From 'Knowing the Self, To Being the Self'
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P: Let’s talk about Ramana Maharshi’s famous ‘enlightenment experience’ that occurred when he was 17 years old. I think it can shed a lot of light on this subject of knowing what the Self actually is. I copied it from the board in the new hall next to Mother’s Shrine in Ramana’s ashram. “I felt I was going to die and that I had to solve the problem myself, there and then. The shock of the fear of death drove my mind inwards and I said to myself mentally without forming the words. Now death has come, what does it mean? What is it that is dying? This body dies. And I at once dramatized the occurrence of death. I lay with my limbs stretched out still as though rigor mortis had set in and imitated a corpse so as to give greater reality to the enquiry. I held my breath and kept my lips tightly closed so that no sound could escape so that neither the word ‘I’ nor any other word could be uttered. “Well then,” I said to myself, “The body is dead. It will be carried stiff to the burning ground and there reduced to ashes. But with the death of the body am I dead? Is the body ‘I?’ It is silent and inert but I could feel the full force of my personality and even the voice of the ‘I’ within me, apart from it. So I am spirit transcending the body. The body dies but the spirit that transcends it cannot be touched by death. That means that I am the deathless spirit.” All this was not a dull thought. It flashed through me vividly as living truth, which I perceived directly, almost without thought process. ‘I’ was something very real, the only real thing about my present state, and all the conscious activity connected with my body was centred on that “I”. From that moment onwards the ‘I’ or ‘Self’ focused attention on itself by a powerful fascination. Fear of death had vanished once and for all. Absorption in the Self continued unbroken from that time on. Other thoughts might come and go like the various notes of music but the ‘I’ continued like the fundamental sruti note that underlies and blends with all other states. Whether the body was engaged in talking, reading, or anything else I was still centred on the ‘I’. Previous to that crisis I had felt no perceptible or direct interest in it, much less any inclination to dwell permanently in it.” R. First, this is a typical Self-experience. Let’s not pretend that it is very rare. It happens somewhere to someone every day. There is a now a vast literature of these kinds of experiences. The first thing one notices is the statement, “…the shock of the fear of death drove my mind inwards.” The mind previously was facing the world. Now it is looking inwards. Spiritual literature is forever reminding us “The Truth dwells within.” And then we have Ramana’s reaction to the experience. This to me is an important aspect and it reveals the nature of Ramana’s mind very clearly. Ordinarily when we have intense experiences involving great pleasure or great pain our emotions take over and cloud our appreciation of the experience. We either get so frightened we can’t report what happened accurately or we get so ecstatic we can’t report what happened accurately. But Ramana stayed cool as a cucumber. He asked himself, “Now death has come, what does it mean? What is it that is dying? This body dies.” I mentioned earlier that Vedanta is concerned with meaning. Here you have it. Here you have an inquiring mind, one not fascinated by the experience, one seeking to understand the experience. Although perhaps the majority of the people coming through here are experience happy there are quite a few who have this kind of mind to some degree. They want to know. But very few have it to the degree that Ramana did. This shows that he was a jnani, a lover of knowledge. And using logic he draws the right conclusion, “This body dies.” Already we can see by implication that he knows he is other than the body. He has completely objectified it. Then he does quite an interesting thing, he dramatizes it ‘to give greater reality to the enquiry.’ The rest of his musings up to ‘it is silent and inert’ are just further confirmation of his understanding that he is not the body. Then we come to the realization of the Self. This is the positive side, what happens when the world is negated. He says, “…but I could feel the full force of my personality and even the voice of the ‘I’ within me, apart from it.” The word ‘personality’ is quite interesting. I don’t know if this was an accurate translation of Ramana’s words. But what he meant was the jivatman, the Self embodied as an individual. I’m sorry to use these Sanskrit terms but there is simply no English equivalent. The Self is unembodied, but it is capable of ‘assuming’ bodies. And one of the subtle ‘bodies’ it assumes is the jivatman. The other is the causal body called the karana sharira. Ok, we can call it the soul of the person. So now he is aware of the dead body and the subtle body. What is called the personality and ‘even the voice of the ‘I’ within me, apart from it.’ You see the whole structure of the inner world. Then, he concludes correctly, ‘so I am spirit transcending the body.” He has answered the ‘who am I?” question, which up to this point he had never even considered. And then he describes jnanam, knowledge. “All this was not a dull thought. It flashed through me vividly as living truth which I perceived directly, almost without thought process.” When you have any experience the knowledge of that experience arises in the mind. This knowledge needs to be grasped, owned, if you will. In this case (as the Self) he witnessed the knowledge ‘flashing vividly through me as living truth.’ P: So how does this relate to liberation? R. Many people have these kinds of experiences but do not realize that they are ‘spirit transcending body.’ It is this knowledge that is called liberation. Why is it liberation? Because thinking you are the body is a huge problem. It makes the world and everything in it real. But as the Self the world appears as a kind of dream that one knows to be a dream…so all the experiences you have in it can’t bind you. In the next statement he addresses this issue of what is real. He says, “ ‘I’ was something very real, the only real thing about my present state, and all the conscious activity connected with my body was centered on that ‘I’.” This is knowledge. The ‘I’ is real. The body/mind isn’t. P: Surely, if it is the Self it has to be real, doesn’t it? R. That’s a good point. The answer is ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ Yes, because if the Self is everything and the Self alone is real and there is such a thing as the body/mind it has to be real. There is a statement in the Vedanta that says, ‘Brahma satyam, jagan mithya.’ It means the limitless Self is real, the world (read body/mind) is apparently real. Real is defined in spiritual science as what never changes, last’s forever. So experience and the body don’t fit that definition. But experience isn’t actually unreal either. It has a peculiar status, neither completely real, nor completely unreal. There is a famous Vedantic text, the Vacarambana Sruti that explains how it is. I won’t digress into it because we are just getting to the essence of Ramana’s experience. There is one more thing to understand here and that is that Ramana is not quite through with the process he’s experiencing. He is at the intermediate stage. Before this experience came and he realized he was the Self he thought that the body was real. But this experience has shown him that with reference to the Self the body is not real. It is absolutely important that he completely negate his belief in the reality of the body. So he has to say that it isn’t real. Then later, when the knowledge that he is the Self is completely firm, he can take the body back as real because it is non-separate from him. The only actual problem with the body is the belief that it is an independent entity and that the ‘I’ depends on it. But Ramana realized that the ‘I’ was free of the body. He says and this is very important, ‘…all the conscious activity connected with my body was centered on that “I”. People who are ignorant that they are the immortal Self, what you would call materialists, believe that the ‘I’ is centered on the body, that it is the body that gives life to the ‘I.’ But scripture and direct experience shows that the body is centered on the ‘I.’ In other words the ‘I’ is the living principle and the body is just matter. Ramana realized that fact. Now the next statement is very difficult to understand. In a way we would have been a lot happier if Ramana just packed up his meditation carpet and stole silently away into the night. He’s the Self and he knows it. Shouldn’t that be the end? But as usual life always has another surprise in store. He says, “From that moment onwards the ‘I’ or ‘Self’ focused attention on itself by a powerful fascination.” Which ‘I’ did what? If I’m the ‘I,’ the one without a second, how do we get two ‘I’s here? Has Ramana lost his realization? How can the Self be fascinated with anything? It would only be fascinated if it felt there was something to experience or know. But we know that it is whole and complete, lacking nothing, so why is it acting as if it weren’t? Furthermore if it is Self aware it is already ‘focused’ on itself. This experience was not the end. In fact it was just the beginning of Ramana’s spiritual journey. He has just become Self realized but he has not become enlightened. P: What do you mean by that? R. The last paragraph, Whether the body was engaged in talking, reading, or anything else I was still centered on the Self. Previous to that crisis I had felt no perceptible or direct interest in it, much less any inclination to dwell permanently in it shows us clearly that he thinks of the Self as an object and he sees himself as separate from it. He is seeing it, experiencing it. It would remain as as a permanent experience but he has yet to see himself solely as the non-dual Self. He does. He gets there. We don't know when, probably during his meditation phase when he was living in the caves, but he gains the last little bit of knowledge. P: How do you know? R. The language. Let’s take the language at face value. Ramana was a very straightforward person. He says, “Absorption in the Self continued unbroken from that time on.” So the natural question is “who is absorbed in what?” It seems that the Self was absorbed in itself (by that I think he meant that he, Ramana (who had just realized that he was the Self) was absorbed in the Self that he had realized. This would be a statement that would indicate enlightenment. But a couple of sentences later he says, “I was centered on the ‘I’.” (Meaning Ramana as ‘mind’ was centered on Ramana as Self.) And one gets the impression that the first ‘I’ was different from the second. This is a statement of the Self-realization phase of the spiritual journey. And it fits in with the Self-enquiry that Ramana taught, which was based on his own experience and backed by scripture. One of the definitions of Self-enquiry that Ramana gives is “Holding the mind on the Self is enquiry.” So here he is, a young boy of seventeen who didn’t have a clue about the Self, with his mind fixed permanently on the Self. P: How does one go from Self-realized to enlightenment? How does it happen? R. You keep watching the Self. You stay alert, which is not hard because the Self is very beautiful. And the more you watch it the more it sets you to thinking. You become fascinated. The words Ramana uses are ‘a powerful fascination.’ When you’re in this phase you need a cave or something like it. You do not want to be in the world. If you stay in the world there is a danger that your connection will be broken. You fall in love. When you are in love you do not stop thinking. One thing that we need to point out here is very important. You know how I have been saying that this belief that the mind has to stop completely is not true, that it does happen but it need not happen, that having a dead mind can be a big problem? P: Yes. R. Well, it’s clear by Ramana’s own admission that his mind had not stopped completely. He says, “Other thoughts might come and go like the various notes of music…” This ‘state’ he is ‘in’ is savikalpa samadhi to use the Yogic term. It is a state of clear seeing in which vikalpas, thoughts, arise and fall. But the thoughts do not obscure your vision of the Self. This is very important. Ramana says so. Anyway, where was I? Love. You fall in love. When you are in love you do not stop thinking. On the contrary, you think more, you want to know what your beloved is, what he or she is doing. This thinking is enquiry. Ramana already had the knowledge from his experience to guide him in his enquiry. He knew about himself and the “I beyond the body.” You are getting it all straight about who you are and what your relationship is to this beautiful being. And then one day something happens, we cannot say when, it just happens if you stay focused on the beloved. There is an Aha! And at that moment the you that were looking at the Self ‘becomes’ the Self. There is actually no becoming. You were it all along. The becoming is recognition, a knowing. But the ‘becoming’ changes your perspective. You are no longer the jivatman looking in at the Self, the paramatman, you are the Self looking out at the jivatman. And what do you know? That the jivatman and the paramatman are one. Or in the words of the scripture, “Tat Tvam Asi,” That (Self) you are. Formulated from the Self’s perspective the words are “Aham Brahmasmi” I am limitless. Ramana the form is limited. Ramana the Self is unlimited. This is what Vedanta calls enlightenment. From that point on you do not abide ‘in’ the Self you abide ‘as’ the Self. You have only one non-dual identity. P: That’s a very important analysis that will help many people who are nearing the end of their spiritual journeys. |
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P: When Ramana was asked, “When will the realisation of the Self be gained?” He replied,“When the world which is what is seen has been removed there will be Realisation of the Self which is the seer.” So what does it mean to remove the world? S: These are single statements. This is where the defect comes. If you asked Ramana he would have given two hundred answers in two hundred situations. It all depends on your own emotions. P: In the world, people get the idea that they need to do twenty years of sadhana, sitting straight and facing a blank wall in order to empty their minds, to get away from their personality. ‘ I have to transform myself.’ This question is therefore suggesting something else. S: This is the language that Ramana had to use to convey his message to the people. Had he told the people, “ You are the Absolute,” what would they have understood? Supposing you ask a question, “ What is silence?” We are in this silent and beautiful place. The silence is spontaneous. Then take another instance, if we are in a big busy city like London or Manhattan and you ask, “ What is silence?” There is silence in that very place, but I have to take you to a park like St. James Park away from all the humdrum and then only you will know what is silence. Then when I take you back to the humdrum scene there is the same silence in spite of the sounds. So, to a beginner, when you speak this language, these are not the final statements. When you ask Ramana two hundred questions he will give you two hundred different answers. People will pick up only the line they find convenient. Supposing a person does not wish to study, he would argue that since Ramana did not study, why should he? In Ramana’s case he already understood. Thus having understood, why should he engage in unnecessary logic and discussions. Even if you are forty or fifty or seventy it does not just happen to you as your mind is already in a mess. You need the logic to counteract everything to understand the Self. So, when you say that everything has to be dropped off it is the language that speaks for the sake of the people. You want to talk of separating the chaff from the grain. Right now you can understand it. Who asks the question? We do not know for whom he had answered that question. If there was a matured soul asking a question he would not have answered at all. P: So the world out there is always existing. It depends on what is happening inside. Its relationship between the inside and the outside is what is important. For Westerners that would be interpreted as having to do twenty years of sadhana against a wall. S: That is the biggest mistake. They simply sit down. You cannot take away the world. They claim that they had been sitting down for so long what happened? Yes, by