The Current
quotes and citations
"...nothing matters but who am ‘I,’ who is this ‘I,’ what is this entity?” Ramana’s presence makes me inquire, not intellectually, but deeper and deeper into Awareness. The whole world disappears, and [is] this wonderful space — it's up to me to absorb it, open to it, and [let it] be...
– /ramana/devotees/Thelma Benn [1]
"Other thoughts may come and go like the various notes of a musician, but the ‘I’ continues like the basic or fundamental sruti note which accompanies and blends with all other notes."
– Ramana Maharshi;
Self Realization,
10th ed.2002; Ch.5, 'Born Anew', p.17
“All that is, is of Shabd or the Life-Current pulsating in and out of space.”
Kirpal Singh ‘Naam or Word’
“This Current“ is referred to in the various traditions as Word, Sound, Shabd, Naam, Name, ‘I-I’, Logos, AHAM, Sruti.
(liberal paraphrase of Guru Nanak in ‘Naam or Word’ by Kirpal Singh)
“Therefore, making the corpse-body remain as a corpse, and not even uttering the word "I", one should enquire keenly thus: "Now, what is it that rises as 'I'". Then, there would shine in the Heart a kind of wordless illumination of the form 'I' 'I'. That is, there would shine of its own accord the pure consciousness which is unlimited and one, the limited and the many thoughts having disappeared.”
– from 'Self-Enquiry' [4] or Vichara Sangraham.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”.
John 1:1
“Unbroken ‘I-I' is the ocean infinite, the ego, `I' thought, remains only a bubble on it and is called jiva, i.e., individual soul. The bubble too is water; when it bursts it only mixes in the ocean. When it remains a bubble it is still a part of the ocean.”
“Unknown harmonies awoke in my heart.”
Henri Le Saux (Swami Abhishiktananda): Saranāgatī May 2023
“A voice had begun to sing. It was very far away and Digory found it hard to decide from what direction it was coming. Sometimes it seemed to come from all directions at once. Sometimes he almost thought it was coming out of the earth beneath them. Its lower notes were deep enough to be the voice of the earth herself. There were no words. It was hardly a tune. But it was beyond comparison, the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.”
C.S. Lewis ‘The Magician’s Nephew’
“that moment, the moment where self-effort invokes another stream, where you recognize the force called grace….the force which makes you complete, makes you whole. There you know that to offer yourself in the powerful force of that stream, to die there; to be finished with yourself; there is your spiritual fulfillment.”
Nochur Venkataraman
“...the sastra says of Lord Rudra as sound and echo, intangible vibration, and the infinitesimal substance of every particle of dust and foam, immanent in verdant trees and soft green grass, the rustling withered leaves and the silent dead.”
Ramana Reflections: Saranāgatī April 2023
"The ultimate Truth is so simple. It is nothing more than being in the pristine state. This is all that need be said.”
“I am” is extolled as the most direct Name of God.”
Talks #196; Exodus 3:13, # 441