The ego is the sole cause, creator, source, substance and foundation of all other things
In a comment on one of my recent articles, The ego does not actually exist, but it seems to exist, and only so long as it seems to exist do all other things seem to exist, a friend called Salazar wrote, ‘Did anybody on this blog wonder who is perceiving the thoughts which come into awareness? That what is aware of thoughts cannot be the creator of these thoughts, because a thought is an object apart from that “observer”’. This article is written in reply to this comment and another one written by him.
Salazar, what Bhagavan means by the term ‘thought’ is a mental phenomenon of any kind whatsoever, and since according to his teachings all phenomena are mental phenomena, everything other than our real nature (ātma-svarūpa), which is pure self-awareness, is just a thought. This is why he says in the fourth paragraph of Nāṉ Ār?, ‘நினைவுகளைத் தவிர்த்து ஜகமென்றோர் பொருள் அன்னியமா யில்லை’ (niṉaivugaḷai-t tavirttu jagam-eṉḏṟōr poruḷ aṉṉiyamāy illai), ‘Excluding thoughts, there is not separately any such thing as world’, and in the fourteenth paragraph, ‘ஜக மென்பது நினைவே’ (jagam eṉbadu niṉaivē), ‘What is called the world is only thought’.
Therefore when you write, ‘That what is aware of thoughts cannot be the creator of these thoughts’, that implies that what is aware of phenomena cannot be the creator of those phenomena, or what is aware of the world cannot be the creator of it, but is this what Bhagavan taught us? What did he teach us about creation? Did he teach that creation occurs prior to or independent of perception, which is what we all generally believe, and which is what is called sṛṣṭi-dṛṣṭi-vāda, the contention (vāda) that creation (sṛṣṭi) precedes and is the cause of perception (dṛṣṭi)?
No, he asked us to question whether anything other than ourself exists independent of our perception of it, and he taught us very explicitly and emphatically what is called dṛṣṭi-sṛṣṭi-vāda, the contention that perception (dṛṣṭi) is the sole cause of creation (sṛṣṭi), or more precisely, that perception itself is creation. Phenomena seem to exist only because we perceive them, so our perception of them alone creates their seeming existence. In other words, we, the perceiver, create phenomena merely by perceiving them.
We can understand this by considering our experience in dream. In dream we perceive a world consisting of phenomena of various kinds, including people, just like the world that we now perceive, and just as we now perceive ourself as a person in this world, in dream we perceive ourself as a person in that world. Why does that dream world seem to exist? Only because we perceive it. It does not exist prior to our perception of it, nor independent of our perception of it. Why? Because it does not exist at all except in our perception. It appears only in our awareness, so it would not exist at all if we were not aware of it.
According to Bhagavan any state in which we are aware of phenomena is just a dream, so the world we now perceive is a dream world. This is why he says in Nāṉ Ār? and elsewhere that the world is nothing but thoughts. Do thoughts exist independent of our perception of them? No, they seem to exist only because we perceive them, so they are created only by our perceiving them.
Thinking is a process of forming thoughts and perceiving them, but the formation (creation) of thoughts and the perception of them are not two processes or even two parts of one process, but are one and the same process, because thoughts are formed in our awareness, so they are formed by our being aware of them. Our perception of them is itself the formation or creation of them. In other words, dṛṣṭi is itself sṛṣṭi. There is no creation (sṛṣṭi) other than perception (dṛṣṭi), because there is no existence (sat) other than awareness (cit).
What actually exists is only awareness, so whatever seems to exist seems to exist only because of awareness. Therefore it is only by awareness that anything is created. Without awareness there could be no creation.
Creation is not real but just an illusory appearance, and nothing can appear except in awareness. Appearance requires perception or awareness of it, because if it were not perceived, to whom or to what could it appear? Whatever appears seems to exist only because it is perceived. In other words, whatever seems to exist seems to exist only in awareness, only to awareness, only by awareness and only because of awareness.
2. The awareness in which and to which phenomena appear is not real awareness but only a semblance of awareness (cidābhāsa)
However, the awareness in which, to which, by which and because of which all things seem to exist is not real awareness (cit), but is only a semblance of awareness (cidābhāsa), because real awareness is never aware of anything other than itself. This semblance of awareness, in whose view alone all thoughts or phenomena seem to exist, is not real, because it arises and subsides (appears and disappears) along with all the phenomena of which it is aware, as Bhagavan says in verse 7 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu:
3. This semblance of awareness (cidābhāsa) is the ego or mind, which is what causes all thoughts or phenomena to appear
This semblance of awareness (cidābhāsa) is what is otherwise called the ego or mind, and as Bhagavan says in the first two sentences of the fourth paragraph of Nāṉ Ār?:
As he points out in verse 18 of Upadēśa Undiyār, the term ‘mind’ is used in two distinct senses. In a general sense it is a term that refers to the totality of all thoughts or mental phenomena, but since the root of all thoughts is the ego, the primal thought called ‘I’, what the mind essentially is is only the ego, and hence in a more specific sense ‘mind’ is a term that refers to the ego. The ego is the root of all other thoughts because it is the subject, the perceiving thought, whereas all other thoughts are objects perceived by it.
In the first two sentences of the fourth paragraph of Nāṉ Ār?, cited above, the term ‘mind’ refers to the ego, so when Bhagavan says that it ‘causes all thoughts to appear’ or ‘makes all thoughts appear’ he means that the ego (the subject or perceiver) is what causes all other thoughts to appear. However in the next two sentences, in which he says, ‘நினைவுகளை யெல்லாம் நீக்கிப் பார்க்கின்றபோது, தனியாய் மனமென் றோர் பொருளில்லை; ஆகையால் நினைவே மனதின் சொரூபம்’ (niṉaivugaḷai y-ellām nīkki-p pārkkiṉḏṟa-pōdu, taṉi-y-āy maṉam eṉḏṟu ōr poruḷ illai; āhaiyāl niṉaivē maṉadiṉ sorūpam), ‘When one looks, excluding [removing or putting aside] all thoughts, solitarily there is not any such thing as mind; therefore thought alone is the svarūpa [the ‘own form’ or very nature] of the mind’, the term ‘mind’ refers to the totality of all thoughts, namely the ego and all phenomena perceived by it. Therefore whenever Bhagavan uses the term ‘mind’ we need to understand from the context whether he is using it to refer specifically to the ego or more generally to all thoughts.
What Bhagavan teaches us in the second sentence of this paragraph, namely that the mind (in the sense of ego) is what ‘causes all thoughts to appear’, is further emphasised by him later on in the same paragraph by means of an analogy:
4. The ego or mind causes all thoughts or phenomena to appear only from itself, so it alone is their source or origin
Since the ego or mind alone is what causes all thoughts or phenomena to appear, from where or from what does it cause them to appear? ‘தன்னிடத்திலிருந்து’ (taṉ-ṉ-iḍattil-irundu), ‘from itself’ or ‘from within itself’, says Bhagavan. Since the world is nothing but thoughts (mental phenomena of a particular kind, namely sensory perceptions), when he firstly says, ‘அது சகல நினைவுகளையும் தோற்றுவிக்கின்றது’ (adu sakala niṉaivugaḷaiyum tōṯṟuvikkiṉḏṟadu), ‘It [the mind] causes all thoughts to appear’, and subsequently says, ‘மனமும் தன்னிடத்திலிருந்து ஜகத்தைத் தோற்றுவித்து’ (maṉamum taṉ-ṉ-iḍattil-irundu jagattai-t tōṯṟuvittu), ‘the mind also causing the world to appear from within itself’, he clearly implies that the mind or ego causes all thoughts (or all phenomena) to appear from itself.
Therefore Bhagavan teaches us very clearly and unambiguously that the mind, which in this context means the ego, is the source or origin from which all thoughts or phenomena appear, and this accords perfectly with our own experience. From where else could our thoughts come if not from ourself? Thoughts or phenomena appear only in our perception and only because of our perception of them, so their source or origin is only ourself, this ego.
5. A cause and its effect can occur simultaneously, but logically the cause comes first and the effect comes only after it
In the fifth paragraph of Nāṉ Ār? he says:
In terms of chronological sequence, a cause must either precede its effect or be simultaneous with its effect, but even when it is simultaneous with its effect, in terms of causal sequence it precedes it, because a cause is what gives rise to an effect, so logically the cause comes first and its effect comes only after it. Consider the example of a moving billiard ball hitting a stationary one. The hit causes some of the momentum of the moving ball to be transferred to the stationary one, as a result of which it begins to move. The hit is the cause, and the movement of the stationary ball is the effect. Both occur simultaneously in time, but in terms of the causal sequence the cause comes first and the effect follows on from it. That is, the hitting comes first, and only after it occurs does the stationary ball begin to move.
It is in this sense that Bhagavan says: ‘நானென்னும் நினைவே முதல் நினைவு. இது எழுந்த பிறகே ஏனைய நினைவுகள் எழுகின்றன. தன்மை தோன்றிய பிறகே முன்னிலை படர்க்கைகள் தோன்றுகின்றன; தன்மை யின்றி முன்னிலை படர்க்கைக ளிரா’ (nāṉ-eṉṉum niṉaivē mudal niṉaivu. idu eṙunda piṟahē ēṉaiya niṉaivugaḷ eṙugiṉḏṟaṉa. taṉmai tōṉḏṟiya piṟahē muṉṉilai paḍarkkaigaḷ tōṉḏṟugiṉḏṟaṉa; taṉmai y-iṉḏṟi muṉṉilai paḍarkkaigaḷ irā), ‘the thought called ‘I’ alone is the first thought. Only after this arises do other thoughts arise. Only after the first person [the ego, the primal thought called ‘I’] appears do second and third persons [all other things] appear; without the first person second and third persons do not exist’. That is, though the ego (the thought called ‘I’) and other thoughts arise simultaneously, in the sequence of cause and effect the rising of the ego comes first, because it is the cause, and the rising of other thoughts comes only after that, because it is the effect.
In an earlier comment you wrote, ‘the ego and thoughts appear and disappear simultaneously. To imply that one of these concepts were there before the other one is rather fishy, I believe that the question what is first, the ego or a thought falls under the category of what is first, the chicken or the egg?’ but this seems to be fishy only if we fail to distinguish causal sequence from chronological sequence. Bhagavan did say (as in verse 7 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu) that ego and other thoughts appear and disappear simultaneously, referring to chronological sequence, but he also said (as in the final four sentences of the fifth paragraph of Nāṉ Ār?) that the ego is the first thought and that only after it rises do other thoughts rise, referring to causal sequence.
Therefore when Bhagavan says that the ego (the first person, the thought called ‘I’) is the first thought to appear and that only after it appears do other thoughts (second and third persons) appear, he does not mean that there is any lapse of time between the appearance of the ego and the appearance of other thoughts or phenomena, but is merely emphasising that the appearance of the ego is the cause and the appearance of all other things is its effect. The ego is the first cause, the cause of all other causes, so all chains of cause and effect begin only after the ego has appeared.
The analogy of the chicken and egg that you mention is not appropriate in this context, because chickens and eggs are links in a long chain of cause and effect, whereas the ego is the beginning or origin of every chain of cause and effect. Like both a chicken and an egg, every cause (or potential cause) is an effect of another cause, except the ego, which is the only cause that is not an effect of any other cause. It is the causeless cause, the uncaused cause, because nothing precedes it, whereas it precedes everything.
A chicken is the cause of an egg, which is in turn the cause of another chicken, and so on ad infinitum, but all such chains of cause and effect seem to exist only in the view of the ego, so they can appear only when the ego has appeared, and they must disappear as soon as it disappears. Therefore the ego is the cause and origin of all other causes and effects. This is why Bhagavan says that it is the first thought, and that all other thoughts (including chickens and eggs and all other chains of cause and effect) arise only after it has arisen.
6. Since the ego has created all that it perceives, why does it have so little control over what it has created?
You conclude that earlier comment by writing, ‘Anyway, I do not think that any clarity of that topic can be found in Bhagavan’s texts, I still favor Robert’s comment and I believe that he is in unison with Bhagavan on this matter’, but there is actually abundant clarity on this topic that we can found in his texts if we know how to look for it. The fact that the ego alone is the root cause for the appearance of everything else is one of the fundamental principles of his teachings and is therefore emphasised by him unequivocally in so many ways in his original writings, particularly in Nāṉ Ār? and Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu, and also in many of the records of his replies to questions that he was asked.
Earlier in the same comment you asked, ‘Now I am wondering, since the ego cannot control these thoughts which it is supposedly “creating” how can it be the creator of thereof?’ but why do you assume that the creator should necessarily be able to control what it has created? When we dream, is the creator of our dream anyone other than ourself, the dreamer, namely this mind or ego?
Since perception is itself creation, we who perceive a dream are the one who is thereby creating it, but are we able to control all that we perceive in a dream? No, we cannot, and the reason for this is simple: when we create a dream world, we create ourself as a person in that world, and it is only as that person that we perceive that world, so though we are the creator of that world, we experience ourself as a creature in it, and by being a small part of our creation we have to a large extent lost control over it. The same is the case with this world and all that we perceive in it, including all the thoughts that arise in the mind of the person whom we now seem to be.
You are creating this world from moment to moment, but since you experience yourself as a person called Salazar, and since Salazar is a creature in the world you have created, as Salazar you have lost control of most of your own creation. This is the wonderful power of māyā (self-deception or self-delusion), which according to Bhagavan is nothing other than the ego or mind. We have created this world, but we are deluded by our own creation, so we are unable to control this demon that we have conjured up.
This is why in Hindu mythology the first three divine functions, namely creation, sustenance and dissolution, are each attributed to a different deity. According to this allegorical way of expressing the truth, Brahma has created this world, but he is unable to control or sustain it, nor is he able to destroy it, so it is sustained by Vishnu and destroyed by Siva. Of these three forms of God, which two are most highly revered? Only Vishnu and Siva, because creation is not a worthy function, so Brahma, the creator, is not worshipped in any temple, but only in Vedic rituals that are performed for the fulfilment of desires.
Suppose we have an irrational fear or an obsessive desire. That fear or desire is just a thought and it is created only by us, but we have become so caught up in our own creation that we are carried away by it and seem to be unable to control it.
This is not to say that we have absolutely no control over what we think or over other phenomena. We may have some degree of control, but that degree is limited, and the more we are deluded by our own creation, the less control we have over it. However if we patiently and persistently practise self-investigation (ātma-vicāra), our viṣaya-vāsanās (outward-going inclinations, urges or desires) will be gradually weakened, and our mind will thereby be purified. To the extent that it is purified it will be clear, and the clearer it becomes the less dense will be its delusion, so the extent to which we are able to keep a tight rein on our viṣaya-vāsanās, which are the seeds that give rise to thoughts, will increase correspondingly.
7. Thoughts come only from ourself, the ego, the one who perceives them, so we alone are the root of all thoughts
In a later part of the comment whose first paragraph I quoted at the beginning of this article you wrote, ‘So where are thoughts coming from? If patiently investigated one will discover that they come out of nowhere and disappear into nowhere’, but how can anything come out of nowhere? Nowhere does not exist except as an idea or thought, so from where does the idea of nowhere arise? Something cannot come out of nothing, because nothing does not exist, so whatever appears must appear from something.
In the next paragraph of that comment you wrote, ‘it is absolutely clear that they [thoughts] cannot come from the observer of these thoughts’, but from where else could thoughts come if not from ourself, the one who perceives or observes them? Thoughts appear only in the mind, and the source from which they appear is the root thought, the ego (which is why Bhagavan calls it the mūlam, the root, base, foundation, origin, source or cause of all other thoughts). The ego rises or appears only out of ātma-svarūpa (the real nature of oneself), and all other thoughts rise or appear only out of the ego, so the ego is the immediate source and foundation of all other thoughts, and ātma-svarūpa is their ultimate source and foundation.
From what does the illusion of a snake appear? It cannot appear from nowhere or nothing, so it appears from something that (in terms of this analogy) actually exists, namely a rope. However it could not appear from a rope without the intervening medium called ego or mind, because it appears to be a snake only in the view of the ego. Therefore the immediate cause for the appearance of the snake is the ego, in whose view alone it appears, and the ultimate cause of it is the rope, because without the rope there would be nothing to be seen as a snake.
This is just an analogy, so there is a limit to the extent to which it accurately represents the truth to which it is analogous, but what it is intended to illustrate here is that the ultimate source, substance and foundation of the ego and of all thoughts or phenomena perceived by the ego is only ātma-svarūpa, but that the immediate source, substance and foundation of all thoughts or phenomena is only the ego, because it is only in the view of the ego that everything else seems to exist.
Without the ego could any other thought or phenomenon appear? It could not, because the ego is that to which and from which all other thoughts or phenomena appear. Likewise, without ātma-svarūpa could the ego appear? It could not, because ātma-svarūpa is that from which (but not to which) the ego appears.
This is why in the fourth paragraph of Nāṉ Ār? Bhagavan says, ‘மனம் ஆத்ம சொரூபத்தினின்று வெளிப்படும்போது ஜகம் தோன்றும்’ (maṉam ātma-sorūpattiṉiṉḏṟu veḷippaḍum-pōdu jagam tōṉḏṟum), ‘When the mind comes out from ātma-svarūpa, the world appears’, meaning that ātma-svarūpa is the source from which the mind or ego appears, and in the previous sentence said, ‘[…] அப்படியே மனமும் தன்னிடத்திலிருந்து ஜகத்தைத் தோற்றுவித்து மறுபடியும் தன்னிடமே ஒடுக்கிக்கொள்ளுகிறது’ (appaḍiyē maṉamum taṉ-ṉ-iḍattil-irundu jagattai-t tōṯṟuvittu maṟupaḍiyum taṉṉiḍamē oḍukki-k-koḷḷugiṟadu), ‘[…] in that way the mind also causes the world to appear from within itself and again dissolves it back into itself’, meaning that the mind or ego is the source from which the world and all other thoughts appear.
If other thoughts or phenomena did not originate from the ego, that would mean that they originate from something else, in which case they would be able to exist independent of the ego, which is contrary to all that Bhagavan taught us. Why should we believe that anything exists independent of the ego, or that anything originates from any source other than the ego? Since everything is perceived only by the ego, we do not have any adequate reason to suppose that anything exists independent of it or comes from anything other than it. This is why Bhagavan repeatedly emphasised that the ego (which is what he often referred to as ‘the thought called I’) is the first thought and the root of all other thoughts.
8. Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 26: everything depends for its seeming existence on the seeming existence of the ego, so when we investigate the ego keenly enough to see that it does not exist, that is giving up everything
Since the ego is the sole cause, creator, source, substance and foundation of all other things, in verse 26 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu Bhagavan wrote:
Since the ego seems to exist only so long as we are aware of anything other than ourself, it will dissolve and cease to exist only when we try to be so keenly self-attentive that we are aware of nothing other than ourself. And since all other things seem to exist only in the view of the ego, if we keenly investigate this ego in order to see what we actually are, not only will the ego cease to exist but everything else will cease to exist along with it.
This is why he concludes this verse by saying: ‘ஆதலால், யாது இது என்று நாடலே ஓவுதல் யாவும் என ஓர்’ (ādalāl, yādu idu eṉḏṟu nādal-ē ōvudal yāvum eṉa ōr), ‘Therefore, know that investigating what this [the ego] is alone is giving up everything’.
This is the core and essence of his teachings, so it is essential for us to understand very clearly that the ego is the sole cause, creator, source, substance and foundation of all other things (all thoughts or phenomena). Everything originates from the ego and depends upon the ego for its seeming existence, so if we eradicate the ego we thereby eradicate everything.
- According to dṛṣṭi-sṛṣṭi-vāda, perception is not only the cause of creation but is itself creation
- The awareness in which and to which phenomena appear is not real awareness but only a semblance of awareness (cidābhāsa)
- This semblance of awareness (cidābhāsa) is the ego or mind, which is what causes all thoughts or phenomena to appear
- The ego or mind causes all thoughts or phenomena to appear only from itself, so it alone is their source or origin
- A cause and its effect can occur simultaneously, but logically the cause comes first and the effect comes only after it
- Since the ego has created all that it perceives, why does it have so little control over what it has created?
- Thoughts come only from ourself, the ego, the one who perceives them, so we alone are the root of all thoughts
- Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 26: everything depends for its seeming existence on the seeming existence of the ego, so when we investigate the ego keenly enough to see that it does not exist, that is giving up everything
Salazar, what Bhagavan means by the term ‘thought’ is a mental phenomenon of any kind whatsoever, and since according to his teachings all phenomena are mental phenomena, everything other than our real nature (ātma-svarūpa), which is pure self-awareness, is just a thought. This is why he says in the fourth paragraph of Nāṉ Ār?, ‘நினைவுகளைத் தவிர்த்து ஜகமென்றோர் பொருள் அன்னியமா யில்லை’ (niṉaivugaḷai-t tavirttu jagam-eṉḏṟōr poruḷ aṉṉiyamāy illai), ‘Excluding thoughts, there is not separately any such thing as world’, and in the fourteenth paragraph, ‘ஜக மென்பது நினைவே’ (jagam eṉbadu niṉaivē), ‘What is called the world is only thought’.
Therefore when you write, ‘That what is aware of thoughts cannot be the creator of these thoughts’, that implies that what is aware of phenomena cannot be the creator of those phenomena, or what is aware of the world cannot be the creator of it, but is this what Bhagavan taught us? What did he teach us about creation? Did he teach that creation occurs prior to or independent of perception, which is what we all generally believe, and which is what is called sṛṣṭi-dṛṣṭi-vāda, the contention (vāda) that creation (sṛṣṭi) precedes and is the cause of perception (dṛṣṭi)?
No, he asked us to question whether anything other than ourself exists independent of our perception of it, and he taught us very explicitly and emphatically what is called dṛṣṭi-sṛṣṭi-vāda, the contention that perception (dṛṣṭi) is the sole cause of creation (sṛṣṭi), or more precisely, that perception itself is creation. Phenomena seem to exist only because we perceive them, so our perception of them alone creates their seeming existence. In other words, we, the perceiver, create phenomena merely by perceiving them.
We can understand this by considering our experience in dream. In dream we perceive a world consisting of phenomena of various kinds, including people, just like the world that we now perceive, and just as we now perceive ourself as a person in this world, in dream we perceive ourself as a person in that world. Why does that dream world seem to exist? Only because we perceive it. It does not exist prior to our perception of it, nor independent of our perception of it. Why? Because it does not exist at all except in our perception. It appears only in our awareness, so it would not exist at all if we were not aware of it.
