Disciples explain self-enquiry

[Guest guest]

Dear friends,

 

I'd like to stir up a little controversy.

 

I sometimes think that the clearest instructions

for practicing self-enquiry were given not by

Bhagavan himself, but by his disciples. Perhaps

the reason is that his disciples (some of them)

practiced enquiry for years, like us, so their

experience is like ours. Bhagavan himself only

practiced enquiry for 15 minutes.

 

Invaluable in this regard are the three

biographies that David Godman has written

about self-realized devotees of Bhagavan:

Sri Lakshmana Swamy, Sri Annamalai

Swami, and Sri H.W.L. Poonja. Hurray

for David!

 

Here's a nice little quote from one of

these books to whet the appetite:

 

"The Self is ever-present; there is no question

of realizing it. You can neither reach it nor

attain it because you are the Self even now.

It is said that the mind prevents one from

being aware of the Self, but the mind is

non-existent. The Self alone exists, and one

who knows this knows that there is no birth,

no death, no mind, no time and no question of

enlightenment. This is the final truth.

 

"If you think, 'This is not my experience,' or

'How shall I realize the Self?', then the mind

will appear to exist. All such thoughts and

doubts arise in the mind. Deprive the mind

of such thoughts and mind itself disappears.

Be quiet and still and all thoughts will

disappear. Self-enquiry and surrender are

only techniques which bring one to the

state of inner stillness and quietness. The

ultimate instruction is therefore, 'Be still

and quiet; stabilise in this state and the

Self will be revealed'. This instruction,

'Be quiet and still', is likely to be

misunderstood by ordinary people, and so

it is only given to ripe devotees."

 

>From "No Mind -- I Am The Self" (a

biography of Sri Lakshmana Swamy and

Mathru Sri Sarada) by David Godman,

pages 100-101.

 

Yours in Bhagavan,

 

Rob