Talks with Ramana -4

https://selfdefinition.org/ramana/Talks-with-Sri-Ramana-Maharshi--complete.pdf

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D.: Is dhyana necessary?

 M.: The Upanishads say that even the Earth is in eternal dhyana. 

D.: How does Karma help it? Will it not add to the already heavy load to be removed? 

M.: Karma done unselfishly purifies the mind and helps to fix it in meditation.

 D.: What if one meditates incessantly without Karma? 

M.: Try and see. 

The vasanas will not let you do it.

 Dhyana comes only step by step with the gradual weakening of the vasanas by the Grace of the Master. 

........

M.: ‘Who am I?’ is the best japa. What could be more concrete than the Self? It is within each one’s experience every moment. Why should he try to catch anything outside, leaving out the Self? Let each one try to find out the known Self instead of searching for the unknown something beyond.

D.: Where shall I meditate on the Atman? I mean in which part of the body?

 M.: The Self should manifest itself. That is all that is wanted. 

A devotee gently added: On the right of the chest, there is the Heart, the seat of the Atman. 

Another devotee: The illumination is in that centre when the Self is realised. 

M.: Quite so.

....

D.: How to turn the mind away from the world? 

M.: Is there the world? I mean apart from the Self? Does the world say that it exists? It is you who say that there is a world. Find out the Self who says it.

Talk 82. 

A question was raised about the differences in the various samadhis. 

M.: When the senses are merged in darkness it is deep sleep; when merged in light it is samadhi. 

Just as a passenger when asleep in a carriage is unaware of the motion, the halting or the unharnessing of the horses, so also a Jnani in sahaja samadhi is unaware of the happenings, waking, dream and deep sleep.

 Here sleep corresponds to the unharnessing of the horses. 

And samadhi corresponds to the halting of the horses, because the senses are ready to act just as the horses are ready to move after halting.

 In samadhi the head does not bend down because the senses are there though inactive; 

whereas the head bends down in sleep because the senses are merged in darkness. 

In kevala samadhi, the activities (vital and mental), waking, dream and sleep, are only merged, ready to emerge after regaining the state other than samadhi. 

In sahaja samadhi the activities, vital and mental, and the three states are destroyed, never to reappear.

 However, others notice the Jnani active e.g., eating, talking, moving etc. 

He is not himself aware of these activities, whereas others are aware of his activities. 

They pertain to his body and not to his Real Self, swarupa. 

For himself, he is like the sleeping passenger - or like a child interrupted from sound sleep and fed, being unaware of it. 

The child says the next day that he did not take milk at all and that he went to sleep without it. Even when reminded he cannot be convinced. So also in sahaja samadhi. Sushumna pare leena. 

Here sushumna refers to tapo marga. 

The para nadi refers to jnana marga.

.......

M.: Illumination is absolute, not associated with forms. After St. Paul became Self-conscious he identified the illumination with Christ-consciousness.

..........

Talk 90. 

Again, the Trinity was explained: God the Father represents Isvara God the Holy Spirit represents Atman God the Son represents Guru Isvaro gururatmeti murti bheda vibhagine vyomavad vyapta dehaya dakshinamurtaye namah: 

Meaning that God appears to his devotee in the form of a Guru (son of God) and points out to him the immanence of the Holy Spirit. That is to say that God is spirit, that this spirit is immanent everywhere and that the Self must be realised, which is the same as realising God.

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Talk 91. 

A Bengali visitor asked: How is the mind controlled? 

M.: What do you call ‘the mind’? 

D.: When I sit down to think of God, thoughts wander away to other objects. I want to control those thoughts. 

M.: In the Bhagavad Gita it is said that it is the nature of the mind to wander. One must bring one’s thoughts to bear on God. 

By long practice the mind is controlled and made steady.

 The wavering of the mind is a weakness arising from the dissipation of its energy in the shape of thoughts.

 When one makes the mind stick to one thought the energy is conserved, and the mind becomes stronger. 

D.: What is the meaning of the strength of the mind? 

M.: Its ability to concentrate on one thought without being distracted. 

D.: How is that achieved? 

M.: By practice. 

A devotee concentrates on God. 

A seeker, follower of the jnana-marga, seeks the Self. 

The practice is equally difficult for both. 

D.: Even if the mind is brought to bear on the search for the Self, after a long struggle the mind begins to elude him and the man is not aware of the mischief until after some time. 

