Fwd: Clarification on Ramana's Words

[Guest guest]

advaitin, "uarelove" <uarelove> wrote:

advaitin, kamesh ratnam <kameshratnam>

wrote:

> Dear All,

>

> I had asked honourable learned members on the

> following verses of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharishi

> which says

>

> "According to one's prarabda god ordains things in

> life,so u cannot by ur effort make things come to

> faster or the opposite. Hence the best way is to

> remain silent.

>

> My question is " has this been said of for life or

> sadhana"

>

 

> Please help

>

>

> KAmesh B

>

 

Dear Kamesh:

 

After some time had passed after Sri Ramana had left home,

his mother wanted him to return home. Therefore in the passages to

follow "she" refers to Alagammal, Sri Ramana's mother.

"Swami" referes to Sri Ramana Maharshi, who had not yet been given

the name Sri Ramana Maharshi at that early time.

 

The following comes from the book "Ramana Maharshi and the Path of

Self Knowledge" by Arthur Osborne:

 

Another day she enlisted the sympathy of the devotees who had

gathered around, pouring out her grief to them and beseeching them to

intervene. One of them, Pahcaiyappa Pillai, said to the Swami:

"Your mother is weeping and praying; why do you not at least give her

an answer? Whether it is 'yes' or 'no' you can reply to her.

Swami need not break his vow of silence. Here are pencil and paper;

Swami can at least write what he has to say."

 

He took the pencil and paper and,

in utterly impersonal language, wrote:

 

"The Ordainer controls the fate of souls in accordance with their

prarabhakarma (destiny to be worked out in this life, resulting from

the balance-sheet of actions in past lives).

Whatever is destined not to happen, will not happen, try as you may.

Whatever is destined to happen will happen, do what you may to

prevent it. This is certain. The best course, therefore, is to

remain silent."

 

I have never seen the quote you site above, however this is the

closest quote to it.

 

Regarding your question does it apply to Sadhana,

Sri Ramana Maharshi spent 50 years teaching that

it does not apply to your Sadhana.

 

However, Sri Ramana prefered to speak of inquiry and not Sadhana.

In other words Sri Ramana prefered not to class inquiry

with forms of Sadhana.

 

So, to be more accurate, Sri Ramana spent 50 years teaching that

other than self-inquiry there are no adequate means

and that your effort is essential and indispensable.

 

In order to understand his teachings, it is very important to

understand the context in which Sri Ramana's verbal or written

response arose in. In other words it is important to understand the

questioners question.

 

In the above quoted passage, the mother wishes her son to return

home, and she is very upset about it.

The goal is therefore what to say to the mother so she will not be so

upset and that she will accept the fact that Sri Ramana is not coming

home. The answer fits that goal perfectly.

 

Since Sri Ramana taught for 50 years that Self-inquiry is the only

effective means, and since in the case of almost all humans the ego's

goal is to preserve its imaginary self and to avoid such inquiry,

the first job of the ego is to move away from the teaching

that self-inquiry is the only effective means.

 

In other words, since the ego in almost all humans wants to preserve

its imaginary self, and since according to Sri Ramana, self-inquiry

is the only means that will pose any real threat to that ego,

the ego's first job is to find a way to move away from

the practice of self-inquiry.

 

There are thousands of pages of Sri Ramana's teachings in books,

and Sri Ramana said many, many things. If one does not take a close

look at the context and question that was asked, Sri Ramana's

teachings would look like an endless sea of contradictions.

This provides a fertile field for the ego that wants to preserve its

imgaginary self, and with only a few exceptions, all humans,

including those who study Sri Ramana's teachings

have an ego that wishes to preserve its imaginary self.

 

So what does the ego do? It moves from the practice of Self-inquiry

to something else. The something else can be to focus on something

else Sri Ramana said in reply to some particular question or

circumstance of the seeker. Whatever the something else be,

be assured, in the case of almost all humans, something else besides

the practice of self-inquiry will be found to focus the attention on,

and this includes those who study the teachings of Sri Ramana.

 

Thus Sri Muruganar's warning from the Garland of Guru's (Sri Ramana

Maharshi's saying):

 

1106: "The sage's pure mind which beholds as a mere witnesss the

whole world is like a mirror which reflects the foolish thoughts of

those who come before him. And these thoughts are then mistaken to be

his."

 

It is not difficult for one with an intense desire for liberation to

discern the difference between the foolish thoughts of those who came

before him from Sri Ramana's teaching. Most people do not have an

intense desire for liberation. It is very difficult for one who does

not have an intense desire for liberation to make such a discernment.

Because when the desire for liberation is weak, the ego directs

thought away from that which is essential and which is a threat to

it, towards that which is not essential and which is not a threat to

it. People are in the habit of believing their own thoughts and the

arguments and reasons the ego produces, thus without an intense

desire for liberation, it is almost certain that a person will be

focussing on that which is not essential.

 

The cure for this is to find a way to increase the desire for

liberation. The intense desire for liberation itself, will then

allow one to see how the ego was directing one towards the

inessential. Then the intellectual interest in spiritual teachings

disappears, and focus on practice begins.

