The paramount importance of self attention-5

 https://tomdas.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/sri-sadhu-om-the-paramount-importance-of-self-attention-tomdas.com_.pdf

119/211

Sadhu Om: We are not just told to seek self, but rather toseekthe truth of the ego. 

The truth of the ego is that it does not exist,

so if we try to attend to it, it will subside and disappear, andalong with it all other thoughts will also cease. 

If wetrytothink of the first person (which is ‘here’) or thepresentmoment (which is ‘now’), the mind will certainly subsideandeventually merge back into ourself, its source, becausenosuchthing as the first person or present moment actually exists.

.....

119

Time and place are each like a triangular prison. Thethreewalls of the time prison are the past, present andfuture,whereas the three walls of the place prison are the first, secondand third persons (which in Tamil are called mu-v-idam, thethree places). We seem to be bound within these triangularprisons because we are always attending only to thepast orfuture or to second or third persons, but never trytoattendeither to the precise present moment or to the first personalone.This is like trying to escape through the two solid wallsoftheprison without ever turning to see the third wall. If weturntosee the third wall, the first person or precise present moment

we will find that no such wall exists, and that weweretherefore never actually imprisoned. Therefore to ‘escape’ fromthe triangular prison of time and place, all we need dois toturnour attention back towards the non-existent first personorpresent moment, because we will then find that we havealwaysbeen only in the vast open space of pure self-awareness.

........

Sadhu Om: When our sravana and manana are complete, thenour nididhyasana [self-contemplation] or atma-vicara[selfinvestigation] will also be complete, and we will never againleave our natural state of self-abidance. If one leaves theshadeand goes out into the sun, then one has not yet adequatelyunderstood what heat is, so more sravana and mananaonheatare required.

However, unlike other arts and sciences, which eachrequireavast amount of study (sravana), in the spiritual paththeamountwe need to study is very little. All we need to understandisthatwhatever we see outside is only our own being-consciousnessprojected through the lens of our mind and senses. But for ustograsp this, repeated sravana, manana and nididhyasanaarerequired. Those who are fortunate to come to Bhagavanandtostudy his teachings deeply will learn more fromthemthantheycould learn from studying all other sacred texts

When Bhagavan tells us repeatedly that the problemisourwrong outlook, our delusive experience ‘I amthe body’, howissitting all day going to change that outlook? The strengthofconviction we gain from sravana, manana and nididhyasanaiswhat gives us love for self

abidance. If our love for self-abidance is weak, that is becauseour love for other things is strong, and therefore we needmoresravana, manana and nididhyasana. Sravana must goontill theend – that is, until self-abidance becomes natural.

............

122

We can jokingly say that he was being hard-hearted, but it wasactually his supreme grace. The greatest grace he canbestowon us is to see us as none other than himself, and his silenceisthe most powerful weapon he uses to remove thefalseignorance of his devotees. Such blessing by silence(mounadiksha) is far more effective than blessing by thought (sankalpadiksha). In his view sacred texts (sastras) were just a gameforchildren, because he knew that what is real canneverbeexpressed in words, and that even his own UlladuNarpaducould not express it adequately. This is why he oftensaidthathe real teaching is only silence.

123

Everyone who comes to Bhagavan will typically say, ‘I have come only for moksha [liberation]’,but how many actually want to lose their individuality?Inthespiritual battlefield, even if a thousand soldiers fall aroundus,we should not concern ourself, but should rise upandgoforwards. Such courage and faith are necessary. If we sincerelyfollow the path taught by Bhagavan, we will neverbeabandoned.

..

No one need tell us when we should give up sravanaandmanana. When we are able to abide permanently as self, thenwe will not even think of reading or reflecting, but as longaswe feel unable to remain constantly as self, we must continueto do sravana and manana. If we give up atma-vicara[selfinvestigation], our mind will turn to loka-vicara [investigatingthe world], and thus we will bind ourselves still further.

.....

124

For an extremely mature aspirant, written or spokenwordsareunnecessary, because they can receive Bhagavan’s upadesainsilence. Many subtle truths can be learnt only in silence.

.....

Sadhu Om: Bhagavan begins the second verse of EkatmaPanchakam with the words, ‘Even though one always existsasself’, so what he says in that verse is intended primarilyforthose who are content with their natural awareness of their ownexistence, ‘I am’. If we are perfectly happy withthesimpleknowledge ‘I am’ and therefore desire nothing else, wewill notattend to anything other than ‘I am’, so what need wouldtherebe then for us to enquire ‘who am I?’ or ‘whenceamI?’?However, so long as we feel ‘I am a body’, ‘I amadoer’, ‘Ihave desires’ and so on, we will not be content withsimplybeing aware that ‘I am’, so in such a condition it is necessaryfor us to enquire ‘who is this I?’ or ‘fromwhere doesthisI

arise?’ The self-shining existence, ‘I am’, which is knownbyone and all, is the ultimate truth, so it is all that we needeverknow. No sadhana is needed to knowit anew. ThereforeBhagavan repeatedly said, ‘You know that you exist, andthatis all you need know’, because he wanted us to be content withthis knowledge. There is nothing we need do, so it was onlytothose who asked ‘What can I do?’ that he suggested, ‘Findoutwho this ‘I’ is or from where it rises’.

Our outward behaviour and more importantly the behaviourofour mind can indicate how much strength we have toattendtoself. If we are much concerned about what others thinkorsayabout us, we will not be able to free ourself fromthe tyrannyofthoughts even when we try to attend to ourself. Courageisneeded. If we are able to believe firmly, ‘Other peopleareonlymy own mental projections, so what does it matter what they

seem to think or say about me?’, then we will have thefaithand strength to abide as self, and hence we will be indifferentto praise and blame. Until then we must persevere intryingtoattend to ourself, because our concern for the worldwillthereby fade away naturally. Such indifference is calledudasina.

..........

We are never actually the doer, because all actions aredoneonly by God. Therefore there is no need for us to giveupthesense of doership. All we need do is avoid assuminganydoership. This is the path of surrender, and so it is anattitudethat accepts the existence of God and the world. However, ifwe sincerely try to follow this path, then fromour ownexperience we will gain a type of knowledge andconvictionthat God is doing everything, and thus our thoughtsandattachments will slowly drop off. Therefore even inthis pathofdevotion (bhakti marga), it is only knowledge that givesourmind peace and quiet. In verse 2 of Atma Bodha it is saidthatwithout knowledge one cannot gain peace, which is thestateofliberation.

......

In the ‘Guru’s Grace’ chapter of Maharshi Vaymozhi [theTamil version of Maharshi’s Gospel] it is recordedthatsomeone asked Bhagavan whether he knewanythingabout agroup of invisible rishis who are looking after the affairsoftheworld, to which he replied, ‘If invisible, howto see them?’, butthe questioner answered, ‘In jnana-dristi’, soBhagavanexplained to him that in jnana-dristi (the viewof self-knowledge) there are no others to see. If he had beenaskedhow he was able to enlighten others through his silence, hewould have answered in a similar way: ‘In silence therearenoothers to be enlightened’.

..

127

We should maintain pravilapa dristi, which means consideringeverything to be ourself, because it is all an expansionofourego, like everything that we see in a dream. Whateverweexperience is according to the divine plan, the soleaimofwhich is that we should awaken fromthis dreamas soonaspossible.

.........

Sadhu Om: There is in us a power of knowing or attention,which is called cit-sakti and which is actually nothingotherthan cit [pure consciousness] itself, whose real natureistobeaware of itself alone. When this power is directedtowardsother things, we call it ‘mind’, whose function thinking, butwhen it is directed towards ourself, it remains as our real self11,whose nature is just being. Therefore nistha [dwelling] onanysecond or third person is thinking, whereas thinkingof ourselfis nistha [being or abiding as we really are].

.....

