Messages

11536

General topics / Re: Tevaram - Some select verses.

« on: February 18, 2016, 09:00:32 AM »

Verse 6:


ஆறலைத் துண்ணும் வேடர்
   அயற்புலங் கவர்ந்து கொண்ட
வேறுபல் உருவின் மிக்கு
   விரவும்ஆன் நிரைக ளன்றி
ஏறுடை வானந் தன்னில்
   இடிக்குரல் எழிலி யோடு
மாறுகொள் முழக்கங் காட்டும்
   மதக்கைமா நிரைக ளெங்கும்.



Thither were huge-seized kine and cattle
Lifted from various places by the dacoit-hunters;
Also were there herds of musty elephants
Which trumpeted aloud whenever clouds
Winged with lightning rumbled in the skies.

Arunachala Siva.

11537

General topics / Re: Tevaram - Some select verses.

« on: February 18, 2016, 08:57:55 AM »

Verse  5:


வெல்படைத் தறுகண் வெஞ்சொல்
   வேட்டுவர் கூட்டந் தோறும்
கொல்எறி குத்தென் றார்த்துக்
   குழுமிய வோசை யன்றிச்
சில்லரித் துடியுங் கொம்பும்
   சிறுகண்ஆ குளியுங் கூடிக்
கல்லெனு மொலியின் மேலும்
   கறங்கிசை யருவி யெங்கும்.


rom the hordes of stouthearted hunters
Of violent words who wielded victorious weapons,
Were heard the words: 'Kill, throw, punch.'
Apart from such noise were also heard
The resounding of small-grained Tudis,
Bugles and small-eyed little drums
And the shrill noise of gushing cataracts.   

Arunachala Siva.

11538

General topics / Re: Tevaram - Some select verses.

« on: February 18, 2016, 08:56:09 AM »

Verse  4:


வன்புலிக் குருளை யோடும்
   வயக்கரிக் கன்றி னோடும்
புன்தலைச் சிறும கார்கள்
   புரிந்துடன் ஆட லன்றி
அன்புறு காதல் கூர
   அணையுமான் பிணைக ளோடும்
இன்புற மருவி யாடும்
   எயிற்றியர் மகளி ரெங்கும்.


With strong tiger-cubs and victorious elephant-cubs
The curly-headed infants would thither sport;
With lovely roes, sweet and endearing,
The little daughters of the hunters would romp and play.

Arunachala Siva.

11539

General topics / Re: Tevaram - Some select verses.

« on: February 18, 2016, 08:54:15 AM »

Verse  3:


குன்றவர் அதனில் வாழ்வார்
   கொடுஞ்செவி ஞமலி ஆர்த்த
வன்றிரள் விளவின் கோட்டு
   வார்வலை மருங்கு தூங்கப்
பன்றியும் புலியும் எண்கும்
   கடமையும் மானின் பார்வை
அன்றியும் பாறை முன்றில்
   ஐவனம் உணங்கு மெங்கும்.

The dwellers of this town were foresters;
To the branches of wood-apple trees were tethered
Their setters of bent ears; over these trees
Were thrown their nets which lay dangling;
Thither were many trained animals:
Hogs, tigers, bears and antelopes of many types.
They dried their wild rice on mounds and monticules.

Arunachala Siva.

11540

General topics / Re: Tevaram - Some select verses.

« on: February 18, 2016, 08:52:32 AM »

Verse 2:



இத்திரு நாடு தன்னில்
   இவர்திருப் பதியா தென்னில்
நித்தில அருவிச் சாரல்
   நீள்வரை சூழ்ந்த பாங்கர்
மத்தவெங் களிற்றுக் கோட்டு
   வன்றொடர் வேலி கோலி
ஒத்தபே ரரணஞ் சூழ்ந்த
   முதுபதி உடுப்பூர் ஆகும்.


His town is hoary Uduppoor girt with a huge fortress
-- An impregnable fence reared on the buried tusks
Of ichorous tuskers --, and guarded by tall hills
From the slopes of which roll cascades with pearls.

Arunachala Siva.

11541

General topics / Re: Tevaram - Some select verses.

« on: February 18, 2016, 08:50:24 AM »

Kannappa Nayanar:


Verse  1:


மேவலர் புரங்கள் செற்ற 
   விடையவர் வேத வாய்மைக்
காவலர் திருக்கா ளத்திக்
   கண்ணப்பர் திருநா டென்பர்
நாவலர் புகழ்ந்து போற்றும்
   நல்வளம் பெருகி நின்ற
பூவலர் வாவி சோலை 
   சூழ்ந்தபொத் தப்பி நாடு.

The country of Kannappar who attained beatification
By the grace of the Lord of Kalatthi who is the Protector
Of the Gospels and the Rider of the Bull and who burnt
The triple cities of the hostile foes is Potthappi-Nadu
Of ever-during foison, dight with flowery tanks
And gardens, hailed by bards of renown.

