The music of the Self, which is always playing in your Heart, can only be heard with the inner ear when the mind is extremely still.
This music dissolves all suffering, all duality and all doubt.
This music reveals the infinite love that you are, beyond all words, concepts and descriptions.
By Bhagavan’s Grace may this great truth be revealed to you.
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When the mind becomes very quiet, it can become possible to realise that all gross and subtle perceptions are actually illusory and only the substratum-self is real.
If you lovingly, happily, repeatedly and consistently go towards this sense I AM, eventually you will merge into that, destroying your illusory sense of individuality (ie. ego).
What is then discovered is so much more than ‘the background of consciousness’ or ‘awareness’ or ‘being’…
…it is beyond all words and concepts and cannot be described…
…to put it into words one could say it is total infinite love and fulfillment
…but actually it is more than this too…
It is your ever-shining Self. You are That, now and always, but this is not to be believed by the ego-mind, but to be discovered directly in the Heart
~ Tom Das
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It is certainly true that many people bypass and suppress their psychological issues and emotional issues through engaging with various forms of so-called spirituality.
It is also true that it is possible to overindulge in emotionality and sentimentality to the point that it adversely affects your ability to function on a day-to-day level, making you overly sensitive and reactive to your emotions.
Balance is obviously important here. It is possible to both feel too little and to feel too much.
Ultimately spiritual teachings do teach us to transcend emotional issues, but this is not the same as suppression and bypassing, both of which are generally unhelpful on our path.
If we do not actually transcend and go beyond our emotions (and our thoughts and sense perceptions), we have not really entered into the spiritual realm, and are just operating on the psychological level only. There is nothing wrong with this, it is just that this is not genuinely liberating in the truly spiritual sense of the word.
For liberation, that ever-blissful realm that is prior to birth of the body and which survives death must be discovered, otherwise suffering, duality and fear will continue, as will the illusion of the separate self. This can only be done by discovering the Truth of Oneself within.
In peace and love.
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The entire path to liberation is explained here in this text called The Path of Sri Ramana, which you can download for free here:
If you read it carefully, all the teachings are there for you. Nothing else is needed. However many, for some reason, do not read it clearly and do not understand the teachings. Their mind skips over key sentences and paragraphs. Their ego or minds will not allow them to see what is clearly written on the page! I have come across many seekers like this!
So, even more detail is given and the teachings are further explained here, in this very slim text called Sadhanai Saram, which means ‘the essence of the spiritual practice’, also available for free download:
Even though everything is clearly spelt out, some people for some reason still don’t understand the teachings! Their minds will not let them read the words plainly and interpret them correctly! Their egos reinterpret the words according to their own views – in that case you should read this text too, The Most Direct Means to Eternal Bliss’:
Of course the true teaching can never be fully given in a book or in words, but these are great pointers nonetheless – they are some of the best texts on liberation ever written imho.
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Fact: as long as the body continues to appear in your experience, you will never be 100% sure if it is the body that gives rise to consciousness, or (eternal unchanging) consciousness that gives rise to the body.
This is why all the great sages have advocated the need to turn inwards, away from all sense objects thoughts and phenomena, for deep and total silence of mind and thoughts, so the true nature of what you are can be intuited (without the mind or body or sense objects/world being present), and in this way the birthless deathless eternal and changing self can be realised (again, without the mind. Realisation is not for the mind or by the person).
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It is open for everybody to discover, when the mind is very still and turned inwards towards the sense ‘I’, which is not a thought, that it is thought that gives rise to the body and is there prior to the body and what we usually call the mind.
The first thought is the ‘I thought’, and it precedes the creation of the body.
Just as we commonly conceive that the mind projects a dream, it is actually the ‘I thought’ that gives rise to or projects the three states of waking, dream and deep sleep. These three states together with the ‘I thought’ are all unreal and illusory, and these must all go for liberation to occur and our true nature to be intuited or realised.
The ‘I thought’ is also known by various other names, such as ignorance, ego, original sin, Maya, the devil, delusion, Brahma, Isvara, ‘the first act of creation’ and the mind to name a few.
This is what is being shared here.
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Q. Why this talk of ‘turning within’ to realise the Self? There is no within
Tom: There is no within or without. But when one is identified with the body, the self is indicated as being within. When the self is realised, then it is seen there is no within/without. Before realisation, when body-mind still (apparently) appears, to say ‘there is no within or without’ is merely conceptual wordplay and a belief system in operation
This post is only for those who are deeply interested in liberation, and it was originally posted here on Facebook
There is a teaching that says that after liberation, the liberated sage’s ego becomes dead, like a burnt rope, in that it continues to exist in superficial appearance, in name and form, but doesn’t actually have any robust structure or power.
Similarly, the same teaching says that the liberated sage’s body & mind continues after liberation, but there is no longer any individual will at play, and it is just the destiny of the body mind (known as prarabdha karma in Sanskrit) that plays out. An analogy is given of how a fan continues to rotate even when the power has been turned off, the idea being that in a similar way the sage’s body continues to act in the world according to its pre-existing energy and destiny but without anybody’s individual will or ego being present any longer..
Sri Ramana often gave this teaching himself, but he also said this was a lower teaching for those who were unable to accept the higher teachings. In his writings, and to his closest devotees, he often explained that in truth, in liberation there is no karma (action or activity) whatsoever, and there is no body or mind or world for the Jnani. It only appears this way due to the ignorant view of the ignorant onlooker.
