https://selfdefinition.org/ramana/Ramana-Maharshi-Day-by-Day-with-Bhagavan.pdf
405 pdf pages A Mudaliar 1942 to 1946
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5/405
.......As for reading books on Vedanta, you may go on reading any number of them. They can only tell you, ‘Realise the Self within you’. The Self cannot be found in books. You have to find it out for yourself, in yourself.
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Bury your shadow:
Almost the same question was put by another visitor in the afternoon and Bhagavan said, “Where can you go, fleeing from the world or objects? They are like the shadow of a man, which the man cannot flee from. There is a funny story of a man who wanted to bury his shadow. He dug a deep pit and, seeing his shadow at the bottom, was glad he could bury it so deep. He went on filling the pit and when he had completely filled it up he was surprised and disappointed to find the shadow on top. Even so, the objects or thoughts of them will be with you always, till you realise the Self.”
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Mad after Hari.. Tulsidas:
On or about 15-3-45 Bhagavan had asked someone in the hall to read aloud Bhakta Vijayam, to illustrate from the story of Tulasi Das, how one totally immersed in sensual life, suddenly recoils and goes to the other extreme of a highly religious life. In the story, Tulasi Das runs away from wife and home and is mad after Hari at Banaras. The wife and mother go and entreat him to come back, reminding him of his great love for them all. He takes no notice of them at all, but asks them, “Has my Hari come? Yes. He is coming there!” etc.
He was mad after Hari alone and took interest in nothing else.
When this portion was being read out, Bhagavan said, “I was somewhat like this at Madura. Going to school, books in hand, I would be eagerly desiring and expecting that God would suddenly appear before me in the sky; and so I would be looking up at the sky. What sort of progress could such a one make in his studies at school!”
[This was apparently shortly before he left Madura. I have never heard before, either from Bhagavan or from others, that he was so God-mad at Madura. So I record it here.]
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B.: All that is meant is that the seen regarded as an independent entity, independent of the Self, is unreal. The seen is not different from the seer. What exists is the one Self, not a seer and a seen. The seen regarded as the Self is real.
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V.: It is said only some are chosen for Self-realisation and those alone could get it. It is rather discouraging.
B.: All that is meant is, we cannot by our own buddhi, unaided by God’s grace, achieve realisation of Self. I added, “Bhagavan also says that even that grace does not come arbitrarily, but because one deserves it by one’s own efforts either in this or in previous lives.”
V.: Human effort is declared to be useless. What incentive can any man then have to better himself? I asked, “Where is it said you should make no effort or that your effort is useless?” The visitor thereupon showed the portion in Who am I? where it is said, “When there is one great Force looking after all the world, why should we bother what we shall do?” I pointed out that what is deprecated there is not human effort, but the feeling that “I am the doer”. Bhagavan approved of my explanation, when I asked him if it was not so.
...
I therefore asked Bhagavan about this matter, and he said, “If the jnani can have a waking state, what is the difficulty about his having a dream state? But of course as his waking state is different from the ordinary man’s waking state, so his dream state also will be different from the ordinary man’s dream state. Whether in waking or in dream he will not slip from his real state which is sometimes called the fourth or turiya state.”
..
Bhagavan said, “Because Brahma jnana is not something external, which is somewhere far away where you can go and get it, you cannot say that it will take so long or so short a time to attain it. It is always with you. You are That!
The story of Ashtavakra Gita is intended to teach that for getting Brahma jnana all that is necessary is to surrender yourself completely to the guru,
to surrender your notion of ‘I’ and ‘mine’.
If these are surrendered, what remains is the Reality.
Then, it becomes impossible to state what further time it would take to attain Brahma jnana. It would be wrong to state that it takes as much time as a man would require to put his other foot into the second stirrup after having placed one foot in the first stirrup. The moment when ego is completely surrendered, the Self shines.”
