The ‘fourfold means’ (sādhanā catuṣṭayam)

This article is also available in a clearer and more easily readable format on my main website:
The ‘fourfold means’ (sādhanā catuṣṭayam)

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A friend recently asked me to talk in an online meeting about the ‘fourfold means’ (sādhanā catuṣṭayam) that Sadhu Om refers to in chapter 6 of The Path of Sri Ramana (2023 edition, page 72), which is a translation of his Tamil original, ஸ்ரீ ரமண வழி [Śrī Ramaṇa Vaṙi] (2012 edition, page 78). Since the description he gave there of this ‘fourfold means’ (including the third one, śamādi ṣaṭka saṁpatti [the sixfold accomplishment beginning with calmness], which he described in a footnote) is a summary (in some places slightly paraphrased) of what Bhagavan wrote in the fifth paragraph of his Tamil adaptation of Vivēkacūḍāmaṇi, I decided that it would be more useful to discuss that entire paragraph sentence by sentence, which I did in a meeting with a group of his devotees based in Chicago on 30th March 2025.

Śrī Aruṇācala Padigam: Tamil text, transliteration and translation

This article is also available in a clearer and more easily readable format on my main website:
Śrī Aruṇācala Padigam: Tamil text, transliteration and translation

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In continuation of my translations of other works of Bhagavan, such as Nāṉ Ār?, Upadēśa Undiyār, Upadēśa Sāraḥ, Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu, Upadēśa Kaliveṇbā, Appaḷa Pāṭṭu, Āṉma-Viddai, Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu Anubandham, Aruṇācala Tattuvam and Dīpa-Darśaṉa Tattuvam and Śrī Aruṇācala Navamaṇimālai, this is my translation of ஸ்ரீ அருணாசல பதிகம் (Śrī Aruṇācala Padigam), and in the coming months or years I hope to be able to revise and post here my translations of all his other original writings.

Śrī Aruṇācala Navamaṇimālai: Tamil text, transliteration and translation

This article is also available in a clearer and more easily readable format on my main website:
Śrī Aruṇācala Navamaṇimālai: Tamil text, transliteration and translation

* * * * *

In continuation of my translations of other works of Bhagavan, such as Nāṉ Ār?, Upadēśa Undiyār, Upadēśa Sāraḥ, Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu, Upadēśa Kaliveṇbā, Appaḷa Pāṭṭu, Āṉma-Viddai, Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu Anubandham and Aruṇācala Tattuvam and Dīpa-Darśaṉa Tattuvam, this is my translation of ஸ்ரீ அருணாசல நவமணிமாலை (Śrī Aruṇācala Navamaṇimālai), and in the coming months or years I hope to be able to revise and post here my translations of all his other original writings.

Aruṇācala Tattuvam and Dīpa-Darśaṉa Tattuvam: The Reality of Arunachala and Seeing Deepam

Friday 13th December 2024 was Kārttikai Deepam, which is an annual festival celebrated in the Tamil month of Kārttikai (mid-November to mid-December) on the day on which the moon is in conjunction with the constellation Pleiades (known in Sanskrit as kṛttikā and in Tamil as kārttikai), which always coincides with the full moon or comes one or two days before or after it. At 6pm on this day a beacon light or dīpam (popularly spelt deepam) is lit on the summit of Arunachala, and continues to burn for about ten days.

Pure intransitive awareness alone is real consciousness and what actually exists

In section 16.1 of A landscape of consciousness: Toward a taxonomy of explanations and implications Robert Lawrence Kuhn quoted some extracts from personal communication I had with him regarding what Bhagavan taught about consciousness or awareness, so this article is a copy of what I had written to him (with references added in the body of the text instead of in footnotes):

Introduction to Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu

Last year Sandra Derksen asked me to write an introduction for Ramana Maharshi’s Forty Verses On What Is, a book that she had compiled and edited from various explanations that I had given about each verse of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu in my writings and talks, so this article is adapted from the introduction I wrote for it.

