https://selfdefinition.org/ramana/Ramana-Maharshi-Day-by-Day-with-Bhagavan.pdf
405 pgs
16-3-45 Mor 6-3-45
Morning A visitor:
Should I give up my business and take to reading books on Vedanta?
Bhagavan: If the objects have an independent existence, i.e., if they exist anywhere apart from you, then it may be possible for you to go away from them. But they don’t exist apart from you; they owe their existence to you, your thought.
So, where can you go, to escape them?
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.
...
Evening
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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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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The main point is, are you prepared when awake to affirm the reality of any of your dream experiences?
Similarly, one who has awakened into jnana cannot affirm the reality of the waking experience. From his viewpoint, the waking state is a dream.
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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.
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I asked Bhagavan what it is that ‘shines’, whether it is the ego or the Self. He said it was neither the one, nor the other, but something in between the two, that it is something which is a combination of the ‘I’ (Self) and the ‘I-thought’ (ego), and that the Self is without even this sphurana.
Explaining how the Self is mere light and how it is both the word or sound and also that out of which word or sound originally came, Bhagavan said, “Man has three bodies, the gross one made of the five elements, the sukshma or subtle one made of manas and prana, and the jiva. Similarly even Iswara has three bodies. All the manifested universe is His gross body, light and sound are His sukshma body, and the Self His jiva.”
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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.
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Bhagavan also added, “We have to contend against age long samskaras. 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?”
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Another visitor asked, “How to conquer passions?”
Bhagavan said, “If the passions are something external to us we can take arms and ammunition and conquer them. They all come from within us.
If, by looking into the source whence they issue, we see that they don’t come out of us, we shall conquer them. It is the world and the objects in it that arouse our passions.
But the world and these objects are only created by our mind. They don’t exist during our sleep.”
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Bhagavan appeared and quoted a Sanskrit sloka and interpreted it as meaning, ‘There is no better karma or bhakti than enquiry into the Self’.
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B: Your thinking that you have to make an effort to get rid of this dream of the waking state and your making efforts to attain jnana or real awakening are all parts of the dream.
When you attain jnana you will see there was neither the dream during sleep, nor the waking state, but only yourself and your real state.
21
Three or four days ago Mr. Desai, Retired Sub-Judge, asked Bhagavan (with reference to what is said in Ramana Gita),
“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?
Bhagavan: 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”.
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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.
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Visitor: What is the method to be adopted for securing peace?
B: The conception that there is a goal and a path to it, is wrong.
We are the goal or peace always.
To get rid of the notion that we are not peace is all that is required.
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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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27
Mr. K. Mahatani asked in continuation of the above,
“If we want to succeed in any enterprise in the world, we must give our whole mind and heart to it. Otherwise we cannot succeed. So it is rather impracticable to devote one’s mind both to God and worldly activity.”
Bhagavan: If one keeps fixed in the Self, the activities will still go on and their success will not be affected.
One should not have the idea that one is the doer. The activities will still go on. That force, by whatever name you may call it, which brought the body into existence will see to it that the activities which this body is meant to go through are brought about.
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29
Bhagavan told Mr. G.V. Subbaramayya practically all that he had told Mr. P.C. Desai before. The gist of it is this:
“Dakshinamurti, i.e., the great Siva himself could not express the truth of the one Reality except by silence.
But that silence could not be understood except by the very advanced.
The others have to be told. And yet how is one to say in words that which God himself could not express? Sankara therefore advises the method of praising Dakshinamurti and with that as the ostensible object really seeks to explain that all is Brahman.
In the first four stanzas he explains the nature of the world, since what prevents our knowing the reality is the world and if its (i.e. world’s) nature is understood, the obstacle in the way of realising truth will be removed.
In the next four stanzas he explains the nature of the jiva.
Then he explains the connection between the two and teaches that all is Self. Trying to explain the scheme and gist of Sankara’s Dakshinamurti Stotra, I wrote the above brief preface.”
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Dakshinamurti stotram
(Salutations to Sri Dakshinamurthy Who Awakens the Glory of the Atman within us through His Profound Silence)
The Entire World is Like a City Seen within a Mirror, the Seeing happening within One's Own Being,
It is a Witnessing happening within the Atman,
(the Witnessing) of the Externally Projected World;
Projected by the Power of Maya; As if a Dream in Sleep, One Experiences this Directly (this Play of Maya) during Spiritual Awakening within the Non-Dual Expanse of One's Own Atman.
