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Self-attention is the sole aim of all Bhagavan’s teachings. He taught us that self alone exists and is real, and that all else is a dream, a figment of our imagination. He said, ‘Attend to that for which you came’; we came for knowing self and not for learning many theories.
Bhagavan has given us a simple teaching: ‘Your own self-awareness is the only thing that seems to be permanent.
Therefore do research on it alone: attend to it, and cling to it
firmly’. Though this teaching is simple, it is the greatest of all treasures.
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Grace acts by persistently reminding us of self. Toforget self(that is, to attend to anything else) is misery; to remember selfis peace or bliss. Whenever any doubts, questions or new ideas arise, reflect onwhether they could arise in your sleep. Obviouslytheycouldnot, so they are external to you. Therefore forget themandremain as you were in sleep. The mind is controlled effectively by knowledge alone. Rootout all disturbances by keen and sharp discrimination. Donottry to rely on forcible control.
Krishna said that he will attend to the needs of thosewhoalways meditate only on him without thinking of anythingelse(Bhagavad Gītā 9.22; Bhagavad Gītā Sāramverse 31). Whatdoes this mean? He is our real self, and nothing is other thanhim, so he can only attend to himself. If we also attendonlytoself, without thinking of anything else, where are any‘needs’?Other than ourself, nothing is real, so we should attendonlytoself.
When Ramasami Pillai asked Bhagavan which thoughts shouldbe rejected as bad and which should be accepted as good, hereplied, ‘Reject all thoughts, even the thought of Bhagavan’. Never think you are a beginner in the early stages of sādhana.Always act as if the dawn of self-knowledge might comeanymoment.
We will be standing on our own feet only when we areabletoreject all disturbances – come what may –bykeendiscrimination. Then all books, satsaṅg and other outwardaidswill be unnecessary. Whatever disturbances may come, remember that theyarebecause ‘I am’. As a result of our daily practice, the thought ‘Iam’ will immediately pull us back to self-attention.
There are no straight routes to our goal. That is, arigidorformal approach is impossible, because self-enquiryis anart,and each situation must be dealt with in an appropriatemanner
as it arises.
Bhagavan has given us an armoury of weaponssuited to each situation, so when the shield does not workusethe sword. When the mind is agitated an attitude of surrendermay help, but when the mind is quiet do not think, ‘I shouldsurrender; how to do so?’ but instead use that quietnesstoabide as self.
There is no such thing as ‘partial surrender’. Surrender isonlyreal surrender when it is complete. What is called‘partialsurrender’ is only a practice aiming at complete surrender, andthat practice is the correct discrimination in any givensituationthat will lead the mind back to self-attention.
‘I am’ is boththewayand the goal (as Bhagavan teaches us in verse 579of GuruVācaka Kovai).
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A true aspirant will understand that ‘I am’ is the guru
Bhagavan used to say that the body of the guruis aveilcovering him in the view of his devotees, because it concealsfrom them his true form as self. What advantage dodevoteeswho were blessed to be in his physical presence have now?Allthey now have is a memory, which is no better thana dream. Ifthey think proudly, ‘I have seen Bhagavan’, that is just anotheropportunity for their ego to rise.
To have come to Bhagavan is a sign of our ignorance, but heremoves that ignorance by enabling us to understandthat hispresence is not limited to any place here or there, becauseitalone exists. He does not allow us to cling to anythingexternal,but makes us discriminate and understand that ‘I am’ aloneiseternal, and that the guru therefore cannot be anythingotherthan that.
I am now so well soaked in Bhagavan’s teachings, sofirmlyconvinced by them, that I cannot take serious interest inanyother guru or teaching. But this is not a fault, becausesuchastrong conviction is necessary
We must be careful not to feed the ‘I’ inanyway.That is an important part of spiritual practice (sādhana). Atevery twist and turn, we must be alert against the risingof this‘I’. To sit in the hall [Bhagavan’s ‘old hall’ in Ramanasramam]is good, but it is also necessary to watch all the time that wedonot feed ‘I’.
