https://selfdefinition.org/ramana/Talks-with-Sri-Ramana-Maharshi--complete.pdf
357
A little later Sri Bhagavan continued: Dhyana means fight.
As soon as you begin meditation other thoughts will crowd together, gather force and try to sink the single thought to which you try to hold.
The good thought must gradually gain strength by repeated practice.
After it has grown strong the other thoughts will be put to flight.
This is the battle royal always taking place in meditation.
One wants to rid oneself of misery. It requires peace of mind, which means absence of perturbation owing to all kinds of thoughts.
Peace of mind is brought about by dhyana alone.
.......
D.: What is jnana-marga?
M.: I have been saying it for so long. What is jnana?
Dnyana means realisation of the Truth.
It is done by dhyana.
Dhyana helps you to hold on to Truth to the exclusion of all thoughts.
......
D.: Horripilation, sobbing voice, joyful tears, etc., are mentioned in Atma Vidya Vilasa and other works. Are these found in samadhi, or before, or after?
M.: All these are the symptoms of exceedingly subtle modes of mind (vrittis). Without duality they cannot remain. Samadhi is Perfect Peace where these cannot find place. After emerging from samadhi the remembrance of the state gives rise to these symptoms.
In bhakti marga (path of devotion) these are the precursors to samadhi.
.......
D.: Are they not so in the path of jnana?
M.: May be. There is no definiteness about it. It depends on the nature of the individual. Individuality entirely lost, these cannot find a place. Even the slightest trace of it being present, these symptoms become manifest.
Manickavachagar and other saints have spoken of these symptoms. They say tears rush forth involuntarily and irrepressibly. Though aware of tears they are unable to repress them.
I had the same experience when I was staying Virupaksha cave.
.....
D.: “Only one in a million pursues sadhanas to completion.” (Bh. Gita, VII, 3).
M.: “Whenever the turbulent mind wavers, then and there pull it and bring it under control.” (Bh. Gita, VI, 26.) “Seeing the mind with the mind” (manasa mana alokya), so proclaim the Upanishads.
D.: Is the mind an upadhi (limiting adjunct)?
M.: Yes.
...
D.: Is the seen (drisya) world real (satya)?
M.: It is true in the same degree as the seer (drashta), subject, object and perception form the triad (triputi). There is a reality beyond these three. These appear and disappear, whereas the truth is eternal.
D.: These triputi sambhava are only temporal.
M.: Yes, if one recognises the Self even in temporal matters these will be found to be non-existent, rather inseperate from the Self; and they will be going on at the same time.
......
Bhagavan quoted:
Asamsayam mahabaho mano durnigraham chalam Abhyasena tu kaunteya vairagyena cha grhyate — Bh. Gita, Ch. VI, 35
Without doubt, O mighty-armed Hero, the mind is restless, hard to curb. Yet by constant effort, Partha, matched with detachment - curbed it is.
To explain vairagya, Sri Bhagavan again quoted:
Sankalpaprabhavan kamams tyaktva sarvan aseshatah Manasaivendriyagramam viniyamya samantatah — (Ch. VI, 24)
Having cast out without remains all longing born of thought for self, Having drawn in by mind alone his team of senses from all sides -
As for practice (abhyasa):
Sanaissanairuparamet buddhya dhritigrhitaya Atmasamstham manah krtva na kinchidapi chintayet — (VI - 25)
By slow approaches let him come to rest, with patient, rock-poised Will; His mind at home in Self hood pure, Let him create no thought at all.
Again for jnana:
Yato yato nischarati manas chanchalam asthiram Tatastato niyamyaitad atmanyeva vasam nayet — (VI - 26) T
Alhough the mind is fickle, Still over and over let him regain control, and poise it back in Self.
(check ; mistake in copying above sentence)
...............
D.: According to the creed that there is no creation (ajatavada), the explanations of Sri Bhagavan are faultless; but are they admissible in other schools?
M.: There are three methods of approach in Advaita vada.
(1) The ajatavada is represented by no loss, no creation, no one bound, no sadhaka, no one desirous of liberation, no liberation. This is the Supreme Truth. (Mandukya Karika, II - 32).
According to this, there is only One and it admits of no discussion.
