Upadēśa Kaliveṇbā: the extended version of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu

Sri Muruganar had collected twenty-one verses that Bhagavan had composed on various occasions, and in July 1928 he asked Bhagavan to compose some more verses in order to form a work of forty verses (like four ancient Tamil poems each of which consisted of forty verses, namely Iṉṉā Nāṟpadu, Iṉiyavai Nāṟpadu, Kār Nāṟpadu and Kaḷavaṙi Nāṟpadu) elucidating the nature of reality and the means to attain it. Accordingly on the 21st July 1928 Bhagavan began to compose more verses on this subject, and in order to arrange them into a logical order and to form them into coherent text, he and Muruganar would discuss in detail the progress of the work, where gaps needed to be filled, and which of the original twenty-one verses should be retained and which discarded.

Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu: Tamil text, transliteration and translation

As I explained at the beginning of my previous article, Upadēśa Undiyār: Tamil text, transliteration and translation, Nāṉ Ār?, Upadēśa Undiyār and Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu are the three texts in which Bhagavan expressed the fundamental principles of his teachings in the most clear, coherent, comprehensive and systematic manner, which is why these are the three texts that I cite most frequently on this blog, and therefore friends often ask me for my complete translation of each of them. My translation of Nāṉ Ār? has been available on my website for many years, and for a long time I have been meaning to post my complete translations of Upadēśa Undiyār and Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu there also, but somehow I did not get round to doing so till recently, when I finally decided that I should put it off no longer. Therefore having posted my translation of Upadēśa Undiyār in my previous article, in this one I give a fresh translation of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu, which is a carefully revised and refined version of all my earlier translations of it.

Upadēśa Undiyār: Tamil text, transliteration and translation

The three main sources that I cite in articles on this blog are Nāṉ Ār?, Upadēśa Undiyār and Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu, because these are the three texts in which Bhagavan expressed the fundamental principles of his teachings in the most comprehensive, systematic, clear and coherent manner, but though there is a complete translation of Nāṉ Ār? on my website, I have not till now given a complete translation of all the verses of either Upadēśa Undiyār or Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu in one place, so since friends often write to me asking for such a translation of these texts, I have decided to give a complete translation of each of them here. Therefore in this article I give a translation of all the verses of Upadēśa Undiyār (which Bhagavan composed first in Tamil and later translated into Sanskrit, Telugu and Malayalam under the title Upadēśa Sāram, ‘The Essence of Spiritual Teachings’), and in a subsequent article I will likewise give a translation of all the verses of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu.

We should not be concerned with anything happening outside but only with what is happening inside

A friend recently wrote to me asking several questions about practising self-investigation (ātma-vicāra) in the midst of family and work life, the role of physical solitude, attachment and detachment, feelings of utter desperation and disillusionment, and about how to live in the world when one feels no connection with or concern for anything other than the practice taught by Bhagavan. The following is what I replied to her:

What creates all thoughts is only the ego, which is the root and essence of the mind

In a comment on one of my recent articles, If we choose to do any harmful actions, should we consider them to be done according to destiny (prārabdha)?, a friend called Salazar wrote, ‘Robert Adams, a Jnani, said that the mind cannot create thoughts. Frankly, I believe rather him than any ajnani’, so since Bhagavan taught us that all thoughts are created only by the ego, which is the root and essence of the mind, I am writing this in an attempt to clear up this and certain other related confusions.

How to find the source of ‘I’, the ego?

A friend recently wrote to me, ‘I am a Ramana devotee. Bhagavaan asked to watch the “I” and find the source of this. I am watching the “I” whenever my mind is not needed for my work. I am so happy with watching the “I” all the times. [...] How to find the source of this? Should I try to keep my mind in right side of the heart?’, and the following is what I replied to him:

To be aware of ourself as we actually are, what we need to investigate is only ourself and not anything else

A friend recently wrote three emails to me asking various questions about the practice of self-investigation (ātma-vicāra), so in this article I will reproduce his questions and the two replies I wrote to him.