 

I have created the Discern for the specific purpose of

taking one of Sri Ramana Maharshi's talks at a time and demonstrating

the process of how to distinguish the reflection of the foolish

thoughts of those who came before him, as per Sri Muruganar's

warning, from the Teachings of Sri Ramana. Also to demonstrate with

many specific examples, exactly how the ego, as a preservation

strategy, leads one away from the essential to the inessential. I

have created the Foundation page for the same purpose and soon I will

begin looking at Sri Ramana's Teachings there also.

 

Before the intense desire for freedom arose in me,

I was lost in indirect and intellectual spirituality,

for 25 years, reading around 2000 books.

 

I thought that I already had an intense desire for liberation during

that period of time and I thought that liberation was my motive for

reading all those books. However, I now see that reading all those

books had nothing to do with a desire for liberation.

 

Now I am able to see all those ego preservation strategies that I

could not see before.

The intense desire for liberation changes everything.

 

Mostly before the intense desire for liberation arises, the ego wants

to run away from the essential or create arguments against the

essential. The difference in outlook is quite extraordinary.

 

Sri Ramana said he was quite fortunate that his previous tendencies

led him directly to inquiry. He says that if he had been interested

in the study of spiritual philosophy he would probably have been lost

always in confusion.

 

Although it is quite unfortunate that I wasted 25 years reading

spiritual books, it is quite fortunate that the desire for freedom

arose and put an end to the intellectual interest.

 

What lead to the intense desire for freedom was looking at what the

consequences would be if the ego did not end and what they would be

if the ego did end. Honesty was and is the key.

That honesty includes being willing to look at the strategies the ego

is using to preserve its imaginary self.

 

Before the desire for liberation arose, spirituality was conceptual.

It came from reading, discussing, thinking, and a little debating too.

 

Afterwards, it was just a demand to find the essetial without letting

the thoughts and arugments the ego was producing tell me what was or

was not essential.

 

The desire for the Realization of Truth with a capital T

is intimately related to self-honesty with a small h.

 

One of these days I am going to put something called the

Sri Nisargadatta test on my web site. It will be a look at what Sri

Nisargadatta Maharaj's Guru told him and how Sri Nisargadatta

describes his percpeption of those instructions and what he actually

did with those intructions.

 

Then to describe the difference in what almost all humans do with

similar instructions. It will then be easy to see why the results

Sri Nisargadatta got were so different from the results

most people get.

 

 

Take care,

 

with Love,

 

Michael L.

--- End forwarded message ---

[Guest guest]

advaitin, "uarelove" <uarelove> wrote:

Dear Kamesh:

 

To clarify these points a bit further:

 

Assuming for the moment that the quote you posted was a paraphrased

version of the actual quote which I posted, then the answer to the

question, does this apply to life or Sadhana, is:

 

It applies to the particular circumstances of

Alagammal's life at that particular moment in time.

 

It does not apply to anyone else's Sadhana or life.

 

So if the question is, does it apply to our Sadhana or life,

the anwswer is neither.

 

If one happens to have a son or daughter that has left home,

one might apply that quote to that circumstance, however,

even that could be a huge error. Sri Ramana knew the circumstances of

his mother and the prescription he gave her may or may not be a good

prescription for someone whose child has left home

for some other reason.

 

This answer was an answer that was the perfect answer to Alagammal's

situation at the time. Eventually, later, she realized that it was

foolish to think that Sri Ramana might return home.

Yet a further development occurred many years later when Alagammal

moved to Tiruvannamalai. So later she saw the wisdom of living in

close proximity to Sri Ramana.

 

The answer to the question about Sri Ramana returning home

is a bit like a doctors prescription.

The doctor being Sri Ramana

and the patient being Alagammal.

 

Once the prescription has served its purpose,

the best place for the prescription is in the garbage can.

 

Because, otherwise some person might later find that prescription,

and not realizing what ailment it was prescribed for,

do a self diagnosis and take the prescribed medicine

with disastrous consequences.

 

Fortunately there are large records of conversations with Sri Ramana,

covering many years, such as in the book "Talks with Sri Ramana

Maharshi", where we can see both the question and the answer

to be able to see whether the advice was being given to a particular

problem or whether the question was about liberation

and the means to liberation.

 

We can also see if the questioner suggested some method to Sri Ramana

or if the questioner gave an open question

so that we can see what Sri Ramana's answer is.

 

By taking a close look at both the question asked, and the answer

given one can distinguish Sri Ramana's advice on the means to

liberation from thousands of other detours

that do not have anything to do with liberation.

 

One can also see what advice was given repeatedly to almost everyone

who came to Sri Ramana, and what advice was only given very rarely.

This also helps one to separate the indvidual prescriptions

from the advice that applies to all.

This also helps to clear up the apparent contradictions.

 

One can also discern the reflection of the foolish thoughts of those

who came before Sri Ramana from Sri Ramana's Teachings,

by paying close attention to the question given

and how the answer given relates to that question.

 

These are some of the ways also that the essential can be discerned

from the inessential. Because of the failure to use such

discernment, most of what is called Sri Ramana's teaching

is not Sri Ramana's teaching.

 

If the passage you quoted was not a paraphrased version of the

passage I quoted, then to understand the passage, we would have to

at least see the question and the answer, etc.

 

However, my guess is that the passage you quoted is

a paraphrased version of the passage I quoted.

 

Take care,

 

with Love,

 

Michael L.

--- End forwarded message ---