Sadhu Om: I was once trying to puzzle out why everycreature,whether human or non-human, makes the same mistakeofidentifying a body as ‘I’. In all of themwe see the samedefects,such as desire, greed, lust and anger, and all of these arerootedin this one mistaken notion, ‘I amthis body’. ThenIunderstood that if there were many creatures there wouldbemany mistakes, but there is only one. Because I take mybodyto be ‘I’, I see this ‘I am the body’ identificationineverycreature I project. Because I have a desire for something, Iseethe same desire in others. It is just like in a dream, wherewesee our own desires and fears in all the dream-creatures. Thedefects we see in others are only our own defects. If wewishtoremove the ‘I am the body’ idea in other creatures, weonly

have to remove it in ourself. Then we will see that noonehasthis mistaken notion.

......

129

Sadhu Om [parting advice to some newvisitors]: Thinkcarefully over the fact that self-knowledge is the basisofallother knowledge, and that therefore what is most necessaryisto gain correct knowledge of what you yourself are. Themoreyou reflect along these lines, the more you will lovetoknowyourself. If you cultivate such love, you will certainlyalsoattain self-knowledge. Love and knowledge are inseparable. Infact, they are one and the same thing

.......

129

Sadhu Om: Some people complain of a heated brain, emotionaloutbursts or such like as a result of practising atma-vicara[selfinvestigation or self-enquiry]. This shows that theyarenotpractising it properly. If we practice self-attention correctly, wewill find it to be a great relief and relaxation fromour normalmental activities. However, so long as our vasanas [outward-going propensities]are strong, our minds will be frequently drawn outwards, soourrepeated efforts to be introverted will create some frictionandtension. This is why continuous nididhyasana [practiceof self-attention] is not recommended, and why we are advisedinsteadto intermittently rest for a while and do some sravana [reading]or manana [reflection]. Our vasanas are strong onlybecauseof

our strong attachment to this life, but while doing sravanaandmanana we are constantly reminding ourself of the

worthlessness of this ego-life, which helps to weakenourvasanas, thereby making the practice of self-attentionincreasingly easy and habitual. This is why alternatingsravana,manana and nididhyasana are recommended.

........

In his answer to question 2 of chapter 2 of UpadesaManjariBhagavan said that practising this path of vicara is possibleonly for pakvis [those who are spiritually ripe or mature], andthat others should practise sadhanas that are suited totheir ownparticular state of mind. In this context

 we should takepakvi tomean anyone who wants to give up their ego 

or separate individuality 

The sadhanas that he says others shouldpractiseare not means to attain manonasa [annihilation of themindorego] but only to attain other aims, such as citta-suddhi[purification of mind], divine visions, heavenly experiences,worldly enjoyments or whatever else they may desire. 

Atma-vicara is only for those who want to close the chapter, 

beingtired of repeatedly projecting pictures of ego, worldandGod. 

Ifone is not attracted to atma-vicara, one obviouslydoesnot

want to close the chapter, 

so one should followwhicheverother path appeals to one. In Sadhanai SaramI makeit clearthat atma-vicara is only for those who wish to lose their egos,and that only such people should read it.

......

Sadhu Om: A quiet mind is not our aim. Our aimis togaincorrect knowledge of ‘I’.

The mind is quiet in sleep, undergeneral anaesthesia and in all other forms of manolaya[temporary subsidence of mind], but it again jumpsintoactivity. Only by self-knowledge is it destroyedentirely.Therefore let us ignore the mind, not concerning ourself withwhether it is quiet or active, and instead direct all our attentiononly towards knowing ‘I’. If we do that, the mindwill

eventually merge within ourself forever, so there will thenbeno scope for it to be either quiet or active.

131

To learn the secret of the three states, which comprisethewhole of our present life, we must learn to abide inastatebetween waking and sleep. The only practical waytoachievethis is to attend exclusively to ‘I’.

.........

Begin by mentally saying ‘I’, and then try to clingtotheself-awareness evoked by this word. You may be able toclingtoitfor only a few seconds at a time, but even that is beneficial.When you notice that your attention has become extroverted,you should try again, and should continue tryingrepeatedlyuntil you find your interest in doing so is slackening, andthenyou should take a rest for a while.

..

131

The important thing is to begin trying, even if onlyfor afewminutes a day. The efficacy of trying at least a littlebutpersistently can be illustrated by the story of the camel andthetent. In Arabia a man was sleeping in his tent, andhiscamelwas sleeping outside, but it was very cold. At first thecamelput its nose in the tent, and the man allowed it, thinking‘Yes,poor creature, it is cold outside’. Then slowly the camel pushedits whole head inside, and still the man allowed it. Graduallyitedged more of its body inside, until eventually it occupiedthewhole tent and the man found himself lying outside. Likewise,

if we attempt to be self-attentive for at least a fewmomentshere and there during each day, that will gradually pushout ourinterest in everything else and thereby lead us eventuallytoourgoal.

132

Bhagavan once said, ‘Everyonewho comes here says that they want moksa and moksaalone,and that they have no other desires in this world or thenext, yetif I were to show them one minute sample of moksa, all thecrows would fly away and I would be left sitting here alone’.

..

133

People have many different types of attachments–to sense pleasures, wealth, family, nationality, caste, creed,social status, name, fame and so on – but Bhagavanhascorrectly diagnosed that the root of all attachments is our ego,which is our dehabhimana or fundamental attachment toabodyas ‘I’. That is why he often used to advise us, ‘Investigatewhoit is who is longing and crying out for liberation(moksa)’,because if we investigate this, our ego will disappear alongwith both its body-attachment and its idea of liberation, whichit was longing for so much.

......

What is actually real is only ourself, so true knowledgeisonlyawareness of ourself as we really are, and since our awarenessof ourself is nothing other than ourself, we ourself aretrueknowledge. Therefore to gain true knowledge we must attendonly to ourself. The more we practice self-attention, themorewe will gain a correct knowledge about ourself and theworld.

..

134

Since real knowledge is only self-awareness, whichis calledcit,and since knowledge is power, which is called sakti, it issaidthat cit is the only real sakti, and that cit-sakti is the sourceofall other forms of power, which seem to exist and be real onlybecause of it. Therefore, whatever Bhagavan says about trueknowledge in verses 10 to 13 of Ulladu Narpaduappliesequally well to true power. For example, when he says inverse10, 

‘Only the knowledge that knows oneself, whois thefirst,[by investigating] to whom are that knowledge andignorance,is [true] knowledge’, he implies that only knowledgeofthenon-existence of the ego, who is the first to rise andwhoaloneexperiences knowledge and ignorance of other things, isnot

only true knowledge but also true power; when he says inverse11 that knowing other things instead of knowing oneself isnottrue knowledge but only ignorance, he implies that it is alsonottrue power; when he says in verse 12 that that whichknows(namely the ego or mind) is not true knowledge andthatoneself alone is true knowledge, he implies that the ego(whichalone knows anything other than itself) is not true power andthat we ourself alone are true power; and when he says inverse13, ‘Oneself, who is knowledge (jnana), alone is real’, heimplies once again that we ourself alone are real power.

.....

Likewise, since the term ‘siddhi’ means ‘attainment’ andsinceit is also used to refer to any special power that one mayattain,what he says regarding real siddhi in verse 35of UlladuNarpadu applies equally well to real knowledge. That is, whenhe says, ‘Knowing and being porul [the one real substance,which is oneself], which exists as siddham[what is alwaysattained], is [real] siddhi’, he implies that knowingandbeingoneself alone is real knowledge.

...........

135

This is why he says in the sixth paragraph of Nan Yar?(Whoam I?), ‘When one practises and practises in this way[turningone’s mind or attention back towards oneself, its sourceorbirthplace, whenever it is distracted away by any other thought],for the mind the power (sakti) to stand firmly establishedinitsbirthplace will increase’. The more we attend to ourself, themore we will gain clarity of self-awareness, which aloneisrealknowledge, and in the bright light of such clarity the powerofour visaya-vasanas (outward-going desires or inclinations) willfade away, because they derive their power only fromour ego,which is the illusory knowledge ‘I amthis body’. This fadingaway of our vasanas is what he refers to in the tenthparagraphof Nan Yar? when he says, ‘they will all be destroyedwhensvarupa-dhyanam [self-attention] increases and increases’

....

