When I first came to Bhagavan and heard him repeating constantly that everyone must eventually come to the path of self-enquiry, I wondered whether he was being partial to his own teaching, but I soon understood why he insisted that this is so. The final goal is only oneness, and to experience oneness our mind must subside, which will happen entirely only when we attend to nothing other than ourself.
So long as we attend to anything other than ourself, our mind cannot subside, because attention to other things sustains it, since that which experiences otherness is only this mind. When the mind subsides completely, only self-attention remains, and self-attention alone is the state of absolute oneness. Bhagavan used to repeat this teaching every day, maybe ten or twenty times, but still we didn’t change. He didn’t change his teaching either, because to him this truth was so clear.
The above is an excerpt from ‘The Paramount Importance of Self Attention’ by Sri Sadhu Om, entry dated 29th December 1977. The book is highly recommended. You can download the entire text here.Also see the full recommended reading list here.
The following is written by Sri Sadhu Om, a direct devotee of Sri Ramana Maharshi’s, and is taken from the text ‘The Path of Sri Ramana – Part 1’, from one of the footnotes in Chapter 7. You can download the entire text for free here:
The practice of witnessing thoughts and events, which is much recommended nowadays by lecturers and writers, was never even in the least recommended by Sri Bhagavan, Indeed, whenever He was asked what should be done when thoughts rise (that is, when attention is diverted towards second or third persons) during sadhana, He always replied in the same manner as He had done to Sri Sivaprakasam Pillai in ‘Who am I?’, where He says:
“If other thoughts rise, one should, without attempting to complete them, enquire ‘To whom did they rise?’. What does it matter however many thoughts rise? At the very moment that each thought rises, if one vigilantly enquires ‘To whom did this rise ?’, it will be known ‘To me’. If one then enquires ‘Who am I?’, the mind (our power of attention) will turn back (from the thought) to its source (Self)”.
Moreover, when He says later in the same work, “Not attending to what-is-other (that is, to any second or third person) is non-attachment (vairagya) or desirelessness (nirasa)”, we should clearly understand that attending to (witnessing, watching, observing or seeing) anything other than Self is itself attachment, and when we understand thus we will realize how meaningless and impractical are such instructions as ‘Watch all thoughts and events with detachment’ or ‘Witness your thoughts, but be not attached to them’, which are taught by the so-called gurus of the present day.
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Tom: The following excerpt is also taken from the same chapter, chapter 7, of The Path of Sri Ramana – Part 1:
Since, whether we know it or not, Self, which is now wrongly considered by us to be unknown, is verily our reality, the very nature of our (the Supreme Self’s) attention itself is Grace (anugraha). This means that whatever thing we attend to, witness*, observe or look at, that thing is nourished and will flourish, being blessed by Grace…
…Hence, when the power of attention of the mind is directed more and more towards second and third person objects, both the strength (kriya-bala) to attend to those objects and the ignorance – the five sense-knowledges in the form of thoughts about them – will grow more and more, and will never subside! Have we not already said that all our thoughts are nothing but attention paid to second and third person objects? Accordingly, the more we attend to the mind, the thoughts which are the forms (the second and third person objects) of the world, the more they will multiply and be nourished. This is indeed an obstacle. The more our attention – the glance of Grace (anugraha-drishti) – falls on it, the more the mind’s wavering nature and its ascendancy will increase. That is why it is impossible for the mind to negate anything by thinking ‘I am not this, I am not this’ (neti, neti). (Footnote to text here: This is why aspirants who, in order to destroy evil thoughts like lust, anger and so on, fight against them and thereby think about them fail in their attempts, while aspirants practising Self-enquiry, who pay their full attention to Self with an indifference towards their thoughts, bypass them easily)
On the other hand, if our (Self’s) attention is directed only towards ourself, our knowledge of our existence alone is nourished, and since the mind is not attended to, it is deprived of its strength, the support of our Grace. “Without use when left to stay, iron and mischief rust away” – in accordance with this Tamil proverb, since they are not attended to, all the ‘vasana-seeds, whose nature is to rise stealthily and mischievously, have to stay quiet, and thus they dry up like seeds deprived of water and become too weak to sprout out into thought-plants. Then, when the fire of Self-knowledge (jnana) blazes forth, these tendencies (vasanas), like well-dried firewood, become a prey to it.
This alone is how the total destruction of all tendencies (vasanakshaya) is effected.
The path of being (sat) cannot be taught in words, because the nature of this path is no different to the nature of its goal, and since the goal is absolute silence, untainted by the rising of the ego, it can be made known only by silence.
In other words, in this path there is nothing to be done, so there are no exercises that can be prescribed. In order just to be, the ego does not need to do anything, and must not do anything.
All that is required of it is just to die: that is, to subside and disappear forever.
[Sri Ramana Maharshi writes in] Upadesa Undiyar verse 26, “Being Self is itself knowing Self, because Self is that which is devoid of duality…“.
Therefore it follows that the very nature of Self is itself knowledge, though it is a knowledge which is devoid of the act of knowing.