If we choose to do any harmful actions, should we consider them to be done according to destiny (prārabdha)?

In the comments on my previous article, The ego is a spurious entity, but an entity nonetheless, until we investigate it keenly enough to see that it does not actually exist, several friends have been passionately engaged in a discussion about whether we should consider that all our actions, including our making ethical choices such as whether or not to eat meat, are determined solely by prārabdha (fate or destiny) or whether free will plays any role in the choices we make and actions we do.

The discussion began with two comments in which Sanjay Lohia paraphrased something I had said about jñāna, karma, prārabdha and free will in the video 2017-07-08 Ramana Maharshi Foundation UK: discussion with Michael James on the power of silence, to which Salazar wrote a reply in which he said: ‘Prarabdha goes on in every second of our lives, every scratch, every little thing is prarabhda, and no outward action is determined by the ego. If we are vegetarian or eat meat, that’s prarabhda too. So if anybody of Bhagavan’s devotees still eats meat, don’t beat yourself up, that’s as much destiny as if a Hindu eats beef what may create inner turmoil unless one does atma-vichara. So we seem to be a puppet, at least what happens to the body, however we are not victims of prarabhda because we can transcend prarabdha with atma-vichara. The actions of the body will go on as destined, but the inward identification loses its hold’. This triggered a series of other comments in which various friends expressed their understanding of Bhagavan’s teachings in this regard, and during the early stages of this discussion Sanjay wrote an email to me asking me to clarify whether the type of food we eat is decided by our destiny, so this article is written in response to this.

The ego is a spurious entity, but an entity nonetheless, until we investigate it keenly enough to see that it does not actually exist

A friend wrote to me yesterday:

You prefer using ‘ourself’ or ‘oneself’ or ‘I’ instead of ‘the Self’. It is because by using ‘the Self’ we tend to objectify ourself. So this point is clear. But then why do we use ‘the ego’? Are we likewise not objectifying ourself by using ‘the ego’?

The following is adapted from the reply I wrote to him:

Any experience that is temporary is not manōnāśa and hence not ‘self-realisation’

A recent post on the Facebook page of the Ramana Maharshi Foundation UK was a partial quotation of a paragraph in A Sadhu’s Reminiscences of Ramana Maharshi (3rd edn, 1976, pp. 52-3), in which Alan Chadwick wrote:

Before I came to India I had read of such people as Edward Carpenter, Tennyson and many more who had had flashes of what they called “Cosmic Consciousness.” I asked Bhagavan about this. Was it possible that once having gained Self-realization to lose it again? Certainly it was. To support this view Bhagavan took up a copy of Kaivalya Navanita and told the interpreter to read a page of it to me. In the early stages of Sadhana this was quite possible and even probable. So long as the least desire or tie was left, a person would be pulled back again into the phenomenal world, he explained. After all it is only our Vasanas that prevent us from always being in our natural state, and Vasanas were not got rid of all of a sudden or by a flash of Cosmic Consciousness. One may have worked them out in a previous existence leaving a little to be done in the present life, but in any case they must first be destroyed.

Referring to this, a friend wrote to me: ‘Having once attained is there a chance of unattaining again? This question has confused me for many weeks. I was under the impression that once the ego had been completed annihilated it will never rise again. Yet discussions with fellow devotees on the Ramana Maharshi Foundation page seem to indicate that even once attained it is possible to be lost again if all vasanas [are] not destroyed. What was Bhagavan’s view on this? It disturbs me immensely that having attained one can fall again into the illusion, it also seems to render our practise quite meaningless if that is the case’. The following is my reply to her.

What is aware of the absence of the ego and mind in sleep?

A friend wrote to me today asking:

If pure awareness simply is and is not aware of anything else because only it exists, and the ego is not there during deep sleep, what knows the absence of the ego and mind during deep sleep?

