So that only Stillness (Subject-Self-Consciousness) remains.
All doubts, confusions and questions
Will gently fade away effortlessly,
By themselves,
Just through Being Still.
Have faith in your Self-Nature
(Or Guru or God),
Know you are One and All,
And armed with this Knowing-Faith-Intuition,
Surrender,
And Be Still
Once one starts to gain experience in Being Still/turning within,
All teachings that do not encourage stillness or turning within
To discover the Pure Subject-Self/Divine Essence,
Are seen to be utterly superficial, egoic
And of the nature of delusion.
The Simple Being
That is your own True Self or True Nature
(Also known by more grandiose terms
Such as ‘Ultimate Truth’ or ‘Thoughtless Reality’ or ‘God’)
Will be revealed as simply your own Being
Or Isness
Devoid of objective arisings,
Just through Being Still.
‘You’ will discover your own True Self,
which is naturally devoid of arising objective phenomena,
just through Being Still.
Suffering will slips away of its own accord,
there being nowhere for it to attach itself to,
just through Being Still.
Bliss overflows Infinity Dawns, Eternity Rises, Consuming all: One is thrust into Eternal Life-Joy-Bliss, One with Source (‘The Father’)
Just through Being Still
All duality is destroyed, And with it suffering and egoity also disappear, As the many waters of duality, Flow into the Ocean of Unity, (That is my Beloved Guru Bhagavan Sri Ramana, Who is Grace, Oneness itself)
Just through Being Still
Without Being Still, (Also known as Self-Enquiry, Self-Surrender, Abiding as Self, Being with God, Being with Guru, Residing in The Heart, Turning Within, Awareness Watching Awareness, Self-Attention, Parabhakti, Samadhi, Meditation, Yoga, Devotion, Loving Self/God Nididhyasana, Silence, Just Being), Without this Sadhana (Spiritual Practice), Know that ego-duality-confusion-suffering-samsara will continue potentially forever until the practice is undertaken.
Therefore, Be Still.
For those who find themselves unable to practice thus,
Contemplate deeply upon this:
What will bring Eternal Joy-Peace-Happiness-Bliss?
Attending to/paying attention to that which changes (ie. various objects that arise and fall)
Or paying attention to that which never changes (the Subject-Consciousness-Self)?
Contemplating thus,
Know that attending to objects/maya simply leads to more objects/maya,
And thus more ego & suffering.
Contemplate this deeply.
Contemplating deeply, and knowing thus, Discover what You Are: Abide as the Self, And Be Still.
Therefore
Be still.
Just be still.
Gently,
Without force,
Allow all thoughts to subside,
In their own time,
So that only Stillness (Subject-Self-Consciousness) remains.
In verse 931 of Guru Vachaka Kovai, Sri Ramana Maharshi says:
931. “The mukta [‘liberated sage’] like the rest of us perceives the world in all its vast variety and yet he sees non-difference in it”, so people say. This is not true.
Tom: the idea that the liberated sage still perceives differences ‘like the rest of us’ but perceives an underlying unity despite various objects being seen is here being refuted. Let us see Sri Sadhu Om’s commentary on Guru Vachaka Kovai verse 931:
Sri Sadhu Om: People have many wrong conceptions about the state of a Jnani or Jivanmukta, and one such misconception is refuted here. “What people see as water, the Jivanmukta also sees as water, and what they see as food, He also sees as food. Therefore, in His experience of sense-objects, the Jivanmukta is the same as other people. But even while the Jivanmukta thus sees these differences, He sees the non-difference in them” – are there not many pandits and lecturers who talk and write thus, even though they themselves have no experience of Advaita but have only read about it in books?
But who is the proper authority to say what is the actual experience of a Jivanmukta? Only a real Jivanmukta! Thus Bhagavan Sri Ramana, who has actually experienced the reality and who is the true Loka Maha Guru, declares in this verse that such statements are wrong, and in the next verse He explains how and why they are wrong.’
~Sri Sadhu Om
Tom: Let us see the next verse:
932. Those who mistakenly perceive the variegated universe believe the mukta [‘liberated sage’] too is a perceiver like them. But he is not the perceiver.
