Fw: Uplifting Oneself, Through Spiritual Effort

September 2, 2009

--- On Wed, 2/9/09, www ramanateaching org <sadasivananda wrote:

"The Need for Achievement of Permanent Success."Also with the attachment "Surrender?"www.ramanateaching.org

Devotee: "How long is the practice to continue?" Maharshi: "Till success is achieved and until yoga-liberation becomes permanent. Success begets success.."

(Talks #28)

When the sun rises, not all buds burst into flower but only those who are ready for flowering. It is no use accusing the sun of injustice. All that one has to concern oneself with is becoming fit and ready. In this, no less than in worldly matters, the injunction of the Gita is to be observed: to concern oneself with performing the right action, not with grasping at the reward of the action. Irrespective of visible results, this lifetime should be used for spiritual development, for ripening towards realization of that Ultimate Identity which eternally is, whether realized or not. Indeed, the only real tragedy is a lifetime wasted on meaningless living, not turned to spiritual effort.

"Grace is always there, it is only you who have to make yourself receptive to it."(Be Still, It Is The Wind That Sings, p.74)

Before this revelation, there must come a confrontation and a conquering, then finally sublimation through the rising of our self by our own self-effort (svakriya)..

"One should uplift oneself by one's own Self and not lower oneself. Truly, it is the Self which is one's friend, and it is the self which is one's enemy." (Bhagavad Gita, Ch 6:5)

Bhagavan Ramana gives us a choice of two means of practice. He frequently said:

"There are two ways: 'Ask yourself- Who am I?' or 'Submit and I will strike down the ego'." (Be Still, it is the Wind That Sings, p. 64)

For those who have set their hands to the plough of:

"Effort, which is itself yoga,"

(Guru Ramana, p. 74.)

A glimpse of Self-realization can be regarded as a breach in the prison-walls of the ego. Its occurrence does not rest with the aspirant; what rests with him is the steady work of erosion, wearing the walls away, until at last they become paper-thin and ready to collapse. The mind must be completely saturated by understanding of non-duality â€” that there is only the One Self. It is not enough to hold this as a theory.

"If one distraction is conquered the next is conquered and so on, until all are finally conquered. The process is like reducing an enemy's fort by slaying its manpower, one by one, as each issues out."

Even this mental permeation, however, is only a preliminary, preparing one for the constant practise of Self enquiry, which will gradually set up the current of awareness. Even though the Sun of Truth has not yet risen, the state of such a man is very different from one who stumbles blindly through the dream of life, taking its appearances for reality, different even from one who awakens occasionally to glimpses of a Reality he does not understand; it is a fuller, more vital, more blessed state, where life, the whole of life, has beauty and significance, and yet, paradoxically, the deprivation of life would be no tragedy, since it is spiritual awareness, not physical life that is the reality.______________________________Sources: 1) My Life and Quest, by Arthur Osborne 2) Practical Sadhana, by Swami Sadasivananda

Attachments:

SURRENDER PART 1.pdf (491K)

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