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:

How is ego to be destroyed?

A friend wrote to me recently:

I came across the following quote supposedly by Bhagavan:

Question: How is the ego to be destroyed?

Maharshi: Hold the ego first and then ask how it is to be destroyed. Who asks this question? It is the ego. Can the ego ever agree to kill itself? This question is a sure way to cherish the ego and not to kill it. If you seek the ego you will find it does not exist. That is the way to destroy it.

Why does ego rise again from manōlaya and not from manōnāśa?

In a comment on my previous article, Is there any such thing as ‘biological awareness’?, a friend called Abhilash wrote: ‘Could you clarify this confusion on deep sleep. We understand that in deep sleep ego is subdued, given this is the case when we wake up, how the memory that I slept well and did not know anything is obtained. If only awareness and ignorance were present during deep-sleep who reports this experience of absence back to ego in the waking state. As awareness transcends time/space/causality how can we say “awareness” possesses memory? Kindly clarify’.

Upadēśa Undiyār: Tamil text, transliteration and translation

The three main sources that I cite in articles on this blog are Nāṉ Ār?, Upadēśa Undiyār and Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu, because these are the three texts in which Bhagavan expressed the fundamental principles of his teachings in the most comprehensive, systematic, clear and coherent manner, but though there is a complete translation of Nāṉ Ār? on my website, I have not till now given a complete translation of all the verses of either Upadēśa Undiyār or Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu in one place, so since friends often write to me asking for such a translation of these texts, I have decided to give a complete translation of each of them here. Therefore in this article I give a translation of all the verses of Upadēśa Undiyār (which Bhagavan composed first in Tamil and later translated into Sanskrit, Telugu and Malayalam under the title Upadēśa Sāram, ‘The Essence of Spiritual Teachings’), and in a subsequent article I will likewise give a translation of all the verses of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu.

Any experience that is temporary is not manōnāśa and hence not ‘self-realisation’

A recent post on the Facebook page of the Ramana Maharshi Foundation UK was a partial quotation of a paragraph in A Sadhu’s Reminiscences of Ramana Maharshi (3rd edn, 1976, pp. 52-3), in which Alan Chadwick wrote:

Before I came to India I had read of such people as Edward Carpenter, Tennyson and many more who had had flashes of what they called “Cosmic Consciousness.” I asked Bhagavan about this. Was it possible that once having gained Self-realization to lose it again? Certainly it was. To support this view Bhagavan took up a copy of Kaivalya Navanita and told the interpreter to read a page of it to me. In the early stages of Sadhana this was quite possible and even probable. So long as the least desire or tie was left, a person would be pulled back again into the phenomenal world, he explained. After all it is only our Vasanas that prevent us from always being in our natural state, and Vasanas were not got rid of all of a sudden or by a flash of Cosmic Consciousness. One may have worked them out in a previous existence leaving a little to be done in the present life, but in any case they must first be destroyed.

Referring to this, a friend wrote to me: ‘Having once attained is there a chance of unattaining again? This question has confused me for many weeks. I was under the impression that once the ego had been completed annihilated it will never rise again. Yet discussions with fellow devotees on the Ramana Maharshi Foundation page seem to indicate that even once attained it is possible to be lost again if all vasanas [are] not destroyed. What was Bhagavan’s view on this? It disturbs me immensely that having attained one can fall again into the illusion, it also seems to render our practise quite meaningless if that is the case’. The following is my reply to her.

The non-existence of the ego, body and world in manōlaya is only temporary, whereas in manōnāśa it is permanent

In a comment on one of my recent articles, There is absolutely no difference between sleep and pure self-awareness (ātma-jñāna), a friend called Roger asked me why, if there is no difference between sleep and self-awareness, Gaudapada says in Māṇḍukya Kārikā 3.44 that (in Roger’s words) ‘when during meditation the mind becomes inactive in oblivion (susupti / sleep) the mind should be awakened again, just the same as if the mind is distracted’. From this verse and Sankara’s commentary on it Roger inferred that ‘It seems you teach that sleep is the highest state, your whole teaching is oriented toward this, but Shankara explicitly warns against it’. Therefore this article is written in reply to this and a subsequent comment by Roger.

