is samsara within or without?

During the early days of my arrival here, on one day at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, a middle-aged Andhra, who had come recently, asked Bhagavan, "Swami, as I repeat Rama Namam (the name of Rama) regularly every morning and every evening for an hour, other thoughts come in, one by one, increase from time to time and ultimately find that I have forgotten my japam. What shall I do?"

"At that time catch hold of that name (Rama Namam)," said Bhagavan.

We all laughed. Poor man! He felt grieved and said, "The reasons for these interruption is the samsara (family), is not it? I am therefore thinking of abandoning the samsara."

Bhagavan said, "Oh! Is that so? What really is meant by samsara? Is it within or without? Wife, children and others," he said. "Is that all the samsara? What have they done? Please find out first what really is meant by samsara. Afterwards we shall consider the question of abandoning them," said Bhagavan.

He could not reply and so kept quiet.

Bhagavan's heart was full of compassion. With a look full of tender kindness he said, "Supposing you leave your wife and children. If you are here this will become another kind of samsara. Supposing you take to sannyasa. Another kind of samsara comes into existence in the shape of a karra (walking stick), kamandalu (water bowl) and the like. Why all that? Samsara means samsara of the mind. If you leave that samsara, it will be the same thing wherever you are. Nothing troubles you."

Poor man! He mustered up some courage and said, "Yes, that is it, Swami. How to give up that samsara of the mind?"

Bhagavan said, "That is just it; you said you were doing the japam of Rama Namam. During the train of thoughts, you said you were sometimes reminded of the fact that you had forgotten the japam of Rama Namam. Try to remind yourself of that fact as often as possible and catch hold of the name of Rama frequently. Other thoughts will then slowly decrease."

~ Suri Nagamma, Letters from Sri Ramanasramam,1 December, 1945

If you can see all as your Self ...

Q: Is it desirable to want to see God?

Annamalai Swami: Manikkavachagar said in one of his songs: 'God is not a person, nor is He any particular thing. Yet without God there is nothing because He alone is everything.
To see one's Self and to see this same Self as all that is, that is seeing God.

Q: So is it better to want only the formless Self?


AS: I once heard Bhagavan say to Paul Brunton: 'If you do upasana [meditation] on the all-pervading Self, you will get infinite energy.' All beings, all things, all people in the world are your own Self. They are all indivisibly part of you. If you can see all as your Self, how can you do harm to anyone else? When you have that clear vision, whatever you do to others, you know that it is done to your Self only.
To like one thing instead of another is samsara: to like and love all things is wisdom. If one sees from this realisation that all are one's own Self, one enjoys the same peace that one enjoys in the deep-sleep state. The difference is, one enjoys it here and now while one is awake.

~from Living by the Words of Bhagavan by David Godman

Bhagavan's Promises

This is taken from an interview of David Godman by Maalok:

DG: When devotees surrendered their problems to Sri Ramana, it was the same as surrendering them to God. They were submitting to the same divine authority, surrendering to a living manifestation of that same power. Here are some statements that Sri Ramana made on this subject. I have taken them from a book I am currently working on. Each sentence was originally recorded by Muruganar in Tamil verse:



1. My devotees have the qualifications to rejoice abundantly, like children of an emperor.

2. Abandon the drama [of the world] and seek the Self within. Remaining within, I will protect you, [ensuring] that no harm befalls you.

3. If you inquire and know me, the indweller, in that state there will be no reason for you to worry about the world.

4. For the cruel disease of burning samsara to end, the correct regimen is to entrust all your burdens on me.

5. In order that your needless anxieties cease, make sure that all your burdens are placed on me through the brave act of depending totally on grace.

6. If you completely surrender all your responsibilities to me, I will accept them as mine and manage them.

7. When bearing the entire burden remains my responsibility, why do you have any worries?

8. Long ago you offered your body, possessions and soul to me, making them mine, so why do you still regard these things as 'I' and 'mine' and associate yourself with them?

9. Seek my grace within the Heart. I will drive away your darkness and show you the light. This is my responsibility.



These verses come from a sub-section I have entitled 'Bhagavan's Promises'. When people surrendered completely to him, he was more than happy to manage their lives for them. Just about everyone discovered that when she surrendered the burden of responsibility for her life to Sri Ramana, problems diminished or went away completely.

The Guru is primarily there to teach the truth, to bestow grace on his disciples and to bring about the liberation of the mature souls who come to him. But he also has this very nice sideline of being able to manage the affairs of his devotees much better than they can.

~~~

for the full interview, please see http://www.davidgodman.org/interviews/al1.shtml

I hope David Godman will not keep us waiting too long for this promised book!

How to avoid misery?

About ten days after my arrival I [Annamalai Swami] asked Bhagavan, "How to avoid misery?"

This was the first spiritual question I had ever asked him.

Bhagavan replied, "Know and always hold onto the Self. Disregard the body and the mind. To identify with them is misery. Dive deep into the Heart, the source of being and peace, and establish yourself there."

I then asked him how I could attain Self-realisation and he gave me a similar answer: "If you give up identifying with the body and meditate on the Self, which you already are, you can attain Self-realisation."

As I was pondering these remarks Bhagavan surprised me by saying, "I was waiting for you. I was wondering when you would come."

As a newcomer I was still too afraid of him to follow this up by asking him how he knew, or how long he had been waiting. However, I was delighted to hear him speak like this because it seemed to indicate that it was my destiny to stay with him.

A few days later I asked another question: "Scientists have invented and produced aircraft which can traval at great speeds in the sky. Why do you not make and give us a spiritual aircraft in which we can quickly and easily cross over the sea of samsara?"

Samsara is the seemingly endless cycle of birth and death through different incarnations. It can also be taken to mean worldly illusion or entanglement in wordly affairs.

"The path of self-enquiry," replied Bhagavan, "is the aircraft you need. It is direct, fast, and easy to use. You are already travelling very quickly towards realisation. It is only because of your mind that it seems that there is no movement. In the old days, when people first rode on trains, some of them believed that the trees and the countryside were moving and that the train was standing still. It is the same with you now. Your mind is making you believe that you are not moving toward Self-realisation."

~ from Living by the Words of Bhagavan by David Godman