Michael James's website

Michael James is well known to people who are interested in the teachings of Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi and Sadhu Om's ( a disciple of Bhagavan). He regularly contributes articles in the Mountain Path, the quarterly of the Ramanashram. One article of his, "The Power of Arunachala" published in the Mountain Path in 1984 is my personal favourite. This entire article is published in David Godman's website.

Michael James has launched his website http://www.happinessofbeing.com/index.html. The content is wonderful and I wish him the very best in this noble endeavour.

The Almighty impels man to act!

The stability of the entire universe, in fact its very survival, is dependent on the operation of the law of virtue. The Lord Himself had declared in the Bhagavad Gita, ``With this (the divine constitution), you nourish the shining ones and may the latter illumine you. Thus nourishing one another, you shall reap the supreme good''. ``God has prescribed this moral law for humanity in the form of the Vedas which are His instructions for a life of purity.

A question that often troubles many is whether God can appear before us. If not, what is the meaning of divine grace. The fallacious answer provided by some in modern times is that the utterances of the ancient wisdom and of the divine mercy, appear to be concocted by a few to deceive the common man. As against this and to convince people of the merits of saints and of the Vedas, an appropriate reply has also been rendered as to what constitutes divine grace.

The beautiful verse in this respect says, ``God's blessings do not mean that He will go about with a staff in His hand as a shepherd does when he drives the animals to a meadow.'' This is to be understood as that He will bestow on us the proper motive for action. Every action we do is stimulated by an urge to perform it. Without such a spur, one does not act at all. The desire and the urge emanate from the Almighty's grace. If that be so, the sceptics will ask, why should not His grace be only for the performance of pious deeds and why should the urge to do evil acts arise?

This apparent riddle has been answered by Sri Bharathi Theertha Mahaswamigal of Sringeri Sarada Peetam. Urge for indulging in wicked deeds also is from the Divinity, he says. Does that mean that God's intention is that we can do such prohibited acts? If so, what sort of God is He is the next query? Does He, who is the object of our veneration and devotion, and whom we consider worthy of worship, goad us to perpetrate them?

The scriptures explain that one has to reap the consequences for the evil deeds done in one's previous birth. Because of this, God does not become responsible and He cannot be blamed. The succession of rebirths, wherein we ought to reap the consequences of our past actions continues from time immemorial. This concept of reaping the consequences of one's previous actions is neither improper nor unscriptural. Hence, those eager to procure God's grace and who want to please Him should abide by the law laid down by Him. He has given us the power of discrimination and it is for us to use it properly. A sword given by a father to his son for use in case of war, should not be instead utilised to chop off his own neck. If he does, is it the fault of the father or the son?

-Sri Bharati Teertha Mahaswamigal

Effort will take you nowhere!

Unless you make tremendous efforts, you will not be convinced that effort will take you nowhere. The self is so self-confident that unless it is totally discouraged it will not give up. Mere verbal conviction is not enough. Hard facts alone can show the absolute nothingness of the self-image.

-Nisargadatta Maharaj-

In giving we receive!

“For it is in giving that we receive.” We often act as if we believe it is in grabbing that we receive. If we don’t take what we want, we are afraid we won’t receive anything at all. Saint Francis is telling us just the opposite: the more we give, the more we receive. Even in my own small life, I find every day that the more I give, the more I have to give on the following day. The more I give on the following day, the more I have to give that evening. So keep on giving – your time, your energy, your talent, your resources. Everything is a trust given to you to be used for the benefit of others. And you will find that the more you give, the more energy and understanding you will have, and the more love you will have for giving even more. This is the very best way to increase your capacity to help and to serve.

By Eknath Easwaran

Law of cause and effect contradicts itself!

Causation means succession in time of events in space, the space being physical or mental. Time, space, causation are mental categories, arising and subsiding with the mind.

Like everything mental, the so-called law of causation contradicts itself. No thing in existence has a particular cause; the entire universe contributes to the existence of even the smallest thing; nothing could be as it is without the universe being what it is. When the source and ground of everything is the only cause of everything, to speak of causality as a universal law is wrong. The universe is not bound by its content, because its potentialities are infinite; besides it is a manifestation, or expression of a principle fundamentally and totally free.

A lot of such activity is going on, because of ignorance. Would people know that nothing can happen unless the entire universe makes it happen, they would achieve much more with less expenditure of energy!

The very urge to achieve is also an expression of the total universe. It merely shows that the energy potential has risen at a particular point. It is the illusion of time that makes you talk of causality. When the past and the future are seen in the timeless now, as parts of a common pattern, the idea of cause-effect loses its validity and creative freedom takes its place.

When I say a thing is without a cause, I mean it can be without a particular cause. Your own mother was needed to give you birth; But you could not have been born without the sun and the earth. Even these could not have caused your birth without your own desire to be born. It is desire that gives birth, that gives name and form. The desirable is imagined and wanted and manifests itself as something tangible or conceivable. Thus is created the world in which we live, our personal world. The real world is beyond the mind's ken; we see it through the net of our desires, divided into pleasure and pain, right and wrong, inner and outer. To see the universe as it is, you must step beyond the net. It is not hard to do so, for the net is full of holes.

Source : I AM THAT, dialogues with Nisargadatta Maharaj

Awareness and mindfulness

Awareness cannot be practiced. There has been some confusion between awareness and mindfulness. They are related, but distinct. Sati, or mindfulness, implies there is action of the mind. We purposely set ourselves to pay attention to our minds. We exert effort. Awareness is different. Awareness is devoid of any action. The mind simply "awares." There is no action here, only a collected and spontaneous awareness that just "sees." Here, mindfulness is the cause, and awareness is the effect. You cannot practice or train the effect. You can only practice something that will cause it. We have to start with mindfulness so that awareness may arise in us.

-Thynn Thynn, in Living Meditation, Living Insight

Nature!

We depend on nature not only for our physical survival. We also need nature to show us the way home, the way out of the prison of our own minds. We got lost in doing, thinking, remembering, anticipating - lost in a maze of complexity and a world of problems.

We have forgotten what rocks, plants, and animals still know. We have forgotten how to be - to be still, to be ourselves, to be where life is: Here and Now.

Whenever you bring your attention to anything natural, anything that has come into existence without human intervention, you step out of the prison of conceptualized thinking and, to some extent, participate in the state of connectedness with Being in which everything natural still exists.

To bring your attention to a stone, a tree, or an animal does not mean to think about it, but simply to perceive it, to hold it in your awareness.

Something of its essence then transmits itself to you. You can sense how still it is, and in doing so the same stillness arises within you. You sense how deeply it rests in Being - completely at one with what it is and where it is. In realizing this, you too come to a place of rest deep within yourself.

Extracts from Stillness Speaks by Eckhart Tolle

Powerful Quotes of Eckhart Tolle

You are not just a meaningless fragment in an alien universe, briefly suspended between life and death, allowed a few short-lived pleasures followed by pain and ultimate annihilation. Underneath your outer form, you are connected with something so vast, so immeasurable and sacred, that it cannot be spoken of - yet I am speaking of it now. I am speaking of it now not to give you something to believe in but to show you how you can know it for yourself.

Many expressions that are in common usage, and sometimes the structure of language itself, reveal the fact that people don't know who they are. You say: "He lost his life" or "my life," as if life were something that you can possess or lose. The truth is: you don't have a life, you are life. The One Life, the one consciousness that pervades the entire universe and takes temporary form to experience itself as a stone or blade of grass, as an animal, a person, a star or a galaxy. Can you sense deep within that you already know that? Can you sense that you already are That?

Eckhart Tolle's Video Excerpts

Please click on the link below if you are interested in viewing clippings of Eckhart Tolle's talks and other spiritual teachers

http://youtube.com/results?search_query=Eckhart+Tolle&search=Search

Resistance To The Present Moment

The greater part of human pain is unnecessary. It is self created as long as the unobserved mind runs your life. The pain that you create now is always some form of non - acceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is.

