Commentary
on the Teachings of Ramana Maharshi
An interview with Ram (James Swartz)
conducted by
John Howells in January 2003,
at Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu,
JOHN:
I would like to ask you to comment on Ramana’s original teachings.
Ram:
Commenting on these texts is difficult.
Who knows what Ramana really said?
And who he said it to and why? In
a way it is better to check the scriptures and get it directly from the horse’s
mouth. They are much more comprehensive
and great minds have commented on them making the ideas more accessible. This kind of text is called smriti,
words based on personal experience. The
words may very well be true but they may not be true, or only partially true,
not necessarily because the person who uttered them was not enlightened
(although that is a distinct possibility these days when so many are claiming
enlightenment and pontificating mightily on its nature) but because he or she
was unable to properly express the subtle truths. So to see if there is anything worth
considering in the words of an enlightened soul one needs to check sruti,
the scriptures, (the Upanishads, Brahma Sutras, Bhagavad Gita) since it has
been purified of erroneous concepts and put in clear refined language. If statements based on personal experience, smriti,
does not jibe with sruti, scripture, then one needs to take a second
look at them.
To find out the true meaning we need to
look into the way words are used in this document. Translations of these teachings are valuable
but they are almost always beset with one major problem; the translator often
is not a Self realized person or if he is, his ability to express the
realization is unsophisticated…so you often get approximations of the true
meaning but not the true meaning. It is
always a problem.
JOHN:
Are there any other issues that make commenting on the words of a
jnani like Ramana difficult?
Ram: There is
one, a rather subtle but important point, nonetheless. And that is that the truth of any statement
depends on the point of view from which it was spoken and the point of view
from which it is viewed. So both a
statement and its opposite can be true.
Very often enlightened people speak of enlightenment from the relative
plane, even though they know that there is a perhaps higher or better or more
accurate way to express their vision.
But the person to whom they are speaking needs to be ready to hear it
that way and unless they are it is useless to speak from the ultimate standpoint. So if you didn’t know what the context was
you might conclude that the enlightened person wasn’t so enlightened. From one point of view the sun seems to rise
in the east and set in the west. From
another, the North Pole at the winter solstice, it seems to go around in a
circle. From the vastness of space it
seems to be a stationary point around which the earth is spinning.
JOHN: Looking at Ramana's text "Who am I" he is asked what
"Who am I ?" means.
Ram:
He answers with a typical Vedantic teaching, called the pancha kosas
or the five sheaths. It is found in the
Upanishads. He negates the five sheaths
(erroneous notions about one’s self) and when asked who he is (if he is none of
these) says, "that awareness which alone remains".
It is interesting to note that although
Ramana was a realized soul he did not ‘teach’ in the traditional Vedantic
way…which is to take a text on Self realization, the Bhagavad Gita or the
Upanishads or one of the many excellent Vedantic texts that have stood the test
of time, and unfold it verse by verse, word by word. It is quite a rigorous and formal
sadhana. The teacher not only needs to
be versed in the scriptures, which Ramana was, but the student need to be
qualified. The teachings are wielded
systematically on the student over a long period of time because the mind is
very resistant to this knowledge, even though it needs it badly and they strip
off the student’s self ignorance on the spot.
I suspect, although we have no way of knowing, that in this case Ramana
is probably answering a question by a curious person who is unfamiliar with
Vedic culture so he is just giving information, explaining the basic idea found
in the Upanishads... which has been
corroborated by his own experience.
JOHN:
What do you mean ‘strips away the student’s ignorance on the spot?
Ram: Most people,
particularly Westerners unfamiliar with the teaching tradition of Advaita
Vedanta, think Vedanta is just about studying scripture and therefore only
produces intellectuals, pundits they call them here, who know a bunch of
profound concepts…but are not Self realized.
And it is true that there are schools that produce pundits…which is not
all that bad …because the ideas need to be kept alive anyway. But Vedanta is not a belief system nor is it a
passive body of information that is meant to be interpreted according your own
tastes. It is a means of Self knowledge
that works in a very dynamic and practical way to remove the student’s
ignorance about who he or she is. And
very often enlightenment happens right in the classroom as the teacher is
unfolding the teachings. This is
possible because Vedanta says that you are already enlightened because you are
the Self and there is only one Self. All
that prevents you from knowing it are the erroneous notions you have about
yourself and the world. So assuming you
want to be free of your limiting views you expose yourself to the teaching and
it let it remove your ignorance.