After waking up, I know for a fact that the ego-mind wasn’t there (in deep sleep). I also know that (due to not having investigated keenly enough) it appears to be here now (in waking).

So my question is, what is aware of both the presence of the ego-mind in waking/dream and its absence in deep sleep? It can’t be pure awareness nor the ego-mind itself.

The following is what I replied to him:

Pure self-awareness is not nothingness but the only thing that actually exists

A friend recently wrote to me asking, ‘What is the difference between nothingness and complete self-awareness? I understand the destruction of the mind is the ultimate goal of the practice, but does that mean we aim to just be nothing at all?’, but then added, ‘Obviously this question arises from an ego that is afraid to not be, but I am curious’. The following is adapted from my reply to him:

The non-existence of the ego, body and world in manōlaya is only temporary, whereas in manōnāśa it is permanent

In a comment on one of my recent articles, There is absolutely no difference between sleep and pure self-awareness (ātma-jñāna), a friend called Roger asked me why, if there is no difference between sleep and self-awareness, Gaudapada says in Māṇḍukya Kārikā 3.44 that (in Roger’s words) ‘when during meditation the mind becomes inactive in oblivion (susupti / sleep) the mind should be awakened again, just the same as if the mind is distracted’. From this verse and Sankara’s commentary on it Roger inferred that ‘It seems you teach that sleep is the highest state, your whole teaching is oriented toward this, but Shankara explicitly warns against it’. Therefore this article is written in reply to this and a subsequent comment by Roger.

What we actually are is just pure self-awareness: awareness that is aware of nothing other than itself

A friend recently wrote to me:

You say that the Self is always self-aware. What about then the concept of Parabrahman (where awareness isn’t aware that it is aware). Isn’t this a contradiction? Ramesh Balsekar used this phrase a lot in his teaching for instance.

Can you comment on this please.

The following is adapted from the reply I wrote to him:

There is absolutely no difference between sleep and pure self-awareness (ātma-jñāna)

After I wrote the reply that I reproduced in the article I posted here yesterday, namely Māyā is nothing but our own mind, so it seems to exist only when we seem to be this mind, the friend to whom I wrote it replied, ‘Thank you, Michael, but I assume ‘realisation’ is not quite the same as deep sleep?’, to which I replied:

Māyā is nothing but our own mind, so it seems to exist only when we seem to be this mind

A friend wrote to me today:

Someone wrote this on FB yesterday and I am getting confused again because I thought the idea of becoming realised is to put an end to Maya:

“According to Adi Shankara (7th century father of modern non-dual philosophy), Maya is eternal. At no point does “form” cease to exist. It (maya/form) never had a beginning because it is eternal. It will also never have an end. The difference between enlightened and unenlightened is in the mind only. The universe doesn’t disappear. The mind ceases to be confused about the nature of one’s own Self. Bodies may come and go but the enlightened mind is not attached to them or identified with them. Yet they come and go like clouds in the sky.”

Why do people have different ideas on self-realisation?

The following is adapted from the reply I wrote to her:

Concern about fate and free will arises only when our mind is turned away from ourself

What I wrote in one of my recent articles, Do we need to do anything at all?, triggered a discussion about the roles of destiny (prārabdha) and the ego’s own volition or free will (though free will was referred to only implicitly, not explicitly) and how we can determine whether any particular thought arises due to destiny or due to free will. This discussion started from the first comment, in which a friend called Samarender Reddy wrote:

There seems to a problem with what you say. If whatever is to happen is decided by my prarabdha, then whatever motions the body is to go through and whatever the mind has to “think” to get the body to do actions as per prarabdha are also predetermined and “I, the ego” have no say in it. But you also say, “therefore we need not think”. And yet the mind will necessarily think some thoughts as per prarabdha. How do I distinguish thinking or thoughts associated with prarabdha and the other non-prarabdha associated thinking I seem to indulge in? Whenever any thought occurs, how do I know if it is prarabdha or the ego thinking? If I say, ok, whatever thoughts have to occur will occur to make the body do whatever it has to do, then it would seem that one has to be totally silent and not thinking and whenever any thought arises involuntarily I have to consider that as prarabdha thought and act accordingly? Is that what you are saying? Also, in that case will only such prarabdha thoughts then occur which require the body to do something or will such thoughts also occur which do not require the body to do something? I would really appreciate if you can clarify these doubts of mine.

