Silent Worship

Enthroning in the heart the Lord supreme,
His true, unceasing natural worship
By the mind steady, self-absorbed
Proceeds in perfect silence.

The pure desire for Grace, free from
Other attachment, practicing
The state of silence sans an object,
Such merging in and being That
Amounts to mental worship true.

~ Sri Muruganar, Guru Vachaka Kovai

your grace

Your grace it was I stumbled to your feet,
Your love that raised me up and made me yours.

~ Sri Muruganar (from Bathing in the Divine Presence by A. R. Natarajan)

As I wandered, I know not where, fair Padam, supreme bliss, brought me here to his feet through his sweet grace and brought me salvation.

Padam gave me the emotion that makes my body soften and melt every time I think of the true, cool grace that it bestowed on me.

~ Padamalai, Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi Recorded by Muruganar

the Grace of our Lord

Removing the false view of things which we find so bewildering, [Grace] grants us the supreme gift of awakening into the state of final liberation. Upon this broad earth, so full of contradictions, it rouses us from the fundamental sleep of the senses, which is ruled by desire alone, the Grace of our Lord.

~ Sri Ramana Anubhuti

no escape from the Grace of our Beloved

Ramana is the Formless, Timeless
and Spaceless Arunachala
who dances as the "I" in the Heart.
He has graciously taken a form,
that we may be relieved of the bondage of form.
He is not a geographical entity
but the Moveless Brahman of the Upanishads.

Grace is His Essence,
and out of grace
He has become our Guru.
Grace is not simply in Tiruvannamalai,
but resides in our hearts.
The Heart is the true Arunachala.

The might of His Grace is infinite,
It is invincible:
By His look
we were caught
in the net of His Grace,
and it will accomplish Its work.
There is no escape from It.

His Grace is like the unerring light of the Sun.
As it devours the darkness,
so Grace devours Ignorance and Unreality.

We need do nothing at all,
except to give our free consent
that this work of Grace
shall be accomplished.


~ from Revelation by K. Lakshmana Sarma "Who" (I broke the lines differently, to savour the words more fully.)

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!

the desire for enlightenment is necesary

Q: The outside world is a miserable, confusing place. There is not much going on there that helps us to remember who we really are.

Annamalai Swami: Yes, we can say that this state of affairs is also Bhagavan's grace, Bhagavan's compassion. You could say that he keeps the world like this as an incentive to go inwards. This state of affairs sets up a real choice: if we go outwards there are problems; if we go inwards there is peace.

Q: I want to ask about some other aspect of this that troubles me. The desire to become absorbed in the Self seems to be some kind of vasana. It is still a desire, and to indulge in it implies that I must look for something that I don't already have. With this attitude I then feel that I am setting up enlightenment as some kind of future goal, and not as something that is here and now. There is something very dualistic in this attitude, and I sometimes get the feeling that I am not accepting Bhagavan's will for the present moment if I am looking for something that is not here and now.

Annamalai Swami: This desire is not counterproductive. The desire for enlightenment is necessary because without it you will never take the necessary steps to realise the Self. A desire to walk to a particular place is necessary before you take any steps. If that desire is not present, you will never take the first step. When you realise the Self, the desire will go away.

~ Annamalai Swami, Final Talks, edited by David Godman

Glory! Glory to your holy Bhagavan feet!

Since Bhagavan was so frequently extolling the greatness of satsang and grace, I once asked him, 'It is said that moksha is attained easily only with the grace of the Guru. How is that so?'

Bhagavan replied, 'The house of moksha is not anywhere outside. It is within everyone. Whoever has a strong desire to attain moksha is being pulled by the Guru who is within. The Guru who is on the outside raises his hand and pushes him inwards. This is how the Guru's grace operates.'

Bhagavan then quoted two of his favorite verses from Kaivalya Navanitam in which the disciple thanks the Guru for giving him the grace which enabled him to realise the Self.

1.86 'Lord, you are the reality remaining as my inmost Self, ruling me during all my countless incarnations! Glory to you who have put on an external form in order to instruct me! I do not see how I can repay your grace for having liberated me. Glory! Glory to your holy feet!"

1.87 The Master beamed on him as he spoke , drew him near and said very lovingly: 'To stay fixed in the Self, without the three kinds of obstacles [ignorance, doubt and knowledge derived from false premises] obstructing your experience, is the highest return you can render me.'

~ from Living by the Words of Bhagavan (the voice is Annamalai Swami's, the author David Godman)

Divine Grace

"Then, as I lay drifting on the sorrowful ocean of bitter birth, you drew me to you and bound me to your golden feet with the rope of divine grace whose nature is to bestow itself entirely without desire or intention. You watched over me, banishing my slumbers in the differentiated world brought about by maya."

~ Sri Muruganar