long time you are sitting down. Slowly, the mind gets tired, certain things drops off because you are keeping yourself away from immediate relationships and you are far away from the family and all human contact and there are no emotional upheavals. Suddenly you feel you must really be somebody. No! If you see somebody it is the absence of thought. The moment you return, the same problem begins because you are anesthesed but not operated on. P: So it is not about going away to a cave or leaving London in order to come to India. It is about something else, ‘removing the world’. S: You can do that also and study. You can create a cave or in your bedroom also. The teaching should be there. P: So, it is about understanding. S: Exactly! P: What is the understanding that takes away the world? S: Simple thing, pinpointing the " I. ". What is this? (He points to a mango.) P: This is a mango. S: Does it have a name, mango, or it is a name? Does it have a name mango or is it a name? I am asking you what it is and you are telling me what it has. What it is, is nameless. What it has, is a name. I now ask, “Who are you?” P: I can answer that, I am Premananda. S: See the mistake there. The moment you say, ' I am ' already you have given a name to yourself. You say, 'I,' she says, ' I,' that man says, ' I.' It is a universal first name. There is a masculine ' I,' feminine ' I,' American ' I,' Indian ' I,' Christian ' I,' Muslim ' I,' Hindu ' I.' ' I ' is a universal first name of everybody. Second name, you can go on adding names like David, Ram, Hari, Atma or Sudhananda etc. There can be millions of second names. Also added to that are one's degrees like PHD. Degree. Then there is another status like rich, poor, hungry man, thirsty man etc. Thus, everyone has second names. The first name itself is not known. Now, we are including so many names to the first name. When I ask your name, you reply Premananda. What is this? I am asking you,”Who you?” are and you are replying what you have. The first name is " I. " Then the name has a million names. P: So, we can say that the whole misery of the world depends on the wrong identification of "I?" S: Not only that. It does not depend on the wrong identification of the ' I.' It begins with the ' I ' itself which is a wrong identification. It is not the identity of the 'I.' It is the identity that the 'I' is.That is the first point. The other things are harmless. All the other identifications like mother, father, etc. are roles. Roles have individual problems. The 'I' is misunderstood. Instead of trying to understand 'I' people close their nose, do pranayama, sit straight in meditation, fast for ten days, sitting and meditating ten days in a cave. Whom are you punishing? ' I ' is the culprit, but the body is getting the punishment. P: What you are saying is very important for the western people, because it is common amongst the spiritual people in the Ramana Ashram who have been here for about fifteen years or so to be spending most of their time sitting in their room or in a cave. S: We actually cannot comment on that as some may be finding solace in doing so. Each one has one’s own belief. P: What I am attempting in this book is to show some light on his teachings. There is a wrong understanding that has crept into the spiritual life. People feel that some sadhana, be it mantras, pranayama or meditation or whatever suits the person has to be done in a conscientous manner over a period of time, in order to get something. S: No! When you are writing, just say the Truth clearly. The reason is that some people have their own belief and follow a certain religion. When you point out that a man is wrong, he will not accept it as he may be a Christian, Hindu or Muslim and is already following his own belief. He will not even listen. So you need only say what is correct. For example, in a classroom a teacher gives an exam paper. The students write down their answers. The teacher does not say who is right or wrong as it may create a complex in the class- room. So Ramana Maharishi did not have any student of his own. He did not teach a person or a group of people. However, now, many people come and claim that they are his devotees. They say that they themselves are the authority. In fact if they really understood, then they would not even name Ramana Maharishi because it is the teaching that is really important. In the tradition, if you look at the Upanishads, this is where the beauty comes. The Upanishads reveal and the Teacher will teach the Truth. When the students asks the Master or Teacher from where did he acquire all this knowledge, the teacher replies, "This is what has been heard." He does not lay claim that he is the one who is revealing it. P: So, when he says that, he is basically accepting the whole tradition. That tradition is being polished by many different people over the centuries. S: Exactly! Polished or unpolished! Everyone adds his own personal spices and turns it into a new religion. As a result, people are confused. It is not the mistake of the Scriptures but the mistake of the people who teach it. Ramana was so wonderful and direct. I always say that you do not need to interpret Ramana because he has all his beliefs in the original Tamil language. One should go to the Tamil Script straight if he knows the Tamil language. The other solution is to read Ramana's works like Upadesa Saranam, Sad Darshan etc. They are very beautiful. The Slokas there are very clear and they are direct, without any beating around the bush P: Can you make some simple unfolding of the basic understandings, because