Self-enquiry as taught by Sri Bhagwan is enough

[eranilkumarsinha]

Dear devotees, Sri Robert Adams is one of those direct devotees of Bhagwan Sri Ramana who received nectarine Words of Grace from Him directly, imbibed them completely and attained Self-realization. I feel that those who are finding the Self-enquiry a little difficult to practice, should study now and then Sri Robert Adams' conversations which contain profound understanding of and insights into the practical aspects of Sri Bhagwan's Teaching of the Atma-vichara.  I am certain that some of the doubts assailing some of us on the Path would be removed and they would thus certainly benefit.





Sri Robert Adams:

The idea is to stop thinking completely, not to function mentally at all. Yet some of you still believe if you stop functioning mentally, you will become a vegetable, you wouldn't be able to function. This is not true. What you were will not function, but what you become will function very well. You will always appear to function, yet there is no functioner. You are not what you seem to be.
No matter how many times I tell you this, you're still thinking, thinking, judging, judging, coming to conclusions, trying to work out your life. You have to let go, totally, absolutely, completely. You have to let go so completely, that you will feel no body, no mind, no pain, no thing. That is the only time you will make progress. Do not think about this. The thoughts cannot help you. There are no thoughts that can help you realize the Self. It is only a total completely letting go, giving up. What do you give up? You give up the ego, the mind, your opinions about things. That's all you give up. But yet a tree seems to appear, and turn into a beautiful tree as it grows. So will you appear, yet you will know you're not the appearance. You will know that you are totally free and you are omnipresence, all-pervading. The whole universe is taking place inside of yourself. And if you are no self, there's no universe. You are beyond the no self, where there is a no-no-self. You're beyond the no-no-self, where there are no words to describe it. Yet it's so beautiful, so blissful, so joyous, that if you have had a taste of it, you'd never return. You'd never want to go back to humanhood.
This is why there have been many who have been touched slightly by this realization. They have been touched by truth, and they can remember there's something there, even though they're back to their human self, so it appears. They never forget that touch. And these people are the ones who strive forward, to go all the way into realization.
What does it mean to go all the way? It means to look at your life as a picture show. All the experiences are images on the screen. It means not to regulate your life at all, in any way, but to observe it and watch it. To look at it intelligently. To see the emotions that come into your mind. To observe the fears, the arrogance, and not to do anything about them. But to look at them, look through them and become free of them. Only by looking through them can you become free of them. Think of an emotion that you have that bothers you. Perhaps you have a bad temper, a fearful disposition, whatever. First you have to see it. Then you dive deep, deep within it, and it will totally and completely disappear. It will never bother you again.
When you try to change things, they all appear to be fine for a while, then you will find yourself in the same position you were before. Different people, different places. You don't want to change anything. You want to be still and look. As you become still and look, what you're looking at will look back at you.
As you look at the world without interpretation, as you look at the world without attachment, what the world is will be revealed to you. The world will be revealed to you as no thing, as an image on the screen of consciousness. You will become radiantly happy for no reason whatsoever. You will find the peace that you never dreamed existed. You have to want this. You have to love this. You have to want this more than anything else in this world. When I say want it more than anything else in this world, I don't mean in a "I don't have it sense and I want it." I mean to feel, and believe, and know, that you are that. And you want that to be uncovered for you, by going deeper all the time, by letting go of all the things that seem to be happening in life, continuing to dive deeply within the Self. You dive deeply within the Self to the extent that you give up the stuff that you've been carrying around for years.


Pranam,
 Anil

[eranilkumarsinha]

Sri V. Ganesan:
Without giving up hope, this school teacher (Sadhu Sri Natanananda) went to Bhagavan again and pleaded, "Bhagavan, I want to experience your gracious wisdom. Kindly fulfill my prayer!" Bhagavan looked at him for a full fifteen minutes. When a question was put to Bhagavan, he would not usually answer immediately. Instead, he would prepare the questioner with silence and only then give the answer, so that it remained with the questioner as direct experience. He was more interested in the questioner than in the question. He gazed at Natanananda and said, "Is it the body in front of me which desires to obtain grace or is it the awareness within it? If it is the awareness, is it not looking upon itself as the body and making this request? If so, let the awareness first of all recognize its nature. It will then automatically recognize God and grace. The truth of this can be realized even now and here." Wave after wave of pure ecstasy pulsed through Natanananda and he stayed in Bhagavan's presence for hours. He was blessed by Bhagavan's glance of grace.