After the annihilation of the ego, no ‘I’ can rise to say ‘I have seen’

In Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 33: the ‘I’ that rises to say ‘I have seen’ has seen nothing, which is the final section of one of my recent articles, There is only one ego, and even that does not actually exist, I quoted a Tamil saying, ‘கண்டவர் விண்டில்லை; விண்டவர் கண்டில்லை’ (kaṇḍavar viṇḍillai; viṇḍavar kaṇḍillai), which means ‘those who have seen do not say; those who say have not seen’, and then verse 33 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu, in which Bhagavan says:

To eradicate the mind we must watch only its first thought, the ego

A friend recently wrote to me saying that a friend of his had advised him that the way to quieten the mind is to watch it, and he implied that watching it means watching whatever thoughts flow through it, because he claimed that ‘once you start watching it [the flow of thoughts] you get separated from your thoughts’, thereby implying that we can detach ourself from thoughts by watching them. This article is adapted from the reply that I wrote to him.

Whether it be called ‘yōga nidrā’ or ‘nirvikalpa samādhi’, any kind of manōlaya is of no spiritual benefit

A friend recently wrote to me describing how he sometimes goes involuntarily into a sleep-like state, and he asked me about the significance of such experiences, referring to what he had read about the distinction that some people make between ‘yōga nidrā’ or ‘nirvikalpa samādhi’, so the following is what I replied to him:

Asparśa yōga is the practice of not ‘touching’ or attending to anything other than oneself

In a comment on my previous article, Names and forms are all just thoughts, so we can free ourself from them only by investigating their root, our ego, a friend called Roger cited extracts from two verses of Māṇḍūkya Kārikā, namely 3.44 and 3.46, saying that the practice Gaudapada describes in them is similar to what he is practising, and after writing some reflections on this practice he invited me or anyone else to comment on what he had written, so this article is my response to his invitation and is therefore addressed to him.

Self-investigation (ātma-vicāra) entails nothing more than just being persistently and tenaciously self-attentive

In a comment on my previous article, Why is it necessary to make effort to practise self-investigation (ātma-vicāra)?, a friend called Pachaiamman referred to the first section of it, We must practise ātma-vicāra for as long as it takes to destroy all our viṣaya-vāsanās (in which I had cited extracts from the sixth, tenth and eleventh paragraphs of Nāṉ Yār?), and asked:

May I give a short description what happens in my poor experience of practising self-investigation in the following passage: The attentiveness with which one investigates what one is has to be accomplished by the ego. The ego is a bundle of thoughts. So attentiveness is also a thought. The attentive thought ‘who am I’ is entrusted to try to extinguish/erase other rising thoughts and simultaneously or after that to investigate to whom they have occurred. It is clear that it is to me. By further investigation ‘who am I’, I do not clearly recognize if the mind subsided or returned to its birthplace, that is myself. Because the same (my) attentiveness has to manage to refuse the spreading/developing of other thoughts (without giving room [place/field] to other thoughts) and rather eliminate them, other thoughts are on my mind well waiting for refusal of their completion. Thus I am far away from grabbing the opportunity that the thought ‘who am I’ itself is destroyed in the end (like the fire-stir-stick). What is wrong in my strategy or where I am on the wrong track?

The following is my reply to this:

Why is it necessary to be attentively self-aware, rather than just not aware of anything else?

A friend recently wrote to me asking:

I have a question if attention has to be drawn (intentionally) to the self, or is it enough if I just remain as I am, surrendering the filthy ego to God? No “fixing the mind into self”, nor “looking for the source” or “I-thought”, but just remaining?

I wrote a brief reply, and he replied asking some further questions, so this article is adapted from the two replies I wrote to him.

Prāṇāyāma is just an aid to restrain the mind but will not bring about its annihilation

In a comment on one of my earlier articles, The fundamental law of experience or consciousness discovered by Sri Ramana, a friend called Chimborazo wrote:

Michael, sometimes it is said that the source of the ego (all thoughts, ‘I’-thought) is the heart. And the same heart is said to be the source of the breath. Therefore thoughts and breath have the same source. So if one holds one’s breath no thoughts would rise.

I cannot confirm that and I did not learn it in my experience of meditation. Please could you comment on this or clarify.