On the level of thought, resistance is some form of judgement. On the emotional level, it is some form of negativity.The intensity of the pain depends on degree of resistance to the present moment, and this in turn depends on how strongly you are identified with your mind. The mind always seeks to deny the Now and to escape from it.

- Eckhart Tolle-

Lord Dakshinamurthi

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.

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.”

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!

The Power of Obedience to the Guru

Q: The mind is so absolutely restless. For quieting it what is the way?

M: Trust the teacher. Take my own case. My Guru ordered me to attend to the sense 'I am' and to give attention to nothing else. I just obeyed. I did not follow any particular course of breathing, or meditation, or study of scriptures. Whatever happened, I would turn away my attention from it and remain with the sense ‘I am', it may look too simple, even crude. My only reason for doing it was that my Guru told me so. Yet it worked! Obedience is a powerful solvent of all desires and fears.

Just turn away from all that occupies the mind; do whatever work you have to complete, but avoid new obligations; keep empty, keep available, resist not what comes uninvited. In the end you reach a state of non-grasping, of joyful non-attachment, of inner ease and freedom indescribable, yet wonderfully real.

Source: I AM THAT, Dialogues with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Only The "I" Exists in Deep Sleep

"Consciousness never parts with you in any of the three states. In deep sleep you are conscious of deep rest or peace. Inference is possible only of those things which have not been experienced. The fact that you had a deep sleep or profound rest is your direct experience and you only remember it when you come to the waking state. It can never be an inference. Experience alone can be remembered. The fact that you were present throughout the deep sleep can also never be denied. The only three factors thus found present in deep sleep are Consciousness, peace and yourself. All these are objectless and can never be objectified.In other words, they are all subjective. But there can only be one subject and that is the 'I- Principle'. So none of these three can be the result of inference since they are all experience itself."

[From Nitya Tripta, Notes on Spiritual Discourses of Shri Atmananda , 20th January 1951, note number 27.]

Arunachala - The Most Sacred Place on Earth

There is no place on the face of the earth which will give you peace of mind like Arunachala. Aruna means light and Achala means that which does not move. Arunachala means the "Immovable Light". To celebrate this there is the festival of Deepam, where they burn a very big light fueled by 1000 kilos of butter oil.

When you walk on such holy land as Arunachala where the Saint has lived you will have the same feeling as when he was there. There will not be any difference. Always remember this. You can keep the dust of this place with you. It is just as holy. Keep it in your room and you will not have to chant any mantra or even meditate.

-Papaji-

The Luckiest Of Opportunities

( A photo of Papaji reading the Ribhu Gita)

That realised person who abides in the Brahman-Self, and has lost all feelings of differentiation of self and non-self, is the Jnani or Mukta Purusha. Such a Jnani is rare to find even by searching among millions of people. If one has the lucky opportunity of getting his darshan (personal view and contact) one attains purification from all his sins, and what is more, such a person’s ego gets liquidated at once. (Ch.19, v.10)

Darshan of the matured Jnani constitutes the acme of purification of baths taken in sacred waters, divine worship, mantra-japa, spiritual austerities, charitable acts and devotional worship of Lord Siva Himself. To find and to gain access to the sacred presence of such a Jnani is the luckiest of opportunities that one could ever obtain in this world. (Ch.19, v.11)

Worshipful service rendered unto such a Jnani-Sat- Guru quickens one’s spiritual wisdom to attain the bliss of jivan mukti. If continued further, it bestows on the disciple even the status of videha mukti. Therefore, if one is keen on being released from bondage into the freedom of mukti, the one infallible means of achieving that aim is the loving and worshipful service
of the Jnani-Sat-Guru. (Ch.19, v.13)

The Pain Body

As long as you are unable to access the power of the Now, every emotional pain that you experience leaves behind a residue of pain. It merges with past pain and lodges in your mind and body. This accumulated pain is a negative energy field, and if you look upon it as an invisible entity in its own right, you are getting quite close to the truth. It’s the emotional pain-body. It has two modes of being: dormant and active. A pain-body may be dormant 90 percent of the time; in a deeply unhappy person, it may be active up to 100 percent of the time. Some people live almost entirely through the pain-body, while others experience it only in certain situations, such as in intimate relationships, or situations linked with past loss, abandonment, and physical or emotional hurt. Anything can trigger it, particularly if it resonates with a pain pattern from your past. When it is ready to awaken from its dormant stage, even a thought or an innocent remark can activate it.

Some pain-bodies are obnoxious but relatively harmless – a child who won’t stop whining, for example. Others are vicious and destructive monsters. Some are physically violent; many more are emotionally violent. Some will attack people around you, while others may attack you, their host. Your thoughts and feelings about your life then become deeply negative and self-destructive. Illnesses and accidents are often created in this way. Some pain-bodies drive their hosts to suicide. When you thought you knew a person and are suddenly confronted with this alien, nasty creature for the first time, you are in for quite a shock. However, it’s more important to observe it in yourself. Watch out for any sign of unhappiness; it may be the awakening pain-body. This can take the form of irritation, impatience, a sombre mood, a desire to hurt, anger, rage, depression, or a need to have some drama in your relationship. Catch it the moment it awakens.

The pain-body wants to survive, just like every other entity in existence, and it can only survive through your unconscious identification. It needs to get its food through you. It will feed on any experience that resonates with its own kind of energy, anything that creates further pain. When it has taken you over, it will create a situation in your life that reflects its own energy frequency for it to feed on. Pain can only feed on pain. Pain cannot feed on joy. It finds it quite indigestible.Once the pain-body has taken you over, you want more pain. You become a victim, or a perpetrator, or both; there really isn’t much difference. You are unconscious of this, of course, and will vehemently claim that you do not want pain. But look closely, and you will find that your thinking and behaviour keep the pain going. If you were truly conscious of it, the pattern would dissolve, for to want more pain is insanity, and nobody is consciously insane.The pain-body, the dark shadow cast by the ego, is actually afraid of the light of your consciousness. It is afraid of being found out. Its survival depends on your unconscious identification and unconscious fear of facing your pain. But if you don’t face it, you will be forced to relive it again and again.

The pain-body may seem like a dangerous monster that you cannot bear to look at, but I assure you that it is an insubstantial phantom that cannot prevail against the power of your presence. Some spiritual teachings state that all pain is ultimately an illusion, and this is true. The question is: “Is it true for you?” A mere belief doesn’t make it true. Do you want to experience pain for the rest of your life and keep saying that it is an illusion? Does that free you from the pain? What we are concerned with here is how you can realize this truth – that is, make it real in your own experience.The pain-body doesn’t want you to observe it directly and see it for what it is. The moment you observe it, the identification is broken. A higher dimension of consciousness has come in. I call it presence. You are now the witness, or the watcher of the pain-body. It can no longer use you by pretending to be you, and it can no longer replenish itself through you. You have found your own innermost strength. You have accessed the power of Now.

Source: The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle

Karma - Action Arising out of Denial of the Present Moment

Eckhart Tolle presents a unique perspective on Karma, which he says is action arising out of denial on the present moment. Read on....

"Very often there is denial of what is happening in the present moment, not wanting it to happen, which includes what’s happening inside you at that moment, to completely say "yes" to whatever emotion may be there or whatever your inner state may be at this moment or to completely say "yes" to whatever the external situation may be at this moment. It’s too late to fight it because it is. You can’t fight what is. You can take action on the basis of your acceptance of what is. Action that arises out of that acceptance is very empowered. Action that arises out of a negative state of resistance and denial and saying ‘no.’ can also sometimes contain a lot of energy, but it is contaminated with heavy negativity. It comes out of the saying ‘no’ and it’s there to strengthen or defend the egoic sense of self. So, whatever action arises out of that would, in Eastern terms, be called "karmic" which produces further karma and further suffering."