Tom: ie. Taking yourself, in ignorance, to be a perceiver and doer, one also, in ignorance, takes the sage to be a perceiver and doer. The sage is not a perceiver! The sage is not a doer! It is just a projection of ignorance that views ‘a sage’ in this way, as a human being or individual person. Again let us see Sri Sadhu Om’s comments:
Sri Sadhu Om: Verse 119 of this work should again be read here. So long as one sees oneself as an individual who sees the world of differences, one cannot but see the Jnani likewise as an individual who sees differences. But since the jnani is in fact nothing but the bodiless and individuality-less Jnana Itself[Tom: ie. in reality we not a human being or body-mind entity at all – we are in fact Spirit, or the Bodiless Atman-Brahman], to see Him as a seer and to believe that even He is seeing differences like oneself, is true only in the outlook of ajnanis.
The absolute truth, however, is that the Jnani is not a seer and that He never sees any differences, for as Sri Bhagavan says in verse 13 of Ulladu Narpadu, “Knowledge of multiplicity is only ignorance [ajnana]”. Thus in the above two verses Sri Bhagavan clearly refutes the wrong idea expressed in the note at the end of the introduction to Sat-Darshana-Bhashya, 6th ed. pp. 35 to 38, namely the idea that a Jnani or liberated soul retains His individuality in spite of the destruction of the ego, and that He “perceives diversity in unity and experiences unity in diversity”.
Regarding this erroneous theory of bheda-abheda or unity in diversity, Sri Bhagavan used to say that if the least difference or diversity is perceived, it means that the ego or individuality is there, so if difference is experienced, non-difference or unity would merely be a theoretical proposition and not an actual experience.
Questioner: Surely though we are all Ultimate Reality. Everything that exists is really Ultimate Reality – and that includes thoughts. I don’t understand the obsession with stopping thought rather than accepting that thought is also part of the Absolute. If thinking wasn’t meant to be happening, it wouldn’t occur. I find Nisargadatta’s teachings regarding thinking – let the thoughts flow and don’t identify with them to be more realistic and helpful.
Tom: Sri Nisargadatta also recommended the total cessation of thoughts as the means to liberation – although both he and Sri Ramana (and most sages) also advised other (lower) practices depending on the context of the conversations. Shankara also taught cessation of thoughts.
It is not something that is easy to understand, and most share your view, which is fine of course.
My experience is that without cessation of thoughts, the resultant liberation is not really liberation at all – the Eternal Immortal and Blissful nature of the Self is not really discovered at all, and so suffering and ego keeps on coming back.
This is why the scriptures are so insistent upon cessation of thoughts. This is why the scriptures state that Reality is without thoughts.
Otherwise the scriptures would be much shorter, no? They would just say – ‘nobody here, what is happening is what is happening, nobody doing any of it!’ – but we never see this in the traditional scriptures of Vedanta or Buddhism – did you ever wonder why!
That said, if you find the teaching of Sri Nisargadatta that you mentioned to be more helpful, I agree that it is best to go with that!
Irrespective of what we believe or practice, if we are truly earnest and long for liberation, and follow that genuine longing within us, and allow it to lead us, we all find our way to liberation eventually. As you say, it is our nature already!
Siva, who is Pure Awareness Transcending thought, is onlyknown To seers heroic who with minds Extinct abide thought-free within The heart, and not to those whose minds Are still engaged in thought.
Guru Vachaka Kovai, Verse 1238
(Tom: ie. Liberation is not known to those who are still engaged in thought. One must abide with ‘minds extinct’ and ‘thought-free’)
In response to the above quote from Sri Ramana Maharshi, the following question was asked:
Questioner: Thoughts just appear don’t they? Do they ever stop? Is it not the recognition of the contents thoughts as fiction which is being talked about?
Your point about thoughts remaining but being perceived as being false is a common ego-preservation strategy for the ego that seeks its own continuance and seeks to avoid the practice that leads to its demise.
This is why Sri Ramana makes the point about thoughts ending again and again.
The notion that thoughts cannot end is a belief and another ego-preservation strategy. I encourage you to explore the various quotes here, best wishes
Question: I often read references in Ramana Maharshi’s writings of the need for ALL thought to be removed or extinguished. Is this a translation error? Perhaps he means that only egoic or self-referential thoughts need to be removed? If all thoughts are removed, how could he teach others and perform the activities of daily living, which requires some kind of thinking?
Tom: The need to remove all thoughts seems to be a very strange teaching indeed, and the objection you raise is a common-sense and valid one. However Sri Ramana was very clear that he meant ALL thoughts should be removed. Note this is also known as Samadhi, Manonasa, Turiya or Wakeful-Sleep (Jagrat-Susupti).
eg. In his short text ‘Who am I?’ Ramana writes:
‘The thought ‘Who am I?’, destroying all other thoughts, will itself finally be destroyed like the stick used for stirring the funeral pyre.’