Proceeding, Bhagavan quoted the last two lines of the following stanza from Yoga Vasishta:
which state that unless the cloud of the ‘I’ or ‘ego-sense’ which covers the moon of the Divine consciousness (chidakasa) is removed,
the lily of the heart which knows nothing of the sense of ‘I’ (ahankara) will not open out in full bloom
Bhagavan also added,
“We have to contend against age-long sanskaras. They will all go.
Only, they go comparatively soon in the case of those who have already made sadhana in the past, and late in the case of the others.”
In this connection I asked, “Do these samskaras go gradually or will they suddenly disappear one day? I ask this, because though I have remained fairly long here I do not perceive any gradual change in me.” Bhagavan asked, “When the sun rises, does the darkness go gradually or all at once?”
21
Three or four days ago Mr. Desai, Retired Sub-Judge, asked Bhagavan (with reference to what is said in Ramana Gita),
Q:
“How to direct the prana or life-current into the sushumna nadi, so that as stated in Ramana Gita we could achieve the severance of the chit-jada granthi?”
Bhagavan said,
“By enquiring ‘Who am I?’”
“The yogi may be definitely aiming at rousing the kundalini and sending it up the sushumna.
The jnani may not be having this as his object.
But both achieve the same result, that of sending the Life-force up the sushumna and severing the chit-jada granthi.
Kundalini is only another name for atma or Self or sakti.
We talk of it as being inside the body, because we conceive ourselves as limited by this body.
But it is in reality both inside and outside, being no other than Self or the sakti of Self.”
.........
Desai: How to churn up the nadis, so that the kundalini may go up the sushumna?
Bhagvan: Though the yogi may have his methods of breath-control, pranayama, mudras, etc., for this object, the jnani’s method is only that of enquiry.
When by this method the mind is merged in the Self, the Self, its sakti or kundalini, rises automatically.
.......
The next day a visitor asked Bhagavan, with reference to the words dhimahi in the gayatri, “What is the idea meant? I am not able rightly to grasp it.”
B: The words only mean fixing the aham in the Self, though literally they mean, “We meditate”.
Visitor: I am not able to form a conception of the ‘Tat’ or the Self. Then, how am I to fix the aham in the Tat.
B: Why should you bother to conceive the Tat which you don’t know? Try to find out the ‘I’ that you know, what it is and whence it arises. That is enough.
.......
22
V: All books say that the guidance of a Guru is necessary.
B: The Guru will say only what I am saying now.
He will not give you anything you have not already.
It is impossible for anyone to get what he has not got already.
Even if he gets any such thing, it will go as it came. What comes will also go. What always is will alone remain.
The Guru cannot give you anything new, which you have not already.
Removal of the notion that we have not realised the Self is all that is required.
We are always the Self. Only, we don’t realise it.
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30
Visitor: Sometimes I hear internal sounds. What should I do when such things happen?
Bhagavan: Whatever may happen, keep up the enquiry into the Self, asking ‘Who hears these sounds?’ till the reality is reached.
.......32
Bhagavan: Your real nature is always there.
Your meditation, etc., come only temporarily.
Reality being your Self, there is nothing for you to realise.
All that is required is that you should give up regarding the unreal as real, which is what all are doing.
The object of all meditation, dhyana or japa is only that, to give up all thoughts regarding the non-Self, to give up many thoughts and to keep to the one thought.
As for sadhana, there are many methods. You may do vichara, asking yourself ‘Who am I?’ .
If that does not appeal to you, you may do dhyana ‘I am Brahman’ or otherwise.
Or you may concentrate on a mantra or name in japa.
The object is to make the mind one-pointed,
to concentrate it on one thought and thus exclude our many thoughts,
and if we do this, eventually even the one thought will go and the mind will get extinguished in its source.
Sam: 1 Who am I?
2 I am Bramha
3 Japa
Objective: mind will get extinguished in its source.
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Visitor: In actual practice I find I am not able to succeed in my efforts. Unless Bhagavan’s grace descends on me I cannot succeed.