Natanananda once told me that even Bhagavan's glance did not completely fulfill him and that there were some residual tendencies despite his leading a strictly austere life. Once, when he was in Bhagavan's presence, Kavyakantha Ganapati Muni and other scholarly devotees were sitting with Bhagavan and speaking in Sanskrit about Hindu scriptures. Utterly dejected that he could not follow a single word about the lofty subjects that were being discussed, he sat silently with tears streaming down his cheeks. When he opened his eyes, everyone had left and only Bhagavan was there. Bhagavan looked at him compassionately and asked, "Why are you so dejected? If you were really unfit to realize the Self in this life, you could not have come to this place at all." (This applies to all of us.) Bhagavan continued, "The power that drew you here will make you realize the Self. If not today, then at some other time it is bound to fulfill its commitment. There is no reason why you should be dejected." This dissolved all imperfections in Sadhu Natanananda and drove out all his ignorance. With this, he too became a Self realized sage.

Source: Sri Ramana Periya Puranam




Dear devotees, I am also of the firm conviction, without an iota of doubt, that this applies to us all. Sri Arunachala Ramana drew us to Himself and internalized our minds. Did He not? And for this reason alone there is no need to feel dejected, for the supreme assurance is there that the Power that drew us and made devotees and seekers out of us is bound by our love to fulfill His commitments, and make us realize the Self, if not today, then at some other time. Meanwhile our duty is to pursue Enquiry whole-heartedly and just be.
Pranam,
 Anil

[eranilkumarsinha]

Feel your reality in the stillness, in the quietness, when there is no mind, no thought, no word.
WHO ARE YOU THEN?
YOU JUST ARE. 

Sri Robert Adams

[eranilkumarsinha]

Dear Devotees,

I say with certainty that for one who has practiced Self-enquiry with love for the Divine (Self) and unwavering focus sooner than later understands progressively with more and more clarity that we ourselves have projected onto ourselves a false world of our own imagination, based on our own memories, ideas, concepts, fears and aspirations. Birth after birth these have become so deeply embedded that we now find ourselves imprisoned in the prison of our own making.
Self-enquiry breaks this pernicious spell by demolishing all our ideas, habits, concepts, desires and fears, revealing them to be unreal. Such is the greatness of the practice of abiding in the 'I', which alone is the real form of the Enquiry as taught by Sri Bhagwan

Pranam,
 Anil

[eranilkumarsinha]

Sri Sadhu Om:

When we attend to other things the awareness 'I Am' is mixed up with awareness of a body and other such adjuncts, so instead of shining just as 'I Am' it shines as 'I am this body', but when we try to attend only to our basic self-awareness , 'I Am', the adjuncts recede into the background and self-awareness begins to shine more clearly and prominently. The more keenly we attend to 'I Am', the more awareness of all other things fades away, until eventually we remain shining as 'I Am' alone.
Whenever we attend to anything other than 'I' we seem to be a body, but when we try to attend only to 'I' we begin to recognize that 'I' is actually something quite distinct from whatever body I seem to be.




Dear devotees, the above quote is a wonderful recapitulation, in short, of the Enquiry as taught by Sri Bhagwan.  Yes, practice is to attend only to the Pure Awareness 'I Am', which, sure, is not pure in the beginning of the practice, and is mixed up with the awareness of the body and other adjuncts. But one need not lose heart, and by the contrivance of the Enquiry "To whom? To me? Who Am I?", one must gradually progress to the shining of Awareness without body-consciousness and other adjuncts, until eventually one remains shining as 'I Am' alone, that is, until the recognition that 'I' is actually something quite distinct from anything whatever to which it attaches with dawns or happens, as Sri Sadhu Om beautifully said.
Pranam,
  Anil   

[eranilkumarsinha]

Quote from the previous post:
"When we attend to other things the awareness 'I Am' is mixed up with awareness of a body and other such adjuncts, so instead of shining just as 'I Am' it shines as 'I am this body', but when we try to attend only to our basic self-awareness , 'I Am', the adjuncts recede into the background and self-awareness begins to shine more clearly and prominently. The more keenly we attend to 'I Am', the more awareness of all other things fades away, until eventually we remain shining as 'I Am' alone.
Whenever we attend to anything other than 'I' we seem to be a body, but when we try to attend only to 'I' we begin to recognize that 'I' is actually something quite distinct from whatever body I seem to be."




