self-knowledge

Zen Teachings: The Four Kinds of Spiritual People

~ Tom Das ~ Leave a comment

buddha silver

“There are four kinds of people who study.
The highest are those with practice, with understanding, and with realization.
Next are those with understanding, and with realization but without practice.
Next are those with practice and understanding but without realization.
Lowest are those with practice, but without understanding or realization.”

Zen Dawn, J. C. Cleary

Practice, understanding and realisation are all important, but we can deduce from the quote above that of these realisation is the most important. Next in importance is understanding, and least important is practice.

How can this be? How can understanding be more important than practice? Isn’t it often said that an drop of practice is worth an ocean of theory?
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Fleetwood Mac: Women, they will come and they will go

~ Tom Das ~ 1 Comment

fleetwood mac rumours

‘Women,they will come and they will go
When the rain washes you clean
you’ll know….you’ll know’
from Dreams by Fleetwood Mac

‘Women,they will come and they will go…’
Women will come and go,
Material goods will come and go,
Experiences will come and go,
Power and prestige will come and go,
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Ramana Maharshi: Be still

~ Tom Das ~ 5 Comments

buddha silver

All the texts say that in order to gain release one should render the mind quiescent; therefore their conclusive teaching is that the mind should be rendered quiescent; once this has been understood there is no need for endless reading.

Ramana Maharshi (from Who Am I)

One of the problems of Ramana’s teachings is that they are so simple. Most people do not want to be still and keep the mind quiet. They want to avoid themselves by discussing and understanding the concepts.

Now conceptual discussion has its place, but once one has understood the import of the teachings, namely silence, then it is time to sit down and shut up. Muruganar, who is regarded as Ramana’s closest and most influential devotee, says the same about Ramana’s teachings in his masterpiece Guru Vachaka Kovai:

What our Master clearly teaches by way of great, good, powerful tapas (spiritual effort) is only this and nothing more
BE STILL
Apart from this the mind has no task to do or thought to think

Guru Vachaka Kovai
(verse 773)

And in case you still haven’t got the message, here’s another quote from Who Am I, which is the publication that Ramana had issued at his Ashram as an introduction to his teachings. Note that the Sanskrit word ‘Jnana’ below literally means ‘knowledge’ and in a spiritual context refers to Self-Knowledge/Realisation or Liberation itself:

Questioner: What is wisdom-insight (jnana-drsti)?
Ramana Maharshi: Remaining quiet is what is called wisdom-insight.

Ramana Maharshi (from Who Am I)

Ramana Maharshi: Self-realisation is non-verbal

~ Tom Das ~ 3 Comments

Ramana smiling

‘I did not yet know that there was an essence or impersonal Real underlying everything, and that Ishwara (God) and I were both identical with It.

Later at Tiruvannamalai, as I listened to the Ribhu Gita and other sacred books, I learned all this and found that the books were analysing and naming what I had felt intuitively without analysis or name.’

Ramana Maharshi and the Path of Self-knowledge, p. 16

Ramana Maharshi, that great 20th century sage, explains in the above quote that his experience of Self-realisation was non-verbal. Though already self-realised at the time, he did not describe his experience in terms of that which changes (the transient) and that which never changes (the eternal), as is often traditionally done. It was only later, when listening to others read the scriptures, did he realise that his state had also been experienced and analysed by others before him, and that their traditional exposition described his own experience. Continue reading →

Sufism: Infinite ways to an infinite god (even if you don’t believe in God)

~ Tom Das ~ 13 Comments

soul and loaf bread

There are infinite ways to an infinite God; there are as many ways to God as there are people or beings: I have often thought this to myself, so whilst leafing through a newly purchased book (pictured above), I was pleasantly surprised to read a quote by Sheikh Abol-Hasan, a Sunni Muslim and Sufi from 10th century Persia, saying just this:

There are as many paths to the Lord as there are grains of sand and drops of rain…whomever seeks, eventually finds his way There
Sheikh Abol-Hasan, saying 141 from ‘The Soul and A Loaf of Bread’

These infinite ways are just variations of the One Way. And this One Way, for the purposes of exposition, can broadly be subdivided into two: one path for those who believe in God and one path for those who do not. Continue reading →