Sri Ramana Maharshi
The next section is a continuation of the answer to the previous
question: 'Are there any other means for making the mind quiescent?'
Like breath control, meditation on a form of God,
repetition of sacred words and regulation of diet are mere aids for
controlling the mind. Through meditation on a form of God and through
the repetition of sacred words the mind becomes focused on one point. An
elephant's trunk is always moving around, but when a chain is given to
it to hold in its trunk, that elephant will go on its way, holding onto
the chain instead of trying to catch other things with it. Similarly,
when the mind, which is always wandering, is trained to hold onto any
name or form of God, it will only cling to that. Because the mind
branches out into innumerable thoughts, each thought becomes very weak.
As thoughts subside more and more, one-pointedness [of mind] is gained. A
mind that has gained strength in this way will easily succeed in
self-enquiry. Of all regulations taking sattvic food in moderate
quantities is the best. Through [this], the sattvic quality of the mind
gets enhanced and becomes an aid to self-enquiry.
A sattvic diet is one which is vegetarian and which also
excludes stimulating substances - such as chillies, tobacco, alcohol -
and food that is excessively sour, salty or pungent.
Some Indian systems of thought maintain that the mind is composed of three fluctuating components called gunas:
(a) sattva, purity or harmony.
(b) rajas, activity.
(c) tamas, inertia or sluggishness.
Since the type of food eaten affects the quality of the mind, non-sattvic foods promote
rajas and tamas. The sattvic mind is the most
desirable. One of the aims of spiritual practice is to increase the
sattvic component at the expense of
rajas and tamas.
Question: Is it possible for the vishaya vasanas, which come from beginningless time, to be resolved, and for one to remain as the pure Self?
Although vishaya vasanas, which have been
recurring down the ages, rise in countless numbers like the waves of an
ocean, they will all perish as meditation on one's real nature becomes
more and more intense. Without giving room even to the doubting thought,
'Is it possible to destroy all these
vasanas and remain as Self alone?' one should persistently
and tightly hold onto meditation on one's real nature. However great a
sinner one may be, one should, instead of lamenting, 'Oh, I am a sinner!
How can I attain liberation?' completely give up even the thought of
being a sinner. One steadfast in meditation on one's real nature will
surely be saved.
Question: How long should enquiry be practised? What is non-attachment?
As long as there are vishaya vasanas in the mind,
the enquiry 'Who am I?' is necessary. As and when thoughts arise, one
should, then and there, annihilate them all through self-enquiry in the
very place of their origin. Not giving attention to anything other than
oneself is non-attachment or desirelessness; not leaving the Self is
jnana [true knowledge]. In truth, these two
[non-attachment and desirelessness] are one and the same. Just as a
pearl diver, tying a stone to his waist, dives into the sea and takes
the pearl lying on the bottom, so everyone, diving deeply within himself
in a detached way can obtain the pearl of the Self. If one resorts
uninterruptedly to remembrance of one's real nature until one attains
the Self, that alone will be sufficient. As long as there are enemies
within the fort, they will continue to come out. If one continues to cut
all of them down as and when they emerge, the fort will fall into our
hands.
Question: Is it not possible for God or the Guru to effect the release of the soul?
God and Guru are, in truth, not different. Just as the
prey that has fallen into the jaws of the tiger cannot escape, so those
who have come under the glance of the Guru's grace will never be
forsaken. Nevertheless, one should follow without fail the path shown by
the Guru.
Remaining firmly in Self-abidance, without giving the
least scope for the rising of any thought other than the thought of the
Self, is surrendering oneself to God. However much of a burden we throw
on God, He bears it all. Since the one supreme ruling power is
performing all activities, why should we, instead of yielding ourselves
to it, think, 'I should not act in this way; I should act in that way'?
When we know that the train is carrying all the freight, why should we,
who travel in it, suffer by keeping our own small luggage on our heads
instead of putting it down and remaining happily at ease?
In the last three sections Bhagavan has used three terms,
swarupa dhyanam (meditation on one's real nature), swarupa smaranai (remembrance of one's real nature), and
atma chintanai (the thought of the Self) to indicate the
process by which one becomes aware of the Self. They should not be
understood to mean that one should try to focus one's attention on the
Self, for the real Self can never be an object of thought. The
benedictory verse of
Ulladu Narpadu explains what Bhagavan meant by such terms.
It asks the question, 'How to meditate on that reality which is called
the Heart?' since that reality alone exists, and it answers by saying,
'To abide in the Heart as it really is, is truly meditating.' That is to
say, one can be the Heart by 'abiding as it is', but one cannot
experience it as an object of attention.
This interpretation is confirmed by the sentence in the last extract from
Who Am I? in which Bhagavan equates atma chintanai (the thought of the Self) with
atma nishta (Self-abidance).
In a similar vein Bhagavan remarks later in the essay that
'always keeping the mind fixed in the Self alone can be called
self-enquiry'.
