dd6
From dd 5 repeated because very imp:
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.
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.
.....................
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.”
................
Sleep, a distraction:
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.
Questioner Rammurti: “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.
.............
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.”
..................292.......
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.”
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.”
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.”
In the direct method, as you call it, by saying ask yourself ‘Who am I?’ you are told to concentrate within yourself where the I-thought (the root of all other thoughts) arises.
As the Self is not outside but inside you, you are asked to dive within, instead of going without, and what can be more easy than going to yourself?
..............
All that we have to do is to give up identifying our Self with the body, with forms and limits, and then we shall know ourselves as the Self that we always are.
“abhyasakale sahajam sthitim prahurupasanam” (Ramana Gita).
(What is sahaja state is known as upasana during practice).
......
“What is obvious, self-evident and most immediate to us, the Self, we say we are not able to see.
On the other hand, we say that what we see with these eyes alone is pratyaksha (direct perception).
There must first be the seer before anything could be seen.
You are yourself the eye that sees.
Yet, you say you don’t know the eye that sees, but know only the things seen.
Bhagavan said,
“There is no goal to be reached. There is nothing to be attained. You are the Self. You exist always. Nothing more can be predicated of the Self than that it exists. Seeing God or the Self is only being the Self or yourself. Seeing is being.
You, being the Self, want to know how to attain the Self.
All that is required of you is to give up the thought that you are this body and to give up all thoughts of the external things or the not-Self.
As often as the mind goes out towards outward objects, prevent it and fix it in the Self or ‘I’.
That is all the effort required on your part.
............
But meditation being our nature, you will find when you realise the Self
that what was once the means is now the goal,
that while once you had to make an effort, now you cannot get away from the Self even if you want.”
No comments:
Post a Comment