thirst and ... mirage

The appearance of water in a mirage persists after the fact

 that it is a mirage has dawned on us. 

So it is with the world. 

Though knowing it to be unreal,

 it continues to manifest - 

but we do not try to satisfy our thirst

 with the water of the mirage. 

As soon as one knows that it is a mirage, 

one gives it up as useless and does not run after it to get water. 

~ Ramana Maharshi

turn your attention

 

God dwells in you, as you, 

and you don't have to 'do' anything

 to be God-realized or Self-realized,

 it is already your true and natural state.

Just drop all seeking, 

turn your attention inward, 

and sacrifice your mind to

 the One Self radiating in the Heart

 of your very being. 

For this to be your own presently lived experience, 

Self-Inquiry is the one direct and immediate way.

~ Sri Ramana

photo by Ansel Adams

with thanks to love is a place

it's whisper can be heard

 

Grace is always present. You imagine it is somewhere high in the sky,

far away, and has to descend. It is really inside you, in your Heart.

Grace is the Self. . . .You are never out of its operation.

-~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

​

 Grace is a manifestation of the cosmic free will in operation. 

It can alter the course of events in a mysterious manner

 through its own unknown laws, which are superior to

 all natural laws, and can modify the latter by interaction.

It is the most powerful force in the universe.

It descends and acts only when it is invoked 

by total self- surrender. 

It acts from within, because God resides in the Heart

 of all beings. Its whisper can be heard only in a mind

 purified by self-surrender and prayer.

Rationalists laugh at it, and atheists scorn it, but it exists.

 It is a descent of God into the soul’s zone of awareness. 

It is a visitation of force unexpected and unpredictable.

 It is a voice spoken out of cosmic silence - 

It is ‘Cosmic Will which can perform 

authentic miracles under its own laws’.

~ D.C. Desai

 from Divine Grace Through Total Self-Surrender

art:  from the Metropolitan Museum of Art

with thanks to love is a place

it is enough

.

.

It is enough that one surrenders oneself. 

Surrender is to give oneself up to the original cause of one's being. 

Do not delude yourself by imagining such a source to be some God outside you. 

One's source is within oneself. 

Give yourself up to it. 

.

...

~ Ramana Maharshi


.

.

a dense cloud of thoughts

For those who allow their mind to wander here and there,

 everything will go wrong.

Just as the sun cannot be seen in a densely clouded sky,

 so one’s own Self cannot be seen in a mind-sky

 which is darkened by a dense cloud of thoughts.

All the benefit to be obtained by inner inquiry

 is only the destruction of the deceptive ‘I’-sense [the ego]. 

It would be too much to say that it is to attain Self,

 which always shines clear and ever-attained.

Firmly abiding as ‘I am I’, 

without any movement of the mind, 

is the attainment of Godhood.

When scrutinized, 

among all the many qualities necessary for those 

who wish to attain the imperishable Liberation, 

it is the attitude of a great liking to be in permanent solitude

 that must be well established in their mind.

According to the outlook of different people 

the same woman is considered to be wife, 

husband’s sister, daughter-in-law, wife of one’s brother-in-law,

 mother, and so on. 

 

Yet in truth she does not at all undergo any change in her form.

Unless one realizes oneself to be the unattached Self, 

which is like the space that remains not even in the least attached to anything,

 though it exists inside, outside and pervading everything,

 one cannot remain undeluded.

One who has destroyed the mind is the emperor

 who rides on the neck of the elephant of supreme Jnana (self-knowledge).

 Know for certain that the turmoil of the mind

 is the sole cause of the miserable bondage 

of the cruel and fierce birth [and death].

~ Ramana Maharshi

art by Colette Baumback

othering

 

 

 

 

"There are no others."

~ Ramana Maharshi



Where there is a duality, as it were, there one sees another; 

there one smells another; there one tastes another; 

there one speaks to another... 

 

But where everything has become just one's own self,

 then whereby and whom would one see? 

then whereby and whom would one smell? 

then whereby and to whom would one speak?

 then whereby and whom would one hear?

 then whereby and of whom would one think?

 then whereby and whom would one touch?
then whereby and whom would one understand?


—Brihadaranyaka Upabishad

 

 

 

dive deep

 

 

Complete surrender is another name for jnana or liberation.

It is enough that one surrenders oneself.  
Surrender is to give oneself up to the original cause of one's being. 
 Your source is within yourself.

Give yourself up to it.  

That means that you should seek the source and merge in it.

To be absorbed, through surrender in the Self,
 in the non-dual state of mauna, (silence) is the supreme truth.  
That which constitutes offering (oneself) up to the Self is living the life that shines,  

free of the false delusive mind, known as the "I."

Complete surrender is impossible in the beginning.  
Partial surrender is certainly possible for all. 
 In course of time that will lead to complete surrender. 
 There is no peace of mind without surrender.

Dive deep in the Heart and remain as the Self.

~ Ramana Maharshi

from Essential Writing on Nonduality

edited by Jerry Katz

peace of Self

If one gains the Peace of Self,
 it will spread without any effort on the part of the individual.

When one is not peaceful, oneself, how can one spread peace in the world?

Unless one is happy,  one cannot bestow happiness on others. 


 Happiness is born of Peace and can reign only when there is no disturbance.
  Disturbance is due to thoughts,  which arise in the mind.  
When the mind is absent there will be perfect Peace.

The ultimate truth is so simple; 
 it is nothing more than being in one's natural original state. 
 Because people want elaborate and mysterious,
 so many religions have come into existence. 