JOHN: So what you’re suggesting here is that
Ramana is not trying to directly enlighten this person?
Ram: As I said, one
never knows because we weren’t there and we do not have access to Ramana’s
intentions. Of course he would always be
happy to enlighten someone but…and this is just a guess…what it feels like is
that you have a beginner who knows very little and Ramana is playing the role
of informant; he is just trying to make the idea known. There are many people
on the spiritual path who are not really serious about enlightenment or
qualified for it but who deserve answers to their questions. They are good people who have an interest,
sometimes a deep love of spirituality, and they hang out with the sages like
Ramana because they like hanging out with sages. It’s a nice life. Of course they would like enlightenment…who
wouldn’t?...but the downside for them is that it would ruin their seeking
lifestyle which has become an identity in itself. Nonetheless they feel the need to justify
themselves so they always have a number of profound questions. My guru used to say that such people were ‘in
love with their doubts.’ It means they
want to know but they really don’t want to know. I have no idea if this is the case with this
questioner, but it doesn’t seem to be a very natural question. If the questioner were an advanced seeker who
was really ready to know, he or she would probably not ask such a question or
ask it in this way. He or she would
already know the answer and know that asking such a question would not solve
the problem. Ramana was a very decent
kind person. He would probably take any
question at face value and answer it to the best of his ability.
JOHN: What about this idea that Ramana taught in
silence, that all you had to do was to sit in his presence and the silence
would enlighten you?
Ram: I suppose that
if you were completely qualified, absolutely ready to pop, you could just sit
in the presence of someone like Ramana and maybe figure out that you are whole
and complete limitless awareness. But
this is highly unlikely. People spend
years around such people ‘sitting in silence, enjoying the ‘energy’ but don’t
become enlightened. Usually people who
are highly qualified only have one or two very subtle doubts separating
themselves from jnanam, Self knowledge.
And usually they already know the answer… they just don’t have one
hundred percent confidence in it.
Experientially they have everything they need and all that is missing is
the knowledge of who they actually are.
So when they offer their ignorance to a sage like Ramana, who is an
authority and for whom they have respect and devotion, he can, with a few very
well chosen words, remove their ignorance.
Sometimes the person puts the question and gives the answer and the
teacher just nods…and that is it. Or
sometimes the teacher just asks a question in response to the student’s
statement and the student understands…without giving a verbal answer.
JOHN: So you’re
saying that words are better than silence?
Ram: Not better than
but at least as good. A thing and its
opposite may both be true and useful.
There is a kind of romantic myth about silence that does not serve
people spiritually. People are tired of
words and they want relief and this is understandable but if you are already
enlightened and don’t know it, then silence is not going to help. Silence will not remove your ignorance.
JOHN:
What do you mean by that?
Ram: Silence is
not opposed to Self ignorance or any kind of ignorance. They can coexist very nicely. But knowledge is opposed to ignorance and it
will destroy it. You start out thinking you’re limited but the fact is that you
are not limited. It may be that in
silence you will realize it but it wasn’t the silence that made you realize it,
it was the fact that you were doing some kind of enquiry…looking into the
nature of the silence and it lead you to the Self which you understood to be
you. This seeing is called jnanam,
knowledge. As I just said, you find
people who spend years sitting in silence alone and/or in the presence of a
mahatma and nothing happens. Sure, you
can argue that they are not ready to get it but if they were able to formulate
their doubt and express it to a jnani they might have it removed in a
second. So the right words spoken by the
right person at the right time can be just as effective as silence.
JOHN: This
is very interesting.
Ram: What I find
interesting is that Ramana does not actually use his own words to answer this
fellow. He is using the Upanishadic
words. Or he is so steeped in the tradition that the Upanishadic words have
become his words. He might be doing this
because he knows the difference between smriti and sruti and he
wants the words he uses to have the weight of the Upanishad. It shows the great respect he had for the
tradition. That he was a great
personality is undeniable, but he was not a ‘personality’ in the conventional
sense, like Aurobindo, who may have realized the Self but who felt the need to
convince the world of his greatness by redefining and attempting to more or
less rewrite the Vedas according to his own personal vision…which included the
whole notion of human evolution. This
notion is definitely outside the Upanishadic tradition which is concerned only
with removing ignorance of one’s limitless nature. Ramana wasn’t a do-gooder, trying to change
the world with some sort of messianic vision.