M.: So it would be. In the earlier stages the mind reverts to the search at long intervals; with continued practice it reverts at shorter intervals. 

Until finally it does not wander at all.

 It is then that the dormant sakti manifests. 

The satvic mind is free from thoughts 

whereas the rajasic mind is full of them. 

The sattvic mind resolves itself into the Life-current. 

D.: Can one keep the mind away from entering into the phase of thoughts before one experiences the current? 

M.: Yes; the current is pre-existent.

....

Talk 95. 

A question was raised as follows by Maj. A. W. Chadwick:- Mr. Edward Carpenter, a certain mystic, has written in a book that he had Self-Realisation on some occasions and that its effects lasted sometimes afterwards, only to be gradually lost.

 Whereas Sri Ramana Gita says, “Granthi (knot = bondage), snapped once, is snapped for ever.” In the case of this mystic, the bondage seems to have persisted even after Self-Realisation. How can it be so? 

The Master cited Kaivalya as follows:- 

The disciple, after realising the all-shining, unitary, unbroken state of Being-Knowledge-Bliss, surrendered himself to the master and humbly prayed to know how he could repay the master’s Grace. 

The Master said: “My reward consists in your permanent unbroken Bliss. Do not slip away from it.”

....

D.: Having once experienced the Supreme Bliss, how can one stray away from it? 

M.: Oh yes! It happens. The predisposition adhering to him from time immemorial will draw him out and so ignorance overtakes him. 

D.: What are the obstacles to remaining steady in unbroken Bliss? How can they be overcome? 

M.: The obstacles are: 

(1) Ignorance which is forgetfulness of one’s pure being. 

(2) Doubt which consists in wondering if even the experience was of the Real or of the unreal. 

(3) Error which consists in the “I-am-the-body” idea, and thinking that the world is real. 

These are overcome by hearing the truth, reflection on it and concentration. 

The Master continued: 

Experience is said to be temporary or permanent. The first experience is temporary and by concentration it can become permanent. In the former the bondage is not completely destroyed; it remains subtle and reasserts itself in due course. But in the latter it is destroyed root and branch, never to appear again.

 The expression yogabhrashta (those who have fallen down from yoga) in Srimad Bhagavad Gita refers to the former class of men.

...

D.: Is then hearing the Truth meant only for a limited few?

 M.: It is of two kinds. 

The ordinary one is to hear it enunciated and explained by a master. 

However, the right one is to raise the question for oneself and seek and find the answer in oneself as the unbroken ‘I-I’. 

To be reflecting on this experience is the second stage. 

To remain one-pointed in it is the third stage.

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.........

D.: Can the temporary experience be called samadhi? 

M.: No. It forms part of the third stage. 

......

Kritopasaka

D.: It looks then as if even hearing the Truth is limited to a very few. 

M.: The seekers fall into two classes; 

kritopasaka and akritopasaka.

The former having already overcome his predisposition by steady devotion, his mind thus made pure, has had some kind of experience but does not comprehend it; as soon as he is instructed by a competent master, permanent experience results. 

The other class of seeker needs great effort to achieve this end. 

How will the hearing of the Truth, reflection and concentration help him? 

They comprise upasana (the nearest approach to Truth) and will end in his Self-Realization. 

The fourth stage is the final one of liberation. 

Even there some distinction is made according to the degree, as 

(1) the knower of the Brahman (Brahmavid) 

(2) Brahmavid-vara

 (3) Brahmavid-varya 

(4) Brahmavid-varishta 

But all of them are in fact liberated even while alive.

.............

Talk 96. 

Maj. A. W. Chadwick: Of what nature is the realisation of Westerners who relate that they have had flashes of cosmic consciousness?

 M.: It came as a flash and disappeared as such. That which has a beginning must also end. Only when the ever-present consciousness is realised will it be permanent. Consciousness is indeed always with us. Everyone knows ‘I am!’ No one can deny his own being. The man in deep slumber is not aware; while awake he seems to be aware. But it is the same person. There is no change in the one who slept and the one who is now awake. In deep sleep he was not aware of his body; there was no body-consciousness. In the wakeful state he is aware of his body; there is body-consciousness. Therefore the difference lies in the emergence of body-consciousness and not in any change in the Real Consciousness. The body and body-consciousness arise together and sink together. All this amounts to saying that there are no limitations in deep sleep, whereas there are limitations in the waking state. 