- Eckhart Tolle

Remain In Wonder!

Remain in wonder if you want the mysteries to open up for you. Mysteries never open up for those who go on questioning. Questioners sooner or later end up in a library. Questioners sooner or later end up with scriptures, because scriptures are full of answers. And answers are dangerous, they kill your wonder.

-OSHO-

Paying Attention

The secret of beginning a life of deep awareness and sensitivity lies in our willingness to pay attention. Our growth as conscious, awake human beings is marked not so much by grand gestures and visible renunciations as by extending loving attention to the minutest particulars of our lives. Every relationship, every thought, every gesture is blessed with meaning through the wholehearted attention we bring to it. In the complexities of our minds and lives we easily forget the power of attention, yet without attention we live only on the surface of existence. It is just simple attention that allows us truly to listen to the song of a bird, to see deeply the glory of an autumn leaf, to touch the heart of another and be touched. We need to be fully present in order to love a single thing wholeheartedly. We need to be fully awake in this moment if we are to receive and respond to the learning inherent in it.

--Christina Feldman and Jack Kornfield, in Stories of the Spirit, Stories of the Heart

Ten Things To Be Understood

Understand that outer appearances are unreal because they are mistaken.

Understand that inner mind is empty because it is devoid of self-identity.

Understand that thoughts are momentary because they occur due to conditions.

Understand that both your physical body and your voice are impermanent because they are conditioned.

Understand that the consequences of your actions are inevitable because all pleasure and pain of sentient beings results from karma.

Understand that pain is your spiritual friend because it is the cause of renunciation.

Understand that pleasure and happiness is the demon of attachment because it is the root of samsara.

Understand that many engagements are obstacles for merit because they hinder spiritual practice.

Understand that enemies and obstructors are your teachers because obstacles are inspiration for spiritual practice.

Understand that everything is of equal nature, because all phenomena are ultimately devoid of self-nature.

These were the ten things to understand.--Gampopa, from "The Precious Garland of the Sublime Path"(trans. by Erik Pema Kunsang)

Total Commitment to the Spiritual Path

"Few people are capable of wholehearted commitment, and that is why so few people experience a real transformation through their spiritual practice. It is a matter of giving up our own viewpoints, of letting go of opinions and preconceived ideas, and instead following the Buddha's guidelines. Although this sounds simple, in practice most people find it extremely difficult. Their ingrained viewpoints, based on deductions derived from cultural and social norms, are in the way."

"We must also remember that heart and mind need to work together. If we understand something rationally but don't love it, there is no completeness for us, no fulfillment. If we love something but don't understand it, the same applies. If we have a relationship with another person, and we love the person but don't understand him or her, the relationship is incomplete; if we understand that person but don't love him or her, it is equally unfulfilling. How much more so on our spiritual path. We have to understand the meaningof the teaching and also love it. In the beginning our understanding will only be partial, so our love has to be even greater."

--Ayya Khema From the book, "When the Iron Eagle Flies: Buddhism for the West", posted to Daily Dharma

The Strength of Stillness - By Sri Aurobindo

There are two great forces in the universe, silence and speech. Silence prepares, speech creates. Silence acts, speech gives the impulse to action. Silence compels, speech persuades. The immense and inscrutable processes of the world all perfect themselves within, in a deep and august silence, covered by a noisy and misleading surface of sound--the stir of innumerable waves above, the fathomless resistless mass of the ocean's waters below. Men see the waves, they hear the rumour and the thousand voices and by these they judge the course of the future and the heart of God's intention; but in nine cases out of ten they misjudge. Therefore it is said that in History it is always the unexpected that happens. But it would not be the unexpected if men could turn their eyes from superficies and look into substance, if they accustomed themselves to put aside appearances and penetrate beyond them to the secret and disguised reality, if they ceased listening to the noise of life and listened rather to its silence.

The greatest exertions are made with the breath held in; the faster the breathing, the more the dissipation of energy. He who in action can cease from breathing,--naturally, spontaneously,--is the master of Prana, the energy that acts and creates throughout the universe. It is a common experience of the Yogin that when thought ceases, breathing ceases,--the entire kumbhak effected by the Hathayogin with infinite trouble and gigantic effort, establishes itself easily and happily,--but when thought begins again, the breath resumes its activity. But when the thought flows without the resumption of the inbreathing and outbreathing, then the Prana is truly conquered. This is a law of Nature. When we strive to act, the forces of Nature do their will with us; when we grow still, we become their master. But there are two kinds of stillness--the helpless stillness of inertia, which heralds dissolution, and the stillness of assured sovereignty which commands the harmony of life. It is the sovereign stillness which is the calm of the Yogin. The more complete the calm, the mightier the yogic power, the greater the force in action. In this calm, right knowledge comes.

The thoughts of men are a tangle of truth and falsehood, satyam and anritam. True perception is marred and clouded by false perception, true judgment lamed by false judgment, true imagination distorted by false imagination, true memory deceived by false memory. The activity of the mind must cease, the chitta be purified, a silence fall upon the restlessness of Prakriti, then in that calm, in that voiceless stillness illumination comes upon the mind, error begins to fall away and, so long as desire does not stir again, clarity establishes itself in the higher stratum of the consciousness compelling peace and joy in the lower. Right knowledge becomes the infallible source of right action. Yogah karmasu kaushalam.

The knowledge of the Yogin is not the knowledge of the average desire-driven mind. Neither is it the knowledge of the scientific or of the worldly-wise reason which anchors itself on surface facts and leans upon experience and probability. The Yogin knows God's way of working and is aware that the improbable often happens, that facts mislead. He rises above reason to that direct and illuminated knowledge which we call vijñanam. The desire-driven mind is emmeshed in the intricate tangle of good and evil, of the pleasant and the unpleasant, of happiness and misfortune. It strives to have the good always, the pleasant always, the happiness always. It is elated by fortunate happenings, disturbed and unnerved by their opposite. But the illuminated eye of the seer perceives that all leads to good; for God is all and God is sarvamangalam. He knows that the apparent evil is often the shortest way to the good, the unpleasant indispensable to prepare the pleasant, misfortune the condition of obtaining a more perfect happiness. His intellect is delivered from enslavement to the dualities.

Therefore the action of the Yogin will not be as the action of the ordinary man. He will often seem to acquiesce in evil, to avoid the chance of relieving misfortune, to refuse his assent to the efforts of the noble-hearted who withstand violence and wickedness; he will seem to be acting pishacavat. Or men will think him jada, inert, a stone, a block, because he is passive, where activity appears to be called for; silent, where men expect voicefulness; unmoved, where there is reason for deep and passionate feeling. When he acts, men will call him unmatta, a madman, eccentric or idiot; for his actions will often seem to have no definite result or purpose, to be wild, unregulated, regardless of sense and probability or inspired by a purpose and a vision which is not for this world. And it is true that he follows a light which other men do not possess or would even call darkness; that what is a dream to them, is to him a reality; that their night is his day. And this is the root of the difference that, while they reason, he knows.

To be capable of silence, stillness, illuminated passivity is to be fit for immortality--amritatvaya kalpate. It is to be dhira, the ideal of our ancient civilisation, which does not mean to be tamasic, inert and a block. The inaction of the tamasic man is a stumbling-block to the energies around him, the inaction of the Yogin creates, preserves and destroys; his action is dynamic with the direct, stupendous driving-power of great natural forces.

It is a stillness within often covered by a ripple of talk and activity without,--the ocean with its lively surface of waves. But even as men do not see the reality of God's workings from the superficial noise of the world and its passing events, for they are hidden beneath that cover, so also shall they fail to understand the action of the Yogin, for he is different within from what he is outside. The strength of noise and activity is, doubtless, great,--did not the walls of Jericho fall by the force of noise? But infinite is the strength of the stillness and the silence, in which great forces prepare for action.