Arunachala Siva.   

11542

The teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi / Re: Our Bhagavan-Stories

« on: February 18, 2016, 07:02:39 AM »

This is the description of "A Pilgrim"  sometime in late 1946, when he had darshan of Bhagavan Ramana:-

"As I approached the Maharshi's room, I could feel the peace that was radiating from His room.
I entered the room and then came my first shock.  I expected to see something glorious, a face
surrounded by a halo etc., (!)  I didn't find any of those.  Has he not said, I was reminded, in His
answer that Self Realization does not mean that something would descend upon us as something
glorious?  Has He not said: "People seem to think that by practicing some elaborate sadhana, the Self
would one day descend upon them as something very big and with tremendous glory that they would
then have what is called 'Sakshatkaram?' "

In the afternoon, Bhagavan answered my questions.

Q: You have said that you know no such period of sadhana.  You never performed Japa or chanted
any mantra.  You were in your natural state.  I have not done any sadhana worth the name.  Can I
say that I am in my natural state?  But my natural state is so different from yours.  Does that mean
that the natural state of ordinary persons and realized persons are different?

Bhagavan:  What you think to be your natural state is your unnatural state!  (And this was my second
shock that shook me from the slumber of my pet notions).  With your intellect and imagination, you
have constructed the castles of your pet notions and desires.  But do you know who has built up these
castles, who  is the culprit, the real owner?  The "I" who really owns them and the "I" of your conception
are quite different.  Is it necessary that you put forth some efforts to come into the "I" who owns these,
the "I" behind all states?

Would you have to walk any distance to walk into the "I" that is always you?  This is what I meant by
saying that no sadhana is required for Self Realization.  All that is required is to refrain from doing
anything, by remaining still and being simply what one really is. You have to only dehypnotize yourself
of your unnatural state. Then you have asked whether there is any difference between the natural state
of ordinary persons and realized persons.  What have they realized?   They can realize only what is
Real in them.  What is Real in them is Real in you also.  So where is the difference?

Even then, some may ask, the Maharshi continued, reminding me so vividly of those Upanishadic Rishis, "Where is the conviction that one's Self is Sakshat all right, that no sadhana is required at all for Self Realization?  Well, do you need anybody to come and convince you that you are seated before me and
talking to me?  You know for certain that you are seated here and talking to me."

You can doubt and question everything but how can you doubt the "I" that questions everything?  That
"I" is your natural state.  Would you have to labor or do sadhana to come into this natural state?

(Source:  Arunachala's Ramana.  Boundless Ocean of Grace,
Volume 6, Sri Ramanasramam, Tiruvannamalai.)

Arunachala Siva.

11543

General Discussion / Re: The Cuckoo Spirit in Search for Wholeness: Wasyl Nimenko.

« on: February 17, 2016, 11:00:13 AM »

Families and Friends:

Whatever the origins, addictions are a progressive disease of all the addicts' relationships.  Addictions
cannot be controlled or cured, only arrested.  Addiction is not just an individual illness because everyone
in the family is deeply affected and unhappy.  In some areas, whole communities and nations of people
are deeply affected by addictions.  Every family member leads a powerless life through the illusion that
they cannot control the addict but the cuckoo spirit makes them keep on trying to change the addict but
the cuckoo spirit makes them keep on trying to change and control the addict.

In trying to stop the addict's drug taking / drinking or control their usage and in trying to make up for it,
family members change emotionally, becoming disturbed themselves, in reacting to the addict. They get
stuck in a cycle of trying to have power over something which is unmanageable. They feel that they are
being driven crazy.

There are always similar patterns in all addicts and their families.  Because there is no control over drugs,
alcohol or other addictions, the addict's effects on everyone are chaotic and unpredictable with the result
that everyone feels powerless.  Unlike other diseases, addiction is unmanageable and the people around
the addict have to be over vigilant and cannot relax in normal ways. They always become obsessional.

Family members and friends become different in the sense that they are not their 'full slaves'.  They remain
emotionally confined and limited by the addicted person's behavior.  As well as fear and shame there is always
resentment and anger.  Unless family members are helped, this pattern of relating usually continues in their
relationships with all others and extends for their whole life.  Similarly, drug addiction / alcoholism not only
devastates families, but also the next generation of children whose parents are handicapped because they
themselves were brought up by an addicted parent.

Addicts may remain addicted as an emotional anaesthetic because they do not have the tools and skills
that are necessary to deal with emotions. Often they cannot deal intelligently with their emotions because
they were not taught how to do so because they were brought up in an environment where a parent or
grandparent was a drug taker or an alcoholic who was incompetent with his emotions.   

contd.,
     
Arunachala Siva.     