When we first start to practise turning our attentionbacktowards ourself, the power of our self-attentionwill berelatively weak, so we will be able to notice the risingof anyvasanas in the form of thoughts only after they havealreadyswept us away. However with practice the power of our self-attention will increase, and the more it increases themoreeasily we will be able to cognise the exact moment that anyvasana arises as a thought. If our self-attention is firm, ourexperience at that moment will be that this thought arisesonlybecause I know it, so our attention will cling to ourself, the‘I’that is aware of the thought, and thus the thought will subside,being deprived of the attention that it needs to survive. Eachtime that we deprive any thought of our attentionbyholdingfast to self-attention in this way, we are weakeningthevasana

that gave rise to it, and strengthening our love andabilitytohold on to self-attention.

137

Our vasanas would be difficult to subdue anddestroyonly if they were real, but since they do not exist insleeptheyare not real, and hence if we have sincere love to knowwhowereally are, we can easily destroy themall merely byclingingfirmly to self-attention.

.........

As Bhagavan says in verse 18 of Upadesa Undiyar, our mindisjust a collection of thoughts, and its root is only our ego, theprimal thought called ‘I’. And as he says in verse 25of UlladuNarpadu, this ego rises, stands and flourishes only byclingingto ‘forms’, which is another name for its thoughts aboutanything other than itself, so the only effective meanstoprevent the rising of our ego and its expansion in theformofnumerous thoughts it to attend to it alone. That is, sincewecannot rise and stand as this ego without attendingtootherthings, if we attend only to ourself, this ego, we will subsideand disappear. This is what he means when he ends verse25ofUlladu Narpadu by saying, ‘If sought [or attendedto], thisformless phantom-ego will take flight’.

.............

137

Since this ego is unreal, like an illusory snake, it seems toexistonly when we do not look at it carefully enough. Just asthesnake will disappear if we look at it carefully, becauseit isreally only a rope, our ego will disappear if we lookat itcarefully, because it is really only our formless andhenceinfinite self. Therefore it is only by attending to our ego, whichis the root and first thought of our mind, that we canknowitcorrectly – that is, know that it does not really exist –andonlyby knowing it correctly can we control or subdue it.

..

139

So long as we are self-ignorant, we do not knowwhat isreallygood for us, so rather than praying for whatever wethinkisgood for us, we should pray only for what God wants forus,because he alone knows what is really good for us. AsBhagavan sings in verse 2 of Sri Arunachala Padikam, ‘Yourwish is my wish; that is happiness for me, Lord of mylife’, andin verse 7 of Sri Arunachala Navamanimalai, ‘Whateverbeyour thought [or will], do that, my beloved, onlygive[me]increase of love for your pair of feet’. In one of the versesinSri Ramana Sahasram [a thousand verses praying for jnana]Ising that he has given me more than I ever prayed for

......

Sadhu Om: Merely withdrawing our mind fromsecondandthird persons is not atma-vicara [self-investigationor self-enquiry], but just a secondary effect of it. Attendingtoourselfalone is atma-vicara, and when we attend only toourself ourmind is thereby withdrawn from other things. In verse16ofUpadesa Undiyar Bhagavan says: Leaving aside external phenomena, the mind knowingitsownform of light is alone real knowledge

.....

‘Leaving aside external phenomena’ means withdrawingourattention from second and third persons, but that byitself isnotreal knowledge, because we leave all external phenomenawhenever we fall asleep. In order to knowwhat is real, wemust know our own ‘form of light’, which is the fundamentalawareness that illumines our mind. Therefore in this versethemain clause is ‘the mind knowing its own formof light isalonereal knowledge’, whereas ‘leaving aside external phenomena’is just a subsidiary clause, because when our mind attendstoitsown self-awareness, ‘I am’, its attention is therebyautomatically withdrawn from external phenomena.

Remaining for a while without thoughts is no doubt apeacefuland pleasant experience, but it is not the ultimate solutiontoour problems. What needs to be rectified is our illusoryawareness ‘I am this body’, and since it is a mistakenknowledge of ourself, it can be rectified only bycorrectknowledge of ourself.

..

Self-abidance and self-attention are one and the samething.Abidance is being (sat), whereas attention is knowing(cit), andas Bhagavan says in verse 26 of Upadesa Undiyar, beingoneself is knowing oneself, because oneself is not two, andbecause as he says in verse 23, there is no awareness other thanwhat is to know what is, so what is (sat) is itself awareness(cit).A worldly-minded person abides in the world becauseheattends to the world, whereas a spiritual personabidesinhimself because he attends to himself.

..

144

.........Likewise, even great yogis cannot conquer thismaya,but we can simply by surrendering ourself to the graceofBhagavan.

.......In this battle we oftenfeel likeaship tossed about in a violent storm, but he is our helmsman, sowe should pray to him as he taught us in verse 79ofSriArunachala Aksaramanamalai: ‘Arunachala, protect mesothatI may not be like a ship tossing in a great stormwithout ahelmsman’.

......

Sadhu Om: Strength lies in our being, not in our thinking.Therefore real strength comes only fromself-abidance. Timeisnot an important factor in self-abidance, because wegainnospiritual benefit by remaining without thought for eight hoursin sleep. Attention (which is a focusing of our awareness, cit)isthe only important factor in self-abidance (which is astateofjust being, sat), because the intensity of our self-attentioniswhat determines the firmness and depth of our self-abidance.

........

145

Knowing ourself alone is being ourself, and that aloneistruestrength (sakti).

...

Sadhu Om: In the first verse of Sri Arunacala NavamanimalaiBhagavan sings: Though actually achala [the motionless one], in that assemblyhall [in Chidambaram] he [Lord Siva] dances in front ofthemother, who is achalai [the consort of acalan]. Whenthat Sakti[the divine mother] becomes tranquil in [his] acala form, knowthat he shines exalted as Arunacalam.

..

146

......Just as the frenzied dance of Kali needed to be pacifiedinorderfor her to regain her original state of motionlessness, theceaseless rising and activity of our mind needs tosubsideinorder for us to regain our original state as perfectlycalmandmotionless self-awareness.

........

,........whereas in the path of atma-vicara, whichis thepathof complete self-surrender and which is representedherebyTiruvannamalai, no arduous activity or tapas is necessary,because simply by calmly clinging with love to ourself, ourmind will merge motionlessly back into ourself, just asSaktibecame calm in Tiruvannamalai simply becauseof heroverwhelming love for Lord Siva in his motionless formasArunachala.

.....

.......Therefore this verse signifies the fact that in order for ustoregain our original state of motionless self-abidance, noactivity (dancing) of our mind is necessary, because ultimatelywe can remain as we really are only by completelygivingupall activity, which we can do only by clinging firmly, steadilyand peacefully to self-attention.

.147

People generally take sat-sanga to mean the companyof goodpeople, but Bhagavan clarified its true meaning, explainingthatreal sat-sanga is only association with sat, and sincesat isnothing other than atma-svarupa, our own real self, abidinginourself as ourself is the correct and most perfect formof sat-sanga13. However, until we are able to abide in sat as sat, thenext best form of sat-sanga is to associate withthoselikeBhagavan who abide as sat.

......

However, so long as we experience ourself as a body, anyonewho abides as sat will seem to us to be a body, sowhentheirbody dies we will seem to lose their sat-sanga. ThereforeBhagavan taught us that Arunachala is the very embodiment ofsat, so since Arunachala is always present here, sat-sangawithit is always available to us. Moreover, since we canassociate

with Arunachala merely by thinking of it, sat-sanga withit isnot restricted by either time or place.

......

Sadhu Om: The best way to celebrate Bhagavan’sbirthcentenary would be to prevent the rising of the ‘I’ whorisestocelebrate it in so many other ways. If we make this ‘I’ subside,

hen we will be truly celebrating his centenary in thewayhewould want us to do so

.......

