Ramana / Harvey

[Guest guest]

Dear Harvey,

 

Thanks very much for the kind words.

 

> I also appreciated the reference you provided for Ramana's

> early thinking that his awakening experience may have been

> one of possession. This goes along with the idea that rather

> than living our lives, we are being lived. I have heard St Paul

> quoted as saying: " I live, no not I, but Christ lives in me. "

 

Yes, I think these two examples show the common

element that we find in all accounts of enlightenment in all

traditions: " I " is superseded by something that is more real.

 

I love the fact that Sri Ramana thought he might have been

possessed by a demon. What could be more " dualistic " than

that? Yet supposedly he was an advaitin, a non-dualist. In

truth, dualism and nondualism are systems of Hindu philosophy,

and Sri Ramana wasn't particularly interested in philosophy.

 

> But this answer does not explain away the puzzle of why

> Ramana frequently spoke of tracing the 'I' to its home in the

> right side of the heart.

 

David Godman pointed out to me in an interview that in fact,

Sri Ramana rarely spoke about this. I think it has been blown

out of proportion by people who aren't familiar with the whole

extent of the Ramana literature. Also, people like to imagine

that Sri Ramana taught people to meditate on the right side of

the chest because this is much easier than identifying the

" I " -thought and holding onto it, which is what he really told

people to do:

 

http://www.realization.org/page/doc0/doc0097d.htm

 

One of the odd things about this idea of the " heart center on

the right side of the chest " is that when Sri Ramana did mention

it, he often pointed out that the idea isn't really true.

 

David does a good job of explaining what Sri Ramana actually

said about this subject in the chapter " Self-Enquiry --

Misconceptions " in his anthology " Be As You Are. " Both

the introduction (by David) and the collected quotations (by

Sri Ramana) in that chapter are relevant.

 

> It would seem his statements were intended to be a guide to

> those pursuing self-inquiry, but I have no experience which

> might elucidate this idea.

 

In my opinion (and David's) this is false. Usually when he

discussed this subject, Sri Ramana told people *not* to

meditate by focusing on the right side of the chest. He said

instead to follow the sense of " I " (the " I " -thought) like a dog

following its master's scent and to see for yourself where it

leads.

 

I think this erroneous belief is due in large part to a particular

book by Arthur Osborne which has been widely distributed

in the West. In my opinion, the book is just flat-out wrong on

this point.

 

That same chapter of David's book addresses this second

misunderstanding as well.

 

> Still, there is no lack of seekers who claim to have verified

> Ramana's talk about the connection of the Self and the

heart.

 

Yes. I wonder whether most of them have imagined it. I

think it's possible to feel kundalini/chakra/energy sorts of

sensations anywhere in the body if you work at it.

 

It's a curious thing that nobody in the entire recorded history

of Hinduism ever noticed the heart center on the right side of

the chest until 1896, when Sri Ramana fell down on his

bedroom floor in Madurai. From that point onward, numerous

people who had read Sri Ramana's biography experienced

this heart center. Curious.

 

Best wishes,

 

Rob

 

-

" Harvey Schneider " <haarvi1

<Realization >

Monday, April 14, 2003 8:43 PM

Re: Re: Judi's Ghost?

[Guest guest]

P.S. Harvey, for more information about Sri Ramana's

physical sensations during his Realization experience,

which were the source of his idea about the heart center

on the right side of the chest, you might enjoy reading

this article by David Godman:

 

http://www.davidgodman.org/rteach/iandii1.shtml