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To be constantly self-effacing in everywayisasure means to samādhi.
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In order to be free, we only need to experience our beingasitreally is for just one moment. When an aspirant is sufficientlymatured through the school of bhakti, the guru will givethefinal tap, and thus he will be promoted to the fifthstandard,which is liberation (mōkṣa). That may happen at anymoment.
The love to abide as self is the real sign of guru-bhakti.
In the English translation of Who Am I? in Words of Gracetheworld is said to appear or be perceived ‘as anapparentobjective reality’ (which is a term that Bhagavan didnot useinthe Tamil original). What does ‘objective reality’ mean?Objects have the same degree of reality as the subject, but bothare unreal. Reality is neither objective nor subjective
Even Krishna talks of the earnest enquirer passing ontoenjoycelestial worlds and then returning to do sadhana inthis world,as if all these worlds existed in our absence.
Bhagavan said that not only does self not knowother things,but it does not even know itself. Knowing is part of adyad
(knowing or not knowing) and a triad (knower, knowingandwhat is known), but self is just being, and hence devoidofallforms of doing, including knowing. Being is knowing, but notin the ordinary sense of this word, which refers toanaction.Therefore when Bhagavan said that self does not evenknowitself, he meant that its self-awareness is not an actionbut itsnatural state of just being. He did not mean that it doesnotknow ‘I am’, but that it is devoid of knowing as we commonlyconceive it
True deva-bhakti is not toriseasaseparate self in the first place, even to surrender that selftoGod.
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In verse 29 of Upadesa Undiyar he sang, ‘Abiding inthisstate[of self-knowledge], [which is] the way to experiencesupremebliss devoid of [any thought of] bondage or liberation, isabiding in the service of God’. By abiding thus, without risingas a separate ‘I’, we are sparing God the trouble of havingtosave us from our own self-created ignorance. This is thebestservice we can do for him, and is therefore the onlyreal deva-bhakti.
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Sadhu Om: The mind will always feel that self-attentionisdifficult, because it can never attend to self. Onlyself canattend to self
Sastra-vasana (the disposition to study numerous spiritual andphilosophical texts) is created only if one does nomorethansravana (reading) and superficial manana (reflection). Ifalearned pandit who seeks name and fame did a littledeepmanana, he would reflect thus: ‘If brahman, the one self, aloneexists, why do I want the appreciation of others? Whereareanyothers? Who am I?’ If reflection on the guru’s words isdoneonly as an aid to practical sadhana, it will not create anysastra-vasanas. The guru’s words will always turn the mindbacktoself-attention, because they all point only to self
For a young and earnest aspirant whose mind is still fresh, onlya little manana is needed. Whenever his mind strays outwardshe will reflect, ‘All that is perceived through the five sensesisknown by me, so knowledge of anything only indicatesthat Iam’, and thus he will easily restore his self-attention.
During nididhyasana (contemplation on self) a littlemanana(that is, just a few thoughts) can sometimes help toprevent themind from straying away from self-attention, but ultimatelyallthese aids must go. In Who Am I? Bhagavan says that atimewill come when we will have to forget everything that wehavelearnt. To forget second and third persons (everythingotherthan ourself) is peaceful; to remember themis troublesome.
When he was young, Natanananadar once said toanolderdevotee who was asking Bhagavan many questions about howto practice atma-vicara: ‘When the infinite self-shining“I”isstanding inside you like a rock, why do you have somanydoubts?’
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19th December 1977 Sadhu Om: Dispassion (vairagya) comes onlythroughknowledge. It is cultivated by reflection (manana) anddiscrimination (viveka), and sustained by the clear convictionthat everything is ‘I’, that nothing is independent of our ownself-awareness, and that self alone exists.
Why to say that a mind or ego exists in sleep in order toknow‘nothingness’? Why not understand instead that it is self thatknows that ‘nothingness’, and that that ‘nothingness’ itselfisnothing other than self. If you can understand that, thenyoucan understand that self also knows this ‘everythingness’, andthat ‘everythingness’ is also nothing other than self. In fact no ego or mind exists even now, so why to sayit existsin sleep? There is only one ‘I’, so the ‘I’ that knows all thisisonly self. Why to admit the existence of an ego?
In Bhagavan’s path we cannot admit the existence of anystateof ‘void’ or ‘nothingness’, because in order to experiencesucha state we would have to exist in it, and hence it wouldnot bedevoid of ourself, but only of other things. Since nothingelseexists in it, it would be full of ourself, and hence purna, notsunya. To anyone who imagined they have reachedavoid,Bhagavan would say, ‘Investigate who experiencesit’.However, even that would not be necessary if we firmlyclingto self-attention.
An elderly devotee did not visit Bhagavan for a whilebecausehe thought he could become like Bhagavan on his own. Afteralong time he returned, just as Bhagavan was stitchingsomeleaf-plates, and Bhagavan said to him, ‘See, we take somuchcare to stitch these plates, but after eating fromthemwethrowthem away. Bhagavan is like a leaf-plate: only whenhehasserved his purpose should you throw himaway’. ThereforeBhagavan and the clues he has given us are necessaryuntil weexperience the dawn of self-knowledge, and after that wewillsee that we – the one self – alone exist, and that Bhagavanandhis clues are also only ourself
Our mind experiencing objects is like sunlight fallingonamirror and being reflected onto a wall. The reflection(whichislike the objects we experience) is light, the reflectingmirror(which is like our experiencing mind) is light –andwhenlooked at directly it seems to be another sun – andthesun(which is like self, the source of our mind’s light ofconsciousness) is light. Everything is light, and the light isone.Likewise, we and all that we experience are only the onelightof consciousness, which is self.
In the shade it is pleasant, in the sun it is scorching. Wealwayshave the freedom to turn within to see the light andthusenjoythe shade. When by force of old habit we wander out again, wesay to Bhagavan, ‘That was only laya, I want nasa’, andhereplies, ‘Turn again to the source and see if manynessexiststhere’. By repeatedly turning away consciouslyfromthemanyness in this way we come to see that it does not existapart from us, and that it is therefore not somethingweneedtofear. Some reach this realisation after just a fewattempts, butfor others it takes longer because their attention is not sosharpand clear.
The knowledge of second or third persons indicatesthepresence of the first person. When the world is known, thatshows that the first person is present. This is self-attentionwithout effort. A jnani is always paying attention inthisway.He is not actually paying attention, because he is self-attention.If he knows anything, he clearly knows, ‘Because I am, theseare known. Because I am, I hear this. Because I am, I smellthis’. This ‘I am’ is a constant knowledge. This constant self-attention does not fade away when he seems toattendtosecond or third persons.
This is the difference between a jnani and an ajnani. Theajnaniforgets that he is experiencing his being, whereas thejnanidoes not forget this. He is fully aware of this ‘I am’. Howcanthis awareness be there unless there is an attention?Sinceawareness and attention are one and the same, if we areawarethat ‘I am’, we are attending to ‘I am’. There will benoexertion in such self-attention, and there will benoforgetfulness of the first person even when attendingtosecondor third persons.
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So in ‘I am’, injustbeing, there is no exertion and hence no tiredness. Self-attention is our svabhava, our very nature, not our doing, notour making effort. It is constant, even in sleep.
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The thinker is the first thought, the ‘I’-thought. Whois thinking?The ego, the first person. This first person, the first thought,rises on waking from sleep. The knowledge of the first personis the first knowledge we get on waking fromsleep. Therefore,self-attention is ever going on. Until we knowthat, wehavetomake effort to attend to self, and after knowing it, weneverhave to worry about it or anything else. Knowing self happens a split second. It makes everything, theentire universe, dissolve.
Arunachala, when I took refuge in you as [my only] God, youcompletely annihilated me. (Aksaramanamalai verse 48) ... Is there any deficiency [or grievance] for me? . . . Dowhatever you wish, my beloved, only give me ever-increasinglove for your two feet. (Navamanimalai verse 7) … What to say? Your will is my will, [and] that [alone]ishappiness for me, lord of my life. (Patikamverse 2)
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Take for instance the first sentence of Ulladu Narpadu: ‘Exceptwhat is, does consciousness that is exist?’ To a mindthat isunaccustomed to the practice of self-attention this will seemavery abstract idea, because the first word ulladu (‘what is’orexistence) will immediately suggest the existence of things, sosuch a mind will understand this sentence to mean, ‘Unlessthings exist, can they be known?’ But Bhagavanis alwayspointing to self, so by the word ulladu he means nothingotherthan ‘I’, which is the sole reality, that which aloneactuallyexists.
However this will be immediately understood onlybythosewho are well-soaked in the practice of self-attention. Suchaperson will understand this sentence to mean, ‘Other thanwhatis (namely ‘I’), can there be any consciousness of being(anyawareness ‘am’)?’ which they will understand as implying,‘My self-awareness (cit) is not other than my being(sat)’. It isso simple, but to ordinary people it seems abstract
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Unless you understand that self is guru, even a livinggurucannot help you. Most people who were with Bhagavandidn’tget moksha because they didn’t want it. Bhagavanteachesusthat sooner or later we must be satisfied with self, sowhynotbe satisfied with it now?
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Bhagavan always said: ‘Do not think this bodyisme. I am shining in each one of you as ‘I’. Attend onlytothat’.
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When I first came to Bhagavan and heard himrepeatingconstantly that everyone must eventually come to thepathofself-enquiry, I wondered whether he was being partial tohisown teaching, but I soon understood why he insistedthat thisisso. The final goal is only oneness, and to experienceonenessour mind must subside, which will happen entirelyonlywhenwe attend to nothing other than ourself.
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So long as we attend to anything other than ourself, our mindcannot subside, because attention to other things sustainsit,since that which experiences otherness is only this mind. Whenthe mind subsides completely, only self-attention remains, andself-attention alone is the state of absolute oneness. Bhagavanused to repeat this teaching every day, maybe tenor twentytimes, but still we didn’t change. He didn’t change his teachingeither, because to him this truth was so clear.
The basic mistake we all make is to take a body tobe‘I’. Thisdeeply entrenched feeling ‘I am this body called so-and-so’isthe root of all our trouble. If this tape-recorder is not working, we must attend to it and not to other things, becausethen only will we be able to repair it. Likewise, torectifythismistaken identity, ‘I am so-and-so’, we must attendtoit inorder to know what it really is: what or who amI?
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Sadhu Om: Devotion to God or guru as a secondor thirdperson can never give knowledge (jnana); devotioncanonlylead to devotion. Knowledge alone can give knowledge. ‘I am’is the only true knowledge, so attention to that alonecanleadto knowledge. Self-attention is the only true means, theultimate means.
Effort is unnecessary for self, because self-attentionis naturaland effortless. Effort is only needed for the mind.
It is the nature of self to attend to self, and it is the nature of the mind to attend to second and third persons.
Sadhana is only for the mind, and the effort to attend to the feeling ‘I’ is only to keep the mind quiet – in its natural state of pure self-awareness.
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It is not strictly true to say that self-enquiry begins witheffortand ends with effortlessness, but for the sake of the sadhakawemay say so. Effort is required so long as the mind needstobereminded of its true nature, ‘I am’, but when even awarenessof
second and third persons automatically reminds one of one’sown existence, ‘I am’ [because what is aware of themis‘I’],then effort is no longer needed. When we can see onlywaveswe must make some effort to notice the ocean underlyingthem,but when we know that the waves are nothing other thantheocean, effort is not needed.
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All thoughts contain an element of the past or futureinthem.Can you make a thought about the present moment?If youseriously try to do so, all thoughts, including the thought ‘I’,will cease. This is another clue for self-attention. Therearesomany clues, you see.
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Such manana [cogitation or deep reflection] is essential untilyou understand thoroughly that self-attention is natural andeternal, and that all else shines by the light of that self-awareness. This manana will lead you right up to the boundary.Nididhyasana [contemplation, the practice of pureself-attention] is actually only for a moment. Whenyoureallypractise what you have heard and understood, youcrosstheboundary, and that is jnana.
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Whatever you try toattendto,whenever your attention wanders you must drawit backtoitstarget, and this is easy to do whether that target is ‘I’ or someobject. Attending to the first person is the direct means, andattending to anything else is in no way any easier. Indeed,practising concentration on any object will only increasetheoutgoing tendency of the mind, and will thus hinder uswhenwe turn towards self.
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Many people say to me, ‘This self-enquiry is difficult, soplease tell us what self-surrender is’, but in NanYar?Bhagavan says that self-attention alone is self-surrender
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Being completely absorbed in atma-nistha [self-abidance],giving not even the slightest room to the rising of anythoughtother than atma-cintana [self-contemplation], is givingourselfto God.
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When people ask me what meditation Bhagavan taught, I replythat meditation means thinking, but Bhagavan instructedusnotto think – to stop meditating. This is what he teaches usinthefirst mangalam verse of Ulladu Narpadu: … Since the existing reality exists without thought intheheart,who can [or how to] meditate on [that] existing reality, whichis called ‘heart’? Being as it is in the heart alone is ‘meditating’.Experience [thus].
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Another clue for self-attention is to try to see exactlywhen,how and from what thought arises. Such attentionwillautomatically make the mind subside. Thought rises onlywhenthere is self-negligence (pramada), attention to anythingotherthan self.
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Since this reality ‘I’ exists beyond thought, in the heart, andistherefore called ‘heart’, how to meditate upon it? This clearlyshows the absurdity of meditation. All religions teachthat weshould think of or meditate upon the reality or God, but sinceitexists beyond thought, how can we think of or meditateuponit?Bhagavan therefore teaches us that subsiding in the heart asitis – that is, as ‘I am’ – is alone ‘meditating’ upon it correctly.That is, the only way we can truly ‘meditate’ upon what isrealis to remain as we are, without thought. Since what is real isbeyond thought, thought can never take us to it. To attainit, wemust give up all thought [including the first thought, the‘I’ thatthinks] and just be as it is.
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Wherethere is duality there will be doubt. Self is one, devoidofduality, so self-knowledge will allow no roomfor dualitiesordoubts. Therefore, we should avoid doing researchonGodorthe world, and should instead do research only on‘I’. ‘I’ willthen disappear along with both God and the world. Theresulting ‘state of egolessness is agreeable to everyone’ (UlladuNarpadu verse 3), as shown by our experience of sleep.
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If ‘I’ is taken to be a form, the world andGodwillalso be experienced as forms (Ulladu Narpadu verse 4). Eventhe conception of a ‘formless’ God is a mental formor image.Nirguna dhyana or formless worship of God is a futileeffort,like a person chasing the horizon in order to touchtheall-pervading space (Sri Arunachala Ashtakamverse 3)
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Reality cannot be found by meditation, which is attending to the mind and its images. It can only be found by non-meditation, which is self-attention.
However, Bhagavansaidwe should not think that saguna worship [worship of Godasaform] is useless. We should practice either saguna worshiporself-attention.
