Desirelessness and Devotion

To the extent to which the conviction grows stronger in us that all the extroverted activity of the mind is only misery, to that extent the desire and love to turn within will also increase. And to the extent to which the strength to attend to Self increases in us, to that extent the conviction will grow that attending to anything other than Self is useless. Thus each one of these two (namely vairagya or desirelessness towards external objects and bhakti or the love to attend to Self) is an aid to increase the other.

~ Sri Sadhu Om, Sadhanai Saram, verse 56

His grace

A liberating air of freedom comes to one's life when Ramana enters it. 'There is sweetness and joy in losing ourselves in love of Him, in a union in which the individuality merges. What does 'loving Ramana' mean? Is it an act of volition, an exercise of our will or is it the operation of His grace?

"In my loveless heart you planted love of you, O Arunachala", says Bhagavan in Aksharamanamalai. Muruganar too sings: "Your Grace it was I stumbled to your feet, your love that raised me up and made me yours" (Ramana Sannidhi Murai). One thing, however, is clear; that to be chosen, to be touched and transformed into this communion, is the greatest good fortune that can happen to anyone, for it is the nature of Ramana to give His Sivahood. His auspiciousness, His supreme state of Bliss, in exchange for one's narrow, limited self!

~ A. R. Natarajan, Loving Ramana

Other things attract us because we wrongly believe we can obtain happiness from them, and we believe this due to our lack of viveka or true discrimination. However, by being constantly self-attentive, we will be feeding our mind with the natural clarity of viveka that exists within us as the clear light of our ever self-luminous consciousness of our own being, and thereby we will steadily gain an increasingly strong conviction that happiness lies only within ourself and not in any other thing. The stronger this conviction becomes, the more our bhakti or love for our own being and our vairagya or freedom from desire for anything other than our being will grow, and the easier it will therefore become for us to resist the false and destructive attraction of knowing anything other than being.

~ Michael James, Happiness and the Art of Being

devotion

The amount of blissful grace that spreads out in your heart will
only be in proportion to the amount of true devotion that flows
steadily from you to God.

Question: Then what is devotion [bhakti]?

Bhagavan: Whatever I do or consider myself doing is really the Lord's doing. Nothing really belongs to me. I am here for the service of the Lord. This spirit of service ... is really devotion supreme and the true devotee sees the supreme being as the Lord immanent in everything. Worship of Him by name and form leads one beyond all name and form. Devotion complete culminates in knowledge supreme.

~ verse 55 and accompanying comment from the chapter Love, Surrender and Devotion in Padamalai, Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi, Recorded by Muruganar, Translated by T. V. Venkatasubramanian, Robert Butler and David Godman, Edited and annotated by David Godman

According to Devarshi Narada, "total dedication of all actions at the altar of the Lord, and at all moments of forgetfulness of the Lord, excruciating pang" is supreme love-divine (bhakti).

~ Narada Bhakti Sutras

And thus love leads to enquiry.

One devotee expresses it: "To look at his face, so gripping, so incredibly gracious and so wise, yet with the innocence of a new-born child -- he knows everything there is to know. Sometimes a vibration starts in the heart -- Bhagavan -- it is the core of my being taking shape, my own externalized heart -- Who am I? -- And thus love leads to enquiry."

~ Arthur Osborne, Ramana Maharshi and the Path of Self-Knowledge

Surrender is to give oneself up to the original cause of one's being.

Ramana has said:

“The removal of ignorance is the aim of practice
and not the acquisition of Realisation.”
(Talks p. 322).

The most fundamental piece of ignorance is that there exists an individual self who is going to do sadhana, and that by doing sadhana, this individual self will disappear or be merged in some super-being.

Until this concept is eliminated on the mental level, it is not an exaggeration to say that one is wasting one’s time in attempts to surrender or to enquire ‘Who am I?’ Correct attitude and correct understanding of this matter are of pre-eminent importance if the application of Ramana’s teaching is to be successful.

Returning now to the practice of surrender, and bearing in mind the necessity of maintaining the right attitude with regard to the nonexistence of the individual self, there remains the problem of how to surrender since the mere desire to surrender invents an illusory person who is going to surrender.

The key to this problem and the key to all problems connected with the practice of Ramana’s teachings, is to bypass the mind and move to the realm of being. One cannot truly surrender without escaping from that vast accumulation of ideas and desires we call the mind, and according to Ramana, one cannot ecape or destroy the mind by any kind of mental activity.

