#vichara

In Memory of Markus Horlacher

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Arunachala: A Silent Tribute to Markus Horlacher

It is said that Arunachala calls to those souls who are ready to rest in the stillness of Being. Markus Horlacher was one of those souls. He held a deep love for Tiruvannamalai and the Holy Mountain—a devotion that resonates through every photograph he captured.

These images are more than just snapshots of a landscape; they are windows into the peace that Markus found there. Having recently passed away in India, he remains forever connected to the place that was both his heart and his home.

This video is a final tribute to a friend, a seeker, and a gifted photographer. May these images remind us that the Presence he saw in Arunachala is timeless and unchanging.

"The Heart is the only light that never goes out."

In loving memory of Markus Horlacher.

Thank you for showing us the Arunachala through your eyes.

Hridaya Kuhara Madhye 'Sloka Chanting'

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हृदयकुहर मध्ये केवलं ब्रह्ममात्रम्। ह्यमहमिति साक्षद् आत्मरुपेण भाति॥

हृदि विश मनसास्वं चिन्वता मज्जता वा। पवन चलन रोधाद् आत्मनिष्ठो भव त्वम्॥

hṛdayakuhara madhye kevalaṃ brahmamātram। hyamahamiti sākṣad ātmarupeṇa bhāti॥

hṛdi viśa manasāsvaṃ cinvatā majjatā vā। pavana calana rodhād ātmaniṣṭho bhava tvam॥

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‘Hridaya-Kuhara-Madhye’, In the centre of the Heart cave

In the centre of the cave which is the Heart, the one (non-dual) Brahman alone shines directly in the form of Self as ‘I-I’ (or ‘I am I’ ). Enter the Heart (by the mind) sinking scrutinizing Self, or by the mind sinking along with the breath, and be one who abides in Self.

~  Ulladu Narpadu - Anubandham (Reality in Forty Verses - Supplement), V. 8

Note: One day in 1915 a devotee named Jagadiswara Sastri started to compose a Sanskrit verse beginning with the words. ‘Hridaya-Kuhara-Madhye’, (In the centre of the Heart cave), but finding that he was unable to proceed any further to express in verse form the idea which he had in mind, he implored Sri Bhagavan to complete the verse for him. Sri Bhagavan accordingly completed the verse and wrote underneath ‘Jagadisan’, thereby indicating that the ideas in the verse were those of Jagadiswara Sastri and not His own. Some years later, at the request of some Tamil devotees who did not know Sanskrit, Sri Bhagavan translated this verse into Tamil, and the Tamil version, which is given above, was later added in the Anubandham.

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Kavyakanta Ganapati Muni also included this verse in his Sri Ramana Gita, ch. II, v. 2.

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___________________ The Sanskrit verse is a facsimile of Sri Ramana Maharshi’s handwriting reproduced from the manuscript.

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Eka Sloki of Sri Ramana Maharshi, his most important verse, was mounted during Bhagavan´s lifetime, obviously with his consent, above his ornate marble couch in the New Hall, where the verse is engraved in gold Sanskrit letters on a tablet of polished black marble.

Image credit: https://www.facebook.com/RamanaMaharshi - Post dated 12.06.2020

🕉️ 🔱  Om Namo Bhagavate Sri Arunachala Ramanaya   🔱 🕉️

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From the Book: Ramana Maharshi’s Forty Verses on What Is - A compilation of the writings and talks on Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu - By Michael James (published by Sandra Derksen)

Extract from: Editor’s note

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Michael’s explanation about not capitalising ‘s’ in ‘self’

There is one point I would like to mention and on which I had to ask Michael’s advice. I noticed that he did not capitalise the ‘s’ in ‘self’ or ‘self-investigation’, among other terms, something I was used to doing myself and encountered when reading texts by others who write and talk about ‘the Self’. I want to share his detailed explanation with you, because it provides an important clarification that can deepen your understanding of Bhagavan’s teachings and who you actually are; to my knowledge, he is unique in this usage.

Michael avoids the term ‘the Self’ as it is usually written in English books. One reason is that there is no such term in either Sanskrit or Tamil, because they contain no definitive articles (‘the’) and, secondly, there are no capital letters.