Salutations to Him, the Personification of Our Inner Guru Who Awakens This Knowledge through His Profound Silence. Salutation to Sri Dakshinamurthy. [Verse 1]
This World is Like a Sprout of a Seed Within which transforms what is Changeless state Before,
appear Again as Space and Time, and endless Varieties of Pictures over it; all due to the Creation of Maya,
This Unfolding of the World (from the Seed) which is Like a Play of a Magician, happens to one Who is Like a Mahayogi out of His Own Free Will (i.e. a Mahayogi can enter the state of Samadhi out of his own free will and witness the unfolding of the world when He comes out of Samadhi),
Salutations to Him, the Personification of Our Inner Guru Who Awakens This Knowledge through His Profound Silence; Salutation to Sri Dakshinamurthy. [Verse 2]
(Salutations to Sri Dakshinamurthy Who Awakens the Glory of the Atman within us through His Profound Silence) By This Throb Alone which is of the Nature of Eternal Underlying Awareness, the Unreal Forms get their Meanings and Appear over the Mind,
This Knowledge of the Atman Spoken of in the Vedas as "Tat-Tvam-Asi" is Imparted by Our Inner Guru as a Direct Experience when we Surrender Whole-Heartedly to Him,
By Direct Experience of this Knowledge, the Delusion of being tossed within an unending Ocean of Worldly Existence will Not Appear Again,
Salutations to Him, the Personification of Our Inner Guru Who Awakens This Knowledge through His Profound Silence; Salutation to Sri Dakshinamurthy. [Verse 3]
(Salutations to Sri Dakshinamurthy Who Awakens the Glory of the Atman within us through His Profound Silence) As the Light of a Great Lamp Situated Inside a Pitcher having Many Holes, Shine Outwards, similarly, the Knowledge of That Only (i.e. Atman) Throb Outwards through our Eyes and Other Sense Organs,
"I Know", He Alone Shining (i.e Atman), This Entire World Shines..
Salutations to Him, the Personification of Our Inner Guru Who Awakens This Knowledge through His Profound Silence; Salutation to Sri Dakshinamurthy. [Verse 4]
(Salutations to Sri Dakshinamurthy Who Awakens the Glory of the Atman within us through His Profound Silence)
Those who Consider the Body or Prana (Vital Force) or Sense Organs or the Changing Mind or the Void (Total Non-Existence) as the "I", are Like a Naive Innocent Girl Child.
Or a Blind, or a Dull-Headed.
They are Deluded but they Vehemently Assert their Points.
The Inner Guru Destroys this Great Delusion Created by the Play of the Power of Maya, Salutations to Him, the Personification of Our Inner Guru Who Awakens This Knowledge through His Profound Silence; Salutation to Sri Dakshinamurthy. [Verse 5]
On folding up all the functions of the senses, He who enters into a state of deep-sleep and there becomes existence veiled in maya, like the sun or the moon during eclipse, and who, on waking, remembers to have slept.. To Him, the divine teacher, Sri Dakshinamurthy, is this prostration. [Verse 6]
He, who, through the auspicious sign of knowledge (jnana-mudra), reveals to his devotees His own Self— which persists in all stages of age (childhood, boyhood, youth and old age), in all states (waking, dreaming and deep-sleep) and in all other conditions—and who constantly manifests Himself inwardly as “I”… to Him, the divine teacher, Sri Daksinamurty is the prostration. [Verse 7]
He, who is the Purusa, whirled in maya, sees, in Himself, the world of cause-effect diversely related as possessor and possession, father and son, and as teacher and taught, both in the state of waking and of dreaming;… to Him, the divine teacher, Sri Daksinamurty, is this prostration. [Verse 8]
He, whose eight-fold forms are the “Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Ether, Sun, Moon and Jiva”, and who manifests Himself as this universe of the movable and immovable objects – and besides which, the Supreme all pervading lord, there exists nothing to those who reflect well upon… to Him, the divine teacher, Sri Dakshinamurthy, is this prostration. [Verse 9]
The Knowledge “all-this-atman” (Sarva-atmatvam) has been explained in this hymn and so, by hearing it, by reflecting and meditating upon its meaning and by reciting it, one will attain that divine state, endued with the glory of the all-self-hood, along with the permanent eight-fold holy, powers of Godhood. [Verse 10]
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dd continued 29
A visitor from the Punjab asked Bhagavan, “When I meditate I feel a certain bliss at times. On such occasions, should I ask myself ‘Who is it that experiences this bliss’?”
Bhagavan: If it is the real bliss of the Self that is experienced, i.e., if the mind has merged really in the Self, such a doubt will not arise at all.
The question itself shows real bliss was not reached. All doubts will cease only when the doubter and his source have been found. There is no use removing doubts. If we clear one doubt, another doubt will arise and there will be no end of doubts. But if the doubter is found to be really non-existent, by seeking for the source of the doubter, then all doubts will cease.
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.
A second edition of Sri Ramana, the Sage of Arunagiri by Aksharajna has recently come out. Sampling it here and there, I came across the passage that Bhagavan blesses his disciples in various ways,
the mild by sight,
the middling by thought
and the advanced by touch.
Once when I was reading Kaivalyam in Tamil I asked Bhagavan, “Many books speak of Gurus blessing disciples or giving diksha by touching the head of the disciple with their hands or feet. How is it then Bhagavan never does any such thing?”
Bhagavan then told me, “It is true the books mention the three ways of diksha, viz., by sight, touch and thought.
But diksha by thought is really the best.”
So I asked Bhagavan today about the above passage in Aksharajna’s book, saying, “He also knew Bhagavan well. He must have had some reason for saying so.”
Bhagavan said, “I don’t know,” and added, “I might have touched some by accident or for other reasons, not with the intention of giving diksha.”
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