Bhagawan Sri Ramana Maharshi

[Guest guest]

Question: If I try to make the 'Who am I?' enquiry, I fall into sleep.

What should I do?

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: Persist in the enquiry throughout your waking

hours. That would be quite enough. If you keep on making the enquiry

till you fall asleep, the enquiry will go on during sleep also. Take

up the enquiry again as soon as you wake up.

 

Question: How can I get peace? I do not seem to obtain it through

Vichara (enquiry).

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: Peace is your natural state. It is the mind that

obstructs the natural state. If you do not experience peace it means

that your Vichara (enquiry) has been made only in the mind.

Investigate what the mind is, and it will disappear. There is no such

thing as mind apart from thought. Nevertheless, because of the

emergence of thought, you surmise something from which it starts and

term that the mind. When you probe to see what it is, you find there

is really no such thing as mind. When the mind has thus vanished, you

realise eternal peace.

 

Question: When I am engaged in enquiry as to the source from which the

'I' springs, I arrive at a stage of stillness of mind beyond which I

find myself unable to proceed further. I have no thought of any kind

and there is an emptiness, a blankness. A mild light pervades and I

feel that it is myself bodiless. I have neither cognition nor vision

of body or form. The experience lasts nearly half an hour and is

pleasing. Would I be correct in concluding that all that was necessary

to secure eternal happiness, that is freedom or salvation or whatever

one calls it, was to continue the practice till the experience could

be maintained for hours, days and months together?

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: This does not mean salvation. Such a condition is

termed Manolaya or temporary stillness of thought. Manolaya means

concentration, temporarily arresting the movement of thoughts. As soon

as this concentration ceases, thoughts, old and new, rush in as usual;

and even if this temporary lulling of mind should last a thousand

years, it will never lead to total destruction of thought, which is

what is called liberation from birth and death.

 

The practitioner must therefore be ever on the alert and enquire

within as to who has this experience, who realises its pleasantness.

Without this enquiry he will go into a long trance or deep sleep (Yoga

Nidra). Due to the absence of a proper guide at this stage of

spiritual practice, many have been deluded and fallen a prey to a

false sense of liberation and only a few have managed to reach the

goal safely.

 

The following story illustrates the point very well. A yogi was doing

penance (tapas) for a number of years on the banks of the Ganges. When

he had attained a high degree of concentration, he believed that

continuance in that stage for prolonged periods constituted liberation

and practised it. One day, before going into deep concentration, he

felt thirsty and called to his disciple to bring a little drinking

water from the Ganges. But before the disciple arrived with the water,

he had gone into Yoga Nidra and remained in that state for countless

years, during which time much water flowed under the bridge. When he

woke up from this experience he immediately called ''Water! Water!';

but there was neither his disciple nor the Ganges in sight.

 

The first thing that he asked for was water because, before going into

deep concentration, the topmost layer of thought in his mind was water

and by concentration, however deep and prolonged it might have been,

he had only been able temporarily to lull his thoughts. When he

regained consciousness this topmost thought flew up with all the speed

and force of a flood breaking through the dykes. If this were the case

with regard to a thought which took shape immediately before he sat

for meditation, there is no doubt that thoughts which took root

earlier would also remain unannihilated. If annihilation of thoughts

is liberation, can he be said to have attained salvation?

 

Sadhakas (seekers) rarely understand the difference between this

temporary stilling of the mind (Manolaya) and permanent destruction of

thoughts (manonasa). In Manolaya there is temporary subsidence of

thought-waves, and though this temporary period may even last for a

thousand years, thoughts, which are thus temporarily stilled, rise up

as soon as the Manolaya ceases.

 

One must therefore watch one's spiritual progress carefully. One must

not allow oneself to be overtaken by such spells of stillness of

thought. The moment one experiences this, one must revive

consciousness and enquire within as to who it is who experiences this

stillness. While not allowing any thoughts to intrude, one must not,

at the same time, be overtaken by this deep sleep (Yoga Nidra) or self-

hypnotism.

 

Though this is a sign of progress towards the goal, yet it is also the

point where the divergence between the road to liberation and Yoga

Nidra take place. The easy way, the direct way, the shortest cut to

salvation is the enquiry method. By such enquiry, you will drive the

thought force deeper till it reaches its source and merges therein. It

is then that you will have the response from within and find that you

rest there, destroying all thoughts once and for all.