The Silent Way

Ignore the Ego and You will be Free

2007-10-15T04:51:00.000-07:00

Question: In this life beset with limitations can I ever realise the bliss of the Self?

Bhagavan: That bliss of the Self is always with you, and you will find it for yourself, if you would seek it earnestly.

The cause of your misery is not in the life without; it is in you as the ego. You impose limitations on yourself and then make a vain struggle to transcend them. All unhappiness is due to the ego; with it comes all your trouble. What does it avail you to attribute to the happenings in life the cause of misery which is really within you? What happiness can you get from things extraneous to yourself? When you get it, how long will it last?

If you would deny the ego and scorch it by ignoring it, you would be free. If you accept it, it will impose limitations on you and throw you into a vain struggle to transcend them. That was how the thief sought to ‘ruin’ King Janaka.

To be the Self that you really are is the only means to realise the bliss that is ever yours.

[Maharshi'sGospel - pp 47-48]

Whatever Appears is Impermanent - Ramana Maharshi

2007-08-27T05:18:00.000-07:00

27 August 2007 - 13:20

"When the mind unceasingly investigates its own nature, it transpires that there is no such thing as mind. This is the direct path for all."

"What appears will also disappear and is therefore impermanent. The Self never appears and disappears and is therefore permanent It is the only Reality."

~ Ramana Maharshi

The Error of Duality

2007-05-27T09:55:00.000-07:00

27 May 2007 - 17:56

Hello, welcome to The Silent Way, if this is your first visit you may want to start by reading the first post first - here - http://advaitaramana.blogspot.com/2007/02/silence-is-beyond-doubt.html

Duality and Non-Duality

We generally see the world in a dualistic way, i.e. 'I am here looking at the world out there'. How does this duality arise? It arises from the habit we have of looking at ourselves as if we were two people.

If you fix your attention on the sensation of 'I', you will notice that in addition to the sensation of 'I' there is the notion that there is a 'witness', someone watching the sensation of 'I'. This is clearly nonsense, as it implies that there are two 'Is' - one (unseen) watching the other. We also have the mistaken notion that we must get rid of the 'I' we can see to find the 'real I' that we cannot see.

You are not two people. The thought that there is one 'I' watching another 'I' is just that - a thought, and an erroneous thought at that. In reality there is no other 'I' watching the first 'I'. There is only one 'I' and its nature is awareness. 'I' is self-aware, it is aware of itself, it does not need any other 'I' to be aware of it.

Seeking What is Already There Before Seeking Starts

2007-04-26T10:06:00.000-07:00

26 April 2007 - 18:06

Vivekachuadamani

"353. The wise man, discriminating thus the real and the unreal, ascertaining the Truth through his illuminative insight, and realizing his own Self which is Knowledge Absolute, gets rid of the obstructions and directly attains Peace."

So, you are knowledge, not an object of knowledge. This you see by "discriminating the real and the unreal". The problem here is that "real" and "unreal" are categories created by you. Your mind creates the categories of real and unreal and sets about trying to discriminate between the two in order to isolate the real in the belief that by knowing the real all will be well and Peace will be attained.

In the prior stanza Sri Sankara said "The Supreme Self is ever of the nature of eternal, indivisible knowledge, one without a second" . This is all well and good, but it does require that you believe what Sankara is saying. It also requires that you believe that Sankara existed or that what you are looking at now exists.

What you need to do is to find that which you cannot doubt. Something about which it is impossible to say "hmmmm maybe this doesn't exist". The only thing that fulfils this requirement is silence. If you remain silent you cannot deny or assert anything. But don't imagine silence to be something where there is no sound. 'Sound' is a concept and 'silence' is a concept. Remain without concepts, without definitions.

Dogen - 1200 - 1253

2007-04-03T15:21:00.000-07:00

3 April 2007 - 23:21

"Just understand that birth-and-death is itself
nirvana. There is no such thing as birth and death
to be avoided; there is no such thing as nirvana to
be sought. Only when you realize this are you free
from birth and death."
~Dogen

Vivekachudamani of Sankara

2007-03-31T11:26:00.000-07:00

31 March 2007 - 19:28

"This entire universe, which is produced from Brahman (Consciousness), is Consciousness itself and nothing but That. Because there is nothing else whatever but Consciousness, and That is the only self-existent Reality, our very Self, therefore art thou that serene, pure, Supreme Consciousness, the One without a second"

Now is Consciousness. You are not aware of now, you are now. You are the present moment.

Video Talks by John Sherman

2007-03-30T10:18:00.000-07:00

30 March 2007 - 18:18

I have added a link in the sidebar to Satsang Talks by John Sherman. The talks are available on Youtube but Google links directly to them from this blog.

