WE approach the Guru in the restlessness of our
mind and find no satisfaction in anything done
or achieved. He gives us His benign look of Grace; in
that one look is the real touch of Grace. His proximity is
the harbour of Peace, in Him you find your haven of
safety. He is the healer of all sores in you. You seem to be
melted and lost in Him. You are now still. The Guru says,
"Be still, and Know that I am God." This knowing is the
understanding of the absolute and relative values of Life.

Understanding what? It is the distinctive knowledge
(the vijnana) of the eternal unchanging Truth of your self.
In the background of this eternal and unchanging Truth,
the changeful and varying states of your doership move
about and cloud your understanding of the Real Truth of
your Being.

To put this more clearly, in the words of Sri Bhagavan,
"You are the Self (atman)." Now no one will deny he is
the Self, the eternal changeless basis of himself. This Self
is Pure Being, conscious of Itself. It is Pure Bliss, in the
sense that in Itself it is not touched or affected by the
pleasures and pains of your varying states. Know to fix
yourself as this Self, and to abide as such, unmoved by the
fluctuating feelings of pain and pleasure, which pass and
re-pass before you, the unaffected Self.

~ At The Feet of Bhagavan

remembrance of one's own real nature

As long as there are tendencies towards sense-objects in the mind, the enquiry ‘Who am I?’ is necessary. As and when thoughts rise, one should annihilate all of them through enquiry then and there in their very place of origin. Not attending to what-is-other (anya) is non-attachment (vairagya) or desirelessness (nirasa). Not leaving Self is knowledge (Jnana). In truth, these two (desirelessness and knowledge) are one and the same.

Just as a pearl-diver, tying a stone to his waist, dives into the sea and takes the pearl lying at the bottom, so everyone, diving deep within himself with non-attachment, can attain the pearl of Self. If one resorts uninterruptedly to remembrance of one’s real nature (Swarupa- Smarana) until one attains Self, that alone will be sufficient.

~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Self-enquiry -- Practice chapter from Be As You Are, edited by David Godman

46. The illusion that one is the body and that the world is
the basic reality has remained soaked over a long, long time,
and cannot be got rid of by the casual reading and mere
understanding of the truth. The basic illusion can be effaced
only by a long and unremitting practice of the bhavana that all
this is ‘I-am-Brahman-Self’. (Ch.24, v.28)

47. Everything is only a concoction of time, space and
energy. All else is the trite talk of people who dislike the effort
of sadhana which takes them to the Self. This talk is based on
their dense ignorance of the Self. Only by persistent practice
and experience of sadhana, can one arrive at the truth that all
concepts of souls, world, and the cause thereof are just evanescent
shadows on the screen of Siva-Self-Brahman. (Ch.24, v.31)

~ The Essence of Ribhu Gita, Translation By Prof. N. R. Krishnamoorthi Aiyer

true love

True love is shown by the certainty that the object of love is in the Self and that it can never become non-existent.

~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talk 203

Let us adore the Self as Ramana

Verily the Self in the Heart appears as the five
elements, as the sun, moon and stars, as angels and
different deities; as the vast space and as the origin
and source of all this. Let us adore the Self as `Ramana'.

`Ramana', the Pure Self, whose Grace emanates from
its seat -- the Heart, whose Grace plays upon His
serene face, and is directed through His most
beautiful eyes, blessing all who turn to Him.

~ T. K. Sundaresa Iyer, At The Feet of Bhagavan

Where is space without me and where is time?
The body exists in space and time, but no body am I.
Nowhere I am, in no time I am.
Yet am I everywhere in all time.

Body is Self to the wise and the ignorant alike.
To the body is limited the ignorant one's self.
The self effulgent in the Heart of the wise,
Possesses the body and the world around,
And stands limitless and perfect.

~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Sat-Darshana Bhashya (verses 18 & 19)

The ending of suffering

Since you are intent on driving out suffering, you should know that your real nature is bliss alone.

Confusion and agitation are erroneous superimpositions upon consciousness, within which they have no real existence.

For all the many distressful diseases the peerless medicine is definitely the certainty of the real nature of the Self.

Why do you become distressed and suffer to no purpose over things that are not worthy of your concern? Let go of the mind's anxieties.

Those adepts who have perfected their sadhana will not become dejected and perturbed when they are beset by trials and tribulations.

In what way do lamentations benefit the jiva? The sensible policy is to terminate the tyrannical insurgency of the mind.

Until you enquire into your real nature, seeing and abiding as it, the triple miseries experienced by you will not cease.

~ Padamalai, Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi Recorded by Muruganar

Whatever kind of thought arises, have the same reaction: 'Not me; not my business.' It can be a good thought or a bad thought. Treat them all the same way. To whom are these thoughts arising? To you. That means you are not the thought.

You are the Self. Remain as the Self, and don't latch onto anything that is not the Self.

~ Annamalai Swami, Final Talks

Through constant contact with the Sage
Who has with Siva become one
Attention centres in the Heart,
Enquiry dawns, one stands established
In the Self as pure Awareness,
And the malady of birth elusive
Flies away.