149

Sadhu Om: In verse 31 of Ulladu Narpadu AnubandhamBhagavan says: To the mey-jnani [the knower of reality], who is asleepwithinthe fleshy body, which is like a cart, activity [of mindor body],nistha [steadiness, inactivity or samadhi] and sleep arejust like,to a person sleeping in a cart, that cart moving, standingorthecart remaining alone [with the bullocks unyoked].

.........

150

Regarding the portion, ‘samadhi is their standing still (becausesamadhi means jagrat-sushupti, that is to say, the personisaware but not concerned in the action; the bulls are yokedbutdo not move)’, the explanation given in brackets is not whatBhagavan actually said but was added by whoever recordedit,because it confuses the sense in which he usedthetermsamadhi in this context. That is, the jnani is always injagrat-sushupti, the state of ‘wakeful sleep’, because heiswhatBhagavan refers to here as the ‘ever-wakeful Self’, whichisawake in the sense that it is always aware of itself andasleepinthe sense it is never aware of anything else – any mind, bodyorworld – so when he compares samadhi to the cart standingstill,

what he means by samadhi is not the permanent state of jagrat-sushupti but only the temporary state of self-absorptioninwhich the body and mind of the jnani sometimes seemtobe. Inthe view of an ajnani, the body and mind of a jnani likeBhagavan may sometimes be active and may at other timesgointo and later come out of a motionless state of inactivity,which is what he calls nistha or samadhi in this context, but ashe explains by means of this analogy, the jnani is completely

unaware of the coming and going of all such states, becauseinhis view the only state is jagrat-sushupti, which is eternal andimmutable

................

151

However, what is particularly significant about this answerofBhagavan’s recorded in Maharshi’s Gospel is the context inwhich he used this analogy, because he usuallyusedit toillustrate the fact that the jnani is not aware of anymindorbody and hence of any of their activities or states, whereasonthis occasion he used it to explain that if we attendonlytoourself and not to anything else, our body andmindwillnevertheless do whatever actions they are destinedtodo, butwe will not be aware of them. Since atma-jnana or jagrat-sushupti is a state in which we are aware of nothingother thanourself, in order to attain it here and now we shouldattendonlyto ourself and thereby refrain from being aware of anythingelse.

............

........’ (tannaiye bahyantara dirusti-bhedam-indri eppodumnadudal), ‘always investigating [or attending to] oneselfwithout the distinction of seeing outside or inside’. Beingeternally aware of nothing other than oneself is sahajasamadhi(which is another name for manonasa, atma-jnana or jagrat-sushupti), and trying to be always aware of nothingthanoneself is practising sahaja samadhi. Sahaja samadhi isourgoal, and the only way to attain it is to practise it here andnow.

152

Good point

When Osborne asked Bhagavan whether brahmacharyaisnecessary, what he meant by brahmacharya is celibacy, butBhagavan replied, ‘Celibacy is not necessary. If youabideinbrahman, that is real brahmacharya’. If Osborne hadbeenmature enough to be celibate, he would not have askedthatquestion. But people ask such questions and then writebookssaying that Bhagavan said that brahmacharya and renunciationare not necessary for those who follow the path of atma-vicara.To understand Bhagavan’s attitude regarding such matters, weshould not ask questions but should carefully observewhat he

replies to questions asked by others. 

To understandhis viewisnot easy unless one’s mind is mature enough.

..........

153

.........From this I learnt that we should not mention what weintendtodo even to our friends, but should just do it. If we act withtheconfidence that this entire life is just a dreamandthat whatmatters is only attaining self-knowledge, grace will takecareofeverything else. But until we are mature enough tohavesuchconfidence, working to earn a living will seemto be necessary.

.....

154

.........And in verse 7hesaysthat steady and uninterrupted meditation on God, likethesteady flow of clarified butter, is better than meditationthat isfrequently interrupted by other thoughts. This is becausethemore we love God the more our mind will be drawntothinkonly of him, and what purifies our mind is not the actionitselfbut the love with which we do it.

.......

Up to verse 7 Bhagavan was discussing actions, whichallinvolve an outward flow of our mind, but in verses 8and9heshows us how we can divert our love for God togobeyondaction to our natural state of just being, which is thestateofcomplete self-surrender and hence the most perfect expressionof love for God. In verse 8 he says that rather than anya-bhava(meditation on God as something other than oneself) ananya-bhava (meditation on him as not other than oneself) is ‘thebestof all’, meaning that it is the best of all practices of bhakti andof all forms of meditation, and in verse 9 he says that bythestrength or intensity of such ananya-bhava being insat-bhava(one’s natural state of being), which transcends meditation, ispara-bhakti tattva, the true state of supreme devotion.

.....

So long as we consider God to be something other thanourself,when we meditate on him our attention is movingawayfromourself towards our thought of him, and this outwardmovement of our mind is an action or karma. Ontheotherhand, when we consider him to be ourself and meditateonhimaccordingly, we will no longer be meditating on a merethoughtof him but only on ourself, so our attention will not bemovingaway from ourself but will just rest motionlessly onourself, itssource, so this self-attentiveness is not an action or karmabutour natural state of just being (summa iruppadu)

155

This iswhyBhagavan says in verse 9 that by the intensity and firmnessofananya-bhava we will remain in sat-bhava, and that bybeingsowe will transcend all bhavana, imagination, meditationorthinking.

............

Thus what Bhagavan implies in these first nine verses isthatthough we cannot attain liberation by any action or karma, ifour actions are motivated only by love of God andnot byanydesire for temporal gains, they will gradually purifyour mindand enable us to understand that God is what shines inusas‘I’,

so the best way to meditate upon him is to meditate onnothingother than ourself, and that if we meditate only onourself, allactions will cease, and thus we will subside backintothesource from which we rose.

..................156 cont...as part 6

The paramount importance of self attention-4

 https://tomdas.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/sri-sadhu-om-the-paramount-importance-of-self-attention-tomdas.com_.pdf

107/211

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.

..........

107

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]’.

........

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.

?

.....

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?)

....

108

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

110

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.

..

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.

...

111

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.

.....

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.

......

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.

....

112

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

....

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.

..

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.

..

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.

.......

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.

..

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

...

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?

......

115

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.

......

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.

...........

117

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.

....

118

.........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’.

..........119 cont as part 5

The paramount importance of self attention-3

 https://tomdas.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/sri-sadhu-om-the-paramount-importance-of-self-attention-tomdas.com_.pdf

94/211

That is, in verse 8 of Upadesa Undiyar Bhagavansaysthatrather than anya-bhava (meditation upon anythingother than‘I’), ananya-bhava (meditation upon nothing other than‘I’) is the best among all forms of meditation. 

What he means by ananya-bhava is only atma-vichara 

[self-investigationor self-enquiry], 

because atma-vicara is the practice of meditatingonlyon ‘I’, 

whereas every other practice involves meditating on or attending to something other than ‘I’.

’. Therefore thoughhesays‘avan aham ahum ananya-bhava’, which means ‘otherlessmeditation in which he [God] is I’, he does not meanthatmeditating on the thought ‘He is I’ (sohambhavana) is ananya-bhava, because that thought is something other than‘I’. Ifweare really convinced that God is ‘I’, we should meditateonlyon ‘I’ and not on any thought about God. However, thoughsoham bhavana is not ananya-bhava, it is at least basedontheconviction that God is not other than ‘I’, so fromthis versewecan infer that it is superior to any meditation in whichG94odisconsidered to be something other than ‘I’.

........

94

However, in verse 32 of Ulladu Narpadu Bhagavansaysthatpractising soham bhavana instead of atma-vicara is ‘duetolack

of strength’ (uran-inmaiyinal).

 Therefore, since practisingevensoham bhavana is due to weakness, practising meditationonGod as if he were other than ‘I’ must be due to evengreaterweakness, 

so how can any such meditation be saidtogiveourmind the strength it requires to practise atma-vicaraandthereby to abide in its source

...