In reply to this I wrote a comment in which I explained:

Our aim should be to experience ourself alone, in complete isolation from everything else

A few months ago a friend wrote to me asking about the practice of ātma-vicāra (self-investigation or self-enquiry) and whether his description of his practice indicated that he was practising it correctly, and he ended his email saying:

I have tried the technique of diving into the heart exhaling your breath, explained in the small book The Technique of Maha Yoga published by Ramanashramam, [...] but this does not seem to work in my case.

The following is adapted from the reply I wrote to him:

Manōnāśa – destruction of mind

Someone wrote to me recently saying that he thinks the use of the word ‘destruction’ in ‘destruction of mind’ (manōnāśa) is just ‘Indian hyperbole’ and should not be taken literally, because of it is obvious that Bhagavan and other jñānis think, since without thinking they could not walk or talk. I hope there are not many other people who have misunderstood Bhagavan’s teachings about manōnāśa in such a way, but since manōnāśa is the goal that he has taught us that we should aim to attain, I believe that the following adaptation of my reply to this person may be helpful to other devotees.

In order to understand what Bhagavan means by manōnāśa (the destruction, annihilation, elimination, ruin, disappearance or death of the mind), we should first consider what he means by ‘mind’ or manas. In verse 18 of Upadēśa Undiyār (the original Tamil version of Upadēśa Sāram) he says:

Mind is only thoughts. Of all thoughts, the thought called ‘I’ is the root. [Therefore] what is called ‘mind’ is [in essence just this root thought] ‘I’.

In verse 2 of Āṉma Viddai he indicates that what he means here by ‘the thought called I’ is the thought ‘I am this body’ (the illusion that the physical body is ‘I’):

Since the thought ‘this body composed of flesh is I’ alone is the one thread on which [all] the various thoughts are strung, if [one] goes within [investigating] ‘Who am I? What is [its] place [the source from which this ‘I’ has risen, and the ground on which it stands]?’ thoughts will cease, and in the cave [of one’s heart] ātma-jñāna [self-knowledge] will shine spontaneously as ‘I [am only] I’. This is silence, the one [empty] space [of consciousness], the abode of bliss.

Japa of ‘I am’ as an aid to self-attentiveness

After I wrote my previous article, ‘Holy indifference’ and the love to be self-attentive, a series of interesting comments have been posted on it discussing the use of japa (repetition) as an aid to the practice of self-attentiveness. In the most recent comment in this series Hans wrote:

... To me it is important to understand the connection between japa which is an object and “I am”. As I do experience, the “me” practicing japa vanishes and some silent apperception of being appears which I am unable to describe. I suppose this is still another subtle object, however I can’t proceed any further. May be Michael will clear up this state of affairs. ...

Other than our pure and absolutely non-dual self-consciousness ‘I am’, everything that we experience is ‘still another subtle object’, as Hans rightly calls it.

That is, so long as we experience ourself as an individual (a mind or separate consciousness) who is practising self-attentiveness (trying to know ‘who am I?’), we have not yet experienced ‘I am’ in its absolutely pristine form (because when we do experience it thus our mind will be destroyed forever), so whatever we experience while practising is ‘still another subtle object’ — a subtle thought experienced by a separate thinking consciousness.

Svarupa-dhyana and svarupa-darsana

A friend recently wrote to me asking:

Does svarupa-dhyana, atma-chintana and atma-smarana mean focusing attention on the first thought ‘I am’, consciousness of being? I mean, is it concentration on being, staying without thoughts but still aware of external world? If so, svarupa-darshana is different experience and is the same as kevala nirvikalpa samadhi. Isn’t it?

Here the mention of ‘svarupa-darshana’ and ‘external world’ appears to be a reference to the third paragraph of Nan Yar? (Who am I?), in which Sri Ramana says:

If [our] mind, which is the cause of all [objective] knowledge and of all activity, subsides [completely], [our] perception of the world (jaga-dṛṣṭi) will cease. Just as knowledge of the rope, which is the base [that underlies and supports the appearance of the snake], will not arise unless knowledge of the imaginary snake ceases, svarūpa-darśana [true knowledge of our essential self], which is the base [that underlies and supports the appearance of the world], will not arise unless [our] perception of the world, which is an imagination, ceases.

In reply to this friend I wrote as follows:

Yes, terms such as ātma-vichāra, svarūpa-dhyāna, svarūpa-smaraṇa and ātma-chintana (which are various terms that Sri Ramana uses in Nan Yar?) all mean self-attentiveness — the focusing of our entire attention upon ourself, our essential consciousness of being, ‘I am’.

