#learning assimilation practice

🔱  Om Namo Bhagavathe Sri ArunachalaRamanaya   🔱  

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The Paramount Importance of Self Attention, by Sri Sadhu Om, As recorded by Michael James

Part Six - Mountain Path: July – August 2013 - Excerpt

Note of 7th January 1978 (Part 1)

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Sadhu Om: When waves of passion such as desire, lust or fear arise, either try to duck beneath them by self-attention, or else reflect on their uselessness and avoid them by viveka [discrimination] and vairāgya [dispassion]. If the waves continue to come more strongly and none of these methods help, pray to Bhagavan. Prayer coming from an agonised heart has its own power. Whenever we feel helpless, prayer is our best weapon. He is always ready to help the helpless if their prayer is sincere.

Meritorious actions (punya karmas) done with kamyata (desire for personal benefit) do not purify the mind. Actions done without such desire (nish-kamya karmas) purify the mind, but they are the least efficacious means.

Unless worship and prayer are done with an attitude of ego-abasement, they will not purify the mind. Worshipping with pride only feeds the ego. Better than worship is sravana [hearing or studying the guru's teachings] and manana [reflection on them]. Reading about the lives of saints and reflecting on their behaviour and teachings will help us to subside our ego. Better than that is satsanga: in the company of real sadhus [jñānis], we cannot but act with humility. Satsanga [association with sat, truth] purifies the mind in many ways, but the best satsanga is to remain quietly as 'I am'. As Sankara says in Vivekacudamani [verse 364], a hundred times better than sravana is manana, but one lakh [a hundred thousand] times better than manana is nididhyasana [contemplation], which is just remaining attentively as 'I am'.

The reality of whatever is seen is the same as that of what sees it. The God you see is only as real as you who see him. If you worship God in a name and form, your mind will be purified, and when it is sufficiently purified, he will appear as guru to teach you the practice of self-attention. The guru is not just to be worshiped — he is to be obeyed. In verse 274 of Guru Vachaka Kovai Bhagavan says:

Those who do not have [the clarity of] mind to recognise that the jñāna-guru — who appears as a human form [though he is actually] abiding firmly as the supreme space [of consciousness, 'I am'] — is formless, [thereby] bear the yoke of wicked conduct and sin.

This is not to say that guru-bhakti [devotion to the guru] is wrong, but that our devotion is not true guru-bhakti unless we also practise what he taught us. Though the outward form of the guru and his teachings are a projection of our own vāsanās (tendencies), they will nevertheless wake us up, like a lion that an elephant sees in its dream. Self-attention is the most effective means of purifying the mind. The more you try to attend to self and the more you thereby experience the happiness of self-abidance, the more clearly you will understand and be firmly convinced that all happiness comes only from self, and that rising as 'I' is misery. Thus your vairāgya (desirelessness) will increase and your attachments to things will become less.

Whenever you have some moments free, reflect: 'What is this ego-life? Now I take this body to be 'I' and this world to be real. I feel attachment to things, people and circumstances, but I have only experienced this life for a certain number of years, and some years from now I will cease experiencing it forever. Therefore why should I take interest in or be ambitious for this transient and futile life? All these things seem to exist only because I exist, so should I not try to find out the truth behind this 'I'?' The more you reflect in such a way, the more you will lose interest in your life and the more you will wish to remain just as 'I am'.

When people used to say to me, 'You are lucky because you were with Bhagavan', I would sometimes find some ego rising in me with pride. However, by Bhagavan's grace I thought of a good reply: 'In a hospital there is an outpatient department to treat minor cases, but the worst cases are admitted into the inpatient department to be treated under the personal supervision of the doctor. The same happens in this spiritual line, so I am such a helpless case that Bhagavan had to admit me into his inpatient department to treat me under his personal supervision'. Those who were not in Bhagavan's physical presence are lucky, because they are protected from the delusion of mistaking him to be his body.

The Paramount Importance of Self Attention, by Sadhu Om, as recorded by Michael James - Note of 19th December 1977

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Note: Dissolution of the mind can be laya - temporary, or nasa - permanent

🕉️ 🔱  Om Namo Bhagavate Sri Arunachala Ramanaya   🔱 🕉️

The Paramount Importance of Self Attention, by Sri Sadhu Om, As recorded by Michael James

Part One - Mountain Path: April-June 2012 - Excerpt

Note of 19th December 1977

Sadhu Om: Dispassion (vairāgya) comes only through knowledge. It is cultivated by reflection [manana] and discrimination [viveka], and sustained by the clear conviction that everything is 'I', that nothing is independent of our own self-awareness, and that self alone exists. Why to say that a mind or ego exists in sleep in order to know 'nothingness'? Why not understand instead that it is self that knows that 'nothingness', and that that 'nothingness' itself is nothing other than self. If you can understand that, then you can understand that self also knows this 'everythingness', and that 'everythingness' is also nothing other than self.

In fact no ego or mind exists even now, so why to say it exists in sleep? There is only one 'I', so the 'I' that knows all this is only self. Why to admit the existence of an ego?

In Bhagavan's path we cannot admit the existence of any state of 'void' or 'nothingness', because in order to experience such a state we would have to exist in it, and hence it would not be devoid of ourself, but only of other things. Since nothing else exists in it, it would be full of ourself, and hence purna (full, complete), not sunya (nothing, void). To anyone who imagined they have reached a void, Bhagavan would say, 'Investigate who experiences it'. However, even that would not be necessary if we firmly cling to self-attention.