According to Bhagavan any state in which we are aware of phenomena is just a dream, so the world we now perceive is a dream world. This is why he says in Nāṉ Ār? and elsewhere that the world is nothing but thoughts. Do thoughts exist independent of our perception of them? No, they seem to exist only because we perceive them, so they are created only by our perceiving them.
Thinking is a process of forming thoughts and perceiving them, but the formation (creation) of thoughts and the perception of them are not two processes or even two parts of one process, but are one and the same process, because thoughts are formed in our awareness, so they are formed by our being aware of them. Our perception of them is itself the formation or creation of them. In other words, dṛṣṭi is itself sṛṣṭi. There is no creation (sṛṣṭi) other than perception (dṛṣṭi), because there is no existence (sat) other than awareness (cit).
What actually exists is only awareness, so whatever seems to exist seems to exist only because of awareness. Therefore it is only by awareness that anything is created. Without awareness there could be no creation.
Creation is not real but just an illusory appearance, and nothing can appear except in awareness. Appearance requires perception or awareness of it, because if it were not perceived, to whom or to what could it appear? Whatever appears seems to exist only because it is perceived. In other words, whatever seems to exist seems to exist only in awareness, only to awareness, only by awareness and only because of awareness.
2. The awareness in which and to which phenomena appear is not real awareness but only a semblance of awareness (cidābhāsa)
However, the awareness in which, to which, by which and because of which all things seem to exist is not real awareness (cit), but is only a semblance of awareness (cidābhāsa), because real awareness is never aware of anything other than itself. This semblance of awareness, in whose view alone all thoughts or phenomena seem to exist, is not real, because it arises and subsides (appears and disappears) along with all the phenomena of which it is aware, as Bhagavan says in verse 7 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu:
உலகறிவு மொன்றா யுதித்தொடுங்கு மேனுThe world shines by this semblance of awareness (cidābhāsa), which appears and disappears, because it is perceived only by it and therefore seems to exist only in its view. Therefore though the world and this awareness appear and disappear simultaneously, it is only by this awareness that the world is created or brought into seeming existence. In other words, this awareness is the cause and the appearance of the world is its effect. Whenever this awareness appears, the world appears along with it and because of it, and whenever this awareness disappears, the world disappears along with and because of its disappearance.
முலகறிவு தன்னா லொளிரு — முலகறிவு
தோன்றிமறை தற்கிடனாய்த் தோன்றிமறை யாதொளிரும்
பூன்றமா மஃதே பொருள்.
ulahaṟivu moṉḏṟā yudittoḍuṅgu mēṉu
mulahaṟivu taṉṉā loḷiru — mulahaṟivu
tōṉḏṟimaṟai daṟkiḍaṉāyt tōṉḏṟimaṟai yādoḷirum
pūṉḏṟamā maḵdē poruḷ.
பதச்சேதம்: உலகு அறிவும் ஒன்றாய் உதித்து ஒடுங்கும் ஏனும், உலகு அறிவு தன்னால் ஒளிரும். உலகு அறிவு தோன்றி மறைதற்கு இடன் ஆய் தோன்றி மறையாது ஒளிரும் பூன்றம் ஆம் அஃதே பொருள்.
Padacchēdam (word-separation): ulahu aṟivum oṉḏṟāy udittu oḍuṅgum ēṉum, ulahu aṟivu-taṉṉāl oḷirum. ulahu aṟivu tōṉḏṟi maṟaidaṟku iḍaṉ-āy tōṉḏṟi maṟaiyādu oḷirum pūṉḏṟam ām aḵdē poruḷ.
அன்வயம்: உலகு அறிவும் ஒன்றாய் உதித்து ஒடுங்கும் ஏனும், உலகு அறிவு தன்னால் ஒளிரும். உலகு அறிவு தோன்றி மறைதற்கு இடன் ஆய் தோன்றி மறையாது ஒளிரும் அஃதே பூன்றம் ஆம் பொருள்.
Anvayam (words rearranged in natural prose order): ulahu aṟivum oṉḏṟāy udittu oḍuṅgum ēṉum, ulahu aṟivu-taṉṉāl oḷirum. ulahu aṟivu tōṉḏṟi maṟaidaṟku iḍaṉ-āy tōṉḏṟi maṟaiyādu oḷirum aḵdē pūṉḏṟam ām poruḷ.
English translation: Though the world and awareness arise and subside simultaneously, the world shines by awareness. Only that which shines without appearing or disappearing as the place for the appearing and disappearing of the world and awareness is the substance, which is the whole.
Explanatory paraphrase: Though the world and awareness [the awareness that perceives the world, namely the ego or mind] arise and subside simultaneously, the world shines by [that rising and subsiding] awareness [the mind]. Only that which shines without appearing or disappearing as the place [space, expanse, location, site or ground] for the appearing and disappearing of the world and [that] awareness is poruḷ [the real substance or vastu], which is pūṉḏṟam [the infinite whole or pūrṇa].
3. This semblance of awareness (cidābhāsa) is the ego or mind, which is what causes all thoughts or phenomena to appear
This semblance of awareness (cidābhāsa) is what is otherwise called the ego or mind, and as Bhagavan says in the first two sentences of the fourth paragraph of Nāṉ Ār?:
மன மென்பது ஆத்ம சொரூபத்தி லுள்ள ஓர் அதிசய சக்தி. அது சகல நினைவுகளையும் தோற்றுவிக்கின்றது.The verb that Bhagavan uses in the second of these two sentences is தோற்றுவிக்கின்றது (tōṯṟuvikkiṉḏṟadu), which is the third person singular present tense form of தோற்றுவி (tōṯṟuvi), which is the causative form of தோன்று (tōṉḏṟu), a verb that means to appear, rise, come into existence or seem to be, so தோற்றுவிக்கின்றது (tōṯṟuvikkiṉḏṟadu) literally means ‘it causes to appear’ or ‘it makes appear’, but in this context it is often translated as ‘it projects’ or ‘it creates’, which is what it implies. Therefore by saying that the mind ‘causes all thoughts to appear’ or ‘makes all thoughts appear’, he implies unequivocally that the mind is what creates the appearance of all thoughts.
maṉam eṉbadu ātma-sorūpattil uḷḷa ōr atiśaya śakti. adu sakala niṉaivugaḷaiyum tōṯṟuvikkiṉḏṟadu
What is called mind is an atiśaya śakti [an extraordinary power] that exists in ātma-svarūpa [the ‘own form’ or real nature of oneself]. It makes all thoughts appear.
As he points out in verse 18 of Upadēśa Undiyār, the term ‘mind’ is used in two distinct senses. In a general sense it is a term that refers to the totality of all thoughts or mental phenomena, but since the root of all thoughts is the ego, the primal thought called ‘I’, what the mind essentially is is only the ego, and hence in a more specific sense ‘mind’ is a term that refers to the ego. The ego is the root of all other thoughts because it is the subject, the perceiving thought, whereas all other thoughts are objects perceived by it.
In the first two sentences of the fourth paragraph of Nāṉ Ār?, cited above, the term ‘mind’ refers to the ego, so when Bhagavan says that it ‘causes all thoughts to appear’ or ‘makes all thoughts appear’ he means that the ego (the subject or perceiver) is what causes all other thoughts to appear. However in the next two sentences, in which he says, ‘நினைவுகளை யெல்லாம் நீக்கிப் பார்க்கின்றபோது, தனியாய் மனமென் றோர் பொருளில்லை; ஆகையால் நினைவே மனதின் சொரூபம்’ (niṉaivugaḷai y-ellām nīkki-p pārkkiṉḏṟa-pōdu, taṉi-y-āy maṉam eṉḏṟu ōr poruḷ illai; āhaiyāl niṉaivē maṉadiṉ sorūpam), ‘When one looks, excluding [removing or putting aside] all thoughts, solitarily there is not any such thing as mind; therefore thought alone is the svarūpa [the ‘own form’ or very nature] of the mind’, the term ‘mind’ refers to the totality of all thoughts, namely the ego and all phenomena perceived by it. Therefore whenever Bhagavan uses the term ‘mind’ we need to understand from the context whether he is using it to refer specifically to the ego or more generally to all thoughts.
What Bhagavan teaches us in the second sentence of this paragraph, namely that the mind (in the sense of ego) is what ‘causes all thoughts to appear’, is further emphasised by him later on in the same paragraph by means of an analogy:
நினைவுகளைத் தவிர்த்து ஜகமென்றோர் பொருள் அன்னியமா யில்லை. தூக்கத்தில் நினைவுகளில்லை, ஜகமுமில்லை; ஜாக்ர சொப்பனங்களில் நினைவுகளுள, ஜகமும் உண்டு. சிலந்திப்பூச்சி எப்படித் தன்னிடமிருந்து வெளியில் நூலை நூற்று மறுபடியும் தன்னுள் இழுத்துக் கொள்ளுகிறதோ, அப்படியே மனமும் தன்னிடத்திலிருந்து ஜகத்தைத் தோற்றுவித்து மறுபடியும் தன்னிடமே ஒடுக்கிக்கொள்ளுகிறது.Here again he uses the same causative verb, தோற்றுவி (tōṯṟuvi), which means ‘cause to appear’ or ‘make appear’ and which implies ‘project’ or ‘create’, saying ‘அப்படியே மனமும் தன்னிடத்திலிருந்து ஜகத்தைத் தோற்றுவித்து மறுபடியும் தன்னிடமே ஒடுக்கிக்கொள்ளுகிறது’ (appaḍiyē maṉamum taṉ-ṉ-iḍattil-irundu jagattai-t tōṯṟuvittu maṟupaḍiyum taṉṉiḍamē oḍukki-k-koḷḷugiṟadu), ‘in that way the mind also causes the world to appear from within itself and again dissolves it back into itself’. Therefore in this paragraph Bhagavan emphasises very strongly and categorically that the mind or ego is what causes all other things (all thoughts or phenomena) to appear.
niṉaivugaḷai-t tavirttu jagam eṉḏṟu ōr poruḷ aṉṉiyam-āy illai. tūkkattil niṉaivugaḷ illai, jagamum illai; jāgra-soppaṉaṅgaḷil niṉaivugaḷ uḷa, jagamum uṇḍu. silandi-p-pūcci eppaḍi-t taṉ-ṉ-iḍam-irundu veḷiyil nūlai nūṯṟu maṟupaḍiyum taṉṉuḷ iṙuttu-k-koḷḷugiṟadō, appaḍiyē maṉamum taṉ-ṉ-iḍattil-irundu jagattai-t tōṯṟuvittu maṟupaḍiyum taṉṉiḍamē oḍukki-k-koḷḷugiṟadu.
Excluding thoughts, there is not separately any such thing as world. In sleep there are no thoughts, and [consequently] there is also no world; in waking and dream there are thoughts, and [consequently] there is also a world. Just as a spider spins out thread from within itself and again draws it back into itself, so the mind also makes the world appear [or projects the world] from within itself and again dissolves it back into itself.
4. The ego or mind causes all thoughts or phenomena to appear only from itself, so it alone is their source or origin
Since the ego or mind alone is what causes all thoughts or phenomena to appear, from where or from what does it cause them to appear? ‘தன்னிடத்திலிருந்து’ (taṉ-ṉ-iḍattil-irundu), ‘from itself’ or ‘from within itself’, says Bhagavan. Since the world is nothing but thoughts (mental phenomena of a particular kind, namely sensory perceptions), when he firstly says, ‘அது சகல நினைவுகளையும் தோற்றுவிக்கின்றது’ (adu sakala niṉaivugaḷaiyum tōṯṟuvikkiṉḏṟadu), ‘It [the mind] causes all thoughts to appear’, and subsequently says, ‘மனமும் தன்னிடத்திலிருந்து ஜகத்தைத் தோற்றுவித்து’ (maṉamum taṉ-ṉ-iḍattil-irundu jagattai-t tōṯṟuvittu), ‘the mind also causing the world to appear from within itself’, he clearly implies that the mind or ego causes all thoughts (or all phenomena) to appear from itself.
Therefore Bhagavan teaches us very clearly and unambiguously that the mind, which in this context means the ego, is the source or origin from which all thoughts or phenomena appear, and this accords perfectly with our own experience. From where else could our thoughts come if not from ourself? Thoughts or phenomena appear only in our perception and only because of our perception of them, so their source or origin is only ourself, this ego.
5. A cause and its effect can occur simultaneously, but logically the cause comes first and the effect comes only after it
In the fifth paragraph of Nāṉ Ār? he says:
இந்தத் தேகத்தில் நான் என்று கிளம்புவது எதுவோ அஃதே மனமாம். […] மனதில் தோன்றும் நினைவுக ளெல்லாவற்றிற்கும் நானென்னும் நினைவே முதல் நினைவு. இது எழுந்த பிறகே ஏனைய நினைவுகள் எழுகின்றன. தன்மை தோன்றிய பிறகே முன்னிலை படர்க்கைகள் தோன்றுகின்றன; தன்மை யின்றி முன்னிலை படர்க்கைக ளிரா.When Bhagavan says here that the thought called ‘I’ (the ego) is the first thought and that only after it rises do other thoughts arise, this may seem to contradict what he says in verse 7 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu, namely that the world and awareness (which in this context means the ego, the spurious awareness that appears and disappears) arise and subside simultaneously, but there is actually no contradiction here, because when he says that they arise simultaneously he means at the same time, whereas when he says that the ego is the first thought and that only after it rises do other thoughts arise he is not referring to a chronological sequence but to a causal sequence.
inda-t dēhattil nāṉ eṉḏṟu kiḷambuvadu edu-v-ō aḵdē maṉam-ām. […] maṉadil tōṉḏṟum niṉaivugaḷ ellāvaṯṟiṟkum nāṉ-eṉṉum niṉaivē mudal niṉaivu. idu eṙunda piṟahē ēṉaiya niṉaivugaḷ eṙugiṉḏṟaṉa. taṉmai tōṉḏṟiya piṟahē muṉṉilai paḍarkkaigaḷ tōṉḏṟugiṉḏṟaṉa; taṉmai y-iṉḏṟi muṉṉilai paḍarkkaigaḷ irā.
What rises in this body as ‘I’ [namely the ego, the false awareness ‘I am this body’], that alone is the mind. […] Of all the thoughts that appear [or arise] in the mind, the thought called ‘I’ alone is the first thought [the primal, basic, original or causal thought]. Only after this arises do other thoughts arise. Only after the first person [the ego, the primal thought called ‘I’] appears do second and third persons [all other things] appear; without the first person second and third persons do not exist.
In terms of chronological sequence, a cause must either precede its effect or be simultaneous with its effect, but even when it is simultaneous with its effect, in terms of causal sequence it precedes it, because a cause is what gives rise to an effect, so logically the cause comes first and its effect comes only after it. Consider the example of a moving billiard ball hitting a stationary one. The hit causes some of the momentum of the moving ball to be transferred to the stationary one, as a result of which it begins to move. The hit is the cause, and the movement of the stationary ball is the effect. Both occur simultaneously in time, but in terms of the causal sequence the cause comes first and the effect follows on from it. That is, the hitting comes first, and only after it occurs does the stationary ball begin to move.
It is in this sense that Bhagavan says: ‘நானென்னும் நினைவே முதல் நினைவு. இது எழுந்த பிறகே ஏனைய நினைவுகள் எழுகின்றன. தன்மை தோன்றிய பிறகே முன்னிலை படர்க்கைகள் தோன்றுகின்றன; தன்மை யின்றி முன்னிலை படர்க்கைக ளிரா’ (nāṉ-eṉṉum niṉaivē mudal niṉaivu. idu eṙunda piṟahē ēṉaiya niṉaivugaḷ eṙugiṉḏṟaṉa. taṉmai tōṉḏṟiya piṟahē muṉṉilai paḍarkkaigaḷ tōṉḏṟugiṉḏṟaṉa; taṉmai y-iṉḏṟi muṉṉilai paḍarkkaigaḷ irā), ‘the thought called ‘I’ alone is the first thought. Only after this arises do other thoughts arise. Only after the first person [the ego, the primal thought called ‘I’] appears do second and third persons [all other things] appear; without the first person second and third persons do not exist’. That is, though the ego (the thought called ‘I’) and other thoughts arise simultaneously, in the sequence of cause and effect the rising of the ego comes first, because it is the cause, and the rising of other thoughts comes only after that, because it is the effect.
In an earlier comment you wrote, ‘the ego and thoughts appear and disappear simultaneously. To imply that one of these concepts were there before the other one is rather fishy, I believe that the question what is first, the ego or a thought falls under the category of what is first, the chicken or the egg?’ but this seems to be fishy only if we fail to distinguish causal sequence from chronological sequence. Bhagavan did say (as in verse 7 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu) that ego and other thoughts appear and disappear simultaneously, referring to chronological sequence, but he also said (as in the final four sentences of the fifth paragraph of Nāṉ Ār?) that the ego is the first thought and that only after it rises do other thoughts rise, referring to causal sequence.
Therefore when Bhagavan says that the ego (the first person, the thought called ‘I’) is the first thought to appear and that only after it appears do other thoughts (second and third persons) appear, he does not mean that there is any lapse of time between the appearance of the ego and the appearance of other thoughts or phenomena, but is merely emphasising that the appearance of the ego is the cause and the appearance of all other things is its effect. The ego is the first cause, the cause of all other causes, so all chains of cause and effect begin only after the ego has appeared.
The analogy of the chicken and egg that you mention is not appropriate in this context, because chickens and eggs are links in a long chain of cause and effect, whereas the ego is the beginning or origin of every chain of cause and effect. Like both a chicken and an egg, every cause (or potential cause) is an effect of another cause, except the ego, which is the only cause that is not an effect of any other cause. It is the causeless cause, the uncaused cause, because nothing precedes it, whereas it precedes everything.
A chicken is the cause of an egg, which is in turn the cause of another chicken, and so on ad infinitum, but all such chains of cause and effect seem to exist only in the view of the ego, so they can appear only when the ego has appeared, and they must disappear as soon as it disappears. Therefore the ego is the cause and origin of all other causes and effects. This is why Bhagavan says that it is the first thought, and that all other thoughts (including chickens and eggs and all other chains of cause and effect) arise only after it has arisen.
6. Since the ego has created all that it perceives, why does it have so little control over what it has created?
You conclude that earlier comment by writing, ‘Anyway, I do not think that any clarity of that topic can be found in Bhagavan’s texts, I still favor Robert’s comment and I believe that he is in unison with Bhagavan on this matter’, but there is actually abundant clarity on this topic that we can found in his texts if we know how to look for it. The fact that the ego alone is the root cause for the appearance of everything else is one of the fundamental principles of his teachings and is therefore emphasised by him unequivocally in so many ways in his original writings, particularly in Nāṉ Ār? and Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu, and also in many of the records of his replies to questions that he was asked.
Earlier in the same comment you asked, ‘Now I am wondering, since the ego cannot control these thoughts which it is supposedly “creating” how can it be the creator of thereof?’ but why do you assume that the creator should necessarily be able to control what it has created? When we dream, is the creator of our dream anyone other than ourself, the dreamer, namely this mind or ego?
Since perception is itself creation, we who perceive a dream are the one who is thereby creating it, but are we able to control all that we perceive in a dream? No, we cannot, and the reason for this is simple: when we create a dream world, we create ourself as a person in that world, and it is only as that person that we perceive that world, so though we are the creator of that world, we experience ourself as a creature in it, and by being a small part of our creation we have to a large extent lost control over it. The same is the case with this world and all that we perceive in it, including all the thoughts that arise in the mind of the person whom we now seem to be.
You are creating this world from moment to moment, but since you experience yourself as a person called Salazar, and since Salazar is a creature in the world you have created, as Salazar you have lost control of most of your own creation. This is the wonderful power of māyā (self-deception or self-delusion), which according to Bhagavan is nothing other than the ego or mind. We have created this world, but we are deluded by our own creation, so we are unable to control this demon that we have conjured up.
This is why in Hindu mythology the first three divine functions, namely creation, sustenance and dissolution, are each attributed to a different deity. According to this allegorical way of expressing the truth, Brahma has created this world, but he is unable to control or sustain it, nor is he able to destroy it, so it is sustained by Vishnu and destroyed by Siva. Of these three forms of God, which two are most highly revered? Only Vishnu and Siva, because creation is not a worthy function, so Brahma, the creator, is not worshipped in any temple, but only in Vedic rituals that are performed for the fulfilment of desires.
Suppose we have an irrational fear or an obsessive desire. That fear or desire is just a thought and it is created only by us, but we have become so caught up in our own creation that we are carried away by it and seem to be unable to control it.
This is not to say that we have absolutely no control over what we think or over other phenomena. We may have some degree of control, but that degree is limited, and the more we are deluded by our own creation, the less control we have over it. However if we patiently and persistently practise self-investigation (ātma-vicāra), our viṣaya-vāsanās (outward-going inclinations, urges or desires) will be gradually weakened, and our mind will thereby be purified. To the extent that it is purified it will be clear, and the clearer it becomes the less dense will be its delusion, so the extent to which we are able to keep a tight rein on our viṣaya-vāsanās, which are the seeds that give rise to thoughts, will increase correspondingly.
7. Thoughts come only from ourself, the ego, the one who perceives them, so we alone are the root of all thoughts
In a later part of the comment whose first paragraph I quoted at the beginning of this article you wrote, ‘So where are thoughts coming from? If patiently investigated one will discover that they come out of nowhere and disappear into nowhere’, but how can anything come out of nowhere? Nowhere does not exist except as an idea or thought, so from where does the idea of nowhere arise? Something cannot come out of nothing, because nothing does not exist, so whatever appears must appear from something.
In the next paragraph of that comment you wrote, ‘it is absolutely clear that they [thoughts] cannot come from the observer of these thoughts’, but from where else could thoughts come if not from ourself, the one who perceives or observes them? Thoughts appear only in the mind, and the source from which they appear is the root thought, the ego (which is why Bhagavan calls it the mūlam, the root, base, foundation, origin, source or cause of all other thoughts). The ego rises or appears only out of ātma-svarūpa (the real nature of oneself), and all other thoughts rise or appear only out of the ego, so the ego is the immediate source and foundation of all other thoughts, and ātma-svarūpa is their ultimate source and foundation.
