https://selfdefinition.org/ramana/Ramana-Maharshi-Day-by-Day-with-Bhagavan.pdf
281 cont/repeated from dd5
Visitor: Will gayatri help?
Bhagavan: What is gayatri? It really means: “Let me concentrate on that which illumines all.”
Dhyana really means only concentrating or fixing the mind on the object of dhyana.
But meditation is our real nature.
If we give up other thoughts what remains is ‘I’ and its nature is dhyana or meditation or jnana, whichever we choose to call it.
What is at one time the means later becomes the end.
Unless meditation or dhyana were the nature of the Self it could not take you to the Self.
If the means were not of the nature of the goal, it could not bring you to the goal.
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281
In the afternoon the following two questions were put by Mr. Bhargava, an elderly visitor from Jhansi in U.P.: (1) How am I to search for the ‘I’ from start to finish? (2) When I meditate I reach a stage where there is a vacuum or void. How should I proceed from there?
Bhagavan: Never mind whether there are visions or sounds or anything else or whether there is a void.
Are you present during all this or are you not?
You must have been there even during the void to be able to say that you experienced a void.
To be fixed in that ‘you’ is the quest for the ‘I’ from start to finish.
In all books on Vedanta you will find this question of a void or of nothing being left, raised by the disciple and answered by the Guru.
It is the mind that sees objects and has experiences and that finds a void when it ceases to see and experience, but that is not ‘you’.
You are the constant illumination that lights up both the experiences and the void.
It is like the theatre light that enables you to see the theatre, the actors and the play while the play is going on but also remains alight and enables you to say that there is no play on when it is all finished.
Or there is another illustration. We see objects all around us, but in complete darkness we do not see them and we say, ‘I see nothing’; even then the eyes are there to say that they see nothing. In the same way, you are there even in the void you mention. You are the witness of the three bodies: the gross, the subtle and the causal, and of the three states: waking, dream and deep sleep, and of the three times: past, present and future, and also of this void.
In the story of the tenth man, when each of the ten counted and thought there were only nine, each one forgetting to count himself, there is a stage when they think one is missing and don’t know who it is; and that corresponds to the void. We are so accustomed to the notion that all that we see around us is permanent and that we are this body, that when all this ceases to exist we imagine and fear that we also have ceased to exist.
Bhagavan also quoted verses 212 and 213 from Vivekachudamani, in which the disciple says:
“After I eliminate the five sheaths as not-Self, I find that nothing at all remains.”
The Guru replied that the Self or That by which all modifications (including the ego and its creatures) and their absence (that is the void) are perceived is always there.
Then Bhagavan continued speaking on the subject and said:
“The nature of the Self or ‘I’ must be illumination.
You perceive all modifications and their absence. How? To say that you get the illumination from another would raise the question how he got it and there would be no end to the chain of reasoning. So you yourself are the illumination. The usual illustration of this is the following: You make all kinds of sweets of various ingredients and in various shapes and they all taste sweet because there is sugar in all of them and sweetness is the nature of sugar. And in the same way all experiences and the absence of them contain the illumination which is the nature of the Self. Without the Self they cannot be experienced, just as without sugar not one of the articles you make can taste sweet.”
A little later Bhagavan also said:
“Initially, one sees the Self as objects.
Then, one sees the Self as void.
Then, one sees the Self as Self.
Only in this last, there is no seeing because seeing is being.”
Mr. Bhargava also said something about sleep, and this led Bhagavan to speak about sleep as follows:
“What is required is to remain fixed in the Self always.
The obstacles to that are distraction by the things of the world (including sense objects, desires and tendencies) on the one hand, and sleep on the other.
Sleep is always mentioned in books as the first obstacle to samadhi and various methods are prescribed for overcoming it according to the stage of evolution of the person concerned.
First, one is enjoined to give up all distraction by the world and its objects or by sleep.
But then it is said, for instance in the Gita, that one need not give up sleep entirely.
Too much and too little are alike undesirable. One should not sleep at all during the daytime and even during the night restrict sleep to the middle portion, from about ten to two. But another method that is prescribed is not to bother about sleep at all.
When it overtakes you, you can do nothing about it, so simply remain fixed in the Self or in meditation every moment of your waking life and take up the meditation again the moment you wake, and that will be enough.
Then even during sleep the same current of thought or meditation will be working. This is evident because if a man goes to sleep with any strong thought working in his mind he finds the same thought there when he wakes.
It is of the man who does this with meditation that it is said that even his sleep is samadhi.
A good way to reduce the amount of sleep needed is to take only sattvic food and that in moderation and to avoid work or activity of any kind.”