John Sherman is the clearest teacher of 'what needs to be done' that I have come across on the Internet. He seems totally natural and lacking in any desire for self-promotion. His talks and satsangs are free, which to me is important. He also gives live online talks/discussions via the Internet.

Ramana Maharshi never showed any interest in money whatsoever, when he arrived in Tiruvannamalai in 1896 at the age of 16, having left behind him a reasonably comfortable life with his mother and uncle, he threw away the last few pennies he had and, as far as I know, never touched any money again. If somebody hadn't found him meditating in a temple cellar and forced food into his mouth it is quite possible that he would have died. When asked about this time he said "People used to put food into my mouth, and it was easier to swallow it than to spit it out." After this and during his early years in Tiruvannamalai he lived by begging. Later on, as a community gathered around him he lived from the donations provided by disciples and visitors.

Webcam of Arunachala Holy Mountain

2007-03-28T20:24:00.000-07:00

29 March 2007 - 04:05

Some kind soul has set up a webcam at Arunachala in India, close to the ashram of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi, but pointing at the holy mountain Arunachala. If Ramana Maharshi can be said to have been attached to anything it was to Arunachala and he strongly recommended that people should walk around it as often as possible, as it had a calming effect on the mind.

This webcam refreshes once a minute Arunachala

The Path to Enlightenment

2007-03-20T19:32:00.000-07:00

21 March 2007 - 02:33

What is Enlightenment and how do we get there ? Well, if you've done any research into Enlightenment you have probably discovered that there is no such thing, it is just a word, or just a concept. If you don't understand English then it isn't even that, it's just a sound.

We create the concept of Enlightenment, which we think corresponds to something which has some sort of objective existence before we thought of it, we then decide we haven't got it and after that we go looking for it. All pretty crazy really! The reason we do that is that we have concepts about all sorts of things and we then take these concepts to be reality. For example, we have the concept 'I exist' , but what if we don't have that concept? Without that concept we can't say anything, so best just be quiet. But don't have the concept 'I am being quiet'.

In this age of gurus the greatest of them all IMHO was Ramana Maharshi. He was, I believe, great for two reasons (at least). Firstly, at the age of sixteen, although he knew nothing about 'Enlightenment' 'Realization' 'Yoga' 'Meditation' 'Self-knowledge' etc... he sat down and in the space of a few minutes realized the truth of who he was. Secondly he managed to live with this truth without going crazy and without letting his ego grasp it. He lived the rest of his life, from age 16 to age 70 when he died, in total humility. Teaching when asked to do so, but most of the time remaining silent.

This is how he described his experience when he was 16 :-

“It was about six weeks before I left Madurai for good that the great change in my life took place. It was so sudden. One day I sat up alone on the first floor of my uncle’s house. I was in my usual health. I seldom had any illness. I was a heavy sleeper. … So, on that day as I sat alone there was nothing wrong with my health. But a sudden and unmistakable fear of death seized me. I felt I was going to die. Why I should have so felt cannot now be explained by anything felt in my body. Nor could I explain it to myself then. I did not however trouble myself to discover if the fear was well grounded. I felt I was going to die, and at once set about thinking out what I should do. I did not care to consult doctors or elders or even friends. I felt I had to solve the problem myself then and there.

The shock of the fear of death made me at once introspective, or ‘introverted’. I said to myself mentally, i.e., without uttering the words – ‘Now, death has come. What does it mean? What is it that is dying ? This body dies.’ I at once dramatized the scene of death. I extended my limbs and held them rigid as though rigor-mortis had set in. I imitated a corpse to lend an air of reality to my further investigation. I held my breath and kept my mouth closed, pressing the lips tightly together so that no sound might escape. Let not the word ‘I’ or any other word be uttered ! ‘Well then,’ said I to myself, ‘this body is dead. It will be carried stiff to the burning ground and there burnt and reduced to ashes. But with the death of this body, am “I” dead ? Is the body “I” ? This body is silent and inert. But I feel the full force of my personality and even the sound “I” within myself, - apart from the body. So “I” am a spirit, a thing transcending the body. The material body dies, but the spirit transcending it cannot be touched by death. I am therefore the deathless spirit.’ All this was not a mere intellectual process, but flashed before me vividly as living truth, something which I perceived immediately, without any argument almost. ‘I’ was something very real, the only real thing in that state, and all the conscious activity that was connected with my body was centred on that. The ‘I’ or my ‘self’ was holding the focus of attention by a powerful fascination from that time forwards. Fear of death had vanished once and forever. Absorption in the Self has continued from that moment right up to this time. Other thoughts may come and go like the various notes of a musician, but the ‘I’ continues like the basic or fundamental sruti note which accompanies and blends with all other notes. Whether the body was engaged in talking, reading or anything else, I was still centred on ‘I’. Previous to that crisis I had no clear perception of myself and was not consciously attracted to it. I had felt no direct perceptible interest in it, much less any permanent disposition to dwell upon it.”

