UPADESA SAARAM OF RAMANA MAHARSHI – AN APPRECIATION (Verse 15)

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NOVEMBER 2004

 

UPADESA SAARAM OF RAMANA MAHARSHI – AN APPRECIATION (Verse 15)

 

Nashta maanasotkrushta yoginah

Krutya mastikim swasthitim yatah.

 

 

Nashta maanasa utkrushta

yoginah

For the exalted yogi whose ego-mind has been extinguished,

Kim krityam asti? is there anything to be done? (Obviously not)

Yatah As Swasthitim he abides firmly in the Self.

 

What duty is there for the exalted yogi whose mind has been

extinguished? None. Since he has gained a firm abidance in the Self.

 

In this verse, Sri Ramana uses the word yogi in its all-

comprehensive sense to mean the man of full realization of his true

nature as the Divine Self. The ego-mind of such a yogi gets

destroyed completely. He discovers his original innate state of true

being – swasthiti.

 

The man has lost his native spiritual stature and has come to regard

himself as a petty little individual doomed to suffer endless

limitations and sorrows. It is because man identifies himself with

the limited adjuncts of his body, mind and intellect. Thus there is

an unholy wedlock between the spirit(Self) and the matter(body –mind-

intellect) which is enveloping it.

 

The intimate and constant sense of I-ness with which we always live

intoxicated as it were, is the center called " aham-vritti " or ego

according to the Maharshi. The ego goads and drives us away farther

and farther from our intrinsic state of `being' into some kind of

becoming in the name of acquiring more enduring peace, greater joy,

a better sense of contentment and a superior quality of satisfaction

etc. But we can never find the joy of contentment of an enduring

quality despite our relentless pursuit in the extrovert direction

of ` becoming'. What therefore needs to be done is to turn the mind

inward and engage it in the process of contemplation or meditation

on God or Self.

 

He who has realized the secret of existence imbedded in himself,

and rests therein utterly peaceful, happy and contended is a yogi.

According to the Gita (Ch.III.17-8): The man whose delight is in the

Self alone, who is content with the Self, who is satisfied with the

Self, for him there exists no work that needs to be done. He also

does not depend upon any being for any object of any interest of

his. The words kim krityam asti in the sloka refer to such a yogi.

 

The enlightened one has neither any use for any action, nor any

restriction binds him to any particular action. He has gained that

beyond which there is no other gain. No action is obligatory for

him. Such yogis maintain that their own realization is the best help

and service to others; they are mostly either silent or is

habitually untalkative. Whatever actions a realized sage performs,

these are not motivated by the desire to gain happiness but are an

expression of joy and fulfillment he experiences within. Selfless

action pours out of a yogi for the benefit of all beings; for such a

person has no sense of doer ship. When Paul Brunton (author of the

classic A Search in Secret India) asked Sri Ramana whether such a

person's action would be always right, the Maharshi replied, " They

ought to be. However, such a person is not concerned with the right

or wrong of action. His actions are God's and are therefore right. "

 

prof laxmi narain (prof_narain)

 

Source and courtesy: Sri Ramana Kendram, Hyderabad

This article was published in Sri Ramana Jyothi,

monthly magazine of the Kendram.