He saw the truth clearly and he expressed it in a straightforward manner…just
as it is expressed in the Upanishad.
If you look at this statement the question that will
naturally arise when Awareness is said to be the self is “What is this natural
awareness?” And Ramana, true to the
Upanishad, replies, "Existence ‑ Consciousness ‑ Bliss
(Sat ‑ Chit ‑ Ananda). If
Ramana were a traditional teacher and the question was actually heartfelt, then
he might have unfolded the exact meaning of these words so that the student
would realize the Self. It is not
enough to just give the words. We have all read hundreds of time and heard
every guru from Calfornia to
JOHN: You keep making this distinction between the
teaching style of Ramana and traditional Vedanta. What do you mean exactly?
Ram: Ramana wasn’t a traditional teacher but had a
great respect for the teaching tradition.
Let me see if I can explain what I mean.
There are two great traditions under the umbrella of Sanatana Dharma,
Vedic culture: Yoga and Vedanta. Yoga
deals with the experiential side (karma) of spiritual life and is actually
meant for the purpose of purifying the mind.
It is not a valid means of Self knowledge although yogi types sometimes
attain enlightenment, not because of their yoga but because they develop
inquiring minds as a result of all the subtle experiences that their practices
generate and intuitively draw the correct conclusion about the Self and their
identity with it….during or immediately after a profound epiphany…like Ramana
did during his ‘death’ experience…or by reflecting on their epiphanies over a
period of time. Millions of people have
the kind of experience Ramana did. I’ve
heard hundreds of such stories. But
almost no one becomes enlightened during a particular experience (although it
may feel like that) because they fail to grasp the meaning of the experience or
the importance of the one to whom the experience is occurring. It is the understanding that “I am the Self”
that needs to come out of Self experience.
JOHN: So it seems you need to come away from the
experience with the clear understanding of the fact that you are whole and
complete limitless awareness.
Ram: Vedanta acknowledges the importance of
experience but actually deals with the ‘meaning’ of experience. Any experience is only useful spiritually if
it shows you that you are whole and complete limitless awareness. If the experience leaves you incomplete and
separate, craving another Self experience, what use is it? This, of course, assumes that you are
striving to be free. Many have no idea
what liberation is or that it is actually possible so they just chase
experience. There are several meditators
here right now who have had all kinds of exceptional experiences for years, what
you could call Self experiences, but who remain as egos still striving to gain
something. Pure beautiful egos, to be
sure, but still unaware that they are limitless. The knowledge that the ‘I’ is actionless
awareness, as Ramana says, is called Vedanta, the knowledge that erases one’s
ignorance. What is that ignorance? The belief that the ‘I’ is limited,
inadequate, and incomplete, the belief in one’s self as a doer.
JOHN: So chasing experience isn’t the way to
go? You’re saying that you should be
looking for knowledge?
Ram: Yes, absolutely. It is quite rare to have a single experience
like Ramana and come away with the firm knowledge that ‘I am the Self’ and have
that knowledge stick for more than a few hours or days….a one a million chance.
He was either exceptional or lucky
although there really isn’t any particular advantage to waking up at young
age. He may have been graced but this
does not mean that his enlightenment was exceptional. He certainly didn’t behave as if it
were. Enlightenment is just
enlightenment and over time countless people have attained enlightenment in
many unusual circumstances. When you
realize that you are the Self it destroys your sense of being special or
unique.
But somehow he
understood that he needed understanding.
He was trying to figure out something and he just happened to be trying
to figure out the most important question, ‘Who am I?’ You can see this enquiry in the report of his
‘death’ experience. You have a very
bright young man making a scientific experiment, dispassionately observing what
was happening. This is the essence of
Vedanta.
JOHN: So you’re talking about Yoga and Vedanta
to give some sort of context to his enlightement?
Ram: Yes. Now that Ramana is getting fame it is rather
sad to see all these Western people coming to Tiruvannamalai with absolutely no
notion of the context of his enlightenment and his life, with no understanding
of the depth of the Vedic tradition and burdened with amazing and
ill-considered views of enlightenment based on their Ramana fantasies.
