(no subject)

[Guest guest]

I will be posting the Forty Verses On Reality by Sri Ramana periodically

(from the Mountain Path Journal). Given below is the Introduction,

Invocation and the first three verses.

 

Harsha

 

 

Advaita, non-duality, Identity, is the supreme doctrine. Jnana marga, the

path of knowledge, is the approach to it: Self-enquiry, 'Who am I?', is the

technique Bhagavan taught for this path. There is no more profound and

comprehensive statement of it than his 'Forty Verses on Reality' which are

here given.

 

Invocatory

 

i. If Reality did not exist, could there be any knowledge of existence? Free

from all thoughts, Reality abides in the Heart, the Source of all thoughts.

It is, therefore, called the Heart. How then is one to contemplate it? To be

as it is in the Heart, is Its contemplation.

ii. Those who know intense fear of death seek refuge only at the feet of the

Lord Who has neither death nor birth. Dead to themselves and their

possessions, can the thought of death occur to them again? Deathless are

they.

 

Verses

 

1. From our perception of the world there follows acceptance of a unique

First Principle possessing various powers. Pictures of name and form, the

person who sees, the screen on which he sees, and the light by which he

sees: he himself is all of these.

 

 

2. All religions postulate the three fundamentals, the world, the soul, and

God, but it is only the one Reality that manifests Itself as these three.

One can say, 'The three are really three' only so long as the ego lasts.

Therefore, to inhere in one's own Being, where the 'I', or ego, is dead, is

the perfect State.

 

 

3. 'The world is real.' 'No, it, is a mere illusory appearance.' 'The

world is conscious.' 'No.' 'The world is happiness.' 'No.' What use is it to

argue thus? That State is agreeable to all, wherein, having given up the

objective outlook, one knows one's Self and loses all notions either of

unity or duality, of oneself and the ego.