(2) Drishti Srishtivada is illustrated thus:- Simultaneous creation.
There are two friends sleeping side by side. One of them dreams that he goes to Benares with his friend and returns. He tells his friend that both of them have been in Benares. The other denies it. That statement is true from the standpoint of one and the denial from that of the other.
(3) Srishti Drishtivada is plain (Gradual creation and knowledge of it).
Karma is posited as past karma, etc., prarabdha, agami and sanchita. There must be kartritva (doership) and karta (doer) for it.
Karma (action) cannot be for the body because it is insentient. It is only so long as dehatma buddhi (‘I-am-the-body idea’) lasts. After transcending dehatma buddhi one becomes a Jnani. In the absence of that idea (buddhi) there cannot be either kartritva or karta. So a Jnani has no karma. That is his experience. Otherwise he is not a Jnani. However an ajnani identifies the Jnani with his body, which the Jnani does not do. So the ajnani finds the Jnani acting, because his body is active, and therefore he asks if the Jnani is not affected by prarabdha.
......
D.: Is not dhyana one of the efficient processes for Realisation?
M.: Dhyana is concentration on an object. It fulfils the purpose of keeping away diverse thoughts and fixing the mind on a single thought, which must also disappear before Realisation.
But Realisation is nothing new to be acquired.
It is already there, but obstructed by a screen of thoughts.
All our attempts are directed for lifting this screen and then Realisation is revealed.
If a true seeker is advised to meditate, many may go away satisfied with the advice. But someone among them may turn round and ask,
“Who am I to meditate on an object?”
Such a one must be told to find the Self.
That is the finality. That is Vichara.
..
D.: Will vichara alone do in the absence of meditation?
M.: Vichara is the process and the goal also.
‘I Am’ is the goal and the final Reality.
To hold to it with effort is vichara.
When spontaneous and natural. it is Realisation.
M.: (1) Holding on to Reality is samadhi.
(2) Holding on to Reality with effort is savikalpa samadhi.
(3) Merging in Reality and remaining unaware of the world is nirvikalpa samadhi.
(4) Merging in Ignorance and remaining unaware of the world is sleep. (Head bends but not in samadhi).
(5) Remaining in the primal, pure natural state without effort is sahaja nirvikalpa samadhi.
........
D.: They say that Kundalini must be roused before Realisation and that its awakening makes the body feel hot. Is that so?
M.: The yogis call it Kundalini Sakti. It is the same as vritti of the form of God (Bhagavatakara vritti) of the bhaktas and vritti of the form of Brahman (Brahmakara vritti) of the jnanis.
It must be preliminary to Realisation. The sensation produced may be said to be hot.
D.: Is this Heart the same as the physiological heart?
M.: No, Sri Ramana Gita defines it as the origin of the ‘I-thought’.
D.: But I read that it is on the right of the chest.
M.: It is all meant to help the bhavana (imagery). There are books dealing with six centres (shadchakra) and many other lakshyas (centres), internal and external. The description of the Heart is one among so many lakshyas. But it is not necessary. It is only the source of the ‘I-thought’. That is the ultimate truth.
........
virat, hiranyagarbha, vyakti, samashti, memorise 15 pranas,,,,etc.
Ah! Fortunate is the man who does not involve himself in this maze!
I was indeed fortunate that I never took to it. Had I taken to it, I would probably be nowhere - always in confusion. My purva vasanas (former tendencies) directly took me to the enquiry “Who am I?” It was indeed fortunate!
...............
Talk 394. D.: How is the mind to be stilled?
M.: Looking at the mind with the mind, or fixing the mind in the Self, brings the mind under control of the Self.
D.: Is there any yoga, i.e., a process for it?
M.: Vichara (investigation) alone will do.
..........
M.: The yoga marga speaks of the six centres each of which must be reached by practice and transcended until one reaches sahasrara where nectar is found and thus immortality. The yogis say that one enters into the paranadi which starts from the sacral plexus whereas the jnanis say that the same nadi starts from the heart.
Reconciliation between the seeming]y contradictory statements is effected in the secret doctrine which distinctly states the
yogic paranadi is from muladhara and
the jnana paranadi is from the Heart.
The truth is that the paranadi should be entered.