Anyway, Ramana’s type of realization,
because it did not occur at the feet of a guru in a traditional Vedantic
classroom, is more in line with the tradition of Yoga, although most yogis do
not become jnanis as Ramana did.
His lifestyle too, sitting in meditation in a cave, is more typical of
the yogic tradition than the Vedantic.
The reason yogis do not usually become jnanis is because
they have often been confused by the language of Yoga into thinking of enlightenment
as a permanent experience of samadhi.
So when the experience is ‘on’ they are not looking to understand
anything, they are simply trying to make the state permanent, sahaja. The joke is that enlightenment is not an
experience, nor is there any permanent experience. Furthermore, they do not realize that to
make an experience permanent one would have to be a doer, an agent acting on
the experience, maintaining it or controlling it or staying in it…which is a
dualistic state, not enlightenment.
JOHN:
This idea that enlightenment is not a particular experience is quite
revolutionary, isn’t it?
Ram:
It is and it isn’t. Let’s face
it, people are experience oriented…because they feel they need to get something
here. And after years of picking up
various experiences along the way they get totally conditioned to seeing
everything in terms of experience…how they feel about things. But experience is limited. And very dumb. It does not teach you anything. It can’t teach you anything…unless you are
out to learn something. So when a person
becomes disillusioned with experience and turns within to seek the Self he or
she will formulate the search in terms of experience. But a few rare people understand that seeking
experience, particularly the experience of enlightenment, is not the way to
go. In the old days many more people
sought understanding…perhaps because the more or less peaceful nature of
agrarian life produced more pure minds…who knows? The reason Ramana practiced self inquiry and
advises self enquiry is because the problem is ignorance. Experience does not remove ignorance. It is motivated by ignorance. Only knowledge removes ignorance. And you get knowledge by making an enquiry…or
being taught. Everybody starts out
chasing experience but the clever ones switch off it at some point and head for
knowledge.
JOHN:
So how would you express that knowledge?
Ram: The
negative way to express Self realization is “I am not the doer. I am not the enjoyer.” In Ramana’s case he realized “I am not the
body” because he found himself to be quite aware even as the body lay there
‘dead.’ “I am not the body” is the
equivalent of “I am not the doer” because the body is the doer. Ramana was called a jnani because he
gained knowledge of who he was during the experience. The experience finished after some time but
the knowledge of who he was remained permanently. It was there operating in the background
regardless of what experience he was having.
At the end of his life he must have been experiencing serious pain…and
wished he was dead…but his Self knowledge was unaffected. And he was unnaffected…because he was the Self. But the body/mind complex suffered.
JOHN: Most of
the people around here that I meet are looking for a particular experience and
think that Ramana was in some special state.
Ram: When a person becomes a deity or a myth a lot
is gained but a lot is lost too. You
gain an ideal and inspiration but you lose a practical connection with the
truth. Had Ramana realized in the
traditional Vedantic way, at the feet of a jnani who was teaching the
Upanishad he might have picked up the skill of wielding the means of knowledge
and may have gone on to enlighten hundreds…assuming the Lord sent that many
qualified people to him. This is not to
in any way diminish Ramana, but while he was sitting at the foot of Arunachala
teaching ‘in silence’ there were great Vedantic masters like Swami Chinmayananda
and his guru Swami Tapovan churning out many enlightened persons using the
traditional verbal methods passed down from the Lord through Shankara and other
great links in the tradition.
If you know the
real spiritual India, not just the export guru scene and the satsang
culture, you will understand that while enlightenment is rare with reference to
the total number of people on the planet there are tens of thousands of ‘fully’
enlightened people worldwide and particularly in India. I’ve lived here many years and was introduced
to the highest levels of Indian spirituality when I was quite young and I’ve
lived with a number of enlightened people of the same caliber as Ramana and
have personally met more than one hundred enlightened people. And this is just
JOHN: That sounds like heresy and contradicts
the conventional wisdom.
Ram: Yes, I suppose
it does. But conventional wisdom is
often wrong. It is rare but not as rare
as it is made out to be.
JOHN:
So what accounts for this belief?
Ram: When you
consider that human beings have been on the planet for a couple of million
years and that the Self pervades and informs every living being every second of
their existence and that the Self has been an object of worship and knowledge
forever and that it responds to any sincere desire to know it, and that the
soul transmigrates bringing with it the spiritual work it has done before, you
can not seriously believe that in any age there are only a handful of
enlightened people.