Bhagavan:
Guru’s Grace is always there.
You imagine it is something, somewhere high up in the sky, far away, and has to descend.
It is really inside you, in your heart.
The moment (by any of the methods),
you effect subsidence or merger of the mind into its source,
the Grace rushes forth,
spouting as from a spring,
from within you.
........
Another visitor asked, “What is the reality of this world?”
Bhagavan: If you know your reality first, you will be able to know the reality of the world.
It is a strange thing that most people do not care to know about their own reality, but are very anxious to know about the reality of the world.
You realise your own Self first and then see if the world exists independently of you and is able to come and assert before you its reality or existence.
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87
Later he asked Bhagavan, “While all say Guru’s direction is necessary it seems Bhagavan has said a Guru is not necessary.”
Bhagavan: I have not said so. But a Guru need not always be in human form.
First a person thinks he is an inferior and that there is a superior, all-knowing and all-powerful God who controls his own and the world’s destiny, and worships him or does bhakti.
When he reaches a certain stage and becomes fit for enlightenment, the same God whom he was worshipping comes as Guru and leads him on.
That Guru comes only to tell him. ‘The God is within yourself. Dive within and realise.’
God, Guru and the Self are the same.
.......Aurobindo called Ramana , a spiritual Hercules
Roy: I once asked my Gurudev (i.e. Sri Aurobindo) about this and he said, ‘A spiritual Hercules like Bhagavan needs no Guru’.
Bhagavan: Everything in the world was my Guru. Don’t you know that Dattatreya, when he was asked by the king which Guru had taught him the secret of bliss, replied that the earth, water, fire, animals, men etc. all were his Gurus and went on explaining how some of these taught him to cling to what was good and others taught him what things he should avoid as bad.
....
Q: “What is the best way of killing the ego?”
Bhagavan:
To each person that way is the best which appears easiest or appeals most. All the ways are equally good, as they lead to the same goal, which is the merging of the ego in the Self.
What the bhakta calls surrender, the man who does vichara calls jnana.
Both are trying only to take the ego back to the source from which it sprang and make it merge there.
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........“All of you come and complain to me. To whom am I to go and complain?”
This is quite consistent with his teaching, that there is nothing but the Self and that he is That!
.......
Bhagavan said, “To ask the mind to kill the mind is like making the thief the policeman. He will go with you and pretend to catch the thief, but nothing will be gained.
So you must turn inward and see where the mind rises from.
Then it will cease to exist.”
......
“Of course we are employing the mind. It is well known and admitted that only with the help of the mind the mind has to be killed. But instead of setting about saying there is a mind, and I want to kill it,
you begin to seek the source of the mind, and you find the mind does not exist at all.
The mind, turned outwards, results in thoughts and objects.
Turned inwards, it becomes itself the Self.
Such a mind is sometimes called Arupa mana or Shuddha mana.”
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41
Bhagavan:
The thing is to kill the mind somehow.
Those who do not have the strength to follow the enquiry method are advised pranayama as a help to control the mind. And pranayama is of two kinds, one of controlling and regulating the breath and the other of simply watching the breath.
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Visitor: When ahankar goes, will aham vritti exist?
Bhagavan: That which is, always is.
If the ahankar dies, then 'It', the Reality,
exists as It has always existed.
You may speak of It as having aham vritti or simply aham. It is all the same. That which exists is ‘I am’ or ‘aham’.
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44
........Bhagavan said they are all described in books, such as the Bhagavad Gita, but that we must bear in mind that the jnani’s state being one which transcends the mind cannot be described with the help merely of the mind and that all description therefore must be defective. Only silence can correctly describe their state or characteristics. But silence is more effective than speech. From silence came thought, from thought the ego and from the ego speech. So if speech is effective, how much more effective must its original source be?
.......
46
Bhagavan said that instead of holding on to that which exists, we are looking for that which does not. We bother about the past and the future, not realising the truth of the present.
....