Ramana’s solution is to let the mind subside to the point where it disappears, and what remains when the mind has subsided is the simple, pure being that was always there. In a conversation in Talks Ramana gives the following illuminating answer. He says:

“It is enough that one surrenders oneself. Surrender is to give oneself up to the original cause of one’s being … One’s source is within oneself. Give yourself up to it. That means that you should seek the source and merge in it.”
(Talks p.175).

This is an immensely profound statement which not only sweeps away many of the myths that surround the practice of surrender – it also shows an indication that the route to the rediscovery of the Self is the same whether one chooses to label it “surrender” or “self-enquiry”.

~ David Godman, "The Unity of Surrender and Self-Enquiry", The Mountain Path, Vol.18, No.1, 1981

when he has taken you up

Bhakti is not different from mukti. Bhakti is being as the Self. One is always That. He realizes It by the means he adopts.
What is bhakti? To think of God. That means only one thought prevails to the exclusion of all other thoughts. That thought is of God, which is the Self, or it is the self surrendered unto God. When He has taken you up, nothing else will assail you.
The absence of thought is bhakti. It is also mukti.

Bhakti is Jnana Mata, i.e., the mother of jnana.

~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Gems from Bhagavan

Should this way prove too arduous, suppose
The ego-self exists. Such as it is,
And if it is, let it then dispose
Itself to worship, let its litanies
Ascend like incense smoke about the feet
Of God in Whom the whirling galaxies
And a wild rose, the sum of things complete,
Is a vast harmony to which He said
"Be!" and it is. He Whose Mercy-Seat
Is the incorporeal world about us spread.
Whichever way you turn, behold His Face!
His signs are in the pathways that you tread,
And in the skies; yet in the secret place
Of silence in your heart is His abode.


~ Arthur Osborne, My Life and Quest

My heaven is only in Your smile

O my Divine Love! People run to the forests and mountain caves for solitude to practice meditation, but You drew me to meditate on You, without effort, everywhere.

People renounce their possessions, mortify their flesh and do hard penance to achieve self-control. But without the least deprivation, denial or suffering, You control me.

People seek a Master and serve him, longing for initiation into the spiritual mystery. But You, my Master-Mistress, seek and serve me in order to reveal Yourself fully to me.



I know not what other people call love. My love is only to serve and suffer and die for You.

I know not what other people term devotion. My devotion is only to bind my eyes to Your blessed feet and follow them always.

I know not what other people name heaven and hell. My heaven is only in Your smile, and my hell is only in Your tear.

I know not what other people call life and death. My life is only in Your presence, and my death is only in Your disappearance.

I know not what other people mean by war and peace. My war is only to fight against the obstacles in my way to You, and my peace is only to reach You and fall at Your Feet in one everlasting prostration.

Indeed, I know nothing. I only know that you are everything to me.

~ G. V. Subbaramayya, The Power of the Presence, Part Three, by David Godman

Devotion

The amount of blissful grace that spreads out of your heart will only be in proportion to the amount of true devotion that flows steadily from you to God.

Q: Then what is true devotion [bhakti]?

Bhagavan: Whatever I do or consider myself doing is really the Lord's doing. Nothing really belongs to me. I am here for the service of the Lord. This spirit of service ... is really devotion supreme and the true devotee sees the supreme being as the Lord immanent in everything. Worship of Him by name and form leads one beyond all name and form. Devotion complete culminates in knowledge supreme.

Even when bhakti is actuated by worldly desires in the beginning, it does not cease when the desires are fulfilled. It increases by an unshakable faith growing perfectly into a supreme state of realisation.

~ Padamalai, Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi Recorded by Muruganar, edited and annotated by David Godman

the expression of Guru

Q: What does Maharaj mean by Linga-deha?

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj: It is the seed, the chemical, the product of the five elemental essences which give rise to and sustain the consciousness "I Am." Just like the seed of a tree, that seed latently contains all future manifestations and expressions of the tree that will sprout out of that seed ...

At the Linga-deha level, when you worship your Guru, you are the expression of Guru, in so many ways. You will be experiencing so many things at such a level, but all that has emanated out of you only, out of your love and devotion for Guru, and finally, as you evolve, all those expressions merge into you. This is very important, this is the consummation of devotion or Saguna Bhakti.

~ from Prior to Concsciousness, edited by Jean Dunn

some way

I tried to think of some way
to let my face become yours.

"Could I whisper in your ear
a dream I've had? You're the only one
I've told this to."

You tilt your head, laughing,
as if, "I know the trick you're hatching
but go ahead."