Another reason is when we talk of ‘the Self’ we are reifying it. We make it sound like ‘the Self’ is something, but obviously there is no such thing as ‘the Self’ other than the thing whose self it is. Everything is itself. The lamp post is itself, the road is itself, the water in the lake is itself, you are yourself, I am myself. From where can we extract some separate thing called ‘the Self’? If we talk about something, ‘the Self’, then it seems to imply something other than ourself. So, we do not naturally talk about ‘the Self’: ‘the Self’ is now going for a walk, ‘the Self’ is now leaving a message. We do not talk like that, we say ‘I’: I myself am doing it. So, using the word ‘Self’ as a noun with a definitive article, ‘the’, reifies it.

‘Self’ is better understood as a pronoun because the word ‘self’ refers to something. Whose self is it? You are yourself, I am myself. So, if you use ‘self’ it can have a meaning only in a particular context, like any pronoun. If you say ‘he’, ‘she’ or ‘it’, that has to refer to something, and if it is not clear from the context what it is referring to, it is meaningless. If you have got a group of fifty people and you say, ‘He and she are the ones I am looking for’, which he and she? There are so many he’s and she’s. So we can use pronouns only in context where it is clear what the pronoun is referring to. Pronouns do not have a fixed reference, their reference is determined by the context.

The only pronoun that could arguably have a fixed reference is ‘I’, because when we each use the term ‘I’, we are always referring to ourself. But if you say ‘I’ you are referring to someone different than when I say ‘I’. That is, when we use the word ‘I’ in the usual sense, in the superficial sense that we usually use it, for me ‘I’ refers to Sandra, for Michael ‘I’ refers to himself. That is, of course, not the real meaning of ‘I’, but that is the sense in which we usually use the word ‘I’. So ‘self’ is like that, ‘self’ is regarded as a pronoun, which is why Michael generally translates the Sanskrit term ātman, and the equivalent term in Tamil, namely taṉ, as ‘oneself’ or ‘ourself’. That is a more natural way of expressing it in English.

Also, when we use capital letters, when we talk about ‘the Self’ with a capital ‘S’ and another ‘self’ with a small ‘s’, there is implied duality there, as if there are two selves. Something that Bhagavan repeatedly said is that there are not two selves, there is only one self. What we actually are is the pure awareness ‘I am’ without any adjuncts. But now we experience ourself mixed and conflated with adjuncts, as ‘I am Michael’, ‘I am Sandra’, ‘I am whoever’. That is the same ‘I am’, but the ‘I am’ in pure condition is our real nature, the ‘I am’ mixed and conflated is ego. So it is not that there are two selves, it is ourself as we actually are and ourself as ego, just like the rope and the snake are not two different things. There is only one thing there. What is actually there is just a rope. But the difference between the snake and the rope is not a difference in substance, it is a difference in appearance. So in some places it may be useful to make a distinction between ego and our real nature.

Often when we use the word ‘self’, or when Bhagavan uses the word ‘self’, it is not specifically referring to ego or to our real nature. For example, in the word ātma-vicāra, is the ātma in ātma-vicāra ego or is it our real nature? Well, it is not necessary to say, because we begin by investigating what seems to be ego and we discover it to be our real nature. That is, if you look carefully at the snake, you see it is a rope. If you look carefully at ego, you see it is pure awareness. It ceases as ego and it remains as pure awareness. That is, it ceases to appear as ego. So ātma-vicāra is usually translated as ‘self-enquiry’. Michael thinks a more useful and accurate translation is ‘self-investigation’. But whether you use ‘self-enquiry’ or ‘self-investigation’ most people will put a capital ‘S’ for that. But why put a capital ‘S’ there? We are not investigating some big self that we do not know, we are investigating the very self that we are. So by introducing capitals that you sometimes use and sometimes do not use, you are limiting the meaning, because when you put a small ‘s’ it means ego, if you put a big ‘S’ it means our real nature. It just creates an unnecessary dichotomy, an unnecessary and false duality, that does not actually exist. Sometimes ātma means ego, for example, in the term ātma-samarpaṇa, which means self-surrender. What is the self that needs to be surrendered? Obviously that is not our real nature, it is ego. So that is another reason why Michael prefers not to use capitals.

Then people sometimes use capitals, for example, for ‘consciousness’ or ‘awareness’. Sometimes they put a capital and sometimes they do not. But again, you make it sound like there are two ‘consciousnesses’, two ‘awarenesses’. That is just creating a confusion. Bhagavan did distinguish between pure consciousness and the adjunct-mixed consciousness that we call ‘ego’. But that does not mean that there are two ‘consciousnesses’. It is one consciousness: one in its pure condition and one and the same consciousness mixed and conflated with adjuncts, which is called cidābhāsa, the semblance of awareness. So as soon as you start using capitals you have to decide in each case whether you are referring to what is real or to what is unreal — whether you are referring to the reality, or whether you are referring to the appearance. If it is the reality, you have to put a capital ‘S’, if it the appearance you have to put a small ‘s’. But what if you do not want to specify if you are talking about the reality or the appearance, you are just talking about the thing in general? So it creates an unnecessary confusion that is not there.

