Self-Atma: The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi Part One

[Guest guest]

Without the many tributaries, streams and rivers of the Blossom Time

it will be almost impossible for humanity to know/realize what the

Ocean of Self is all about

 

>

> The evidence is nailed on the front door of www.sahajayoga.org/

>

> The collective claim of the SY organization that Self Realization is

> Kundalini awakening is so simplistic that it defies logic and common

> sense. This ignorance is the very reason they believe that all they

> need is awaken the kundalini, thus instantly making the person self-

> realized!!! Despite that claim, hundreds of thousands have walked

> away from Sahaja Yoga despite the so-called bestowing of 'self-

> realization'; despite having attained the same self-realization that

> SYs have; despite feeling the same Cool Breeze. Only SYs think they

> are self-realized all the time, the proof being the Cool Breeze.

>

> But the Cool Breeze is evidence of second birth by the Spirit, not

> realization of that Spirit! This was only realized by me after years

> away from the collective, away from all their ignorance and rituals.

> You cannot realize your Spirit (Self) in Sahaja Yoga because of the

> collective mindset--chakras, kundalini, nadis, etc., (SYSSR)--and

> the constant, compulsive need of treatments to keep them clean.

>

 

Part One

 

Self-Atma

The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi

Edited by David Godman

 

Question: What is Reality?

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: Reality must be always real. It is not with forms and

names. That which underlies these is the Reality. It underlies limitations,

being itself limitless. It is not bound. It underlies unrealities, itself being

real. Reality is that which is. It is as it is. It transcends speech. It is

beyond the expressions `existence, non-existence', etc.

 

The reality which is the mere consciousness that remains when ignorance is

destroyed along with knowledge of objects, alone is the Self (Atma). In that

Brahma-swarupa (real form of Brahman), which is abundant Self-awareness, there

is not the least ignorance.

 

The reality which shines fully, without misery and without a body, not only when

the world is known but also when the world is not known, is your real form

(nija-swarupa).

 

The radiance of consciousness-bliss, in the form of one awareness shining

equally within and without, is the supreme and blissful primal reality. Its form

is silence and it is declared by Jnanis (Self-realised) to be the final and

unobstructable state of true knowledge (jnana).

 

Know that jnana alone is non-attachment; jnana alone is purity; jnana is the

attainment of God; jnana which is devoid of forgetfulness of Self alone is

immortality; jnana alone is everything.

 

Question: What is this awareness and how can one obtain and cultivate it?

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: You are awareness. Awareness is another name for you. Since

you are awareness there is no need to attain or cultivate it. All that you have

to do is to give up being aware of other things, that is of the not-self. If one

gives up being aware of them then pure awareness alone remains, and that is the

Self.

 

Question: If the Self is itself aware, why am I not aware of it even now?

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: There is no duality. Your present knowledge is due to the

ego and is only relative. Relative knowledge requires a subject and an object,

whereas the awareness of the Self is absolute and requires no object.

 

Remembrance also is similarly relative, requiring an object to be remembered and

a subject to remember. When there is no duality, who is to remember whom?

 

The Self is ever present. Each one wants to know the Self. What kind of help

does one require to know oneself? People want to see the Self as something new.

But it is eternal and remains the same all along. They desire to see it as a

blazing light etc. How can it be so? It is not light, not darkness. It is only

as it is. It cannot be defined. The best definition is `I am that I am'. The

Srutis (scriptures) speak of the Self as being the size of one's thumb, the tip

of the hair, an electric spark, vast, subtler than the subtlest, etc. These

descriptions have no foundation in fact. It is only being, but different from

the real and the unreal; it is knowledge, but different from knowledge and

ignorance. How can it be defined at all? It is simply being.

 

Question: When a man realises the Self, what will he see?

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: There is no seeing. Seeing is only being. The state of

Self-realisation, as we call it, is not attaining something new or reaching some

goal which is far away, but simply being that which you always are and which you

always have been. All that is needed is that you give up your realisation of the

not-true as true. All of us are regarding as real that which is not real. We

have only to give up this practice on our part. Then we shall realise the Self

as the Self, in other words, `Be the Self.' At one stage you will laugh at

yourself for trying to discover the Self which is not self-evident. So, what can

we say to this question?

 

That stage transcends the seer and the seen. There is no seer there to see

anything. The seer who is seeing all this now ceases to exist and the Self alone

remains.

 

Question: How to know this by direct experience?

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: If we talk of knowing the Self, there must be two selves,

one a knowing self, another the self which is known, and the process of knowing.

The state we call realisation is simply being oneself, not knowing anything or

becoming anything. If one has realised, one is that which alone is and which

alone has always been. One cannot describe that state. One can only be that. Of

course, we loosely talk of Self-realisation, for want of a better term. How to

`real-ise' or make the real that which alone is real?

 

www.hinduism.co.za/self-.htm