Atma-vichara and metta bhavana (‘loving-kindness’ meditation)

A friend recently wrote to me asking:

I’ve got a question concerning atma-vichara in relation to some meditation techniques.

Before I came across Sri Bhagavan's teachings I practised some form of Buddhist meditation which is called ‘metta’ or loving-kindness meditation. In this meditation one develops the feelings of love and care, starting with oneself and expanding the range step by step to include teachers, friends and finally all living beings.

I never regarded myself as a Buddhist but nevertheless I still find this form of meditation very helpful and beneficial. That's why I do a daily loving-kindness meditation for about 45-60 minutes.

I also find that this is a help when I try to practice atma-vichara because self-attention seems to be easier with a mind which is not so noisy and turbulent.

Through reading and reflecting on Sri Bhagavan’s teachings I know that the only practice which leads to final liberation and experience of true self-knowledge is atma-vichara or self-abidance.

I also think that my other practice will naturally drop away when I get more experienced in atma-vichara. But as a beginner I find it difficult to practice self-attention, especially when there are difficult emotions, plenty of thoughts and the stress of day-to-day life.

My question is if this kind of sitting meditation is contradictory to practising self-attention or can even be a hindrance.

In reply to this I wrote as follows:

The only practice that will enable us directly to experience ourself as we really are and thereby destroy our mind is the action-free non-dual practice of ātma-vichāra or self-attentiveness. All other practices or forms of meditation are only mental activities, because they each involve our paying attention to something other than ‘I’ (which means that our attention is moving away from ourself towards whatever other thing we are thinking of), and hence they cannot enable us to experience our real action-free (thought-free) self.

Upadesa Undiyar – an explanatory paraphrase

As I mentioned in my previous article, Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam – an overview, I am currently preparing to upload four new e-books to the Books section of my website, namely Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam, Sri Ramanopadesa Noonmalai, Part Two of The Path of Sri Ramana and Sadhanai Saram, and I am drafting introductory pages for each of these.

The second of these four new e-books, Sri Ramanopadesa Noonmalai (ஸ்ரீ ரமணோபதேச நூன்மாலை), is an English translation by Sri Sadhu Om and me of உபதேச நூன்மாலை (Upadesa Nunmalai), the ‘Garland of Texts of Spiritual Teachings’, which is the second section of ஸ்ரீ ரமண நூற்றிரட்டு (Sri Ramana Nultirattu), the Tamil ‘Collected Works of Sri Ramana’, and which is a collection of the six principal philosophical poems that Sri Ramana composed, namely உபதேச வுந்தியார் (Upadesa Undiyar), உள்ளது நாற்பது (Ulladu Narpadu), உள்ளது நாற்பது – அனுபந்தம் (Ulladu Narpadu – Anubandham), ஏகான்ம பஞ்சகம் (Ekanma Panchakam), அப்பளப் பாட்டு (Appala Pattu) and ஆன்ம வித்தை (Anma-Viddai).

The following is the first of seven extracts from the introductory page that I have drafted for Sri Ramanopadesa Noonmalai that I will be posting here during the next few weeks:

Self-attentiveness, intensity and continuity

Last week a person called Teck posted two comments on one of my recent articles, Making effort to pay attention to our mind is being attentive only to our essential self, in the first of which he or she wrote:

… My question is, how important is CONTINUITY and INTENSITY of self abidance/attention for our progress (of recognizing our true being)? Recently I started to intuit that these 2 factors are of very critical importance in our progress. …

In his or her second comment, Teck continued:

I think I need to elaborate more about what I mean by intensity and continuity.

By the 1st I mean the degree of “alertness/mindfulness” of our attention to awareness itself, while ignoring others eg feeling, thoughts etc., kind like when a cat trying to catch a mouse, it’s attention is very alert/focused.

Continuity is very obvious, it’s simply the ability to sustain our attention on our consciousness/awareness without interruption.

I suspect that the speed of our realization (progress) depends on these 2 factors more than anything else. Is this true?

Both intensity and continuity are important, but of these two the most important is intensity, because even a moment of absolutely intense — that is, perfectly clear — self-attentiveness will be sufficient to destroy forever the illusion that we are this finite mind, after which the continuity of our self-attentiveness will never be interrupted even for a moment.