95

Even in the case of Ramakrishna, his attachment tothenameand form of Kali proved a hindrance, and only becauseofhisexceptional maturity and the grace of Kali was he abletocutthat name and form with the sword of knowledge (jnana).

..

However, if anyone practises nama-japa with genuineloveforGod, believing that it will take them to him, their effort will notbe wasted, because after a number of lives the Godwhosename (nama) they have been repeating with love will appear to them in the form (rupa) of guru, who will tell themtoleavesuch futile practices and to practise instead only self-attention.Therefore after we have come to Bhagavan, whyshouldwetrain our minds in any practice other than self-attention?Ifanyone nevertheless wants to practise some sort of japa

(repetition), Bhagavan suggested that the best japa is onlytorepeat ‘I, I’. If you do japa of God’s name, you will seeGod,whereas if you do japa of ‘I’, the name of yourself, youwillknow yourself alone.

...

96

12th February 1978 Sadhu Om: Bhagavan is performing a delicate operationwhichwill radically change our long-accustomed outlookofmistaking a body to be ‘I’ and the world to be real, intotheoutlook that we alone are. If this change were to occur toofast,it would put too much pressure on our mind, upsettingourmental balance, and could either make us insane or evendriveus to commit suicide. But Bhagavan is a very skilledsurgeon,and so he knows the right speed at which to change our outlook.If we are going too fast, he sometimes has to disconnect thecurrent for a while, which he does by makingusfeeldisinterested in practicing self-attention. Therefore weshouldnot be disheartened by such experiences, because theyhappen

for our own good, and he can sometimes use suchperiodsofapparent disinterest to push us right up to the boundary. EvenMuruganar had a similar experience, feeling that hewasahelpless case.

We should always have faith in Bhagavan’s assurancethat weare like the prey in the jaws of a tiger, and that wecantherefore never escape. If we strain too much, we might beobstructing Bhagavan in his work, so he sometimes evenhastoput an end to this life and make us take a newbody. Death,suicide and insanity seem to be big things to us, but tohimtheyare minor events which he uses for our own benefit.

...

The culture in India provides Hindus with many outletswhenthe pressure becomes too great. Even before I knewBhagavan,

I used to take days off work just to go to a lonely placetoweepfor God. To have sat-sanga with the right friends canalsobeagreat help during rough periods. Sravana and manana (studyingand reflecting on Bhagavan’s teachings) are alsoveryimportant at such times. They are like a protective fortress.

.........

When I say that intermittent attempts at self-attentionareimportant, remember that the rests in between are as importantas the attempts. Even if you attend to self for onlyafewseconds at each attempt, these attempts will have their effectunknown to you. Because of these attempts, occasionallyatother times – say in the middle of some work – youwill feelthat you are being automatically reminded of your merebeing,‘I am’, but it is not the mind that is reminding you. It is similarto pricking a banana with a pin: you do not knowhowclosethepin has come to the other side until you prick your hand.

......

97

Doing japa of ‘I’ is helpful for those beginners whoarenotable to recognise that our awareness of ‘I’ (that is, ourawareness that I am) is something that is distinct fromourawareness of our body or any other mental image. Bypracticing japa of ‘I’ they can begin to experiencefor onemoment now and then the awareness of ‘I’ alone. 

Oncetheyrecognise this awareness of their mere existence, theycangiveup their japa of ‘I’ and instead practise simple self-attention.

97

‘Summa iru’, which means ‘just be’ or ‘be still’, is thecorrectway of describing self-attention, because self-attentionissimply not attending to anything other than ‘I’, soit doesnotinvolve our attention moving anywhere away fromits source,which is ‘I’. 

The Tamil adverb summa implies not doinganything, because any ‘doing’ or action always involvesattending to something other than ‘I’. When we attendonlyto‘I’, our attention remains in its source, as its source, ‘I am’, so

self-attention is not an action but a state of just being. Inoneofhis verses Arunagirinathar sings in that when Lord Murugatoldhim ‘summa iru’, he ceased knowing anything, whichmeansthat he ceased attending to any second or third person.

...

98

When you correctly attend to self, then no doubts about it will arise, for your self-attention will then be as clear to you as is your present knowledge ‘I am’. 

On the other hand, wecanalsosay that you will never know when you correctly attendtoself,because from that moment all knowing will cease, andbeingalone will remain. Bhagavan once said: Not only is self (atman)that which does not know other things, it is that whichdoesnotknow even itself as ‘I am this’. This idea was recorded by Sri Muruganar in verse831ofMeyttava Vilakkam:

Self does not know not only its own nature but alsoanythingelse. Such a knowledge alone is the real ‘I’.

That is, self-knowledge is a knowledge quite unlike anyotherknowledge, because not only does self not knowitself asanobject of knowledge, but also its knowing itself is not anactionor ‘doing’ but only being. Knowing anything else is anaction,whereas self knows itself just by being itself. Thereforeinverse 26 of Upadesa Undiyar Bhagavan says: Beingself aloneis knowing self, because self is that which is devoidof two[aknowing subject and a known object]. This is tanmaya-nistha[abidance as ‘that’, the absolute reality called brahman].

..

99

.........whereas Bhagavan tells us tohaveanattitude of indifference (udasina bhava) towards all secondandthird persons – to ignore them completely and to attendonlytothe first person

..

The first sentence of the first mangalamverse of UlladuNarpadu can be interpreted in several slightly different ways,but they all mean essentially the same thing. It canmean, ‘Ifthere were not something that really exists [which is called‘I’],could there be any awareness of being [which is called‘am’]?’or it can mean, ‘Can awareness of being [‘am’] be other thanwhat is [‘I’]?’ The words ulla unarvu can meaneither‘awareness of being’ or ‘awareness to meditate’, sothissentence can also mean, ‘Other than what is [‘I’] cantherebeany awareness to meditate [on it]?’ Bhagavan wrote thisverseto refute the popular myth in India that it is possible tomeditateupon the reality. Initially he wrote only the last twolines

which mean: 

‘How to [or who can] meditate upon the thing that [really] exists? Know that being in the heart as it is alone is meditating [upon it]’.

However, when Kavyakantha sawthatthis verse had just two lines and all the other verses hadfour

lines, he suggested to Bhagavan that he should addtwomorelines to it, so Bhagavan then composed the first twolines. Theresulting verse means: If there were not what is, couldtherebeany awareness of being? Since the thing that is is intheheartdevoid of thought, how to [or who can] meditate uponthethingthat is, which is called ‘heart’? Know that being in theheart asit is [that is, without any thought] alone is meditating[uponit].

..

100

The whole of Ulladu Narpadu is an expansion of this onebasicidea, so Bhagavan starts his teachings by disparagingtheideaof meditation, but nowadays people call the hall wherehelivedthe ‘meditation hall’ and they expect that everyone whocomesto Ramanasramam should meditate. 

Self-attentionisnotmeditation in the usual sense of the word, because it isnot amental activity. It may seem that trying to attend toself isanaction, but in fact it is simply the effort to make themindsubside. 

When we attend to anything other than the Self, the mind rises and is active, but when we try to attend only to the Self, it subsides and ceases to be active.

..........

We always know ‘I am’, so we are always aware of and therefore attending to self, but our self-awareness is usually mixed with awareness of other things, so Bhagavantellsustotry to attend only to self, because such an attempt is theonlymeans to make the mind subside. 

In fact the mind that tries to attend only to self can never do so, because it is the nature of the mind to attend to second and third persons, whicharenon-self, 

but by trying to attend only to self it will mergeinitssource, our real self, and then self alone will remaintoknowitself, as it always does.

......