From what does the illusion of a snake appear? It cannot appear from nowhere or nothing, so it appears from something that (in terms of this analogy) actually exists, namely a rope. However it could not appear from a rope without the intervening medium called ego or mind, because it appears to be a snake only in the view of the ego. Therefore the immediate cause for the appearance of the snake is the ego, in whose view alone it appears, and the ultimate cause of it is the rope, because without the rope there would be nothing to be seen as a snake.
This is just an analogy, so there is a limit to the extent to which it accurately represents the truth to which it is analogous, but what it is intended to illustrate here is that the ultimate source, substance and foundation of the ego and of all thoughts or phenomena perceived by the ego is only ātma-svarūpa, but that the immediate source, substance and foundation of all thoughts or phenomena is only the ego, because it is only in the view of the ego that everything else seems to exist.
Without the ego could any other thought or phenomenon appear? It could not, because the ego is that to which and from which all other thoughts or phenomena appear. Likewise, without ātma-svarūpa could the ego appear? It could not, because ātma-svarūpa is that from which (but not to which) the ego appears.
This is why in the fourth paragraph of Nāṉ Ār? Bhagavan says, ‘மனம் ஆத்ம சொரூபத்தினின்று வெளிப்படும்போது ஜகம் தோன்றும்’ (maṉam ātma-sorūpattiṉiṉḏṟu veḷippaḍum-pōdu jagam tōṉḏṟum), ‘When the mind comes out from ātma-svarūpa, the world appears’, meaning that ātma-svarūpa is the source from which the mind or ego appears, and in the previous sentence said, ‘[…] அப்படியே மனமும் தன்னிடத்திலிருந்து ஜகத்தைத் தோற்றுவித்து மறுபடியும் தன்னிடமே ஒடுக்கிக்கொள்ளுகிறது’ (appaḍiyē maṉamum taṉ-ṉ-iḍattil-irundu jagattai-t tōṯṟuvittu maṟupaḍiyum taṉṉiḍamē oḍukki-k-koḷḷugiṟadu), ‘[…] in that way the mind also causes the world to appear from within itself and again dissolves it back into itself’, meaning that the mind or ego is the source from which the world and all other thoughts appear.
If other thoughts or phenomena did not originate from the ego, that would mean that they originate from something else, in which case they would be able to exist independent of the ego, which is contrary to all that Bhagavan taught us. Why should we believe that anything exists independent of the ego, or that anything originates from any source other than the ego? Since everything is perceived only by the ego, we do not have any adequate reason to suppose that anything exists independent of it or comes from anything other than it. This is why Bhagavan repeatedly emphasised that the ego (which is what he often referred to as ‘the thought called I’) is the first thought and the root of all other thoughts.
8. Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 26: everything depends for its seeming existence on the seeming existence of the ego, so when we investigate the ego keenly enough to see that it does not exist, that is giving up everything
Since the ego is the sole cause, creator, source, substance and foundation of all other things, in verse 26 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu Bhagavan wrote:
அகந்தையுண் டாயி னனைத்துமுண் டாகுIn the kaliveṇbā version of this verse Bhagavan extended the first sentence of this verse by adding a relative clause to describe the ego, namely ‘கருவாம்’ (karu-v-ām), which means ‘which is the embryo [womb, efficient cause, inner substance or foundation]’ and which therefore implies that the ego is the embryo that develops into everything else, the womb from which everything is born, the efficient cause (nimitta kāraṇa) that creates or produces everything, the inner substance of all phenomena, and the foundation on which they all appear.
மகந்தையின் றேலின் றனைத்து — மகந்தையே
யாவுமா மாதலால் யாதிதென்று நாடலே
யோவுதல் யாவுமென வோர்.
ahandaiyuṇ ḍāyi ṉaṉaittumuṇ ḍāhu
mahandaiyiṉ ḏṟēliṉ ḏṟaṉaittu — mahandaiyē
yāvumā mādalāl yādideṉḏṟu nādalē
yōvudal yāvumeṉa vōr.
பதச்சேதம்: அகந்தை உண்டாயின், அனைத்தும் உண்டாகும்; அகந்தை இன்றேல், இன்று அனைத்தும். அகந்தையே யாவும் ஆம். ஆதலால், யாது இது என்று நாடலே ஓவுதல் யாவும் என ஓர்.
Padacchēdam (word-separation): ahandai uṇḍāyiṉ, aṉaittum uṇḍāhum; ahandai iṉḏṟēl, iṉḏṟu aṉaittum. ahandai-y-ē yāvum ām. ādalāl, yādu idu eṉḏṟu nādal-ē ōvudal yāvum eṉa ōr.
அன்வயம்: அகந்தை உண்டாயின், அனைத்தும் உண்டாகும்; அகந்தை இன்றேல், அனைத்தும் இன்று. யாவும் அகந்தையே ஆம். ஆதலால், யாது இது என்று நாடலே யாவும் ஓவுதல் என ஓர்.
Anvayam (words rearranged in natural prose order): ahandai uṇḍāyiṉ, aṉaittum uṇḍāhum; ahandai iṉḏṟēl, aṉaittum iṉḏṟu. yāvum ahandai-y-ē ām. ādalāl, yādu idu eṉḏṟu nādal-ē yāvum ōvudal eṉa ōr.
English translation: If the ego comes into existence, everything comes into existence; if the ego does not exist, everything does not exist. The ego itself is everything. Therefore, know that investigating what this is alone is giving up everything.
Explanatory paraphrase: If the ego comes into existence, everything [all phenomena, everything that appears and disappears, everything other than our pure, fundamental, unchanging and immutable self-awareness] comes into existence; if the ego does not exist, everything does not exist [because nothing other than pure self-awareness actually exists, so everything else seems to exist only in the view of the ego, and hence it cannot seem to exist unless the ego seems to exist]. [Therefore] the ego itself is everything [because it is the original seed or embryo, which alone is what expands as everything else]. Therefore, know that investigating what this [the ego] is alone is giving up everything [because the ego will cease to exist if it investigates itself keenly enough, and when it ceases to exist everything else will cease to exist along with it].
Since the ego seems to exist only so long as we are aware of anything other than ourself, it will dissolve and cease to exist only when we try to be so keenly self-attentive that we are aware of nothing other than ourself. And since all other things seem to exist only in the view of the ego, if we keenly investigate this ego in order to see what we actually are, not only will the ego cease to exist but everything else will cease to exist along with it.
This is why he concludes this verse by saying: ‘ஆதலால், யாது இது என்று நாடலே ஓவுதல் யாவும் என ஓர்’ (ādalāl, yādu idu eṉḏṟu nādal-ē ōvudal yāvum eṉa ōr), ‘Therefore, know that investigating what this [the ego] is alone is giving up everything’.
This is the core and essence of his teachings, so it is essential for us to understand very clearly that the ego is the sole cause, creator, source, substance and foundation of all other things (all thoughts or phenomena). Everything originates from the ego and depends upon the ego for its seeming existence, so if we eradicate the ego we thereby eradicate everything.
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«Oldest ‹Older 601 – 800 of 1176 Newer› Newest»The choice to surrender ourself is the ultimate choice we have to make, because that is going against all our other desires. So it is not easy. We have to slowly-slowly work at it, slowly-slowly cultivate that liking to surrender ourself to Bhagavan. We need to turn within and yield ourself to Bhagavan. ‘By practising and practising our power to remain in the birth-place - in our source - will increase’. So Bhagavan has given us that assurance.
What Bhagavan asks us to practise is the simplest of all things. What can be simpler than attending to ourself? The one thing which we are all aware of is ourself. Instead of attending to other things, we just need to attend to ourself. So-so easy! It seems difficult because we have a very strong liking to attend to other things.
To do idol-worship, for example, we need temples or at least a vigraha or some other God. To do japa we need japa-mala or something. To do other sadhanas so many aids are necessary. We need actions of body, speech and mind to do other sadhanas.
However, to attend to ourself we don’t any action of body, any action of mind or any action of speech. We just need to remain still. So this is the simplest of all paths. And it is the only practice we can do anywhere, anytime and in any circumstances. If we have sufficient love, we can attend to ourself even in the midst of a battlefield.
Edited extract from Michael’s latest video shot on 7th July 2018 (1:15 to 1:18)
Reflections: Bhagavan has spoilt us. Whereas other gurus want us to this or that by our body, speech or mind, Bhagavan doesn’t ask us to do anything. In fact, he is making us lazy!
Jokes apart, any guru who wants us to do this or that is just strengthening our fetters, because no action can ever liberate us. So such gurus are like Brahma or Yama – that it, these gurus are the cause of unceasing creation (birth) and destruction (death). So we should avoid such gurus and come to a jnana-guru like Bhagavan. He says, ‘don’t do anything because your very doing is your undoing’.
What is an action or a doing? Our first action is when our attention moves away from ourself towards anything else, even to the slightest extent. This initial action compels us to do other actions by body, speech and mind. So our task is not to let our attention move away from ourself even to the slightest extent, because if it does so, we will be caught up in an endless cycle of actions. As Bhagavan warns in Upadesa Saram, all our actions obstruct our mukti (liberation).
Michael: Our very nature is pure and immutable self-awareness. So we don’t need to do anything to be ourself. We just need to be ourself. How to be ourself? By attending to anything other than ourself we rise as this ego – that is, we are not remaining as we actually are. So in order to be as we actually are, we need to withdraw our attention from everything else and attend only to ourself. By attending to ourself we subside back into our birthplace, the source from which we rose.
All that is needed is just to be. The only way to be still is to attend to ourself. So long as we allow our attention to move away from ourself even to the slightest extent we are rising, and therefore we are not just being.
Devotee: But it seems natural for the ocean to rise as waves. It seems unnatural not to rise?
Michael: Yes, the ocean is the mind – an ocean of vasanas. So its nature is to be constantly rising. But are you that? You are the aadhaara. You are that which contains the ocean, contains all these vasanas. So attend to yourself. Let the ocean take care of itself. If thoughts want to rise let it rise, what is it to you? They are not other than you, so ignore them.
That is why in verse 6 of Arunachala Ashtakam, Bhagavan describes how the internal worlds and external worlds – our seemingly mental world and our seemingly physical worlds – are all a projection of our own vasanas, and in the end he says, ‘let them appear or let them disappear’ - let them come to an end or let them continue - ‘they are not other than you’.
So what is that Bhagavan refers to as ‘you’? It is Arunachala which is nothing other than pure self-awareness. None of these things that appear or disappear is other than that pure self-awareness. Let us bother only about our self-awareness.
Why Bhagavan said that? If we are concerned about the appearance of thoughts, our attention will be on that. If we are concerned about them we are feeding them. Bhagavan says in the 6th paragraph of Nan Yar?, ‘what does it matter how many thoughts arise?’ Thoughts aren’t our concern. We should be attending to ourself; we should be indifferent to everything other than ourself. Things appear only because we are concerned about them.
Edited extract from Michael’s video filmed on 7th July 2018 (1:28 onwards)
Some of our friends have been sharing their understanding or views on Bhagavan’s teachings which may, for some others (like me), appear not to fall into a rigid framework of standard interpretation. The following is an attempt to relax my own rigidity.
Where do thoughts come from?
The standard answer is ‘I’. Another answer is it comes from ‘nowhere’.
If we ask where this ‘I’ is located, it is not to be found anywhere in space. Probably it is the reason why some of us say it is ‘nowhere’.
Bhagavan asked us to attend to the ‘place’ where thoughts originate.
If we say they originate from ‘I’ we need to attend to that ‘I’.
If we say they originate from ‘nowhere’ we need to attend to that ‘nowhere’.
In either case it is ātma-vicāra.
Is free will an illusion?
All our actions are through thoughts, speech and body.
When we act through these, there is no way to know if we are acting through our free will or our destiny.
While acting it appears as free will and in retrospect it appears as destiny, just like a dream that appears real as long as it lasts and imaginary after it ends.
Therefore, whatever appears now could be otherwise, like an illusion. Probably it is the reason why some of us say free will is an illusion.
What about the ‘actionless action’ of ātma-vicāra which involves no thought, no speech and no body?
It should then be ‘free’ because if we claim thought, speech and body are involved in ātma-vicāra, then we are definitely not talking about ātma-vicāra. Here, and only here, we can be sure of ‘free will’.
Do not we see that in experience? Does not ātma-vicāra ease (or ‘free up’) our physical and mental unease which no amount of thought, speech and bodily actions can do?
Does our essential self drive ātma-vicāra?
Suppose we are in a dark and cold room and find bright and warm sunlight entering into the room through a window.
Suppose being ‘driven by it’ we open the door and go out to enjoy more of sunlight. What exactly is the role of sunlight in bringing us out?
The same role is played by our essential self (called ‘Self’ in some literature) in driving us towards it. Do not they talk about the ‘unmoved mover’ in Upaniṣads?
Can we rely on our experience alone?
Bhagavan never claimed he had any new experience and he never promised us any new experience.
We all have Bhagavan in us.
We recognize good and bad in others because we have good and bad in us. Otherwise how can we recognize them at all?
If we do not have Bhagavan in us, how can we recognize him in the first place? We all have recognized Bhagavan in us.
We all experience Bhagavan, to some extent or the other, also experiencing all that is ‘non-Bhagavan’.
We can be Bhagavan when we experience Bhagavan and only Bhagavan.
The experience of Bhagavan is not new to us.
It is just feeble now.
Sanjay,
I see in your extracts of Michael's videos (example: 12 July 2018 at 08:28 hrs), you denote the speakers as 'Michael:' and 'Devotee:' which may give an impression that it is the devotee of Michael asking the question.
I think that one of the clues is that our knowledge of our very existence, that does not require anyone else to prove it and this knowledge does not require any actions of mind (thought process), body and speech. We do not even need to pay any attention to anything, including "I" to know that we exist.
Strangely it was my son some years ago who brought up this understanding when he told me that his strongest fear was if he would have lost all his sensual perceptions of the world but was yet conscious ... he asked what would then remain?
Wittgenstein, Michael doesn’t consider himself to be a guru, so, as you rightly imply, he can have no devotee. He makes it very clear through his articles, videos and if we correspond with him through emails. He makes it abundantly clear that to him there is only one guru, and that guru is Bhagavan Ramana. He is as much a devotee of Bhagavan as we all are. That is why he often addresses us as his friends.
Yes, when I denote a speaker as ‘devotee’ and another speaker as ‘Michael’, it could give an impression that I am transcribing a conversation between Michael and one of his ‘devotees’. However, this misunderstanding can occur only to those who are casual or new readers of this blog. So the majority of us should clearly understand that by the term ‘devotee’, I am talking about a devotee in general.
A devotee in this context means a person who is devoted to a God or a guru. The person who asked Michael that question was presumably a devotee of Bhagavan (or God in general), because if he were not, he would not be present in such gatherings.
Wittgenstein, I agree when you write:
Suppose we are in a dark and cold room and find bright and warm sunlight entering into the room through a window. Suppose being ‘driven by it’ we open the door and go out to enjoy more of sunlight. What exactly is the role of sunlight in bringing us out? The same role is played by our essential self (called ‘Self’ in some literature) in driving us towards it. Do not they talk about the ‘unmoved mover’ in Upaniṣads?
Yes, Bhagavan is the ‘unmoved mover’. He makes everything move while remaining absolutely still and motionless (achala). Bhagavan makes this clear in the 15th paragraph of Nan Yar? where he compares the presence of God to the presence of the sun. Like there is life on this earth only because of the mere presence of the unmoving sun, so also all our movements can take place only because of the unmoving one in our heart.
Yes, we try and go within only because of the power, warmth and guidance of our inner sun, which is atma-svarupa. This inner sun gives light to all the worldly lights, including the sun. And when this inner sun shines with absolute clarity, all the other lights will fade into insignificance. In fact, what will ultimately remain is only this pure and all-consuming light of self-knowledge. Everything else will totally vanish.
Ulladu Narpadu Anubandham - verse 35
For those who do not intend to destroy the letters of destiny by scrutinizing where they were born who have learnt the letters, what is the use of having learnt letters? They have acquired the nature of a sound-recording machine. Say, O Sonagiri (Arunachala), the knower, who else are they but mere sound-recording machines?
Note: The writings of prarabdha can be destroyed forever only by destroying the ego, the experiencer of prarabdha. The only purpose of reading the letters of the scriptures is to learn the path by which one can destroy the ego, and strengthen in one the liking to destroy the ego. Therefore those who have no intention to destroy the ego, learning the letters of the scriptures will be of no use. Instead of attaining the egoless state of self-abidance, such people will only attain the proud state of being able to repeat whatever they have learnt like a sound-recording machine.
Reflection: Bhagavan spoke and taught in words only to encourage us to practise self-investigation. If we take Bhagavan to be our guru but do not follow the path taught by him, we are ignoring the precious treasure given to us by Bhagavan.
Liberation has nowhere been made so easy and assessable as it has been made in Bhagavan’s teachings. It is the path, which if followed with our heart and soul, can liberate us here and now. Our bargain is, we should want to be liberated and try a bit. He will do the rest.
Sorry. There was a typo:
Liberation has nowhere been made so easy and accessible as it has been made in Bhagavan’s teachings
Salazar,
"Mind seems to be able to decide if it is attending to its thought stories or to ‘I am’”
Not really wanting to expand anymore on the absence or not of free-will, this statement raised a question that so far nobody was able to answer to me. Maybe you could help me with this: what is the process of attending to “I am”? Could you describe it to me, in your experience, and in detail?
Let’s say at one point “you” noticed you were engrossed in phenomena (that I suppose that that “noticing” was not of your control, correct?), what happens next?
Thanks, and this is not a rhetorical question.
Talk 64.
News of someone’s death was brought to Sri Bhagavan. He said,
“Good. The dead are indeed happy. They have got rid of the
troublesome overgrowth - the body. The dead man does not grieve.
The survivors grieve for the man who is dead. Do men fear sleep?
On the contrary sleep is courted and on waking up every man says
that he slept happily. One prepares the bed for sound sleep. Sleep is
temporary death. Death is longer sleep. If the man dies while yet alive
he need not grieve over others’ death. One’s existence is evident with
or without the body, as in waking, dream and sleep. Then why should
one desire continuance of the bodily shackles? Let the man find out
his undying Self and die and be immortal and happy.”
Talk 60.
5th July, 1935
ON MOUNA (SILENCE)
Sri Bhagavan: The silence of solitude is forced. Restrained speech in society amounts to silence. For the man then controls his speech.
The speaker must come forth before he speaks.
If engaged otherwise speech is restrained. Introverted mind is otherwise active and is not anxious to speak. Mouna as a disciplinary measure is meant for limiting the mental
activities due to speech.
If the mind is otherwise controlled
disciplinary mouna is unnecessary. For mouna becomes natural.
Vidyaranya has said that twelve years’ forced mouna brings about absolute mouna - that is, makes one unable to speak. It is more like
a mute animal than otherwise. That is not mouna.
Mouna is constant speech. Inactivity is constant activity.
Anonymous, as Bhagavan says, ‘Let the man find out his undying Self and die and be immortal and happy’. This is the very essence of Bhagavan’s teachings. If we want to be eternally happy, which is what we all aim to be, we need to investigate ourself and die. However, what has to die is our ego, the idea ‘I am this body’. Such a death will make us immortal.
Ulladu Narpadu anubandham - verse 36
Rather than those who have no humility though learned, the unlearned indeed are saved. They are saved from the demon of pride; they are saved from the disease of countless whirling thoughts; and they are saved from running in search of glory. Know that, that from which they are saved is not one.
Reflections: Humility in this context means ‘subsided’. If we want to be saved, we need to work towards destroying our ego, because as long as our ego is alive we are doomed to destruction or death.
We will have all the defects and problems as long as we imagine ourself to be the ego. If we want to give up all our defects and problems, the only way is to destroy our ego, and we can do so only by self-investigation.
Salazar,
I was a little confused by your recent comments about mind not connected to body…
Just to clarify my understanding, are you equating “mind” with ego?
As far as I understand the “body” Bhagavan speaks about is all of the five sheaths… not just the gross one, in that sense mind as subtle stuff is included. All sheaths are interconnected.
But maybe I misunderstood your comment.
If you have time and willing, please explain.
Hugs as usual, but with new energy.
M
Mouna brother, you are correct of course, I oversimplified. The mind clings at the body and in that regard there is a connection thus my choice of words were poor and insufficient.
Time to slow down my agitated mind and give it some rest.
I’ll join you in that rest beyond words brother....
I think I need it too.
In self-investigation, what is the ‘I’ that we are trying to investigate? Is it the ego or our true self?
In my following reflections, I will try to reflect on the answer to this question, and this is based on the ideas of Sadhu Om and Michael James. However, since it is in my own words, I may not represent their views accurately.
When people asked this question to Bhagavan, often he would often say, ‘it is the ego’. Why did he say so? It is because these people considered themselves to be the ego and were not able to see beyond their ego. Thus Bhagavan used to tell them, ‘Investigate your ego (‘I’), but investigate the awareness portion of this ‘I’ and not its jada portion. It is because such an investigation will eventually establish you in pure-awareness’.
However, as our understanding becomes more subtle and refined, we come to understand that we don’t need to discriminate between the ego and our true self in this context. That is, in self-investigation, we are investigating the only ‘I’ that actually exists. There is only one ‘I’, whether we consider it to be the ego or our real self. We are trying to investigate ‘ourself’, and this ‘ourself’ in this context is a general term for ‘I’ (without specifying whether this ‘I’ is the ego or the real self).
However, as our understanding gets more and more refined, we will come to understand that it is better to consider that in self-investigation we are investigating our real self, because this is all that exists. How can we investigate the ego when it does not even exist? In this context it will be useful to consider verse 21 of Upadesa Undiyar:
That [the one infinite whole that appears spontaneously as ‘I am I’ where the ego merges] is at all times the substance [or true import] of the word called ‘I’, because of the exclusion of our non-existence even in sleep, which is devoid of ‘I’ [the ego].
We exist is sleep without experiencing ourself as this ego or body, and therefore we cannot be this ego or body. Therefore this ‘I’ denotes ourself as the one infinite whole. Since we are trying to investigate this one ‘I’, we will eventually understand that we have been all along investigating only this infinite whole, because there is no ‘I’ other than this infinite whole.
The only difference is when we start investigating this ‘I’, its clarity is not very prominent, but as we go on investigating it its clarity becomes more and more prominent until we experience ourself with full or absolute clarity. This is our aim.
Ulladu Narpadu Anubandham - verse 37
Even though all the worlds are renounced as mere straw and even though all the scriptures have been thoroughly mastered, for those who have come under the sway of the vicious harlot which is praise, ah; to escape from slavery to her is difficult!