33. The statement that the jnani retains prarabdha while free from sanchita and agami is only a formal answer to the questions of the ignorant. Of several wives none escapes widowhood when the husband dies; even so, when the doer goes, all three karmas vanish.
~ Supplement to the 40 verses on reality, written by Sri Ramana Maharshi
and
The Self-Realised Sage knows not whether the transient body comes and stays, or dies and leaves, even as a senseless drunkard knows not what happens to his clothes.
~ Guru Vachaka Kovai, Sri Bhagavan 24 (a verse written by Sri Ramana Maharshi)
This teaching is known as Ajata, which is the teaching that the appearance of the body mind and world only appear due to ignorance or ego, and that the world, including the body and mind, never really appeared or existed in the first place. Ignorance never really came about at all. Duality, meaning the appearance of any rising phenomena whatsoever, never actually occurred.
This is why the scriptures describe the truth, the true self, as being homogeneous, without multiplicity or variety, devoid of appearances, objects, forms and imagination. The scriptures say in Brahman there are no hands or feet or eyes or ears or thoughts, etc etc, and this is the meaning of those verses, as Shankara has also explained in his commentaries.
eg. Shankara writes the following:
‘Because I am without an eye*, I have no sight. As I have no ear either*, how could I have hearing? As I have no voice I can have no speech. As I have no mind, how could I have thought? There cannot be action on the part of that which does not have life force (prana). There cannot be knowership on the part of that which has no mind. Neither can there be knowledge or ignorance on the part of me who am the Light of Pure Consciousness
~Sri Shankara, Upadesa Sahasri 13.1, 13.2
*Shankara is quoting from Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 3.8.8
Here is how Lakshmana Sarma (LS), a direct devotee of Sri Ramana’s, describes this in Maha Yoga pages 59-60; here LS speaks of 2 levels of the teaching, the higher (true) and lower (ultimately untrue); note that LS uses the English word ‘revelation’ to refer to Shruti (the revealed scriptures consisting primarily of the Vedas and Upanishads):
‘The ancient lore is twofold. One part of it is addressed to those who are not conscious of being in ignorance, and therefore have no use for a teaching intended to dispel that ignorance. The other part of the ancient lore is addressed to those that are conscious of the ignorance and are in earnest to escape from it. These two parts are quite distinct. But this feature of the ancient Revelation is not known to these believers. Besides they are offended by the inevitable corollary that theirs is a lower position; they also feel it a grievance that the world, which they believe to be real, should be dismissed as unreal, and often want to quarrel with us who are followers of the Sages; we however have no quarrel with them, as the Sages have pointed out, because we realise that for them it is all right to believe as they do, and, so believing, to make the best of the world while it lasts. They are like dreamers who are persuaded that their dreams are real, and do not want to awake. We have begun to see that this worldly life is only a dream, because the Sages tell us so; and we want to awake.’
See this post below for more on this topic – I share more quotes from Sri Ramana and Sri Shankara which further explains the above in more detail:
This was first posted on Facebook here
If you take the Jnani (liberated sage) to be a body-mind entity, then you will think he or she eats, drinks, talks, thinks, feels, acts, does this, does that, etc.
But the Jnani is only pure objectless consciousness, one without a second, the pure true non-dual self. The Jnani has no body or mind, and sees no body or mind or world, all of which are seen by the fictional ego due to ignorance, and are known as duality.*
Metaphorically speaking, the Jnani only sees his own (formless, objectless, worldless, homogeneous) Self.
The false I, or ego, rises up, and it is this false I that experiences and perceives all gross and subtle phenomena.
Turning back towards Source/Subject/Self/I Am, with love, in silence, dissolve into that which you truly are.
This is the only way to discover the truth of yourself, and thereby end ignorance delusion ego and suffering. Anything less than this will not end suffering/confusion/delusion/duality.**
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*This is why Sri Ramana Himself wrote the following verse from Guru Vachaka Kovai:
The sage Self-realised knows not
Whether the transient body comes
And stays, or dies and leaves, even as
The senseless drunkard knows not what
Happens to his clothes.
~ SRI BHAGAVAN 24
This is also the true meaning of the Upanishadic verse, a form of which is here written by Sri Ramana, also in Guru Vachaka Kovai:
There is no creation, no destruction.
None bound, none seeking, striving,
Gaining freedom. Know that this
Is the Truth supreme.
~ SRI BHAGAVAN 28
A version of this above verse is found in the Amritabindu Upanishad in verse 10 and in the Atma Upanishad in verse 2.31. It was later incorporated by both Gaudapada (Mandukya Karika 2.32) and Shankara (Vivekachudamani verse 574) in their writings
**This is why Sri Ramana says in Guru Vachaka Kovai:
291. For those who seek eternal life
The assurance stands: the senses five
Retracted tortoise-like, the mind
Turned homeward to the Self and there
Abiding is pure bliss.
293. Know that these countless things are pictures
In a dream and none is real
Apart from the beholder. Shun
This phantom world of names and forms
And dwell in the pure, blissful being
Of Awareness.
364. When the ego-life dissolves
And dies in silence, then one lives
The life supreme of Pure Awareness.
When the false ego dream-like fades
Into its source, the true Self rises
Of its own accord.
Tom Das 