JOHN:
That make a lot of sense. Are there any other reasons why people
think it is so rare?
Ram: One source of ignorance accounting for this belief
is the ego’s lack of spiritual self confidence.
It always resists the truth and in fact often does everything it can to
sabotage one’s efforts to attain it. So
to keep it from doing the work, it imagines that only supermen are capable of
it. A more insidious source is the gurus
themselves…clever and powerful people who have had some kind of enlightenment
experience but who are not enlightened…who are suffering enlightenment sickness
i.e. the ego has carefully confused itself with the Self and built a new
identity as ‘an enlightened being’, which is used to gain typically egoic ends:
power, respect, pleasure etc. These
people have a vested interest in creating the impression that there are only a
handful of enlightened people because it makes their enlightenment seem more
rare and important. Today you will find
gurus who have mapped out their idea of the different ‘levels’ of enlightenment
and have conveniently put the famous gurus of the past and present on levels
lower than themselves. Or, at least,
where it was obvious that their fame was not as great as the ‘greats’, put
themselves on the same ‘level.’ People
are so abysmally ignorant spiritually nowadays that they unthinkingly swallow
this stuff.
JOHN: That’s not a very kind statement.
Ram:
Perhaps it isn’t, but it’s true.
In fact I’m happy to rant a bit more on the subject if you’ll permit me.
JOHN:
OK.
Ram:
One particular manifestation of this ignorance is the arrogance that one
sees in so called spiritual people. They
feel like they are superior to the religious crowd which they see as a bunch of
primitive dualists…separating themselves from God, wrapped up in forms,
etc. But the spiritual group is just as
guilty of holding irrational beliefs, ill-considered opinions, and
mind-boggling superstitions. A simple
belief in an external God looks downright sensible compared to some of the
views you hear expressed around here.
JOHN:
Like what?
Ram:
Like the idea that there is actually a column of light inside the mountain. Like the notion that there are eight hundred
invisible rishis circumambulating the mountain on the inner path in a
clockwise direction. Like the idea that
the guru can do your sadhana for you.
Let’s go back to my
original contention about Ramana seeming to be more of a yogi than a jnani. Ramana’s teachings can be confusing if one
does not understand the difference between Yoga and Vedanta because he used
both languages when he was speaking. The
language of Yoga is well-known and most people who came to him were not
qualified for enlightenment so he used that language. If you are not qualified it does no good to
try to enlighten someone with either words…or silence…because they are simply
incapable of getting it. So what Ramana
did was to encourage them to purify themselves by following a (yogic)
path…which typically involved some sort of yogic discipline and surrender to
God.
JOHN: What do you mean by ‘qualified for
enlightenment?’
Ram: Many Western people have no idea what sadhana
is. They actually think that they can
just get a ticket to
It’s true that you
are not a doer, but the you that is not a doer is the Self. The ego doesn’t become a non-doer by trying
not to ‘do’ anything. This sort of
teaching is very misleading because it is tailor made for the ego. It gives it the impression that it can have
its cake and eat it too. But it has
value too…for someone addicted to doing, someone whose self worth is tied up in
accomplishing things.
People are continually bewildered by the
fact that Ramana was supposedly a non-dual jnani and that he preached
religion and sadhana which is dvaita, duality. But he is completely in line with traditional
Vedanta on this issue. Purification is
at least as important as knowledge, perhaps more so, because without a clear
mind, you will not get knowledge, jnanam. This idea does not sit well with people
nowadays. They want it handed to them on
a platter. This accounts for the
popularity of the shaktipat gurus and the miracle makers. Around them you have a whole class of people
who actually believe that the guru is doing the work for them!
JOHN:
But Ramana didn’t do sadhana to get enlightenment.
Ram:
That’s true…but he certainly did sadhana after it. Knowing who he was, he need not have sat in
meditation in caves for many years, he could have gone home and eaten his mom’s
iddlys and played cricket. It was all the
same to him. But he didn’t. He decided to purify his mind. The glory of Ramana is not his
enlightenment. It was just the same as
every other enlightenment that’s ever been.
His glory was his pure mind.