Sri Sadhu Om: Among the three desires, namely the desires for relationships, possessions and praise, it is the desire for praise that is most difficult to renounce. Therefore, of all the evils which threaten to befall people of vast learning, it is the desire for praise and fame which is the most dangerous.
Reflections: Yes, we all want to be praised and appreciated, and we hate when we are criticised. Even a child doesn’t like criticism or rebuke. We think that we are always correct, and even find excuses for our misdemeanours.
When we see around us, all the rich and the famous people are particularly always looking forward to praise and appreciation. A famous film actor, a business tycoon, a politician, a famous artist, religious leaders, the list can be endless - all of them can’t do without a good dose of praise and appreciation. These people are particularly fond of praise, because they are more in the public eye.
We may have all the virtues and good qualities, but if we are a slave to ‘the vicious harlot which is praise’, we cannot progress spirituality. Who needs this praise? It is our ego. So our ego is still very strong if we actively look forward to praise.
However, if praise comes our way, we should give all credit to such praise to Bhagavan, because we as this ego are not worthy of any good qualities. Since Bhagavan shines in our heart as ourself, it is his goodness which may at times be reflected in our actions. Our ego is the root and source of everything bad or inauspicious, so it needs to condemned and criticised and not praised.
Sanjay, greetings
I shall also, through comments on your comment, try to put some thought about “what we investigate when we investigate? My views may also differ from established commentaries of the past but I don’t think they distort in any way Bhagavan teachings, please feel free to correct me if otherwise. (note: since we are dealing strictly with semantics here, let’s take the comment in context to that, it is never intended to define atma-vichara)
When we look at the snake that we are afraid of, we are definitely looking at the rope, no question about it. The thing is, we don’t know it yet, so at that point the term investigation goes better with the snake than with the rope. We try to investigate if the snake it’s real because we were told is just an illusion projected by our own misinterpretation of facts. We shed light (or someone does it for us) and we realize it was a rope, and it has always being a rope. After that we don’t need to “investigate” anymore either snake or rope because the knowledge that is not a snake is established solidly in our experience (like when we acquire or assimilate the knowledge that 2+2=4 we don’t need to revise our math each time) . At this point I’ll propose the verb changes and we speak of “abiding” (in the assimilated knowledge that it is a rope).
When it comes to verbs, we “investigate/enquire” about ego, but we “abide” as self. The former is an action initiated by ego (thorn that removes another thorn), the latter is not an action because one cannot “do” being, one is always being “being”. To my understanding, we don’t need to, neither can’t investigate self, we can and we do investigate “oneself” when we are still an ego product (person).
I think that’s why Bhagavan, and as you rightly pointed out, said in many occasions, to beginners, to “investigate” the ego, or the questioner itself, or the false groom, or the thief posing as a policeman, in order to establish what is true about ourselves and what is not. Let us remember that the definition of “investigate” is: ”carry out a systematic or formal inquiry to discover and examine the facts of (an incident, allegation, etc.) so as to establish the truth..
”Thus Bhagavan used to tell them, ‘Investigate your ego (‘I’), but investigate the awareness portion of this ‘I’ and not its jada portion.” (bold letters is mine)
Would you mind point out to me where did you find that statement in Bhagavan’s literature? I would like to understand the wording.
”However, as our understanding gets more and more refined, we will come to understand that it is better to consider that in self-investigation we are investigating our real self, because this is all that exists.”
I still don’t see why is better to “investigate’ the self we are since we are it! Maybe a better use of words is “to abide” as much as we can in that self that was recognized as who or what we are.
Again, the general idea is clear and I can see we have many points in common regarding this topic. I am just trying to fine tune to sharpen my understanding. Semantics are not the main drive of the quest, but if we don’t pay proper attention to them, we might start to drift in a slightly different direction from where the signs in the road were pointing at.
Sanjay Lohia,
when you say "Since we are trying to investigate this one 'I', we will eventually understand that we have been all along investigating only this infinite whole, because there is no 'I' other than this infinite whole."
you seem to imply that "we" as the investigating 'I' are (already) also actually only "this infinite whole".
However, this cannot be really true:
Why should there be any necessity for the infinite whole to investigate itself (the infinite whole) ?
Michael,
on the back cover of the recent issue of Mountain Path (July-September 2018) one can read as follows:
"7. What is the difference between ordinary sleep
and waking sleep (jagrat sushupti)?
In ordinary sleep there are not only no thoughts
but also no awareness. In waking sleep there is
awareness alone. That is why it is called awake
while sleeping, that is, the sleep in which there
is awareness.
--- Sri Ramana Maharshi, Spiritual Instruction, Chapter IV"
Am I correct in assuming that in the first sentence of the answer the words "no awareness" is to be understood as no awareness of adjuncts (thoughts , ego and world) only ?
For (it is generally said that) awareness as such can never be absent.
From "Conversations on Consciousness",
Sue Blackmore, 2006 Oxford University Press
Sue Blackmore:
Let me get this straight. Are you saying that in our normal life we think we’re going to do something, and then we do it, and we say ‘Oh, that means my thoughts caused it’; whereas really it’s something like this: there’s some sort of underlying brain process that simultaneously causes our awareness of an intention and also the action, and we end up thinking there’s a causal relationship where there isn’t?
Daniel Wegner:
That’s put very nicely, yes.
----------------------
Now, this is very interesting because on rare occasions, the act and thought are not nearly simultaneous, and I am actually aware of the gap between the act followed by the thought, and feel - I've already done that!!!
This may be what Salazar has been trying to get across but I could be wrong...
Daniel Wegner, Thomas Metzinger, Christoff Koch, Francis Crick, Francesco Varela et al in conversation with Sue Blackmore.
Anonymous, I am not familiar with this article and yes, Bhagavan's [explanation of] prarabdha let one conclude that there is no causal relationship with seeming intention and the [following] action as bizarre that may seem for some.
That relationship is entirely an imagination and also reinforces the false belief to be the doer [of actions].
Mouna, Bhagavan said, as recorded in Maharshi’s Gospel under the chapter Aham and Aham-vritti (page 89):
The ego functions as the knot between the Self which is Pure Consciousness and the physical body which is inert and insentient. The ego is therefore called the chit-jada granthi. In your investigation into the source of aham-vritti, you take the essential chit aspect of the ego; and for this reason the enquiry must lead to the realization of the pure consciousness of the Self.
Once we turn our attention towards our ego, it starts losing is properties of the ego. Bhagavan says that as long as our awareness is facing outwards, we experience ourself as this ego and also experience a world in front of us. That is, the subject (the ego) and all its objects (this world) come into existence only when we are facing away from ourself.
However, when we turn our attention towards ourself, we subside back into ourself. Once we subside back within, our thoughts and this world disappear from our view – that is, all the perceived objects vanish from our view. And without the objects, there can be no subject (ego) to perceive anything. So once this happens we remain as we really are, without the ego and its projections.
You say, ‘When it comes to verbs, we “investigate/enquire” about ego, but we “abide” as self. The former is an action initiated by ego (thorn that removes another thorn), the latter is not an action because one cannot “do” being, one is always being “being”’.
Self-investigation is not an action, even though it may appear to be so. Michael has made this clear. Self-investigation is the cessation of all actions. Self-investigation means turning (or returning) of our attention towards ourself to know what we actually are, and once we turn within there is no ego to act. So in this context, self-abidance and self-investigation mean exactly the same. We cannot abide in ourself without investigating or attending to ourself, and we cannot investigate ourself without abiding in and as ourself.
In the context of our discussion, it will be useful to consider verse 579 of Guru Vachaka Kovai:
Because of the non-dual nature of [our] enduring self, [and] because of the fact that excluding self there is no other gati [refuge, means or goal], the upēya [the aim or goal] which [we are to] reach is only self and the upāya [the means or path] is only self. Know them to be non-different.
Our true and enduring self is non-dual in nature, and we are aiming to subside back into this non-dual self. We can do so only be abiding as this enduring self. In other words, we need to be attentively aware of our enduring self in order to merge back into our enduring self. The following extract which is taken from the 11th paragraph of Nan Yar? can help us in context:
If one clings fast to uninterrupted svarūpa-smaraṇa[self-remembrance] until one attains svarūpa [one’s own actual self], that alone [will be] sufficient.
Svarupa means ‘our own true form’, and smarana means ‘remembrance’. Thus Bhagavan makes it clear that we need to cling to our own true form in order to experience our true form (svarupa). Bhagavan does not talk about investigating the ego here. So I think my following conclusion (based on the views of Sadhu Om and Michael) was appropriate:
However, as our understanding gets more and more refined, we will come to understand that it is better to consider that in self-investigation we are investigating our real self [svarupa-smarana], because this [svarupa] is all that exists.
Fresh Clarity of Self-Awareness, no, self-investigation is commenced by the ego in order to discover the real nature of this ego, but in this process the ego vanishes. Therefore what experiences the infinite whole is the infinite whole itself.
As long as we experience ourself to be this ego, we cannot experience the infinite whole as it is, and once we experience the infinite whole, we can no longer experience ourself as this ego.
Ulladu Narpadu Anubandham - verse 38
When one always abides unswervingly in one’s own state without knowing any differences such as ‘oneself’ and ‘others’, what does it matter if who says what about oneself? Even if one praises or even if one disparages oneself, what does it matter? Who is there other than oneself?
Sri Sadhu Om: The desire for being praised and the dislike of being disparaged, which are two sides of one coin, can be overcome perfectly only when one knows and abides as self. As long as the ego, the ‘I am the body’ identification, survives, one cannot but be affected in some way or other when one is praised or disparaged. In other words, since the jnani knows that he alone exists, his perfect equanimity cannot be disturbed even in the least by either praise or disparagement.
Reflections: Our aim is to abide in ourself so perfectly that we are not aware of any difference between ourself and others. As long as this difference exists, we will be affected one way or the other by whatever praise or criticism comes our way.
Ulladu Narpadu Anubandham - verse 40
I shall truly declare the essence of the established conclusion of all Vedanta (sarva-vedanta-siddhanta-sara). If ‘I’ (the ego) dies and ‘I’ (the real self) is found to be that (the absolute reality), know that ‘I’ (the real self), which is the form of consciousness, alone will be what remains.
Sri Sadhu Om: Therefore, when the ego is destroyed by self-knowledge, all forms of duality – the mind, body and world – will cease to exist, and the non-dual real self, whose form is existence-consciousness-bliss, alone will remain. Such is the final and established conclusion of all Vedanta, as confirmed by the experience of Bhagavan Sri Ramana.
Reflections: Bhagavan has made it absolutely clear that if the ego comes into existence everything else also comes into existence, and if the ego is destroyed everything else is destroyed along with the ego. This was Bhagavan’s direct experience. It is because of this that Bhagavan says in verse 31 of Ulladu Narpadu:
For those who are happiness composed of that, which rose destroying themself, what one exists for doing? They do not know anything other than themself; who can conceive their state as ‘like this’?
The jnani doesn’t know anything other than himself. So who can or how to conceive their state as ‘it is like that’? Bhagavan didn’t experience anything other than himself – that is, in his direct experience there were no egos, no bodies, no world, nothing. However, can we ever comprehend his state? No, because he appeared to be just like us. His outer appearance and behaviour gave us no inkling of his inner non-dual experience.
Jiva-bhoda, in reply to your question, it is necessary to bear in mind that what Bhagavan said about sleep varied according to the understanding of whomever he was talking to, so we cannot take everything he said about it to reflect the full depth and subtlety of his teachings.
‘Spiritual Instruction’ is an English translation of Upadēśa Mañjari, a Tamil text recorded by Swami Natananandar consisting of questions asked by him and answers given by Bhagavan, but at the time he asked those questions his understanding of Bhagavan’s teachings was not as deep as it later became, so the answers Bhagavan gave him were suited to his then level of understanding.
Regarding the particular answer you ask about, it was said in reply to the question ‘What is the different that exists between the state of kēvala suṣupti [ordinary sleep] and the state of jāgrat suṣupti [waking sleep]?’, so to understand why Bhagavan answered as he did we need to consider the perspective from which the question was asked. All differences exist only in the perspective of the mind, so since there is no mind in either ordinary sleep or waking sleep, there cannot actually be any difference between these two states. Therefore any difference between them seems to exist only in the view of the mind in either waking or dream.
From the perspective of the mind, one obvious different between them is that ‘waking sleep’ (jāgrat suṣupti) is a term used to describe our natural state of pure self-awareness, which is eternal and immutable, so it can never end, whereas ordinary sleep seems to end whenever the mind rises from it. Various explanations are traditionally given to explain this seeming difference, one of which is that some quality of wakefulness is absent in ordinary sleep but present in waking sleep, but this difference seems to exist only in the perspective of the mind in waking or dream.
This is the explanation given by Bhagavan in answer to the question asked by Swami Natananandar, the literal meaning of which is: ‘In the state of ordinary sleep there are not only no thoughts but also no naṉavu [waking or wakefulness] (jñapti [apprehension or ascertainment]). In the state of waking sleep there is only naṉavu. Only because of that it is called sleep in waking, that is, sleep that is waking’.
In this context the Tamil term naṉavu, which means waking or wakefulness, does not refer to awareness of phenomena, which we usually associate with that word, but only to clear self-awareness, so what Bhagavan said there about ordinary sleep seems to imply that there is no self-awareness in sleep. However in other contexts he explicitly denied this, saying that sleep is actually a state of pure self-awareness. For example in the first chapter of Maharshi’s Gospel (2002 edition, page 9) it is recorded that he said: ‘Sleep is not ignorance, it is one’s pure state; wakefulness is not knowledge, it is ignorance. There is full awareness in sleep and total ignorance in waking’.
As he explained on other occasions, the reason why the mind rises from sleep or any other state of manōlaya (temporary dissolution) but will never rise from manōnāśa (annihilation), which is jāgrat suṣupti or ‘waking sleep’, is that the mind subsides in sleep due to tiredness, which cannot annihilate it, whereas it subsides in manōnāśa due to keenly focused self-attentiveness. That is, in sleep pure self-awareness alone remains as a result of the dissolution of the mind, whereas in manōnāśa the mind is dissolved as a result of pure self-awareness, which shines forth when mind’s self-attentiveness is so keen that everything else is excluded from its awareness.
Sanjay Lohia,
thanks for your reply.
Michael,
many thanks for your prompt clarifying explanation.
As you say - in order to remain in manonasa the mind's self-awareness should be as keen as possible.
Salazar, here is a critique of Daniel Wegner's "Illusion of Conscious Will", if you are interested in reading further. There is a nice picture on p. 531 of the article. By the way, even Bhagavan has pointed out that some things Einstein said agreed with his own teaching about time, etc, so he definitely wasn't in any way averse to scientific findings.
http://www.morgenlandfahrer.ch/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Nahmias-2002-When-consciousness-matters.pdf
Anonymous, thank you for the link. I skimmed briefly the article and looked at the diagram, however I am not attracted anymore by texts like these since they can never convey the truth. At best it is a nice model within the phenomenal world but that doesn't help us much with our goal.
I'd never use texts like these as a support for Bhagavan's teachings. You say that Bhagavan was not adverse to scientific findings, well he was not adverse or favorable to anything. I.e. he was not adverse (nor favorable) to thieves and criminals and that would include serial killers and mass murderers like Stalin and Pol Pot.
The truth can only be found with a silent mind.
I appreciate though the well meant intention behind posting that link.
Salazar,
you write "...that would include serial killers and mass murderers like Stalin and Pol Pot."
How do you know that ?
Michael,
regarding your yesterday reply to me,
with which you quote Bhagavan saying "...wakefulness is not knowledge, it is ignorance. There is full awareness in sleep and total ignorance in waking’."
Against the statement that 'wakefulness is total ignorance' one might have the simple objection that waking is not possible without (full) awareness albeit this state of waking (jagrat) is not pure self-awareness but mixed with the reception of phenomena.
drik, because a little bird told me so :)
Chirp, chirp...:)
Michael,
could you please eliminate at the next opportunity comment nr. 662 and 663 (advertising campaign of Abella Rez) together with this request.
Sanjay, a follow up on our recent conversation, didn’t have time to do it before.
In all the quotes you provided in your comment addressing mine, not in a single one of them Bhagavan mentions to “investigate the self”. That is implied a posteriori and is open to discussion on how to interpret the terms presented.
First quote you mention, the one in Maharshi’s gospel: “In your investigation into the source of aham-vritti,...” Here you assume we need to investigate the “source”. It in a subsequent paragraph he explains: “It is that Reality that you should seek during your so called waking state by tracing the aham-vritti to its Source.” So, I don’t see any investigation of the source itself as source but rather, through the I-Thought we investigate what is its source. Rather a subtle difference in semantics, “investigation into the source” is different from “investigating the source”, in a subtle manner, and explains better why we take the chit aspect (while investigating through the ego).
Quote of verse 579 of GVK (“Because of the non-dual nature of [our] enduring self, [and] because of the fact that excluding self there is no other gati [refuge, means or goal], the upēya [the aim or goal] which [we are to] reach is only self and the upāya [the means or path] is only self. Know them to be non-different.”) also doesn’t imply, unless in a very construed way, that we need to “investigate the self”. But rather that aim and means are the same. In the context we are discussing, I’d rather use verse 1054: “The pure knowledge which shines forth [as the sphurana ‘I-I'] when that deceitful ego is scrutinized [through the enquiry ‘Who is this I?’]...etc” (bold letters are mine). I take here “scrutinize” as synonym of “investigate.”
You said: “Self-investigation is not an action, even though it may appear to be so” and then “Self-investigation means turning (or returning) of our attention towards ourself”.
Question: who or what “turns” the attention? “To turn” is a verb, and if the subject is the mind, has to be an action. Do you agree with that?
Bhagavan in Maharshi’s Gospel again: “Enquiry into the source of aham-vritti is, no doubt, initiated by the sadhaka in the waking state of the mind.” Quite clear here that is an ego action that initiates investigation, unless he was giving the word “sadhaka” a different meaning...
You say at the end:”However, as our understanding gets more and more refined, we will come to understand that it is better to consider that in self-investigation we are investigating our real self [svarupa-smarana], because this [svarupa] is all that exists.”
As our understanding gets more and more refined we don’t need to investigate anything anymore. We just need to abide in our firm experience of who or what we are gained through the knowledge-fruit of our first “investigations” about the ego’s unreality which lead to the shinning forth of our true nature.
You said: “We cannot abide in ourself without investigating or attending to ourself, and we cannot investigate ourself without abiding in and as ourself.”
The first part of this phrase I agree with, but not necessarily with the second part. Again, once abiding “settles” there’s nothing to investigate anymore. Until then, we have to keep going investigating “into” the source of our illusory identity, mostly, though it.
Sanjay,
As a final thought. I want to make sure you understand that this conversation is about semantics of words like "investigate" or "enquiry" and how they are translated and interpreted in "what to investigate/enquire about", not about what vichara is or is not. So it is better to stick to this context, we don't need big dissertations on Bhagavan's teachings about what atma-vichara is in relation to this context.
That being said, I close my case here, you may have the last comment if need be or you feel like it.
Thanks my friend,
M
We are told that there is only one absolute reality which we are actually itself.
Owing to lack of sufficient self-investigation we became seemingly accustomed to be aware only of a relative reality.
For Samarender Reddy -
Sam, MJ quotes you in his article of June 17, 2017 as follows -
"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."
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Please look at the link I gave Salazar above - a critique of Daniel Wegner - especially the diagram on p 531. I am trying to interpret your comments in the light of that model..could thinking be a complete and total 100% epiphenomenon..??? Would be very interesting to read your take on it...thanks.
Mouna, in continuation of our discussion, it will be useful if we watch Michael's video filmed on 4-3-2017 (1:00 onwards), where he says:
Firstly atma-vichara (self-investigation) is not an action. Because action is the rising of the ego, going outwards. Whereas turning back within is the subsidence of all action. So it is not an action.
Agnostic,
The issue you raise is very interesting, that is, whether thought(s) is mere epiphenomenon as Daniel Wegner is implying in that link, and how it relates to Bhagavan’s clear assertion that “everything is predetermined” which occasioned my comments that you quoted.
Bhagavan said in the note to his mother that “Whatever is destined not to happen will not happen, try as you may. Whatever is destined to happen will happen, do what you may to prevent it. This is certain. The best course, therefore, is to remain silent.” We are left to “interpret” what Bhagavan means by the words “destined to happen”, “try”, “do what you may”, and “silence”.
Regarding “destined to happen” and “silence” - In Day By Day with Bhagavan (3-1-46 Afternoon), Bhagavan says: “What is destined as work to be done by you in this life will be done by you, whether you like it or not.” Now, here Bhagavan is saying what is “destined to happen” is the “work to be done by you in this life”. By work, obviously, Bhagavan means the “work” of a labourer, the “work” of a scientist like Einstein etc. Let us take the work of Einstein. One way of looking at his “work” is to say that whatever the theory of relativity, both special and general, that his body wrote out in the form of equations on paper. The question to ponder here is “Could his body have written out those equations if his mind had not thought out those equations?” If thought is an epiphenomenon, you would say “yes” to that question, but would add that even though his thoughts were not causally connected to how the body held the pen and wrote with his hand those equations, still God produces those thoughts consistent with those equations to give us the illusion of free will. Such a stance is not far-fetched as per Wegner, but Bhagavan seems to be going a step further, radically further, by implying that the epiphenomenon of thought is not necessary for the body to write out those equations, and hence his advice in the note to his mother to observe “silence”, for I would assume by “silence” he meant that we should not think and let the body spontaneously do whatever actions it is destined to do, including the writing of those equations by Einstein. You may ask, is that what Bhagvan is implying? Answer is yes.