11544

General Discussion / Re: The Yoga of the Uncontradictable: Meditative Absorption Vs. Ultra Mystic ....

« on: February 17, 2016, 10:58:57 AM »

There is no desire here to underrate the great worth of even the mystic's achievement but it may
be said that whereas he attains a partially true insight the philosopher attains a perfectly true one.
Nature wants the mystic to rise from a merely emotional understanding to a calmly intelligent one
which will never be contradicted by its own lapse or recoil into a lower condition. Both the imperceptibly
changing thoughts of outside objects and the incessantly changing thoughts of the thoughts of objects,
that is, both things and imaginations, take Mind, which itself persists formless, changeless and uncontradicted
by anything else has ever arisen or could ever arise.  In spite of the innumerable forms under which it
manifests itself Mind essence never gives up its own eternal identity.

An illusion may be contradicted by subsequent experience. An appearance may be denied by the inquiry.
But the Reality can never be negated in any way, nor the Truth contradicted.  Therefore the method
of cultivating the higher faculty of the mind which blooms into such deeper unshakable insight bears
the traditional name of 'The Yoga of Uncontradictable.'

contd.,

Arunachala Siva.         

11545

General Discussion / Re: The Best of Friends - Bhagavan and Chadwick - Part II -Louis Buss:

« on: February 17, 2016, 10:44:25 AM »

The record in Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi suggests that by the time he moved into his cottage
in February 1936, Chadwick was already running out of questions.  Soon, although he still spent
hours everyday meditating in the Old Hall, Alan might hardly say a word to Ramana from one week
to the next.  This silence only meant that their friendship was entering a deeper and more significant
phase. Bhagavan was consolidating His place at the center of Chadwick's life, and the Englishman's
attention was fixed on Him with ever mounting intensity.  Yet the world outside the Asramam had not
been completely forgotten, and it had certainly not gone away.

Duty and loyalty were the keynotes of Chadwick's character. When war had broken out in 1914, he had
hurried straight home from Canada, to enlist.  Second Lieutenant Chadwick had thus been the very
first officer gazetted into his battalion. Major Chadwick was eventually to be the very last man to leave it.
Now once more the old soldier found himself in a distant land while conflict brewed in Europe.  This time,
though, his duty would not be so clear cut.  If the worst happened and war finally broke out, Chadwick
would find himself facing an agonizing conflict of loyalties.  The prospect was so unbearable that, as
catastrophe drew ever closer, he could not bring himself to look at a newspaper.  At best he could,
he tried to pretend that none of it was happening and focus on his spiritual practice. Unfortunately,
Adolf Hitler did not cease to exist just because one Englishman in Tamizh Nadu (the Madras Presidency
of his day) tried to pretend he was not there. And no matter how determined he was not to look at the
paper, Chadwick was one day unable to shut out the awful news that Britain was at war with Germany.

Chadwick was a member of England's officer class.  From the earliest stage, he had been brought up
in a code of duty and honor similar to that of the Japanese samurai. When England was threatened, 
the privileged few were expected to set an example, leading from the front and laying down their lives
without a moment's hesitation. Although he was now too old to enlist, Chadwick's first reaction, his
programmed reflex, was to hurry back and help in whatever way he could. But this time the irresistible
force of duty was blocked by the immovable object of Ramana Maharshi.  Was Chadwick to leave the great
treasure he had won after all those years of searching and wandering?  And if he left it, would he ever
get it back?  Was he to put his King before his Guru, his country before his God?  The dilemma was not
helped by Ramana's own refusal to get involved. Alan's obedience was such that he would endure a toothache
rather than visit the dentist without Ramana's explicit permission.  The complete loyalty he had once given
to the British army had now been transferred to Ramana Maharshi.  Without marching orders from his new
commanding officer, Chadwick could not quit India.  And Ramana refused to say the word.

contd.,
       
Arunachala Siva.                 

11546

General topics / Re: Veda Parayanam - Eduardo Linder -

« on: February 17, 2016, 10:24:40 AM »

To give an idea of the level that may be reached, one can point to Kavyakanta Ganapati Muni,
Bhagavan's foremost disciple in the Vedic tradition.  At the age of about 8, Ganapati Muni started
uttering Sanskrit poetry spontaneously and eventually was given the title of Kavyakanta, which
means 'one who has poetry flowing from his throat' i.e. an extempore poet. He was also a chaturvedi
meaning he knew all four Vedas and it was later remarked by Bhagavan that Ganapati Muni's memory
was such that he had almost 'total recall' of all events that had occurred in the Asramam.  Even at this
level of erudition, Ganapati Muni recognized that Bhagavan was not only a Rishi, but a 'great Rishi',
i.e.a Maharshi and changed His name to 'Ramana Maharshi' (he was previously known as Brahmana
Swami). Bhagavan had never studied Sanskrit, yet He could utter perfect poetic compositions, with
such deep and terse meaning that they were considered by Kavyakanta to be comparable to the
Upanishads.  Throughout the rest of his life, Bhagavan was consulted by great pundits from all over
India, who went away convinced that Bhagavan was indeed a Maha Rishi.