Source: Essay from the KARMAYOGIN (1909-1910)19 February 1910

Clock Time!

Why does the mind habitually deny or resist the Now? Because it cannot function and remain in control without time, which is past and future, so it perceives the timeless Now as threatening. Time and mind are in fact inseparable.

Imagine the Earth devoid of human life, inhabited only by plants and animals. Would it still have a past and a future? Could we still speak of time in any meaningful way? The question “What time is it? or “What’s the date today?” – if anybody were there to ask it – would be quite meaningless. The oak tree or the eagle would be bemused by such a question. “What time?” they would ask. “Well, of course, it is the Now. The time is Now. What else is there?”

Source: The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle

"Watching The Thinker"

When someone goes to the doctor and says, "I hear a voice in my head," he or she will most likely be sent to a psychiatrist. The fact is that, in a very similar way, virtually everyone hears a voice, or several voices, in their head all the time: the involuntary thought processes that you don't realize you have the power to stop. Continuous monologues or dialogues.

You have probably come across "mad" people in the street incessantly talking or muttering to themselves. Well, that's not much different from what you and all other "normal" people do, except that you don't do it out loud. The voice comments, speculates, judges, compares, complains, likes, dislikes, and so on. The voice isn't necessarily relevant to the situation you find yourself in at the time; it may be reviving the recent or distant past or rehearsing or imagining possible future situations. Here it often imagines things going wrong and negative outcomes; this is called worry. Sometimes this soundtrack is accompanied by visual images or "mental movies."

Even if the voice is relevant to the situation at hand, it will interpret it in terms of the past. This is because the voice belongs to your conditioned mind, which is the result of all your past history as well as of the collective cultural mind-set you inherited. So you see and judge the present through the eyes of the past and get a totally distorted view of it. It is not uncommon for the voice to be a person's own worst enemy. Many people live with a tormentor in their head that continuously attacks and punishes them and drains them of vital energy. It is the cause of untold misery and unhappiness, as well as of disease.

The good news is that you can free yourself from your mind. This is the only true liberation. You can take the first step right now. Start listening to the voice in your head as often as you can. Pay particular attention to any repetitive thought patterns, those old gramophone records that have been playing in your head perhaps for many years. This is what I mean by "watching the thinker," which is another way of saying: listen to the voice in your head, be there as the witnessing presence.

When you listen to that voice, listen to it impartially. That is to say, do not judge. Do not judge or condemn what you hear, for doing so would mean that the same voice has come in again through the back door. You'll soon realize: there is the voice, and here I am listening to it, watching it. This I am realization, this sense of your own presence, is not a thought. It arises from beyond the mind.

So when you listen to a thought, you are aware not only of the thought but also of yourself as the witness of the thought. A new dimension of consciousness has come in. As you listen to the thought, you feel a conscious presence - your deeper self - behind or underneath the thought, as it were. The thought then loses its power over you and quickly subsides, because you are no longer energizing the mind through identification with it. This is the beginning of the end of involuntary and compulsive thinking.

When a thought subsides, you experience a discontinuity in the mental stream - a gap of "no-mind." At first, the gaps will be short, a few seconds perhaps, but gradually they will become longer. When these gaps occur, you feel a certain stillness and peace inside you. This is the beginning of your natural state of felt oneness with Being, which is usually obscured by the mind. With practice, the sense of stillness and peace will deepen. In fact, there is no end to its depth. You will also feel a subtle emanation of joy arising from deep within: the joy of Being.

It is not a trancelike state. Not at all. There is no loss of consciousness here. The opposite is the case. If the price of peace were a lowering of your consciousness, and the price of stillness a lack of vitality and alertness, then they would not be worth having. In this state of inner connectedness, you are much more alert, more awake than in the mind-identified state. You are fully present. It also raises the vibrational frequency of the energy field that gives life to the physical body.

As you go more deeply into this realm of no-mind, as it is sometimes called in the East, you realize the state of pure consciousness. In that state, you feel your own presence with such intensity and such joy that all thinking, all emotions, your physical body, as well as the whole external world become relatively insignificant in comparison to it. And yet this is not a selfish but a selfless state. It takes you beyond what you previously thought of as "your self." That presence is essentially you and at the same time inconceivably greater than you. What I am trying to convey here may sound paradoxical or even contradictory, but there is no other way that I can express it.

Instead of "watching the thinker," you can also create a gap in the mind stream simply by directing the focus of your attention into the Now. Just become intensely conscious of the present moment. This is a deeply satisfying thing to do. In this way, you draw consciousness away from mind activity and create a gap of no-mind in which you are highly alert and aware but not thinking. This is the essence of meditation.

In your everyday life, you can practice this by taking any routine activity that normally is only a means to an end and giving it your fullest attention, so that it becomes an end in itself. For example, every time you walk up and down the stairs in your house or place of work, pay close attention to every step, every movement, even your breathing. Be totally present. Or when you wash your hands, pay attention to all the sense perceptions associated with the activity: the sound and feel of the water, the movement of your hands, the scent of the soap, and so on. Or when you get into your car, after you close the door, pause for a few seconds and observe the flow of your breath. Become aware of a silent but powerful sense of presence. There is one certain criterion by which you can measure your success in this practice: the degree of peace that you feel within.

So the single most vital step on your journey toward enlightenment is this: learn to disidentify from your mind. Every time you create a gap in the stream of mind, the light of your consciousness grows stronger.

One day you may catch yourself smiling at the voice in your head, as you would smile at the antics of a child. This means that you no longer take the content of your mind all that seriously, as your sense of self does not depend on it.

Source: The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

Witnessing The Breath - A Powerful Spiritual Practice

OSHO on Vipassana (Witnessing the Breath)

Buddha's way was Vipassana- vipassana means witnessing. And he found out one of the greatest devices ever, the device of watching your breath. There are four points to be watched- The incoming breath, the gap when for a split second it stops, the breath turns and goes out, and a split second gap before it starts coming in. If you can watch all the four points, you will be surprised, amazed, at the miracle of such a simple process- because the mind is not involved. Watching is not a quality of the mind; but of the Consciousness.

Eckhart Tolle on watching the breath as a powerful spiritual practice

Eckhart Tolle has something similar to say on this technique. He says that if one were to watch one's breath as much as possible for a year, it would be more spiritually transformational than most other spiritual practices.

Bringing the Mind to "I AM"

When the mind is kept away from its preoccupations, it becomes quiet. If you do not disturb this quiet and stay in it, you find that it is permeated with a light and a love you have never known; and yet you recognise it at once as your own nature. Once you have passed through this experience, you will never be the same man again; the unruly mind may break its peace and obliterate its vision; but it is bound to return, provided the effort is sustained; until the day when all bonds are broken, delusions and attachments end and life becomes supremely concentrated in the present.

I am not asking you to look in any particular direction. Just look away from all that happens in your mind and bring it to the feeling 'I am'. The 'I am' is not a direction. It is the negation of all direction. Ultimately even the 'I am' will have to go, for you need not keep on asserting what is obvious. Bringing the mind to the feeling 'I am' merely helps in turning the mind away from everything else.

Source: The book- "I AM THAT"

Nothing Existed Except the Eyes of the Maharshi - N.R.Krishnamurti Aiyer

This article by N.R.Krishnamurti Aiyer, a great devotee of Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi, is a wonderful account of his profound spiritual transformation by the Grace of Bhagavan.

N.R.Krishnamurti Aiyer was an agostic until he met Bhagavan. A series of spiritual experiences transformed him completely, and finally established him in the Self. The "Power of the Presence", includes an entire chapter on NR Krishnamurti Aiyer's experiences.

This inspiring account is available in the weblink "Nothing Existed except the Eyes of the Maharishi" in www.realization.org .

Only the Truth Is And You Are That!