This article is my reply to this comment, and also less directly to some of the ideas expressed in subsequent comments on the same subject.

Why should we believe that dream is anything other than a fabrication of our dreaming mind?

A friend wrote to me last night saying that his father and brother believe that when one dreams ‘the dream is really you leaving the physical body and going to some other realm and interacting with other souls’, and that he always had trouble believing this idea, but asked me: ‘What is the best argument philosophically to counter such an assertion?’ The following is what I replied to him:

What is the purpose of questions such as ‘To whom have these thoughts arisen?’?

A friend wrote to me today saying that he is practicing a Buddhist tradition of investigating ‘Who is reciting the Buddha?’, which he considers to be ‘no different from Ramana Maharshi’s teaching of self-enquiry’, and he asked whether there is spiritually any difference between investigating ‘to whom have these thoughts arisen?’ and ‘who is giving rise to these thoughts?’. The following is what I replied to him:

Do we need to do anything at all?

During a recent meeting of the Ramana Maharshi Foundation UK, which was recorded on the video 2017-05-13 Ramana Maharshi Foundation UK: discussion with Michael James on importance of practice, a friend called Alasdair was questioning me, and from 33.46 to 39.51 our dialogue was as follows:

Alasdair: OK, so, if I am lying in bed, and I manage to remind myself that the first thing I have got to think of is ‘who am I?’ and keep the ‘I’-current running, but I also know that shortly after I get out of bed I have got to do certain things in the kitchen, or I have got certain tasks to …

Michael: Who has all these tasks?

A: The little ‘I’, and it is precisely that which …

M: No, it is not the little ‘I’. The little ‘I’ doesn’t have any tasks. It’s Alasdair who has all these tasks, isn’t it?

How to avoid following or completing any thought whatsoever?

A friend recently wrote to me:

I have a question on self-investigation:

I clearly understand that I do not have to complete any of my thoughts when they arise, but, as you explain in your book, have, instead, to use my rising thoughts to remind myself of my thinking mind, that is ‘I’, which in its turn should remind me of ‘I am’.

But I have a problem: when some useful thought (in my opinion) rises, I lose my strong intention to not complete it and just use it as a reminder of everything that it has to remind me. When some thought that I think to be good or useful rises, I try to use it as a reminder, but unsuccessfully and the idea given me by that thought continues living in my mind. That is, usually I do not tend to just stop such thoughts and cannot help completing them.

Could you please tell me what you do in such cases? Sri Bhagavan says that we should not complete any of our thoughts, and as I understand he means exactly what he says: any of our thoughts. He calls them ‘enemies’ that must be destroyed. What does the situation which I describe should look like ideally? How can I ignore such thoughts in a sense of treating them as well as all other thoughts? Please give me an explanation based on your own experience and understanding.

The following is adapted from the reply I wrote to her:

Does anything exist independent of our perception of it?

In a comment on my previous article, Why is effort required for us to go deep in our practice of self-investigation?, a friend called Samarender Reddy asked:

