Awareness of awareness as taught by Sri Ramana Maharshi

[Guest guest]

RamanaMaharshi, "gabriele ebert"

<g.ebert@g...> wrote:

> Dear Michael,

>

> I had recently had a more close look at your AWA-page - and

discovered that what you are offering

> is a meditation-technique - but not!!! representating the fullness

of Bhagavan's way.

 

Dear Gabriele:

 

The AWA method is the most rapid means

to bring the ego illusion to an end.

It took only two years of practice in my case

to bring the ego illusion to an end.

 

> It is simply one method of so many, and if people take this for

Bhagavan's teaching they are not so well advised.

 

The ego is afraid of ending in almost all humans.

Almost everyone who studies Sri Ramana's teachings

does so for the purpose of preserving the ego

instead of for the purpose of ending the ego.

That is what I was doing for twenty five years also.

However, I was not aware that that is what I was doing.

The ego's capacity for deception is almost limitless.

As far as taking the AWA pages for Sri Ramana's teachings,

that is the reason that I posted the Sri Muruganar quotes

so that people could read Sri Ramana's words

teaching the means to Direct Self Abidance

as most Sri Ramana devotees would probably prefer

to read Sri Ramana's words instead of my words.

 

> It is better to read Bhagavan's books as they are offered and not

distract quotes fitting to a theme.

 

The Ramana Maharshi group and the atma-vichara group

have been extracting quotes from the beginning of those groups.

The rule has never so far been

that one must start at the beginning of a book

and post quotes in the order found in the book

and only in that order.

People always select quotes for a reason.

In those people in whom

the extremely intense desire for liberation has not yet arisen,

quotes are selected that will help to preserve the ego,

and that is the theme.

Also a subject may arise and quotes are selected

centered around that subject and that subject becomes the theme.

 

> This may be misleading in the last as one tends to press the quotes

in one line which what one may feel like

> Bhagavan's teaching should be - to comfort oneself and to fit into

one's own concept.

> God beware!

 

Very good warning.

Before the extremely instense desire for liberation arises,

people select quotes that will best help to preserve the ego.

After the extremely intense desire for liberation arises,

everything changes.

How rare it is

for the extremely intense desire for liberation to awaken.

 

The book "Garland of Guru's (Sri Ramana Maharshi's) Sayings"

does not present Sri Ramana's teachings

in the order that Sri Ramana said them.

They are not in the form of a question and answer dialogue

so that one has to read the book only in the order

that the sayings have been presented.

 

> As the owner of atma-vichara-list and a moderator on RM-list I feel

responsible to say this warning ...

> and to speak so openly. Let Bhagavan present His teaching as it

is .... there is no need of any structure-

> making and interference!

 

There is always a structure.

The book "Garland of Guru's Sayings" has a structure.

The structure is not the order in which the Sayings were presented.

Whenever anyone extracts any quote and posts it,

be it here in a or on a web page they have created a new

structure.

 

We can understand it as he told .... we can read his Talks etc. ...

 

Let's look at the book "Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi".

Mungala Venkatramiah was not a sage by his own admission.

Muungala Venkataramiah said he was going through

a very difficult time in his life when he recorded "Talks".

He recorded "Talks" in English.

He did an on the spot translation.

If he had recorded the "Talks" in Tamil

and then later translated them into English,

every line could have been double checked for accuracy.

But such was not the case.

 

Now compare that with the "Garland of Guru's

(Sri Ramana Maharshi's) Sayings".

Sri Muruganar was liberated shortly after meeting Sri Ramana.

Sri Muruganar was a highly skilled, educated poet.

In the book Garland we have a liberated sage

collecting the sayings of a liberated sage.

 

In the book Talks we have a man going through a very difficult time

recording in English.

 

Consider Sri Ramana Maharshi's warning from the Garland:

 

1106. "The sage's pure mind

 

which beholds as a mere witness 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."

 

In the case of "Talks" most answers fall into that category

and there was no one to filter that out.

 

In the case of Garland, Murugnar was there to filter such

reflections of the foolish thoughts of the questioner out

to reveal Sri Ramana's True Teachings.

 

Prior to the awakening of the extremely intense desire for liberation,

none of these points mattered to me.

It is easy to see why these points also do not matter to most people.