"Only the Truth is and you are That!

You Are the unchanging Awareness in which all activities takes place. To deny this is to suffer, to know this is Freedom.

It is not difficult to realize this because it is your True Nature. Simply Inquire 'Who am I?' and Watch Carefully. Do not make effort and do not stir a thought. Look within, approach with all-devotion and stay as Heart. Keep vigilant and you will see that nothing will arise.

This is the trick of how to keep the mind quite and how to win Freedom. This doesn't take time because Freedom is always Here. You simply have to watch: where does mind arise from? Where does thought come from? What is the source of this thought? Then you will see that you have always been Free and that everything has been a dream."

Source: From the book "The Truth Is"- A collection of discourses and dialogues with Papaji

The Transformational Power of Spiritual Books

Eckhart Tolle says that it is possible for a person to be spiritually awakened by reading a spiritual book, and lists three pre-conditions for this awakening to happen. Given below is the question posed to Eckhart and his response.

Q:Can a person be awakened spiritually by a book?

ET:Yes, if three conditions are met:

Firstly, there must be a readiness on the part of the reader, an openness, a receptivity to spiritual truth, which is to say, a readiness to awaken. For the first time in history of humanity, large numbers of people have reached that point of readiness, which explains why millions have responded so deeply to The Power of Now.

Secondly, the text must have transformative power. This means the words must have come out of the awakened consciousness rather than the accumulated knowledge of a person’s mind. Only then will a text be charged with that power, a power that goes far beyond the informational value of the words. That is why such a book can be read again and again and lose none of its aliveness.

Thirdly, the terminology used needs to be as neutral as possible so that it transcends the confines of any one culture, religion, or spiritual tradition. Only then will it be accessible to a broad range of readers world-wide, regardless of cultural background.

All these conditions were met in The Power of Now, which is why the book has had such an impact on the collective consciousness.

Source: Eckhart Tolle's website

The Sense of "I am" (Consciousness)

When I met my Guru, he told me: "You are not what you take yourself to be. Find out what you are. Watch the sense 'I am', find your real Self." I obeyed him, because I trusted him. I did as he told me. All my spare time I would spend looking at myself in silence. And what a difference it made, and how soon!

My teacher told me to hold on to the sense 'I am' tenaciously and not to swerve from it even for a moment. I did my best to follow his advice and in a comparatively short time I realized within myself the truth of his teaching. All I did was to remember his teaching, his face, his words constantly. This brought an end to the mind; in the stillness of the mind I saw myself as I am -- unbound.

I simply followed (my teacher's) instruction which was to focus the mind on pure being 'I am', and stay in it. I used to sit for hours together, with nothing but the 'I am' in my mind and soon peace and joy and a deep all-embracing love became my normal state. In it all disappeared -- myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world around me. Only peace remained and unfathomable silence.

Source: The book "I AM THAT"

Select Quotes on Meditation

Meditation doesn't lead you to silence; meditation only creates the situation in which the silence happens. And this should be the criterion- that whenever silence happens, laughter will come into your life. A vital celebration will happen all around. You will not become sad, you will not become depressed, you will not escape from the world. You will be here in this world, but taking the whole thing as a beautiful game, a big drama, no longer serious about it. Seriousness is a disease.

-OSHO-

Remember one thing: meditation means awareness. Whatsoever you do with awareness is meditation. Action is not the question, but the quality that you bring to your action. Walking can be a meditation if you walk alertly. Sitting can be a meditation if you sit alertly. Listening to the birds can be a meditation if you listen with Awareness. Just listening to the inner noise of your mind can be a meditation if you remain alert and watchful. The whole point is: one should not move in sleep. Then whatsoever you do is meditation.

-OSHO-

One conscious breath is meditation.

- Eckhart Tolle-

We know the outer world of sensations and actions, but of our inner world of thoughts and feelings we know very little. The primary purpose of meditation is to become conscious of, and familiar with, our inner life. The ultimate purpose is to reach the source of life and consciousness. Incidentally practice of meditation affects deeply our character. We are slaves to what we do not know; of what we know we are masters. Whatever vice or weakness in ourselves we discover and understand its causes and its workings, we overcome it by the very knowing; the unconscious dissolves when brought into the conscious. The dissolution of the unconscious releases energy; the mind feels adequate and become quiet.

- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj-

Meditation will help you to find your bonds, loosen them, untie them and cast your moorings. When you are no longer attached to anything, you have done your share. The rest will be done for you.

- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj-

The Difference Between "Awareness" and "Consciousness"

I am always amazed by the profundity and clarity of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj's words. There is a definitiveness behind his answers. To a question posed to him on the difference between Awareness and Consciousness, this is what he had to say. Most spiritual books, especially the New Age ones, use Awareness and Consciouness interchangeably. I was confused by these terms for a long long time, until I read "I AM THAT", Eckhart Tolle and OSHOs works.

Extract of a conversation with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj ('M' refers to Maharaj)

Q: You use the words 'aware' and 'conscious'. Are they not the same?

M: Awareness is primordial; it is the original state, beginningless, endless, uncaused, unsupported, without parts, without change. Consciousness is on contact, a reflection against a surface, a state of duality. There can be no consciousness without awareness, but there can be awareness without consciousness, as in deep sleep. Awareness is absolute, consciousness is relative to its content; consciousness is always of something. Consciousness is partial and changeful, awareness is total, changeless, calm and silent. And it is the common matrix of every experience.

Q: How does one go beyond consciousness into awareness?

M: Since it is awareness that makes consciousness possible, there is awareness in every state of consciousness. Therefore the very consciousness of being conscious is already a movement in awareness. Interest in your stream of consciousness takes you to awareness. It is not a new state. It is at once recognised as the original, basic existence, which is life itself, and also love and joy.

Q: Since reality is all the time with us, what does self-realisation consist of?

M: Realisation is but the opposite of ignorance. To take the world as real and one’s self as unreal is ignorance. The cause of sorrow. To know the self as the only reality and all else as temporal and transient is freedom, peace and joy. It is all very simple. Instead of seeing things as imagined, learn to see them as they are. It is like cleansing a mirror. The same mirror that shows you the world as it is, will also show you your own face. The thought 'I am' is the polishing cloth. Use it.

Source: I AM THAT, talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

How to make the mind steady

Q: How can I make my mind steady?

M: How can an unsteady mind make itself steady? Of course it cannot. It is the nature of the mind to roam about. All you can do is to shift the focus of consciousness beyond the mind.

Q: How is it done?

M: Refuse all thoughts except one: the thought 'I am'. The mind will rebel in the beginning, but with patience and perseverance it will yield and keep quiet. Once you are quiet, things will begin to happen spontaneously and quite naturally without any interference on your part.

Source: I AM THAT, dialogues with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Freedom From Suffering

The sage will give out in reply the supreme secret, confirmed by the [uniform] experience of all sages: ‘If you know yourself, there is no suffering for you. If you suffer [it only means that] you do not know yourself.’

‘Since you have no suffering in deep sleep, this suffering is only falsely ascribed to your Self. Realise the truth of yourself by the resolve to know it, and thereafter remain in your own true nature, which is bliss.’

The real Self transcends the mind and is therefore unaffected by pleasure and pain. These are in and of the mind alone. The proof of this is that these are experienced only when the mind is functioning – as in waking and dream – and not when the mind is still, as in deep sleep. To be free from suffering the only means, therefore, is to become aware of one’s real Self by the quest taught by Bhagavan, our Guru.

Source: Verses from the Ramana Para Vidyopanishad from David Godman's website

Selected verses on the Guru

I found this selection of verses on the Guru, from Guru Vachaka Kovai in David Godman's website. The link is "Selected verses on the Guru from Guru Vachaka Kovai"

The Guru Vachaka Kovai (GVK) by Sri Muruganar, a great devotee of Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi, is opined to be one of the most authoritative collection of Bhagavan's teachings. GVK acquires great sanctity, as Bhagavan is supposed to have read and approved the entire work, gave its title, and even composed some verses. This work has been published by Ramanashram in 2005.