~ Ramana Maharshi

the thought "I"

Thoughts arise because of the thinker.

The thinker is the ego, which if sought will automatically vanish.

Reality is simply loss of the ego.

Destroy the ego by seeking its identity.

Because the ego has no real existence, it will automatically vanish,
 and Reality will shine forth by itself in all its glory.

This is the direct method.

All other methods retain the ego,  In those paths so many doubts arise,
 and the eternal question remains to be tackled. 
 But in this method the final question is the only one 
and is raised from the very beginning.

No practices are even necessary for this quest.

The cause of misery is not in life without;  it is within you as the ego.

You impose limitations on yourself and then make a vain struggle to transcend them.

Why attribute to the happenings in life the cause of misery,
 which really lies within you?  What happiness can you get
 from anything extraneous to yourself?  
When you get it, how long will it last?

There are no stages to Realization of degrees of Liberation. 
 There are no levels of Reality; 
 there are only levels of experience for the individual.

It is not a matter of becoming but of being.

Remain aware of yourself and all else will be known.

~ Ramana Maharshi

by the inquiry

"By the inquiry 'Who am I?'.
The thought 'who am I?' will destroy all other thoughts,
and like the stick used for stirring the burning pyre,
it will itself in the end get destroyed.
Then, there will arise Self-realization."



~ Ramana Maharshi

you seek and cannot find

That which you seek and cannot find - is the Seeker.

"By the inquiry 'Who am I?'.

The thought 'who am I?' will destroy all other thoughts,

and like the stick used for stirring the burning pyre,

it will itself in the end get destroyed.

Then, there will arise Self-realization."

The thinker is the ego, 

which if sought will automatically vanish.

Reality is simply loss of the ego.

Destroy the ego by seeking its identity.

Because the ego has no real existence, 

it will automatically vanish, 

and Reality will shine forth by itself in all its glory.

This is the direct method.

All other methods retain the ego, 

In those paths so many doubts arise, 

and the eternal question remains to be tackled. 

But in this method the final question is 

the only one and is raised from the very beginning.

No practices are even necessary for this quest.

~ Ramana Maharshi

And the only practice is seeing this, 

which is Awareness, 

which is this which an eye cannot see when it looks at itself.

Practice is deepening understanding, 

for understanding is first an intuitional glimpse of the truth of this, 

then the obtaining of this intuitional glimpse at will, 

and, finally, the permanent installation of this inseeing 

when "walking, standing, sitting and lying," 
in public and in private, asleep and awake.

~ Wei Wu Wei

from All Else is Bondage
x-ray image of a rose by albert koetsier

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magnetism

The Self is like a powerful magnet within us. 

It draws us gradually to itself, though we imagine we are going to It of our own accord:

 when we are near enough, It puts an end to our activities, 

makes us still, and then swallows up our personal current,

 thus killing our wrong personality. 

It overwhelms the intellect and over floods the whole being. 

We think we are meditating upon It and developing towards It, 

whereas the truth is that we are iron filings and It is the Atman-magnet 

that is pulling us towards Itself. Thus the process of finding 

the Self is a form of Divine magnetism.

~ Ramana Maharshi

the world is real

The world is real for the ignorant

as well as for the wise;

for the ignorant the real

is measured by the world,

for one who knows

the real has no limits and

is the foundation of the world.

Both say ‘I’ referring to themselves,

the ignorant and the one who knows.

For the ignorant the self is defined by the body,

the wise knows that within the body the

unlimited Self shines with its own splendour.

~ Ramana Maharshi

(1879 – 1950)

investigate what the mind is and it will disappear

Investigate what the mind is and it will disappear, 

There is no such thing as 'mind' apart from 'thought.' 

There is no use removing doubts. 

If we clear one doubt another arises, 

and there will be no end of doubts. 

All doubts will cease only 
when the doubter and his source have been found. 

Seek for the source of the doubter, 

and you will find that he is really non-existent. 

Doubter ceasing, doubts will cease.

~ Ramana Maharshi

.

Grace is not something to be acquired from others. 

If it is external, it is useless. 

All that is necessary is to know its existence in you.

.

~ Ramana Maharshi

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here and now

.

.

There is no greater mystery than this, 

that we keep seeking reality though in fact we are reality. 

We think that there is something hiding reality 

and that this must be destroyed before reality is gained. 

How ridiculous! 

A day will dawn when you will laugh at all your past efforts. 

That which will be the day you laugh is also here and now.
.
- Ramana Maharshi

.

the direct path for all

Find out who is subject to free will or predestination and abide in that state.  

Then both are transcended.  That is the only purpose in discussing these questions. 

 To whom do such questions present themselves?  

 Discover that and be at peace.

Your true nature is that of infinite spirit. 

 The feeling of limitation is the work of the mind. 

 When the mind unceasingly investigates its own nature,  

it transpires that there is no such thing as mind.  

This is the direct path for all.

Your speak as if you are here, 

 and the Self is somewhere else and you had to go and reach it ... 

 But in fact the Self is here and now,  

and you are always It.

The realized person weeps with the weeping, laughs with the laughing,

 plays with the playful, sings with those who sing, keeping time to the song.  

 His presence is like a pure,  transparent mirror. 

 It reflects our image exactly as we are. 

 It is we who play the several parts in life and reap the fruits of our actions. 

 How is the mirror or the stand on which it is mounted affected? 

 Nothing affects them,  as they are mere supports.

 

 

~ Ramana Maharshi