He polished his mind to such a degree that it was particularly radiant…
a great blessing to himself and everyone whom he contacted. That kind of mind you only get through
serious sadhana, or yoga, if you will.
These modern gurus, particularly the so-called ‘crazy wisdom’ gurus who
seem to revel in gross mind, refuse to encourage people to develop themselves
because they do not understand the tremendous pleasure that comes from a pure
mind.
JOHN: Let’s
look in detail at the text. After telling the person that the self is
existence, consciousness, and bliss, he is asked “When will the realization of
the self be gained?” and he replies, "When the world which is what
is seen has been removed, there will be realization of the Self which is the
Seer.”
Ram: The way the question is phrased supports what I’ve
been saying about the language of Yoga and the language of Vedanta. The questioner says, ‘When will the Self be
gained?” Ramana does not disturb the
fellow’s mind by attacking the question and bringing him directly to the Self
(because the fellow is not capable of it).
In the Bhagavad Gita, which has the status of an Upanishad,
The question is typical of the yoga mindset…something
to be gained. Vedanta, the tradition of
knowledge which uses the (more accurate) language of identity would say, “The
self is already accomplished. It cannot
be gained because you are it already. If
there is any ‘gaining’ it will be through a loss of ignorance.”
Ramana’s response is another teaching from
scripture…the Upanishad, Gita, and Sankara (Drk-Drksha Viveka)…for which Ramana
had the greatest respect… the discrimination between the Seer and the
seen. The teaching establishes the
understanding that what one sees (read experiences…including all so-called Self
experiences: satories, samadhis, epiphanies, etc.) are “not Self” and the one
who sees them is you, the Self. One
thing I admire about Ramana was his refusal, unlike the modern teachers, to
reinvent the wheel. It shows his lack of
egoism. Based on his experience, he knew
the difference between the Self and the objects appearing in it (the seen) but
he did not feel compelled to cook up some fancy personal teaching on the
subject. Why? Because no fancy, modern teaching is
required. Enlightenment is a very simple
understanding of the Self and its relationship to experience, the forms. In a nutshell it is the understanding that
while the forms depend on the Self, the Self does not depend on the forms. This freedom from experience is called moksha,
liberation. This wisdom has been clearly
stated long before Ramana came on the scene and needs no interpretation or new
terminology.
Ramana knows that the question is actually imprecise
and that the person will not understand if he attacks the question, so he takes
it at face value and puts it in a traditional way. You have a copy. Can you refresh my memory about what he says?
JOHN: Ramana
says, "When the world which
is what is seen has been removed, there will be realization of the Self…which
is the Seer.”
Ram: This
statement is pure Vedanta. The operative
words are, "....has been removed". How is one supposed to understand the words
"....has been removed?".
What kind of removal is it? Is it
the yogic view that complete destruction of the unconscious tendencies, vasanas,
allows you to ‘gain’ the ‘self? Or is it
the Vedantic view…removal of the notion that the world is separate from the
Self?
In Ramana’s teachings you will find both ideas. The first is called the vasana kshaya theory
of enlightenment by the Vedantis and manonasa by the Yogis. Most Buddhist traditions espouse this
view. The word ‘world’ is actually a
psychological term in Yoga. It does not
mean the physical world. The physical
world is the Self. It has no personal
meaning. But the ‘world’ that Ramana
says has to be removed is the psychological projections that make up one’s own
‘world,’ i.e. ignorance. These
projections are based on an incorrect understanding of the Self, on a belief
that the Self is separate, inadequate, or incomplete. Ramana’s teaching, which is Upanishadic
teaching, is called vichara, enquiry.
The purpose of enquiry is knowledge, not the ‘physical’ removal of the
mind. If he had been teaching Yoga as a
means of liberation he would not have encouraged enquiry because Yoga is
committed to experience of samadhi, not understanding that one is the
Self.
JOHN: This is
interesting. I never heard it stated
this way before.
Ram: Well, it isn’t
really revolutionary. People read into
Ramana whatever fits with their beliefs.
So from that point of view it may seem controversial. But if you know the tradition from which
Ramana comes it is just very pure Vedanta.
Yoga is very popular and it always has been. I started out as a meatball businessman
practicing hatha yoga for muscles. And I worked my way up to some very high samadhis
through meditation. Then I realized that
the Self wasn’t a state and with a bit of luck a guru came into my life and
sorted me. Mind you, I’m not attacking
Yoga. Yoga, purification through sadhana,
is essential for enlightenment.