Take the case of anesthesia. I may be undergoing an operation, for which anesthesia is given. Under the influence of anesthesia, I am unaware or do not perceive the world. But once the operation is done and the anesthetic wears off and I wake up, I might see a big scar with stitches on my abdomen. Can I not thereby conclude that the world existed during the anesthesia for the operation to have taken place even though I was not perceiving it due to the effect of anesthesia. Otherwise, how to account for the fact of the scar on the abdomen, and the consequent relief from pain I might be experiencing. If the world did not exist when I was under anesthesia, then how did the operation take place, as evidenced by the scar and relief of symptoms, and maybe, say, even a specimen of my gallbladder taken out. And if we so concede that the world existed during anesthesia, then analogously can we not conclude that the world exists even during deep sleep. Perception is not the only means to establish a fact, right, with inference and verbal testimony being the other means of knowledge to establish a fact. In the case of anesthesia and deep sleep, while I cannot resort to perception as a means of knowledge to establish the fact of the existence of the world during those states, but surely inference (with regard to cause-and-effect) and the verbal testimony of others can lead me to conclude that the world does indeed exist during anesthesia and deep sleep, right?

In reply to this I wrote the following comment:

Why is effort required for us to go deep in our practice of self-investigation?

A friend recently wrote to me asking:

My question about I-Alone is this: in relaxing attention from objects I can be keenly aware of my existence as Sat Chit. That is effortless, but it is not completely and exclusively ‘I’-Self-aware. Other objects are also ‘known’.

But, today I have read from you [in Our aim should be to experience ourself alone, in complete isolation from everything else]: “Our real aim should not be just longer durations of self-attentiveness but should be more deep, intense and clear self-attentiveness — that is, attentiveness that is more keenly and exclusively focused on ‘I’ alone, without the least trace of any awareness of anything else.”

First of all, wow! My experience so far is that this is not effortless, but an intense, actively engaged ‘focusing down’, so to speak, on Self.

I just wanted to ask you if that is correct. That intense active focusing is required.

The following is adapted from what I replied to him:

After the annihilation of the ego, no ‘I’ can rise to say ‘I have seen’

In Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 33: the ‘I’ that rises to say ‘I have seen’ has seen nothing, which is the final section of one of my recent articles, There is only one ego, and even that does not actually exist, I quoted a Tamil saying, ‘கண்டவர் விண்டில்லை; விண்டவர் கண்டில்லை’ (kaṇḍavar viṇḍillai; viṇḍavar kaṇḍillai), which means ‘those who have seen do not say; those who say have not seen’, and then verse 33 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu, in which Bhagavan says:

To eradicate the mind we must watch only its first thought, the ego

A friend recently wrote to me saying that a friend of his had advised him that the way to quieten the mind is to watch it, and he implied that watching it means watching whatever thoughts flow through it, because he claimed that ‘once you start watching it [the flow of thoughts] you get separated from your thoughts’, thereby implying that we can detach ourself from thoughts by watching them. This article is adapted from the reply that I wrote to him.

What is ‘remembering the Lord’ or ‘remembrance of Arunachala’?

This article is adapted from the reply that I wrote to a friend who asked: ‘In Hinduism, it is written that if one remembers the Lord at the time of death one will obtain Moksha. Ramana Maharishi seems to endorse the same teaching with regards to Arunachala. I have read the path of Sri Ramana by Sadhu Om and practiced for many years what he calls Jnana japa. I have visited the holy mountain Arunachala many years ago. I am now over 60 and in the last years of my life. I am wondering whether it would be better to change my practice to remembering the Name of Arunachala. Any advice you can give me would be appreciated’.

Is ‘guided meditation’ possible in Bhagavan’s path of self-investigation?

In April the Ramana Maharshi Foundation UK are organising a non-residential retreat in London, which they have asked me to lead, and recently a friend wrote suggesting that ‘in addition to the usual question and answer sessions, some sessions could be devoted to practising guided meditations’, so that ‘the sessions in the retreat should go beyond clarifying doubts to practising focussed meditation’. This article is adapted from the reply I wrote to him.

There is only one ego, and even that does not actually exist

A friend recently wrote to me asking various questions about what I had said in some of the videos on my YouTube channel, Sri Ramana Teachings, and also about several other related topics, so this article is adapted from my reply to her.