Dear Devotees,

We are the Awareness, here and now. Never we are other than Awareness. Sri Bhagwan has even said that Awareness is another name for us. Therefore, indeed, since we are already Awareness, and nothing but the Awareness, the Awareness is neither to be cultivated, nor to be attained, nor to be acquired. Who will attain what when all is Awareness which is at once Existence as well? we must be the Awareness through which all the seeing is happening.

Since we already are the Awareness, Sri Bhagwan has taught that all we have to do is to give up being aware of other things, that is of not-Self. That is indeed all we have to do, for if we give up being aware of them what will remain? Pure Awareness alone remains, and that is the Self.

How not to be aware of other things? By practicing the most intimate and immediate path of trying to attend only to our own basic Self-awareness 'I Am'. If we try to do it, other things or the adjuncts disappear, revealed to be false, Self-awareness begins to shine, first hazily, then as one is prompted to attend to basic Self-awareness more and more keenly, the awareness of other things fades away more and more until eventually we alone remain shining forth in all Splendor and Glory as 'I Am'.   We need not do anything else.


Pranam,
  Anil

[eranilkumarsinha]

One day I (V. Ganesan) asked him (Ramaswami Pillai), "You were always away from Bhagavan's presence; you were always working in the garden. How did you like it?" He replied, "Why Ganesan, from a distance I could see Bhagavan's form and I was always chanting his name. Bhagavan was always in my heart. Bhagavan was perfection itself and because of his perfection, when we looked at him or chanted his name, the perfection came to us. As he was always in a state of bliss, we too were in a state of bliss." In support of his statement, he quoted from tradition saying, "Ganesan, understand that in our scriptures this is called guru turiya. Turiya is the samadhi state - the fourth state transcending the three states of waking, dreaming and sleeping. When you are working very hard and looking at the master or chanting his name, he transports you to this state, which is not to your credit; it is because of his grace on you; hence it is called guru turiya. The samadhi state that we get established in is because of his blessings."

Source: Sri Ramana Periya Puranam


Dear devotees, many of us must be experientially knowing how real Guru Turiya is! Many can discern it, beyond doubt whatever, by Invoking His Name, remembering His Gaze, or looking into His Eyes. Many are blessed with a glimpse into the state of bliss as well as perfection on account of the continued operation of what is called the Guru Turiya.
Pranam,
  Anil

[eranilkumarsinha]

Dear devotees, I recently read following post which contains Sri Robert Adams' precepts and utterances on Sri Bhagwan's Teaching of the Enquiry. Sri Robert Adams is a Self-realized, direct disciple of Sri Bhagwan and his profound words fascinate and inspire me greatly, and therefore, I wished to post the same here. If you have any question regarding its contents, you may raise, I shall certainly respond.


 
Sri Robert Adams:

"What Ramana taught was not new. Ramana simply taught the Upanishads. "Who am I" has been around since time immemorial.
If a teacher always tells you they have something new to teach you, be careful, because there's nothing new under the sun.
Ramana simply revised the "Who am I" philosophy and made it simple for people in the 20th Century.
But what did he teach? He simply taught that you are not the body-mind principle. He simply taught that if you have a problem, do not feel sorry for yourself, do not go to psychiatrists, do not condemn yourself, simply ask yourself, "To whom does this problem come?" And of course the answer will be, "The problem comes to me." Hold onto the me. Follow the me to the source, the substratum of all existence.
How do you do that? How do you hold onto me? How do you hold onto I?
By simply asking yourself, "Who am I? What am I?" the same thing, "What am I?" Asking yourself again and again, "Who am I?"
Forget about time. Forget about space. Forget everything. Keep yourself from thinking. When the thoughts come, ask yourself, "To whom comes the thoughts?" Again, "They come to me." Hold onto the me. "I think these thoughts. Well then, who am I? Who thinks these thoughts? Who am I?"
An easier way to do this I have found is to simply say to yourself, "I - I, I - I," and you will notice as you do this that the I, I goes deeper, deeper, deeper within you into your heart center, right to the source.
For westerners I have found that saying "I--I" seems to be more helpful than "Who am I?" Again, do not look at time. Do not ask yourself, "When is something going to happen?"
A devotee went to Ramana and said, "I've been with you for 25 years, doing Who am I, and nothing has happened yet, so Ramana said, "Try it another 25 and see what happens."