in some ways, it is not really a Teaching, it is more like a simple understanding. S: Yes! It is true. It is really simple understanding. For instance, I take you into a garden and show you all the things present there. I am not creating anything new. I am merely introducing you to all the existing things, like the trees like the mango, coconut, banana, neem, palm trees, etc. I can introduce you to everything but I cannot introduce you to yourself, because I take it for granted that you are you. Ok? Now, go to your mind. What you understand as teaching is an introduction where the Teacher is taking you for a tour in the garden of your mind, this thought, the emotions, impulses, hatred, jealousy and other built up emotions, everything I should introduce you to, but I should introduce you to the I thought. The ‘I’ is most important because all other thoughts depend upon the ' I ' thought. In the same way, you take a child for a walk in the garden or into a departmental store and show him to all the items to his interest there. Just as I introduce you to everything on the ground but not the ground, there also, people do the same thing. They introduce you to the thoughts, they do not introduce you to the ‘I’ thought. They do not introduce you to ground on which the ‘ I – thought’ is standing. So this is a perception. All cannot become an engineer, doctor or philosopher etc. He need not be. However, everyone has to be himself. P: In Ramana’s teaching of Self Enquiry, he states that everyone, no matter what his profession may be, whether he is a doctor, gardener, etc. he should constantly ask himself, “Who is doing this? What is the source of this action?” He wants you to go back to this question. S: Though it sounds very easy, it is very difficult, not everyone can do it. Ramana could do it and so he could consciously realize the Self. The one who does not know his self, how can he possibly meditate? For example, has anyone been able to find an answer by merely repeating a question? If I say, “ What is the distance between the earth and the sun?” Can I know that the answer is 9,000 miles by repeating the question? So what is repeated is a Revealation. Someone introduces you to it. Once you grasp it, you reveal it. To make it a Reality you have to think it over. Knowledge has two steps. All this is traditional knowledge from the Upanishads. What I am actually giving you is the tip of the iceberg. Every knowledge has a first step. I asked you, “David, where are you from?” You replied that you are from New York. So, you gave me that information. I do not know that place, so in order to convert that information into knowledge I have to go to New York. That is the only way for me to understand and see for myself. You cannot merely look at a picture of the Himalayas in order to know what the place is like. In order to convert the information into knowledge one has to go to the Himalayas. The picture is not what it stands for. If I give you the information of yourself, who you are, to convert that information into knowledge where should you go? Where do you have to go? P: To practice Self Enquiry you have to go to your Self. S: Exactly! |
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P: Swamiji I would like to talk to you about this book “Who Am I” – the teachings of Ramana Maharishi. Can I start by asking you, “Who Are You?” T. Swami says that everything is ‘One’. That ‘One’ is Swamiji. You are also that ‘One’. There is nothing other than that ‘One’ – that Brahman. In an ocean there are bubbles, waves, and so many things, yet the substratum is only water. There are 84 lakhs of species in the creation but for everything the substratum is only ‘One’. This ‘One’ manifests in different forms. P: Many Western seekers are looking for enlightenment and come to India searching for enlightenment, as if it was an experience and that they were going to experience something special. What is enlightenment? T. All of us are ‘That’ only. All people want to have enlightenment. But ‘That’ is now covered due to ignorance so when the ignorance goes away we come to know that we are ‘That’. Even now in the presence of ignorance we are ‘That’ only. Due to ignorance, we don’t know who we are. But when it goes away we are ‘That’. It is not a question of reaching something or gaining something, we are ‘That’. But now it is covered. We only have to remove the covering. P: What are the qualifications for enlightenment? Is sadhana necessary to remove this ignorance, and if it is, what does he suggest as the best sadhana to remove the ignorance? T. The mind is hooked to all forms and names. The same thing appears in different forms and names. When the mind is attached to these forms and names then in that moment all transaction takes place. Once you know all these are forms and names then the substratum is ‘One’. Only through knowledge does this take place. P: Does he suggest a particular sadhana, some practice to clear away this ignorance? T. This ‘One’ is beyond time. It is timeless, so to reach the timeless you have to go beyond time. That is why patience is very important. Without patience you cannot reach it. Sadhana is one hundred percent patience. There are four types of disciplines: viveka, vairagya, dispassion and shraddha. Swamiji says it is important to reduce worldly activities. The more your mind is engaged with activities the more the mind will become extroverted. With discipline you should regulate your mind and through dispassion try to eliminate unnecessary, unwanted jobs and transactions. You should also have an immense desire to be free. |