Lucy Cornelssen - Identity - #2

[Guest guest]

 

IDENTITY

 

By Lucy Cornelssen

 

continued:

 

Sri Bhagavan says:

Why is not the pure ‘I’ realised now or even remembered

by us? Because of want of acquaintance with it. It can be

recognised only if it is consciously attained. Therefore

make the effort and gain it consciously.

 

In the Mahavakya, ‘Tatwamasi’ – Thou art That – ‘That’

stands for the true identity. Sri Ramana Maharshi uses the

same ‘That’ in verse twentyseven of Reality in Forty Verses

(and later on), ‘The state in which the (personal) ‘I’ does not

arise, is the state of being That’.

 

Going through our most cherished memories of the past,

are there not certain situations when we were happy in a way

we have never been able to forget since? Maybe we belong to

those for whom a beautiful landscape is more than merely a

pretty picture. Maybe it was a sunset at the seashore or even

in the Himalayas, very quiet, very remote . . . Maybe we

involuntarily opened ourselves to it, so that it could enter our

very being with its timeless beauty, its surrender into a supreme

light, a supreme silence, in which all thinking and planning,

all insecurity and restlessness vanished, leaving behind a

person who had forgotten himself, being completely absorbed

by the mystery of this now and here.

 

This state is exactly a spontaneous revealing of ‘That’, his

true nature, his true ‘I’. It broke through because he

surrendered himself to an impression strong enough to lift up

for the time being the restlessness and convulsion of the

reacting mechanism of the personal ‘I’ for the sake of the

non-reacting true ‘I’. This true ‘I’ is always only a mirror to

all impressions and happenings whereas the personal ‘I’,

responds to them by reacting.

 

If the person who experiences this would simply close his

eyes and direct his attention towards what is going on within

himself, then he would learn that all the beauty, the wonderful

deep and silent bliss of this hour is only his own true Being

his, true ‘I’. And he would experience that the perfect man is

not a mere theory, but a reality and at the same time the

perfectly happy man. For perfection is not a matter of qualities

but a state of Consciousness.

 

A person who likes music can have a similar experience

with great music. Each great piece of art can have this effect

on those who are able to tune themselves accordingly. But

even a rather dry person, somebody who takes himself to be

completely down to earth, is able to experience the true ‘I’,

simply because it is the inevitable next step of evolution, which

man is destined to recognise and to take.

 

It is love which is ready to receive and bless everyone and

which has the magic touch to open the gate to the true identity,

that remains locked up forever to intellect.

 

We have to forget the shade of egotism in human love and

leave alone the torrent of passion which some may call love. We

have to think of that feature of love which releases the radiance

of the true ‘I’. Neither passion nor infatuation reveals it, but it is

found in the hours of silence, when words are unnecessary and

thoughts about matters of day-to-day life have no strength —

hours of a timeless ‘here and now’, without past or future.

 

Where there is genuine self-forgetful love, there shines instead

of the habitual ‘me’, the pure, quiet, real ‘I’, and here also it is

not recognised, because the lover covers it with the beloved ‘thou’.

True, we have entered into these experiences more or less

unconscious of their real meaning, leaving no other result than

merely a nostalgic memory. But realising now what kind of

treasure awaits our readiness to breakthrough our ignorance,

we can even make use of an experiment which was strongly

recommended by Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi.

 

After having retired for the night, one has first to relax

from the restlessness and the tension of intellectual activity.

When sleep is nearing, one has to try to keep as the last thought

the resolution to meet as the first thing on awakening the

experience of the true ‘I’.

 

Deep and sincere longing will always succeed in this

experiment, if not immediately then after some attempts. The

first thing emerging from sleep into waking consciousness is

always the true ‘I’ pure, silent, absolute in itself, remaining all

alone for a few seconds, or even longer by practice. Other

thoughts start only a little later, testifying to the little known

fact that ‘Consciousness’ is not necessarily the same as thinking.

What is possible once even for a moment can be extended

by practice. This experiment gives you the advantage that

you now know the aim of endeavour. It will help you in your

further sadhana like leavening in the dough.

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi called this the ‘transitional I’ and

stressed the importance of this experience:

This transitional ‘I’ is a moment of pure awareness, which

is aware only of itself as ‘I’, pure identity in itself.

 

The ‘I’-thought’ is only limited ‘I’. The real ‘I’ is unlimited,

universal, beyond time and space. Just on rising up from

sleep and before seeing the objective world, there is a state

of awareness which is your pure Self. That must be known.

 

The moment you succeed, keep very quiet and observe:

this ‘I’ neither thinks nor wills; it has no qualities, is neither

man nor woman, has neither body nor mind; it has no trace of

the ‘person’ which you thought yourself to be up to now. It is

simply conscious of itself as ‘I am’. Not ‘I am this’, ‘I am

that’ — only ‘I am’.

 

But beware. It is not your ‘I-person’, who has this

‘I-Consciousness’ as an object, but this Consciousness is your

real ‘I’. This pure be-ing ‘I am’ is the first glimpse of the true

Identity, which is by nature Pure Consciousness.

To make this test of awakening in the morning is important

insofar as one knows afterwards what the goal for which we

embarked looks like. It also makes it easier to recognise it in

other circumstances. Moreover, this silent, alert awareness is

the last experience which the seeker can reach by his own

effort. For when his ‘personal I’ is wiped out, then all his

effort too has automatically reached its end. Where there is

no ‘personal I’ there cannot be any effort. What remains is a

consciousness which no longer feels but is listening within;

no longer thinks, but is silent; no longer wills, but lets happen

what will happen. It is exactly the state which reveals itself as

‘I am’, the true Identity.

Last but not the least it is this great experience of the true

identity of man which turned the schoolboy Venkataraman

into the world famous sage Ramana of Arunachala!

 

 

taken from:

RAMANA SMRTI

Sri Ramana Maharshi

Birth Centenary Offering 1980