~ Sri Muruganar, The Garland of Guru's Sayings

Seeing is being

You are the Self. You exist always. Nothing more can be predicated of the Self than it exists. Seeing God or the Self is only being God or your Self. Seeing is being.

~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, Day by Day with Bhagavan

Grace

Grace is the sustaining principle by which all things have the bubbling awareness of life, by which each ripens to its full potential, Grace is the basis of existence, of consciousness, of bliss. Grace is the Self and Grace is the way we get back to our Self, breaking away from the limited identity of the 'I'-thought. Bhagavan repeatedly emphasized that Grace is now, always, ever present. He explained that it is Grace which puts us on the path of self-enquiry, Grace that protects us from within and without along the way and Grace that is the final experience of Self-abidance.

Yet, though Grace is ever-present, we feel it more powerfully only in those moments when we perceive the harmony of life, when we experience joy and relief, and when we tap the silent spring of peace within. Though the sun's rays are everywhere, when focussed through a lens they become more intense in light and heat.

It is when we are aware of Arunachala ever throbbing within as the Heart, the Self, that we are permeated with Grace and know it to be every moment. Bhagavan simply, most beautifully, shows us the way to this experience, to an understanding of the Truth in his description of Arunachala. He brings out the principle of existence, when he calls Arunachala the "Self Supreme'. The element of awareness, of consciousness is vivified in the phrase 'O mount of light'. And what happens when limited identity is abandoned and a merger in this awareness, the Self occurs? One is swallowed in the blissful ocean of an all enveloping brilliance.

~ Dr. Sarada Natarajan, Surging Joy (Self Discovery)

this Awareness itself as Guru

Those who have not searched and found
The truth by their own natural Being
Will perish by alien forms deluded.
Live as one sole Being-Awareness.
All save this is false appearance,
The realm of maya.

[The delusion consists in thinking that one is the body alone, not the whole world.]

How can any treatise thrust some wisdom
Into that human-seeming heap of clay
Which keenly watches things perceived
And not at all the Self, Awareness?

Is it not because you are yourself
Awareness that you now perceive
This universe? If you observe
Awareness steadily, this awareness
Itself as Guru will reveal
The Truth.

~ Sri Muruganar, Guru Vachaka Kovai

Do not entertain such thoughts

Devotee: Are my present qualities of faith, humility and surrender sufficiently intense, or are they still very imperfect and requiring further development? If so, how can I quickly develop them to perfection so as to deserve grace and early success in the realisation of Atman, or in the annihilation of the ego?

Bhagavan: Do not entertain such thoughts of imperfection, lack of qualities, etc. You are already perfect. Get rid of the ideas of imperfection and need for development. There is nothing to realise or annihilate. You are the Self. The ego does not exist. Pursue the enquiry and see if there is anything to be realised or annihilated. See if there is any mind to be controlled. Even the effort is being made by the mind which does not exist.

~ from A Practical Guide to Know Yourself, Conversations with Sri Ramana Maharshi, compiled and edited by Sri A. R. Natarajan

The self within waits for you

D: You often say, 'the whole world exists not without you', 'everything depends upon you,' 'what is there without you?', etc. This is really baffling. The whole world was there before my birth. It will be there after my death even as it has survived the deaths of so many who once lived as I am living now.

Sri Ramana Maharshi: Did I ever say that the world is there because of you? But I have put to you the question 'what is there without your self?' You must know that by the self the body, subtle or gross, was not meant.

Besides, the idea is put to you that if you once know the Self in which all the ideas move, not excluding the idea of yourself, of others like yourself and of the world, you can realise the truth that there is a Reality, a supreme Truth which is the Self of all the world you now see, the Self of all the selves, the one Real, which is the Parama Atman, the supreme Eternal, as distinguished from the Jeeva, the ego-self which is impermanent. You must not mistake the ego-self or the bodily idea for the Atman.

D: Then you mean the Atman is God?

Sri Ramana Maharshi: You see the difficulty. The Vichara 'to know the self' is different in method from the meditation "Shivoham" or "Soham", "Lord Shiva I am" or "He I am." I rather lay stress upon self-knowledge, for, you are first concerned with yourself before you proceed to know the world and its Lord. The "Soham" meditation or 'I am Brahman' meditation is more or less a mental thought. But the quest for the self I speak of is a direct method, indeed superior to the other meditation; for, the moment you get into a movement of quest for the self and go deeper and deeper, the real Self is waiting there to take you in and then whatever is done is done by something else and you have no hand in it. In this process, all doubts and discussions are automatically given up just as one who sleeps forgets, for the time being, all his cares.

D: What certainty is there that something else waits there to welcome me?

Sri Ramana: When one is a sufficiently developed soul (Pakvi) he becomes naturally convinced.

D: How is this development possible?

Sri Ramana: Various answers are given. But whatever the previous development, Vichara (earnest quest) quickens the development.

D: That is arguing in a circle. I am developed and so I am strong for the quest. The quest itself gives my development.

Sri Ramana: The mind has always this sort of difficulty. It wants a certain theory to satisfy itself. Really, no theory is necessary for the man who seriously desires to approach God or to realise his own true being.

