How can I get peace?

D: How can I get peace? I do not seem to obtain it through vichara.

Sri Ramana Maharshi: Peace is your natural state. It is the mind that obstructs the natural state. Your vichara has been made only in the mind. Investigate what the mind is, and it will disappear. There is no such thing as mind apart from thought. Nevertheless, because of the emergence of thought, you surmise something from which it starts and term that the mind. When you probe to see what it is, you find there is really no such thing as mind. When the mind has thus vanished, you realise eternal peace.

~ from Maharshi's Gospel

our refuge

For those who, thinking without thought,
‘Whence does the “I” arise?’
so that ‘I’ is destroyed within the Heart,
wherein the ‘I’ does not arise,
have died to the five senses [and the mind]
and dwell steadfastly in the Heart,
their minds become Sivam,
the sanctum sanctorum.

Yours are the holy feet of Sivam,
the true, the divine,
which you clearly revealed to me
through the power of consciousness [chit sakti]
as I was whirling, through fear, in confusion
amongst imaginary appearances.

Our Lord! Know that, through all the seven births,
your feet of pure gold,
which are truly worthy to behold,
are the one refuge for us, your devotees!

~ Sri Bhagavan and Sri Muruganar, Ramana Puranam, lines 523-530 (translation & editing by Robert Butler, T. V. Venkatasubramanian and David Godman)

Vichara not Intellectual but Inward and Subtle

D: If I go on rejecting thoughts can I call it Vichara?

Sri Ramana Maharshi: It may be a stepping stone. But really Vichara begins when you cling to your Self and are already off the mental movement, the thought-waves.

D: Then Vichara is not intellectual?

M: No, it is Anthara vichara, inner quest.

D: That is Dhyana?

M: To stick to a position unassailed by thoughts is Abhyasa or Sadhana; you are watchful. But the condition grows intenser and deeper when your effort and all responsibilities are taken away from you; that is Aroodha, Siddhi state.


~ from Sat-Darshana Bhashya and Talks with Maharshi, by Kapali Sastri

Bhakti-Vichara

When one adopting self-enquiry
Reaches the journey's end and gains
Samadhi's bliss, it is solely due
To the grace of God, one's inmost Self,
Life of one's life.

Unless the Self, the God within,
By power of grace pulls in the mind,
Who has the strength through his own effort
To stop the rogue mind's outward drift
And merge it in the Heart and so
Gain peace?

Without the Guru's grace one cannot
Win the grace of God with eightfold form.
And this God's grace comes neither from
Learning nor from aught else but through
Devotion and devotion only.

Whether or not God's grace abundant
Sustains you, entertain no doubt.
That you, avid for freedom from bondage,
Have started self-enquiry, this
is proof enough of grace.

To tell the truth, God's grace supreme
And the keen quest "Who am I?",
Which means abidance in the Heart,
Will work together as mutual aids
And bring one to the state of oneness
With the Self supreme.

This maya world-dream will not end
Unless the Self within speaks out.
The enquiry "Who is the dreamer
Of this dream?" is prayer addressed
To Him to speak and wake us up.

It is said that meditation
On one's own being is supreme
Devotion to all-transcending God,
Because, though spoken of as two,
They are in substance one.

The way of knowledge and the way of love
Are interwoven close. Don't tear
Asunder these inseparables.
But practice both together holding
In the heart the two as one.


Meditation on the Self
Is devotion to the Lord
Supreme, since He abides as this
Our very Self.
-Sri Bhagavan


~ Sri Muruganar, Guru Vachaka Kovai

Always conscious of His Presence

When you dive into the sea, you take off your clothes beforehand. When you dive into the Self in samadhi you must put aside your outer self. The thoughts and emotions must be discarded, at least temporarily, before samadhi can be experienced. Many books could be written about these experiences, but they would be of little use without the practice of Vichara. And then everything comes of its own accord. As Maharshi says: 'Knowing the Self by means of the Vichara you will find your Master within yourself'.

Now it may be clear why disciples of the Master are always conscious of his presence. Every devoted seeker will find him in his own heart, though he has not seen him in his physical form. And this invisible presence is as potent as was his physical one.

Nevertheless, there is a strange power and inspiration in the pictures of Maharshi. Were it not so he would never have permitted them to be made.

~ Mouni Sadhu, In Days of Great Peace