101

Sadhu Om: In verse 1 of Ulladu Narpadu the termser padam,which means the connecting, underlying or pervadingscreen,can be taken to mean time and space, which underlie, supportand pervade the appearance of the world. The entireversemeans: Because we see the world, accepting one original thingthat hasa power that becomes many is certainly the one best option.The picture of names and forms [the world], the one whosees[it], the supporting screen [on which it appears], andthepervading light [of consciousness that illumines it] –all theseare he [the one original thing], which is self.

..

Sadhu Om: The verb uruppadu usually means toformorreform, because the basic meaning of uru is form, but urucanalso mean svarupa, our ‘own form’ or real self, soinverse33of Sri Arunachala Aksharmanamalai the termuruppaduviddaimeans atma-vidya, the science and art of abiding as self. Onthe other hand seppadi viddai means a deceptive art or science,so it can means any worldly skill. Katru can meaneither‘learning’ or ‘one who is proficient’, and ippadi canmeaneither ‘this world’ or ‘in this way’. Thus this versehastwoalternative meanings: Arunachala, teach me the art of abidingas self, giving up this worldly delusion of learningdeceptiveskills.

..

Arunachala, giving up deluding me in this way [as] onewhoisproficient in the art of deception, teach me [instead] theart ofself-abidance.

......

102

In our path of abiding in self, the mind returns to its homeandtakes rest from its adventures in yoga. Though this is called‘self-attention’, it is nothing but a complete rest of themind,and if practiced, it will not be the cause of what youhavec

omplained about in your letter, namely ‘eruptingintowildoutbursts of anger and violence’.

  When, after a longperiodofeffort and struggles to do sadhana, one gives up doingsadhana,then and only then does real sadhana – self-attention–begin.

.........

Sadhu Om: Bhagavan once said, ‘They say it is verydifficult tostop thoughts, and also that by tapas nothing is impossible, buthowever much tapas I do, I cannot think a single thought’. Wethink now that we must strain to withdrawour mindfromsecond and third persons, but in fact we are strainingourselbe troubled by thoughts. Through sravana [studyingBhagavan’s teachings] and manana [reflecting onthem]wegain dispassion or indifference towards anything other thanself,and by nididhyasana [contemplation on self] we gainloveforself-abidance. Though these seem to be two different practices,they both lead in the same direction.vesto attend to them. To rest in our natural state of self-attentioniseffortless, but it seems to require effort because we prefertoattend to other things. Therefore we need to give upthislikingto attend to anything else, because if we do so we will nomore

.....

104

Bhagavan often said self is the guru, so the guru has alwaysbeen and will always be with us. Therefore we neednot seekthe guru, because he is already doing his part, soweshouldconcern ourselves only with seeking our own real self. AsBhagavan said in Maharshi’s Gospel [Book 2, chapter 2]: If you seek either [God or guru] – they are not reallytwobutone and identical – rest assured that they are seekingyouwithasolicitude greater than you can ever imagine.

........

The mind can never imagine or understand what worktheguruis doing within. If it tried, it would be like someone tryingtoremember where he was and what he was doingduringhisgrandfather’s wedding

.........

105

Bhagavan was extremely subtle when he answeredquestions,but here we try to make it as plain and simple as possible.Since his answers were so subtle, we should be careful not torush to hasty conclusions about what he meant. 

The answers he gave were not always recorded accurately,

and evenwhentheywere, we can easily misunderstand the significance of what hesaid or the reason why he answered as he did

Sadhu Om: By clarifying that self is not the seer, perceiverorknower of anything, Bhagavan has given a correctionsliptomany of the sastras [ancient texts of vedanta]. If wehadjustread sastras, it would not have been sufficiently clear tousthatself is not the seer, because in this regard many contradictoryideas are expressed in sastras. For instance, the wordatman[self] is often used to mean jivatman [the individual or personalself], and paramatman [remotest, ultimate or supremeself]isused to mean our real self. In Sanskrit dictionaries youwill findthat atman means self, oneself or ‘I’, but it is used tomeanthe

thought ‘I’ as well as the real ‘I’. The vague andambiguousmeaning of this word atman and the various senses inwhichitis used has created many controversies and became themainpoint of disagreement between Buddhists and Vedantins.

........

Bhagavan has avoided all this confusion and the resultingcontroversies by clarifying that in the sense in whichheusesthis term atman is the sole reality – the awareness of being(sat-cit) that shines as ‘I am’ in all the three states of waking, dreamand sleep – and that the ego, mind or jiva [soul or individualself] is the thought ‘I am the body’, which rises andshinesonlyin the waking and dream states. Moreover, he explainedthatwhat is seen cannot differ in nature fromthe eye that seesit,

and that self therefore knows only sat-cit-ananda andcanneverknow names and forms. As he says in verse 4of UlladuNarpadu: If oneself is a form, the world and Godwill belikewise; if oneself is not a form, who can see their forms, andhow [to do so]? Can the sight be otherwise [in nature] thantheeye [that sees it]? The [real] eye is self, the infinite eye.

.......

Since self is formless, it cannot see any forms, and henceit cannever be a knower of otherness. Otherness consists of forms, soit can only be known by a form, 

and hence the knower or seer of otherness can only be the ego, the thought ‘I amthe body’.

............

Sadhu Om: When we read any teaching of Bhagavan, suchasaverse of Guru Vachaka Kovai, we should then and therereflectover it and try to put it into practice by abiding as self. That is,our sravana [reading], manana [reflection] and nididhyasana[self-contemplation] should go hand-in-hand, becausethenonly are we truly reading what he taught. This is thecorrectway to learn his teachings.

.........107.......cont as part 4..............

The paramount importance of self attention-2

 https://tomdas.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/sri-sadhu-om-the-paramount-importance-of-self-attention-tomdas.com_.pdf

56/211

If God is experienced or known as other than the knower, hebecomes an object of knowledge and as such he dependsforhis existence upon the knower. 

Since the knower is unreal, sotoo is whatever it knows. 

Therefore, the absolute realityor Godcan only be known truly by the knower being onewithit.

When the knower and the known are both resolved intotheonereality, that is true knowledge.

Therefore Bhagavan is discussingthese three ‘places’ when he says in verse 14of UlladuNarpadu: If the first person (tanmai) exists, the secondandthird persons (munnilai- padarkkaigal) will exist. If thefirstperson ceases to exist [because of] oneself investigatingthetruth of the first person, the second and third personcometoan

end, and tanmai [the real ‘selfness’], which shines asone[undivided by the appearance of the three seeminglyseparatepersons or ‘places’], alone is one’s [true] state, whichis self.

Therefore ‘I am’ is the true tanmai, and ‘I amso-and-so’ isathief, a second person posing as if it were the first personortanmai. True knowledge (jnana) is attained only whenthebodyand person that were taken to be ‘I’, the first person, arerecognised to be second persons, things that are not ‘I’.

One important point to note here in this verse is that Bhagavandoes not say that this false first person, the ego, actuallyexists,but only says conditionally: ‘If the first person exists ...’. Henever actually accepted its existence.

Until they come to Bhagavan, people generally believethat selfwill be experienced if they get rid of all thoughts, whicharesecond or third persons. They don’t understand that thefirstperson, which is the root of all thoughts, must alsogo. That iswhy when some people come and ask me what myexperienceis, I say that I do not have any experience, becauseintheabsence of an experiencer there can be no experience.

59

However, onlythetermisnew, because after some time you will understandthat self-attention is ever going on. It is our eternal nature, becauseselfis never unaware of itself.

60

When we first discover that the third wall does not exist, wewill desire to run in that direction in order to escape fromtheprison. This is similar to the experience of sphurana, thefreshclarity of self-awareness that arises when we investigatethefirst person or present moment.

But guru then makes us seethat

since the third wall is actually non-existent, our imprisonment(bondage) is also non-existent, and thus our desire torunawaywill subside, and we will be perfectly contentedtoremainwhere we are. This is similar to the subsidence of sphurana, thestate in which perfect clarity of self-awareness is foundtobeour real nature rather than something new. This is our naturalstate (sahaja sthiti), in which we are perfectly content tobejustas we are.

...