‘As and when thoughts rise, one should annihilate all of them through enquiry then and there in their very place of origin.’
Nowhere in the vedanta teachings do we see any mention of only ‘self-referential thoughts’ needing to be removed, and with good reason too – only when all thoughts are removed will the Reality Shine. Otherwise ignorance will find a way to continue.
We see the same teaching in the Vedanta scriptures such as in the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the writings of Gaudapada and of Shankara. Eg: (nirvikalpa samadhi is a state in which no objective phenomena arise, including thoughts)
The knot of the ignorance in the heart is broken completely only when one sees his Self as secondless through Nirvikalpa Samadhi
~Adhyatama Upanishad 1.17
The mind severed from all connection with sensual objects, and prevented from functioning out, awakes into the light of the heart, and finds the highest condition. The mind should be prevented from functioning, until it dissolves itself in the heart. This is Jnana, this is Dhyana, the rest is all mere concoction of untruth. ~ Amritabindu Upanishad
Turiya is not that which is conscious of the inner (subjective) world, nor that which is conscious of the outer (objective) world, nor that which is conscious of both…It is the cessation of all phenomena…This is what is known as the Fourth (Turiya). This is Atman and this has to be realised. ~Mandukya Upanishad
In Shankara’s commentary on the Mandukya Upanishad, in his introduction to the text he writes:
Just as the normal state of a man, afflicted by disease, consists in his getting cured of the disease, similarly the normalcy of the Self, stricken with identification with misery, is regained through the cessation of the phenomenal universe of duality…since the phenomenal world of duality is a creation of ignorance, it can be eradicated through knowledge…
Gaudapada writes in verse 3.38 of his Mandukya Karika:
There can be no acceptance or rejection where all mentation stops. Then knowledge is established in the Self and is unborn, and it becomes homogenous
Shankara’s commentary on this verse 3.38 is as follows:
…therefore there is no rejection or acceptance in It, where thought does not exist. That is to say, how can there be rejection or acceptance where no mentation is possible in the absence of the mind? As soon as there comes the realisation of the Truth that is the Self, then, in the absence of any object, knowledge (Jnanam) is established in the Self, like the heat of fire in fire. It is then birthless (ajati) and becomes homogenous.
As to how can a Guru teach and function if he/she has no thoughts, the essential response is that from the point of view of ignorance it seems that Ramana is a body-mind entity (ie. a human being or person) that thinks, acts and suffers, but In Reality Sri Ramana is not a body mind at all – he is the Ultimate Reality – the Self, and it is only from the point of view of ignorance that he seems to move and act and think, etc.
Ramana sometimes said that he couldn’t think a single thought even if he tried! Oh, the paradox!
All thoughts must be removed (by Self-Enquiry)
The text Guru Vachaka Kovai is said to be the most authoritative recording of Sri Ramana’s verbal teachings. Here are some verses on the need to extinguish all thoughts:
Unless the noise of thoughts subsides One cannot know the ineffable bliss Of mouna.
True wealth is but the gracious silence Of steady, unswerving Siva-awareness. This bright, rare treasure can be gained Only by those who earnestly Strive for extinction of all thoughts.
(Tom: ie. for liberation, one must earnestly strive for the extinction of ALL thoughts)
Siva, who is Pure Awareness Transcending thought, is only known To seers heroic who with minds Extinct abide thought-free within The heart, and not to those whose minds Are still engaged in thought.
(Tom: ie. Liberation is not known to those who are still engaged in thought. One must abide with ‘minds extinct’ and ‘thought-free’)
The mark of bhakti true, total Self-surrender at Siva’s Feet, Is perfect peace without a thought Or word of prayer or plaint.
(Tom: ie. True Bhakti, which is the same as True Jnana, also has no thoughts within it)
Why do we need to remove ALL thoughts? Isn’t this too much? Why not just the self-referential thoughts?
Essentially the ego creates all thoughts – it will tell you that it only create certain thoughts, but actually ALL thoughts keep you identified with the mind, and identification with the mind is the same as identification with the body-mind. If you honestly examine your own direct experience you will see this to be the case.
Here are some articles where I explore this further:
How does a sage function with no thoughts? The Jnani (Sage) does not act or think or perceive any differences (The Unfathomable nature of the Sage)
And here are some verses describing the unfathomable nature of Liberation/Jnana/The Jnani:
“The mukta [liberated sage] like the rest of us perceives The world in all its vast variety And yet he sees non-difference in it”, So people say. This is not true.
