Sep / Oct 2001 Jan / Feb 2002    

THE  MAHARSHI       

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Nov / Dec 2001
Vol.11 No.6

Produced & Edited by
Dennis Hartel
Dr. Anil K. Sharma

 

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1. Enquiry And Sadhana, Questions & Answers, Part 2
2. Maharshi's Gospel
3. Darshan and Upadesha at Skandashram
4. Advent at Arunachala New York Ashrama
5. Letters and Comments
6. Sanskrit Hymns from Sri Ramanasramam CD and Transliteration Book

 

 

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Enquiry And Sadhana
Part II

The following is an excerpt from questions and answers exchanged between Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi and Sri D. C. Desai at Sri Ramanasramam, Tiruvannamalai, South India, on August 8, 1944, at 9 a.m. and published in the October 1969 issue of the Mountain Path.

D: I am often baffled and depressed during or outside my meditation by thinking that there are millions of souls who are either quite ignorant or quite innocent, and are suffering intolerable pains and tortures in this world, e.g., (a) starvation of the poor by famine, poverty or unemployment; (b) pain and suffering through diseases of ignorant people caused by ignorance of laws of hygiene, diet or poverty; (c) bombing of innocent women and children; (d) suffering through floods, earthquakes, etc., of innocent and poor persons; (e) killing of animals for food; (f) insects and lower animals being eaten up by higher animals in nature, and so on. I try to convince myself that all this must be due to their bad karma in past lives, but doubts still arise as to how and by whom their freewill was so directed as to force them to commit such actions. If it was due to desire, why or how did they come to get it, or such tendencies originally? If it is due to avidya, dehadhyas (body idea), etc., how can they be held responsible for the same?

M: First find out whether the ego exists, who is depressed by these thoughts. Find out how you got the idea of the body, solve this problem of your ego, and then see if anything remains to be solved.

D: Is it helpful in the enquiry to sit in siddhasana, keeping the spine erect, sitting on deerskin, kushasana, etc. during the meditation, or are they not quite necessary? Will they expedite the progress?

M: The real asana is being established in the Self-Reality or the Source. Sit in your Self. Where can the Self go and sit? Everything sits in the Self. Find out the source of I and sit there. Do not have the idea that the Self cannot be realized without the help of asanas, etc. They are not at all necessary. The chief thing is to enquire and reach the source of the ego. These details such as posture, etc., may distract the mind towards them or to the body. D: Which books are most helpful in swadhyaya (self-study) during spare time (for quick training of the mind for the enquiry)?

M: You may read whichever book you like. Self (Atma) is the real book. You can look into it whenever you like. Nobody can take it away. It is always at hand, to be read. Hold on to your Self in your spare time also, and then you can read any book.

D: If doubts, fears and worries harass me during meditation, how can they be most effectively removed?

M: Ask yourself "To whom do these doubts, fears and worries occur?" and they will vanish. Cease to pay attention to them. Pay attention to the Self within. Fears, etc., can only arise when there are two, or when anybody else exists apart from, or separate from, or outside of you. If you turn the mind inward towards the Self, fears, etc., will disappear.

If you try to remove a doubt or fear, another doubt or fear will arise. There will be no end to it. The best method to annihilate them is to ask "To whom do they occur?" and they will disappear. Destroying a tree by plucking its leaves one by one is impossible. Other leaves will grow by the time you pluck a few. Remove the root of the tree - the ego - and the whole tree with its leaves and branches will be destroyed. Prevention is better than cure.

D: Should I look for the source within the body?

M: The ego arises within the body. Hence, in the first instance you may look within the body for its source. When you reach the source there will be no inside or outside, because the source or the Self is all-pervading. After realization everything will be inside the Self.

D: Is the source on the right side of the middle line of the chest?

M: The Heart is defined as the place from which the I-thought arises. Heart means the Centre (of consciousness). It cannot be identified with any part of the physical body.

D: What can I do to increase the receptivity of the mind to your spiritual vibrations while sitting in the hall, and to increase the frequency and duration of the efforts at enquiry in the hall, or to ease such efforts?

M: Keep the mind quiet. That is enough. Sitting in this hall will help you. The purpose of efforts is to get rid of all efforts. The force will be clearly felt when the stillness is achieved. Spiritual vibrations exist everywhere. They will manifest when the mind is stilled.

D: Will it be helpful if I gaze from time to time on your eyes or face during the effort at meditation, or should I keep the eyes closed? If closed, should I concentrate them on the ajna-chakra, or deep down in the heart? When practicing the enquiry at one's own place should the eyes be closed or fixed on some object of devotion?

M: Look at your Self or Atma rather than anywhere else. The eyes may be kept open or closed. It is immaterial. There is only one I, whether you spell it 'I' or 'eye'. There is no point in opening or closing the eyes. Attention must be focused on the inner 'I'. You are not an 'I' that can be opened or closed. You may open or close the eyes according to your liking or inclination. It is immaterial, and not important. You will cease to think of the world when you think of the Self. If you are in a room and close your eyes and do not look out, it is immaterial whether you close the windows or keep them open. The body is the room; the eyes are the windows.