Source: David Godman's website

Enlightenment

The word enlightenment conjures up the idea of some super-human accomplishment, and the ego likes to keep it that way, but it is simply your natural state of felt oneness with Being. It is a state of connectedness with something immeasurable and indestructible, something that, almost paradoxically, is essentially you and yet is much greater than you. It is finding your true nature beyond name and form. The inability to feel this connectedness gives rise to the illusion of separation, from yourself and from the world around you. You then perceive yourself, consciously or unconsciously, as an isolated fragment. Fear arises, and conflict within and without becomes the norm.

I love the Buddha's simple definition of enlightenment as "the end of suffering." There is nothing superhuman in that, is there? Of course, as a definition it is incomplete. It only tells you what enlightenment is not: no suffering. But what's left when there is no more suffering? The Buddha is silent on that, and his silence implies that you'll have to find out for yourself. He uses a negative definition, so that the mind cannot make it into something to believe in or into a superhuman accomplishment, a goal that is impossible for you to attain. Despite this precaution, the majority of Buddhists still believe that enlightenment is for the Buddha, not for them, at least not in this lifetime.

Excerpt from the Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle

Can Spiritual Practice Liberate Us?

For a long time, I was under the impression that a technique like meditation will bestow Self realisation. This view of mine was completely shattered, when I read the works of Eckhart Tolle, Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi, and Sri Lakshmanaswamy who had realised the Self in the Presence of Bhagavan.

Bhagavan and Sri Laksmanaswamy emphatically say that any form of spiritual practice can be helpful upto a point, but will not in itself bestow the final liberation. The state of Self-realisation happens when after much self-enquiry , and the Grace of the Jnani or the Self pulls back the mind and completely destroys the "I" thought.

Eckhart Tolle, when questioned by Andrew Cohen in the interview "Ripples on the Surface of Being", had this answer to the age old question on whether a spiritual practice can truly liberate us?

ET: I wouldn't say that the practice itself has the power to liberate. It's only when there is complete surrender to the now, to what is, that liberation is possible. I do not believe that a practice will take you into complete surrender. Complete surrender usually happens through living. Your very life is the ground where that happens. There may be a partial surrender and then there may be an opening, and then you may engage in spiritual practice. But whether the spiritual practice is taken up after a certain degree of insight or the spiritual practice is just done in and of itself, the practice alone won't do it.

18 Principles of a Spiritual Life

I found this link 18 Principles of a spiritual life in the Art of Living website. In this article, Sri Sri Ravishankar has nicely summarised the 18 timeless spiritual principles.

Nadi Shuddhi - Recommended by Swami Vivekananda

Take a deep breath and fill the lungs. Slowly throw the breath out. Take it through one nostril and fill the lungs, and throw it out slowly through the other nostril. Some of us do not breathe deeply enough. Others cannot fill the lungs enough. These breathings will correct that very much. Half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the evening will make you another person. This sort of breathing is never dangerous.

Source: The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda

What is Awareness?

You are walking. You are aware of many things - of the shops, of people passing by you, only unaware of one thing - and that is yourself. You are walking on the street, you are aware of many things, and you are only not aware of yourself? This is the awareness of the self, George Gurdjieff has called self-remembering. Gurdjieff says, "Constantly wherever you are, remember yourself."

The miracle of awareness is that you need not do anything except to be aware. whatsoever you are doing, go on doing one thing inside continuously, be aware of yourself doing it. You are eating- be aware of yourself. You are walking- be aware of yourself. You are listening, you are speaking - be aware of yourself. When you are angry, be aware that you are angry. In the very instant that anger is there, be aware that you are angry. This constant remembering of the self, creates a subtle energy, a very subtle energy in you. You begin to be a crystallised being.

Awareness is what makes you a master - and when I say a master, I do not mean a controller. When I say be a master, I mean be a presence, a continuous presence. Whatever you are doing, or not doing, one thing must constantly be in your consciousness, that you are.

The simple feeling of oneself, that one is, creates a center - a center of stillness, a center of silence, a center of inner mastery. It is an inner power. And when I say " an inner power", I mean it literally. That is why the Buddhas talk about the fire of awareness.- it is a fire. If you begin to be aware, you begin to feel a new energy in you, a new fire, a new life. And because of this new life, new power, new energy, many things that were dominating you just dissolve. You don't have to fight with them.

The first step in awareness is to be watchful of your body. Slowly, slowly one becomes alert about each gesture, each movement. And as you become aware, a miracle starts happening: many things that you used to do before simply disappear. Your body becomes more relaxed, more attuned, a deep peace starts prevailing even in your body, a subtle music pulsates in your body.

Then the second step is to start becoming aware of your thoughts- the same has to be done with the thoughts. Slowly the body and the mind will be in accord and not running in different directions. Then the third step is to become aware of your feelings, emotions and moods. Once you are aware of all three, they all become into one phenomenon, and then the fourth happens. Which you cannot do- it happens on its own accord, it is a gift from the whole. It is a reward for those who have done these three. And the fourth is the ultimate awareness that makes one awakened.

Source: The book "Awareness - The Key to Living in Balance" by OSHO

A Jnani Does Not Die Because He Was Never Born

Questioner: When an ordinary man dies, what happens to him?

Maharaj: According to his belief it happens, As life before death is but imagination, so is life after. The dream continues.

Q: And what about the jnani?

M: The jnani does not die because he was never born.

Q: He appears so to others.

M: But not to himself. In himself he is free of things -- physical and mental.

Q: Still you must know the state of the man who died. At least from your own past lives.

M: Until I met my Guru I knew so many things. Now I know nothing, for all knowledge is in dream only and not valid. I know myself and I find no life nor death in me, only pure being -- not being this or that, but just being. But the moment the mind, drawing on its stock of memories, begins to imagine, it fills the space with objects and time with events. As I do not know even this birth, how can I know past births? It is the mind that, itself in movement, sees everything moving, and having created time, worries about the past and future. All the universe is cradled in consciousness (maha tattva), which arises where there is perfect order and harmony (maha sattva).

As all waves are in the ocean, so are all things physical and mental in awareness. Hence awareness itself is all important, not the content of it. Deepen and broaden your awareness of yourself and all the blessings will flow. You need not seek anything, all will come to you most naturally and effortlessly. The five senses and the four functions of the mind -- memory, thought, understanding and selfhood; the five elements -- earth, water, fire, air and ether; the two aspects of creation -- matter and spirit, all are contained in awareness.

Q: Yet, you must believe in having lived before.

M: The scriptures say so, but I know nothing about it. I know myself as I am; as I appeared or will appear is not within my experience. It is not that I do not remember. In fact there is nothing to remember. Reincarnation implies a reincarnating self. There is no such thing. The bundle of memories and hopes, called the 'I', imagines itself existing everlastingly and creates time to accommodate its false eternity: To be, I need no past or future. All experience is born of imagination; I do not imagine, so no birth or death happens to me. Only those who think themselves born can think themselves re-born. You are accusing me of having been born -- I plead not guilty! All exists in awareness and awareness neither dies nor is reborn. It is the changeless reality itself.

All the universe of experience is born with the body and dies with the body; it has its beginning and end in awareness, but awareness knows no beginning, nor end. If you think it out carefully and brood over it for a long time, you will come to see the light of awareness in all its clarity and the world will fade out of your vision. It is like looking at a burning incense stick, you see the stick and the smoke first; when you notice the fiery point, you realise that it has the power to consume mountains of sticks and fill the universe with smoke. Timelessly the self actualises itself, without exhausting its infinite possibilities. In the incense stick simile the stick is the body and the smoke is the mind. As long as the mind is busy with its contortions, it does not perceive its own source. The Guru comes and turns your attention to the spark within.

