#self-contemplation

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

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

[...] Practising Self attention is of paramount importance, and [...] directing our attention towards Self is the sole aim of all that Bhagavan taught us. In order to experience what we really are we must attend to ourself keenly and vigilantly, to the exclusion of everything else.

Bhagavan used various Tamil and Sanskrit terms to mean 'self-attention', 'self-scrutiny' or 'self-investigation', but one that he often used is the Tamil term tannāttam, which is a compound of tan (the inflexional base and oblique case form of tan, which means 'self') and nāttam (which in this context means investigation, examination, scrutiny, observation or attention), so whenever Sadhu Om uses the term 'self-attention'; it should be understood to be a translation of tannāttam or any of the other terms that Bhagavan used in this sense, such as

tat-gavanam (self-attention), ātma-vicāra (self-investigation), svarūpa-dhyāna (self-contemplation), svarūpa-smarana (self-remembrance), atma-cintana (self-meditation), ātmānusamdhāna (self-contemplation), ahamukham (facing inwards, towards I) or ahanόkku (looking inwards, at I).

‘the rising-place of the ego’  (ahandai ezhumidattai)

When Sri Bhagavan says in verse 28 of Ulladu Narpadu - Reality in Forty Verses that one should know ‘the rising-place of the ego’ (ahandai ezhumidattai), it is to be noted that He does not use the word "place" literally to mean a place limited by time and space, but only figuratively to mean Self, the timeless and spaceless reality from which the ego seemingly rises. 

Since time and space are mere thoughts which can come into existence only, after the ego rises, the source or "place" from which the ego rises must obviously be beyond the limitations of time and space.

Therefore, when practicing Self-enquiry, aspirants should not try to find any place in the limited and transient body as the source from which the ego rises, but should try only to know Self, the unlimited reality which alone will remain when the ego subsides.

For an explanation regarding the words "restraining speech and breath", the reader may refer to the note to verse 24 of Ulladu Narpadu Anubandham (1), and to chapter eight of The Path of Sri Ramana - Part I (2)

(1) http://www.happinessofbeing.com/Sri_Ramanopadesa_Noonmalai.pdf

Sri Ramana Maharshi - Ulladu Narpadu - Reality In Forty Verses, V.29

Explanatory paraphrase: 

Without saying ‘I’ by mouth, investigating by an inward sinking [submerging, immersing, diving, plunging or piercing] mind where one rises as ‘I’ is alone the path of jñāna [the means to experience jñāna, real knowledge or pure awareness, which is one’s true nature]. 

Instead, thinking ‘I am not this body or mind, I am that [brahman]’ is an aid, but is it vicāra [investigation (in the sense of self-investigation)]?

http://happinessofbeing.blogspot.com/2017/10/ulladu-narpadu-tamil-text.html -  Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu: Tamil text, transliteration and translation

https://shinymoonbird.tumblr.com/search/UN%20v.29 - Verse 29

2017 Arunachala Karthigai Festival. Day Ten—Evening 3.December: Arunachala Deepam, lighting hill deepam. (Arunachala Grace.Blog)

ॐ

It is totaly fallacious to assume that the State of Deliverance can be won by practices like meditation by the mind, disregarding the direct path of plunging into the Heart.

Having discarded the body like a corpse and without uttering ‘I’ by mouth, scrutinizing with an inward-diving mind, “Where does this feeling ‘I’ rise?”, is alone the path of knowledge (jnana-marga). Instead of inwardly scrutinizing the feeling ‘I’ in this manner, merely thinking (or meditating), “I am not this (body composed of five sheaths), I am That (the absolute reality or Brahman)”, is (at first in a roundabout way) an aid (to the above said path of knowledge or enquiry) but is it enquiry (that is, is it the correct practice of Self-enquiry or Atma-vichara, which is the direct path of Knowledge)?  

— Ulladu Narpadu     Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi’s Reality in Forty Verses - V.29

Note:

If we have been told some particulars about a certain place to which we wish to go, repeating and thereby memorising those particulars may at first be an indirect aid for us to reach that place. But merely repeating and memorising those particulars cannot be the actual journey there. Having learnt those particulars, we must set out and travel to that place.

Similar is the case with the truth which the scriptures tell us about our real and natural state, namely that we are not this body, prana, mind and so on, but are only Brahman, the absolute reality. Meditating upon this truth by repeatedly thinking, “I am not this body, I am Brahman”, may in the beginning be an indirect aid to the practice of Self-enquiry, because it will encourage one to try to know one’s own true nature. But merely repeatedly thinking thus, cannot be the actual practice of Self-enquiry.

Arunachala Siva - Sri Ramana Maharshi

ॐ

*  As long as viṣaya-vāsanās  [inclinations or desires to be aware of things other than oneself, which are the seeds that give rise to all thoughts or phenomena]  exist in the mind, so long the investigation who am I is necessary.

*  As and when thoughts arise, then and there it is necessary to annihilate them all by vicāraṇā  [vichara: investigation or vigilant self-attentiveness]  in the very place from which they arise.

*  Being without attending to [anything] other [than oneself] is vairāgya [dispassion] or nirāśā  [desirelessness];  being without leaving [separating from or letting go of] self is jñāna  [true knowledge].  In truth [these] two [desirelessness and true knowledge] are only one.

Just as a pearl-diver, tying a stone to his waist and submerging, picks up a pearl which lies in the bottom of the ocean, so each person, submerging [beneath the surface activity of their mind] and sinking [deep] within themself with vairāgya [freedom from desire to experience anything other than self], can attain the pearl of self. 

If one clings fast to uninterrupted svarūpa-smaraṇa [self-remembrance] until one attains svarūpa [one’s own actual self], that alone [will be] sufficient.

So long as enemies are within the fort, they will continue coming out from it. If [one] continues cutting down [or destroying] all of them as and when they come, the fort will [eventually] come into [one’s] possession.

Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi - WHO AM I?, Paragraph Eleven

Original Tamil prose by Bhagavan Sri Ramana with English translation by Michael James

Without giving room even to the doubting thought "Is it possible to dissolve so many vāsanās and be [or remain] only as svarūpa [my own actual self]?" it is necessary to cling tenaciously to self-attentiveness. 

However great a sinner a person may be, if instead of lamenting and weeping "I am a sinner! How am I going to be saved?" he completely rejects the thought that he is a sinner and is zealous [or steadfast] in self-attentiveness, he will certainly be reformed [transformed into the true ‘form’ of thought-free self-conscious being]. 

Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi - WHO AM I?, Paragraph Ten