Shortly after this experience he left home and made his way to the holy mountain of Arunachala, where he lived in great simplicity until his death in 1950.

It is important to note that at no point in his experience as described above does he ask the question 'What is Enlightenment?' His focus was on death and discovering what it is that dies. He decided that the time had come to find out the truth about death and this he did by intense introspection to see what remained when the 'I' dies. "I felt I had to solve the problem myself then and there. "

He lived on Arunachala for around 10 years before he uttered a word to anyone. When he did finally break his silence it was in answer to a question about the nature of 'tapas' (self-discipline/meditation). His answer was "If one watches whence this notion of ‘I’ springs, the mind will be absorbed into that. That is tapas."

His preferred method of teaching was silence. If you can remain silent then there is nothing to be done and in fact no way of doing anything, there are also no problems. For those who can't remain silent his instruction was to fix their attention on the feeling of 'I' without uttering the word 'I'. Eventually you see that there cannot be two 'I's - one that is looking and one that is being looked at - there is only one 'I'.

"The Self is a self-cognised entity because It is cognised by Itself. Hence the individual soul is itself and directly the Supreme, and nothing else" ~ Vivekachudamani

Sort Yourself Out First

2007-03-11T14:23:00.000-07:00

You may wish to help the world, but first you need to sort yourself out, - for a number of reasons.

You may be mad
You may be deluded
You may be dreaming
You may be only the being that exists
You may be a victim of concepts
etc...

It is therefore essential that you discover what you are or even if you are before you consider trying to help others who may or may not be there.

Find out the truth about yourself first.

Silence is Beyond Doubt

2007-02-18T18:48:00.000-08:00

Welcome. Do you ever wonder what it's all about? Well, cease wondering and be aware of what is there before wondering started. It obviously has no name but you can call it silence.

The greatest modern example of the power of this silence was Ramana Maharshi who lived and died in Southern India from 1879 - 1950.

He left home at the age of 16 and spent the next ten years living as a beggar on Arunachala Mountain in total silence. When he did finally break his silence it was in response to a question from a certain Ganapati Sastri :-

"It was on the ninth day of the Kartikai festival, 18th November 1907 at about half past one, when, in the mid-day heat, he climbed up the hill to the Virupaksha cave. He was trembling with emotion. The young Swami was seated alone in front of his cave. Although, because of the festival, there were crowds of people everywhere, there was nobody at all near the Swami. Even Palaniswami was not there. Ganapati Muni fell prostrate on the ground, grasped Sri Ramana’s feet with both hands and uttered trembling: “All that has to be read I have read. Even Vedanta Sastra [the holy scriptures of Vedanta] I have fully understood. I have performed japa to my heart’s content. Yet I have not up to this time understood what tapas (self-discipline/meditation) is. Hence have I sought refuge at thy feet. Pray enlighten me about the nature of tapas.”

For 15 minutes the Swami kept silent and looked at Ganapati, who sat at his feet full of expectation. Then he answered: “If one watches whence this notion of ‘I’ springs, the mind will be absorbed into that. That is tapas. If a mantra is repeated, and attention directed to the source whence the mantra-sound is produced, the mind will be absorbed in that. That is tapas.”
This was the first time that Sri Ramana gave a verbal answer to a question. Until then he had kept silent and had always written the answers down. It is remarkable how he led the mantra practice of his new disciple back to the method of Self-Enquiry. For Ganapati Muni this was a real revelation. His heart was filled with ecstatic joy and he meditated at the feet of his new master until the evening."
[An extract from "Ramana Maharshi : His Life" by Gabriele Ebert - available as a book or as a free download here - Lulu

A search for 'advaita', 'vedanta', 'jnana', will display many people who follow this tradition. Personally I am rather sceptical about the claims made for a lot of them, but one who appears to know what he is talking about is John Sherman. He has a site and a number of podcasts here :-
RiverGanga

Self-Enquiry, rather confusingly is not actually an enquiry, and should really be called Self-Attention, i.e. fixing the attention on the self to the exclusion of everything else (see 'The Path of Sri Ramana : Part I' by Sri Sadhu Om).