In the mangalam verse of Ulladu Narpadu Anubandham Bhagavan says that everything is self: self is that in which, of which, from which, for which, by which and which everything actually is. To tell the truth, even this (our everyday activity) is self-attention. Why then are Bhagavan's clues necessary? Only because we now mistake our natural state of self-awareness to be a state of awareness of many things other than ourself. It is only as a means to remove this mistaken experience of otherness and manyness that Bhagavan asked us to attend only to self.

An elderly devotee did not visit Bhagavan for a while because he thought he could become like Bhagavan on his own. After a long time he returned, just as Bhagavan was stitching some leaf-plates, and Bhagavan said to him, 'See, we take so much care to stitch these plates, but after eating from them we throw them away. Bhagavan is like a leaf-plate: only when he has served his purpose should you throw him away.' Therefore Bhagavan and the clues he has given us are necessary until we experience the dawn of self-knowledge, and after that we will see that we — the one self — alone exist, and that Bhagavan and his clues are also only ourself.

Our mind experiencing objects is like sunlight falling on a mirror and being reflected onto a wall. The reflection (which is like the objects we experience) is light, the reflecting mirror (which is like our experiencing mind) is light — and when looked at directly it seems to be another sun — and the sun (which is like self, the source of our mind's light of consciousness) is light. Everything is light, and the light is one. Likewise, we and all that we experience are only the one light of consciousness, which is self.

Can the mind rise without the support of self? Can it exist without self-awareness? It is all so simple, but immature minds think, 'Then self-knowledge is only like the nothingness of sleep. It doesn't look very tasty in comparison with all the interesting things outside in the world'. What can we say to them? We cannot change them, so we just have to let them suffer a bit more until they understand that oneness is peace and manyness is pain.

Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi  

Ellam Ondre  ~ All Is One

Ramana Maharshi said, “If you want liberation, write, read, and practice the instructions in Ellam Ondre.”

This work, titled Ellam Ondre, was originally written by an unknown 19th Century author in Tamil. First translated into English in 1951, it was popularized by the sage, Ramana Maharshi, who often named it along with a few others to disciples who were in pursuit of wisdom. This book, highly saturated in wisdom teachings, names the single most effective method of attaining to realization (i.e. enlightenment, moksha or liberation). The Maharshi especially emphasized the book to those who had difficulty reconciling the concept of multiple gods (as in the Hindu religion) with the Advaitha concept of a single Universal Creator. This book explains how there is no basic conflict between these points of view, as long as things are viewed from the perspective that all the diverse beings and objects in this expansive universe are essentially parts of a greater whole - or as the book sums it up: All is One.

In the memoir of Annamalai Swami, who was Ramana’s personal attendant and supervisor of construction at Ramana’s Ashram, he says:

On another occasion, when I asked Bhagavan [Ramana] to select some reading material for me, he gave me a short-list of six books: Kaivalya Navanitam, Ribhu Gita, Ashtavakra Gita, Ellam Ondre, Swarupa Saram and Yoga Vasishta.

He laid particular stress on Ellam Ondre, telling me, 'If you want moksha [liberation], write, read and practise the instructions in Ellam Ondre.'"

Annamalai Swami

Sri Ramana Maharshi - Ashram Tamil Parayana - Sri Guru Stuti, V.1 (audio mp3) (pdf)

🕉️ 🔱  Om Namo Bhagavate Sri Arunachala Ramanaya   🔱 🕉️

The Paramount Importance of Self Attention, by Sri Sadhu Om, As recorded by Michael James

Part One - Mountain Path: April-June 2012 - Excerpt

Note of 13th December 1977

Sadhu Om: The mind will always feel that self-attention is difficult, because it can never attend to self. Only self can attend to self.

When a French devotee told him that Swami Siddheswarananda [the founder and head of the Ramakrishna Mission centre in France] had said, 'Very few have known who Bhagavan is', Muruganar replied, 'That is true. Bhagavan's ashram is not confined within the four walls of this compound. The whole universe is his ashram. The whole universe is himself'. He later added, 'Bhagavan alone exists'. [...]

Sāstra-vāsanā (the disposition to study numerous spiritual and philosophical texts) is created only if one does no more than sravana [reading] and superficial manana [reflection]. If a learned pandit who seeks name and fame did a little deep manana, he would reflect thus: 'If brahman, the one self, alone exists, why do I want the appreciation of others? Where are any others? Who am I?'

If reflection on the guru's words is done only as an aid to practical sādhanā, it will not create any sāstra-vāsanās. The guru's words will always turn the mind back to self-attention, because they all point only to self.

For a young and earnest aspirant whose mind is still fresh, only a little manana is needed. Whenever his mind strays outwards he will reflect, 'All that is perceived through the five senses is known by me, so knowledge of anything only indicates that I am', and thus he will easily restore his self-attention.

During nididhyasana [contemplation on self] a little manana (that is, just a few thoughts) can sometimes help to prevent the mind from straying away from self-attention, but ultimately all these aids must go. In Who Am I? Bhagavan says that a time will come when we will have to forget everything that we have learnt. To forget second and third persons (everything other than ourself) is peaceful; to remember them is troublesome.

When he was young, Natanananadar once said to an older devotee who was asking Bhagavan many questions about how to practise ātma-vicāra: 'When the infinite self-shining "I" is standing inside you like a rock, why do you have so many doubts?'