(Tom: ie. the idea that the liberated sage still perceives differences ‘like the rest of us’ but perceives an underlying unity despite various objects being seen is here being refuted.)
Those who mistakenly perceive The variegated universe believe The mukta too is a perceiver like them But he is not the perceiver.
(Tom: ie. Taking yourself, in ignorance, to be a perceiver and doer, one also, in ignorance, takes the sage to be a perceiver and doer. The notion that the sage is not a perceiver at all is one we find throughout the vedanta scriptures, but how can the mind understand this?)
Ascribing individual being To realised muktas is sheer folly. Their being is universal Being. The separateness seen in that pure Sky is but the shadow cast By the separateness of lookers-on Still bound.
In that great Silence there is no Sense of difference. But is there then A feeling of non-difference? No. The non-duality extolled By Seer’s is nothing but the absence Of all sense of difference.
(Tom: here Sri Ramana states explicitly that the sage perceives no difference whatsoever, and feels no differences whatsoever. How can this be?! All difference is an effect of ignorance only!)
But do we not see the sage eating, doing things and suffering?
1135 & 1136. Even if the sense of doership Is dead, “How could one call the sage A mukta freed from all the bonds Of karma? Do we not see him eating, Engaged in work, bearing a body Of flesh, accepting prarabdha [destiny], And suffering pain?” If you ask this, The answer is, “True, in your sight He seems to suffer, you see him suffering, But did he tell you that he suffered?”
1137 The sage enjoys as his own being The bliss of all transcendent Being. The error lies in these ignorant folk Seeing him as a body that suffers
1152. Beyond the reach of words extends The sage’s greatness. None but he Can know his state of Being, vaster Than the sky and than the mountain Firmer. To experience it Yourself, you should first shed your own Body-consciousness.
(Tom: Oh the wonder and unfathomable nature of Self-Realisation! No matter how many times we hear the state of Moksha described, know it cannot be understood! It is truly beyond the mind! How lucky we are to have Sri Ramana’s Presence and Teachings to guide us!)
Blessings and Namaste
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To understand this in greater detail, please read the PDF here
This is one of a series of introductory articles – please see the homepage of tomdas.com for more introductory articles.
Just to have and allow ‘genuine spiritual feeling’, just this is enough. If attended to and nurtured, if allowed to naturally deepen of its own accord, it will, in its own time and own way, overcome you with Love, destroying you, revealing All to be Divine Oneness-Love-Happiness-Bliss, your Own True Nature.
Like a tiny mustard seed that grows to overcome great city walls, simply by nurturing this ‘spiritual feeling’ or ‘connection with the Divine’, the vast ocean of duality is transcended, in time, effortlessly and with joy, without one even caring for concepts such as Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Progress, Liberation or Non-duality.
Beware to those who are stuck in the prison-house of concepts: those who cling to concepts of duality and non-duality, concepts doing and non-doing, concepts oneness and many – these people remain trapped in a prison of their own making, endlessly chattering to themselves, ignoring the Vast Open Fertile Pastures of Love that lie in their very midst.
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That which perceives the limited body-mind is itself the Unlimited. Growing more and more still, feeling more and more Love, following your Heart within, Infinite Truth-Reality-Oneness-Bliss is gently revealed as your Own Being
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To simply have ‘spiritual feeling’ moment by moment, to have this ‘spiritual connection’ of joy and love every day, whenever we remember, and to allow it to deepen of its own accord – this is a wonderful, intuitive & joyful way of effacing the ego and allowing the Divine Within that is All-Encompassing Love and our Own True Nature to blossom, flower and bloom.
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Those overly reliant on intellectual arguments, scriptures and concepts will never connect to the true Spiritual Way which shines from Within* with Wholeness, Oneness and Love.
We must leave behind the barren field of words to discover the fertile pastures of the Divine that is All-Embracing Love.
(*’Within’ here just means you don’t have to go anywhere ‘outside’ to find it and that it is not dependent on any particular object of perception that arises or falls)
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What is ‘Spiritual Feeling’? It is simply to feel good, wholesome, happy, connected. It is to connect with Presence. It is an Openness and Gentle Surrender to Life and Love and God and Self.
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Question: But I thought the practice of Self-Enquiry is that of Self-Attention or Awareness Watching Awareness and for that we need to turn away from objects towards the Subject-Self. How does this fit in?