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Bhagavan says in Day By Day with Bhagavan (1-12-45) as follows: “When we have vikalpas and are trying to give them up, i.e., when we are still not perfected, but have to make conscious effort to keep the mind one-pointed or free from thought it is nirvikalpa samadhi. When through practice we are always in that state, not going into samadhi and coming out again, that is the sahaja state. In sahaja one sees always oneself. He sees the jagat as swarupa or brahmakara.” Now, Bhagavan was said to be in sahaja Samadhi, that is, his mind was free from thought, and yet he composed in his lifetime his three principal texts, namely, Who Am I?, Upadesa Saram, Ulladu Narpadu, aside from answering various doubts of seekers, which should prove to you that yes, even if Einstein had read Bhagavan’s note to his mother and chose to remain silent and slipped into sahaja Samadhi, his body would have written out the equations of his theories of relativity, while his mind remained thoughtless in sahaja Samadhi, just like Bhagavan wrote out his texts, because those equations and texts were the “work” destined to be done by Einstein and Bhagavan, whether they remained silent or not. Relevant here is also this passage written by Gandhi, as quoted in Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi (Talk 646): “How mysterious are the ways of God! This journey to Rajkot is a wonder even to me. Why am I going, whither am I going? What for? I have thought nothing about these things. And if God guides me, what should I think, why should I think? Even thought may be an obstacle in the way of His guidance. The fact is, it takes no effort to stop thinking. The thoughts do not come. Indeed there is no vacuum - but I mean to say that there is no thought about the mission.”
Of course, here you may raise a thorny doubt as to if Bhagavan had not been in sahaja Samadhi, that is, not remained silent, would his body have still written out the 3 texts I mentioned above, which seemed to issue out of his own experience of sahaja samadhi which would not have been the case if his mind was thinking all the time and he had not yet realized the self. I am not sure I have an adequate answer to that doubt. But I will say this much. Whether one is self-realised (that is in sahaja samadhi, as Bhagavan was) or not (as I would assume Einstein was not), in both cases the actions of the body are predetermined, except that in the case of those self-realised (Bhagavan) those actions of the body are not accompanied parallelly with the epiphenomenon of thoughts, whereas in the case of those not self-realised (say, Einstein) they are accompanied by the epiphenomenon of thoughts.
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Now, regarding “try” and “do what you may” – one way of interpreting those two words/phrases is to say that one can “try” and “do” both with the body and mind, that is, either through physical action such as activity of the body or speech, or through thinking. Now, if “thinking” is unrelated to “what is destined to happen” and “what is not destined to happen”, because we can “try” to keep “thinking” that we won’t carry out a particular action or speak certain words, but we may be forced by destiny to carry out that particular action or say those words, which would mean that there are certain thoughts that are not “seemingly” causally related to subsequent actions and speech and may even be contrary to those effects. So, in that case it is clear that thought need to be present in that causal chain of bodily action or speech, which would mean that thought could very much be an epiphenomenon, one which God weaves into our life to give us the illusion of free will, so that we are deluded into “thinking” that we are the “doer” of our actions, whereas the reality seems to be more like what Gandhiji wrote, as quoted in previous post.
At this stage, you could ask, “Agreed we don’t have ‘free will’ as far as bodily actions are concerned, but what about the thoughts we think, are we free in that realm, that is, do we have “free will” with regard to the thoughts we think. I would think that we should be having that “free will”, otherwise the concept of “karma” does not find traction. Also, that is what Bhagavan seems to be implying when he uses terms like “try” and “do what you may” because those can clearly apply to the thoughts we think and “trying” and “doing” would imply agency of free will.
Feel free to agree or disagree, to discuss further, if need be.
Is self-investigation an action?
Bhagavan has clearly said that no action can ever liberate us – in fact, actions obstruct our liberation. Bhagavan has also said that only self-investigation can destroy our ego, and without the destruction of the ego we cannot be liberated. So if we add these two together, it is clear that that self-investigation is not an action, because if it was an action, it can never liberate us.
For example, when we start a pump to operate a water fountain, its water is sprayed into the air and this creates a fountain. This fountain is like the action of our ego - the ego comes out of us, and it is our first action. However, when we stop the water pump, the water fountain ceases to operate. This is like the cessation of our actions. When the water fountain comes down not to rise again, it cannot be called an action. It is like stopping of all our actions. Likewise, when we subside or sink within by attending to ourself that is not an action, but the cessation of all actions.
It will be useful to consider verse 4 of Atma-Vidya-Kirtanam in this context:
To unfasten the bonds of karma and so on and to bring about the destruction of birth and so on, rather than any other path, this path of self-investigation is extremely easy! When one merely remains still, without the least action of speech, mind and body, ah! The light of self in the heart will be the eternal experience, fear will not exist, and the ocean of bliss alone will remain shining. Therefore, so very easy is the science of self, ah! so very easy.
Sri Sadhu Om: According to Vedanta ‘action and so on’ (karmadi) denotes the three karmas namely, agamya, prarabdha, and sanchita, and with the afflictions which following in their wake.
All sadhanas other than self-investigation involve some action to be performed either by the mind, speech or body, and hence one may experience some difficulty in using these instruments. But in the path of self-investigation taught by Sri Bhagavan no action need be performed by any of these three instruments, and hence this path is the easiest of all paths.
Knowing self is not an action. Since self ever naturally knows itself, knowing self is nothing but being self (Upadesa Undhiyar v.26). If one merely remains still without performing any action by these three instruments, self-knowledge will automatically shine forth.
Since all actions of the mind, speech and body are due only to the rising of thoughts, since all other thoughts rise only because of the rising of the first thought ‘I am this body’, and since this first thought will vanish along with all other thoughts when one turns one’s attention towards it, in order to remain still all we need to do is to turn our attention towards the mere feeling ‘I’. Therefore, knowing self is so very easy.
Reflections: We may use various terms to describe self-investigation, like self-enquiry, self-attentiveness, self-remembrance, being still (summa-iru), turning within, diving within, self-contemplation, self-abidance, being attentively self-aware and so on, but all such terms denote our only the actionless state of remaining in and as ourself. Thus self-investigation is not an action.
Salazar,
who can know whether "the script of prarabdha is written at time of birth..." or at all at any time ?
Salazar,
in any case by attaining the immortal eternal state (liberation) we become free from all types of karma.
Sanjay Lohia,
usually we read 'Upadesa Undiyar', without "h".
Yes, Salazar, this ordainer seems to decide on our prarabdha like an independent arbitrator.
Dear Samarender Reddy,
GVK vs1165 is worth reading
"Though the jnani - how having discarded the collection of implements and instruments as the doers which perform the actions, has no contact with them, which are the doers - seemingly does actions, He is a non-doer."
Sadhu Om: Implements means the 5 sense organs and 5 organs of actions, while the word instruments means the mind, intellect, chittam and ego. Knowing that it is only these implements and instruments which are performing all actions and knowing that they are none of them 'I', the Jnani has discarded them and remains without having even the least contact with them, and hence He ever remains without any sense of doership, even though he may seem to be performing actions
He seems to be saying the apparent body of the jnani may continue to think or act, but the identification is with the screen rather than the character playing on the screen . . . ie there is no longer an I-thought, no longer an identification with the body-mind, the utter detachment of the substratum.
Salazar,
I agree with you when you say, "I think we are moving here into a territory which cannot be explained or deducted with the mind". Ultimately, the sole purpose of understanding or accepting that "everything is predetermined" is for the mind to fall silent, rather than understanding the full mechanics of how prarabdha works which anyway, as you rightly point out, is a futile exercise doomed to failure.
Venkat,
I agree with you that since the Jnani is the Self, without a sense of ego identification with body-mind, he is a non-doer. Even the Bhagavad Gita says as much in three places:
Chapter 3, Verse 27: "All actions are wrought in all cases by the qualities of Nature only. He whose mind is deluded by egoism thinks: “I am the doer”."
Chapter 13, Verse 30:"He sees, who sees that all actions are performed by Nature alone and that the Self is actionless."
Chapter 14, Verse 19: "When the seer beholds no agent other than the Gunas, knowing that which is higher than them, he attains to My Being."
Sanjay,
Thank you for the time put on your so well articulated response.
Unfortunately I still think my questions haven’t been addressed satisfactorily. At this point I have the feeling that you don’t understand my point, and at the same time you might have the same feeling towards me, that I don’t understand yours.
So I’ll propose that instead of trying to continue discussing the differences we might have in relation to the semantics of the teaching, we can continue to focus on what we agree most: our love for Bhagavan’s teachings and the efficacy of Atma-Vichara and Surrender.
Be well,
M
Guru Vachaka Kovai - verse 1
This light [i.e., these verses] of the guru’s teachings, which destroys the base nature of mind – ‘I’ and ‘mine’ – shines as self, illuminating our hearts, whenever we long with increasing despair for grace.
Reflections: Guru Vachaka Kovai contains 1254 verses outlining the teachings of Bhagavan in a most comprehensive manner. We can take GVK to be a joint work of Bhagavan and Murunagar. It is because even though most of these verses were written by Muruganar, these verses were corrected and improved upon by Bhagavan. Bhagavan himself wrote or dictated many of these verses. So GVK is a spiritual treasure.
Bhagavan had himself hinted that Muruganar had attained the highest, and therefore whatever he has written has great value. Of course, Bhagavan has refined these verses making them a valuable collection of his entire of teachings.
Only guru’s teachings can destroy our ego, and this ego is the root of this samsara. So we should study and reflect on our guru’s teachings as much as possible. Such a study is the foundation of our practice of self-investigation.
Mouna, yes, it is our love for Bhagavan’s teachings which binds us together. So let us cherish our association. As long as we have minds, we will have our opinions and views, and these will often clash with others’ opinions and views. So this is understandable is any discussion. Thanks.
Sanjay Lohia,
perhaps Muruganar lived actually in "Murunagar".:)
Sanjay Lohia,
"Only guru’s teachings can destroy our ego, and ...".
Of course we will have full benefit from Bhagavan's teaching only by correct understanding of them and putting them into practice.
Sam, thank you very much for your clear and detailed reply. I will comment in due course but on a first reading I noticed an error in the third page where you say -
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So, in that case it is clear that thought need to be present in that causal chain of bodily action or speech, which would mean that thought could very much be an epiphenomenon, one which God weaves into our life to give us the illusion of free will, so that we are deluded into “thinking” that we are the “doer” of our actions, whereas the reality seems to be more like what Gandhiji wrote, as quoted in previous post.
-------;
In the first sentence I think you meant to write "thought need NOT be present" instead of "thought need TO be present..."
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I am in agreement with almost everything you say except the following (last paragraph) -
"I would think that we should be having that “free will”, otherwise the concept of “karma” does not find traction."
The notion of karma and all the accompanying baggage of the soul, and past lives and reincarnation is, it seems to me, too heavy a price to pay for making sense of free will.
Anyway, more about this later.
Thanks again for your reply.
D Samarender Reddy,
regarding your reply to venkat and the quoted verses of the Bhagavat Gita:
so we have the actions done by the qualities of the three Gunas and the "Nature".
But can we rightly consider the mind and the ego as functions of the Gunas and "Nature" ?
Jiva-Karunya, yes, it should have been ‘Muruganar’. Thanks.
A small milestone...
I think this article has attracted the maximum number of comments out of all of Michael's articles. I think, the highest number of comments up to now was 733 after the article: Ulladu Narpadu: Tamil text, transliteration and translation. It now stands at 736 (with this comment) for this article and it is still counting...
Guru Vachaka Kovai - verse 2
The eternal one graciously took the form of guru [Ramana] and lovingly claimed me – who was a victim to the delusion ‘I am the body’ as his own, reforming me with the sense ‘I am not this filthy inert body’. May my head rest beneath the feet of the benign, gracious, silent guru.
Reflections: Through this verse, Muruganar indicates that he had attained whatever needed to be attained. This can be inferred by this statement: ‘[I] who was a victim to the delusion ‘I am the body’ […], reforming me with the sense ‘I am not this filthy inert body’’. So Muruganar cannot be more clear than this.
He had certainly experienced himself as he really is. Michael is of the view that both Muruganar and Sadhu Om were jnanis. He inferred this by the clarity of their understanding of Bhagavan’s teachings. He also inferred this by the outward lives of these two. They lived fully surrendered lives, with no sense of the ego. They lived like humble devotees of Bhagavan, even though they could have easily assumed the role of gurus.
When people wanted to take Muruganar or Sadhu Om as their guru, both of them used to say with emphasis ‘I am not a guru. Bhagavan is the guru of all. Having come to Bhagavan, how can you even think of considering anyone else as your guru?’, or something to this effect. Michael has conveyed all this.
Agnostic,
You are right that "Not" is missing in that sentence.
Regarding the extra baggage of karma and reincarnation to take on board free will of some sort, at least at the level of thinking as I meant it, I guess there is no other theory that makes more sense than that. If there is one you have in mind, I am all ears.
Of course, let me say this much. We have to ask ourselves what is it that reincranates and is subject to karma. Clearly it is the body-mind complex. But, somehow the chidabhasa (reflected consciousness) is deluded into thinking that whatever is happening to the body-mind is happening to itself because it takes itself to be the body-mind. So, in that sense, strictly speaking, there is no reincarnation or karma for chidabhasa - it is only imagining them to be so.
Sanjay Lohia,
if Michael deletes comment nr. 617, 662-663, 707 as proposed by the commentator called "control tower" the number of comments would be only 733 (inclusive this comment).
Of course Michael cannot break his present main work only for the adjustment of the statistics of all the comments on the last article of 13 May 2018. Look at his advance announcement in his article of 28 December 2017: "...because I need to devote some time to revising and editing the English translation of Sādhanai Sāram, which I should have done earlier because it is long overdue for republication. I will also soon have to do at least some minimal editing on The Path of Sri Ramana, which is likewise due for republication, so while I am working on these I will have less time to write anything for this blog...".
existing substance
You ask, "But can we rightly consider the mind and the ego as functions of the Gunas and "Nature" ?"
Yes, mind is very much a functioning of the gunas because the mind belongs to the realm of Maya, and Maya as you know is said to be like a rope with three strands, the three strands being the three gunas of Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas.
Sanjay Lohia,
evidently I did not notice the 3 comments nr.736 -738 given in the mean time.
D Samarender Reddy,
is there really a "rope with three strands" ? Did you rather mean an "ocean" with three strands ?
existing substance
You ask, "is there really a "rope with three strands" ? Did you rather mean an "ocean" with three strands ?"
So, Check out https://books.google.co.in/books?id=cSy_BSaO2BwC&pg=PA75&lpg=PA75&dq=maya%2Brope%2Bthree+strands&source=bl&ots=agFR0zlB-X&sig=7A3dBpdetWSFIZr9qSRb5332vDw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiv2pbk7ajcAhVHWysKHWLuAvU4ChDoAQhFMAc#v=onepage&q=maya%2Brope%2Bthree%20strands&f=false
Salazar,
Yes, it seems to be well written. Unfortunately, I do not have that book with me. I tried searching on http://libgen.io/ (from where I get to download most of the books for free) but it is not available there. It is available on Amazon, but it is very expensive. But, it is available here for reading: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3345946.Varghese_Malpan
D Samarender Reddy,
thank you for giving that link. Sorry I simply overlooked the different meanings of the noun "strand" (here not only as shore/coast/beach but also as thread/fibre/filament/string).
Salazar,
I too am glad for you about the reduced chronic pain.
Another point is the above mentioned e-book " A Comparative Study of the Bhagavad-gītā and the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola on the Process of Spiritual Liberation" which I would like to read.
Because I am not sufficiently trained in computing may I ask you how to use an e-book ?
Is it necessary to buy the whole e-book from Google or can I make a printout of the most interesting parts free of charge ?
Which technical prerequisite is necessary to read an e-book ?
Salazar,
many thanks for your kind assistance.
I did not even know that an e-book is anything for touch:)
Sam, I prefer total predetermination (including this thought...) over free will because of what you said in part in one of your earlier replies -
"(2) Where does that leave us with regard to effort. Strictly speaking, if one takes on board that everything is predetermined, then one surrenders completely and utterly to God at once (of course, you could ask at this point do we have that freedom - yes, in the sense that the very understanding that everything is predetermined occasions or causes the surrender) and that is the end of story - you will be liberated and ego, the locus of free will and fate, will be at an end. If not, if one does not believe it fully, then through the illusion that we are in control we will put in effort as per God's plan and we will carry on. If one is caught in between, that is, one is fatalistic about life without surrendering fully, life (or God, if you will) will correct that attitude in us through other series of causal mechanisms and understandings.
--------------------------------
For me, Talk 28 - the section on freewill - says it all...only I would replace "God" with "Nature".
You are widely read and have thought deeply about this topic; we are fortunate to have you here. Thanks also to MJ for attracting you (which will give him the opportunity to say that it is Bhagavan's doing, etc, etc..!!!)
Agnostic,
Yes, you have a point. That viewpoint is also shared by Ramesh Balsekar, who constantly harped on the fact that we have no "free will", period.
You may want to check out this excellent talk on "Do We Have Free Will?" by Swami Sarvapriyananda - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzbyeU3dK4g
Agnostic, are you by any chance old buddy Roger Isaacs? You certainly share his animosity towards Michael.
Salazar, you are projecting, son. I am Agnostic, not Roger...quit your foolishness.
Just out of curiosity, what am I projecting? :)
D Samarender Reddy,
I fully agree with your reply of 18 July 2018 at 02:44 to Salazar: "Ultimately, the sole purpose of understanding or accepting that "everything is predetermined" is for the mind to fall silent, rather than understanding the full mechanics of how prarabdha works which anyway, as you rightly point out, is a futile exercise doomed to failure."
Secret India,
I am glad you agree. Not only in the case of surrender you fall silent or become still, even in self-enquiry you have to be still, as Bhagavan says in Talk 379, "All that is required to realise the Self is to 'Be Still.'" Even if one maintains that self-enquiry involves paying attention to the inner sense of I or I-ness or I-feeling, even that involves being still because you cannot pay that attention if your attention is occupied by thoughts.
Moreover, as Kena Upanishad says, "That which the mind cannot know, but because of which the mind knows, know that alone to be Brahman, and not this that people worship here." That is because, Brahman (aka Self or Consciousness - Prajnanam Brahma [Consciousness is Brahman] as Aitareya Upanishad says) cannot become an object for the mind because Brahman is you yourself who are using the instrument of the mind, and so through thinking you cannot arrive at the Truth or Consciousness. So, why get lost in thoughts or thinking when you know it does not take you to the Truth. Of course, at this point do not ask "how" can I stop thinking and Be Still. As J. Krishnamurti was fond of saying, there is no "how" because the "how" implies a method, a practice or technique, and you have had dozens of methods and techniques which have not brought you to the doorstep of Truth. What then is the way out? Instead of asking "how" can I stop thinking and become still, understand "why" you need to stop thinking and become still, that is, understand the need for stillness of the mind to realize the Truth, and that very understanding will slowly bring your mind around to stillness without your having to put in effort in that direction - and when you are still, things will begin to happen spontaneously. It is this Truth or understanding that will set you free and not your "effort" to be free.
As Nisargadatta Maharaj said in I Am That (No. 48 Awareness is Free): "My teacher told me to hold on to the sense 'I am' tenaciously and not to swerve from it even for a moment. I did my best to follow his advice and in a comparatively short time I realised within myself the truth of his teaching. All I did was to remember his teaching, his face, his words constantly. This brought an end to the mind; in the stillness of the mind I saw myself as I am -- unbound."
Samarender, may I butt in? I agree, ‘Ultimately, the sole purpose of understanding or accepting that "everything is predetermined" is for the mind to fall silent, rather than understanding the full mechanics of how prarabdha works which anyway, as you [Secret India] rightly point out, is a futile exercise doomed to failure’.
However, though we can understand that everything is predetermined and thereby accept everything that happens as God’s will and thus remain relatively calm, such acceptance cannot bring us to absolute stillness. In order to be established in total stillness, we need to investigate the ego and find out that it does not exist. Since the ego is the root of all movements, as long as it is there we cannot be perfectly still.
You quote Kena Upanishad, where it is written, ‘That which the mind cannot know, but because of which the mind knows, know that alone to be Brahman, and not this that people worship here’. This echoes what Bhagavan says in verse 22 of Ulladu Narpadu:
Consider, except by, turning the mind back within, completely immersing it in God, who shines within that mind giving light to the mind, how to fathom God by the mind?
You say, ‘Instead of asking "how" can I stop thinking and become still, understand "why" you need to stop thinking and become still, that is, understand the need for stillness of the mind to realize the Truth’. Yes, our mind needs to be absolutely still, and only such stillness will destroy the mind. However, Bhagavan has also given us a clear method of ‘how to be still?’ We can remain still by attending to ourself. Only when we arise as this ego, we indulge in actions. So in order to be still, we need to stop the ego from rising, and we can do so only by attending to the ego.
Bhagavan would have agreed with Nisargadatta Maharaj when he said, ‘My teacher told me to hold on to the sense 'I am' tenaciously and not to swerve from it even for a moment’. Yes, we should hold on the sense of ‘I am’ and not swerve from it even for a moment. Bhagavan also asks us to practise nirantara svarupa-smarana (unceasing self-remembrance). This should be enough to destroy our ego.
D Samarender Reddy,
you write:"Instead of asking "how" can I stop thinking and become still, understand the need for stillness of the mind to realize the Truth, and that very understanding will slowly bring your mind around to stillness without your having to put in effort in that direction - and when you are still, things will begin to happen spontaneously. It is this Truth or understanding that will set you free and not your "effort" to be free."
But...in order to not obscure the facts....
because for most of us that "very understanding" is not descending from the air, the struggle for keeping the heart free from all kinds of obstacles is certainly necessary and has to be done just by the mind's steadfast effort.
"...to hold on to the sense 'I am' tenaciously and not to swerve from it even for a moment" I consider only as an other way of expressing the necessity of keeping the awareness/heart clean from all trouble causing influences.
Sanjay,
You wrote, "as long as it [ego] is there we cannot be perfectly still." True. That is what even Bhagavan said (as I quoted in one of my recent posts above), that, in Nirvikalpa Samadhi (and by implication in all other states below that where one is practicing self-enquiry, that is, attending to oneself) one is holding on to stillness with effort, and only in sahaja samadhi (where obviously there is no ego) is that stillness effortless because it is one's nature.
drik,
You wrote, "for most of us that "very understanding" is not descending from the air". That may be because you are thinking that that "understanding" is something complicated and profound. Actually, it is quite simple in that it is simply the logical understanding that you cannot make Consciousness into an object for the mind and hence thinking will not get you to the truth, and whatever thinking, that is, manana, you do should finally bring you to this very understanding, and that is the only role and goal of manana.