Looking at ajna chakra, etc., is not necessary in this method. It may be helpful in keeping the mind from going out towards external objects. Concentrate on the Self without which there are no chakras. They do not exist without you. You are all of them. All centres (chakras) are in the Heart. The Heart is not the anahata chakra. The latter is in the spinal cord. Heart is I.

Poetry, Music, Japa, Bhajana

D. Through poetry, music, japa, bhajana, the sight of beautiful landscapes, reading the lines of spiritual verses, etc., one experiences sometimes a true sense of all-unity. Is that feeling of deep blissful quiet (wherein the personal self has no place) the same as the entering into the heart of which Bhagavan speaks? Will practice thereof lead to a deeper samadhi and so ultimately to a full vision of the Real?

M. There is happiness when agreeable things are presented to the mind. It is the happiness inherent to the Self, and there is no other happiness. And it is not alien and afar. You are diving into the Self on those occasions which you consider pleasurable; that diving results in self-existent bliss. But the association of ideas is responsible for foisting that bliss on other things or occurrences while, in fact, that bliss is within you. On these occasions you are plunging into the Self, though unconsciously. If you do so consciously, with the conviction that comes of the experience that you are identical with the happiness which is verily the Self, the one Reality, you call it Realization. I want you to dive consciously into the Self, i.e., into the heart.

- Maharshi's Gospel

Darshan and Upadesha at Skandashram
By Rohit Vaidya

On the morning of the final day of our visit to Sri Ramanasramam, we climbed Arunachala to Skandasram and Virupaksha cave. Skandashram consists of a central building with some other rooms adjoining it. Within the central structure, there are three rooms - an outer hall, the inner Skandashram cave, and off to the side, there is a small room in which Bhagavan is said to have stayed. In this small room, lengthwise against one wall, there is a concrete bench with a sloping back where one can recline.

While in that small room, facing the bench, I experienced an awe-evoking vision of Bhagavan.* What I beheld was not a human figure as such, but rather a pure light and effulgence in a somewhat diffuse, oval-like form, seated on the concrete bench against the sloping back of the bench. It was a vibrant sentience or awareness and, associated with it, was a very clear and strong intuition that there was nothing that needed to be accomplished by this Being, that there were no karmas it had to perform. It was complete and whole, in and by itself.

I prostrated at the foot of the bench and quietly left in awe and wonder.

At the time, what came to my mind, which seemed to reflect the character of this vision, were the words of the Sanskrit mantra from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad:

Om poornamadah poornamidam poornat poornamudachyate poornasya poornamaadaaya poornamevaavashishyate

"That is perfect - this is perfect. What comes from perfection truly is perfect. What remains after perfection from perfection is also perfect."

Later, after returning home from Sri Ramanasramam to the USA, I found accurate descriptions of this vision of Bhagavan as pure light and effulgence in the following verses from Ganapati Muni's "Sri Ramana Chatvarimsat":

Gana gudha sahasra karena yatha tanu kanchuka gupta mahaa mahasaa

"Whose beatific effulgence is hidden by the sheath of the gross body, like the blazing sun hidden behind the clouds." - Verse 2

Pasyan visvamapidamullasati yo visvasya paare parah

"The One who, though seeing the world, shines as the Supreme Truth, transcending the world creation." - Verse 22

Tava tanurjjvala tyanagha vidyutaa

"O Spotless Being! Thy form blazes with pure light." - Verse 29

I also found in Bhagavan's own words the explanation for my very strong feeling that there were no deeds required in this state of completeness and wholeness.

Nashta maanas-otkrsht yoginahah krtyam asti kim swasthitim yataahaa

"His mind being thus extinguished, the great Yogi who is established in the Supreme Truth has no more Karma to do, for He has attained the Natural State."

- Upadesa Saram, Verse 15

Ahankrtim yo lasati grasitvaa kim tasya kaaryam parishishtamasti kinchidvijaanaati sa natman'onyata tasya sthitim bhaavayitum kshamah kah

"What remains there for him to do who swallows the ego and shineth forth? Separate from the Self, there is nought to him. His condition to conceive, who is there so bold?"

- Sat Darshanam, Verse 31

Although the last question in the preceding verse might be rhetorical, I must say that I have only sought here to relate my experience as faithfully and truthfully as I can convey in words. And in seeking to explain what I saw and felt, I have found far more lucid and apt descriptions in the words of Ganapati Muni and Bhagavan himself.

Prior to this, I have generally felt the grace of Bhagavan's presence at an essentially personal level. This darshan at Skandasram was a little surprising in that it was non-personal. There was no impression of an individual as such, only a completeness and wholeness in which there is no other. Only pure, effulgent light and awareness of and in itself - yet somehow also aware of the world.

Upon re-reading this narrative, a sceptical part of me has to ask, "Did this truly occur?" After all, in such matters, it is very easy for the mind to delude or deceive itself; and that might have been possible if it had been only an image that was perceived. But what really bestowed authenticity and meaning for me was its palpable feeling of vibrant sentience and the associated profound understanding of that state of Being. That still evokes awe, and silences the mind.

Ultimately, any vision is within the realm of duality and is not of the Supreme Truth. Paradoxically, perhaps, this too was implicit in this vision.
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* To make it perfectly clear, the vision was impressed on my mind while standing in front of the bench, just inside the threshold of the room. It was not a perception of an image of Bhagavan on that actual concrete bench.