Rather than being aware of being aware, we should be aware only of what is aware, namely ourself

This article is my reply to a recent comment on one of my earlier articles, How to attend to ourself?, in which a friend wrote: ‘I have tried being aware of being aware. I find it slightly different than being aware of myself. In being aware of being aware, it is more like getting more awake towards entire gamut of experience. While being aware of myself is more like somewhat withdrawing from other experiences. There is more effort involved in the latter. What is your experience?’

What is the real ‘living guru’, and what is the look of its grace?

A friend wrote to me recently asking ‘is it really not necessary to have a living guru if one truly opens oneself to Sri Ramana, and tries as best as one can to live the teachings with devotion and sincerity?’, to which I replied:

I certainly exist, but I am not necessarily what I seem to be

A friend wrote to me recently explaining how he feels most of the time, and he started by saying, ‘I know for sure, that whatever I say, think or do, there is no “I” who is doing anything’, so the following is adapted from what I replied to him:

What is the difference between God and the ego?

After I wrote the article What is the difference between pure awareness and the ego, and how are they related? yesterday, the same friend replied asking me to explain to her the difference between īśvara and the ego, so the following is what I replied to her:

What is the difference between pure awareness and the ego, and how are they related?

A friend recently wrote asking me to explain the difference between awareness and consciousness and how consciousness is connected to the ego, so the following is what I wrote in reply to her:

How can we see inaction in action?

A friend recently wrote asking me to explain Bhagavad Gītā 4.18, in which Krishna says that whoever sees inaction (akarma) in action (karma) and action in inaction is wise (buddhimān), and how to apply this in practice in the context of Bhagavan’s teachings, so the following is an elaboration of my reply to him:

Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 12: other than the real awareness that we actually are, there is nothing to know or make known

In section 16 of one of my recent articles, What is aware of everything other than ourself is only the ego and not ourself as we actually are, I quoted and discussed verse 12 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu, after reading which a friend who has translated many of my articles into Italian and posted them on his blog , La Caverna del Cuore, wrote asking me to explain the exact meaning and implication of a word in the third sentence that I had translated as ‘for causing to know’. Since this is a very significant word that has a deep and broad meaning in this context, I will explain its significance in this article.

Like Bhagavan, Sankara taught that objects are perceived only through ignorance and hence by the mind and not by ourself as we actually are

In two comments on my previous article, What is aware of everything other than ourself is only the ego and not ourself as we actually are, a friend called Ken quoted Swami Nikhilananda’s English translation of Adi Sankara’s commentaries on Māṇḍukya Kārikā 2.12 and 2.33, and in response to that I wrote the following comment:

What is aware of everything other than ourself is only the ego and not ourself as we actually are

In a comment on one of my recent articles, Why does Bhagavan sometimes say that the ātma-jñāni is aware of the body and world?, a friend called Ken wrote, ‘Ramana states: “The ego functions as the knot between the Self which is Pure Consciousness and the physical body which is inert and insentient.” Therefore, there is nothing that can experience other than the Self. [...] since the body is insentient (cannot experience), and only the Self can experience, then any experience that occurs, can only be experienced by the Self’, but contrary to what he argues in this comment and in several other ones, what experiences everything (all forms or phenomena) is not ‘the Self’ (ourself as we actually are) but only ourself as this ego, as I will try to explain in this article.

When this world is nothing but an illusion, why do we run after it?

A friend wrote to me this morning, ‘When this world is nothing but an illusion... Why run after it; why try to change it; why try to enjoy its seeming pleasures; why be over concerned about expected profits and losses; why look forward to various relationships... why? Why not just remain still, now and always...When this world is nothing but an illusion...’, to which I replied:

Whether it be called ‘yōga nidrā’ or ‘nirvikalpa samādhi’, any kind of manōlaya is of no spiritual benefit

A friend recently wrote to me describing how he sometimes goes involuntarily into a sleep-like state, and he asked me about the significance of such experiences, referring to what he had read about the distinction that some people make between ‘yōga nidrā’ or ‘nirvikalpa samādhi’, so the following is what I replied to him: