THE SACRED ART OF SILENCE/STILLNESS

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Sri Dakshinamurti and Sri Ramana

by Sadhu Arunachala

 

 

Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi has often been compared to Sri

Dakshinamurti, who sits silently under the banyan tree on the north

slope of Arunachala, and there is much ground for this comparison.

Moreover, it is more than just a comparison. Actually the two are

identical, though their bodies may seem, to us who are bound by the

limitations of time and space, different.

Sri Dakshinamurti has retreated to an inaccessible vastness, no longer

to be reached by humans, and we can only surmise that this was done

because he found the world unworthy and unable to understand his

silent instruction, whereas in the form of Sri Ramana he was always

most accessible and explained to one and all the meaning of this

silence; if they did not listen now, well, the seed would bear fruit

on some future occasion. Nothing was ever wasted, for him there was

no time and so there could be no disappointment.

Strangely, Bhagavan (as we all used to call Sri Ramana) once found

himself in the proximity of the Silent Guru. He had gone off on a

ramble about the slopes of the hill when he saw a very large

banyan-tree leaf lying in his path. So struck was he by this that he

set off in search of its source. At length he came within sight of an

abnormally large tree, which he thought must be the one he was looking

for. But he could not reach it, his way was blocked by a wall of sheer

rock,and at the same time he was attacked by a swarm of wasps whose

nest he had unwittingly disturbed. So, realizing he was not destined

to proceed, he returned. After this event, he discouraged his

disciples who proposed to explore the Hill in quest of the same spot.

"You will not succeed in any way" he would tell them. And though

occasionally someone would ignore his advice, nobody ever did succeed

in getting a glimpse of the enormous

tree.

Both Sri Dakshinamurti and Sri Ramana taught exactly the same, a

teaching that can be fully expounded in silence. As soon as words are

used we are in the realm of the relative, and for Bhagavan there was

no relative. It was only a fictitious appearance of Reality which is

One (Advaita). "Make an effort to be without effort," he would say.

In fact don't do anything, because actually there is nothing to do.

The whole trouble with us all is this constant doing, associating

ourselves with all sorts of actions and circumstances and so putting

apparent limitations on the Illimitable. How can speech do more than

point out to us our mistakes? It can tell us only to 'be', not to be

this or to be that, because being this or that is back again in the

realm of limitation, and it is just exactly this that he is trying to

make us understand.

And is there really any method of reaching that which is eternally and

forever here and now? Yes, I know Sri Ramana taught Self-enquiry. Find

out who is this eternal and ever conscious being you really are

through the method of 'Who am I?' in fact. But that was all.

'Just be yourself,' in other words, and to be yourself you must get

behind phenomena to the Eternal Witness and this can only be done by

Self-enquiry.

However, sometimes he would expound philosophy by the hour to clear

the doubts of his many visitors, but in the end he would always

explain that this was actually quite unnecessary. There was only one

thing to know and one thing to do. Silence was best.

Once when he saw me puzzling over the intricate division and

recombination of the elements in an Advaitic treatise he had told me

to read, he turned to someone sitting before him and said, "Tell him

not to worry over all that, that is for those people who demand that

sort of thing, who want analytical explanation of everything. Let him

read the rest which he can understand."

He has stated explicitly that he himself never at anytime did any

sadhana. "Sometimes I would sit with my eyes closed and sometimes

with them open. I still do. But I know no mantra or yogic exercises

and would not have any use for them if I did." And it is certain that

he never taught any of these things. He told us how to set about

Self-enquiry and advised certain rules of life that would facilitate

this, but that was all. He says in the little book Who am I?:

"Regulation of diet, restricting it to sattvic food taken in moderate

quantities, is of all rules of conduct the best, and is most conducive

to the development of sattvic qualities of the mind. These, in their

turn, assist us in the practice of Atma Vichara or enquiry in quest

of the Self." For the mind is the product of the food we eat, he

explained. Purify the food and the mind automatically becomes pure.

Again:

"Likes and dislikes, love and hatred are equally to be eschewed. Nor

is it proper to let the mind rest often on the affairs of worldly

life. As far as possible one should not interfere in the affairs of

others. Everything offered to others is really an offering to

oneself; and if only this is realized, who is there that could refuse

anything to others?" Let me quote once again: "If the ego rises all

else will rise, if it subsides all else will also subside. The deeper

the humility with which we conduct ourselves the better it is for us.

If only the mind is kept under control, what matters it where one may

happen to be?"

It all sounds so simple put like this, and yet how many of us succeed?

No question hereof going off and taking sannyasa, for as he says:

"renunciation is not discarding external things, but the cancellation

of the uprising ego." And this can quite possibly be done more

effectively in the world and amidst family life. For, to the

determined seeker some opposition is really good, it gives him

something to work on and keeps him alert, just as the airplane needs

the opposition of the air to hold it aloft.

