The Paramount Importance of Self Attention. Sadhu Om - April-June 2014.

[Subramanian.R]

5th February 1978:

Sadhu Om:  Bhagavan does not ask us to believe anything new. He simply points out the obvious truth that we love only
ourself, and that our love for other things  (body, mind, God, and the things of the world) is a mere pretence, because we
love them only for the sake of ourself.  He says that if we want to be happy, we should stop pretending that we love anything
other than self, and we should let our love for self be whole and not partial.

In the Ninth paragraph of Nan Yaar? (Who am I?) Bhagavan says:

Just as breath restraint (pranayama), meditation upon a form of God (moorthi dhyana), repetition of sacred words (mantra-
japa) and regulation of diet (ahara niyama) are mere aids for controlling the mind (but can never by themselves bring about
its destruction).  By moorthi dhyana and mantra japa the mind gains one-pointedness (ekagra). Just as when a chain is given
to an elephant to hold in its trunk, which is always wandering (here and there trying to catch hold of things), that elephant
will go along holding only the chain instead of trying to catch any other thing, so also when the mind, which is always wandering,
is trained to hold on to any one name or form (of God), it will cling only to that.  Because the mind branches out into
innumerable thoughts, each thought becomes very weak.  As thoughts subside more and more, one-pointedness is gained.
and for the mind which has thereby gained strength, self inquiry (atma vichara) will be easily accomplished. (...)

contd.,

Arunachala Siva.
                 

[Subramanian.R]

5th February 1978:

contd...

There is a break in the sequence of ideas between the sentence ending, 'it will cling only to that' and the sentence beginning
'Because the mind branches out' because the first of these two sentences  is specifically about the practice of moothi dhyana,
and mantra japa, whereas the second is a general observation.  If the meaning of this paragraph is carefully considered in
comparison with what Bhagavan teaches us in Upadesa Undiyar and Ulladu Narpadu, it will be clear that He is not saying
that if the mind becomes one pointed through mantra japa or roopa dhyana, it will thereby gain strength to abide in source.

That is, in Verse 8 of Upadesa Undiyar, Bhagavan says that rather than anya bhava (meditation upon  anything other than
'i') is the best among all forms of meditation. What He means by ananya bhava is only atma vichara (self inquiry), because
atma vichara is the practice of meditating only on 'I', whereas every other practice of meditating on or attending to something
other than 'I'. Therefore, though he says, 'avan aham aahum ananya bhava' not mean that meditating on the thought 'He is
I' (soham bhavana) in ananya bhava, because that thought is something other than 'I'.  If we are really convinced that God
is 'I' we should meditate only on 'I' and not ananya bhava, it is at least based on he conviction that God is not other than
'I', so from this verse, we can infer that it is superior to any meditation in which God is considered to be something other than
'I'.

contd.,

Arunachala Siva.             

[ksksat27]

Friends,

Someone whose mind is thus at attached to  any name or form will not be able to understand even intellectually what self attention actually is.  Even if he can enjoy the company of the name and form of his beloved God, how does that help him? Ramakrishna said that even if God wants to take us to the self, he  cannot unless we want him to.  Only by our own liking and effort to practice self attention can we attain self attention  and true self knowledge (atma jnana)

I have found some of Sadhu Om's comments dogmatic and do not reflect the whole Truth,particularly his saying on Sri Ramakrishna.In fact Sri Ramakrishna has said the very opposite of what sadhu Om has claimed that he said!I have given the excerpts from The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna in the Rough-notebook thread.

Namaskar.

Dear Sri Ravi

I agree that Sri Ramakrishna stressed on nama japa and devotion & never put it down in front of jnana sadhana.

I dont think the terminology self handled by Thakur has anything to do with Atma Vichara of Sri Ramana school of thoughts.

Sadhu Om was a bit stressful and dogmatic -- but that was to be viewed just like a operation specialist whose only job is to make you attend to I AM.  In that process, he did indeed smashed all of our other sadhana practices.

But I think Sri Ramakrishna's dialogues sometimes contradicted some other dialogue taken from some other instance.

This is attributed to two things:

i)Sri Thakur spoke on Bengali (or Hindi?) and we dont have the original dialogues.

ii)Sri Thakur just answered the minds of the questioners.  So at different instances they did contradict depending on the audience.

So we cannot say that Sri Sadhu Om deliberately mis-quoted Sri Thakur.

And Sri Sadhu Om need not have quoted Sri Thakur for self enquiry related clarifications in the first place. Because Thakur's path was most of devotion and traditional advaita sadhana.

These are some of my observations.

[Ravi.N]

Just try to find out who this 'I' is. While you are searching for 'I', 'He' comes out.
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna

[ksksat27]

dear Ravi Sir

I dont think any saint spoke of Self Enquiry in the sense Sri Ramana Maharshi gave as a method to all of us.

From upanishads to puranas, the self enquiry appears in lot of places but not in the sense Sri Ramana taught about it.

Sri Ramana Maharshi is the first sage to discover this rarest gem of the Self Enquiry and hence got the title Maharshee. Like Vishwamithra Rshi for Gayathri and Pratyankiras rishi for Pratyankra Mantra.

All other saints spoke of self enquiry in their teachings in the traditional sense of neti neti approach or bhavana only.

[Ravi.N]

ksksat,
I have already answered this in the rough notebook thread today.
Namaskar.

[ksksat27]

dear Sir,

I read your last post in rough note book.

The true seeker would strive to realize this,rather than trying to prove the supremacy or exclusiveness of one path over the other.Especially for the so called 'devotees of Bhagavan'

I think the fact remains that self enquiry in the exact method as given by Sri Ramana Maharshi was the first of the kind and hence reverred Ganapathi Muni called him a 'seer', sage .

I think some people are caught in this granthi -- nobody is trying to prove supremacy or exclusiveness.   This is one among the many paths.  And it is futile exercise trying to find integration and 'sameness' in each & every path , in each and every saint's teachings.

Doing sadhana is all about treading in one path , it is not about just finding the untiy in different paths (where such a unity is artificial, it does not exist that way).

[Ravi.N]

Absorption in the Heart of being,
Whence we sprang,
Is the path of action, of devotion,
Of union and of knowledge.
                                                Verse 10 ,Upadesa saram

Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this divinity by controlling nature, external and internal. Do this either by work, or worship, or psychic control, or philosophy - by one, or more, or all of these - and be free. This is the whole of religion. Doctrines, or dogmas, or rituals, or books, or temples, or forms, are but secondary details.
                                                 
                                                 -Swami Vivekananda

Nothing can be taught to the mind which is not already concealed as potential knowledge in the unfolding soul of the creature. So also all perfection of which the outer man is capable, is only a realising of the eternal perfection of the Spirit within him. We know the Divine and become the Divine, because we are That already in our secret nature. All teaching is a revealing, all becoming is an unfolding. Self-attainment is the secret; self-knowledge and an increasing consciousness are the means and the process.
                                                                                                                                           
                                                 -  Sri Aurobindo

Unity is not something put together by the mind-it is to understand that the 'ego' is a nonentity and to realize that God alone is the doer.Sadhana is to be aware of this fact from moment to moment -and not about following a definitive  'Path'-No such definitive path exists except in one's mind.