Tom: This simple practice of allowing Natural Spiritual Feeling to arise by itself will take you everywhere you need to go. It is the path of Love, the path of Surrender, the path of Bhakti. It will calm and purify the mind, filling it with joy and love, removing it of negative (tamasic) qualities. It will then quieten the mind, removing the passionate and anxious aspects of mind (Rajas). Thus far the practice has not turned away from the world – it is a Saguna or Savikalpa practice (ie. practice with objects being present). Then the practice, when it is ready, will naturally turn Nirvikalpa or Nirguna (ie. practice without objects being perceived or being present) , ie. there will be a natural turning towards Source or Self, also known as God or Sri Ramana (the Guru Within). All will happen in good time. It may well happen quicker than you think!
Only when you turn within through self-enquiry is your true nature revealed as not body nor mind, but Spirit, Love, God, Bliss.
For this to happen it is useful to have read and been aware of Bhagavan Ramana’s teachings, eg. as set out in The Path of Sri Ramana, and it can also be useful to adopt Vivarta Vada, which is the view that everything perceived (ie. mind, body and world) is actually an illusory projection of ignorance/ego/maya. Often if Bhagavan’s Teachings are not known, the mind will continue to cling to objects, taking them to be real and thinking objects will lead us to our goal.
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As recorded in the text Sadhanai Saram (The Essence of Spiritual Instruction, a record of teachings from Sri Ramana Maharshi) by Sri Sadhu Om:
79.
To the extent to which love for God arises in one’s heart, to that extent will one acquire knowledge about Him. And to the extent to which one knows the nature of God, to that extent will the mind gain steadfast love for Him. Thus, knowledge (jnana) will be increased by devotion (bhakti), and devotion (bhakti) will be increased by knowledge (jnana).
80.
By means of our love for God, He will give us more knowledge of Him, and by means of our knowledge of Him, He will give us more love for Him. Therefore, of these two paths, bhakti and jnana, follow that one for which you first gain a liking, because that one path will lead you to follow the other one into the heart.
81.
In the life of an aspirant who is seeking liberation, bhakti and jnana will be experienced as inseparable, like the two sides of one sheet of paper. Hence, each one is equal to the other. They are not two different things, for the true nature of both of them is one and the same; know that bhakti and jnana are merely two names for that one thing. (Garland of Guru’s Sayings (Guru Vachaka Kovai) verses 722, 731)
82.
The state of abiding firmly in Self-alone is wisdom (jnana). Would it be possible to abide thus in Self if one did not have love for Self? Love for Self-alone is bhakti; abiding firmly in Self on account of that love alone is jnana. What difference is there between these two? Discriminate and know this truth. (Maharshi’s Gospel p.24)
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Question. What is our Goal?
Tom: Our goal is One. It is simply to be Happy and Free, without any misery, as Sri Bhagavan states in the opening paragraph of Nan Yar? (Who am I?). We just want to feel good. There is nothing wrong with this. This desire for Happiness is an innocent desire and is the greatest of our desires. It is actually the Desire for Liberation, the Desire to Know and Be What We Truly Are.
For this, the only way is Self-Enquiry. The Path of Bhakti naturally and joyfully takes us to Self-Enquiry. The only danger on this path is that we remain caught up in objects and fail to transcend them. Eventually we must ‘go Nirvikalpa’ (ie. we must turn away from objects) in order to realise the Self, our true nature, the Divine Within.
This is why Bhagavan Sri Ramana writes in his text ‘Who am I?’:
Question: When will the realization of the Self be gained? Sri Ramana Maharshi: When the world which is what-is-seen has been removed, there will be realization of the Self which is the seer.
Q. Will there not be realization of the Self even while the world is there? Sri Ramana Maharshi: There will not be.
Question: When will the world which is the object seen be removed? Sri Ramana Maharshi: When the mind, which is the cause of all cognition’s and of all actions, becomes quiescent, the world will disappear.
Question: How will the mind become quiescent? Sri Ramana Maharshi:By the inquiry ‘Who am I?’. The thought ‘who am I?’ will destroy all other thoughts, and like the stick used for stirring the burning pyre, it will itself in the end get destroyed. Then, there will arise Self-realization.
Question: Are there no other means for making the mind quiescent? Sri Ramana Maharshi: Other than inquiry, there are no adequate means. If through other means it is sought to control the mind, the mind will appear to be controlled, but will again go forth.
But all in good time. Bhakti will turn us within and lead us to Self-Enquiry when the time is right without us (the ego) having to worry about such things – practically speaking all we have to do is connect with ‘spiritual feeling’, have faith in it, let this feeling grow and guide us. Ultimately it will consume and destroy us (ego) and reveal to us the Divine Truth that is our very own Self. It will take us Home.
Tom Das 