63

In Nan Yar? (Who am I?) Bhagavan says that unless perceptionof the world-appearance ceases, self cannot be knownasitreally is. However, even if the world is perceived, it showsthatself is known, because it is perceived only because ‘I am’. Thisis why Bhagavan says in verse 6 of Arunachala Astakam: ‘[...]O Hill of Grace, let them appear or not appear [what doesitmatter?] Apart from you, they do not exist!’ It is the natureofthe mind to wander and know many things, but whydoesthatworry you? Because you identify this mind as ‘I’, youfeel yourattention is wandering. But are you this mind? Youarethatwhich knows the mind.

64

Bhagavan often used the term udasina bhava, whichmeansanattitude of indifference, and it is necessary for us tohavesuchan attitude towards the mind

..

The mind’s attention is always knowing something, but whatyou must understand is that the mind has no power of attentionof its own. The mind’s power of attention exists onlybecausewe attend to the mind. If instead you attend to that whichknows the mind, how can the wandering of the mindaffect you?

..

68

Onhislastevening he hadn’t opened his eyes for two hours, but at about 8pm when we started to sing Aksharamanamalai withits refrain,‘Arunachala Siva’, he opened his eyes for a fewmoments, andfrom then till 8.47 tears of devotion were pouringdownhischeeks. He left his body as we were singing verse 72: Protectme, Arunachala, being the support for me to cling to, sothat Imay not droop down like a tender creeper without anythingtocling to

...

Because the jnani knows that self alone really exists, hedoesnot see anything as non-self, and hence he knows that eventhebody is ‘I’ and even the world is real. However, we shouldtakecare not to misunderstand the jnani’s statement that theworldis real. What the jnani sees as real is just the ‘is’-ness oftheworld. Both a jnani and an ajnani will say, ‘This is a table’, butthe ajnani sees only its form and therefore mistakes its ‘is’-nessto be a property of that form, whereas in the viewof thejnanionly ‘is’-ness [being or sat] is real, so the table is nothingotherthan that infinite, indivisible and hence formless ‘is’-ness.

..

71

During sadhana, we have to reject everything other than‘I’asanatma [non-self or ‘not myself’], but when we experience‘I’as it really is, we will discover that nothing is other thanit. Thepractice of rejecting everything other than ‘I’ by not attendingto any such thing is sometimes described as anascendingprocess, whereas the state of true self-knowledge, inwhicheverything is experienced as not other than ‘I’ is sometimesdescribed as a descending process, though it is not actuallya‘process’ but our natural state of being.

..

72

18th January 1978 Sadhu Om: The self-attention we practise in the midst of otheractivities will not be very deep or intense, so we shouldalsosetaside time to practise it more intensely. When we doso, ouraim should be to turn our attention 180° away fromotherthings towards self. If we once succeed in turning our attention180° towards self, we will experience perfect clarityof self-awareness, unsullied by even to slightest awareness of anyother thing. This is the state of true self-knowledge, whichwillcompletely destroy the illusion that we are this mind, soafterthis the illusion of experiencing anything other than‘I’ cannever return.

..

73

Some ripe aspirants do not need even to make suchincessantefforts to turn selfwards, because they always remainvigilantlyaware of self, waiting for the moment when they cantaketheirfinal leap, the complete 180° turn towards self.

..

When I was first taught by Janaki Matha to practisedualisticforms of meditation such as murti-dhyana [meditationuponaform of God], I found that continuous practice of suchmeditation caused me to have visions and other suchdivineexperiences, but I soon understood that that was not thewaytoexperience self. Only svarupa-dhyana [meditationuponself,

which is another term Bhagavan used to describe thepracticeof atma-vichara] can enable one to experience self as it reallyis.

...

74

This is why Bhagavan says inverse10of Upadesa Undiyar and verse 14 of UlladuNarpaduAnubandham: Being, having subsided in the place fromwhich[we] rose – that is karma and bhakti, that is yoga andjnana.

..

For example, some writers imagine sphurana to be somesort of‘pulsation’, ‘throbbing’ or ‘vibration’ in the heart, sotheyhavewritten that this is what we should hold on to. However,anything that pulsates, throbs or vibrates is obviouslysomething other than the ‘I’ who experiences it, soit is onlyasecond person. The experience of ‘I’, the first person, issuchthat it cannot be described in any way. When Bhagavanusedthe term sphurana, he meant only aham-sphurana [theclearshining of ‘I’], which is not a new knowledge of anythingotherthan ‘I’, but only a new knowledge of ‘I’, our own self. That is,it is a fresh clarity of our self-awareness. It is awarenessofthesame ‘I’ that we always experience, but it is experiencedwithafresh degree of clarity. Because it is such a clarity, whenit isexperienced no doubts will rise about it, just as whenyou are

fully satisfied after eating a sumbaticallyleadustoour sahaja sthiti [natural state]

In a quiet mind many truths about past and future eventsmaybe known, but this is not a siddhi [an attainment of adesiredsupernatural power] because it happens only in the absenceofany volition or desire for such an experience. It is likewiseonlyin a calm and quiet mind that Bhagavan’s silent teachingscanbe received. They are not received in words but onlyasaninner clarity of understanding, and they give us suchastrongconviction that no one can ever shake our trust inwhat wediscover through them. However much we may struggletodoso, we cannot find words to express the clarity we discoverthrough the power of his silence

..

81

If we only want whatever he gives us, then fromthisverymoment we can live free from all cares and worries, becausenothing can ever happen that is not his will, so we will happilyaccept whatever may happen. 

Thus there is nodifferencebetween self-abidance and complete self-surrender. 

If weabideas self, we will experience nothing other than self 

andhencethere will be no identification with a body, so howcanwethendesire or pray for the removal of pain or for anythingelse?

Likewise, if we surrender to him, we will have nodesiresorconcerns, so how can we then pray for anything?

If our will and desires are perfectly attuned with his will, whatcan our vasanas [inclinations or propensities] do to obstruct hiswork? 

A genuine willingness to surrender to his will will effectively neutralise the power of all our other vasanas.

..

Bhagavan expresses in verse 39 of Sri ArunachalaAksharamanamalai: ‘O Arunachala, by what power canI, whoam worse than a dog, seek and reach you!

..

86

Therefore paths other than atma-vicara are only for thosewhodo not understand that eradication of one’s individualityisthegoal, and that vicara is the only means by whichwecanachieve this goal. Such people are not true aspirants, becausewe only become aspirants when we have genuine lovetomakethis ‘I’ subside, for which atma-vicara is the only means.

86

Atma-vicara appears to be ‘intellectual self-analysis’ only in the  view of those who do not have sufficient mental purity to understand 

that we can know ourself only by attending to ourself,

 and consequently to have true love for self-attention,which alone is the correct practice of vicara

.........

87

In verse 885 of Guru Vacaka Kovai he says: Except [by] the path of investigating the vital awareness[‘Iam’], whatever effort is made by other means beginningwithkarma, one will not attain and enjoy self, the treasure shininginthe heart. In verse 17 of Upadesa Undiyar he says: When [anyone] scrutinises the formof the mindwithoutforgetting, [it will become clear that] there is no suchthingas‘mind’. For everyone this is the direct path

Likewise, in Maharshi’s Gospel (Book 2, chapter 1) it isrecorded that he said:

Whatever form your enquiry may take, you must finallycometo the one I, the Self. [...]

Self-enquiry is the one infallible means, the only direct one, torealise the unconditioned, Absolute Being that youreallyare.[...] every kind of sadhana [spiritual practice] except that ofatma-vichara presupposes the retention of the mindastheinstrument for carrying on the sadhana, and without theminditcannot be practised. The ego may take different andsubtlerforms at the different stages of one’s practice, but is itself neverdestroyed. [...] The attempt to destroy the ego or themindthrough sadhanas other than atma-vichara is just likethethiefassuming the guise of a policeman to catch the thief, that ishimself. Atma-vichara alone can reveal the truth that neitherthe ego nor the mind really exists, and enables one torealisethe pure, undifferentiated Being of the Self or the Absolute.

