LAKSHMAN SARMA’S SRI RAMANA PARAVIDYOPANISHAD

[Guest guest]

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.

 

LAKSHMAN SARMA'S SRI RAMANA PARAVIDYOPANISHAD

 

 

Sarma who came to Sri Ramana in the late 1920s, spent most of his

life translating the Maharshi's teachings into Sanskrit. Sri Ramana

closely supervised his Sanskrit translation of Ulladu Narpadu. Other

than Muruganar, he was the only person to have received private

lessons by Sri Ramana on the intent and meanings of his works. His

Sanskrit work Sri Ramana Paravidyopanishad (1950), contains teachings

of the Maharshi, a few of which are:

 

The man who has not experienced his own real Self, thinking `I am

this body' sees himself as `I', the first person of grammar. He sees

another person whom he calls `you', and refers to a third person

as `he'. These three distinct persons are not real. They are seen

on account of the false notion, `I am the body'. When the ego-soul is

lost as a result of quest of the real Self, only that Self,

consciousness alone, will shine.

Just as one who has become wise to the truth of the mirage

may again see the mirage without being deluded, so too the sage,

seeing this world, does not think of it as real, as does the ignorant

one.

When, forgetting the Self, one thinks that the body is

oneself and goes through innumerable births and in the end remembers

and becomes the Self, knows that this is only like awakening from a

dream wherein one has wandered all over the world.

 

If during the quest of one's own Self, the mind turns

outwards on account of its attachment to objects of perception, the

seeker should turn it inwards again. He should bring the mind back

again and again and re-engage it in the quest. There must be a

resolve to become aware of the truth of oneself by means of the

question, " Who is he that has this attachment to objects of

perception? " The answer to this question is not an intellectual

conclusion. The correct answer to it is only the experience of the

real Self.

The quest of the source of the soul is named as `The Great

Yoga'. It is the yoga of action, the yoga of devotion, the yoga of

restraining the mind and also the yoga of right awareness. By the

practice of meditation mental strength will be intensified.

Therefore, meditation is an aid to the quest. After first achieving

stillness of the mind by meditation, the valiant aspirant must seek

the truth of his own Self.

Just as a woman, suffering intolerably in her father-in-

law's house, obtains peace in her mother's house, so the mind,

harried by samsaric (worldly) sufferings, wins peace by returning to

the source: the Real Self.

To create empty space in a room one only has to remove the

encumbering, unwanted lumber. In the same way, to realise the Self,

nothing more is needed than the removal of false knowledge that I am

the body.

For him that is established in the supreme state, desires do

not arise, because the desirer, the ego, has ceased to exist. The

sage in that state is ever contented. In the end the writer says:

To that supreme one, the Self of all creatures, who became

our Guru, Sri Ramana – let there be thousands of namaskarams until

the extinction of the ego is secured.