The paramount importance of self attention-4

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When we first come to our guru, our love for himis sogreatthat it occupies our whole mind, so we lose all interest inwhatever else we previously desired. This is what Bhagavanreferred to in verse 318 of Guru Vacaka Kovai whenhesaid‘the feet of guru-natha, who has taken us as his ownbyextinguishing the threefold fire [of desire for women, wealthand fame]’. However this peace and freedomfromdesiresisonly temporary, because the guru knows that in order for ustohold this peace permanently we must master it ourself, soaftergiving us a foretaste of the happiness of desirelessness, heputsus into the battlefield to face all that is within us.

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As Bhagavan said in the third chapter of Maharshi’s Gospel inreply to a devotee who said that after he left his presencethepeace he experienced there continued for a whileasanundercurrent, but then faded away: 

‘If you strengthen the mind,that peace will continue for all time. 

Its duration is proportional to the strength of mind acquired by repeated practice [of self-attention],  

and such a mind is able to hold on to the current [ofpeace]’.

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What is important is not our ability to abide as self, but ourlove to do so. Such love is true bhakti, and unless wehaveitGod and guru can do nothing for us. They will not absorb usinto self until we wholeheartedly love to subsideandbeabsorbed forever.

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It is said that guru is greater than God, because whereasGodwill fulfil all our desires, guru will not, because his dutyistomake us desire only liberation (moksha). Once we havebeencaught in the jaws of the tiger (that is, once the guru‘hastakenus as his own’), he will kindle within us the fire of loveforself-abidance. He will make us experience all the outward-going tendencies (visaya-vasanas) that are within us, andwill

give us the love to overcome them by clinging firmlytoself-attention, as he taught us to do in Nan Yar? (Who amI?)

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Eventhough visaya-vasanas [inclinations or desires toexperiencethings other than oneself], which come fromtime immemorial,rise [as thoughts] in countless numbers like ocean-waves, theywill all be destroyed when svarupa-dhyana [self-attentiveness]increases and increases.

Without giving roomeventothedoubting thought ‘Is it possible to dissolve so manyvasanasand remain only as self?’ it is necessary to cling tenaciouslytoself-attentiveness.

 […] This battle between our love tobeself-attentive and our outward-going tendencies is the combat orwarfare of grace that he sang about in verse 74of SriArunachala Aksharamanamalai

Arunachala, show [me] the warfare of grace in the publicspacedevoid of going and coming. He will not let us hide from this battle, but he is always byourside, and by his grace we will surely win. Nothingisimpossible for him, as he assured us in verse 215of GuruVacaka Kovai:

There is no undertaking that is not possible by the power ofself.What is called the power of self is the power of grace. […]’.

There are times when he will (for our own benefit) allowourvasanas to get the better of us, and we will then feel abandonedand pray to him, ‘Arunachala, for whose sake did youtakemeas you own? If you now forsake me, the world will blameyou’(Aksharamanamalai verse 4), and, ‘[…] What wronghasthispoor wretch done? What small obstacle now[preventsyoukilling me outright]? For what do you torture me inthisway,keeping me partially alive [suspended between life anddeath]?[…]’ (Patikam verse 3). The verses of Sri ArunachalaStuti

Pancakam are not just ordinary prayers or hymns for singing. 

They describe the actual experiences that every aspirant mustgo through. 

 The more we progress in our sadhana, themoremeaning we will find in them.

People complain that self-enquiry is difficult, but theywouldsay the same about self-surrender or guru-puja (worshipoftheguru) if they knew the real meaning of these terms. But dowecome here for something easy? 

The efforts people maketoachieve worldly aims are nothing in comparison totheeffortsthat an aspirant must make to experience self-knowledge. 

As aspirants our whole life is a fight, a Mahabharata war, becausewe must always be on the alert, vigilantly guarding against therising of the ego.

However, we need not worry about whether we will overcomeour foes (our visaya-vasanas), because as Krishna repliedwhenArjuna asked him how he could hope to defeat his ownarcherygurus, ‘They are already killed by me. Fight your fight, andifyou die in the process, what is the loss?’ This is therealspiritual life, fighting to conquer our visaya-vasanasbyvigilantly watching their root, the ego, and therebypreventingit from rising. In comparison to this, posing as a great guru,getting up on platforms, giving beautiful lectures, blessings,vibhuti and so on, is all mere child’s play. We are not expectedto serve Bhagavan outwardly or to propagate his teachings, butonly to keep the fire of our own bhakti burning in our heart byconstantly trying to attend only to ourself, the first person.