Pundits who pass their entire lives chanting the Vedas are going through a process of purification and
some of them report that even in their sleep the holy utterances carry on.  The audiences and sponsors
of the Yagnas and other parayanams are also being purified and accumulate merit, but one can also
say that the chanting benefits the entire world.  One interesting fact worth mentioning is that in the
poornaahuti at the end of homa, the pundit symbolically surrenders his ego into the sacred fire.

 
Arunachala Siva.   

11547

The teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi / Re: The Many Sides of Ramana - David Frawley:

« on: February 17, 2016, 10:13:44 AM »

Tiruvannamalai:

It was a few years later that I first visited Sri Ramanasramam in India and this brought another major
change in my spiritual path.  There my contact with Ramana was deepened, though in a way that was
initially disconcerting and very different from anything I had imagined.  Ramana came to me through
the deity of Lord Skanda, the son of Siva, with whom Ramana is identified.  I came to understand Ramana
as Lord Skanda, the embodiment of the flame of knowledge.

My first visit to the Asramam and to Arunachala was pervaded with the energy of Lord Skanda or Murugar,
as he is known in South India. Coming into Tiruvannamalai I felt the presence of tremendous spiritual
fire, which also had, in its more benefic moments, the face of a boy.  The image of a small boy carrying a
spear, rising out of a fire, keep appearing to my mind.  This brought about an intense practice of Self
Inquiry that was literally like death, though it was ego's death, not that of the body.  Going through that
fire was perhaps the most intense spiritual experience of my life, to the point that I had at times pray to
keep it from becoming too strong!  Yet afterwards, it left one feeling refreshed, cleansed, and with a purity
of perception that was extraordinary.

contd.,

Arunachala Siva.             
   

11548

The teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi / Re: Viveka Chudamani - Sri Sankara:

« on: February 17, 2016, 09:37:06 AM »

Meditation on Brahman:

Verse 250:

Giving up the unreal notion - what you have taken as your own self -- take instead that what is
real, self evident, beyond all argumentation.  'I am Brahman' - by this pure thought, know thine
own Self, which is indivisible consciousness.

Verse  251:

As a pitcher and other things made of earth are nothing but earth, likewise, all this is from the Atman,
the real.  Therefore, everything is real. 'Thou art That' - quiet, free from the blemish, One, Brahman
alone, the Supreme.   As there is no other than Atman  - the only real thing - therefore, thou art That -
quiet, pure, One without a second, the Supreme.

Verse 252:

As the places and things that you see in dream are unreal, so is this wakeful state.  There is no difference
between them (waking and dream).  As in dream, the mind creates, so Maya creates everything  -
this body, senses, pranas, and ego.  Everything is unreal.  So thou art That -- quiet, pure, One without
a second, the Supreme.         

Verse  253:

Because of delusion, you may mistake one thing for another.  But, when you know its real nature, then
that nature alone exists, there is nothing else but that.  When the dream breaks, the dream universe
has vanished.  Does it appear, when you wake, that you are other than yourself?

contd.,

Arunachala Siva.   

11549

General topics / Re: Tevaram - Some select verses.

« on: February 17, 2016, 09:18:06 AM »

Verse  42:


தம்பெருமான் சாத்தும்
   திருநீற்றுச் சார்புடைய
எம்பெருமான் ஏனாதி
   நாதர் கழலிறைஞ்சி
உம்பர்பிரான் காளத்தி
   உத்தமர்க்குக் கண்ணப்பும்
நம்பெருமான் செய்தபணி
   நாம்தெரிந்த வாறுரைப்பாம்.




I adore the feet of our deity -- Yenati Nathar --,
Whose sole support was nought but the holy ash,
And proceed to narrate the service of our Lord Kannappar
Unto the noble Lord of Kalatthi
As it lies within my humble knowledge.

Arunachala Siva.

11550

General topics / Re: Tevaram - Some select verses.

« on: February 17, 2016, 08:42:49 AM »

Verse  41:


மற்றினிநாம் போற்றுவதென்
   வானோர் பிரானருளைப்
பற்றலர்தங் கைவாளால்
   பாசம் அறுத்தருளி
உற்றவரை யென்றும்
   உடன்பிரியா அன்பருளிப்
பொற்றொடியாள் பாகனார்
   பொன்னம் பலமணைந்தார்.



How can we ever hail the grace of the God of gods?
He had the 'Pasa' of his servitor snapped
By the foe's sword, and graced him with eternal life
Linked to His very presence.
Then the Lord concorporate with his golden consort vanished.   


Arunachala Siva.