"Talks" and "Collected Works"

with great emphasis on the book "Who am I?"

were my primary sources of Sri Ramana's teachings

for more than 25 years.

Because details like the above described two choices

for the source of Sri Ramana's Teachings

were not important prior to

the awakening of the extremely intense desire for liberation.

 

There is another important reason to make a choice:

That is the danger of reading more and more words.

Sri Ramana warned that only pure minds will study works like

Truth Revealed (reality in 40 verses)

and that muddy minds will be attracted to large works.

Garland is already 30 times that size

or even if you include the supplement, 15 times that size.

 

To then go on adding the words of a sleeping aspirant

going through a difficult time, writing in English

and not filtering out the reflection of the foolish thoughts

of those who came before Sri Ramana,

as is the case with the book "Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi"

would be to ignore completely the warnings Sri Ramana gave that can

be read by clicking this link:

 

http://uarelove1.tripod.com/READING_AND_DISCUSSING.htm

 

I see warnings not based on Sri Ramana's teachings,

but I seldom see warnings like those that Sri Ramana gave here:

 

http://uarelove1.tripod.com/READING_AND_DISCUSSING.htm

 

Why are these warning given by Sri Ramana almost always ignored:

 

http://uarelove1.tripod.com/READING_AND_DISCUSSING.htm

 

Why do most of those who claim to be devoted to Sri Ramana and/or his

teachings almost always ignore the warnings given by Sri Ramana

in the quotes at this link:

 

http://uarelove1.tripod.com/READING_AND_DISCUSSING.htm

 

These are warnings against certain types of behavior,

many of which are observable.

Why not actually honor Sri Ramana's teachings,

by changing the behaviour?

 

Many years ago I started a where the book

"Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi" was posted

in the order the dialogues are found in the book.

I recently deleted that group.

 

I have not yet removed the quotes from "Talks" from that

Reading and discussing link, but someday maybe I will.

 

I do not know if during those more than 25 years

I was focussed on the book "Talks"

and practicing asking "To whom do these thoughts arise"

as pointed out in the book "Who am I?"

if someone pointed out what Sri Ramana Maharshi had taught

in Garland or what Sri Sadhu Om had pointed out

in the book the Path of Sri Ramana, part 1,

if it would have made a difference

or if the ego would have created endless arguments

and blocked the seeing of the diret means to Self abidance.

But I wish I had paid much closer attention to

"Garland of Guru's (Sri Ramana Maharshi's) Sayings"

and "The Path of Sri Ramana, part 1" back then.

I also wish someone would have pointed the means to

direct, immediate abidance out to me in those two books also.

 

The ego's controls thoughts.

The ego's capacity to to create arugments

against seeing the direct path,

and practicing the direct path is almost unlimited.

Thousands of arguments can be created against it.

 

People used to go to or write Sri Sadhu Om

and complain that they were not making any progress asking

"To whom do these thoughts arise?"

 

Sri Sadhu Om would point out the futility

of that way of practicing self-inquiry,

just as he pointed out the futility of that

in the book "The Path of Sri Ramana, part 1"

 

However, if someone is unwilling to abide as the Self directly

as Awareness watching Awareness, or Awareness of Awareness,

or the Meditation on Consciousness, or Direct Abidance,

or Instant Abidance, or Immediate Abidance, or Self-Abidance,

or as Self-Awareness allows everyone who is willing to, do,

then asking "To whom do these thoughts arise" and asking "Who am I?"

is better than no practice at all.

 

However it is very rare that an ego is dedicated to its own ending.

Thus people will choose teachings like "Talks"

and lie to themselves about the reason for such a choice

and people will choose going through the detour of thoughts

asking "Who am I?" or even more indirect methods than that

and lie to themselves about the reason for such a choice also.

 

None of that is surprising. It is to be expected and it is the norm.

That was what the article in this link was about:

 

http://uarelove1.tripod.com/CEASING.htm

 

and these articles:

 

http://uarelove1.tripod.com/FOUNDATION.htm

 

http://uarelove1.tripod.com/FOUNDATION_PAGE_TWO.htm

 

http://uarelove1.tripod.com/FOUNDATION_3.htm

 

What is surprising is that rare one in whom the ego allows

the direct path to be seen.