How to know and to be what we actually are

In June my website, which was previously called ‘Happiness of Being’, was renamed ‘Sri Ramana Teachings’, so in August this blog was likewise renamed, and the respective URLs were also changed accordingly. Since the homepage had hardly changed since the website was launched in 2006, it was also in need of updating, so I have drafted a new homepage with a more detailed introduction to and overview of Bhagavan’s teachings, which I hope to post within the next few days, and in the meanwhile I am posting here this extract from it, namely sections 11 to 14.

Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu Anubandham: Tamil text, transliteration and translation

In continuation of my translations of other works of Bhagavan, such as Nāṉ Ār?, Upadēśa Undiyār, Upadēśa Sāraḥ, Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu, Upadēśa Kaliveṇbā, Appaḷa Pāṭṭu and Āṉma-Viddai, this is my translation of உள்ளது நாற்பது அனுபந்தம் (Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu Anubandham), and in the coming months or years I hope to be able to revise and post here my translations of all his other original writings.

Āṉma-Viddai verse 5: in the heart that looks within without thinking of anything else, oneself will be seen

In continuation of and as a conclusion to the five articles on Āṉma-Viddai that I posted here previously, namely Āṉma-Viddai: Tamil text, transliteration and translation, Āṉma-Viddai verse 1: thought is what causes the appearance of the unreal body and world, Āṉma-Viddai verse 2: the thought ‘I am this body’ is what supports all other thoughts, Āṉma-Viddai verse 3: knowledge of all other things is caused by ignorance of ourself and Āṉma-Viddai verse 4: self-investigation is the easiest of all paths, because it is not doing but just being, in this article I will explain and discuss the meaning and implications of the fifth and final verse:

Āṉma-Viddai verse 4: self-investigation is the easiest of all paths, because it is not doing but just being

In continuation of four articles on Āṉma-Viddai that I posted here previously, namely Āṉma-Viddai: Tamil text, transliteration and translation, Āṉma-Viddai verse 1: thought is what causes the appearance of the unreal body and world, Āṉma-Viddai verse 2: the thought ‘I am this body’ is what supports all other thoughts and Āṉma-Viddai verse 3: knowledge of all other things is caused by ignorance of ourself, in this article I will explain and discuss the meaning and implications of the fourth verse:

Āṉma-Viddai verse 3: knowledge of all other things is caused by ignorance of ourself

In continuation of three articles on Āṉma-Viddai that I posted here previously, namely Āṉma-Viddai: Tamil text, transliteration and translation, Āṉma-Viddai verse 1: thought is what causes the appearance of the unreal body and world and Āṉma-Viddai verse 2: the thought ‘I am this body’ is what supports all other thoughts, in this article I will explain and discuss the meaning and implications of the third verse:

Āṉma-Viddai verse 2: the thought ‘I am this body’ is what supports all other thoughts

In continuation of two articles that I posted here in January and February of last year, Āṉma-Viddai: Tamil text, transliteration and translation and a detailed explanation of the first verse, Āṉma-Viddai verse 1: thought is what causes the appearance of the unreal body and world, in this article I will explain and discuss the meaning and implications of the second verse:

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 21

This is the twenty-first in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 20

This is the twentieth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 19

This is the nineteenth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 18

This is the eighteenth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 17

This is the seventeenth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 16

This is the sixteenth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 15

This is the fifteenth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 14

This is the fourteenth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 13

This is the thirteenth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 12

This is the twelfth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 11

This is the eleventh in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 10

This is the tenth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 9

This is the ninth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 8

This is the eighth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 7

This is the seventh in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 6

This is the sixth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 5

This is the fifth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 4

This is the fourth in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 3

This is the third in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 2

This is the second in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Upadēśa Sāraḥ: Sanskrit text, transliteration and translation (with the original Tamil text)