Once you have ascertained that, the reason you still are involved in "the struggle for keeping the heart free from all kinds of obstacles" it is because your longing and earnestness to realise the Truth or discover your true nature as Consciousness is not strong and intense enough. That would mean that in addition to wanting to know the truth, you are pulled away by various other desires. Reason for those desires is your false belief that somehow happiness resides in the objects and situations outside. But a little reflection would tell you that the happiness you seem to be deriving from objects and situations outside is actually consequent upon the temporary stillness of mind upon acquiring the object desired, whereby the wellspring of inner happiness is opened up. So, as Bhagavan says towards the end in Who Am I, it is foolish to rake up desires and thus agitate the mind, and then go in search of satisfying those desires to bring about the stillness of the mind, just like venturing out into the sun and retreating back into the shade of the tree instead of remaining in the shade of the tree. So, understanding this account of how happiness is produced will enable you to cultivate vairagya and increase your earnestness to know the Truth about oneself. When that happens, your mind will automatically become still.
Salazar,
You got me there. Yes, I agree that one doesn't have to go through Nirvikalpa Samadhi en route to sahaja samadhi or the natural state. I was merely quoting Bhagavan to show that what Sanjay wrote squared up somewhat with what Bhagavan said, roughly speaking. That said, what is important is stillness of mind, and what stations one passes through or not en route to sahaja samadhi should be of no concern because they will anyway naturally unfold and one should not get caught in them but hold on to the I-feeling as Nisargadatta Maharaj did because he said he did have many visions of gods etc but he never paid any attention to them but merely held on to the "I am". Even Bhagavan said somewhere that whatever visions one gets one should totally disregard them and hold on to the seer of them.
My sister and her current family believe in some sort of Buddhist chanting. They do this chanting sometimes together and often on their own. My sister also visits a group of like-minded devotees for such chanting and reading the words by their one Japanese guru.
My father died of cancer. He took a few rounds of chemotherapy, even though some of us were quite apprehensive about this line of treatment. We wanted him to change his diet and so on. However, because it was his destiny, he soon died of cancer.
In his latest video, Michael discusses these two topics. That is, in reply to a devotee’s questions, he talks about the benefits one can derive from such chanting if one has cancer or some such problem. The following extract, which is in its edited version, is taken from Michael’s video filmed on 14th July 2018 (1:38 onwards):
Devotee: A relative of mine is suffering from cancer and she does Buddhist chanting, and she is convinced that it has given her a lot of hope and strength. But by such chanting can she change her current situation? She is confused. Sometimes she feels that she is lost, and sometimes she feels she is conquering her fear and that the chanting is going to change her destiny…
Michael: She cannot change her destiny, but she can change her fear, because the fear is an element of will. The domain of will is what we want, what we like and dislike and what we fear… So by doing that chanting, she may reduce her fears. So from that perspective it may be beneficial. However, it cannot change what is destined to happen.
When this body is going to die is predestined when it came into existence, so all that we are to experience in this life is predestined. We cannot change our destiny, but we can change our reaction to it. We can be terrified because we can see our death approaching, or we can take it as Bhagavan’s will – ‘after all this body is anyway going to die, so whether it dies sooner or later, what does it matter. What difference does it make?’
We can cultivate that attitude of surrender. ‘Thy will be done – not my will but thy will’, accepting whatever happens as the sweet will of Bhagavan. If we are in a state of surrender, it does not matter whether the body dies or not.
Devotee: So when you in a state of surrender, does that mean that you do not even take action for the cure?
Michael: Supposing I have cancer, if it is my destiny to have chemotherapy and be cured, or at least to put it into remission for some time, I will go through the chemotherapy when the doctor advises me to go for it. I will not accept other advises like changing my diet or taking homoeopathy or chanting or whatever.
Or if I am destined not to have chemotherapy, I will listen to people and try taking some herbs, do prayers or whatever. So if these are destined to help, these will help. So it is all according to destiny.
Salazar, you say, ‘Here in the U.S. cancer treatment is a huge business, the medical field cannot make more money than with that. Physicians get paid incentives from pharmaceutical companies when they prescribe chemotherapy’.
I think medical care is a big business in most of the advanced countries, and since we in India are growing at an extremely fast rate, medical care is becoming a huge business here as well. However, on the positive side, our medical care is not far behind other more advanced countries.
Some hospitals and doctors take advantage of our insecurities when we come into their clutches, and thus we are exploited in so many ways. However, I have heard that the UK medical care (NHS) is quite transparent and good.
D Samarender Reddy,
thank you for your reply.
I take the liberty of making a statement only on those points to which I feel (most) approached:
You are certainly correct in saying that the reason I still am involved in the struggle for keeping the heart free from all kinds of obstacles is because my longing and earnestness to realise the Truth or discover my true nature as consciousness is not strong and intense enough. It is true that I am pulled away by various other desires.
Therefore I should constantly try to cultivate vairagya and increase my earnestness to know the truth about myself.
Thanks for attending to this matter. Kind regards.
Sanjay Lohia,
"So it is all according to destiny."
If one considers that idea as true there is the danger that people become fatalistic and lethargic.
chitta-suddhi, then let the people become fatalistic and lethargic. Even if that would be true, what is it your concern? Who cares? It is irrelevant!
It is obvious that you have not grasped the basics of Bhagavan's teachings, question like these lead to nowhere because your mind keep projecting outwards with its irrelevant concerns. Bhagavan wants you to go inwards.
Salazar,
Bhagavan did not want or press people to "grasp the basics of his teachings". That's asking too much. Rather he encouraged us to doubt the doubter.
Bhagavan has no wishes; that is only by the way.
However, yes, my real nature draws my attention from within inwardly. As you propose - I will follow the prompting of my heart and go more inwards (the non-grasper).:)
Salazar,
all is one - so nothing is ever irrelevant.
Chitta-Suddhi, I wrote ‘So it is all according to destiny’. You replied to this by saying ‘If one considers that idea as true there is the danger that people become fatalistic and lethargic’.
The term ‘fatalist’ means ‘the belief that people cannot change the way events will happen and that events, especially bad ones, cannot be avoided’. So Bhagavan does want us to become fatalists, any doubt? However, as far as becoming ‘lethargic’ or lazy is concerned, it is not really our choice. If it is in our destiny to remain active we will be active, and if it is our destiny to be lazy or lethargic we will be lazy.
Bhagavan used to say that whatever we are do in this life with our mind, speech and body is already chalked out when our body comes into existence. He used to say that if it is in our destiny to work we cannot avoid work, and if work is not in our destiny we cannot get work even if we actively seek it.
Yes, one thing should always remain lethargic and that is our individual will. Our will means the collection of all our desires, our likes and dislikes, fears and so on. Our will should remain inactive, because if it is active it will create all sorts of problems for us. It is the misuse of our will in the past which is the cause of our present bondage, and therefore we should now make wise use of our will by repeatedly trying to turn within.
Our primary task is to destroy our ego which has this will. If the ego goes, everything else will go along with it – that is, if the ego disappears, all our desires, our likes and dislikes, our fears etc. everything will disappear forever. This will be the end of our story.
Sanjay Lohia,
as you say fatalism is generally the belief that all events are predetermined and therefore inevitable. What I meant particularly with fatalism is rather the excessive submissive attitude to events, resulting from such belief. In my experience there are just not all things completely outside a person's control. The predetermination of events by a supernatural power does not at all include the entire range of life. Not all things have been decided by fate before they happen. So one should not stop from making decisions or making an effort.
Even I would relativize Bhagavan's note that he wrote at Pavala Kundru for his mother in December 1898 when she pleaded with him to return home with her to Madurai: This words of comfort were emphatically stated by him possibly to mainly console his mother. I would warn people not to attach too much significance to this statement for their daily way of life.
Because I don't want here again discuss the role of free will and fate(prarabdha) we may remember Michael's translation of Upadēśa Undiyār verse 1: Karma [action] giving fruit is by the ordainment of God [the kartā or ordainer]. Since karma is jaḍa [devoid of consciousness], can karma be God?
Sanjay Lohia,
you say "Yes, one thing should always remain lethargic and that is our individual will."
On the contrary our (individual) will to experience the truth should always grow stronger and stronger !
Chitta-Suddhi, we should indeed have a submissive attitude to events, because that is what Bhagavan’s wants us to aim for. When Bhagavan is the train which is carrying all our burdens, why should we doubt his intelligence? He knows what to do, when and how. So we should try to accept everything that happens in our life as Bhagavan’s will. He is infinite love and he knows what is good for us, so we should gladly surrender to his will.
Karma theory as taught by Bhagavan is not just a system of reward and punishment. It is more a system where Bhagavan is working at attenuating our ego through various good and apparently bad events and experiences in our lives. The outside events have a purpose. Its main purpose is to make us disgusted with our external life so that we become willing to turn within. It is because infinite happiness, which is our true nature, is within us as the very core of our being.
So let us welcome all unpleasant experiences we undergo with an open arm – maybe these events are more helpful to us in the long run. All such adverse events give a blow to our ego and thus makes it weak and therefore willing to surrender.
You say, ‘So one should not stop from making decisions or making an effort’. Agreed, we are free to make whatever decision we want to make and we are also free to make efforts to implement our decisions. However, our efforts will fructify only if the results we aim for are in our destiny. I may want to become a rich man and also make tremendous efforts in that direction, but if it not in my destiny I may even lose whatever little money I may have now.
Or I may have no desire to become a rich man and therefore may be indifferent to the lure of wealth. However, if it is in my destiny to become rich, somehow the wealth will come to me. A rich uncle may die leaving a huge fortune in my name or whatever.
The note that Bhagavan wrote for his mother was not only to console her but was to give us the theory of karma in a nutshell. So definitely we should attach significance to whatever he wrote in that note.
Prapatti, as you say, ‘our (individual) will to experience the truth should always grow stronger and stronger!’ I cannot agree more. How to make this will grow stronger and stronger? It is only by more and more practice.
Sanjay Lohia,
you report that "Our will means the collection of all our desires, our likes and dislikes, fears and so on. "
According Oxford Dictionary of English:
Will is mainly the faculty by which a person decides on and initiates action.
Will is control deliberately exerted to do something or to restrain one's own impulses.
So fears are not a factor of will.
Sanjay Lohia,
why should gladly surrendering to Bhagavan's will have the meaning of exclusion of our mental faculties ?
Salazar,
when you are writing a comment you certainly use your faculty of reason.
The human mind's power of understanding and reason is rightly called a mental faculty.
Before blabbering about the non-existence of mental faculties and other "irrelevances" you should have been thinking at least to a minimum.
Rather and not seldom are arrogance and lacking ability to judge simple coherences the cause of bondage.
Guru Vachaka Kovai - verse 3
The perfect jnana-Guru [Ramana] ably and precisely presents the right meaning on many contradictory subjects, and passes apt judgement over various discussions, revealing the one supreme truth that lies in harmony among them all. May my head rest beneath his feet.
Reflections: As Sadhu Om used to say, Bhagavan has given us many correction slips. Bhagavan has clarified and refined many of the concepts which though they were there in the Vedas, were not very clear. For example, let us take what he says about the nature of sleep in the first chapter of Maharshi’s Gospel (2002 edition, page 9):
Sleep is not ignorance, it is one’s pure state; wakefulness is not knowledge, it is ignorance. There is full awareness in sleep and total ignorance in waking.
Do we think this way? Obviously not. So isn’t it a revolutionary revelation? Again he says when the ego comes into existence everything else comes into existence. It's again the most radical teaching. However, it does agree with our daily experience and therefore we have no reason to reject it altogether. We see all otherness only when we rise as this ego, so how can we be sure that things exist when we are not aware of them? We imagine that things exist when we are not aware of them, but we cannot be sure of this, can we?
So Bhagavan has revolutionised spiritual teachings in so many ways.
Salazar,
the term "will" is only common usage. There is no need of a reference to Bhagavan's teachings.
Salazar,
where are being afraid, questions, confused seekers of the truth and discussion in deep sleep ?
Listen, mate, I agree that mind's imaginations, final dawn upon "confused visitors", seeming happenings and hope for "coming clarity" of course occur only in the limited view of mind.
However, in order to talk about philosophical issues ajata is not applicable.
In peace and quiet, may I make my farewells now ?
Everything all right ?
Salazar,
it does not matter that we cannot convince one another of the correctness of our concepts.
According to my dictionary the question "Everything all right ?" means the same as "all right or OK ?".
There is no insinuation whatever, I only wanted to express that everything's fine.
That's all.
Sorry, but I can write comments only with the full use of an English dictionary.
Often it is not possible to express my ideas in perfect English.
Over our different beliefs about prarabdha and free will we need not fall to brooding.
Salazar,
thanks, let us find peace of mind my friend:)
Guru Vachaka Kovai - verse 4
This clear light of supreme truth was not lit by my innocent, infant mind, which has not seen the truth. It was lit by the fully ripened supreme knowledge of my master Sri Ramana.
Reflections: Muruganar, like a true devotee, gives all credit for this work Guru Vachaka Kovai to Bhagavan Ramana. After all, Muruganar had merely recorded the teachings of Bhagavan, so all credit should rightfully go to Bhagavan. However, Muruganar was a perfect instrument, as he had fully surrendered to Bhagavan.
Furthermore, since Muruganar had perfect inner clarity, which a jnani naturally has, he was able to understand and reproduce Bhagavan’s teachings in all its purity.
Guru Vachaka Kovai - verse 5
Many instructions to root out ignorance were given by my beloved, eternal, companion [Sri Ramana] whose real form is that [sat-chit] which exists, shines and reveals itself as ‘I’. I now recount some of those instructions which my mind has grasped and preserved.
Reflections: Muruganar again makes it clear that Bhagavan’s ‘real form is that sat-chit which exists, shines and reveals itself as I’. Although outwardly it seemed that Muruganar had great love and attachment for the name and form of Bhagavan, but it was clear to him that Bhagavan is what shines in us as ‘I’.
Sanjay Lohia,
Sri Ramana's real form is that [sat-chit] which exists, shines and reveals itself as 'I'.
Is it not said that our real form is nothing but the same sat-chit ?
Should we not therefore bow our ego's head to realize that we are in truth the same boundless ocean of grace as our beloved eternal companion Sri Arunachala Ramana, the guru of gurus ?
Is it actually within our power to eradicate the ego, the cause of all misery ?
...there is in truth no other than the self or pure consciousness.
Truly the self is neither the seer nor the seen.
The self alone is not involved as subject or object...
Love for Being, you ask, ‘Is it actually within our power to eradicate the ego, the cause of all misery?’ Certainly, because if it were not, why should we practise any sadhana? However, by our efforts, we can only travel so far, and therefore ultimately, to use Bhagavan’s words, Bhagavan’s grace has to rise up and consume us.
As we go on practising self-investigation, eventually, we will be engulfed by the clarity of self-awareness, which is the power of grace. So we should not lose sight of the might of the grace, because as this ego we have limited powers, and therefore we can make efforts only up to a certain point – beyond that we just need to yield ourself to the final pull of grace.
Guru Vachaka Kovai - verse 6
I, being there where Ramana embraced me, will recount a little of the nature of the supreme truth which I have come to know in my life of divine union with him, my master.
Reflections: On this verse, I found the following written by Michael in the Preface of Guru Vachaka Kovai:
Sri Michael James: Sri Muruganar was one of those devotees who thus knew Sri Bhagavan as he knew himself, and it was from this stance, this identity, that he composed Guru Vachaka Kovai. This fact is revealed in verse 6 of the prefatory verses of Guru Vachaka Kovai, in which Sri Muruganar says, ‘Being there where Sri Ramana embraced me (that is, being in the state of self where Sri Ramana made me one with himself), I will recount a little of the supreme truth which I have come to know in my life of divine union with him, my master’. It is for this reason that Guru Vachaka Kovai ranks along with the original works of Sri Bhagavan such as Upadesa Undiyar, Ulladu Narpadu, Atma Vidya Kirtanam and Ekatma Panchakam, as a true jnana-sastra, a scripture teaching the path to true knowledge.
The fact that Sri Muruganar had attained jnana is clear from the 14,000 verses of his monumental work, Sri Ramana Jnana Bodham, in which he describes in an infinite variety of ways how Sri Bhagavan had bestowed his grace upon him and made him one with himself.
Sanjay Lohia,
I would like to share your optimism.
But as far as I am concerned I am only just beginning to find my way of constant self-remembrance or self-investigation in daily life - particularly when my sensual desires get the better of me.
I have just written a reply to a comment on my latest video on YouTube, and since what I wrote in it is relevant to what has been discussed in many of the comments here, the following is a copy of it:
Ross, I am currently writing a long article on the subject of will and the need to surrender, which I will post on my blog as soon as I have finished it, and which I hope will offer an alternative perspective to what you have written here.
According to Bhagavan everything that we experience in each life is predetermined by fate (prārabdha), so it cannot be changed by anything we do or do not do, and we will be made to do whatever is necessary for us to experience it. This does not mean that none of the actions we do are driven by our will or volition, but just means that whatever we do according to our will (our desires and so on) will not change, add to or subtract from what we are destined to experience. Therefore if we surrender our will (that is, give up all our likes, dislikes, desires, fears, attachments, hopes and so on) our life will go on as it is destined to, but we will be happy and peaceful, irrespective of what happens to us.
Bhagavan uses an analogy to illustrate this. If we are travelling on a train, we do not need to carry our luggage on our head, but can put it on the rack or the seat beside us and sit back and relax until we reach our destination. We are free, however, to carry our luggage on our head and to suffer as a consequence. Acting according to our will and believing that we must do so in order to survive is like carrying our luggage on our head, whereas surrendering our will is like putting our luggage aside and relaxing. Which is preferable? The choice is ours, but whichever option we choose, whatever is predetermined to happen to us will happen, just as the train will take us to our destination whether we carry our luggage on our head or not.
However putting our luggage aside requires trust, which most of us lack, but we can at least try little by little putting it aside and seeing what happens. The more we do so, the more confidence we will gain that the train will carry our luggage for us whether we hold it on our head or not. This is the practice of surrender, and the more we practise it the more confident we will become that everything will happen as it is meant to happen whether our will interferes or not.
https://youtu.be/ihhVe8dKNSA
In reply to what I wrote to him in my previous comment, Ross wrote another comment saying: ‘Yes, Michael, I do agree everything is pre-determined. Including our listening to the talks. And that my actions in response are also pre-determined. I’m just wondering what place my will has in my response to the talks. I come to the talks out of being weary of the world, my addictions to pleasure, and how everything ends in disappointment. So, in that sense my motives for being here are egoistic. Yet here I am. So, my desires to escape my situation have served a purpose. And, yes, they are pre-ordained’.
In reply to him I wrote:
Everything that happens to us is predetermined, so in that sense everything that we experience is predetermined, but our desires are not predetermined. If they were, whether or not we investigate ourself, surrender ourself or do any other spiritual practice would be predestined, in which case we would have no freedom to escape the bondage of self-ignorance.
As Bhagavan pointed out, freedom or independence of our will is the fundamental premise on which the prescription of any form of spiritual practice is based, so he would not have advised us to investigate and surrender ourself if we were not free to choose whether to do so or not.
This is what I explain in great detail in the article I am currently writing, so if you want to understand this crucial point more clearly please read that article whenever I complete it and post it on my blog.
Que Sera Sera - by Doris Day
When I was just a little girl
I asked my mother, what will I be
Will I be pretty
Will I be rich
Here's what she said to me
Que será, será
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours to see
Que será, será
What will be, will be
When I grew up and fell in love
I asked my sweetheart, what lies ahead
Will we have rainbows
Day after day
Here's what my sweetheart said
Que será, será
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours to see
Que será, será
What will be, will be
Now I have children of my own
They ask their mother, what will I be
Will I be handsome
Will I be rich
I tell them tenderly
Que será, será
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours to see
Que será, será
What will be, will be
Que será, sera
Reflections: Michael referred to this poem Que Sera Sera in his latest video while discussing the topic of free will and destiny. I thought that the poem would be an interesting sharing.
What will I be? Will I be pretty? Will I be rich? What lies ahead? Will I have rainbows day after day? Will I be handsome?
We have such questions, hopes, expectations, desires, curiosity about so many things. These are all the workings of our will. Our will is free or independent, and therefore we can have all sorts of hopes and expectations, we can have limitless desires, we can be curious about so many things. This is our freedom, and our destiny cannot stop us from exercising this freedom of will. We can want what we want, we can desire what we desire.
However, Que será, sera, whatever will be, will be - this is our destiny. That is our will cannot change, add to or subtract from our destiny. I am free to want to be pretty or rich or whatever, but I may not necessarily become what I want to be. That is ‘whatever will be, will be’ is our unalterable destiny. Our will cannot change our destiny.
Actually, we have unlimited freedom because we are the infinite whole. However, when we limit ourself as this ego our will also seems to be limited. There seem to be restrictions on our freedom of will.
Our will is the totality of all our likes, dislikes, desires, fears, hopes, interests, aspirations, all these things constitute our will. The elements of our will are what is called vishaya-vasanas. So desire is the very nature of the ego, and the desires manifest as our likes and dislikes and everything. So it is within our power to have a desire for something or to be indifferent to it. That ability we have.
But people generally take free will to mean freedom to do what we want. But actually free will means that we have a will, and ‘free will’ means our will is free. It doesn’t mean that we are free to do what we want, but we are free to want what we want.
Whether we can do what we want is an entirely different matter. Freedom to act is limited. It is because we have to experience our prarabdha.
Edited extract from Michael’s video filmed on 14 July 2018 (1:23 to 1:25)
Reflections: Michael says, ‘actually we have unlimited freedom because we are the infinite whole’. What does ‘unlimited freedom’ mean? It means that since we are the infinite whole, there is nothing other than ourself to limit us in any manner. It means that we as this infinite whole are not bound to anything, and therefore we are eternally free.
However, when we limit ourself as this ego, we take in all the limitations. As this ego, we have limited freedom, limited existence, limited awareness and limited happiness. We now have limited freedom to act, because we are bound by our destiny.
Anonymous, out of curiosity I started watching that youtube video you posted planning to not watch it in its entirety and sure enough I stopped watching when the guy started saying that, because of no free will, the criminal system would make no sense.
I won't elaborate why this conclusion is false, just more proof for me to not watch all of these youtube videos where certain people voice their (usual immature) opinions.
The ego is the doer of actions. Actually, the actions are done by the body, speech and mind. However, because the ego feels ‘I am this body; I am this mind’, when we think thoughts, we feel ‘I think’. What are you doing now? ‘I am sitting; I am asking questions’. All these actions are done by the ego.
The ego is both, the doer and experiencer of the fruits of actions. The ego is the doer of agamya because it has a will, and it is the experiencer of prarabdha.