.........because that wouldonlyshowthat they have not understood who Ramana actuallyis –that heis not a separate person but only the sole reality that shinesas‘I am’ within each one of us

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26th February 1978 Sadhu Om: When we read any teaching of Bhagavan–suchasverse 323 of Guru Vacaka Kovai, in which he describestheguru as that which pervades everything, both ‘I’ andthis, bothinside and outside, both in this world and in the other world–we should reflect on its implications and try to understandwhatit means. All that is required is a simple change of outlook, andthe appropriate manana [reflection on the guru’s teachings]atthe appropriate time may be sufficient to trigger that changebyturning our attention inwards.

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Sadhu Om: Bhagavan has introduced revolutionarymeaningsfor many old and traditional words. For example, hewasthefirst to reveal that ‘grace’ (arul) is nothing but self, andthat‘heart’ (hridayam) also means only self. He has revolutionisedliterature, philosophy,sadhana, the description of the state of self-knowledge, andsoon.

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We also talk of triputi, the three factors of objective knowledge,namely the knower, the known and the act of knowing, but ifwe consider them carefully, we will find that they areall onlyan expansion of the ego, the one ‘I’ that rises to knowanythingother than itself. But how to stop the rising of this ‘I’?AsBhagavan explained to us, the only way to stop it risingistowatch it vigilantly.

When our understanding is sharpened by the resultingclarityofself-awareness, we will come to recognise that this ‘watching’is merely being – that is, it is just being the pure self-awareness

that we actually are. Bhagavan’s path is actuallyjust totalrelaxation – doing nothing but just being as we reallyare. Thisis the sum and substance of the entire spiritual science.

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1st March 1978 Sadhu Om: Many other old classifications, such as thethreebodies (the gross, the subtle and the causal), the fivesheathsand the four antahkaranas (the ‘inner faculties’ or mentalcomponents, namely the mind (manas), intellect (buddhi), will(cittam) and ego (ahankaram)), are not actuallynecessary.When our aim is only to know what we ourself reallyare, suchclassifications tend to complicate matters and distract ourattention away from what is essential, namely ourself, thefirstperson.

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As Bhagavan said in Nan Yar?, enumerating the tattvas[thevarious ontological principles or fundamental categoriesofthings that are supposed to exist but are other thanourself],which are concealing ourself, is like analysing rubbishinsteadof throwing it away. All we need to knowis what weourselfare, and when we know that, nothing else will remaintobeknown.

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Bhagavan’s philosophy and the ideas he expresses inUlladuNarpadu are all very simple. 

The purpose of sravana (hearing,reading or studying his teachings) and manana (reflectingonthem) is not to increase our intellectual activity, 

but only to simplify and clarify our understanding of everything,

 and thereby to reduce the range of our thinking until we are left with nothing to think about. 

That is, when he teaches usthateverything is just an expansion of our ego (verse 26),

 andthatthis ego will disappear if we attend to it (verse 25), 

thereisnothing else that we need think about

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Sadhu Om: ‘Do not believe what you do not know’ is oneofthe fundamental principles of Bhagavan’s teachings. That is, hebegins his teachings by asking us not to believe anythingthatwe do not know by our own experience. The most self-evidentexperience and knowledge that we each have is only‘I am’, sowe should start by investigating what this ‘I’ actuallyis. Ashesays in verse 11 of Ulladu Narpadu: Not knowing oneself, whoknows, knowing [instead] other things is [only] ignorance;except [that], can it be knowledge? When one knows oneself[the ego], the basis (ādhāra) of knowledge andtheother[ignorance], knowledge and ignorance will cease.

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Here ‘oneself’ (tannai) means the ego, which aloneknowsother things and which is therefore the sole basis or foundationof both knowledge and ignorance about them. Sincethisegodoes not really exist, ‘knowing oneself’ means experiencingthe non-existence of the ego, and when one experiencesthis,knowledge and ignorance will cease to exist, becausetheirseeming existence is based entirely upon the seemingexistenceof the ego.

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We know that all pleasures and pains are experiencedonlyby‘I’, the ego, and that they are not experienced in sleep, wherethis ego – the knower or experiencer – does not exist. However,we know that we exist even in sleep, and that we experiencethere a happy state, unaffected by any pain or multiplicity.Since we thus know from our own experience that we canexisthappily without the ego, the knower of multiplicity, 

Bhagavanrecommends that we should try to attain that egoless stateevennow.

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The ego is now being nourished and sustainedonlybyattending to and experiencing things that seemto be other thanitself, because we know that whenever it ceases to attendtoanyother thing it subsides in sleep. In sleep we knownothingotherthan ourself, ‘I am’, so what we are attending to in sleepisonly‘I am’. Therefore we know from our daily experiencethat ourego subsides whenever we attend only to ourself. 

HenceBhagavan is simply pointing out to us what we alreadyknowfrom our own experience.

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There can be no disappointment in Bhagavan’s path. Othergurus may tell us to come to them to experience theguru’spresence, but Bhagavan says: ‘Do not take this bodytobetheguru. Do not come here expecting the guru’s presence. Gowithin. 

