Talks-
So long as there is individuality, one is the enjoyer and doer.
But when individuality is given up, the Divine Will prevails and guides the course of events.
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D.: No. But still, I want to know how the Self could be realised. Is there any method leading to it?
M.: Make effort. Just as water is got by boring a well, so also you realise the Self by investigation.
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D.: Yes. But some find water readily and others with difficulty.
M.: But you already see the moisture on the surface. You are hazily aware of the Self. Pursue it. When the effort ceases the Self shines forth.
D.: How to train the mind to look within?
M.: By practice. The mind is the intelligent phase leading to its own destruction, for Self to manifest.
D.: How to destroy the mind?
M.: Water cannot be made dry water. Seek the Self; the mind will be destroyed.
The wrong knowledge consists in the false identification of the Self with the body, the mind, etc.
This false identity must go and there remains the Self.
D.: But there should be the experience. Unless I have the experience how can I be free from these afflicting thoughts?
M.: These are also in the mind. They are there because you have identified yourself with the body. If this false identity drops away, ignorance vanishes and Truth is revealed.
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https://selfdefinition.org/ramana/Talks-with-Sri-Ramana-Maharshi--complete.pdf
D.: How is realisation made possible?
M.: There is the absolute Self from which a spark proceeds as from fire. The spark is called the ego.
In the case of an ignorant man it identifies itself with an object simultaneously with its rise.
It cannot remain independent of such an association with objects.
This association is ajnana or ignorance, whose destruction is the objective of our efforts.
If its objectifying tendency is killed it remains pure, and also merges into the source.
The wrong identification with the body is dehatmabuddhi (‘I-am-the-body’ idea).
This must go before good results follow.
Realise this interval with the conviction gained by the study of avasthatraya (the three states of consciousness).
When Aham represents the Self only it is Aham Sphurana.
This is natural to the Jnani and is itself called jnana by jnanis,
or bhakti by bhaktas.
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If the transitional ‘I’ be realised the substratum is found and that leads to the goal.
Therefore the pure ‘I’ of the transitional stage must be held for the experience of the Prajnanaghana.
The ‘I’ of the waking state is impure and is not useful for such experience.
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Hence the use of the transitional ‘I’ or the pure ‘I’. How is this pure ‘I’ to be realised?
Viveka Chudamani says, Vijnana kose vilasatyajasram
(He is always shining forth in the intellectual sheath, vijnana kosa).
Tripura Rahasya and other works point out that the interval between two consecutive sankalpas (ideas or thoughts) represent the pure aham (‘I’).
Therefore holding on to the pure ‘I’, one should have the Prajnanaghana for aim, and there is the vritti present in the attempt.
All these have their proper and respective places and at the same time lead to realisation.
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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.
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D.: Is loss of body-consciousness a pre-requisite 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.
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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.
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D.: Yes, it is so.
M.: That means that the conviction is weak.
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Talk 465.
Sri Bhagavan explained to a retired Judge of the High Court some points in the Upadesa Saram as follows:-
(1) Meditation should remain unbroken as a current. If unbroken it is called samadhi or Kundalini
sakti.
(2) The mind may be latent and merge in the Self; it will rise up again; after it rises up one finds oneself only as ever before.
For in this state the mental predispositions are present there in latent form to re-manifest under favourable conditions.
(3) Again the mind activities can be completely destroyed. This differs from the former mind, for here the attachment is lost, never to reappear. Even though the man sees the world after he has been in the samadhi state, the world will be taken only at its worth, that is to say it is the phenomenon of the One Reality.
The True Being can be realised only in samadhi; what was then is also now.
Otherwise it cannot be Reality or Ever-present Being.
What was in samadhi is here and now too. Hold it and it is your natural condition of Being.
Samadhi practice must lead to it.
Otherwise how can nirvikalpa samadhi be of any use in which a man remains as a log of wood?
He must necessarily rise up from it sometime or other and face the world.
But in sahaja samadhi he remains unaffected by the world.
So many pictures pass over the cinema screen: fire burns away everything; water drenches all; but the screen remains unaffected.
The scenes are only phenomena which pass away leaving the screen as it was. Similarly the world phenomena simply pass on before the Jnani, leaving him unaffected. You may say that people find pain or
pleasure in worldly phenomena. It is owing to superimposition. This must not happen. With this end in view practice is made.
Practice lies in one of the two courses: devotion or knowledge.
Even these are not the goals.
Samadhi must be gained.
It must be continuously practised until Sahaja Samadhi results.
Then there remains nothing more to do.
