This One Awareness (Ramana's Reality Forty in Free Verse)

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This One Awareness

(Ramana's 'Reality Forty' in Free Verse)

 

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Ramana's Ulladu Narpadu (Reality in Forty Verses) is a terse

work, even in translations.

 

This is my attempt to catch the jolt each verse provides to

my seeking mind.

 

 

Divisions and Subheadings are self imagined.

 

Version 1.

January 6, 2005.

Ravi Annaswamy.

 

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0. Prelude and Postlude.

 

 

(i)

 

You ARE. World IS.

So, there IS a Reality!

 

It is nothing but the Heart of Your Awareness.

It is Thoughtless. Formless.

 

You can't think of it.

Because when you think, you catch a tiny portion of it.

 

Neither can you find it

Finder finds what he wants.

 

You can BE it.

 

And, in fact,

You ARE it.

Always.

 

(ii)

 

 

 

Are you afraid of dying?

Then seek He who never dies.

 

Only let Ego die.

Be dead to all you got.

 

No more death.

 

 

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I. This World

 

 

 

(1)

 

You see this world.

Like a movie.

The pictures, the screen and the seer and the light:

All are one.

 

Just your inner awareness

Taking shapes.

 

 

(2)

 

Yourself,

This world and

God -

All are one.

 

Separate - When the little 'I' is awake.

One - when 'I' is dead and Awareness shines.

 

 

 

(3)

 

Is the world real or a dream?

Is it alive or a machine?

 

Why argue?

Know your self and lose the ego.

All questions disappear.

 

 

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II. Body and the Mind.

 

 

(4)

 

If you have a body and your eye can see,

World has a body

God has a body.

 

Are you the eye? No.

You are the one that sees through the eye.

 

Look at this One inside and there is no object outside.

 

 

 

(5)

 

When body appears,

This world appears too.

 

Is there a world without this body?

 

 

 

(6)

 

The world is a patchwork

Of what you see and hear and touch and smell.

Your mind secretes it.

 

Is there a world without this mind?

 

 

 

(7)

 

When you wake up, World arises

When you sleep, it sets.

When you wake up, Mind arises

When you sleep, it sets.

 

You are that awareness

That observes this happen day in day out.

Stay there.

 

 

(8)

 

 

Really there is no object, no name, no form.

Know this.

 

Ignore all objects and the body,

Ignore all thoughts and the mind -

That Formless Awareness

Is the Only thing that exists.

Be That.

 

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III. Knowledge

 

 

 

(9)

 

Seer and the Seen and the Seeing vanish

when you search and stay as Awareness.

 

 

 

(10)

 

What you know, you can never be sure of.

Only the knower is true.

 

 

 

(11)

 

It is foolish

To know everything

Without knowing the Knower.

First Know yourself.

Just know yourself.

 

 

(12)

 

Awareness is enough.

It shines without holding onto an object.

Or a thought.

And still is not empty.

 

 

Mind is dumb.

When Mind knows one thing, it ignores a lot.

When Awareness ignores everything, It is Everything.

 

 

 

(13)

 

Without Gold

No necklace.

Without Awareness

No objects.

 

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IV. I, You, He, Time and Space.

 

 

(14)

 

Look for this 'I'.

'I' will disappear.

And also'you' and 'he'.

 

 

 

(15)

 

Past and future

Exist in the present.

Have you seen past and future

when present was not there?

 

 

 

(16)

 

Our bodies are different

In different times and in different spaces.

 

But We are this awareness.

One.

Forever and everywhere.

 

Where is time?

Where is space?

 

(17)

 

When you say 'I'

You mean this body.

 

When the Knower says I

He means this awareness.

This Limitless Light.

 

 

 

(18)

 

When you see this world

You see it as the Whole.

 

When the Knower sees this world

He sees where it stands.

He sees who makes it.

This Formless Awareness.

 

 

 

(19)

 

Fate or free will?

I dont care.

 

My awareness supports both.

 

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V. God

 

(20)

 

What is God

But this Pure Awareness?

 

Lose this tiny 'I'

Look at this Awareness,

You see God.

 

 

 

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VI. Practice

 

 

(21)

 

 

How can I see the Self

If I am that Self?

Just by being that Self.

Just by Seeing nothing else.

 

 

(22)

 

 

Awareness animates this Mind.

Turn the mind inward

And fix on this awareness.

Nothing else the mind can do.

 

 

 

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VII. Enquiry

 

 

(23)

 

When you sleep

Body does not say 'I'

But still you dont die.

 

But then this 'I' emerges

Catch it then and there. (23)

 

 

 

 

(24)

 

Body does not say 'I'.

Neither does the Awareness call out loud.

 

Who, then, is this in-between 'I'?

 

Body does not move by itself.

And Awareness just observes.

 

Who, then, runs this show?

 

 

 

(25)

 

This Ego

This formless evil spirit

This I-and-Me-and-Mine.

 

Gathers form and feeds on form.

But when you question,

Runs away.

 

 

(26)

 

 

When ego arises everything arises.

Ask what this ego is.

Ego sets.

Everything vanishes.

 

Give it up.

 

 

(27)

 

When 'I' does not yet rise

We are That.

Ask for this state and get it.

How else can you lose the ego?

How else can you Be That?

 

 

 

(28)

 

Dive deep to see where this I rises,

With a keen mind

 

Hold your breath

As if you are diving into deep waters

To find a lost thing.

 

 

 

(29)

 

Turn inward

Find where this I begins.

That is the only Way.

Not thinking, talking,reading, writing.

Those never end.

 

 

 

(30)

 

If mind seeks the 'I'

Ego disappears and Self reveals.

 

This big, fat 'I' is gone.

Only 'I-I' is.

 

 

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VIII. End Result.

 

 

(31)

 

Be the Self.

Be happy.

 

What else to do?

 

 

 

(32)

 

When you hear

'You are That'

Dont just repeat it.

Search the You and

Be That.

 

(33)

 

 

How can 'You' find the 'Self'?

There is only one Self, right?

 

 

 

 

(34)

 

Does It exist?

How does It look?

Is it One or Is it Many?

 

Dont argue.

Just stay there.

 

 

(35)

 

Find out what is always there.

That is the best you can get.

 

All the rest

Things, People, Power and Knowledge -

Comes and Goes.

 

Dream-things.

 

 

 

(36)

 

 

Only if you think

'I am the body'

 

You need to think

'I am this Awareness'.

 

Well, if you ARE this Awareness,

You dont need to think That.

 

 

 

 

(37)

 

Let's assume You search

And find yourself.

 

Are these two people?

 

 

(38)

 

If You do a thing

It will come back to you.

 

But if You vanish,

Action just happens

And You are free.

 

 

 

(39)

 

Find out who is bound

You become free.

 

When bondage ends,

Freedom ends.

 

 

 

(40)

 

Ending of Freedom

Is Freedom.

 

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