Question: What is happiness?
What is called happiness is merely the nature of the Self.
Happiness and the Self are not different. The happiness of the Self
alone exists; that alone is real. There is no happiness at all in even a
single one of the [many] things in the world. We believe that we derive
happiness from them on account of
aviveka [a lack of discrimination, an inability to
ascertain what is correct]. When the mind is externalised, it
experiences misery. The truth is, whenever our thoughts [that is, our
desires] get fulfilled, the mind turns back to its source and
experiences Self-happiness alone. In this way the mind wanders without
rest, emerging and abandoning the Self and [later] returning within. The
shade under a tree is very pleasant. Away from it the sun's heat is
scorching. A person who is wandering around outside reaches the shade
and is cooled. After a while he goes out again, but unable to bear the
scorching heat, returns to the tree. In this way he is engaged in going
from the shade into the hot sunshine and in coming back from the hot
sunshine into the shade. A person who acts like this is an
aviveki [someone who lacks discrimination], for a discriminating person would never leave the shade. By analogy, the mind of a
jnani never leaves Brahman, whereas the mind of
someone who has not realised the Self is such that it suffers by
wandering in the world before turning back to
Brahman for a while to enjoy happiness. What is called
'the world' is only thoughts. When the world disappears, that is, when
there are no thoughts, the mind experiences bliss; when the world
appears, it experiences suffering.
Question: Is not everything the work of God?
In the mere presence of the sun, which rises without
desire, intention or effort, the magnifying glass emits hot light, the
lotus blossoms and people begin, perform and cease their work. In front
of a magnet a needle moves. Likewise, through the mere influence of the
presence of God, who has no
sankalpa [intention to accomplish anything], souls, who
are governed by the three or five divine functions, perform and cease
their activities in accordance with their respective karmas. Even so, He
[God] is not someone who has
sankalpa, nor will a single act ever touch him. This
[untouchability] can be compared to the actions of the world not
touching the sun, or to the good and bad qualities of the elements
[earth, water, fire and air] not affecting the immanent space.
Sankalpa means 'resolve', 'will', or 'intention'. God has no personal
sankalpa. That is to say, He does not decide or even think
about what he should do. Though mature devotees 'bloom' on account of
his presence, it is not because He has decided to bestow His grace on
these fortunate few. His presence is available to all, but only the
mature convert it into realisation.
The three divine functions are creation, sustenance and
destruction. The five divine functions are these three plus veiling and
grace. According to many Hindu scriptures, God creates, preserves and
eventually destroys the world. While it exists, He hides His true nature
from the people in it through the veiling power of
maya, illusion, while simultaneously emanating grace so
that mature devotees can lift the veils of illusion and become aware of
Him as He really is.
Question: For those who long for release, is it useful to read books?
It is said in all the scriptures that to attain liberation
one should make the mind subside. After realising that mind control is
the ultimate injunction of the scriptures, it is pointless to read
scriptures endlessly. In order to know the mind, it is necessary to know
who one is. How [can one know who one is] by researching instead in the
scriptures? One should know oneself through one's own eye of knowledge.
For [a man called] Rama to know himself to be Rama, is a mirror
necessary? One's self exists within the five sheaths, whereas the
scriptures are outside them. This self is the one to be enquired into.
Therefore, researching in the scriptures, ignoring even the five
sheaths, is futile. Enquiring 'Who am I that am in bondage?' and knowing
one's real nature is alone liberation.
In self-enquiry one is enquiring into the nature and origin of the individual self, not the all-pervasive
Atman. When Self appears in capitals, it denotes Atman, the real Self. When self it appears in lower case, it refers to the individual.
The five sheaths or kosas envelop and contain the individual self. They are:
(1) annamayakosa, the food sheath, which corresponds to the physical body.
(2) pranamayakosa, the sheath made of prana.
(3) manomayakosa, the sheath of the mind.
(4) vijnanmayakosa, the sheath of the intellect.
(5) anandamayakosa, the sheath of bliss.
Sheaths two, three and four comprise the subtle body
(sukshma sarira) while the fifth sheath, called the causal body, corresponds to the state of the individual self during sleep.
The individual 'I' functions through the five sheaths. Practitioners of the
neti-neti '(not this, not this') type of sadhana reject their association with the five sheaths in the way described in the second paragraph of
Who Am I? The idea behind this practice is that if one
rejects all thoughts, feelings and sensations as 'not I', the real 'I'
will eventually shine in a form that is unlimited by or to the sheaths.
Keeping the mind fixed in the Self at all times is called self-enquiry, whereas thinking oneself to be
Brahman, which is sat-chit-ananda [being-consciousness-bliss], is meditation. Eventually, all that one has learnt will have to be
forgotten.