By its very nature the mind is outward turned; it always tends to seek for the source of things among the things themselves; to be told to look for the source within, is, in a way, the beginning of a new life. Awareness takes the place of consciousness; in consciousness there is the 'I', who is conscious while awareness is undivided; awareness is aware of itself. The 'I am' is a thought, while awareness is not a thought, there is no 'I am aware' in awareness. Consciousness is an attribute while awareness is not; one can be aware of being conscious, but not conscious of awareness. God is the totality of consciousness, but awareness is beyond all -- being as well as not-being.

Source: "I AM THAT", talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Meditation on the feeling of "I" and the Inner Body - Are these techniques similar?

Just yesterday, I was flipping through the "Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle, and I was pleasantly surprised to find a meditation technique prescribed by him that resonates the methodology of the self-enquiry technique, recommended by Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi.

Eckhart Tolle in chapter 7 of his book "The Power of Now" recommends a meditation technique wherein we meditate on being aware of the entire inner energy field of our body, without any visual image, and simply focus on the inner feeling. By merging with the energy field of the inner body, there would be no longer be a duality of the observer and the observed, and in theprocess, we would merge with Being or the Self. To me, this technique is akin to the self-enquiry technique.

The self-enquiry technique explained in the book No Mind- I am the Self, by David Godman reads as follows:

"According to both Sri Ramana and Sri Lakshmana the "I" thought, rises from the Heart, identifies itself with the body and creates the illusion of an individuaal Self, by identifying itself with all the body's thoughts and perceptions. If one can focus all one's attention on the "I" thought that is, on the inner feeling of "I" or "I am", ignoring all other mental activities, then the 'I " thought will stop identifying with thoughts and perceptions and start to subside into its source, the Heart. When it has completely subsided into the Heart, the illusion of the individual self vanishes.

A careful reading of the above techniques suggests that both Eckhart Tolle and Bhagavan are suggesting holding on to the inner feeling of "I" or the "Inner Body". The difference seems only in the terminology and semantics.

Renunciation and the Householder

When asked by householder devotees for permission to renounce the world, and take up formal Sanyasa, Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharishi would advise them that it is easier for a householder to gain Jnana or liberation, than for a Sanyasi. I found a similar instruction by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, to a person who wanted to renounce the world, and take up Sanyasa.

Q: I am an adopted child. My own father I do not know. My mother died when I was born. My foster father, to please my foster mother, who was childless, adopted me -- almost by accident. He is a simple man -- a truck owner and driver. My mother keeps the house. I am 24 years now. For the last two and a half years I am travelling, restless, seeking. I want to live a good life, a holy life. What am I to do?

M: Go home, take charge of your father's business, look after your parents in their old age. Marry the girl who is waiting for you, be loyal, be simple, be humble. Hide your virtue, live silently. The five senses and the three qualities (gunas) are your eight steps in Yoga. And 'I am' is the Great Reminder (mahamantra). You can learn from them all you need to know. Be attentive, enquire ceaselessly. That is all.

'M' refers to Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Source: I AM THAT - Talks with Nisargadatta Maharaj

Discrimination leads to Detachment - Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

This is an extract from Chapter 23 of the classic "I AM THAT", dialogues with Nisargadatta Maharaj.


Maharaj: You are all drenched for it is raining hard. In my world it is always fine Weather. There is no night or day, no heat or cold. No worries beset me there, nor regrets. My mind is free of thoughts, for there are no desires to slave for.

Questioner: Are there two worlds?

M: Your world is transient, changeful. My world is perfect, changeless. You can tell me what you like about your world -- I shall listen carefully, even with interest, yet not for a moment shall I forget that your world is not, that you are dreaming.

Q: What distinguishes your world from mine?

M: My world has no characteristics by which it can be identified. You can say nothing about it. I am my world. My world is myself. It is complete and perfect. Every impression is erased, every experience -- rejected. I need nothing, not even myself, for myself I cannot lose.

Q: Not even God?

M: All these ideas and distinctions exist in your world; in mine there is nothing of the kind. My world is single and very simple.

Q: Nothing happens there?

M: Whatever happens in your world, only there it has validity and evokes response. In my world nothing happens.

Q: The very fact of your experiencing your own world implies duality inherent in all experience.

M: Verbally -- yes. But your words do not reach me. Mine is a non-verbal world. In your world the unspoken has no existence. In mine -- the words and their contents have no being. In your world nothing stays, in mine -- nothing changes. My world is real, while yours is made of dreams.

Q: Yet we are talking.

M: The talk is in your world. In mine -- there is eternal silence. My silence sings, my emptiness is full, I lack nothing. You cannot know my world until you are there.

Q: It seems as if you alone are in your world.

M: How can you say alone or not alone, when words do not apply? Of course, I am alone for I am all.

Q: Are you ever coming into our world?

M: What is coming and going to me? These again are words. I am. Whence am I to come from and where to go?

Q: Of what use is your world to me?

M: You should consider more closely your own world, examine it critically and, suddenly, one day you will find yourself in mine.

Q: What do we gain by it?

M: You gain nothing. You leave behind what is not your own and find what you have never lost -- your own being.

Source: "I AM THAT", Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

The Power of Humility

The power of humility, which bestows immortality, is the foremost among powers that are hard to attain. Since the only benefit of learning and other similar virtues is the attainment of humility, humility alone is the real ornament of the sages. It is the storehouse of all other virtues and is therefore extolled as the wealth of divine grace. Although it is a characteristic befitting wise people in general, it is especially indispensable for sadhus.

Since attaining greatness is impossible for anyone except by humility, all the disciplines of conduct such as yama and niyama, which are prescribed specifically for aspirants on the spiritual path, have as their aim only the attainment of humility. Humility is indeed the hallmark of the destruction of the ego. Because of this, humility is especially extolled by sadhus themselves as the code of conduct befitting them.

Moreover, for those who are residing at Arunachala, it is indispensable in every way. Arunachala is the sacred place where even the embodiments of God, Brahma, Vishnu and Sakti, humbly subsided. Since it has the power to humble even those who would not be humbled, those who do not humbly subside at Arunachala will surely not attain that redeeming virtue anywhere else. The Supreme Lord, who is the highest of the high, shines unrivalled and unsurpassed only because he remains the humblest of the humble. When the divine virtue of humility is necessary even for the Supreme Lord, who is totally independent, is it necessary to emphasize that it is absolutely indispensable for sadhus who do not have such independence? Therefore, just as in their inner life, in their outer life also sadhus should possess complete and perfect humility. It is not that humility is necessary only for devotees of the Lord; even for the Lord it is the characteristic virtue.

Source : An extract from Ramana Darsanam by Sadhu Natanananda

The Repetitive Nature of the Human Mind

The mind is a mechanism, it has no intelligence. The mind is a bio-computer - how can it have any intelligence? It has skill, but it has no intelligence; it has a functional utility, but it has no awareness. It is a robot; it works well but don't listen to it too much because then you will lose your inner intelligence. Then it is as if you are asking a machine to guide you, lead you. You are asking a machine which has nothing original in it - cannot have. Not a single thought in the mind is ever original, it is always a repetition. Watch: whenever mind says something, see that it is again putting you into a routine. Try to do something new and the mind will have less grip on you.

People who are in some ways creative are always easily transformed into meditators, and people who are uncreative in their life are the most difficult. If you live a repetitive life the mind has too much control over you - you cannot move away from it, you are afraid. Do something new every day. Don't listen to the old routine. In fact, if the mind says something tell it, "This we have been doing always. Now let us do something else." Even small changes... in the way you have always been behaving with your wife - just small changes; in the way you always walk - just small changes; the way you always talk - small changes. And you will find that the mind is losing its grip on you, you are becoming a little freer.

