The ‘fourfold means’ (sādhanā catuṣṭayam)

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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.