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85. Meditate always on the Truth which is without a second; but never [seek

to] apply the teaching of non-duality to actions in the worldly life; my son,

meditate on this Truth as covering all the universe; but never do so in respect

of the Guru.

I have had difficulty fully comprehending this verse [from Revelation by

K. Lakshman Sarma]. In both translations the instruction is quite emphatic. I

shall be grateful for clarification from any of the readers please.

In Ramana’s Grace

love

anu

Annamalai Swami has given an account of how this particular verse came to

be written (Living by the Words of Bhagavan, 2nd ed. p. 99). It began with the

following remarks by Bhagavan:

‘Advaita should not be practised in ordinary activities. It is sufficient

if there is no differentiation in the mind. If one keeps cartloads of

discriminating thoughts within, one should not pretend that all is one on the

outside.

‘Westerners practise mixed marriages and eat equally with everyone. What is

the use of doing only this? Only wars and battlefields have resulted. Out of all

these activities, who has obtained any happiness?

‘This world is a huge theatre. Each person has to act whatever role is

assigned to him. It is the nature of the universe to be differentiated but

within each person there should be no differentiation.’

I [Annamalai Swami] was so moved by this speech that I asked Bhagavan to

summarise these ideas in a written Tamil verse. Bhagavan agreed, took a

Sanskrit verse from Tattvopadesa [verse 87] which expresses a similar idea, and

translated it into a Tamil venba. When he was satisfied with his translation, I

also managed to persuade him to write the first fair copy in my diary. This

verse was eventually published as verse thirty-nine of Ulladu Narpadu

Anubandham.

Due to a different numbering system, this verse ended up being number

eighty-five in Lakshman Sarma’s Revelation translation.

Maurice Frydman questioned Bhagavan about the first half of this verse and the

conversation was recorded in Living by the Words of Bhagavan (pp. 216-7, 2nd

ed.).

Question: Sri Bhagavan has written [ulladu Narpadu Anubandham, verse 39] that

one should not show advaita in one’s activities. Why so? All are one. Why

differentiate?

Bhagavan: Would you like to sit on the seat that I am sitting on?

Question: I don’t mind sitting there. But if I came and sat there the

sarvadhikari and the other people here would hit me and chase me away.

Bhagavan: Yes, nobody would allow you to sit here. If you saw someone molesting

a woman would you let him go, thinking, ‘All is one’? There is a scriptural

story about this. Some people once gathered together to test whether it is

true, as said in the Bhagavad Gita, that a jnani sees everything as one. They

took a brahmin, an untouchable, a cow, an elephant, and a dog to the court of

King Janaka, who was a jnani. When all had arrived King Janaka sent the brahmin

to the place of brahmins, the cow to its shed, the elephant to the place

allotted to elephants, the dog to its kennel and the untouchable person to the

place where the other untouchables lived. He then ordered his servants to take

care of his guests and feed them all appropriate food.

The people asked, ‘Why did you separate them individually? Is not

everything one and the same for you?’

‘Yes, all are one,’ replied Janaka, ‘but self-satisfaction varies

according to the nature of the individual. Will a man eat the straw eaten by

the cow? Will the cow enjoy the food that a man eats? One should only give what

satisfies each individual person or animal.’

Although the same man may play the role of all the characters in a play, his

acts will be determined by the role that he is playing at each moment. In the

role of a king he will sit on the throne and rule. If the same person takes on

the role of a servant, he will carry the sandals of his master and follow him.

His real Self is neither increased nor decreased while he plays these roles.

The jnani never forgets that he himself has played all these roles in the past.

There are two ideas present in this Anubandham verse: the first, which

has just been dealt with, is that one should not attempt to practise advaita in

the day-to-day activities of one’s worldly life; the second is a much more

specific injunction that one should never practise advaita towards one’s Guru.

That is to say, one should never think, ‘All is one. My Guru is the same as I

am. Therefore, I don’t have to treat him as someone special since in essence he

is just the same as everything and everyone else.’ Before I comment on the

second half of the verse I will give the translation (by K Swaminathan) that

appears in the current edition of Collected Works.

Keep advaita within the Heart. Do not ever carry it into action. Even if

you apply it to all the three worlds, O son, it is not to be applied to the

Guru.

Sadhu Om, in his Tamil commentary on this verse, has equated the ‘three

worlds’ mentioned with the heavenly realms of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva. He then

extends the meaning to say that one may, if one wishes, display advaita towards

the gods Siva, Brahma and Vishnu, but one should never display advaita towards

one’s Guru. Why is this so? Sadhu Om answers the question by saying that the

three gods cannot bestow liberation whereas the Guru can. The fully-realised

Guru is the one being in the universe who has the power to bring about

liberation, and for that reason alone one should always defer to him. It should

be also be noted that many respected advaita teachers have said, somewhat

controversially, that the gods themselves are unenlightened beings who will,

sooner or later, have to come to a jnani if they want final liberation.

To regard the Guru as one’s equal or as ‘just an ordinary bloke’ (the

phrase Michael Dillon rightly objected to in correspondence on this topic)

actually impedes the flow of grace from Guru to disciple. Lakshman Sarma has

pointed this out in two verses from Sri Ramana Paravidyopanishad:

25 Only that devotion to the Guru is good which is rendered to a sage-Guru,

and which regards him as identical with God. Only by such devotion does one

attain freedom from delusion. Truly the sage is not other than God.