By yogic practice one goes down, then rises up, wanders all through until the goal is reached; by jnana abhyas one settles down directly in the centre.
........
Again if there is an image reflected there must be a source and also accessories like the Sun and a pot of water for reflection.
To do away with the reflection either the surface is covered up corresponding to reaching the fontanelle according to the yogis or
the water is drained away which is called tapas (Tapo Brahmeti - tapas is Brahman).
That is to say, the thoughts or the brain activities are made to cease. This is jnana-marga.
All these are however on the assumption that the jiva is separate from the Self or Brahman.
But are we separate? “No”, says the Jnani.
The ego is simply wrong identity of the Self with the non-self,
as in the case of a colourless crystal and its coloured background.
The crystal though colourless appears red because of its background. If the background is removed the crystal shines in its original purity. So it is with the Self and the antahkaranas.
Still again the illustration is not quite appropriate. For the ego has its source from the Self and is not separate like the background from the crystal. Having its source from the Self, the ego must only be retraced in order that it might merge in its source. The centre of the ego and its core is called the Heart, the same as the Self.
....
A gentleman asked if the yogis also reach the anahata and thus realise the Heart-centre as is done by the jnanis but in a different way.
M.: Anahata is not the same as the Heart-centre. If so, why should they wander further on to Sahasrara? Moreover, the question arises because of the sense of separateness persisting in us. We are never away from the Heart-centre. Before reaching anahata or after passing it, one is only in the centre. Whether one understands it or not, one is not away from the centre. Practice of yoga or vichara is done, always remaining in the centre only.
D.: What is to be our sadhana?
M.: Sadhana for the sadhaka is the sahaja of the siddha.
Sahaja is the original state, so that sadhana amounts to the removal of the obstacles to the realisation of this abiding truth.
......
Self surrender = self control.
D.: What is Self-surrender?
M.: It is the same as self-control.
Control is effected by removal of samskaras which imply the functioning of the ego.
The ego submits only when it recognises the Higher Power.
Such recognition is surrender or submission, or self-control.
Otherwise the ego remains stuck up like the image carved on a tower, making a pretence by its strained look and posture that it is supporting the tower on its shoulders. The ego cannot exist without the Power but thinks that it acts of its own accord.
D.: How can the rebellious mind be brought under control?
M.: Either seek its source so that it may disappear or surrender that it may be struck down.
D.: But the mind slips away from our control.
M.: Be it so. Do not think of it. When you recollect yourself bring it back and turn it inward. That is enough.
No one succeeds without effort.
Mind control is not one’s birthright.
The successful few owe their success to their perseverance.
A passenger in a train keeps his load on the head by his own folly. Let him put it down: he will find the load reaches the destination all the same. Similarly, let us not pose as the doers, but resign ourselves to the guiding Power.
D.: Is not Grace the gift of the Guru?
M.: God, Grace and Guru are all synonymous and also eternal and immanent.
Is not the Self already within? Is it for the Guru to bestow It by his look? If a Guru thinks so, he does not deserve the name.
The books say that there are so many kinds of diksha (initiations - hasta diksha, sparsa diksha, chakshu diksha, mano diksha, etc.) They also say that the Guru makes some rites with fire, water, japa, mantras, etc., and call such fantastic performances dikshas, as if the disciple (sishya) becomes ripe only after such processes are gone through by the Guru.
If the individual is sought he is nowhere to be found. Such is the Guru. Such is Dakshinamurti.
What did he do? He was silent. The disciples appeared before him. He maintained silence, the doubts of the disciples were dispelled, which means that they lost their individual identities.
That is jnana and not all the verbiage usually associated with it.
Silence is the most potent form of work.
However vast and emphatic the sastras may be, they fail in their effect. The Guru is quiet and peace prevails in all. His silence is more vast and more emphatic than all the sastras put together. These questions arise because of the feeling, that having been here so long, heard so much, exerted so hard, one has not gained anything. The work proceeding within is not apparent.
In fact the Guru is always within you.
Thayumanavar says:
“Oh Lord! Coming with me all along the births, never abandoning me and finally rescuing me!”
Such is the experience of Realisation.