उपदेश सारः (Upadēśa Sāraḥ), ‘The Essence of Spiritual Teachings’, is Bhagavan’s Sanskrit translation or adaptation of one of the poetic texts that he originally wrote in Tamil, namely உபதேச வுந்தியார் (Upadēśa-v-Undiyār). Like all his original writings, both these versions of this poem are extremely deep and rich in meaning and implication, so in order to understand them clearly and correctly we need to do careful śravaṇa (hearing, reading or studying attentively), manana (considering and thinking deeply about what is meant and implied) and nididhyāsana (deep contemplation on that towards which all these teachings are ultimately pointing, namely our own real nature, which is sat-cit, our fundamental awareness of our own existence, ‘I am’).

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai: pāyiram, kāppu and verse 1

‘அருளும் வேணுமே. அன்பு பூணுமே. இன்பு தோணுமே’ (aruḷum vēṇumē. aṉbu pūṇumē. iṉbu tōṇumē), ‘Grace also is certainly necessary. Be adorned with love. Happiness will certainly appear’, sings Bhagavan in his concluding statements of the final verse of Āṉma-Viddai, and as he often said, ‘Bhakti is the mother of jñāna’, thereby implying that all-consuming and heart-melting love (bhakti) is the sole means by which we can know and be what we actually are. This truth is implicit in all his teachings, but in no other text does he express it as clearly, emphatically and heart-meltingly as he does in Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai.

Āṉma-Viddai verse 1: thought is what causes the appearance of the unreal body and world

In continuation of my previous article, Āṉma-Viddai: Tamil text, transliteration and translation, in this article I will explain and discuss the meaning and implications of the first verse of this text, and in subsequent articles I will do likewise for each of the other four verses:

Āṉma-Viddai: Tamil text, transliteration and translation

The path of self-investigation (ātma-vicāra) that Bhagavan taught us is the direct and easy means to eradicate ego, the root and foundation of all our troubles, but there is a widespread belief that it is a very difficult path and therefore suitable only for a few spiritually mature aspirants. Even among the devotees who lived with him this was a widely held belief, as Muruganar discovered to his surprise in the following way.

What are vāsanās and how do they work?

A friend wrote to me asking whether the following is ‘a reasonable terse description of the meaning of the term vāsanā’:

vāsanā: an inclination, which has been imprinted through one’s past actions and experiences, to desire having a particular or type of experience

This article is adapted from the reply I wrote to this friend.

The Ramaṇa mahāvākya: ‘நான் நான்’ (nāṉ nāṉ) or ‘अहम् अहम्’ (aham aham), ‘I am I’

I have recently been trying to complete a detailed explanation about the song Āṉma-Viddai that I began to write more than two years ago but never had time to complete, so if it is Bhagavan’s will I hope to be able to post that here within the next few weeks. In the meanwhile, since the teaching ‘நான் நான்’ (nāṉ nāṉ) or ‘अहम् अहम्’ (aham aham), ‘I am I’, is such a fundamental and central principle of his teachings, but one that is sadly so overlooked and neglected due to a widespread misinterpretation of it and a consequent failure to recognise its profound significance, I decided to post this extract from the explanation I have written for verse 2 of Āṉma-Viddai:

Appaḷa Pāṭṭu (The Appaḷam Song): Tamil text, transliteration, translation and explanation

Bhagavan lived mostly in Virupaksha Cave on the eastern slopes of Arunachala from 1899 till sometime around the middle of 1916, when he moved higher up to Skandasramam. A few months before this move, in about January 1916, his mother, Aṙagammaḷ, came to live with him, and it was during the brief period when she lived with him in Virupaksha Cave that he composed this song, அப்பளப் பாட்டு (Appaḷa-p-Pāṭṭu), ‘The Appaḷam Song’. One of the most detailed accounts of how he came to compose this song is what has been recorded by Suri Nagamma in Letter 102 of Letters from Ramanasramam (2006 edition, pages 208-11), but in brief the story is as follows:

Other people seem to be real because we seem to be a person

A friend asked me, ‘As we believe there is only one dreamer so why is it that when this dreamer awakens all don’t awaken?’, in reply to which I wrote:

Is anything other than ourself intrinsically existent?