Very rarely someone reads Sri Ramana's Teachings in the Garland:

 

http://uarelove1.tripod.com/world.htm

 

http://uarelove1.tripod.com/TURNING_INWARD.htm

 

and the ego allows them to see that Sri Ramana Maharshi

taught a means to Self-Abidance that is far more direct

than asking questions like "To whom do these thoughts arise?"

or "Who am I?"

 

Or someone reads Sri Sadhu Om's teachings about Self-inquiry

as found in the two links that follow, and in rare cases,

their whole outlook on what Self-inquiry is changed.

 

http://uarelove1.tripod.com/OM7.htm

 

http://uarelove1.tripod.com/INQUIRY_8.htm

 

Sometimes even people who are entrenched

in a certain way of viewing inquiry like I was for twenty five years

can have their whole way of viewing self inquiry changed.

But that is even rarer.

 

Those are the surprises.

The arguments against such a discovery are not a surprise.

The ego's blocking the discovery is not a surprise either.

 

> AWA is a method made by Michael

 

The words AWA I have coined, and I wrote the three AWA pages.

 

- may be in some points it is near to Bhagavan

 

That is the advantage of having these links:

 

http://uarelove1.tripod.com/world.htm

 

http://uarelove1.tripod.com/TURNING_INWARD.htm

 

You can read Sri Ramana's instructions in the most direct means to

Self-abidance at the above two links.

Sri Ramana calls it: "Awareness of awareness", "Self-awareness"

and he has a number of other names for it in those quotes.

 

By all means do use Sri Ramana's names for it

and Sri Ramana's sayings teaching it.

That was the point of this post after such a long absence posting,

because Ravi posted the AWA pages in my words

and I thought that most Ramana devotees would prefer

to read Ramana's words instead of my words.

 

- but I only

> can advise each one simply to read Bhagavan's teaching: "Who am I" -

the Talks .... and ... and .....

 

Because the reason most people study Sri Ramana's teachings

is to preserve the ego, that is good advice to read "Talks, etc."

 

For those one in a million humans in whom

the extremely intense desire for liberation has been awakened

and who are therefore dedicating every moment

to bringing the ego delusion to an end,

then the advice would be quite different:

 

Throw "Talks" in the Garbage can

and read "The Garland of Guru's sayings".

Then practice the most direct means to Self-abidance

and bring the ego delusion to an end.

 

Given a choice between reading the words of a sleeping aspirant

going through a difficult time in his life

who is recording in English,

as in the book "Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi"

or a book where a liberated sage named Sri Muruganar

who is highly skilled with words,

is collecting the Sayings of Sri Ramana,

for those very rare ones,

in whom the extremely intense desire for liberation has arisen,

the choice is clear and the need to make a choice is clear also.

 

Take care,

 

with Love,

 

Michael L.

[Guest guest]

--- uarelove <uarelove wrote:

> RamanaMaharshi, "gabriele

> ebert"

> <g.ebert@g...> wrote:

> > Dear Michael,

 

> Dear Gabriele:

>

> The AWA method is the most rapid means

> to bring the ego illusion to an end.

> It took only two years of practice in my case

> to bring the ego illusion to an end.

*********************************

How many years will it take to bring the illusion of

"other peoples ego preservation strategies" to an end?

 

 

Love,

Harsha

 

 

=====

/join

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

--- uarelove <uarelove > wrote:> RamanaMaharshi,

"gabriele> ebert" > <g.ebert@g...> wrote:> > Dear Michael,> Dear Gabriele:> >

The AWA method is the most rapid means > to bring the ego illusion to an end.

> It took only two years of practice in my case > to bring the ego illusion to

an end.*********************************How many years will it take to bring

the illusion of"other peoples ego preservation strategies" to an end?

:-)

Yes.

So long an "other" exist, held to either be deluded and thus engaged in ego

preservtaion startegies,

or held to have ended such strategies,

the ego in oneself, shines with the usual brightness.

For it is the sense of the "other" which infers the sense of "me".

 

Also, so long it is held that ego delusion has ended, (after 2 years or after 25

years), the ego still shines.

 

Love

 

Avril Messenger - Communicate instantly..."Ping" your friends today! Download Messenger Now