However, your real nature is not doing or experiencing; your real nature is being. Pure awareness is your nature, not awareness of this or that.
Edited extract from Michael’s video filmed on 14 July 2018 (1:57 onwards)
Reflections: My following reflections are based on Michael’s article titled: Do we need to do anything at all?
Our body or the person we take to be ourself needs to various tasks in order to continue existing as this body or the person. The person needs to do various tasks, such as breathing, eating, acquiring resources to maintain itself (food, clothing and shelter). However, as long as we (the ego) identify ourself with this person, we feel that we (the ego) need to do all these things. But this is not true.
Are this body or person? If we are not, we don’t need to do all these tasks. Bhagavan says your duty is to be, not to be this or that. We don’t need to think or do anything. That which is to happen will happen; that which is not to happen. Bhagavan says this is certain.
Our body and made will be made to act by the power of parmesvara-shakti. We should remain silent or indifferent to everything. This is vairagya, and such vairagya is a necessary element of our practice of self-investigation.
We are the infinite self-awareness, which never does anything or needs to do anything at all.
My previous comment needs some corrections:
That which is to happen will happen; that which is not to happen will not happen. Bhagavan says this is certain.
Our body and mind will be made to act by the power of paramesvara-shakti.
Sanjay Lohia,
you quote: "However, your real nature is not doing or experiencing; your real nature is being. Pure awareness is your nature, not awareness of this or that."
Consequently pure awareness seems to be full (of awareness) because there is apparently no room for (being aware of) this and that.
Michael,
you say "Therefore if we surrender our will (that is, give up all our likes, dislikes, desires, fears, attachments, hopes and so on) our life will go on as it is destined to, but we will be happy and peaceful, irrespective of what happens to us."
Does not our life (will) go on as it is destined to even if we do not surrender our will...? I cannot recognize any difference between both behaviours in that point of "going on".
prapatti, may I volunteer my opinion to your question, "Does not our life (will) go on as it is destined to even if we do not surrender our will...? I cannot recognize any difference between both behaviours in that point of "going on"?
Yes, life will go on as destined no matter if we surrender [our will] or not. The point is that we want to stop identifying with "life" and that requires surrendering. Why going through these futile mental interactions with one's "life" which can only create turmoil and discomfort? True surrender is peace, a peace which transcends all notions of mind and body.
Michael,
"Everything that happens to us is predetermined, so in that sense everything that we experience is predetermined, but our desires are not predetermined. If they were, whether or not we investigate ourself, surrender ourself or do any other spiritual practice would be predestined, in which case we would have no freedom to escape the bondage of self-ignorance."
To my mind I feel such predestination as being totally treated like a child and as deprivation of the right of decision. But- presumably I did not deserve any better/anything else.
What is the reason that our desires are not predetermined ?
Salazar,
"True surrender is peace, a peace which transcends all notions of mind and body."
May I question from which reason and to whom I should surrender ?
prapatti, I am not sure what you mean with "from which reason should I surrender?".
Do you want to know what is the reason to surrender? I believe I have already mentioned that in my previous comment. Maybe you can clarify what you mean and I'll answer then.
"To whom should you surrender?". Depending on the belief system several answers are possible, for many it is a personal God. The Christian tradition surrenders to God, "thy will be done!". That means to accept and realize that any interaction we experience is done by God. If someone cheats you then it was not that person but God. You get promoted, that was not done by your superior but by God. Somebody insults you, it was not that person but God, etc. etc.
In all of these instances you accept them as they are and you do not try to change anything. If someone slaps you your body may return the favor but what counts is how your mind is reacting to it. If you can walk away calmly after hitting that person then you have shown great restraint. On the other hand if someone slaps you and you keep mentally agonizing about that and imagine all kinds of retaliation scenarios (without actually hitting that person) then you are worse off than when your body would have just hit that person.
Surrender requires faith in a higher power and that that higher power has only our best interest in mind in EVERYTHING you experience.
True surrender is the death of the ego/mind and the belief to be a body. Then there is no more a subject/object relationship but that what we truly are. Ultimately there is also not a personal God but there is no need to worry about that now.
Talk 607.
17th January, 1939
Sri Bhagavan said to Lady Bateman: There is a fixed state; sleep, dream and waking states are mere movements in it. They are like pictures moving on the screen in a cinema show.
Everyone sees the screen as well as the pictures but ignoresthe screen and takes in the pictures alone. The Jnani however
considers only the screen and not the pictures. The pictures certainly move on the screen yet do not affect it. The screen itself does not move but remains stationary. Similarly, a person travels in a train and thinks that he moves.
Really speaking he sits and reposes in his seat, and it is the train which is steaming fast. He however superimposes the motion of the train on himself because he has identified himself with the body.
He says, “I have passed one station - now another - yet another - and so on”. A little consideration will show that he sits unmoved and the stations run past him. But that does not prevent him from saying that he has travelled all the way as if he exerted himself to move every foot of the way. The Jnani is fully aware that the true state of Being remains fixed and stationary and that all actions go on around him. His nature does not change and his state is not affected in the least. He looks on everything with unconcern and remains blissful himself. His is the true state and also the primal and natural state of being. When once the man reaches it he gets fixed there. Fixed once, fixed ever he will be.
Therefore that state which prevailed in the days of Pathala Linga Cellar continues uninterrupted, with only this difference that the body remained there immobile but is now active.
There is no difference between a Jnani and an ajnani in their conduct. The difference lies only in their angles of vision. The ignorant man identifies himself with the ego and mistakes its activities for those of the Self, whereas the ego of the Jnani has been lost and he does not limit himself to this body or that, this event or that, and so on...
Anonymous, thanks for sharing the extract from the Talks. In this extract Bhagavan says:
Similarly, a person travels in a train and thinks that he moves.
Really speaking he sits and reposes in his seat, and it is the train which is steaming fast. He, however, superimposes the motion of the train on himself because he has identified himself with the body.
He says, ‘I have passed one station - now another - yet another - and so on’. A little consideration will show that he sits unmoved and the stations run past him. But that does not prevent him from saying that he has travelled all the way as if he exerted himself to move every foot of the way. The Jnani is fully aware that the true state of Being remains fixed and stationary and that all actions go on around him.
Reflections: True. We are the unmoving one. However, because our body, speech and mind are even active, and because we identify with our body, speech and mind, we feel we are acting, speaking or thinking. This is like if we travel on a train from Mumbai to New Delhi, it the train which does all the movement, but we feel that we have travelled all the way to New Delhi. In fact, as Bhagavan says, we just sit on the train at one place and all the movements are done only by the train.
Likewise, we are the fixed one, whereas all the movements happen in us. Since the root of all movements is the ego, once our ego is destroyed we will get fixed in and as ourself. Then we will realise that we have never moved – in fact, we can never move. We are the infinite, immutable, unbroken being-awareness-bliss, and therefore we cannot move or act in any manner. This is the one thing we can never do.
Guru Vachaka Kovai - verse 7
I now compose and string together all the supreme truth that I come to know through the divine glance bestowed upon me by my Lord guru Ramana, who destroyed my delusion caused by the ego sense, leaving me in a state of clarity.
Reflections: What is ‘the divine glance bestowed upon me by my Lord guru Ramana’ that Muruganar talks about? Is it merely the physical glance of Bhagavan Ramana? No, though Bhagavan’s glance would have surely done its work, the real glance of Bhagavan is when we meet eye to eye with inner Bhagavan, our atma-svarupa. As Muruganar explained in one of the previous verses, Bhagavan in his true nature is infinite sat-chit (existence-awareness), so real Bhagavan has no body (or eyes).
When Muruganar met Bhagavan, the effect of this could have been that Muruganar was made to turn within through the powerful gaze of Bhagavan. Since Muruganar was an exceptionally ripe soul, he must have turned within with such intensity that it destroyed his ego then and there. Our ego can only be destroyed when we experience ourself as we really are.
Guru Vachaka Kovai - verse 8
The benefit of this light of supreme truth is the understanding that there is not the least thing such as ‘attainment’, since the supreme self is the ever-attained, one whole. Thus the mental wanderings caused by striving towards dharma, artha, and kama are also removed.
Sadhu Om: [These] three worldly aims are futile and transitory […] We may however still think, ‘Is not the mental effort at least needed to obtain moksha?’ but again this light [Bhagavan] shows us the meaninglessness of striving to ‘attain’ self, which is ever-attained, and instead, it recommends the cessation of all mental activity, thereby fixing us in the eternal, motionless and ever-attained state of self.
Reflections: Moksha (liberation) is ever-attained – in fact, our liberation is our true nature. Bhagavan used to mock at the term ‘self-realisation’ by saying, ‘How can one realise self when it is ever-realised? Since you have now made real what is unreal, you now have to unrealise the unreal. This is self-realisation’.
How to unrealise the unreal? Since the root of everything unreal is only our ego, we can unrealise everything unreal merely by destroying our ego through self-investigation.
Anonymous,
"Similarly, a person travels in a train and thinks that he moves.
Really speaking he sits and reposes in his seat, and it is the train which is steaming fast. He however superimposes the motion of the train on himself because he has identified himself with the body."
Actually the person identified himself not only with the body but even with the train.
But...if it is true that there is only one undivided consciousness - the non-dual realiy - the person was definitely not wrong but indeed even completely right in his "wrong" identification ! ...if I am not badly mistaken.
Save me, you say, ‘Actually the person identified himself not only with the body but even with the train’.
Actually, we identify ourself we a body, and since we are real we consider this body to be also real, and since this body is part of this world, we consider the entire world to be real.
If we take an orange and peel its skin, inside, the fruit is divided into ‘segments’, which have thin tough skins that hold together many little sections with juice inside. If we take one segment of the orange to be real because we have eaten it and are enjoying its flavour, we have to take all other segments of this orange also to be real. We cannot say that the segment I ate was real, but all the other segments are unreal. Likewise, since we consider our body to be real, we automatically take all other bodies and all other phenomena also to be real.
Our body acts in so many ways, and we take those actions to be real. Once we consider our body’s actions to be real, we also consider all the other actions we see around us also to be real. So if we are travelling on a train, we take the movement of this train to be as real as our actions. In short, our body and its actions are as real as the train and its actions (movements).
Salazar,
yes, I want to know what is the reason to surrender. Why shall I surrender ?
Am I not pure self-awareness enough ?
"Life" is but awareness. So why making an attempt to avoid identifying with "life" ?
Is not (trying to) being constantly aware of who is aware of "life" a good venture ?
prapatti, I cannot tell you what venture is best for you. If surrender doesn't appeal to you don't do it. You may want to investigate your seeming resistance to surrender.
You said "life is but awareness". That is not correct. Life is that what the mind makes up while being aware of these objects. Actually there is no "life" in pure consciousness.
If you describe with "being aware of who is aware" the practice of vichara then you do just alright. There is one important point, if being "aware of life" means for you that your mind is somehow involved with that what it is being aware of in form of subtle thoughts then you are not doing it correctly.
Salazar,
it is a good proposal to investigate to whom my lack of understanding and surrender-resistance appear. Indeed I need to go deep in this point.
My statement "life is but awareness" is to be seen from the viewpoint that even the mind's making up is supported by pure consciousness. Since I see "life" as an expression of pure consciousness I do not intend to give the "life" a wide berth.
Admittedly I certainly first have to feel my way of correct atma-vichara.
Guru Vachaka Kovai - verse 9
Self, which is one’s own true nature, is the substratum of all happiness in this and in other worlds. Therefore, to be firmly established in self, unshaken by thoughts concerning the various other paths [Karmas, Yogas etc.,] that leads only to the pleasures of this and of other worlds, is the fruit of this work.
Reflections: Why does Muruganar say that other paths lead only to the pleasures of this and of other worlds? I think it is because if we practise any path other than self-investigation with nisksmya-bhava, we will accumulate favourable fruits. Such fruits may give us pleasures of this and of other worlds.
However, since self-investigation is not an action, it can leave no fruits. But self-investigation does leave seeds of svatma-bhakti (also called sat-vasana), and such seeds will compel us to practise more and more of self-investigation. Thus only self-investigation is the direct mukti-marga (the path of liberation). Other paths may give us worldly or heavenly pleasures or siddhis or whatever, but what is the use of such pleasures? These other paths may give us some ephemeral and temporary enjoyments, but they cannot lead us directly to liberation.
All paths other than self-investigation entails some action, but no action can ever liberation us. Why?
1) It is because action implies that there is a doer of the action. According to Bhagavan, this doer is the ego. The ego is an erroneous awareness of ourself, and therefore as long as we experience ourself as this ego, we do not experience ourself as we really are. Since liberation entails experiencing ourself as we really are, no action can ever liberate us.
2) Each action done by our volition leaves behind its fruit and its seed. These seeds cast us into more and more such actions, and thus actions obstruct liberation, at least for the time being.
3) All actions entail a movement of our attention away from ourself towards some object. Thus actions result in our being aware of things other than ourself, and liberation entails experiencing only ourself. Thus actions can never liberate us.
Salazar,
hello again Salazar,
why are we free to aberrate form reality ?
At least pure consciousness seemingly tolerates the "mind's making up".
But is it not said that in truth there is not at all any mind ?
In any case pure consciousness is completely indifferent to the mind's theatre.
I agree the world and our life are merely seeming to be real.
However, in my experience the most important thing is to learn keeping inner distance to the mind's involvements.
Of course I should not turn a deaf ear to your justified warnings regarding the incompability of the mentioned factors with pure consciousness.
Salazar,
sorry about typo: correct is aberrate "from" reality...
Salazar, greetings my friend.
You wrote: ”Because unless our mind is completely destroyed we have to see this world, life, our body and mind as unreal and incompatible with pure consciousness. Those objects have to be shunned. If we conceptually give it a connection with consciousness we subtly give it reality.” (bold type my making)
I think I can clearly see your intention writing this paragraph. But actually, when it comes to its content, I do not completely agree. And I’ll try to explain why.
As one famous swami used to say (paraphrasing): “What is the distance between consciousness (your awareness) and the world of phenomena?” What would be the distance between your seeing and reading this comment and your awareness? if there is a distance tat would mean this seeing/reading is out of your awareness, and what can possibly be “out” of our cosnscious experience?
If we investigate the world "out there" (sensations) and also the world "in here” (perceptions, thoughts, feelings, etc..) we will come to the conclusion that not only they are not “away from my awareness” but also they are nothing “but" awareness. Let us remember that the apparent ego borrows consciousness to create its illusion of existence and sentience, same ego borrows the same awareness to project a world of “sentient” beings and inanimate objects, which in turn it identifies with its body separate from that world. (drishti-srishti vada).
Why we see a snake in dim light superimposed on a rope due to our ignorance and not an elephant? because a snake and a rope have similar features, both don’t have legs, both have a tubular shape, etc… The snake “borrows” the tubular aspect of the rope, maybe the “coiled” aspect also, to trick our eye to appear as a snake when not properly illumined.
What I am trying to say is that if we investigate deep into what the world really is, in a circular way we will end up with consciousness also, cannot be otherwise, because awareness/existence is all there is.
Traditional Vedanta stops here, with the knowledge that everything including this body and world and god is only consciousness. Non-duality, from this point of view is realizing that Brahman is everything, including ego which is a power residing in Brahman, which at this point is called God or Ishwara. From a Vedantic point of view, the world and body need not, and cannot, disappear after realization…
We are working with the concept that there is a step further, the ajata point of view, as Bhagavan taught us, which declares the non-creation of this whole thing (including ego), and denies it. But that doesn’t imply that because we still see the world we have to see it as separate from consciousness. That is, IMO, the “connection” this body, this person (Mouna) and this world have with consciousness.
Be well brother,
M
Salazar,
thank you for your comments.
Your advice to keenly attend to the sense of ‘I am’ and simply being without any intentions including “keeping an inner distance” sounds plausibly and seems to be even easy. But did you self already put its reliability to the test in practice ?
That the mind is allowed and evidently able to cause a "reflection on pure consciousness with no substance or impact" one can name it at least as (a form of) connivance.
Salazar,
thanks again.
Salazar,
I forgot to note that your statement "...the mind is not causing anything, neither on pure consciousness nor in the phenomenal world, it is a Fata Morgana."
is obviously a contradiction to the title/headline of Michael's article.
Perhaps your considerations are developed in some other direction.
Salazar,
therefore let us not forget that silence is the true and perfect upadesa.
I am in the process of watching a YouTube video titled: Ramana Maharshi Realization Anniversary 2018. In this video, a very passionate devotee of Bhagavan is talking about Bhagavan and his importance in our lives. He says something interesting at one place (0:32):
Most of us would not even be focused on spiritual truth if there was no Ramana Maharshi. He is like the godfather of modern spirituality. This is an absolute fact. We can’t overlook it.
Isn’t it interesting? Bhagavan is 'like the godfather of modern spirituality!'
Sanjay Lohia,
certainly without Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi I presumably would run around in a circle or creep round little or less convincing "gurus".
However, I grapple now with the correct understanding of Bhagavan's teaching.
Salazar said "So, if we take the Fata Morgana “mind/ego” for real then it seemingly creates, causes, projects something, however that is entirely IMAGINARY and is self-sustained by thought. So the mind gives [seemingly] itself its existence [with thought(s)] but as soon ...".
If we take the Fata Morgana “mind/ego” for real or not, it is in any case astonishing
that an imaginary Fata Morgana has the power to steal our heart away.
So let us keep a cool head.
Guru Vachaka Kovai - verses 10 and 11
When scrutinised it will be found that these sweet verses of The Collection of the Guru’s Sayings have not been composed by my dull and deluded thinking mind, but that they have been inspired without thought by the divine Venkatavan [Sri Ramana].
Why should I offer a ‘Submission to the Assembly’ for a work which has not been done with the sense of doership, ‘I’? The whole responsibility for this work belongs to him, the supreme Lord [Sri Ramana], whom even the great ones can realise only through the samadhi of mystic silence within their hearts.
Note: It was the tradition in ancient days for a writer to submit his work to an assembly of learned men. He, therefore, had to compose a verse of ‘submission’, requesting the assembly to correct any error found in his work.
Reflections: Bhagavan is the peerless presence which has inspired many to do many things. He has inspired the likes of Muruganar, Sadhu Om and Michael to write relentlessly about Bhagavan and his teachings. It is worth bowing our heads to these devotees for their love and devotion to Bhagavan. Bhagavan has inspired others to sing in his praise, others to give talks and so on.
We have noticed almost an explosion of YouTube videos by Michael in the recent past. It is, without a doubt, Bhagavan’s grace which is the power behind such wonderful videos. We can listen to them again and again and again. Incidentally, he has posted one more video today. His YouTube channel is called: Sri Ramana Teachings.
Of course, Bhagavan’s most important contribution is his teachings, and these teachings have inspired many like us to turn within to experience our true nature.
Bhagavan has been rightfully called the ‘guru of gurus’ because a countless number of ‘gurus’ have been born out of his teachings.
Save Me, yes, we are all grappling trying to understand Bhagavan and his teachings. Our deluded minds can never understand them correctly.
Yes, Bhagavan has saved us from getting attached to other lesser or would-be gurus. We have found the most precious diamond in Bhagavan, so other ornaments - that is, other 'gurus' - do not attract us now.
Guru Vachaka Kovai - verse 12
Since it was my mother who helped me [in giving me this birth] to achieve the attainment (jnana) dispelling ignorance, I gratefully present this work to her. ‘Let this be a dedication to her pure heart which knew not any deceit’.
Reflections: Muruganar dedicated GVK to his mother. Bhagavan is a thousand times kinder than any mother could ever be, so should we not dedicate our lives to Bhagavan? We definitely should!
Guru Vachaka Kovai - verse 13
Kanna Murugan (Sri Muruganar), who through the look of grace has seen chit, the grandeur of all wealth, is merely the divine feet of his master (Sri Ramana), strung into a garland some of his guru’s words and has given it [to the world] as the supreme treasure.
Note: This verse was written by another devotee.
Reflections: Guru’s words are the supreme treasure. Can this be overemphasised? No. Guru shows us the path to liberation. Can anything ever surpass liberation?
This life will go in vain if we do not strive for our liberation. Everything else can wait. In fact, nothing else is real. What is real is only our ever liberated state, so we should like a man possessed work towards our liberation.
Salazar,
as long as we (as our ego) are not dissolved in undivided jnana we are actually bound.
There is nothing to gloss over. Compare Sanjay's quotation of GVK verse 10 and 11 where even the great Muruganar wrote: "When scrutinised it will be found that these sweet verses of The Collection of the Guru’s Sayings have not been composed by my dull and deluded thinking mind, but that they have been inspired ...".
Did he not thus admit that he too was then actually bound by his dull and deluded mind ?
Salazar,
seen from the viewpoint of a jnani there is of course no ajnani and no bondage ever.
But is it proper for ajnanis to adopt the jnani's view ?
What is the advantage and benefit for ajnanis to laugh triumphantly and claim that there is now and was never any bondage ?
While trying to turn within, we also need to give up our desires and attachments. That is, the path of self-investigation and the path of surrender needs to go hand in hand. We cannot have one without the other. We can begin to surrender without vichara, but to go deep into the path of self-surrender, we need to also practise self-investigation. Then the two go side by side, and ultimately they are one and the same.
To make that very clear, in the 1st sentence of the 13th paragraph of Nan Yar (before giving the analogy about the train) Bhagavan says:
Being completely absorbed in ātma-niṣṭhā [self-abidance], giving not even the slightest room to the rising of any thought other than ātma-cintanā [thought of oneself or self-attentiveness], alone is giving oneself to God.
This connects to verse 25 of Ulladu Narpadu, because by attending to things other than ourself, which is what Bhagavan calls ‘grasping form’, the ego comes into existence, continues and flourishes. So by not attending to anything other than ourself, we are cutting at the root, the ego. That is the way to eradicate the ego. We can get rid of the ego, or we can surrender ourself entirely to God, only by attending to ourself and nothing else whatsoever.
So what Bhagavan has taught us about the self-investigation and what he has taught us about the path of surrender, fit together like hand in glove. We cannot investigate ourself without surrendering ourself, and we cannot surrender ourself without investigating ourself. These two are inseparable.
Edited extract from Michael’s video filmed on 22 July 2018 (53:00 to 59:00)
Salazar,
truth cannot be without of one who experiences it. Truth is said to be being and knowing.
As you imply vichara/surrender is certainly the best idea.
I wish you (and me) every success.
Salazar,
it is clear that while communicating with each other we (cannot) move not in absolute reality but only in relative reality. Therefore we necessarily are left in crazy schizophrenia:)
Ah, we are indeed big dreamers - day and night...in this world of imaginations.
Welcome one the stage of illusions !:)
Waking up ...good idea !:)
Guru Vachaka Kovai - verse 14
In response to the great and befitting penance (tapas) performed by the ocean-girdled mother earth, the nameless and formless supreme brahman itself took the glorious name and form of Sri Ramana Sadguru. May those spotlessly pure feet – sat-chit (existence-consciousness) – be in our hearts.
Sri Sadhu Om: The tapas performed by mother earth is a poetic way of referring to the intense longing for truth of many mature aspirants on earth. This longing naturally brings forth the supreme in the form of a sadguru such as Sri Ramana.
Reflections: As Sadhu Om says, Bhagavan was compelled to come in its human form because of the ‘intense longing for truth of many mature aspirants on earth’. What was the force that compelled him to appear amongst us? It was his limitless love - also called grace. He is pure love, and therefore he cannot see us suffering.
Bhagavan was forced to respond to our innermost need by appearing in his human form. We must have longed for proper guidance on our spiritual journey, so he had to come to show us the way out of this mess, which we now find ourself in.
"While trying to turn within, we also need to give up our desires and attachments. That is, the path of self-investigation and the path of surrender needs to go hand in hand."
Giving up my desires and attachments is possible only by suicide of the ego. It is like nosediving in a sea of flames.
Without the help of Arunachala I never will be able to contrive such a heroic deed.
Sanjay Lohia,
regarding again to your extract of Michael's recent video:
"So by not attending to anything other than ourself, we are cutting at the root, the ego. That is the way to eradicate the ego. We can get rid of the ego, or we can surrender ourself entirely to God, only by attending to ourself and nothing else whatsoever."
So "attending to ourself and nothing else" may be managed only by focussed attention to the 'I'-feeling. But is that not just an extreme egoistical or even egomaniacal approach ?
Dionysos, you ask, ‘‘attending to ourself and nothing else’ may be managed only by focused attention to the 'I'-feeling. But is that not just an extreme egotistical or even egomaniacal approach?’ No, ‘attending to ourself and nothing else’ is not an egotistical or egomaniacal state, as you seem to assume. In fact, self-attentiveness is the very antithesis of being egoistic or egomaniac.
When we say someone is egoistic, we mean that his strong ego is apparent. They may behave in a proud, arrogant or high-headed manner. However, when we try to attend to attend to ourself, we are trying to subdue and to eventually destroy our ego. So how can self-attentiveness enhance our self-importance?
In fact, a person who has practised self-investigation to a sufficient extent is more likely to behave in a relatively humble and self-effacing way. Self-investigation is the best way to keep our ego in check, and it is the only to destroy it completely.
Devotee: How should we behave towards egoistical people? When somebody offends you or says some nasty things, how should we behave in such situations?
Michael: Why we react to people who are egotistical? It is because of our ego. In Bhagavan’s life, there were people who did horrible things to him, who ridiculed him, but Bhagavan didn’t react because he had no ego. So we should try to emulate Bhagavan to whatever extent possible.
We should behave in a humble manner by accepting whatever people say about us, because we are not perfect. We have our own shortcomings, defects and weaknesses. We just don’t like other people pointing them out to us. So if people find fault in us, if they criticise us, there may be some truth in what they say. Even if what they say is not true, it is still an opportunity for us to suppress our ego. We react only because of our ego.
This is why surrender is so-so important, because at every moment of our lives our egos are constantly reacting. We react to every situation. We either like it or dislike it; we want more of it or we want to avoid it.
So every adverse situation we don’t like is an opportunity for us to surrender ourself.
Edited extract from Michael’s video filmed on 22 July 2018 (1:23 – 1:28)
Sanjay Lohia,
thank you for your kind response. I think I understand what you try to impart.
With "self-effacing" you mean presumably effacing the "ego".
Devotee: How to get rid of unwanted thoughts? Do prayers help us in this regard?
Michael: Bhagavan doesn’t help us just because we pray to him. Bhagavan knows what help we need, and he is unfailingly providing us with that help. But why prayers can be effective? It is because, by the right type of prayers, we are aligning our will with his will.
That is, he doesn’t like us being unhappy by dwelling on unwanted thoughts. So when we pray to him asking him to free us from unwanted thoughts, we are attuning our will with his will. Such right types of prayers are the beginning of surrender. That is, basically, we are saying to Bhagavan, ‘I am not able to surrender myself to you, but I want to surrender myself to you’. That cry from our heart is the beginning of our surrender.
But the ultimate solution is only turning our attention back to ourself.
Edited extract from Michael’s video filmed on 22 July 2018 (1:33 – 1:36)
Dionysos, the verb ‘efface’ means ‘erase (a mark) from a surface’ or ‘make oneself appear insignificant or inconspicuous’. So the meaning of ‘self-effacing’ can be only ‘ego-effacing’, because our real self can never be effaced.
We are the infinite and eternal existence, so we can never fade or become insignificant in any way. We are the eternal sun whose light never fades.
Sanjay,
"In fact, a person who has practised self-investigation to a sufficient extent is more likely to behave in a relatively humble and self-effacing way.”
I do agree to a certain extent but not completely with your point of view. I would rather say that sadhana “soften the edges” of whatever the basic psychological structure of the “person” naturally is. There are very different kind of “persons”, either physically and psychologically. This is a fact. From introverts to type AA personalities there is a whole range of variations. While sages like Nisargadatta had a fiery make-up, others like Bhagavan had a completely different one. Of course, I am talking about external features seen from an ajnani’s point of view.
Behavior doesn’t determine wisdom. Many many people change their behavior and become more “self-effacing” and “ umble” in their lives just by going to psychotherapy , to the psychologist who “straighten” their personality-egos… which has nothing to do with “real” illusory ego as we students of Bhagavan understand it.
Again, that is not to say that our practice does not change our behavior, it does, but what I would say is that it put it closer to what the imagined organism (body/mind) is in essence.
Sanjay Lohia,
can we experience the infinite and eternal existence of our real self while experiencing us as an ego or as long as we experience us as ego?
When you ascertain that "we are the eternal sun whose light never fades" do you speak from your own experience or do you only believe in that or put trust in truth of it?
What I meant to say in my previous comment is that associating behavior with wisdom (jnana) is a very subjective way of thinking that might lead one very easily to deception (watch the film “Kumare” if you have doubts).
We usually have an idea of how a sage/jnani should behave or look or speak or even think (!!!). This is embeded in our programmed set of vasanas.
The only think we can be sure of is that we exist at this very moment and that that existence is known by awareness, both of which are our essential and real nature. That’s all. All the rest falls into the magic tricks of the illusory ego (maya).
Sanjay Lohia,
I refer to your first today transcription of Michael's video:"So when we pray to him asking him to free us from unwanted thoughts, we are attuning our will with his will. Such right types of prayers are the beginning of surrender. That is, basically, we are saying to Bhagavan, ‘I am not able to surrender myself to you, but I want to surrender myself to you’. That cry from our heart is the beginning of our surrender."
I too am victim and culprit of "unwanted thoughts" which are based on a never satisfied desire. Therefore I am not able to dry out that sensual basis-desire. So my prime concern must be praying for becoming free of that desire, that means eradicating my desire on the root. Another prayer would be only hypocritical.
Yes, Mouna, as you say "we usually have an idea of how a sage/jnani should behave or look or speak or even think (!!!). This is embeded in our programmed set of vasanas."
In any case I do not give loutish behaviour of "sages/jnanis" my tacit approval.
Sanjay Lohia,
you quote Michael saying:"So every adverse situation we don’t like is an opportunity for us to surrender ourself."
Why should I surrender to every mentally deficient behaviour ?
Surrender to the almighty God/power is on priciple good. But in daily life one sometimes has to make one's own decision. For instance if my cheeky neighbour makes improper noise I do not accept it at Bhagavan's gift but will compel him to stop his impertinent behaviour because he has not at all any right to continue his disturbance. Using one's free will and reacting properly is forbidden not even in spirituality. Of course one has to weigh things up carefully. Sometimes the decision to accept or react may be balanced on a knife-edge and we have to take decisive and courageous action even when one gets into danger. When I am faced with unwarranted occurrences I always say inwardly a short prayer to God/Ramana/Arunachala to make the correct decision. Once I had to remove an agressive passenger from the underground with own hands.
Of course seen from the perspective of eternity every moment and breath is ultimately a gift of Ishwara.
sorry typo: instead of "on priciple" it should be "in principle".
Today I sent an email to Michael, in which I wrote:
I have already watched a couple of times your latest video: 2018-07-14 Hampstead Heath: Michael James discusses verses 16 to 20 of Upadēśa Undiyār. This video has a refreshing and a different (natural) feel to it. Please convey my appreciation to the devotee who was instrumental in the production of this video.
Bhagavan willing, we hope to see such videos in the future also. Maybe you can finish the remaining 10 verses of Upadesa Undiyar in your next two such videos. I also liked the half an hour format. Short and crisp. So thanks.
As an afterthought, I realised there was something inherently wrong when I wrote: ‘Bhagavan willing, we hope to see such videos in the future also’. This sentence should have framed either of the following ways: ‘We hope to see such videos in the future’ or ‘Bhagavan willing we will see such videos in the future also’.
That is, we can hope for many things to happen but these may not necessarily happen. However, if something is Bhagavan’s will, it surely will happen.
Mouna, I would tend to agree more with your second comment, in which you say:
What I meant to say in my previous comment is that associating behavior with wisdom (jnana) is a very subjective way of thinking that might lead one very easily to deception […]
However, I think, as a rule of thumb, a person who has gone deep into practising self-investigation is more likely to be loving, humble, caring, and compassionate. But there are hard and fast rules. Someone’s outward behaviour cannot be an accurate guide to their inner state.
But there are no hard and fast rules.
Dionysos, no, either we experience ourself as we actually are or we experience ourself as this ego. We cannot experience both of them together. Our real self and our ego are poles apart. Our real self is infinite, eternal, immutable, pure awareness, whereas our ego is finite, ephemeral and an adjunct-mixed awareness. The ego is a mistaken self-awareness, whereas we are the original and real awareness.
You ask, ‘When you ascertain that "we are the eternal sun whose light never fades" do you speak from your own experience or do you only believe in that or put trust in truth of it?’ No, I certainly speak from theoretical knowledge. However, I believe in that, because this is what Bhagavan has taught us in so many ways.
Sometimes to be free of unwanted thoughts we have to suffer, because the more the unwanted thoughts give us trouble, the more we will have love to be free from them, and the more we have love to be free from them, the easier it will be to turn within.
Edited extract from Michael’s video filmed on 22 July 2018 (1:36 onwards)
Reflections: Our suffering does make us look for what is beyond all suffering. It is because I have a headache, that I now want to free of this headache.
Likewise, our unwanted thoughts motivate us to be free of such thoughts, and such motivation could be the beginning of our search for our real nature. In other words, all our troubles and unwanted thoughts can be like a trigger making us turn within, because only atma-svarupa is free of all troubles, suffering and unwanted thoughts.
In fact, our true nature is free of all types of thoughts and not just unwanted thoughts. Bhagavan says that thinking is not our nature, so ultimately all thoughts are unwanted.
Sanjay Lohia,
perhaps we are aware of the real self even then when we experience ourself as this ego because it is said that the real self is ever present as the basis of any awareness. It seems that the ego is like a cloud covering the heaven which always exists without any interruption as the substratum of the ego's appearance.
Nemrut, I do not agree, there are no buts and ifs in surrender, either one surrenders or one surrenders not. You do not [want to] surrender and that is just fine. But do not find pseudo-spiritual excuses for that.
You also have not understood the mechanics of free will/prarabdha. But I really have no interest to point out your misunderstandings, I believe it would fall on deaf ears.
Salazar,
feel happy with your way of unquestioning or limitless surrender. Using one's brain is part of everyday life and is thus just a gift of Bhagavan whereas pseudo-spirituality is occasionally shown everywhere.
No matter, lack of understanding of "the mechanics of free will/prarabdha" and misunderstandings are my unchangable prarabdha. There is no need to point them out because as the proverb says: in the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed man is king.
Only Ishwara is understanding the mechanics of free will and prarabdha.
Salazar,
the weaver's answer:
you are completely right, it is no wonder, the ego's nature is just to veil the truth.
Therefore take care and keep away from the dangerous half-truths before they will swallow you:-)
But I mean that quite seriously: Lacking healthy rationalism many on the spiritual path seem to land up in a doubtful nirvana of self-delusion. See you later!
Dionysos, yes, I agree with your last comment. We are aware of our real self, but now we are not aware of ourself as we really are. As you say, our real self, the being awareness, is the substratum of this illusory awareness, the rising awareness. We are in touch with our being awareness even when we experience ourself as this rising awareness, which is what the ego is.
To illustrate, if we see a bright sunlight through a thick white curtain, we will still clearly see the sun, but we will not be able to see it as it really is. We will see a diffused sunlight – a sunlight which is spread out on the curtain. Likewise, we are always aware of ourself bright and clear, because there are not two selves. What we are aware now as ourself is the only self that exists. However, we do not experience ourself with full clarity, because our present awareness is mixed up with our awareness of our body and mind.
Self-investigation entails attending only to our basic awareness. This process will eventually enable us to experience ourself as we really are, without the awareness of any adjuncts.
Sanjay Lohia,
yes nice to see Michael James speaking in the wood of Hampstead Heath about some verses of Upadesa Undiyar. Regrettfully some aircraft noise over Northern London disturbes a bit.
Incidentally, I am surprised that Sadhu Om's voice sounds like a child.
Perhaps the recording tape was played too fast.
Jack, I didn’t notice any aircraft noise. Maybe I was too absorbed in whatever Michael was speaking to notice any such noise. Yes, Sri Sadhu Om’s voice does sound like a child (Can we call this a shrill voice? Not sure if it a correct term to use?), but a jnani is just like a child. So no wonder, his voice was also like a child or perhaps become like a child. Michael will know about this better.
Salazar,
nail up the entrance door of your house, there is the acute danger to encounter those pseudo-Bhagavan followers... :)
You should be glad to be a genuine devotee of Bhagavan and not a member of those who spread pseudo-spiritual nonsense. Be grateful to God for having some ability to distinguish between right and wrong.
Who can rightly look down on somebody who does not even vichara ? What can they do if it is their prarabdha to do what their ego loves ?
According your philosophy they only can resign themselves to the inevitable, irrevocable and unalterable.
Sanjay Lohia,
in any case Sadhu Om is singing very enthusiastically. No wonder, the all-transcending presence of awe-inspiring Arunachala Hill casts its spell over him.
Salazar,
as you recommend bowing before the noisy neighbour is also a good attitude because his real nature is not different from me.
But in order to stop his impudent emissions on the earthly plan he needs additionally a physically perceptible reprimand.
Perhaps David Godman formed this critical opinion of visitors of Sri Ramanasramam after our eyes met when we walked on the path in direction to Skandashram last February:)
Sanjay Lohia,
"Self-investigation entails attending only to our basic awareness. This process will eventually enable us to experience ourself as we really are, without the awareness of any adjuncts."
If I understand you correctly we must only eliminate the awareness of all adjuncts.
But how to separate it from that disastrous and fateful mixture?
What is the adequate solvent?
Salazar,
You wrote:
"Statement 1: “My noisy neighbor’s real nature is not different from me.”
Statement 2: “But in order to stop his impudent emissions on the earthly plan he needs additionally a physically perceptible reprimand.”
Those two statements reflect an attitude many seekers share, however it does not work that way and violates Bhagavan's teachings. My neighbor is not different from me, BUT …”
I can definitely understand where are you coming from in your last statement.
I don’t necessarily agree with all of it.
Even Bhagavan would reprimand whoever "inflicted pain" to plants or animals.
Even Bhagavan advised to defend defenseless people from wrong doing of others who may be abusing them.
Acceptance is not approval.
Bhagavan didn’t approved many things around him, but as far as I know he also saw everything and everyone as part of Him.
I know that He is not to be put as example because there are many instances where he “let” things happen that we might think we should have done something to stop them from happening (robbers, wasps, etc…)
There is also an attitude of many seekers that we “should” be fine with whatever “comes” to us, which derives from an erroneous understanding of the different “levels” of reality: Paramarthika, Pratibashika and Vyavaharika.This position is as extremist as the one that we should fight every battle or discord.
This play of characters we are living as a person (god’s lila, samsara, etc…) unfolds as it should with a very careful script already written for each of us. The whole point is to not identify with it but (yes, but...) still play our role as best we understand we can.
There is nothing wrong to tell my neighbor that he/she is causing harm to the peace of the neighborhood, what would be the problem in doing that? Even to take him/her to court or call the police if we think it is the right procedure. All these actions are happening (or not) the way they should. Our only option is to try to investigate to whom they are happening to, until the time when even that option will dissappear completely.
"Surrender is a mental attitude, whatever the body does has nothing to do with that."
That is exactly what I was trying to say in my comment.
Salazar,
when I said "...because his real nature is not different from me."
I wanted to emphasize that I quite well respect his real nature but not his current egoistical behaviour.
Your statement "It is mere lip service to say “my neighbor is not different from me”
is not correct. I refer you to your above Statement 1: “My noisy neighbor’s real nature is not different from me.” You may easily recognize the difference.
The assertion of my justified desire to put a stop to his making noise is to address to his ego only. If you qualify my demand as presumption you obviously fail to recognize the situation. Now I come back to "healthy (realism or) rationalism" to which you seem to be unable to relate. Indeed I see no cause to practice here any pseudo-surrender. Submitting to nerve-racking/shattering loud "techno music" with its primitive stamping and tramping rhythm is just pseudo-spiritual. Unfortunately on this matter your understanding is grossly inadequate. So who is here actually sustaining samsara ?
Finding a remedy in your "Surrendering to what ever comes from that "neighbor" there are no differences anymore and peace follows" seems to me as deluding yourself.
It must be said that the behaviour of the mentioned neighbour is annoying not only me and my family but also the occupants of about 30 other apartments. But the other inhabitants seem to practise the same kind of surrender as you suggest, however they are frightened of the troublemaker and say nothing in reply to the insolent disturbance.
By the way, did Jesus surrender to the business of the dealer and trader in Jerusalem's Temple ?
"On the other hand one could endlessly resent the perpetrator, feel betrayed and treated incorrectly and plan to get even or to stand one's grounds. That is perpetuating samsara and nothing is gained at all but satisfaction and gratification for the ego."
I do agree with this paragraph completely.
Salazar,
just because I had created that surroundings I will now make by my will power and determination a solution to that problem.
But I am afraid that is going way over your head. Peace upon you my friend, selam and shalom.
mouna, you said that Bhagavan disapproved certain things. That is not entirely true. He did that only for the purpose to educate or teach the people who were with him at that time of the seeming approval or disapproval. For the same reason he told people who were strongly attached to their bodies that the spiritual heart is two digits to the right of the middle of the chest. What is not correct. However it must have been helpful to those people for some reason, otherwise he'd not have mentioned it.
As you commented to me not too long ago, there is no Jnani - only Jnana. Where is approval and disapproval in Jnana? There is none.
Bhagavan made favorable comments about Mussolini and Hitler, how could we dimwits comprehend that? Our mind is so ingrained in duality, only Jnana can give us clarity.
Salazar,
Let us not mix levels.
There is only jnana is the absolute point of view (figure of speech). At the ajnani level there is ignorance and moksha (which is the eradication of ignorance (that wasn’t there in the first place).
At the transactional level (what I call the play of characters or persons interacting) there are relationships that resolve (or not) in actions of many kind. That is the level I am talking from.
Also, you cannot know (neither do I) what was in Bhagavan’s mind when he disapproved some people’s behavior. According to many stories told by devotees one doesn’t have the impression that he was “teaching” but rather that he was bothered by that abnoxious behavior.
If in coming lectures I come across some of those stories I’ll write the excerpt here.
Again, we create a story about that character in the dream called Bhagavan and we attribute and project unto “him” many of our own projections like love, compassion, sweetness, etc... not that he didn’t have them but mostly is our own judgement that is projected, eventually like everything else (world, person god).
Mouna, there are no Jnani or Ajnani levels, just in our imagination. Even though it seems we are bound we are not, and that is the reality. Please stop declaring imagination for being real, that's what most or all do here.
The reality is not this phenomenal world but Self/Jnana, and that is our "reference point", not the other way around. There is no reason to limit us (mentally) to all of these ideas (like ajnani etc.), we are already handicapped enough with our vasanas, why also adding more limitation on a conceptual level affirming to be anything but Self?
As Sadhu Om said, Bhagavan was a visionary who (contrary to most traditions) always maintained that we are Self and not some poor creature who has to reach somehow that illusive Self. And again, we have to take that as our reference.
And yes, as long as we think and not being attentive of Self we suffer from forgetfulness; we have forgotten what we truly are. But how can we remember when we emphasize every day in speech and thought even on this blog that we are a _ _ _ _ _ (fill in your favorite concept like jiva, ajnani, ego, rational mind, etc. etc.)?
Sadhu Om got that, alas I cannot find that on this blog, from no one. Kind of surprising actually.
It is my strong conviction that Bhagavan never ever approved or disapproved of anything after his 16th birthday, whatever was seen is a projection of mind. So you are correct with the projection part, you just mixed it up a bit not drawing it to a full conclusion.
People saw Bhagavan as being sweet, being angry, annoyed, being stingy, and suffering (at the very end) and none of that was really happening, it was just imagined as we keep imagining.
Oh I just noticed, you said "you cannot know (neither do I) what was in Bhagavan’s mind when he disapproved some people’s behavior."
That is a big blunder by you Mouna, because Bhagavan had no mind (after that episode in Madurai). So it will be a mystery for us (what exactly seemed to have disapproved) until realization. That realization is always now.
Good night.
Dionysos, you ask, ‘If I understand you correctly we must only eliminate the awareness of all adjuncts. But how to separate it from that disastrous and fateful mixture? What is the adequate solvent?’
When we focus our entire attention on our awareness, all our adjuncts will automatically drop off. So self-investigation is the only solvent which will dissolve the ego into nothingness.
For example, if we are reading a very interesting book and our attention is totally focused on it, we may not notice other things around us. Likewise, we should focus our attention on ourself to such an extent that we do not notice anything other than ourself. This may well happen at this very moment or may happen after a few births, it does not matter. Our job is to be on the job!
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