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In verse 4 of Ulladu Narpadu Bhagavan asks: ‘Canwhat isseen be otherwise than the eye [that sees it]?’ That is, the
nature of what is experienced cannot be different tothenatureof what experiences it. Therefore, the appearance of theworldand God depends upon the appearance of the seer, ‘I’, and their forms depend upon the seer’s form
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‘Eye’ is also used in Tamil to mean jnana [knowledgeorconsciousness], so the ‘endless [limitless or infinite] eye’ isself,which – being limitless and formless – canseeonlylimitlessness and formlessness. Therefore, self canneverseeany name or form, nor anything other than itself. It experiencesonly formless self-awareness, ‘I am’.
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This is expressed by Bhagavan in verse 27 of Sri ArunachalaAksharamanamalai: ‘O Arunachala, sun of bright raysthatswallows everything [the entire appearance of the universe]...’(see also Sri Arunachala Pancharatnamverse 1). That is, inthelight of pure self-awareness, which is Arunachala, theego-‘I’,the world and God will all disappear
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When there is body-consciousness there is world-consciousness. If none of the five sheaths were experiencedas‘I’, neither the world nor God could be seen (UlladuNarpaduverse 5). The world and God are therefore createdbyourmisidentifying a body to be ‘I’. Hence the creator of boththeworld and God is only the ‘I’ that mistakes itself tobeabody,so we should investigate ‘who is this I?’ Fromthis wecaninferthat the world and God are only as real as the idea ‘I amthisbody’, and since this body-identification is unreal, sotooarethis world and God.
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We should not be put off by the strength of our vasanas andbytheir seemingly endless play. We should remember that theyappear because I am, but they do not come to trouble us duringsleep, even though we continue to exist then. ThereforeIamreal, and vasanas are unreal. With this strong convictionweshould be courageous and remain disinterested in our vasanas,and thus we should carry on self-attention undisturbed.
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Bhagavan gave us the following definition of reality: onlythatwhich is everlasting, unchanging and self-knowingisreal.[Hence nothing other than ‘I’ is real, because everythingelseistransient, mutable and known not by itself but only by‘I’.]
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However, because God does not appear as an object perceivedthrough the five senses, we say we do not believe inhim. Thisis like saying that we see the pictures on the cinema screen, butdo not see the light that illumines them. The worldisthosepictures, and God is the self-knowing light, ‘I am’, whichmakes the appearance of the world and the functioningofkarma possible.
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So long as the delusion ‘I am this body’ is experiencedasreal,the world will also be experienced as real. Thereforetheonlyway to experience the unreality and non-existence of theworldis to investigate this feeling ‘I am the body’. When wedoso, itwill disappear, and then we shall no longer be troubledbythefalse appearance of this world.
Meditationisjust ameans of feeding the non-existent ‘I’. The true sadhanaistobevigilant, at all times, against the rising of this ‘I’. One way to prevent the rising of ‘I’ is to trytobehave[inwardly as well as outwardly] in every situation as youthinkBhagavan would behave. If you practice this, there will belessand less of ‘I’ and more and more of Bhagavan, until finallyyou will be swallowed by him.
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Whenever peace is disturbed, it is due to the rising of ‘I’. Peacecannot be enjoyed while ‘I’ is active. Therefore the onlymeansto hold on to peace is to be self-vigilant, thus guardingagainstthe intrusion of disturbing thoughts. Self-attentionis not anactivity, but a calm state of being vigilant, keenly watching‘I’and thereby preventing the intrusion of mental activity.
Meditation, which is a mental activity, is unreal, so it canneverreveal what is real. Non-meditation, which is avoidingmentalactivity, alone can reveal the reality. In the first mangalamverse of Ulladu Narpadu Bhagavan says:
[...] Since the reality (‘I am’) exists without thought intheheart,how to meditate upon that reality, which is called‘heart’?Being in the heart as it is [that is, as ‘I am’] is alone meditating[correctly upon the reality].
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......but the best satsangaistoremain quietly as ‘I am’.