The guru shines within you as ‘I am’, so he is alwayspresent in you as your own self

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If we want to seek or rely upon anything outside ourself, wewill certainly be disappointed, because whatever appearsoutside will sooner or later disappear. Hence Bhagavanadvisesus to attend only to ‘I am’ – to rely only on ‘I am’. Thereforesince ‘I am’ alone is ever present, if we followhis advice, howcan we ever be disappointed?

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As Bhagavan says in Nan Yar? (Who amI?): Of all the thoughts that appear in the mind, the thought called‘I’ alone is the first [original, basic or principal] thought. Onlyafter this rises do other thoughts rise. Only after the first personappears do the second and third persons appear; without thefirst person the second and third persons do not exist.

If the thinker subsides, so will its thoughts, and viceversa.Thoughts nourish and sustain the thinker, so the thinker (thefirst person, the thought called ‘I’) will never subsidebyattending to thoughts (second and third persons). Howeverifthe thinker attends to itself, other thoughts are therebyignoredand hence they subside. Along with them, the thinker alsosubsides, because in the absence of thought, the thinker losesits nature as thinker and remains merely as ‘I am’, whichisneither a thinker nor a thought.

This is why Bhagavan says in verse 25 of Ulladu Narpadu: Grasping form, the formless phantom-ego rises intobeing;grasping form it stands; grasping and feeding on formit growsabundantly; leaving [one] form, it grasps [another] form. Ifsought [examined or investigated], it will takeflight.Investigate [or know thus].

The thinker is the ego, the first thought called ‘I’, andtheformsthat it grasps are all other thoughts. Therefore whenit stops

grasping any thought by trying to grasp itself alone, it will takeflight – that is, it will subside and disappear. This istheimportant secret that Bhagavan has revealed to us, becauseit isthe only way to root out our ego, the root of all other thoughts.

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To talk of ‘witnessing thoughts’ as if that were asadhana(spiritual practice) is meaningless, because we arealwayswitnessing our thoughts. It is the nature of the thinkertowitness or be aware of its thoughts. No thought can ariseunlessit is experienced or witnessed by the thinker. Thereforetheactivity of ‘witnessing’ the mind is going on whenever thereare any thoughts. However, if we are told ‘to remain as the witness’, that meanswe should withdraw our attention fromwhatever is witnessedand from the act of witnessing it (both of which are secondandthird person thoughts) and should fix it only on the witness(thefirst person thought, ‘I’). Then thinking and witnessingwillboth cease, and the thinker or witness will merge intoits source

There is a fundamental difference between Bhagavanandus. 

Inour view ‘knowing’ is an action (kriya), whereas inhisviewknowing is just being. 

It was to emphasise this that heoncesaid: Not only is self (atman) that which does not knowother things,it is that which does not know even itself as ‘I amthis’.

Sri Muruganar expressed this in verse 831 of MeyttavaVilakkam (the first volume of Sri Ramana Jnana Bodham): Self does not know not only its own nature but alsoanythingelse. Such a knowledge alone is the real ‘I’.

And in verse 12 of Ulladu Narpadu Bhagavan said: That which is devoid of knowledge and ignorance is[true]knowledge. That which knows is not true knowledge. Sinceitshines without anything that is other [than itself] toknowortomake known, self is [true] knowledge. Knowit is not avoid.

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What is implied by the sentence ‘That which knows is not trueknowledge’ is not only that the mind, which knows thingsother than itself, is not true knowledge, but also that knowingas an action is not true knowing, because self knows itself justby being itself and not by any act of knowing, sinceitsverynature or being is self-awareness. Knowing (as an action) isnotthe nature of self. Its nature is being, and only beingistrueknowing. This is why Bhagavan said (as recordedinMaharshi’s Gospel, Book 1, chapter 7 [2002 edition, p. 40],and in Maha Yoga, chapter 12 [2002 edition, p. 191]) that eventhe jnani is ignorant, because there is nothing other thanhimself for him to know. 

It is because we are accustomed to considering knowingtobean action that we feel that we know nothing in sleep, whereasin fact in sleep we know ‘I am’ just as clearly as wedoinwaking and dream. Bhagavan expressed it nicely whenhesaidthat consciousness plus body and world is wakingor dream,whereas consciousness plus nothing is sleep. Consciousnessalone persists throughout all the three states, so it aloneisreal.

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.........Each time he met the sadhu he repeated the same advice, ‘Gofurther within’, and every time he followed this advicehefound something more valuable, such as sandalwood, untileventually he found a goldmine. Likewise, whenever our mindgoes outwards, sat-sanga, sravana [hearing, readingor studyingBhagavan’s teachings] and manana [reflecting onthem]encourage us, ‘Go further within’.

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