Mr. Vaidyalingam, an employee of the National Bank: By meditation manifestation disappears and then ananda results. It is short-lived. How is it made ever abiding?
M.: By scorching the predispositions.
The Self is eternal and so also its Realisation. In the course of the discourse Sri Bhagavan also made a few points clearer:
Abhyasa consists in withdrawal within the Self every time you are disturbed by thought.
M.: First surrender and see.
The doubts arise because of the absence of surrender.
Acquire strength by surrender and then your surroundings will be found to have improved to the degree of strength acquired by you
This alone is saṁsāra—the feeling ‘This is’. Its cessation is liberation or mokṣa. This is the essence of jñāna or wisdom.
The individual personality is vāsanā or mental conditioning which disappears on investigation.
However, in a state of ignorance when one fails to observe it—this world-appearance arises.
When one is spiritually awakened
and when one lives with his wakeful state resembling deep sleep
—the state is known as svabhāva or self-nature
and this state leads one to liberation.
The self which is the Lord immediately confers mokṣa or final liberation when worshipped with inquiry into the nature of the self,
with self-control and satsaṅga or company of the wise.
On this field known as the mind, the seed known as samādhi, which is turning away from the world—falls of its own accord when one is alone in the forest known as wisdom.
The yogi is then seen to be in a state of continuous and unbroken meditation, firmly established in
adamantine meditation, samādhi or vajra-samādhāna—like a mountain.
If one knows that the self is pure consciousness and not the physical body, then when he dies there is no saṁsāra or world-appearance in his consciousness.
If one’s understanding is not thus purified by right understanding or wisdom—it does not remain without the support of saṁsāra
May my limbs be pulverized or may they become as powerful as Mount Meru.
What is lost and what is gained or increased—when it is realized that I am pure consciousness?
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However well I realize ‘This is not real’, ‘This is not real’ after intense inquiry, the feeling ‘This is’ does not cease.
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To those who know the truth or the supreme state—the states of waking, dream and sleep do not exist at all. Whatever is—is as it is.
Knowledge does not have an object to know.
Knowledge is independent and eternal; it is beyond description and definition.
When this truth is directly realized—there is perfect knowledge.
By awakening, awakening is attained; and the concept of ‘awakening’ is clearly understood.
Of course, all this is comprehensible only to people like you, not to us.
By the realization of the truth that all objects and substances exist in the Self or the infinite consciousness, as perverted notions,
his hold on those substances and vice versa, comes to an end.
The wheel of saṁsāra stops by and by.
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From Annamalai Swami:
If you keep the light on all the time, darkness cannot enter your room. Even if you open the door and invite it to come in, it cannot enter.
Darkness is just an absence of light.
In the same way, mind is just a self- inflicted area of darkness in which the light of the Self has been deliberately shut out.
You live in the darkness by insisting on believing ideas that have no validity,
and you live in the light of the Self when you have given up all ideas,
both good and bad.
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The mind only gets dissolved in the Self by constant practice.
At that moment the ‘I am the body’ idea disappears, just as darkness disappears when the sun rises.
Just as yellow turmeric powder loses its colour and becomes white under sunlight, this wholly mental world perishes before the sunlight of the knowledge of reality.
Therefore, it is not a creation of God, the sun of true jnana. Like the many-hued eye
of the peacock feather, this bright world is only a vast picture, a reflection seen in the darkened mirror of the impure mind.
Bhagavan: If the obstacle of the ego-impurity is destroyed, the creation [srishti] that appeared as the world will become a mere appearance [drishti]. (Padamalai, p. 272, v. 16.)
Pramada
See verse 368 where a similar idea is expressed.
Pramada is another key word in the text.
It denotes the forgetfulness of the Self that arises when one puts one’s attention on anything that is not the Self.
When attention is wholly on the Self, ‘this world, a vast and harmful illusion’ ceases to exist.
The world only comes into an apparent existence when Self-awareness is absent.
Bhagavan: Through forgetfulness the villainous mind will throw away the Self, that which is, and will get agitated.
In the state in which one has known the truth without any pramada, all names and forms are Brahman.
The reason why the state of Brahman has become different from you is nothing other than your deceitful forgetfulness of the Self.
(Padamalai, p. 72, vv. 86, 87, 88)
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This worldly life is a dreamlike appearance, sapless and deluding, that functions through the mixture of the pairs of opposites such as desire and aversion.
It appears as if real only as long as one is under the spell of the maya-sleep.
It will end up being totally false when one truly wakes up into the maya-free Self.
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