One can distinguish different levels of experience in the
practice of self-enquiry. In the beginning one attempts to eliminate all
transient thoughts by concentrating on or looking for the primal
'I'-thought. This corresponds to the stage Bhagavan described earlier in
the essay when one cuts down all the enemies, the thoughts, as they
emerge from the fortress of the mind. If one achieves success in this
for any length of time, the 'I'-thought, deprived of new thoughts to
attach itself to, begins to subside, and one then moves to a deeper
level of experience. The 'I'-thought descends into the Heart and remains
there temporarily until the residual
vasanas cause it to rise again. It is this second stage
that Bhagavan refers to when he says that 'keeping the mind fixed in the
Self alone can be called self-enquiry'. Most practitioners of
self-enquiry will readily admit that this rarely happens to them, but
nevertheless, according to Bhagavan's teachings, fixing the mind in the
Self should be regarded as an intermediate goal on the path to full
realisation.
It is interesting to note that Bhagavan restricts the term
'self-enquiry' to this phase of the practice. This unusual definition
was more or less repeated in an answer he gave to Kapali Sastri:
Q: If I go on rejecting thoughts, can I call it vichara [self-enquiry]?
A: It may be a stepping stone. But real vichara begins when you cling to yourself and are already off the mental movements, the thought
waves.(8)
The following optimistic answers by Bhagavan, on keeping the
mind in the Heart, may provide encouragement to those practitioners who
often feel that such experiences may never come their way:
Q: How long can the mind stay or be kept in the Heart?
A: The period extends by practice.
Q: What will happen at the end of that period?
A: The mind returns to the present normal state. Unity in the
Heart is replaced by a variety of perceived phenomena. This is called
the outgoing mind. The Heart-going mind is called the resting mind.
When one daily practises more and more in this manner, the mind
will become extremely pure due to the removal of its defects and the
practice will become so easy that the purified mind will plunge into the
Heart as soon as the enquiry is
commenced. (9)
Bhagavan noted that 'thinking oneself to be Brahman… is meditation', not enquiry. Traditional advaitic sadhana
follows the path of negation and affirmation. In the negative
approach, one continuously rejects all thoughts, feelings and sensations
as 'not I'. On the affirmative route one attempts to cultivate the
attitude 'I am
Brahman' or 'I am the Self'. Bhagavan called this latter
approach, and all other techniques in which one concentrates on an idea
or a form, 'meditation', and regarded all such methods as being indirect
and inferior to self-enquiry.
Q: Is not affirmation of God more effective than the quest 'Who
am I?' Affirmation is positive, whereas the other is negation. Moreover,
it indicates separateness.
A: So long as you seek to know how to realise, this advice is
given to find your Self. Your seeking the method denotes your
separateness.
Q: Is it not better to say 'I am the Supreme Being' than ask 'Who am I?'
A: Who affirms? There must be one to do it. Find that one. Q: Is not meditation better than investigation?
A: Meditation implies mental imagery, whereas investigation is
for the reality. The former is objective, whereas the latter is
subjective.
Q: There must be a scientific approach to this subject.
A: To eschew unreality and seek the reality is scientific.(10)
Question: Is it necessary for one who longs for release to enquire into the nature of the
tattvas?
Just as it is futile to examine the garbage that has to be
collectively thrown away, so it is fruitless for one who is to know
himself to count the numbers and scrutinise the properties of the
tattvas that are veiling the Self, instead of collectively throwing them all away.
Indian philosophers have split the phenomenal world up into many different entities or categories which are called
tattvas. Different schools of thought have different lists of tattvas,
some being inordinately long and complicated. Bhagavan encouraged his
devotees to disregard all such classifications on the grounds that,
since the appearance of the world is itself an illusion, examining its
component parts one by one is an exercise in futility.
Question: Is there no difference between waking and dream?
One should consider the universe to be like a dream. Except that waking
is long and dreams are short, there is no difference [between the two
states]. To the extent to which all the events which happen while one is
awake appear to be real, to that same extent even the events that
happen in dreams appear at that time to be real. In dreams, the mind
assumes another body. In both the dream and the waking [states] thoughts
and names-and-forms come into existence simultaneously.
The final two paragraphs of the essay are taken from an answer to a question that has already been given:
Question: Is it possible for the vishaya vasanas, which come from beginningless time, to be resolved, and for one to remain as the pure Self?
There are not two minds, one good and another evil. The mind is only one. It is only the
vasanas that are either auspicious or inauspicious. When the
mind is under the influence of auspicious tendencies, it is called a
good mind, and when it is under the influence of inauspicious
tendencies, a bad mind. However evil people may appear, one should not
hate them. Likes and dislikes are both to be disliked. One should not
allow the mind to dwell much on worldly matters. As far as possible, one
should not interfere in the affairs of others. All that one gives to
others, one gives only to oneself. If this truth is known, who indeed
will not give to others?
If the individual self rises, all will rise.
If the individual self subsides, all will subside. To the extent
that we behave with humility, to that extent will good result. If one
can continuously control the mind, one can live anywhere.
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