That is why Sri Bhagavan says in verse 12 of Ulladu Narpadu, “ … That which knows cannot be [true] knowledge … “.
The same truth is also expressed by Sri Muruganar in verse 831 of Mey Tava Vilakkam, where he says, “The real ‘I’ is such a knowledge which knows neither other things nor itself”.
Since Self-knowledge is non-dual, it is a knowledge which shines without the triad [triputi] – the knower, the act of knowing and the object known – and hence it is quite different from other kinds of knowledge, all of which involve the act of knowing.
~ Sri Sadhu Om, commentary on Guru Vachaka Kovai verse 1038
959. O men who, caught by the dangerous snares of the world and struck by the sharp arrows of cruel miseries, are suffering greatly and are wandering in search of the attainment of supreme bliss, the sleep in which there is no loss of consciousness [i.e. wakeful sleep or jagrat-sushupti] alone is the imperishable happiness.
~Sri Ramana Maharshi, Guru Vachaka Kovai
Commentary by Sri Sadhu Om:
”The sleep in which there is no loss of consciousness’ [arivu-azhiya tukkam] means only the state of Self-knowledge.
‘Here consciousness [arivu] means prajna or the knowledge of one’s own existence, and not the knowledge of other things.
‘That which knows other things is not true knowledge [see Ulladu Narpadu verse 12]. The state we call sleep is the state in which we know no other things, not even the body.
‘The state we call waking is the state in which, along with the knowledge of one’s own existence [‘I am’], there is also knowledge of other things.
‘The state in which we remain conscious merely of our own existence, like in waking, but in which the mind [the knower of other things] does not rise, like in sleep, is called the state of conscious sleep or wakeful sleep.
‘Since no other thing is known in this state, it is a sleep; and since one’s own existence is shining clearly there, it is a state of consciousness or waking.’
960. Those who are sleeping, having given up the habit of [going out through] the deceitful senses and having become established in the heart-lotus, are those who are awake in the abode of real knowledge [mey-jnana]. Others are those who are asleep, being immersed in the dense darkness of this unreal world [poy-jnala].
1105. The Jnani, the unchanging one, who is sleeping naturally within the body, does not know His activities [vyavahara] in the world, His absorption [nishtha] and His sleep, just as one who is sleeping in the cart does not know the moving of the cart, its standing still and its lying [with the bullocks unyoked].
The above verse by Sri Muruganar was rewritten by Sri Bhagavan in the form of the following verse, which is also included in Ulladu Narpadu – Anubandham as verse 31:
B21. To the knower of the reality [mey-jnani], who is asleep within the fleshy body, which is [like] a cart, His activities [in waking and in dream], His absorption [nishtha] and His sleep are similar to the moving of the cart, its standing still and the cart being unyoked, to one who is sleeping in the cart
Sri Sadhu Om: The bodily life of a Jnani appears to be real only from the perspective of others. So ignorant people [ajnanis] think, “This Jnani is performing activities here in the waking state.”
But since the Jnani is verily bodiless, He does not know those activities; to Him the body and its activities are completely non-existent.
Just as the traveler who is sleeping in a bullock cart does not know the movement of the cart, and just as a sleeping child does not know that he is taking food, so also the Jnani does not know the state in which the body, the senses and the mind are active.
When the body, the senses and the mind of a Jnani remain without activities, people think, “This Jnani is in samadhi.” This is similar to the state where the oxen remain yoked to the cart but are motionless. Even this state of samadhi or nishtha is not known to the Jnani; for Him it is completely non-existent. When people think, “This Jnani is sleeping,” this state of apparent deep sleep in which his body, his senses and his mind seem to be unconscious, is similar to the cart that is with the unyoked oxen.
Just as the fact that the car is undone is not known to the traveler who sleeps in the car, so also the state of deep sleep is not known to the Jnani; for him this state it is completely non-existent.
Therefore, these three different states in the life of a Jnani seem to exist only under the erroneous perspective of the ajnanis, who see the bodiless Jnani as a body.
For the Jnani, the state of activity [wakefulness and sleep], the state of samadhi and the state of deep sleep do not really exist.
That is why Sri Bhagavan says in verse 31 of Ulladu Narpadu:
“Who can conceive and how what his [the Jnani’s] state is?”
~ above text is by Sri Sadhu Om in his commentary on Guru Vachaka Kovai verses 1105 and B21
One of the best books ever written for spiritual liberation/self-realisation is the Seven Steps to Awakening, compiled by Michael Langford, incorporating teachings from Sri Ramana Maharshi, Sri Muruganar, Sri Sadhu Om, Sri Vasistha and Sri Shankara to name a few.
It is one of my recommended books for liberation. Of particular interest is the introduction to the text which is very instructive. As with other books by Michael Langford, all of which are highly recommended, the style may not suit everyone, but serious seekers of liberation will hopefully find the content to be of great benefit and overlook any perceived stylistic deficits.
I am therefore sharing the introduction together with the first chapter here as a PDF, but I highly recommend you buy a copy of the full book for yourself as the other chapters are invaluable.
