tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7345918888953765241.post4760064562447765218..comments2023-10-16T13:06:42.360+01:00Comments on Happiness of Being: The Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi: Self-attentiveness is not an action, because we ourself are not two but only oneMichael Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03460943269122289281noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7345918888953765241.post-62916168918045374622015-04-03T01:42:02.074+01:002015-04-03T01:42:02.074+01:00Michael,
regarding the practice of self-investigat...Michael,<br />regarding the practice of self-investigation or self-enquiry please describe in simple words how to try to be self-attentive.<br />To replace all the moments that we spend thinking "unnecessary thoughts with moments of attempting to be self-attentive is nearly not practicable. <br />Being exclusively self-attentive i.e.aware of ourself alone seems to mean directing attention of the mind to ourself while losing attention to other things than our self-awareness. But what is ourself and how to get self-awareness alone ? As you write : Turning our attention back within(towards ourself alone) is its resting calmly in its source. But where or what is our source ? How exactly is to turn the attention to an unknown destination ?<br />How can I lose the experience of other things ?<br />It is astonishing that we partially experience ourself as we really are and that at the same time we are also conscious also of other things(i.e. not only of ourself). The power of illusion (of the mind) as awareness of or attention to anything other than ourself seems to be gigantic.Machapucharenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7345918888953765241.post-25248939637479620652015-02-23T11:53:08.667+00:002015-02-23T11:53:08.667+00:00Ron, there are no hard and fast rules about durati...Ron, there are no hard and fast rules about duration of practice, because we each have to experiment and find what works best for ourself. The practice is aptly called self-investigation or self-enquiry, because it is a moment by moment investigation of what we actually are.<br /><br />In order to experience ourself as we actually are we need to experience ourself alone, in complete isolation from all other things (since we experience other things only when we experience ourself as the ego, something that is not what we actually are), so we must try to focus our entire attention on ourself alone, thereby with drawing it from all other things. Therefore we need to experience ourself alone for just a single moment in order to experience ourself as we actually are and thereby to destroy forever the illusion that we are an ego. When we once experience ourself as we actually are, we will cease forever experiencing anything else, so what we are aiming for when practising self-investigation is just a single moment of exclusive and hence perfectly clear self-attentiveness or self-awareness.<br /><br />Therefore what is important when practising self-investigation is not so much the duration of our self-attentiveness as the intensity of it — that is, how exclusively we are aware of ourself alone. As I have written in my next article, which I may post here tomorrow, Sadhu Om used to explain this in terms of turning 180 degrees away from all other things towards ourself alone. The closer we come to turning 180 degrees, the less any awareness of anything else will be mixed with our self-awareness, but until we actually turn the full 180 degrees we are not yet experiencing ourself alone, in complete isolation from any awareness of other things. When we once manage to turn the full 180 degrees, we will experience nothing other than ourself, and thus we will experience ourself as we really are, after which we will never again experience anything else.<br /><br />If we try to be self-attentive continuously for a prolonged period of time, our self-attentiveness is likely to be less intense. That is, if for example we are able to turn 150 degrees towards ourself and away from other things for a moment, we will be unlikely to be able to maintain that degree of self-attentiveness for a long duration, so rather than try to maintain it, it is better to make many fresh attempts, because on each attempt we may be able to turn a little further.<br /><br />We obviously cannot measure how far we have turned at each attempt, and we should not try to measure it, because that would distract us from our attempt to be exclusively self-attentive. However, though we cannot accurately estimate how far we are turning on each attempt, we can be reasonably confident that many brief but fresh attempts will enable us to turn further than a prolonged attempt would.<br /><br />In order to try to turn our entire attention towards ourself alone we need not be sitting in any particular posture or have any set time for practice. Since we are always aware of ourself, albeit aware of ourself along with other things, we can try to be self-attentive at any time or in any circumstances, so rather than setting aside any particular times for practice, we can attempt to turn our attention back towards ourself alone many times during the day in the midst of all our other activities. Even in the midst of a busy lifestyle, we still find time to think many unnecessary thoughts, so if we try to replace all the moments that we spend thinking such thoughts with moments of attempting to be self-attentive, we will end up having spent much of our day trying to be self-attentive, albeit not for a long duration at each attempt, but just many brief attempts.Michael Jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03460943269122289281noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7345918888953765241.post-27615205088428633302015-02-22T21:36:03.325+00:002015-02-22T21:36:03.325+00:00How long do you practice self-inquiry for at a tim...How long do you practice self-inquiry for at a time? Ronnoreply@blogger.com