Srimad Bhagavad Gita says the same in a different way, “We two are not only now but have ever been so.”
......
D.: Does not the Guru take a concrete form?
M.: What is meant by concrete? Because you identify your being with your body, you raise this question. Find out if you are the body.
The Gita says:
param bhavam ajanantah (Bh. Gita IX - II) -
that those who cannot understand the transcendental nature (of Sri Krishna) are fools, deluded by ignorance.
The master appears to dispel that ignorance.
As Thayumanavar puts it, he appears as a man to dispel the ignorance of a man, just as a deer is used as a decoy to capture the wild deer. He has to appear with a body in order to eradicate our ignorant “I-am-the-body” idea.
........
Tapa for self realisation:
M.: What is tapas for?
D.: For Self-Realisation.
M.: Quite so. Tapas depends on the competency of the person.
One requires a form to contemplate. But it is not enough.
For, can anyone keep looking at an image always?
So the image must be implemented by japa. Japa helps fixing the mind on the image, in addition to the eyesight. The result of these efforts is concentration of mind, which ends in the goal. He becomes what he thinks. Some are satisfied with the name of the image. Every form must have a name. That name denotes all the qualities of God.
Constant japa puts off all other thoughts and fixes the mind. That is tapas.
One-pointedness is the tapas wanted. The question what tapas is was asked in order to know what purpose to serve. It will take the form required for the purpose.
D.: Are not physical austerities also tapas?
M.: May be one form of it. They are due to vairagya (dispassion) .
D.: I have seen a man with his arm lifted all his life.
M.: That is vairagya.
D.: Why should one afflict his body for the purpose?
M.: You think it is affliction whereas it is a vow and for the other man it is an achievement and a pleasure.
Dhyana may be external or internal or both.
Japa is more important than external form. It must be done until it becomes natural.
It starts with effort and is continued until it proceeds of itself. When natural it is called Realisation.
Japa may be done even while engaged in other work. That which is, the One Reality.
It may be represented by a form, a japa, mantra, vichara or any kind of attempt. All of them finally resolve themselves into that One Single Reality.
Bhakti, vichara, japa are only different forms of our efforts to keep out the unreality.
The unreality is an obsession at present.
Reality is our true nature.
We are wrongly persisting in unreality, that is, thoughts and worldly activities.
Cessation of these will reveal the Truth.
Our attempts are directed towards keeping them out.
It is done by thinking of the Reality only.
Although it is our true nature it looks as if we are thinking of the Reality.
What we do really amounts to the removal of obstacles for the revelation of our true Being.
Meditation or vichara is thus a reversion to our true nature.
...............
D.: The Heart is said to be on the right, on the left or in the centre. With such differences of opinion how are we to meditate on Hridaya?
M.: You are and it is a fact.
Dhyana is by you, of you, and in you.
It must go on where you are.
It cannot be outside you.
So you are the centre of dhyana and that is the Heart.
A location is however given to it with reference to the body.
You know that you are. Where are you? You are in the body and not out of it.
Yet not the whole body.
Though you pervade the whole body still you admit of a centre where from all your thoughts start and wherein they subside.
Even when the limbs are amputated you are there but with defective senses.
So a centre must be admitted. That is called the Heart.
The Heart is not merely the centre but the Self.
Heart is only another name for the Self.
Doubts arise only when you identify it with something tangible and physical. The scriptures no doubt describe it as the source of 101 nadis, etc.
In Yoga Vasishta Chudala says that kundalini is composed of 101 nadis, thus identifying one with the other.
Heart is no conception, no object for meditation. But it is the seat of meditation; the Self remains all alone. You see the body in the Heart, the world in it. There is nothing separate from it. So all kinds of effort are located there only.
....
.... Similarly, the Self, being inherent, should not be sought for elsewhere.
......
405
It is clear from Chudala’s story that vairagya accompanied by ego is of no value, whereas all possessions in the absence of ego do not matter.
.........
External samadhi is holding on to the Reality while witnessing the world, without reacting to it from within.
There is the stillness of a waveless ocean.
The internal samadhi involves loss of body consciousness.
...............
D.: Is loss of body-consciousness a perquisite to the attainment of sahaja samadhi?
M.: What is body-consciousness? Analyse it.
