No mind!

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Little by little, he should come to rest,

With the intellect firmly held.

His mind having been established in the Self,

He should not think of anything.

 

Whenever the unsteady mind,

Moving to and fro, wanders away,

He should restrain it

And control it in the Self. 3

 

 

3. Bhagavad Gita 6.25–26. From Winthrop Sargeant, tr., The

Bhagavad Gita (State University of New York Press: New York, 1994)

296–97.

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As an aid to keeping one's attention on this inner feeling of 'I',

he recommended that one should constantly question oneself 'Who am

I?' or 'Where does this " I " come from?' He said that if one can keep

one's attention on this inner feeling of 'I', and if one can exclude

all other thoughts, then the 'I'-thought will start to subside into

the Heart-centre.

 

This, according to Sri Ramana, is as much as the devotee can do by

himself. When the devotee has freed his mind of all thoughts except

the 'I'-thought, the power of the Self pulls the 'I'-thought back

into the Heart-centre and eventually destroys it so completely that

it never rises again. This is the moment of Self-realization. When

this happens, the mind and the indvidual self (both of which Sri

Ramama equated with the 'I'-thought) are destroyed forever. Only the

Atman or the Self then remains.4

 

4. David Godman, Living By the Words of Bhagavan, (Sri Annamali

Swami Ashram Trust: Tiruvannamalai, 1995), 24-25. The same text

appears in another book by the same author, No Mind—I Am

 

 

 

 

Odysseus,