All duality is false. That is, thinking in terms of two selves, a big ‘Self’ and a small ‘self’, is not helpful, because it is missing the whole point of Bhagavan’s teachings. Michael affirms this is an important point. It is not just a matter of literary style, it is a matter of conveying what Bhagavan is saying in the clearest and most accurate way that is true to how he expressed himself.

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A free book sample is available (includes ‘Introduction by Michael James’) on:

https://u.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZol6NVZvajJMSyzNgz6hM4lY75mkzrbjgY7&fbclid=IwAR020rUa3su0MIDiVU4hO2XpkhIhBsBK0bmt_XY33csWqNSbrqTecwtphFw

Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi 

Talk 97 - 19th November, 1935 

  A gentleman from Ambala, asked where the Heart is and what Realisation is.

Sri Ramana Maharshi : The Heart is not physical; it is spiritual. Hridayam = hrit + ayam - This is the centre. It is that from which thoughts arise, on which they subsist and where they are resolved. The thoughts are the content of the mind and, they shape the universe. The Heart is the centre of all. Yatova imani bhutani jayante (that from which these beings come into existence) etc. is said to be Brahman in the Upanishads. That is the Heart. Brahman is the Heart.

D.: How to realise the Heart?

Sri Ramana Maharshi : There is no one who even for a trice fails to experience the Self. For no one admits that he ever stands apart from the Self. He is the Self. The Self is the Heart.

D.: It is not clear.

Sri Ramana Maharshi : In deep sleep you exist; awake, you remain. The same Self is in both states. The difference is only in the awareness and the non-awareness of the world. The world rises with the mind and sets with the mind. That which rises and sets is not the Self. The Self is different, giving rise to the mind, sustaining it and resolving it. So the Self is the underlying principle. When asked who you are, you place your hand on the right side of the breast and say ‘I am’. There you involuntarily point out the Self. The Self is thus known. But the individual is miserable because he confounds the mind and the body with the Self. This confusion is due to wrong knowledge. Elimination of wrong knowledge is alone needed. Such elimination results in Realisation.

D.: How to control the mind?

Sri Ramana Maharshi : What is mind? Whose is the mind?

D.: Mind always wanders. I cannot control it.

Sri Ramana Maharshi : It is the nature of the mind to wander. You are not the mind. The mind springs up and sinks down. It is impermanent, transitory, whereas you are eternal. There is nothing but the Self. To inhere in the Self is the thing. Never mind the mind. If its source is sought, it will vanish leaving the Self unaffected.

D.: So one need not seek to control the mind?

Sri Ramana Maharshi : There is no mind to control if you realise the Self. The mind vanishing, the Self shines forth. In the realised man the mind may be active or inactive, the Self alone remains for him. For the mind, the body and the world are not separate from the Self. They rise from and sink into the Self. They do not remain apart from the Self. Can they be different from the Self ? Only be aware of the Self. Why worry about these shadows? How do they affect the Self?

[21] To Rama, who asked, 

“Tell (me), in which great mirror do all these (worlds) appear in front (of us) as a reflection, and what is that which is declared to be the Heart of all the beings in this universe?”, 

the Sage Vasishtha said,

 “When considered, the Heart of all the beings of this world is of two kinds”.

Verse 21 is adapted from Yoga Vasishtha 5.78.32 and 33 (first line).

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[22]  Vasishtha continued: 

“Listen to the characteristics of these two, one which is fit to be accepted and one which is fit to be rejected. Know that the organ called heart which is situated in a place within the chest of the limited body is that which is fit to be rejected, and the Heart whose form is the one consciousness is that which is fit to be accepted. That exists both inside and outside, (but) it is not that which exists (only) inside or (only) outside”.

Note: The real spiritual Heart is not a place in the limited body, but is only the timeless, placeless and unlimited Self, whose form is the pure consciousness ‘I am’. Though this real Heart is said to exist both inside and outside, it is in truth that which exists devoid of all such distinctions as ‘inside’ or ‘outside’, because these distinctions exist only with reference to the body, which is itself unreal. The following simile will illustrate this point.