Pranam,
 Anil

[eranilkumarsinha]

THE THREE TIER APPROACH

Bhagavan would accept a new pencil or pen, only when the old one was completely exhausted or totally damaged. He would then take a piece of paper and scribble a few times with the new one to see whether it was working properly. TPR (T.P. Ramachandra Iyer) told me, "Most of us, on similar occasions, sign our own names, write Om or some god's name. So, I was very inquisitive, to know what he scribbled. On a few such occasions, Bhagavan, the ocean of compassion, permitted me to see what he wrote. I will reveal that secret to you now. Even those who were close to him did not know about it. Either he wrote, Arunachalavaasi, meaning, one residing in Arunachala, or panilenuvaadu, meaning, one without any work."

Arunachalavaasi means one residing in Arunachala. Bhagavan, who did not identify with anything in the world, including his own body and mind, chose to identify himself with Arunachala through an open declaration, "I am an Arunachalavaasi!" And how true the declaration is! Our glorious master stepped into Arunachala on September 1, 1896, and for fifty four years, till he dropped the body in April 14, 1950, he did not stir out of this holiest of holy places!

Just as the verbal teaching that he expounded are the highest expressions of para vidhya and apara vidhya, instructions to the mind, his gapless staying in Arunachala and identifying himself as Aruchalavaasi, are his direct instructions for us to put into practice, physically. Likewise, his true, direct teaching for every seeker, spiritually is, 'Dive within', 'Be still' and 'Be as you are'.

Therefore, it is only apt that serious spiritual seekers take up a three tier approach to his unique teaching to realize the Self. (i) Physical: Stay in Arunachala and thus become an Arunachalavaasi (ii) Mental: Understand and practice Self-enquiry, 'Who Am I?' (iii) Spiritual: Be absorbed in Silence.

Source: Sri V. Ganesan's Drops from the Ocean


Dear devotees, it is not possible for every one of us to become an Arunachalavasi, However, Sri Bhagwan has Himself taught that Sri Arunachala is the Self and is within. When once a devotee asked of Sri Bhagwan what He was looking at, He said that He was looking at the 'Atma'. It follows that diving within with the love for the Self and staying with the 'I' is to become Arunachalavasi though there is no doubt that the physical proximity to the Holiest of the Holy Hills, Sri Arunachala is immensely beneficial in one's spiritual journey particularly if one is following ardently Sri Bhagwan's Teaching. Therefore, loving Sri Bhagwan or Sri Aruanchala or the Self (all three are synonyms), understanding and practicing Self-enquiry and being absorbed in the Silence of the Self are, for us, the most blessed and graced Path to follow.
Pranam,
 Anil 

[eranilkumarsinha]

Sri Robert Adams:

You believe you are a body. And as long as you believe you are a body, you separate yourself from the land of the jnanis. You believe you belong to the earth, and if you're earthbound, you have to partake of all the problems, sufferings, happiness, joys, that come from the earth. You have to choose whom you shall follow, if you should follow the divine urge that tells you that you are absolute consciousness, or the call of mammon, which is the world. You have to make that choice.
The choice you make determines what happens to you from here on. It's very simple. You either realize that you are not of this world, that you are absolute reality, your divine nature is pure awareness, and you rest in that, or you worry, and you fear, and you try to make things happen, and you're always scheming, and planning, and looking at the future with dismay, worrying about the past. The choice is really yours.
And even when some of you say, "I am absolute reality," you're still referring to the body, for you are saying, "I am," and you don't know I am as consciousness. You're saying, "I am absolute reality," meaning that your body, your ego, is absolute reality, and this is a great mistake. You have to understand when you say, "I am absolute reality," I am and absolute reality are both synonymous. You're declaring the highest truth. You can say it this way, you may say, "I am is absolute reality," for if you're having problems, if you think something is wrong, and you say "I am absolute reality," you're really saying my problems, and my negative thinking, is absolute reality. That's what you mean by I am.