Source: OSHO

Self - Realisation

THE STATE WE CALL REALISATION IS SIMPLY being oneself, not knowing anything or becoming anything. If one has realized, he is That which alone is, and which alone has always been. He cannot describe that state. He can only be That. Of course we loosely talk of Self-realization for want of a better term.

That which is, is peace. All that we need do is to keep quiet. Peace is our real nature. We spoil it. What is required is that we cease to spoil it. For instance, there is space in a hall (room). We are not going to create space anew. We fill up the place with various articles. If we want space, all that we need do is to remove all those articles and we get space. Similarly, if we remove all the rubbish from the mind the peace will become manifest. That which is obstructing the peace must be removed.

Peace is the only Reality. Mukti or Liberation is our Nature. It is another name for us. Our wanting mukti is a very funny thing. It is like a man who is in the shade voluntarily leaving the shade, going into the sun, feeling the severity of the heat, making great efforts to get back into the shade, and then rejoicing ‘At last I have reached the shade, how sweet is the shade!’ We are doing exactly the same. We are not different from the Reality. We imagine we are different, i.e., we create the bheda bhava (the feeling of difference) and then undergo great sadhanas to get rid of the bheda bhava and realize the oneness. Why imagine or create the bheda bhava and then destroy it?

It is false to speak of realization. What is there to realize? The real is as it is, ever. How to realize it? All that is required is this: We have realized the unreal, i.e., regarded as Real what is unreal. We have to give up this attitude. That is all that is required for us to attain Jnana. We are not creating anything new or achieving something which we did not have before.

Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharishi on Self-realisation

Source : Gems from Bhagavan by Devaraja Mudaliar

Ripples on the surface of Being - An interview with Eckhart Tolle

Ripples on the surface of Being is an interview by Andrew Cohen, the founder of "What is enlightenment". This conversation discusses Eckhart's life and his teachings. I find this interview amazing because of the quality of questioning and the lucidity and authoritativeness of the answers. The title of this interview has been picked up from a response to a question on whether Eckhart Tolle perceives the world as real or unreal.

Recently I purchased a copy of the Yoga Vaasishtam, an authoritative work by the Sage Vasishta, and found in one of the stanzas, wherein the Sage has replied that the world appears to him like "Ripples on the surface of the Ocean". I guess the non-dual state as described by the Sage and Eckhart Tolle do seem similar, though Eckhart Tolle time and again reiterates the inadequacy of words to express the state of Being.

You may click on this link "Ripples on the surface of Being" to read the full text of the interview.

The glory & benefits of Arunachala Girivalam

Lord Shiva said:

WORSHIP me especially by circumambulating me everyday. For I, the Lord of Sonachala am pleased when devotees circumambulate me.

Gautama Rishi: As the Lord commanded I always live here and worship Arunachala.

Upon this Gowri asked the Sage: Knower of all dharmas! Gautama! Kindly describe to me the glory of circumambulating Arunachala. When is it to be done and how? Who are they who have till now circumambulated it and attained their objects? Who has attained the supreme state by doing so?

Gautama replied: ‘Goddess! Hear what the great Siva told me.

He said: While I abide gloriously on earth as Arunachala all the devatas and munis circumambulate Me.

At every step that one takes on the path round Me all the sins committed in one’s past lives are expiated. By circumambulating Me one obtains the merit of performing thousands of horse sacrifices, innumerable Vajapeyas (a particular sacrifice) and bathing in all the tirthas. Even a great sinner who has no good deed to his credit can attain all kinds of powers by circumambulating Me. Merit acquired by bathing in all the tirthas, by performing all the sacrifices, by studying all the scriptures and by following all the dharmas can be easily acquired by merely circumambulating Sonachala.

One attains this world, (i.e. the earth) at the first step, the middle world at the second step and the world of the devas at the third step. At the first step sins committed mentally are destroyed, at the second the sins committed by speech and at the third the sins committed by the body.

There are thousands of ashrams of munis and siddhas and abodes of devas around Me. I myself abide here always in the form of a Siddha worshipped by the devas. Let one imagine a divine abode gloriously existing within Me. What is known as Arunadri is really a Column of Effulgence. Meditating on this great Linga one should circumambulate it slowly. If one does so all sins will be
expiated. One will not be born again and will certainly become eternally one with Sonachala.

The moment one takes a step with the intention of circumambulating Sonagiri the very earth becomes extremely pure by coming into contact with the dust of one’s feet. At every point of the compass one should meditate and bring the palms together in praise and reverence. One should walk carefully, slowly and noiselessly. Before setting out a bath should be taken, clean clothes should be put on, sacred ash applied on the body, and rudraksha beads worn. While circumambulating one should meditate on Siva. Thousands of invisible manus, devatas, siddhapurushas and others accompany a devotee who circumambulates in this manner.

Therefore a wise man should, even amidst a crowd, tread with great care regarding the Hill as divine. One may also walk in the company of devotees singing the sacred names of Siva and dancing. Alms should be given on the way according to one’s means and one should remember Siva in the heart with love and devotion.

This Hill is incomprehensible, being beyond speech and thought. It is unapproachable, being a mass of fire. It is the Absolute and therefore called the Supreme.

A devotee who circumambulates the Hill on a Sunday penetrates the region of the Sun and attains Liberation. He gains the world of Siva. He who circumambulates the Hill on a Monday lives free from the afflictions of old age and death. He who circumambulates the Hill on a Tuesday is released from all debts and becomes an emperor. If pradakshina is done on Wednesday, he becomes omniscient and wise; on Thursday, he is worshipped by all the devas and attains fame as a guru. Circumambulation on a Friday brings prosperity and takes him to the abode of Vishnu; a Saturday pradakshina brings worldly success and averts the ill-effects threatened by the planets in one’s horoscope. If those who suffer from physical and mental ailments, as well as those who are weak and emaciated, circumambulate Me, their ailments are cured.

The nakshatras (stars) and the devatas (deities) presiding over the planets favour those who circumambulate the Hill. Tithi, karana, yoga, muhurta, hora etc., (divisions of time) are also favourably disposed.

The sound pra in the word pradakshina (circumambulation) means rooting out sins, da, granting desires, kshi, obliterating the fruits of karma and na, bestowing Liberation. This is the real meaning of the word pradakshina.

Arunachala Mahatmyam

The Technique of Self Enquiry

Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi states that the control of the mind , achieved by any way except the VICHARA (SELF-INQUIRY) will be only temporary, for the mind will invariably return to its spontaneous activities.

For Bhagavan and Sri Lakshmanswamy, the self-enquiry process happened spontaneously. I read in "The Power of Now" that Eckhart Tolle too had a similar spontaneous experience. Papaji used to say that people need to do self-enquiry just once properly, to realise the SELF.

The technique of self-enquiry is clearly explained in the books "No Mind- I am the Self" and "Living by the Words of Bhagavan", both by David Godman. Sadhu Om's "The Path of Ramana" is also very useful. The essential technique is not difficult to understand, but is quite difficult to practice. Both Bhagavan and Sri Lakshmanaswamy admit that the Self enquiry technique can be practiced by "ripe souls".

The technique of self-enquiry

Here's a brief description of the self-enquiry technique from the book, No Mind- I am the Self.

"According to both Sri Ramana and Sri Lakshmana the "I" thought, rises from the Heart, identifies itself with the body and creates the illusion of an individuaal Self, by identifying itself with all the body's thoughts and perceptions. If one can focus all one's attention on the "I" thought that is, on the inner feeling of "I" or "I am", ignoring all other mental activities, then the 'I " thought will stop identifying with thoughts and perceptions and start to subside into its source, the Heart. When it has completely subsided into the Heart, the illusion of the individual self vanishes.

As an aid to keeping one's attention on the "I" thought both Ramana Maharishi and Lakshmana Swamy recommend asking oneself 'Who am I?' or 'Where does this "I" come from?'.