tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7345918888953765241.post2228102983587936360..comments2023-10-16T13:06:42.360+01:00Comments on Happiness of Being: The Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi: Why is ātma-vicāra necessary?Michael Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03460943269122289281noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7345918888953765241.post-56032889424486722972014-10-22T10:32:56.597+01:002014-10-22T10:32:56.597+01:00Josef, thanks for pointing out this double ‘must’,...Josef, thanks for pointing out this double ‘must’, which I have now corrected.Michael Jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03460943269122289281noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7345918888953765241.post-15701661932898282922014-10-21T21:11:50.969+01:002014-10-21T21:11:50.969+01:00Michael,
in the middle of the article the paragrap...Michael,<br />in the middle of the article the paragraph beginning with "Therefore to destroy the illusion that we are this mind, we must...gradually weaken and eventually destroy its visaya-vasanas.<br />in the first line there is a repetition of the word "must". Regarding the meaning of the sentence the second "must" seems unnecessary and pointless. Maybe it is a slip.Josef Brucknernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7345918888953765241.post-82428115671860540002014-10-21T18:57:47.025+01:002014-10-21T18:57:47.025+01:00Anna Malai, yes, if we are able to attend exclusiv...Anna Malai, yes, if we are able to attend exclusively to ourself, our ego will subside and dissolve forever in its source, and hence there will be no one to whom any fear could occur. However, until we manage to attend exclusively to ourself (that is, until we experience ‘I’ alone, in complete isolation from everything else), our ego will still exist, and hence it will be liable to experience desire, fear or any other such thought or mental phenomenon.<br /><br />So long as our ego survives, we have not yet managed to attend exclusively to ‘I’, so our self-investigation (<i>ātma-vicāra</i>) is not yet complete. When practising <i>ātma-vicāra</i>, we are trying to experience ourself alone, in complete isolation from all thoughts or other experiences, and if we manage to experience ourself thus for just a moment, we will thereby experience ourself as we really are, and thus the illusion that we are this ego will be destroyed forever. Therefore if our ego (and all that it experiences) still seems to exist, we have not yet managed to isolate ourself completely from all thoughts (that is, from all experiences or awareness of anything other than ‘I’).<br /><br />When you write, ‘Fear is a thought – is there a place for thoughts in ātma-vicāra, and can we still call it ātma-vicāra or loka-vicāra? Fear comes from identification with the body(s), in ātma-vicāra such identification ceases, how can the fear come into being?’, you seem to be confusing the practice of <i>ātma-vicāra</i> with the goal of <i>ātma-vicāra</i>. The goal of <i>ātma-vicāra</i> is to experience ‘I’ alone, but so long as we are still practising <i>ātma-vicāra</i> we have not yet reached that goal, and hence in our practice of <i>ātma-vicāra</i> our pure self-awareness is still mixed to a greater or lesser extent with thoughts (that is, with awareness of something other than ‘I’), no matter how subtle those thoughts may be.<br /><br />When you say that in your experience ‘as long as the attention is entirely focused on the self, which is ātma-vicāra I believe, there is no fear’ and that ‘Fear appears when the attention on the self is lost’, it is clear that your self-attentiveness is still impermanent and hence unstable, which means that you have not yet managed to isolate ‘I’ (yourself) completely from all thoughts. If you once manage to isolate yourself completely, you would experience yourself as you really are, your ego would thereby be destroyed, and thus you would never again experience any loss of self-attentiveness, because you would have experienced self-attentiveness (pure self-awareness) as your real nature.<br /><br />However advanced our practice may be, so long as our ego survives we are not immune to fear. Even in the case of Bhagavan Ramana (or Venkataraman, as he was then), the last thing his ego experienced was an intense fear of death, and it was that intense fear that drove him to turn his attention within to investigate whether ‘I’ is something that would die with the death of the body. Thus he experienced ‘I’ as it really is, and hence his ego was destroyed and fear was vanquished forever. Therefore, we should not imagine that we have vanquished fear by our practice of <i>ātma-vicāra</i>, because so long as there is an ‘I’ (an ego) to think that, it has not yet reached the safe harbour of complete egolessness, which is the goal of <i>ātma-vicāra</i>.Michael Jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03460943269122289281noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7345918888953765241.post-11878820711514561302014-10-19T16:27:51.936+01:002014-10-19T16:27:51.936+01:00Michael,
As always the article is very important ...Michael,<br /><br />As always the article is very important and precious, but this time I have doubts concerning what you have written about the fear. The friend asked you about the fear that arises during the practice of ātma-vicāra, you answered: “As we get closer to that point of detonation, it is natural that fear may arise, because our mind is desperate to survive: to cling on to the illusion that it actually exists”<br /><br />Is it really so? If ātma-vicāra is focusing our entire attention on the self, is there a place for a fear when attention is entirely within, on the self? Fear is a thought – is there a place for thoughts in ātma-vicāra, and can we still call it ātma-vicāra or loka-vicāra? Fear comes from identification with the body(s), in ātma-vicāra such identification ceases, haw can the fear come into being?<br /><br />My experience is just the opposite: as long as the attention is entirely focused on the self, which is ātma-vicāra I believe, there is no fear. Fear appears when the attention on the self is lost, thinking process starts and the attention is back on an external object (like thoughts).<br /><br />The more ātma-vicāra I practice, the weaker the fear is, even in the state in which mind is active in his thinking. Seems the identification with the body(s) becomes weaker too, so there is much less of the fear. Or we can say the mind becomes more sattvic. And the opposite: the less practice, the more often the fear comes and the more intense it is. <br /><br />Please elaborate, may be I misunderstood your message.<br /><br />Anna Malainoreply@blogger.com