[...] To be the Self that you really are is the onlymeanstorealise the bliss that is ever yours

Since self is aware of nothing other than itself, ‘I am’, ‘to be the  Self’ simply means to be aware of nothing but ‘I’ alone,which is all that the practice of atma-vicara entails. 

AsBhagavan says in verse 26 of Upadesa Undiyar: ‘Beingselfalone is knowing self, because self is not two. […]’.

...

88

Because of our desire to be constantly experiencingsomethingother than just ‘I’, it may seem difficult for us toexperienceonly ‘I’, but Bhagavan assures us that this is actuallyveryeasy– much easier than any other means by which we maytrytoattain liberation. This is emphatically affirmed by himinverse4 of Atma-Vidya Kirtanam:

To untie the bonds beginning with karma, [and] toriseabovethe ruin beginning with birth, rather than whatever [other] path,this path [atma-vicara] is exceedingly easy. When [one] just is,having settled down without even the least actionof mind,speech or body, ah, in [one’s] heart the light of self [will shineforth]. [This is our] eternal experience. Fear will not exist. Theocean of bliss alone [will remain]. ([Therefore] ah, thescienceof self is extremely easy, ah, extremely easy!) Everyothersadhana entails doing some action (karma) by mind, speechorbody, whereas atma-vicara entails the mind subsidingwithoutthe least action by focusing its entire attention on its source, ‘Iam’. Therefore, whereas any other sadhana is a practiceof

‘doing’, atma-vicara is the practice of just being as wereallyare – with perfect clarity of self-awareness. Hence, sincebeingis easier than doing, atma-vicara is the easiest

The purpose of niskamya puja, japa and dhyana, andofallsadhanas other than atma-vicara, is only to purifythemind.Purification of mind is the sole benefit that can be gainedfromany such sadhanas, because none of themcan ever byitselfdestroy the ego. The benefit

of a purified mind is that ‘it shows the path to liberation’, asBhagavan says in verse 3 of Upadesa Undiyar. That is, itenables the mind to discriminate, understand andbefirmlyconvinced that atma-vicara alone is the path to liberation.

89

Thus, when Sri Bhagavan says in Maharshi’s Gospel (Book2,chapter 1), ‘Atma-vichara alone can reveal the truththat neitherthe ego nor the mind really exists’, he is not beingpartial, noris he criticising other sadhanas. He is merely assertingthetruththat though other sadhanas can purify the mind, theycannotdestroy it. Therefore, we should not confuse these pathsformental purification with ‘the path to liberation’, whichisthe

‘one path’ taught by Bhagavan – the path he describesasorvazhi [the ‘one path’ or the ‘path of investigation’] inverse14of Upadesa Undiyar.

90

A true aspirant is one whose mind is sufficiently purified to understand that atma-vicara alone can be ‘the path to liberation’, and therefore to love to practice it. 

Those who cannot understand this are at best just devotees of God 

........

Bhagavan says that atma-vicara is the direct path, not becausehe expects us to attack the mind directly, but becauseheexpects us to turn directly towards self, ‘I am’, andbythusremaining in self to ignore the mind. Thus atma-vicarais, sotospeak, avoiding and hiding from the mind instead of fightingitface to face. This is what is signified by Rama’s methodofkilling Vali.

Vali had a boon that he would receive half of the strengthofanyone he faced in battle, so he was automaticallymorepowerful than any opponent he had to face. ThereforeevenRama could not have killed him in face-to-face combat, sohehad to hide behind a tree and shoot himfrombehind. Just asVali gained half the strength of his opponent, if we trytofightthe mind in direct combat, we will be giving it half of ourstrength, because our attention is what sustains and nourishesit,so the more we attend to it (that is, to its constant flowofthoughts), the more we are giving it strength. Thereforetheonly way to destroy the mind is by attending onlyto‘I’ andthereby ignoring all the other thoughts that constitute themind.

...

91

Sadhu Om: When the reality is the truth of our ownbeing, howcan training the mind to attend to any second or thirdperson(anything other than ourself) help us to attain that reality?

Someone whose mind is thus attached to any name or form will not be able to understand even intellectually what self-attention actually is. 

Even if he can enjoy the company of the name and form of his beloved God, how does that help him?

Ramakrishna once said that even if God wants to take ustoself,he cannot unless we want him to. Only by our ownlikingandeffort to practise self-attention can we attaintrueself-knowledge (atma-jnana).

The aim towards which the whole universe is strivingisnothing but the subsidence of thought, because happinessisexperienced only to the extent to which thought subsides. Thecomplete subsidence of thought is experienced by all beingsinsleep, and hence everyone is perfectly happy in that state, butbecause we attend only to second and third persons inthewaking and dream states, we fail to discriminate properlyandthereby to understand that what we are seeking is onlythesubsidence of thought. Bhagavan points out our mistakeand

tells us that we should try to experience in the wakingstatethehappiness which we experienced in sleep. Howcanwedoso?In sleep we did not attend to any second or third persons, butexperienced only ourself, so we should try to do the samenow.

.....

92

All other spiritual practices (sadhanas) require blindbeliefinsomething that we do not know, because they needustobelieve that something other than ourself can lead us toourself.The practice of self-attention is the only path whichis clearlycharted and scientific, 

because it is the only path in which the [causal] connection between the practice (attending to Self) and the goal (knowing self) is self-evident.

..

93

Sadhu Om: Bhagavan does not ask us to believe anythingnew.He simply points out the obvious truth that we loveonlyourself, and that our love for other things (body, mind, God,and the things of the world) is a mere pretence, becausewelove them only for the sake of ourself. He says that if wewantto be happy, we should stop pretending that we love anythingother than self, and we should let our love for self be wholeandnot partial.

,...........94 ...cont as part 3....

94

That is, in verse 8 of Upadesa Undiyar Bhagavansaysthatrather than anya-bhava (meditation upon anythingother than‘I’), ananya-bhava (meditation upon nothing other than‘I’)isthe best among all forms of meditation. What he meansbyananya-bhava is only atma-vicara [self-investigationor self-enquiry], because atma-vicara is the practice of meditatingonlyon ‘I’, whereas every other practice involves meditatingonorattending to something other than ‘I’.

94..........

The paramount importance of self attention-1

 https://tomdas.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/sri-sadhu-om-the-paramount-importance-of-self-attention-tomdas.com_.pdf

3/211

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.

..

Grace acts by persistently reminding us of self. 

To forget self (that is, to attend to anything else) is misery; to remember self is peace or bliss. 

Whenever any doubts, questions or new ideas arise, reflect on whether they could arise in your sleep. Obviously they could not, so they are external to you. 

Therefore forget them and remain 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 those who always meditate only on him without thinking of anything else(). 

What does this mean? He is our real self, and nothing is other than him, so he can only attend to himself. If we also attend only to Self, without thinking of anything else, where are any‘needs’? Other than ourself, nothing is real, so we should attend only to self.

When Ramasami Pillai asked Bhagavan which thoughts should be 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 come any moment.

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).

8/211

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’.

10

To be constantly self-effacing in everywayisasure means to samādhi.

13

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 a dyad

(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.

15

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.

16

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?’

17

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.

..

22

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.

..

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)

25

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

30

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?

31

Bhagavan always said: ‘Do not think this bodyisme. I am shining in each one of you as ‘I’. Attend onlytothat’.

..

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.

..

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?

..

33

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.

..

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.

..

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.

..

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.

..

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.

..

41

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

..

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.

..

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].

42

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.

43

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.

..

45

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.

..

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)

..

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.

..

45

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

..

‘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’.

...

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

..

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.

,..

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.

..

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’.]

..

48

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.

..

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.

49

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].

Reality exists without Thought.

52

......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.

......

55

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

..

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

...

‘thereality of oneself’ can be correctly known onlybyoursubsiding in and becoming one with the reality of that truesubstance, which is our real self

..

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

.................................