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

[Guest guest]

Time is an imagination that we do not experience in sleep, but is a part of

each of the worlds that we experience in waking and dream. Since the world

that we experienced in a dream is not the same world that we experience now

in this present waking state, the time that we experienced as part of that

dream world is not the same time that we are experiencing now. Therefore if

we try to judge the duration of dream by the standard of time that we

experience now, our judgement will inevitably be distorted and therefore

invalid.

 

Therefore to help us to free ourself from all our desires,attachments, fears

and aversions, Sri Ramana and other sages teach us the truth that everything

other than our own self-consciousness, ‘I am’, is unreal, being a mere

figment of our own imagination. This is why in verse 559 of Guru Vachaka

Kovai he confirmed the inference that we can draw from the fact that

whatever we experienced in a dream appeared then to be as real as what we

experience in this waking state appears now to be, stating explicitly:

 

If dream, which appeared [and was experienced by us as if it were real], is

a mere whirling of [our own] thoughts, waking, which has [now] occurred [and

is being experienced by us as if it were real], is also of that [same]

nature [that is, it is likewise a mere whirling of our own thoughts]. As

real as the happenings in waking, which has [now] occurred, [appear to be at

this present moment], so real indeed [the happenings in] dream [appeared to

be] at that time.

 

The relationship between ourself and our body is similar to the relationship

between gold and a gold ornament. Just as gold is the one substance of which

the ornament is made, so we are the one substance of which our body and all

the other objects of this world are made. Therefore in verse 4 of Ekatma

Panchakam Sri Ramana says:

 

Is [an] ornament other than [the] gold [of which it is made]? Having

separated [freed or disentangled] ourself, what [or how] is [our] body? One

who thinks himself [or herself] to be [merely a finite] body is an ajñani [a

person who is ignorant of our one real, infinite and non-dual self],

[whereas] one who takes [himself or herself] to be [nothing other than our

one real] self is a jñani, [a sage] who has known [this one real] self. Know

[yourself thus as this one infinite self].

 

Since death is just the ending of an extended dream, it is merely a state of

abeyance or temporary subsidence of our mind, like the sleep that we

experience every day. After we have rested for a while in sleep, our latent

desires and fears impel our mind to rise and become active once again in

another state of dream. Similarly, after we have rested for a while in

death, our latent desires and fears impel our mind to rise once again in

another state of activity, in which we imagine some other body to be

ourself.

 

Therefore when Sri Ramana said, “having taken innumerable births”, he was

referring to this repeated process of forsaking one dream body and imagining

another dream body to be ourself. Rebirth or reincarnation is therefore not

real, but is just a dream – an imaginary event that occurs repeatedly in our

seemingly long sleep of imaginary self-ignorance.

 

Since our self-ignorance is therefore not real but only imaginary,in order

to put an end to it all we need do is cultivate the habit of remembering or

being attentive to our own essential being, ‘I am’. As Sri Ramana says in

the eleventh paragraph of Nan Yar?:

 

… If one clings firmly to uninterrupted svarupa-smarana [remembrance of

one’s own essential nature or real self, ‘I am’] until one attains svarupa

[that is, until one attains true knowledge of one’s own essential nature],

that alone [will be] sufficient. …

 

Hence in verse 22 of Upadesa Undiyar Sri Ramana briefly states the essential

conclusion that we should arrive at by means of the rational process of

self-analysis, which in the ancient texts of advaita vedanta is called neti

neti or ‘not thus, not thus’:

 

Since [our] body, mind, intellect, life and darkness [the seeming absence of

knowledge that we experience in sleep] are all jada [inconscient] and asat

[unreal or non-existent], [they are] not ‘I’, which is [chit or

consciousness and] sat [being or reality].

 

Source: Happiness and The Art of Being Book

which is a layman’s introduction to the philosophy and practice of the

spiritual teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana By Michael James

 

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Om namo Bhagavate Sri Ramanaya

Prasanth Jalasutram

 

 

 

--

Om namo Bhagavate Sri Ramanaya

Prasanth Jalasutram