat [being or reality].

Saturday, 17 February 2007

Only the absolute clarity of true self-knowledge will put an end to all our dreams

In continuation of my earlier posts Our imaginary sleep of self-forgetfulness or self-ignorance, Are we in this world, or is this world in us? and Our waking life is just another dream, the following is the fourth 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 verse 1 of Ekatma Panchakam, after the first two clauses, "Having forgotten ourself" and "having thought '[this] body indeed is myself'", Sri Ramana adds a third clause, "having [thereby] taken innumerable births". What exactly does he mean by this? How actually do we "take innumerable births"?

As we have discussed earlier, our present waking life is actually just a dream that is occurring in our imaginary sleep of self-forgetfulness or self-ignorance. When we imaginarily ignore or forget our real self, which is infinite being, consciousness and happiness, we seemingly separate ourself from the perfect happiness that is our own self. Therefore until we reunite with our own reality, which is absolute happiness, we cannot rest, except during the brief but necessary interludes that we experience in sleep, death and other such states, in which our mind subsides in a state of temporary abeyance or inactivity.

Saturday, 13 January 2007

Exposing the unreality of our ego

With reference to my earlier post 'Awareness watching awareness', a friend wrote to me an e-mail which he concluded with the statement:

If the tricks of the ego are not dealt with and exposed in detail, all spiritual teachings end up serving the ego.
The following is adapted from my reply to that e-mail:

I believe that this statement is very true. Our mind or ego is our only real enemy, and it plays so many tricks to continue its illusory existence. The sole purpose of all spiritual teachings is to expose the unreality of this impostor and all its progeny, our thoughts and this entire world of duality, all of which depend upon its dubious reality for their seeming existence.

Sri Ramana has taught us that the only way to expose the unreality of our mind or ego is to know our true self by scrutinising ourself. As he says in verse 17 of Upadesa Undiyar:
When [we] scrutinise the form of [our] mind without forgetfulness [interruption caused either by sleep or by thinking], [we will discover that] there is no such thing as 'mind' [separate from or other than our real self]. For everyone, this is the direct path [to true self-knowledge].

Friday, 12 January 2007

Where can we find the clarity of true self-knowledge?

In answer to the question at the end of the comment that Erwin appended to my earlier post, Is a 'human guru' really necessary?, I would say that whatever external help we may need will be provided to us by Sri Ramana, so if the physical presence of a true sage or jnani may help us, he will arrange our outward life accordingly. If, on the other had, such help is not necessary for us, he will arrange our outward life otherwise.

Either way, we need not actively seek any such outward help, because that may not be necessary and would anyway distract us from our real aim, which is to seek the truth within ourself. If we truly wish to know what we really are, there is only one way to do so, and that is to turn our entire attention inwards, focussing it wholly and exclusively upon our natural consciousness of our own essential being, 'I am'.

It is true that our mind is weakened and impeded by the strength of its desires, which constantly impel it to turn outwards, towards things that it imagines to be other than itself, so it is natural for us to feel that we need help in our efforts to turn inwards. If we think that we need help from outside, the best external help is available to us in the form of the teachings of Sri Ramana. By reading and reflecting upon his teachings, which constantly emphasise the need for us to turn within, we will keep this need fresh in our mind, and our love to turn inwards will be sustained and increased.

Wednesday, 10 January 2007

Self-consciousness alone is true knowledge

With reference to my recent post, The true import of 'I am', a friend asked:

Is the self aware of itself without manifestation?
I replied as follows:

The simple answer is yes, it is, as is clearly illustrated by our experience in sleep.

Who knows any manifestation? To whom does it manifest? It is known only by us, because it manifests only in our own mind. Nothing that is known by us is known outside our mind, except our fundamental consciousness of our own essential being, which we always experience as 'I am', whether our mind and its contents are manifest, as in waking and dream, or remain unmanifest, as in sleep.

Tuesday, 9 January 2007

The true import of 'I am'

In reply to a friend who wrote, "The 'I am' is the beginning of the dream", I wrote as follows:

The 'I am' just is. It is the permanent abiding reality, our true and essential self-conscious being. The beginning of this dream of our three states, waking, dream and sleep, is our primal imagination, 'I am this body, I am a person, I am so-and-so', which arises when we seemingly ignore our natural clarity of perfect self-consciousness.

Because we wrongly imagine ourself to be this body and mind, we mistake the words 'I am' to denote this body-mind complex. But Sri Ramana taught us that that which is truly denoted by the term 'I am' is only our true being, which is non-dual self-consciousness. This is clearly stated by him in verse 21 of Upadesa Undiyar:

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 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'.



Last updated: 7th November 2024