Michael James about self enquiry based on teachings of Ramana Maharshi - Part 2

[Guest guest]

Since our ‘knowing consciousness’, which is what is commonly called our

‘mind’, appears in waking and dream but disappears in sleep, it is

impermanent, and hence it cannot be our real self – our true and natural

form of being and consciousness. Since our ‘being consciousness’, on the

other hand, exists in all our three states of consciousness, waking, dream

and deep sleep, it is permanent, and hence it is our real self, the very

core and essence of our being – our true and natural form of consciousness.

 

Since our entire experience of duality or multiplicity arises only in our

mind, and since our mind is built upon the flimsy foundation of our

imaginary lack of clarity of self-knowledge, when this mist-like imaginary

lack of clarity is dissolved in the clear light of unadulterated

self-consciousness, our mind and all the duality that it now experiences

will disappear for ever, just as a dream disappears as soon as we wake up

from sleep. Therefore in verse 1 of Ekatma Panchakam Sri Ramana says:

 

Having forgotten ourself [our real self, our pure unadulterated

consciousness ‘I am’], having thought ‘[this] body indeed is myself’, [and]

having [thereby] taken innumerable births, finally knowing ourself [and]

being ourself is just [like] waking from a dream of wandering about the

world. See [thus].

 

Our present waking state is in fact just a dream that is occurring in our

long sleep of self-forgetfulness or lack of clarity of true selfknowledge.

So long as this sleep persists, we will continue dreaming one dream after

another. Between our dreams we may rest for a while in dreamless sleep, but

such rest can never be permanent.

 

A dream actually appears within our own mind, but our mind experiences

itself as being a body that exists within that dream. Such is the

self-delusive power of our imagination. Therefore in verse 3 of Ekatma

Panchakam Sri Ramana says:

 

When [our] body exists within ourself [who are the basic consciousness in

which all things appear], a person who thinks himself [or herself] to be

existing within that inconscient [material] body is like someone who thinks

that the screen, [which is] the adhara [the underlying support or base] of a

[cinema] picture, exists within that picture.

 

In the kalivenba version of Ekatma Panchakam Sri Ramana added the compound

word sat-chit-ananda, which means ‘beingconsciousness- bliss’, before the

initial word of this verse, tannul or ‘within [our] self’, thereby reminding

us that what we are in essence is only the perfectly peaceful consciousness

of being, ‘I am’. Other than our basic consciousness of our own being,

everything that we know appears within the distorted object-knowing form of

our consciousness that we call our mind, which arises within us during

waking and dream, and subsides back into ourself during sleep. Our true

consciousness of being – our essential self-consciousness ‘I am’ – is

therefore like the screen on which a cinema picture is projected, because it

is the one fundamental adhara or underlying base that supports the

appearance and disappearance of our mind and everything that is known by it.

--

Om namo Bhagavate Sri Ramanaya

Prasanth Jalasutram