JOHN: But I
thought the goal was sahaja samadhi.
Ram: It’s only a
means. Contrary to conventional wisdom,
the samadhis are not the final goal.
Sahaja just means ‘continuous’
and ‘natural.’ So in terms of the
mind it means a continuously still mind, one that values everything
equally. That is the meaning of Samadhi. Sama means equal. You actually have this samadhi
naturally all the time without doing a lick of work.
JOHN:
Oh, how is that?
Ram: As the
Self. Though the Self is out of time and
the word ‘continuous’ is an experiential term referring to time, from the
mind’s point of view the Self, which is every form of experience, is
continuous…and natural. It is your
nature.
Anyway, no samadhi is equivalent to
enlightenment because samadhis are only states of mind or no mind, no
mind being a state of mind. Nirvikapa
samadhi is non-dual but unfortunately it is a state that can easily be
destroyed. And there is no one there in
that state, so when it ends one’s ignorance about the nature of one’s self is
not removed and one experiences limitation once more.
Samadhi helps to purify the mind and is a
great aid to enquiry but if you remove the mind, how will you make an
enquiry? Who will make an enquiry? You make an enquiry with the mind for the
mind…so it can shed its ignorance…and no longer trouble you. The mind is a very useful God given
instrument. Would God have given a mind
if He had intended for you to destroy it?
And, in fact, Yoga isn’t about killing the mind either because how will
you experience a samadhi if you don’t have a mind? The mind is the instrument of experience.
If you argue that you are aiming at nirvikalpa
samadhi where there is no mind, fine, but the problem with nirvikalpa
samadhi is that a fly landing on your nose can bring you out of it, not
that there is anyone there to come ‘out’.
And when the ‘you’ who wasn’t there does ‘come back,’ as I just
mentioned, you are just as stupid as you were before… because you were not
there in the samadhi to understand that you are the samadhi. If you are the samadhi you will have
it all the time because you have you all the time…so there will be no anxiety
about making it permanent.
Samadhi is actually just a word that
describes the nature of the Self. It
means equal vision in the sense that whatever object you see has equal value to
every other object. Why try to get your
mind in this state when you have it already…as the Self? So this description is just as pertinent
when the mind is active as when it is dead.
If that is so, what is the value of a dead mind?
JOHN: OK. You’re saying that samadhi is not the goal,
that it is just the means?
Ram: Yes. Not the means. A means. There are other ways to purify the mind. Misunderstanding this teaching is perhaps
responsible for more despair, confusion, and downright frustration than any
other. It is commonly believed that
this ‘removal’ means that all the vasanas need to be physically
eradicated for enlightenment to happen.
And many people believe that Ramana had ‘achieved’ that state. If you study Ramana’s life you will see that
by and large he was a very regular guy…a large part of his appeal… head in the
clouds, feet firmly planted on the earth.
He walked, talked, cooked, read, and listened to the radio. If he did not have a mind, who or what was
doing all these things? No vasanas
means no mind because the vasanas are the cause of the mind. How did he go about the business of
life? So I think we need to look at the
word ‘removal’ in a different way.
Ramana was called a jnani because he had removed the
idea of himself as a doer…it is called sarva karma sannyasa…
which happens when you realize you are the total. Or you realize you are the total when you
realize you are not the doer. ‘Not the
doer’ means the Self. It doesn’t mean
that the ego becomes a non-doer. The ego
is always a doer. As the Self he
understood that while the few vasanas he had left (which were non-binding and are not a problem
even for a worldly person) were dependent on him he was not dependent on
them. So for him, as the Self, they were
non-binding. How can a thought or a
feeling affect the Self? It can only
affect an ego, a limited being...and then only if that ego lets it. For a person who thinks he or she is the
doer, allowing the vasanas to express or not is not an option. Actions happen uncontrollably because the ego
is pressurized to act in a certain way by the vasanas. For a jnani vasanas are
elective, for an agnani they are compulsory.