Dear devotees, the grave mistake we are committing is this that we are foisting the Reality on the unreal, or the Pure Consciousness 'I Am' on the insentient 'so and so'. We must understand that in 'I am the Self or Brahman', 'I Am' and Self or Brahman are synonyms.
Pranam,
  Anil 

[eranilkumarsinha]

SRI BHAGAVAN DISCUSSES WITH SWAMI SRI MADHAVTHIRTA:

The Error of World Perception:

Q: Why do we see such permanency and constancy in the waking state?
Sri Bhagwan: It is seen on account of wrong ideas. When someone says that he took a bath in the same river twice, he is wrong because when he bathed for the second, time, the river was not the same as it was when he bathed for the first time. Somebody may say that he is seeing the same fruit every day, but really, a lot of changes are taking place in the fruit. On seeing the brightness of a flame, a man says that he sees the same flame, but the flame is changing every second. As the oil gets less and less, the flame keeps on changing. The waking state is also like this. The stationary appearance is an error of perception.
Q: Whose is the error?
Sri Bhagwan: Pramata [the knower].
Q: From where did the knower come?
Sri Bhagwan: On account of the error of perception. In fact, the knower and his false knowledge appear simultaneously, and when the knowledge of the Self is obtained, they disappear simultaneously.
Q: From where did the knower and his ignorance come?
Sri Bhagwan: Who is asking this question?
Q: I.
Sri Bhagwan: Find out that 'I' and all your doubts will be solved. Just as in a dream, a false knower, knowledge and known rise up, in the waking state the same process operates. In both states, on knowing this 'I' you know everything, and nothing remains to be known. If, in the waking state, there is enquiry into the 'I', everything can be understood and nothing else will remain to be known. In deep sleep knower, knowledge and known are absent. At the time of experiencing the true 'I' they will also not exist. Whatever you see happening in the waking state happens only to the knower, and since the knower is unreal, nothing in fact ever happens.
Q: After waking from sleep, why does the world of the previous day appear the same?
Sri Bhagwan: The world seen on the previous day was not real. It was the knowledge of an unreal knower. In the same way, the world of the next day is also is the knowledge of an unreal knower. For the ajnani the world is experienced at these times [yesterday and today]. But for the jnani the world is not there at any time, past, present or future. What appears separate from us is called by us 'the world'. It appears separate from us due to ego-consciousness [ahankara]. When ahankara goes there is nothing separate; there is no world. Time also arises from pramata, the knower. Because pramata is not real, time is also not real. Professor Einstein has also stated this in his theory of relativity.

Source: The Power of the Presence, Part-1

[eranilkumarsinha]

Sri V. Ganesan:

Recently, in August, 2005, at Nagore, the only Sufi center in India, where I am told Sufi masters still live, my friend and I were blessed to be in the presence of a Sufi master. In his presence, we were transported as it were, into a different world of ananda. I expressed to him our great joy to be in the proximity of a true Sufi master. In all seriousness, he said, "God is an enormous, gushing, sacred river. Seekers need to bathe in it. We saints are like bathing ghats with well built steps to help them reach the river and safely bathe in it". 'Plunging within into one's Heart', is synonymous to taking bath in the river. The guru's instructions are the ghats. Ananda or bliss is God, the river.
Source: Drops from the Ocean





 
Dear devotees, this simile of the bathing ghats is a beautiful one. Isn't it? Indeed, the Atma-vichara is one of the most wonderful Ghats to bath in the River called Atma (the Self) who is none other than God or Brahman Himself, and who is always available, never non-available, for immersion.  Therefore, let us keep plunging deep into the Heart and savor the Bliss or Ananda of our own Natural State (I Am), in silence, as often as we can until we are established in this State of Ananda, in Jnana-Nishtha for ever.

Pranam,
  Anil

[Balaji]

Dear eranilkumarsinha sir

Very nice postings  regarding Turiya state.

[eranilkumarsinha]

Dear Sri Bala ji,
Thank You.

[eranilkumarsinha]

The problems are in the thoughts.
Your body is in your thoughts.
Your experiences are in your thoughts.
Where else would they be?
And ultimately the thoughts do not exist.
There are no thoughts.
There is no mind.
So you're playing games with yourself.
This is God's divine leela, the play of consciousness.

Sri Robert Adams






Dear Devotees,

And we are not the thoughts. For whom are all these thoughts? Certainly not for the Self. Who Am I?
So, if we continue to play thinking it is all real, we continue to weep and suffer, and it will never end. If we ask , 'Who Am I?' and turn within seeking our Source, we realize our true Identity and thus transcend God's Divine Leela or Paly for good. Moreover, we must also always remember that Sri Ramana Bhagwan has enjoined that this is the only freedom we have, that is, to turn within and realize the Atma-swarupa or the Self. It is our birthright. Is it not? Therefore, not to react what is happening in and around us (for they are mere thoughts), to ask 'Who Am I?', go deeper and deeper within, and realize the Swarupa, alone are the wisdom, for what is ordained to happen will happen anyway.

Pranam,
  Anil