A friend wrote to me:

Thank you very much for all your contributions to elucidate Bhagavan’s teachings. One of the points (or implications?) of the teachings that confuses me the most is the statement that the world that I’m so sure exists independently of ‘me’ is exactly a dream (yes, the difficulty is "exactly", or maybe "literally"?). In fact, strangely, that statement didn’t shock me too much in the sense that I naturally had some acceptance for it the first time I heard about it. However, after much thinking (although I know that one can’t intellectually figure this thing out), I still can’t figure out how one can reject the following alternative hypothesis. Please help explain if you find some time. Sorry for the English because I’m not a native speaker.

We abide as ourself only to the extent to which we attend to ourself alone

A friend wrote to me today:

When I abide in the self an intense nose pressure comes out. On previous paths this has happened with a chest pressure then a nose pressure which have both released. Now this nose pressure is getting stronger and stronger the more I abide in the self. Has Ramana talked about anything like this happening? Any advice?

In reply to this I wrote:

Freedom, surrender and clinging fast to ‘I am’

This brief article is adapted from a reply I wrote to a friend today.

As you say, our life (in the sense of our outward life as a person in this world) is preordained, so it is not in our hands, but though we are not free to change what has been allotted to us to experience, we are free to want to change it and to try to change it, but using our freedom in such a way is obviously futile and just immerses us further in saṁsāra, the great ocean of incessant activity. The only wise way to use our freedom is to turn within to cling firmly to ‘I am’, thereby surrendering ourself completely to him.

The nature of ego and its viṣaya-vāsanās and how to eradicate them

A friend wrote to me about an experience that happened to him one evening in a particular set of circumstances:

As I was walking home, my mind suddenly entered into a very quiet state. The rate of new thoughts arising became very slow, and I found that with only a tiny amount of effort, I could just remain in the quiet space without verbal thoughts.

Self-investigation is not a matter of one ‘I’ looking for another ‘I’

A friend wrote to me recently asking, ‘When I try to look within for “I”, I am unable to find it or its source. What is my mistake and how should I practice vichara correctly?’, in reply to which I wrote:

Can self-investigation boost the mind or kuṇḍalinī or cause sleeplessness and other health issues?

A friend wrote to me saying ‘I keep on practicing Self-Enquiry and I feel that the practice of Self-Enquiry affects the kundalini in my body and for some reason boosts my mind’, and he went on to describe other problems that he felt were caused by his practice, particularly sleeplessness and other health issues. This article is adapted from the replies I wrote to him.

Learning how to be self-attentive

A friend sent me a series of three emails, in the first of which he wrote:

With regards to Self-investigation, I have a few questions:

1. Am I investigating the ego/individual self, with the aim of finding the falsity of it?
2. Or am I investigating the true Self, with the aim of uncovering my true nature?
3. What is the best approach to achieve the goal?

Could what exists ever not exist?

A friend wrote to me:

I recently watched your YouTube video discussing the above verse [the first maṅgalam verse of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu] as I was having some troubles understanding it. I have a few questions that have not been cleared yet. It is about the first sentence of that verse:

The second and third paragraphs of Nāṉ Ār?

In this article I will discuss the history behind the second paragraph of Nāṉ Ār? and the practical and philosophical significance of what Bhagavan teaches us in the third paragraph.

In what sense is ego actually just pure awareness?

In my previous article, In what sense is it true to say ‘everything is one’?, I wrote:

So Bhagavan is the ultimate reductionist: All phenomena are just thoughts; thoughts are just mind; mind is just ego; and if instead of looking at anything else we look keenly at ourself alone, we will find that ego is actually just pure awareness. Therefore pure awareness is all that actually exists: it is ‘one only without a second’ (ēkam ēva advitīyam).