~ Sat-Darshana Bhashya

diving deep

By means of a moderate quantity of sattvic (pure) food, which is superior to all other rules and regulations of self discipline, the sattvic or pure quality of the mind will grow and Self-enquiry will be helped.

Though ancient and timeless sense attachments in the shape of vasanas (subtle tendencies) may rise countless like the waves of the sea, they will all be destroyed as dhyana progresses. Without giving any room for doubt whether it would at all be possible to eradicate all those vasanas and be the Self alone, one must take hold ceaselessly of dhyana of the Self. However great a sinner one may be, instead of
lamenting `I am a great sinner, how can I make any progress?' one must completely forget the fact of being a sinner and earnestly pursue meditation of Self. He is then sure to succeed.

If the ego is present, all else will also exist. If it is absent, all else will also vanish. As ego is all this, to enquire what this ego is, is to give up all attachment.

Controlling speech and breath, and diving deep within oneself, as a man dives into water to recover something that has fallen there, one must find out the source whence the ego rises, by means of keen insight.

~ from Gems from Bhagavan

Why cannot the Self be perceived directly?

Q: Why cannot the Self be perceived directly?

Bhagavan: Only the Self is said to be directly perceived [pratyaksha]. Nothing else is said to be pratyaksha. Although we are having this pratyaksha, the thought 'I am the body' is veiling it. If we give up this thought, the Atman, which is always within the direct experience of everyone, will shine forth.

Q: Sri Bhagavan has stated this so simply. But the thought 'I am the body' does not leave us.

Bhagavan: It is not leaving you because it is very strong.

Q: Why and how did the thought come into being?

Bhagavan: It came into being only through a lack of enquiry on your part. A verse in Kaivalya Navanitam [2.95] gives the same explanation:

Because its nature is not determinable, maya is said to be inexpressible. They are in its grip who think: 'This is mine -- I am the body -- the world is real.' O son, no one can ascertain how this mysterious illusion came into being. As to why it arose it is because of the person's lack of discerning enquiry.

If we see the Self the objects which are seen will not appear as separate from us. Having seen all the letters on a paper, we fail to see that paper which is the base. Likewise, suffering only arises because we see what is superimposed on the base without seeing the base itself. What is superimposed should not be seen without also seeing the substratum.

~ from Living by the Words of Bhagavan by David Godman

Sri Bhagavan: ... All become dear only owing to the love of Self.

Devotee: Love postulates duality. How can the Self be the object of love?

Sri Bhagavan: Love is not different from the Self. Love of an object is of an inferior order and cannot endure. Whereas the Self is Love, in other words, God is Love.

~ from Talk 433, Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi

Fears can only arise when there are two

Ask yourself, "To whom do these doubts, fears and worries occur?" and they will vanish. Cease to pay attention to them. Pay attention to the Self within. Fears, etc., can only arise when there are two, or when anybody else exists apart from, or separate from, or outside you. If you turn the mind inward towards the Self, fears, etc., will disappear. If you try to remove a doubt or fear, another doubt or fear will arise. There will be no end of it. The best method to annihilate them is to ask "To whom do they occur?" and they will disappear. Destroying a tree by plucking its leaves one by one is impossible — other leaves will grow by the time you pluck a few. Remove the root of the tree — the ego — and the whole tree with its leaves and branches will be destroyed. Prevention is better than cure.

~ Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi, Surpassing Love and Grace

do not believe the rising thoughts that create duality for you

Every night during sleep you let go of your attachment to both the body and the mind, and the result is silence, peace, and an absence of duality. You can have this silence, this peace, and this absence of duality in the waking state by not believing the rising thoughts that create duality for you. Resist limiting thoughts. Replace them with thoughts such as, 'All is myself. Everybody is myself. All animals, all things are myself.' What you think, you become. If you understand and experience that everything is yourself, how can you have likes and dislikes? If everything is you, there will be no desire to avoid anything, no impulse to discriminate in favour of anything.

If you want to discriminate at all, avoid bad company and bad thoughts. At night, when you suddenly start to experience the cold, you pull a blanket over yourself. Pull the blanket of discrimination over yourself when you feel that there is the possibility of bad company and bad thoughts dragging you down.

You may need to do this but the jnani will not because nothing can ever drag him back into the realm of false identifications again. He will always be in that state in which he knows everything to be himself. He will never again have the idea that anything is different or apart from his own Self.

~ Annamalai Swami, Final Talks

firm-fixed in the heart

He is the Sage, the eternal Sun
Self-luminous, in whose presence this
Phenomenal world so variegated
And wonderful wholly disappears,
Unseen as other than the Self.

The Sage, exulting in the Self
And firm-fixed in the heart, regards
The universe as neither mere
Illusion nor as something other
Than the Self.

The whole world which we are aware of
Is by the Sage seen as Awareness
And nothing but Awareness only.
And knowing that there is no being
Except Awareness, he abides,
Rich in bliss, as Self-awareness.

~ Sri Muruganar, The Garland of Guru's Sayings, translation by Prof. K. Swaminathan