Final Part -- Michael James about Happiness And The Art Of Being based on teachings of Ramana Maharshi

[Guest guest]

The desire for appreciation and respect is very subtle and therefore

powerful in its ability to delude us, and it is a desire to which even

otherwise perfectly good people can easily fall a prey,particularly if they

engage themselves in any activity that seems to benefit other people, such

as teaching the principles of religion,philosophy or moral conduct through

either speech or writing. This desire is particularly dangerous for a

spiritual aspirant, because the pleasure we feel in being appreciated and

respected derives from our attachment to our ego or individual personality –

our delusive sense that we are the person who is appreciated and respected.

Therefore,if we are sincere in our desire to attain true self-knowledge, we

should be extremely vigilant to avoid giving any room in our mind to the

rising of this desire.

 

If we study the words written in sacred texts and other philosophical books,

but still make no effort to put what we learn from those books into practice

by turning our mind inwards to experience our own essential being, which is

the source from which we as our ego were ‘born’ or originated, and thereby

annihilating this ego, who experiences the letters of fate, all our study

and erudition are of no use whatsoever.

 

What initially motivates us to read books on philosophy or religion is our

desire to know the truth, but the true knowledge that we seek to acquire

cannot be contained in any book or any words. True knowledge is only the

absolute knowledge that lies beyond the reach of all thoughts and words.

 

 

Since this mind, our false ‘I’ or ego, rises only by knowing things that

appear to be other than itself, and since it seems to exist only so long as

we allow it to continue dwelling upon those other things, in order to

annihilate it we must turn it away from all its thoughts and concepts – that

is, from all forms of knowledge that are extraneous to our fundamental

self-consciousness – by concentrating it wholly

and exclusively upon our own essential self-conscious being, which is the

source from which it had arisen to know all those other forms of knowledge. No

matter how many books we may read, we cannot attain true knowledge until and

unless we forget all that we have learnt from them by thus concentrating our

entire attention only upon our own true non-dual self-conscious being.

 

If we have great enthusiasm to study a vast number of books, and to remember

all the concepts that we have learnt from them, we are likely to forget the

true purpose of the books we study. Therefore,rather than reading many

books, we would be wise to select a few books which clearly and repeatedly

emphasise the need for us to turn our mind inwards and drown it in the

source from which it has risen,and that thereby enkindle and sustain our

enthusiasm to practise the art of vigilantly self-attentive and therefore

thought-free being.

 

Thus our interactions with other people are a good opportunity for us to

recognise such bad qualities in ourself, and to resist the sway that they

hold over us by applying the vairagya or ‘holy indifference’ that we are

gradually cultivating through our practice of self-attentive being.

Therefore in the last two paragraphs of Nan Yar? Sri Ramana gives us some

valuable tips regarding the inward attitude with which we should interact

with other people and conduct ourself in this world. In the nineteenth

paragraph he says: There are not two [classes of] minds, namely a good

[class of] mind and a bad [class of] mind. Only vasanas [impulsions or

latent desires] are of two kinds, namely subha [good or agreeable] and

asubha [bad or disagreeable]. When [a person’s] mind is under the sway of

subha-vasanas [agreeable impulsions] it is said to be a good mind, and when

it is under the sway of asubha-vasanas [disagreeable impulsions] a bad

mind. However bad other people may appear to be, disliking them is not

proper [or appropriate]. Likes and dislikes are both fit [for us] to dislike

[or to renounce]. It is not proper [for us] to let [our] mind [dwell] much

on worldly matters. It is not proper [for us] to enter in the affairs of

other people [an idiomatic way of saying that we should mind our own

business and not interfere in other people’s affairs]. All that one gives to

others one is giving only to oneself. If [everyone] knew this truth, who

indeed would refrain from giving?

 

All our selfish attitudes, feelings, emotions, reactions and behaviours,

such as our possessiveness, greed, lust, anger, jealousy,pride and egoism,

are rooted in our likes and dislikes. Therefore to the extent to which we

are able to free ourself from our likes and dislikes, we will accordingly

free ourself from all forms of selfishness and from all the disagreeable

feelings and emotions that they arouse in us. Since our interactions with

other people tend to bring to the surface of our mind all our deep-rooted

likes and dislikes, they are God-given opportunities for us not only to

identify our likes and dislikes but also to curb them.

 

Therefore, to avoid contributing to the sufferings of others, the most

essential thing that we must do is to root all selfishness and greed out of

our own mind,and we can do this effectively only by turning our mind inwards

to drown it in our own self-conscious being, which is the source from which

it rises together with all its selfishness and greed.

 

Moreover, in the final analysis, this world and all the sufferings that we

see in it are created by our own power of imagination and exist only in our

own mind, just as the world and the sufferings that we see in a dream are.

If we feel compassion on seeing the sufferings of other people and animals

in our dream, and if we wish to alleviate all such suffering, all we need do

is to wake up from that dream.

Likewise, if we truly wish to put an end to all the sufferings that we see

in this world, we must strive to wake up from this dream that we mistake to

be our waking life, into the true waking state of perfectly non-dual

self-knowledge, by tenaciously practising the art of selfattentive being.

 

Moreover, not only was he equally kind to and caring about individual

animals of every species, but he also showed his strong disapproval whenever

any person treated unkindly or caused any harm to any animal. He would not

tolerate or allow people to kill even poisonous animals such as snakes and

scorpions, and he pointed out that our fear of such animals is caused only

by our attachment to our own bodies. He said that just as we cherish our

life in our present body, so every other creature equally cherishes their

life in their present body, and hence we have no right to deprive any

creature of its cherished life, or to cause it harm or suffering of any kind

whatsoever.

 

However, our love, compassion and concern for other people and animals

should not lead us to believe that we can do any great good in this world,

or that this world needs us to reform it. Whenever any person told Sri

Ramana that he had an ambition to reform the world in some way or to do any

other such ‘good’, he would say, “He who has created this world knows how to

take care of it. If you believe in God, trust him to do whatever is

necessary for this world”. On many occasions and in many ways, Sri Ramana

made it clear that our duty is not to reform the world but only to reform

ourself.

 

Sri Ramana says in the nineteenth paragraph of Nan Yar?:

 

… It is not proper [for us] to let [our] mind [dwell] much on worldly

matters. It is not proper [for us] to enter [or interfere] in the affairs of

other people…

 

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

 

--

Om namo Bhagavate Sri Ramanaya

Prasanth Jalasutram