To my knowledge, the only living human being who was said by Sri Ramana Maharshi to have attained Self-Realisation was Sri Muruganar, a devotee of Sri Ramana’s for over 25 years.
Muruganar also was one of 2 people who had personal one-to-one tuition from Sri Ramana on the actual deeper meaning of the teachings (the other person was K. Lakshmana Sarma).
Muruganar recorded Sri Ramana’s teaching in the text Guru Vachaka Kovai, which is said by Sri Ramana Ashram to be ‘the most precise, systematic and authoritative exposition of Sri Bhagavan’s teaching, explaining step by step the theory, the practice and the experience of jnana, the Truth supreme which is Being as Life Eternal, Pure Awareness, Perfect Bliss. Thus, the most comprehensive collection of the Maharshi’s sayings is Guru Vachaka Kovai…’
Sri Sadhu Om spent many years with Sri Ramana Maharshi and after Sri Ramana’s death he spent many years with Muruganar. Muruganar said that Sri Sadhu Om was the only person who really understood Sri Ramana’s teachings. Sri Sadhu Om wrote several books on Sri Ramana’s teachings such as The Path of Sri Ramana and Sadhanai Saram (the essence of spiritual practice) and translated them into English himself.
K. Lakshmana Sarma, another long time devotee of Sri Ramana’s, was the only other person (other than Sri Muruganar) to have 1 to 1 tuition on the true meaning of Sri Ramana’s teachings; this tuition lasted several years. Lakshmana Sarma was often unhappy to see people misinterpreting and misunderstanding Sri Ramana’s teachings and he wrote several books such as Maha Yoga and a commentary on 40 verses on reality to explain Sri Ramana’s true teachings, and he translated them into English himself.
Most people, when they hear the teachings, their ego-mind immediately distorts the teaching, and this often converts a liberating teaching into a non-liberating teaching. So the person recording the teaching is of utmost importance if we want to understand the true teaching that will lead to liberation.
I therefore recommend you read the above texts if you want to discover a truly liberating teaching, free from distortion, that will quickly and effectively lead to liberation, which is eternal bliss and the cessation of suffering.
We also have the texts that Sri Ramana Maharshi himself wrote.
You may be pleased to know that I have compiled all of the above (and some more), which you can download for free, on my Recommended Reading List.
The above text has also been added as an appendix to the recommended reading list
The Self alone, the Sole Reality, Exists for ever. If of yore the First of Teachers Revealed it through unbroken silence Say, who can reveal it in spoken words? – Ekatma Panchakam, Sri Bhagavan.
Sri Bhagavan once told the story that follows to Sri Muruganar. This brings out the profound significance of the Supreme Silence in which the First Master, Sri Dakshinamurti is established.
Sri Bhagavan said, “When the four elderly Sanakadi rishis first beheld the sixteen-year-old Sri Dakshinamurti sitting under the banyan tree, they were at once attracted by Him, and understood that He was the real Sadguru. They approached Him, did three pradakshinas around Him, prostrated before Him, sat at His Feet and began to ask shrewd and pertinent questions about the nature of reality and the means of attaining it.
Because of the great compassion and fatherly love (vatsalya) which He felt for His aged disciples, the young Sri Dakshinamurti was overjoyed to see their earnestness, wisdom and maturity, and gave apt replies to each of their questions.
But as He answered each consecutive question, further doubts arose in their minds and they asked further questions. Thus they continued to question Sri Dakshinamurti for a whole year, and He continued to clear their doubts through His compassionate answers.
Tom: Dakshinamurti is often said to have taught in silence. However here Bhagavan Sri Ramana corrects that view and notes that initially there was a 1 year period in which Dakshinamurti answered questions and the devotees underwent hearing the teachings (sravana), asking questions and reflecting on the teachings (manana) before the silent teaching was given.
Finally, however, Sri Dakshinamurti understood that if He continued answering their questions, more doubts would arise in their minds and their ignorance (ajnana) would never end. Therefore, suppressing even the feeling of compassion and fatherly love which was welling up within Him, He merged Himself into the Supreme Silence. Because of their great maturity (which had ripened to perfection through their year-long association with the Sadguru), as soon as Sri Dakshinamurti assumed Silence, they too automatically merged into Supreme Silence, the true state of the Self.”
Tom: Eventually listening to teachings, asking questions and contemplating upon the answers (ie. sravana and manana), important as they may appear to be initially, must cease, and we must turn towards the Self (ie. nididhyasana). That is, sravana and manana should lead to nididhyasana.
Wonderstruck on hearing Sri Bhagavan narrating the story in this manner, Sri Muruganar remarked that in no book was it mentioned that Sri Dakshinamurti ever spoke anything. “But this is what actually happened”, replied Sri Bhagavan curtly.
From the authoritative way in which Sri Bhagavan replied and from the clear and descriptive way in which He told the story, Sri Muruganar understood that Sri Bhagavan was none other than Sri Dakshinamurti Himself!
~ From ‘The Silent Power’ (selections from The Mountain Path and The Call Divine, the above piece was contributed by Sri Sadhu Om, with Tom’s additional comments in italiscised red)
Tom Das 