So the ‘removal’ that Ramana talks about is only in
terms of knowledge. He often uses
another metaphor which he borrowed from Vedanta, the snake and the rope. In the twilight a weary thirsty traveler
mistook the well rope attached to a bucket for a snake and recoiled in
fear. When he got his bearings and his
fear subsided he realized that the snake was actually only the rope. There was no reason to take a stick and beat
the snake to death (which is equivalent to trying to destroy the mind) because
the snake was only a misperception.
When he calmed down and regained his wits (did some sadhana) he
inquired into the snake and realized that it was just a rope. And in that realization the snake was
‘removed.’
JOHN : My understanding is that he meant the
removal of all the attachments to our conditioned mind.
Ram:
How would that come about?
JOHN:
In his Ashram his disciples would sit doing nothing for years. His own attendant, Annamalai Swami spent 10‑15
years in daily conduct with Ramana and every minute when they were not working,
they would be sitting quietly. Then, one day Ramana said to Annamalai
"Now, you stop working and you go away and sit quietly". He then sat
for 50 years in his room never again setting foot in Ramona's ashram. Ramana himself sat for almost 15 years in
Virupashka cave, with very few people around. So, it involved a lot of sitting
presumably witnessing whatever thoughts were coming up.
Ram:
Well, sitting doing nothing is doing something…and you can get very
attached to a meditation lifestyle…you can get attached to anything, even
sannyasis get attached to their sticks and begging bowls… but yes, this
idea is completely in line with
traditional Vedantic sadhana. The
texts support it. First you get the mind
quiet and then you are capable of realizing that you are the Self. There is no better way to get the mind quiet
than staying in close proximity to a person like Ramana whose mind was
exceptionally quiet. It sets the tone
and the disciple’s mind becomes like it.
And the longer you do apparently nothing, the more you realize that you
don’t have to do anything to be what you are.
So this practice gradually kills off the doer. One of the misconceptions people have about
the talking schools of Vedanta is that the talk somehow obscures the silence
and therefore the words are just ‘intellectual’ and therefore of no use
spiritually. But this is not true. My guru, Swami Chinmaya, was a famous
Vedanta master who had many enlightened disciples and he spoke
incessantly. But the words were all
coming out of the silence, the Self. I
personally witnessed thousands of people one night in
JOHN:
Yes.
Ram:
So, he wasn’t removing vasanas.
JOHN:
Perhaps the attachment to them?
He must have had a pull to go back
to his family. He didn't do that and
when his mother first came sent her away.
He wasn't caught up in that anymore.
Ram: That was because he understood he was
the Self. The way you loose attachment
in one go is to understand you are the Self.
JOHN:
It is often called "a constant experience".
Ram:
Sure, but the Self is ‘constant experience’ anyway. Or put it this way, if this is a non-dual
reality and this reality is the Self then each and every experience is the
Self. So nobody is short of Self experience,
the ignorant and the enlightened alike.
The problem is that very few people understand that everything is the
Self. So they seek for all these
incredible ‘Self’ experiences.
JOHN:
The Self is a constant experience?
Ram: No, the Self is ‘constant experience’ if
there is such a thing. In fact ‘constant
experience’ is a contradiction. The Self
becomes experience but it does not sacrifice its nature as a non-doing,
non-experiencing witness to do it. That
means you are free of your experiences.
JOHN:
When one says "constant experience" would that mean "remembering
the self constantly?"
Ram:
Yes, remembrance is helpful…up to a point.
But you can never make remembrance, like experience, constant. Knowledge is constant. When knowledge takes place, that’s it. Remembering is a kind of mental activity that
implies forgetting. Once you know you
are the Self there is nothing to remember any more. How can you remember what you are? You are the one who is doing the
remembering. You are prior to the act of
remembrance.
JOHN: The next
question Ramana is asked is "Will there not be realization of the Self
even while the world is there (taken as real)? He replies, "There
will not be.”
Ram: What does he mean, the
world is ‘there.’ Where is
‘there?’ And what is the ‘world?’
JOHN:
Doesn't he mean that if you believe that ‘out there’ is real then you
cannot realize the Self, at the same time ?
Ram: I think that is what he meant. The words make it sound as if the world needs
to be removed. But this is not likely so
what does 'world' mean? It means the
belief that something in the world will make you happy or can take away your
happiness. It is the belief that needs
to be removed. That belief counts as
self ignorance because the self is unaffected by anything in your mind.
JOHN:
You can say it’s an understanding of the true nature of the world.