tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7345918888953765241.post4598638672972963921..comments2023-10-16T13:06:42.360+01:00Comments on Happiness of Being: The Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi: Happiness and the Art of Being – additions to chapter 5Michael Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03460943269122289281noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7345918888953765241.post-30739878709971581362009-08-03T10:27:19.068+01:002009-08-03T10:27:19.068+01:00I have got some clarification on some point you ha...I have got some clarification on some point you have mentioned in your book regarding the essential consciousness, " I am." you have stated in page 290 of the book, " Happiness and the art of Being,"- I am quoting only the essential issue-that in the clarity of such absolute nondual self-consciousness etc etc, the consciousness that feels not merely I am, but, " I am knowing this and that," will dissolve. My question is how can the mere consciousness, " I am," vanish. Only its appendages in the form of objects will vanish.Sankarramanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01718256859263931847noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7345918888953765241.post-73850385030504870752009-02-13T07:25:00.000+00:002009-02-13T07:25:00.000+00:00Friends, I have some important doubt to be clarifi...Friends, I have some important doubt to be clarified regarding the deep sleep state. In Brhadaranyka Upanishad there is a dialogue between Ajasasatru and Gargya as to who wakes up when a man fast asleep is called by his name and is pushed to wake him up. He didn't wake up on being called by his name, that is even though being addressed. From this it was reported in the dialogue that it was proved that the being who was attempted to be conveyed was not Brahman. Gargy identified various manifestations of the individual as Brahman which was denied by Ajathasatru who said, “Is this all; is this all." Bereft of the archaic language of the Upanishads, the gist of the issue is that during the waking state there being the mixing up of the experiencer and the experienced, that is the agent and the experiencer and the organs, they cannot be shown separately to identify as to which is the sole self devoid of objectivity. Hence they go to a sleeping person and address him by his name, which does not wake him. But on being pushed, the individual wakes up. The question raised in the dialogue is as to who, the vital force or something beyond it is the true informing Light, waking up. Since the vital force didn't respond on being addressed by its name, it was concluded as an insentient entity, that is, the one, which doesn't have the self-effulgent light which lights up all illusory phenomena, itself being unknown by the phenomena by virtue of their lack of luminosity, and the fact of the self being non-dual. Then the question arises as to which woke up. It is being concluded that there is this difference between the vital force and the self that whereas the former doesn't sleep, the latter, the relative self, being merged in the vital force, wakes up. Since the self is asleep, its organs do not function, it being absorbed in the vital force. So it does not hear even when its name is being addressed. Further, the point raised is that since the vital force is never asleep, it should be able to hear when being called. It is being concluded that the vital force which is ever awake is not the experiencer in view of its failure to wake up. Then who is the entity that wakes up, is the question raised in the Upanishads.. The denouement is that the entity which awoke when being pushed -blazing force as it were, flashing as it were, and coming from somewhere as it were, rendering the body different from it, endowing it with consciousness, activity, a different look etc- is an entity other than the body and the various entities advocated by Gargya. The doubt I have is that whether an insentient entity like the vital force, which did not wake up, whether in respect of it the idea of being awake or asleep could be predicated since it exists for something else, the true self. What has woken up, according to my understanding, is the relative self, the I thought, spoken of by Bhaghavan, which exists in the waking and dream state and disappears in the deep sleep in avidya, and what exists is the avidya-vritti, the absence of thoughts, the anandamaya kosa, which is also not the Self. The point is that the vital force is an insentient, mechanical force, relatively existing awake unbrokenly. The relative self which exists in the waking and dream state which disappears in avidya in the deep sleep state alone wakes up on being pushed. The true Self also does not wake up since it is beyond the three states. Whereas all these things are explained objectively in the Upanishads with parables, suggesting the idea of the prana functioning in deep sleep state, according to Ramana who explains everything in a highly subjective language, even the prana does not exist in the deep sleep state, the transcendental self sublating all illusory phenomena. Bhaghavan didn't subscribe to the idea, to the extent of my understanding, the existence of prana in deep sleep, it being absent like the other unreal adjuncts. The existence of prana in deep sleep is only from the onlookers' view point. That is why in yoga and saiva schools they posit the fifth state of turiyathitha where prana also dissolves, the body of a yogi becoming a blaze of light, a feat performed by the late Tamil saint Ramalingar known as Vallalar adoringly. But Bhaghavan denying the body here and now, doesn't countenance of the idea of the disappearance of the body on realization, a question posed by many to him. I would like Michale James to offer his valuble comments on this aspect since he has extensively studied Bhaghavan and meditated a lot.Sankarramanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01718256859263931847noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7345918888953765241.post-59287596240553522912009-02-10T06:31:00.000+00:002009-02-10T06:31:00.000+00:00"If a rope ( really ) existed as a consciousness, ..."If a rope ( really ) existed as a consciousness, would it seek someone else- a separate being- to become a snake." The above is the second part of verse no 90 of Guruvachaka Kovai as translated by David. This verse is somewhat involved, what the import is, not being very clear. Probably Muruganar means that unlike the rope, consciousness does not have anything to see. The following is an interesting account one finds in the book, " The Method of the Vedanta," by Swamy Satchidanendendra as tranlated by A.J.Alston. "There is, however, this difference between the examples and the thing they illustrate. In the examples, the snake and the rest do not really exist in the rope and the rest. It is simply that the perceiver erroneously supposes that the snake and the rest to be there, and thinks and speaks accordingly.. The case with the thing these examples illustrate, namely illusions in regard to the Self or the Absolute is somewhat different. Here we have a case of practical experience of relation with the Self set up by erroneous knowledge. The difference is that here even the notion that the erroneous knowledge ever belonged to the Self as well as its cancellation, are both seen to belong to the realm of ignorance. In the case of such superimpositions such as as the rope-snake, each superimposition is experienced as a wrong notion. Similarly the superimposition of the not-self onto the Self is also experienced as a wrong notion. But occasional wrong notions such as rope-snake arise and suffer cancellation while the individual knowing subject remains as such. This, however, is not the case with the superimposition of the non-self onto the Self. For the superimposition onto the Self of the notion that it is an individual knowing subject is part of the that general superimposition of the non-self onto the Self. And when that latter superimposition is cancelled, the whole notion of empirical experience is cancelled with it. . One cannot conceive this root superimposition of the non-self onto the Self as having a beginning or end in time. For time itself only comes into existence with this superimposition. And the authorities speak of it as beginningless and endless. And it must not be forgotten that we have already shown that the whole notion of ignorance and enlightenment itself belongs to the realm of ignorance." The idea is that unlike the example cited where there remains to know an individual that there was a mispprehension and subsequently it was known to be wrong, there is no knower in the act of knowledge remaining, to know of anything alien in time as having happened which is like the sunyavada of the Buddha. Saint Thayumanavar says," Since it is Being sole who is or how is one to know it. Like the camphor light being extinguished, there being no remnant, in realization there is no individual to know anything alien, there being the absence of the triads of knower, known and knowledge. In a place Ramana says that the Self does not even have the notion that it knows itself. At the summit of realization knowledge and ignorance are one and the same or it is that they don't exist. Nisargdatta time and again tells that only from ignorance the knowledge, " I am, " has sprung and it will return back to ignorance. This ignorance should not be confused with the term used in the normal parlance. The correct term should be no-knowing.Sankarramanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01718256859263931847noreply@blogger.com