~ Rumi

Swami, what is the colour of your exalted loincloth?

You are the one,
devoid of the dualistic division
that knows oneself as as object.
Because you are wearing your Self,

in which objective knowledge is not possible

as your loincloth, you,
the nature of pure consciousness,
do not know what the beautiful colour of that loincloth is.


Muruganar had a friend, V.S. Chengalvaraya Pillai, who was a distinguished commentator on Tamil devotional literature. At some point Chengalvaraya Pillai had a dream in which he visited Bhagavan in Tiruvannamalai and had his darshan. The contents of the dream, which he noted in his diary in the 1930s, were recorded in a biography that was written by his children:

I went to Tiruvannamalai, where a multitude of bhaktas were assembled. Everyone was worshipping by performing pradakshina of Swami. When my turn came, a devotee of Sri Ramana called Muruganar instructed me to pay homage to Swami, and to ask him what the colour of the loincloth he was wearing was.

I, in my turn, fell at the feet of Swami, weeping, and cried out: 'Swami, what is the colour of your exalted loincloth, the one spoken of in the phrase, "He wears Himself as a loincloth"? May you show your compassion and clarify this matter!'

Immediately, he replied, 'That is not known even to me,' and asked me to repeat the line again twice.

He listened to me and then asked, 'Where is that wonderful line found?' and I replied, 'It is in the 'Tiruchazhal' [line four of verse two], in the Tiruvachakam'.

'That is good. You must remain mindful of that,' he said.

~ lines 447-50 and some commentary from Ramana Puranam

Delicious, sweet syrup of devotion,
known to the hearts of those devotees
who practice the attitude of oneness [aikya bhava],
like Sundara and Azhagu together.

~ lines 373-74, Ramana Puranam

more of Bhagavan's Promises (how wonderfully they go on and on!)

Meditating on me

Splendorous Padam declares: 'Meditating on me with no sense of difference [between us] is accepting my grace and offering yourself to me. This in itself is enough.'

If you worship me by meditating well on the excellence of my true nature, the greatness of your own true nature will well up in your Heart.

Knowing that what abides in your Heart is the Self, my true and real nature, you should search for it there. Only this can be regarded as meditating on me with devotion.

Padam advises: 'Keeping one's attention on the subtle consciousness that is experienced by the extremely subtle mind is personal service to me.'

The compassionate heart that flows from me to you will never fail except when you cease to have remembrance of 'me', who command and conduct everything

You can know and experience my grace, which is my nature, if you remember me with no forgetfulness in your heart.

Union with me

Seeking my true nature in your Heart, discovering it and rejoicing in it by bathing in the bliss of my jnana-swarupa -- this is union.

Only bhakti sadhana performed continuously with love will fascilitate easily, in a gradual way, this union.

Enter with love the temple that is your own Heart and experience the bliss of being absorbed in my swarupa, becoming one with it.

I myself will command and control a mind that has died by the sacrifice of the ego.

~ Padamalai

(and that is not all ;-))

In love surrender to the Love Supreme

Do not wander endlessly
Searching in vain for certitude
Through strenuous study, listening, learning.
In love surrender to the Love
Supreme, the Lord, and reach
And hold the state supreme of Real
Being.

To disentangle life's hard knots
One needs must understand the Self
As Love itself. Only when one knows
This Love supreme is moksha gained.
Of every creed this is the heart,
The real teaching.

See Love. Hear Love. Reach out and touch
Love. Eat Love, sweet Love, and smell
Love. For Love is but the Self's
Awareness of Itself.

~ Guru Vachaka Kovai

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

Bhakti

Sri Ramana Maharshi: The experience of not forgetting consciousness, alone, is the state of devotion (Bhakti), which is the relationship of unfading real love, because the real knowledge of Self, which shines as the undivided supreme bliss itself, surges up as the nature of love.

Only if one knows the truth of love, which is the real nature of Self, will the strong entangled knot of life be untied. Only if one attains the height of love will liberation be attained. Such is the heart of all religions. The experience of Self is only love, which is seeing only love, hearing only love, feeling only love, tasting only love and smelling only love, which is bliss.

Questioner: I long for Bhakti. I want more of this longing. Even realization does not matter for me. Let me be strong in my longing.

Sri Ramana Maharshi: If the longing is there, realization will be forced on you even if you do not want it. Long for it intensely so that the mind melts in devotion. After camphor burns away no residue is left. The mind is the camphor. When it has resolved itself into the Self without leaving even the slightest trace behind, it is realization of the Self.