Let us suppose that a pot made of ice is immersed deep in the water of a lake. Now where is the water? Is it not wrong to say that the water is either only inside the pot or only outside the pot? Is it not both inside and outside? In actual fact, the pot itself is truly nothing but water. Therefore, when water alone exists, where is the room for the notions ‘inside’ and ‘outside’? Likewise, when the Heart of Self alone exists, there is truly no room for the notions that it exists either inside or outside the body, for the body itself does not exist apart from Self. Refer here to verse 3 and verse 4 of Ekatma Panchakam, in this book (pdf).

This verse is adapted from Yoga Vasishtha 5.78.34 and 35.

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[23]  Vasishtha continued : 

That (the real Self, whose form is consciousness) alone is the important Heart (mukhya hridayam). In it all these (worlds) are existing. It is the mirror to all objects (that is, it is the mirror in which all objects appear in front of us like a reflection, as mentioned in verse 21), It alone is the abode of all wealth. Hence, consciousness alone is declared to be the Heart of all beings. It is not a small portion in a part of the body, which is perishable and insentient like a stone. 

This verse is adapted from Yoga Vasishtha 5.78.36 and 37.

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[24]  Vasishtha concluded: 

“Therefore, by the practice (sadhana) of fixing the mind in the pure Heart (the real Self), which is of the nature of consciousness, the subsidence of the breath (prana) along with the tendencies (vasanas) will be accomplished automatically”. 

Note: After reading verse 28 of Ulladu Narpadu, some aspirants wrongly conclude that it is necessary to practice some technique of breath-control (pranayam) in order to be able to harness the mind and turn it inwards to know its source, the Heart or real Self. However, in this present verse Sri Bhagavan clearly reveals that it is not necessary to practice any special techniques of breath-control, because the breath or prana will subside automatically when one fixes the mind in the Heart through Self-attention. Refer here to the eighth chapter of The Path of Sri Ramana – Part One, where this point is explained in more detail. 

This verse is adapted from Yoga Vasishtha 5.78.38.

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The silence of the Sage

Paul Brunton found that the Maharshi’s way of helping others was by an unobtrusive, silent and steady outpouring of healing vibrations into troubled souls, a mysterious telepathic process for which science will one day be required to account.

(Image source: Pinterest: Canta Dadlaney)

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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.

~ Ulladu Narpadu - Anubandham (Reality in Forty Verses - Supplement), V. 40

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Note : 

Since verses 9, 25 and 40 of this Anubandham were originally composed by Sri Bhagavan as a separate three-verse poem it is fitting to read these three verses together. 

“If the ego, which is the embryo, comes into existence, everything (the entire world of duality) will come into existence. If the ego does not exist, everything will not exist, (Hence) the ego itself is everything——” says Sri Bhagavan in verse 26 of Ulladu Narpadu. 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.

Guru Vachaka Kovai The Garland of Guru’s Sayings, by Sri Muruganar Part One - An Analysis of the Truth Ch. 24. The Ego’s Play, V. 166

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Sadhu Om: Refer to the last paragraph, §20, of Who am I?:

If oneself rises [or appears] [as ego or mind], everything rises [or appears]; if oneself subsides [disappears or ceases], everything subsides [disappears or ceases]. To whatever extent sinking low [subsiding or being humble] we behave [or conduct ourself], to that extent there is goodness [benefit or virtue]. If one is [continuously] restraining [curbing or subduing] mind, wherever one may be one can be [or let one be].

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Vasishtha said to Rama:

“O Hero, having enquired into all the states, which are of various kinds, play (your role) in the world always clinging firmly with the mind only to that one which is the supreme state devoid of unreality. O Hero, since you have known that (Self) which exists in the heart as the Reality of all the various appearances; therefore without ever abandoning that outlook, play (your role) in the world as if (you have) desire”.

~ Ulladu Narpadu - Anubandham (Reality in Forty Verses - Supplement), V. 26

Note: 

“All the states” mentioned at the beginning of this verse may mean all the states of consciousness such as waking, dream and sleep, or all the conditions of life such as youth, old age, health, sickness, wealth, poverty, fame, ill-fame, joy, suffering and so on. All these different states or conditions are based only upon the feeling ‘I am this body’, ‘I am so-and-so’, I am an individual being’. “The supreme state devoid of unreality” mentioned in the same sentence is the state of Self-abidance, which is completely devoid of that unreal feeling ‘I am this body’.

“That outlook” mentioned in the second half of this verse is the true outlook (drishti) in which Self is experienced as the sole reality underlying the appearance of the world and of all the various states, and conditions.

This verse is adapted from Yoga Vasishtha 5.18.20 and 23.