These limitations are the bondage; the feeling ‘The body is I’ is the error. 

This false sense of ‘I’ must go. 

The real ‘I’ is always there. It is here and now. It never appears anew and disappears again. That which is must also persist for ever. That which appears anew will also be lost. Compare deep sleep and waking. The body appears in one state but not in the other. Therefore the body will be lost. 

The consciousness was pre-existent and will survive the body. In fact, there is no one who does not say ‘I am’. 

The wrong knowledge of ‘I am the body’ is the cause of all the mischief. 

This wrong knowledge must go. That is Realisation. 

Realisation is not acquisition of anything new nor it is a new faculty. 

It is only removal of all camouflage.

Maj. Chadwick: I try to shake off the body.

 M.: A man shakes off his clothes and remains alone and free. 

The Self is unlimited and is not confined to the body. How can the body be shaken off? Where will he leave it?

 Wherever it is, it is his still.

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M.: The ultimate Truth is so simple. 

It is nothing more than being in the pristine state. 

This is all that need be said. 

Still, it is a wonder that to teach this simple Truth there should come into being so many religions, creeds, methods and disputes among them and so on! Oh the pity! Oh the pity!

Maj. Chadwick: But people will not be content with simplicity; they want complexity.

 M.: Quite so. Because they want something elaborate and attractive and puzzling, 

so many religions have come into existence and each of them is so complex and each creed in each religion has its own adherents and antagonists. 

For example, an ordinary Christian will not be satisfied unless he is told that God is somewhere in the far-off Heavens not to be reached by us unaided. Christ alone knew Him and Christ alone can guide us. Worship Christ and be saved. 

If told the simple truth - “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you” - he is not satisfied and will read complex and far-fetched meanings in such statements. 

Mature minds alone can grasp the simple Truth in all its nakedness. 

Maj. Chadwick later expressed a certain involuntary fear while meditating. He feels the spirit separated from the gross body and the sensation creates a fright.

M.: To whom is the fright? It is all due to the habit of identifying the body with the Self. Repeated experience of separation will make one familiar and the fright will cease.

...........

One Mr. Ramachandar, a gentleman from Ambala, asked where the Heart is and what Realisation is.

 M.: The Heart is not physical; it is spiritual. Hridayam = hrit + ayam - This is the centre. It is that from which thoughts arise, on which they subsist and where they are resolved. The thoughts are the content of the mind and, they shape the universe. The Heart is the centre of all. Yatova imani bhutani jayante (that from which

these beings come into existence) etc. is said to be Brahman in the Upanishads. That is the Heart. Brahman is the Heart. 

D.: How to realise the Heart? 

M.: There is no one who even for a trice fails to experience the Self. For no one admits that he ever stands apart from the Self. He is the Self. The Self is the Heart.

.........

M.: In deep sleep you exist; awake, you remain. The same Self is in both states. The difference is only in the awareness and the non awareness of the world. The world rises with the mind and sets with the mind. That which rises and sets is not the Self. 

The Self is different, giving rise to the mind, sustaining it and resolving it. So the Self is the underlying principle. When asked who you are, you place your hand on the right side of the breast and say ‘I am’. There you involuntarily point out the Self. The Self is thus known. But the individual is miserable because he confounds the mind and the body with the Self. 

This confusion is due to wrong knowledge.

 Elimination of wrong knowledge is alone needed. 

Such elimination results in Realisation.

.........

D.: How to control the mind?

 M.: What is mind? Whose is the mind? 

D.: Mind always wanders. I cannot control it.

 M.: It is the nature of the mind to wander. You are not the mind. The mind springs up and sinks down. It is impermanent, transitory, whereas you are eternal. 

There is nothing but the Self. 

To inhere in the Self is the thing.

 Never mind the mind. 

If its source is sought, it will vanish leaving the Self unaffected.

D.: So one need not seek to control the mind? 

M.: There is no mind to control if you realise the Self. 

The mind vanishing, the Self shines forth.

 In the realised man the mind may be active or inactive, the Self alone remains for him.

 For the mind, the body and the world are not separate from the Self. They rise from and sink into the Self. They do not remain apart from the Self. Can they be different from the Self? Only be aware of the Self. Why worry about these shadows? How do they affect the Self?

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