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Thereupon his brother said, “Bhagavan was pleased to send his blessings when the institute was opened.” After that he added, “I find it difficult to believe in a personal God. In fact I find it impossible. But I can believe in an impersonal God, a Divine Force which rules and guides the world, and it would be a great help to me, even in my work of healing, if this faith were increased. May I know how to increase this faith?”
After a slight pause Bhagavan replied,
“Faith is in things unknown. But the Self is self-evident.
Even the greatest egoist cannot deny his own existence, that is to say, cannot deny the Self.
You can call the ultimate Reality by whatever name you like and say that you have faith in it or love for it, but who is there who will not have faith in his own existence or love for himself? That is because faith and love are our real nature.”
A little later Ramamurti asked,
“That which rises as ‘I’ within us is the Self, is it not?”
Bhagavan: No. It is the ego that rises as ‘I’. That from which it arises is the Self.
.......
Ramamurti: They speak of a lower and a higher atma.
Bhagavan: There is no such thing as lower or higher in atma. Lower and higher apply to the forms, not to the Self or atma.
.......
Bhagavan: It may be because of past practices of yours. But in any case it is immaterial on which centre you concentrate since the real heart is in every centre and even outside the body. On whatever part of the body you may concentrate or on whatever external object, the heart is there.
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24-7-46
Bhargava: What is awareness and how can one obtain and cultivate it?
Bhagavan: You are awareness. Awareness is another name for you. Since you are awareness there is no need to attain or cultivate it.
This was obviously a bit too much for Bhargava and he was wondering how it was an answer to his question, but Bhagavan came to his help by adding:
All that you have to do is to give up being aware of other things, that is of the not-Self. If one gives up being aware of them then pure awareness alone remains, and that is the Self.”
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298
“Concentrating one’s thoughts solely on the Self will lead to happiness or bliss.
Drawing in the thoughts, restraining them and preventing them from going outwards is called vairagya.
Fixing them in the Self is sadhana or abhyasa.
Concentrating on the Heart is the same as concentrating on the Self.
The Heart is another name for the Self.”
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301
This morning, a number of Gujrati visitors arrived here, evidently returning from Pondicherry, after darshan there on the 15th. One of them asked Bhagavan, “What is meant by Self-realisation? Materialists say there is no such thing as God or Self.”
Bhagavan said,
“Never mind what the materialists or others say; and don’t bother about Self or God. Do you exist or not? What is your idea of yourself? What do you mean by ‘I’?”
The visitor said he did not understand by ‘I’ his body, but something within his body.
Thereupon, Bhagavan continued,
“You concede ‘I’ is not the body but something within it. See then from whence the ‘I’ arises within the body. See whether it arises and disappears, or is always present.
You will admit there is an ‘I’ which emerges as soon as you wake up, sees the body, the world and all else, and ceases to exist when you sleep; and that there is another ‘I’ which exists apart from the body, independently of it, and which alone is with you when the body and the world do not exist for you, as for instance in sleep.
Then ask yourself if you are not the same ‘I’ during sleep and during the other states. Are there two ‘I’s?
You are the same one person always. Now, which can be real, the ‘I’ which comes and goes,
or the ‘I’ which always abides?
Then you will know that you are the Self.
This is called Self-realisation.
Self realisation is not however a state which is foreign to you, which is far from you, and which has to be reached by you. You are always in that state.
You forget it, and identify yourself with the mind and its creation.
To cease to identify yourself with the mind is all that is required.
We have so long identified ourselves with the not-Self that we find it difficult to regard ourselves as the Self.
Giving up this identification with the not-Self is all that is meant by Self-realisation.
How to realise, i.e., make real, the Self? We have realised, i.e., regarded as real, what is unreal, the not-Self.
To give up such false realisation is Self-realisation.”
In the evening, after parayana, a visitor asked Bhagavan,
“How to control the wandering mind?” He prefaced the question with the remark, “I want to ask Bhagavan a question which is troubling me.”
Bhagavan replied, after laughing,
“This is nothing peculiar to you. This is the question which is always asked by everybody and which is dealt with in all the books like the Gita.
What way is there, except to draw in the mind as often as it strays or goes outward, and to fix it in the Self, as the Gita advises?
Of course, it won’t be easy to do it. It will come only with practice or sadhana.”
The visitor said, “The mind goes after only what it desires and won’t get fixed on the object we set before it.”
Bhagavan said,
“Everybody will go after only what gives happiness to him. Thinking that happiness comes from some object or other, you go after it. See from whence all happiness, including the happiness you regard as coming from sense objects, really comes. You will understand all happiness comes only from the Self, and then you will always abide in the Self.”
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