237 [Also] there is the text of the Upanishads, that one who wants

deliverance must worship the knower of the Self. If he thinks of him [the sage,

who is the Guru] as other than God, that thought will obstruct his path.

In a commentary on one of these verses Lakshman Sarma wrote: ‘The sage who

is accepted as one’s Guru must not be regarded as just a human being, a person,

but as an incarnation of God Himself, because that is the truth of the sage, and

because, if the Guru be so regarded, the goal will be reached soon.’

The point of the second half of the verse thus becomes clear. One goes to a

Guru for liberation, for grace, but if one has the belief or attitude that he is

one’s equal or just an ordinary person, one is unlikely to receive either.

Having a strong conviction that one’s Guru is God Himself can help one to

retain, as well as gain, an experience of the Self. This was brought home to me

a few years ago when I interviewed Sharad Tiwari, a devotee of Papaji who had

had an experience of the Self within a few days of meeting him in the 1970s. He

told me that the experience had never left him. I have met innumerable people

who claim to have had a direct experience of the Self in Papaji’s presence, but

the vast majority of them seem to lose the experience later. When I interviewed

him in 1996, I asked Sharad why other people were losing the experience whereas

he had managed to keep it. The following extract from the interview is from

Nothing Ever Happened, volume three, pp. 127-8:

David: Papaji shows people who they are. Sometimes, though, he says that it is

up to the person concerned to recognise it and not throw it away. From what you

have told me, in your case the experience never went away. Why do some people

like you stay in that state while others appear to go back to their limited

viewpoint again?

Sharad: Anyone who recognises Papaji as God and who never wavers in his

conviction that Papaji is God will keep the experience naturally and

effortlessly. That is my firm conviction.

When the glimpse comes, it is God revealing Himself as God within you. If

you treat Papaji as God, and if you treat the experience he has given you as an

experience of His divine nature, it will never go away. If you allow the ego to

arise again and cover up the experience, it means that you have thrown away

your previous knowledge that Papaji is God, along with your belief that the

experience he gave you is God Himself shining within you. It all comes down to

having the right attitude.

David: How do you yourself hold onto the absolute conviction that Papaji is God?

Is it through awareness of his form, his formlessness, or a combination of both?

Sharad: There is no difference between form and the formless. Form itself is

formless and the formless is the form. To know Papaji as God is to know that

there is no difference between the two.

Later in the interview Sharad told me, ‘Quite often I see the gods dancing

around him in mid-air, paying obeisance to him. When I see the gods themselves

bowing before him with my own eyes, how can I doubt that I am in the presence

of the Supreme Lord?’

This injunction in the Anubandham verse – that of not displaying advaita

towards the Guru – seems to apply even after full liberation, when both Guru

and disciple, abiding in the natural state, effortlessly know and experience

the truth of the non-dual Self. Bhagavan used a colourful but apt image to

convey this. He said that even though a Hindu wife may have enjoyed sexual

union with her husband, in public she will still show him deference and

respect. (See Guru Vachaka Kovai verse 304 and Sri Ramana Padamalai verse 42

for two direct quotes from Bhagavan on this topic.) Extending this analogy into

the spiritual realm, the disciple may have attained oneness with his or her

Guru, but the behaviour he or she exhibits is always reverent and deferential.

I have found this to be true with all the great teachers and enlightened

beings I have been associated with. Nisargadatta Maharaj, for example, did an

elaborate Guru puja every day of his life, long after he had realised the Self.

Muruganar did elaborate full-length prostrations to Bhagavan whenever he came

into his presence, and sometimes even had long conversations with Bhagavan

while he was still lying in this prostrate position. Viswanatha Swami used to

make fun of Muruganar for this, calling it ‘lizard talk’.

Once, while I was sitting with Papaji, someone asked him if he had any

regrets about his life. At first he said ‘no,’ but after a few seconds’

reflection he added, ‘Actually, I do have one regret. Because my legs are now

almost paralysed, I can no longer throw myself full length on the floor at the

feet of my Master.’ In his later years he had to be content with a standing

‘namaste’ whenever he wanted to pay his respects to Bhagavan’s image.

And what about Bhagavan himself? His respect and veneration towards

Arunachala, his Guru, were legendary. However, I will just mention one

interesting point. When he composed his philosophical works such as Upadesa

Undiyar and Ulladu Narpadu, his tone was non-dualistic. The verses were an

uncompromising expression of what the Anubandham verse calls ‘advaita within

the Heart’. However, when Bhagavan wrote about his Guru, Arunachala, in his

devotional poems, he often adopted the pose of the loving, grateful devotee, a

standpoint that enabled him show proper respect and veneration to the form and

power of the mountain.

One final story about Bhagavan: when Arunachaleswara (the God Arunachala

who is the principal deity in the Tiruvannamalai temple) was being taken in

procession around the hill in the late 1940s, it stopped at Ramanasramam,

allowing Bhagavan to come to the gate and receive prasad. After taking vibhuti

and applying it to his head with a great show of reverence, Bhagavan remarked,

‘The son is beholden to the father’.