He was always very definite in pointing out that Liberation is not

some far-off, after-death experience. It is here and now for all of

us always. Just drop the false association with limitation. Nothing

new will happen, we shall then see that we have been all the time

what we thought was something alien, something we were searching for.

But he was no missionary trying to drive people along a definite

track. Did he not know far better than we that everything had its

proper time, there was no forcing it. A certain number of people were

bound to come to him, and a few were able to remain permanently. It

was just their karma. Once when a visitor was taking leave and, with

tears, complained that he could not remain any longer, Bhagavan

remarked in a very matter of fact way that if everybody who came

remained, there would not be any room for anybody.

For people who believed in reforms and all sorts of charitable

activity, his advice was: "First help yourself and then you may be

able to help others. How can you possibly do any good to others when

you yourself are still only seeking for the Good?" It is starting

about it at the wrong end.

People who never came to him have often said that his was a negative

philosophy. But this is only ignorance of the truth. He was a dynamic

force himself and never

Sadhu Arunachala (Major A. W.Chadwick) meditating in the Old Hall

 

*

advised the inaction of inertia. "Do, but do not associate yourself

with the doer. Be the witness always," was his message. Things will

undoubtedly go on, and as long as we imagine ourselves to be the body

we will naturally believe that we perform the various activities

ourselves. It is absolutely useless to sit back and say: "I am not

the body, so there is no need to do anything," when this is only a

catch phrase of intellectualism. We do not really believe it is true,

so it is only hypocrisy. When we do actually know it, we shall never

talk like that. For the real sannyasin, he has said, there is no

difference between solitude and active life, as he does not regard

himself as the doer in either case.

His message was for one and all, and nobody, whatever his occupation,

need say that he has no time, for it is to be practiced now and

always, whatever we may be doing, be it working, resting, eating or

sleeping. At the end of Catechism of Enquiry, [now titled Spiritual

Instruction] it is said: "It is within our power to adopt a simple

and nutritious diet, and with earnest and incessant endeavor,

eradicate the ego, the cause of all misery, by canceling all mental

activities born of the ego (i.e., the idea "I am the doer".) Can

obsessing thought arise without the ego, and can there be illusion

apart from such thought?"

And in these few words are summed up the whole of the teaching of the

great Sage of Arunachala who was in fact none other than Sri

Dakshinamurti in mortal form. And even now though Sri Ramana has left

his body, where is the difference? Does he not exactly come up to the

definition of Sri Dakshinamurti as given by Sri Sundararaja Sarma in

his commentary on the slokas of Sri Sankaracharya? Sri - Sakti,

Dakshin - Perfect, Amurti - formless, or "The Ever-Perfect, Invisible

Power," as one might term it.

The first verse of the Sri Dakshinamurti Stotra by Sri Sankaracharya

declares the same: "I bow to Sri Dakshinamurti in the form of my

Guru; I bow to him by whose Grace the whole world is found to exist

entirely in the mind, like a city's image mirrored in a glass, though

like a dream, through Maya's power it appears outside; and by whose

Grace, again, on the dawn of Knowledge it is perceived as the

everlasting and non-dual Self."

But of a truth the Self is one. When we have reached that state of

knowledge, when we live in the Self alone and see the world for what

it is, we too shall find that both Sri Dakshinamurti and Sri Ramana

are and ever have been enthroned in our hearts. Let us pray earnestly

that the dawn of that day may be near at hand.

-- The Call Divine, January 1953

 

*

 

[Circa 1940] "I had then, and still have, considerable difficulty in

sitting on the floor for any length of time in spite of years of

practice. Afterwards I devised a meditation belt of cotton cloth

which I brought round from the back across my raised knees and with

this support could sit comfortably for long periods. Such belts are

regularly used by yogis, though strange as it may seem, I had no idea

of this when I devised my own. Bhagavan told me that his father had

had one but had not used it in public. Once some boys came into the

Hall and saw me meditating in the belt, they asked Bhagavan, "Why has

he been tied up?" Bhagavan, who had a great sense of humour, was much

amused. However, in spite of the fact that the belt made me

conspicuous, I was so keen on meditating

in Bhagavan's presence that I continued to use it for many years."

--A Sadhu's Reminiscences

 

 

 

THE MAHARSHI

March / April 2005Vol. 15 - No. 2

Produced & Edited byDennis HartelDr. Anil K. Sharma

Dear members

 

as an ignorant concerning working with computer i did not succed to

copy the picture in - but it did work on word.....so i enclosed

the word document and hope you can see the above mentioned picture

;---)))

 

yours

 

 

michael

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