As Sankara says in Vivekacudamani [verse 364], ahundredtimes better than sravana is manana, but one lakh(ahundredthousand) times better than manana is nididhyasana(contemplation), which is just remaining attentivelyas ‘I am’.
In verse 274of GuruVachaka Kovai Bhagavan says: Those who do not have[theclarity of] mind to recognise that the jnana-guru – whoappearsas a human form [though he is actually] abiding firmlyasthesupreme space [of consciousness, ‘I am’] – is formless,[thereby] bear the yoke of wicked conduct and sin
Self-attention is the most effective means of purifyingthemind.The more you try to attend to self and the more youtherebyexperience the happiness of self-abidance, the more clearlyyouwill understand and be firmly convinced that all happinesscomes only from self, and that rising as ‘I’ is misery. Thusyourdesirelessness (vairagya) will increase and your attachmentstothings will become less.
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In verse 26 of Upadesa Undiyar he says: ‘Beingselfalone is knowing self, because self is devoid of two. …’. Thatis, there are not two selves so that one could be knownbytheother. Since self is indivisibly single, it can knowitself onlybybeing itself. And since being conscious of itself is itsverynature, its being itself is itself its knowing itself
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Ignorance is of two types: ‘I know’ and ‘I don’t know’. Bothdepend upon the rising ‘I’, and both disappear whenthat rising‘I’ is scrutinised. In verse 9 of Ulladu Narpadu Bhagavansays:Dyads [pairs of opposites such as knowing and not knowing]and triads [the three factors of objective knowledge: theknower, the knowing and the known] exist [only by] clingingalways to ‘one’ [namely our mind or ego, whichalone
experiences such knowledge or ignorance]. If [anyone] lookswithin the mind [to discover] what that ‘one’ is, they[thedyadsand triads] will cease to exist [because the ego onwhichtheydepend will be found to be non-existent]. Only those whohaveseen [this non-existence of the ego] are those have seenthereality. See, they will not be confused.
In the state of true knowledge (jnana) no ‘I’ can riseeithertosay ‘I know myself’ or ‘I do not know myself’. This is thetruththat Bhagavan teaches us in both verse 33 of UlladuNarpaduand verse 2 of Sri Arunachala Ashtakam:
Saying ‘I do not know myself’ [or] ‘I have knownmyself’isground for ridicule. Why? To make oneself an object known,are there two selves? Because being one is the truthofeveryone’s experience.
In verse 12 of Ulladu Narpadu Bhagavan says: That which is completely devoid of knowledge andignoranceis [true] knowledge. That which knows [anythingother thanitself] is not true knowledge. Since it shines without anything
that is other [than itself] to know or to make known, selfis[true] knowledge. Know it is not a void.
Bhagavan once told Muruganar: ‘It is not only that self doesnot know other things, it does not even knowitself as “Iamthis”’. In verse 26 of Upadesa Undiyar he says: ‘Beingselfalone is knowing self, because self is devoid of two. …’. Thatis, there are not two selves so that one could be knownbytheother. Since self is indivisibly single, it can knowitself onlybybeing itself. And since being conscious of itself is itsverynature, its being itself is itself its knowing itself.
In verse 8 of Ulladu Narpadu Bhagavan says: Whoever worships [it] in whatever formgiving [it] whatevername, that is the way to see that [nameless andformless]substance [the absolute reality or God] in name andform.However, know [that] knowing the reality of oneself [by]subsiding in and becoming one with the reality of that truesubstance is seeing [it] in reality
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‘thereality of oneself’ can be correctly known onlybyoursubsiding in and becoming one with the reality of that truesubstance, which is our real self
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Worshiping that true substance (which is also called‘thesupreme reality’ or ‘God’) in any name or formmaybeameans to see visions of it in that name and form, but it cannot
be a means to experience knowledge of the true natureof thatreality, which is devoid of any name or form. In order to know the true nature of the realityonemustknow the true nature of oneself, the knower
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