...(i.e. If we scrutinise all the religions which look so different, we find nothing discrepant at all in them, but they are only your (Lord’s) sport.
They all end in quiescence or mauna, as rivers merge in the sea)
In this connection Bhagavan also said, when one talks of brahmakara vritti for the mind, it is something like saying samudrakara nadi, about the river which has merged in the ocean.
.........
Following Bhagavan’s quotation from the Gita, Rishikesananda referred to a verse from Mandukya Upanishad in which the words adi and anta occur.
Bhagavan took it out and explained the text, which says:
“That which was not in the beginning and which won’t be at the end, but which is only in the middle, can’t be real. Only that can be real which is not only in the middle, but also at the beginning and the end”.
Dr. Srinivasa Rao asked Bhagavan, “When we enquire within ‘who am I?’ what is that?”
Bhagavan: It is the ego. It is only that which makes the vichara also. The Self has no vichara. That which makes the enquiry is the ego. The ‘I’ about which the enquiry is made is also the ego. As the result of the enquiry the ego ceases to exist and only the Self is found to exist.
....
I asked Bhagavan, “It seems this morning Rishikesananda quoted some text which says wherever the mind goes, that is samadhi. How can that be? Our mind goes after whatever it likes. Can that be samadhi?”
Bhagavan: That passage refers to jnanis. Whatever they may be doing, there is no break in their samadhi state. Their bodies may be engaged in whatever activities they were intended by prarabdha to go through. But they are always in the Self.
We associate or identify ourselves with the body; whatever it does, we say we do. The Bhagavad Gita says, ‘The wise man will think the senses move among the sense objects and be unattached to the activities of the sense organs.’ I would go farther and say that the jnani does not think even that. He is the Self and sees nothing apart from himself.
What the Bhagavad Gita says in the above passage is for the abhyasi or the practiser. There is no harm in engaging in whatever activities naturally come to one. The hindrance or bondage is in imagining that we are the doers and attaching ourselves to the fruits of such activities. In this connection Bhagavan also said,
“A man says ‘I came from Madras’. But in reality ‘he’ did not come. The jutka or some other vehicle brought him from his house to the railway station, the train brought him to Tiruvannamalai railway station, and from there some other cart brought him here. But he says ‘I came’. This is how we identify ourselves with the acts of the body and the senses.”
Bhagavan also quoted from the Vedanta Chudamani to the effect that the activities of the jnani are all samadhi,
i.e. he is always in his real state, whatever his body may happen to be doing.
Bhagavan also referred to Rajeswarananda and said that once he planned to take a big party of pilgrims with Bhagavan in their midst.
Bhagavan said, “I did not consent to go and the thing had to be dropped. What is there I could go and see? I see nothing. What is the use of my going anywhere?”
(“TôojRôp Iußm ùR¬¡\§p~”) This is one of those self-revealing statements, which sometimes escape Bhagavan’s lips. The following remarks were also made by Bhagavan this night:
“The jnani sees he is the Self and it is on that Self as the screen that the various cinema-pictures of what is called the world pass.
He remains unaffected by the shadows which play on the surface of that screen.
“See with the physical eye, and you see the world.
See with the eye of realisation, and everything appears as the Self.
“To see an object that is in the dark, both the eye and the light of a lamp are required. To see the light only, the eye is enough. But to see the sun, there is no need of any other light. Even if you take the lamp with you, its light will be drowned in the light of the sun.
Our intellect or buddhi is of no use to realise the Self.
To see the world or external objects, the mind and the reflected light (or chidabhasa) which always arises with it are necessary.
To see the Self, the mind has simply to be turned inside and there is no need of the reflected light.
“If we concentrate on any thought and go to sleep in that state, immediately on waking the same thought will continue in our mind. People who are given chloroform are asked to count one, two, etc. A man who goes under after saying six for instance will, when he again comes to, start saying seven, eight, etc.
“In some books, the ego is compared to a leech; before leaving one body it takes hold of another.”
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