There must be a body and consciousness limited to it which together make up body consciousness.
These must lie in another Consciousness which is absolute and unaffected. Hold it. That is samadhi.
It exists when there is no body-consciousness because it transcends the latter, it also exists when there is the body-consciousness.
So it is always there.
What does it matter whether body-consciousness is lost or retained? When lost it is internal samadhi: when retained, it is external samadhi. That is all. A person must remain in any of the six samadhis so that sahaja samadhi may be easy for him.
D.: The mind does not sink into that state even for a second.
M.: A strong conviction is necessary that I am the Self, transcending the mind and the phenomena.
D.: Nevertheless, the mind proves to be a cord against attempts to sink it.
M.: What does it matter if the mind is active? It is so only on the substratum of the Self. Hold the Self even during mental activities.
D.: I cannot go within sufficiently deep.
M.: It is wrong to say so. Where are you now if not in the Self?
Where should you go?
All that is necessary is the stern belief that you are the Self.
Say rather that the other activities throw a veil on you.
D.: Yes, it is so.
M.: That means that the conviction is weak.
D.: I understand that the ‘I’ is only artificial (krtrima), my attempts at realising the real ‘I’ are unavailing because the artificial ‘I’ is brought into action for realising the other.
M.: Viveka Chudamani makes it clear that the artificial ‘I’ of the vijnana kosa is a projection and through it one must look to the significance (vachya) of ‘I’, the true principle.
...........408
I had been saying all along that the Heart centre was on the right, notwithstanding the refutation by some learned men that physiology taught them otherwise. I speak from experience.
I knew it even in my home during my trances.
Again during the incident related in the book Self-Realisation I had a very clear vision and experience.
All of a sudden a light came from one side erasing the world vision in its course until it spread all round when the vision of the world was completely cut out.
I felt the muscular organ on the left had stopped work, I could understand that the body was like a corpse, that the circulation of blood had stopped and the body became blue and motionless.
Vasudeva Sastri embraced the body, wept over my death, but I could not speak.
All the time I was feeling that the Heart centre on the right was working as well as ever. This state continued 15 or 20 minutes.
Then suddenly something shot out from the right to the left resembling a rocket bursting in air.
The blood circulation was resumed and normal condition restored.
I then asked Vasudeva Sastri to move along with me and we reached our residence. The Upanishads say that 101 nadis terminate in the Heart and 72,000 originate from them and traverse the body. The Heart is thus the centre of the body. It can be a centre because we have been accustomed to think that we remain in the body. In fact the body and all else are in that centre only.
.......
Japa means clinging to one thought to the exclusion of all other thoughts.
That is the purpose of japa.
It leads to dhyana, which ends in Self-Realisation.
.............
D.: What are the means for gaining will-power?
M.: Your idea of will-power is success insured. Will-power should be understood to be the strength of mind which makes it capable for meeting success or failure with equanimity.
It is not synonymous with certain success. Why should one’s attempts be always attended with success?
Success develops arrogance and the man’s spiritual progress is thus arrested.
Failure on the other hand is beneficial, in as much as it opens the eyes of the man to his limitations and prepares him to surrender himself.
Self-surrender is synonymous with eternal happiness. Therefore one should try to gain the equipoise of mind under all circumstances. That is will-power. Again, success and failure are the results of prarabdha and not of will-power. A man may be doing only good and noble actions and yet prove a failure. Another may do otherwise and yet be uniformly successful. This does not mean that the will-power is present in the one and not in the other.
...........
The Bible says that a fool’s heart is on the left and a wise man’s on the right. Yoga Vasishta says that there are two hearts; the one is samvit; and the other the blood-vessel.
........
Talk 425.
Will-power or any other is gained by practice (abhyasa)
.......
D.: Is success not dependent on Guru’s Grace?
M.: Yes, it is.
Is not your practice itself due to such Grace? The fruits are the result of the practice and follow it automatically.
There is a stanza in Kaivalya which says,
“O Guru! You have been always with me watching me through several reincarnations, and ordaining my course until I was liberated.”
The Self manifests externally as Guru when occasion arises; otherwise He is always within, doing the needful.
........................418...........end..........................
No comments:
Post a Comment