*WORDS OF WISDOM* - Ramana Maharshi

God will bear whatever burdens we put on Him. All things are being carried on by the omnipotent power of a Supreme God. Instead of submitting ourselves to It, why should we always be planning, ‘We should do this or that’. Knowing that the train carries all the load, why should we, traveling therein, suffer by carrying our small bundle on our heads, instead of leaving it on the train and being happy.
The story of Ashtavakra teaches that in order to experience Brahma Jnana all that is necessary is to surrender yourself completely to the Guru, to give up your notion of ‘I’ and ‘mine’. If these are surrendered, what remains is the Reality.

There are two ways of achieving surrender. One is looking into the source of the ‘I’ and merging into that source. The other is feeling, ‘I am helpless myself, God alone is all powerful, and except by throwing myself completely on Him, there is no other means of safety for me’; and thus gradually developing the conviction that God alone exists and the ego does not count. Both methods lead to the same goal. Complete surrender is another name for jnana or liberation.
- Gems

*WORDS OF WISDOM* - Swaami Chinmayaananda

*WORDS OF WISDOM* ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

"The frog lives by the side of the fragrant lotus, but it is the bee that gets the honey".

*WORDS OF WISDOM*-Ramana Maharshi

'Wisdom seems to dawn, though it is natural and ever present'. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

He [she] who abandons all that is not Real directly realizes Reality. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

Two golden keys to open the door of 'Self-Realization' 

 'Self-Inquiry' and 'Self-Surrender' are the same. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

'Mind'-'No mind' -'Self-Realization'

 "To ask the mind to kill the mind is like making the thief the policeman". Ramana Maharshi

Everybody is Self-Realized: "There is nothing to be gained anew" ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

*POINTS TO PONDER* - Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi:

The mind is a bundle of thoughts. But the source of all thoughts is the I-thought. So if you try to find out who this ‘I’ is, the mind will disappear. The mind will exist only so long as you think of external things. But when you draw it from external things and make it think of the mind or ‘I’ — in other words introvert it — it ceases to exist.

(From 'Day by Day with Bhagavan' 18-10-46)

'Truth is a pathless Land'.~Swaathmaaraaman

"There is a way. No one will reveal the secret. You must enter the door yourself. But there is no door. In the end, there is not even a way.
- Zenmaster Dongsan

Unlike

*WORDS OF WISDOM* - BHAGAVAN RAMANA MAHARSHI ABOUT HIMSELF.

D.: Does Maharshi enter the nirvikalpa samadhi?
M.: If the eyes are closed, it is nirvikalpa; if open, it is (though differentiated, still in absolute repose) savikalpa. The ever-present state is the natural state sahaja.

Just as a plantain tree produces shoots at its roots, before yielding fruits and perishing, and these shoots, being transplanted, do the same again, so also the original primeval Master of antiquity (Dakshinamurti), who cleared the doubts of his rishi disciples in silence, has left shoots which are ever multiplying. The Guru is
a shoot of that Dakshinamurti. The question does not arise when the Self is realized.

Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, no.17

*WORDS OF WISDOM* - Awakening of 'Kundalini' through 'Yoga' is nothing but 'Self-Unfoldment', brought about through 'Self-Inquiry'. ~ Swaathmaaraaman

'CHAKRAS ARE MENTAL CONCEPTS ONLY'


M: You need not take the Heart to be the physical organ­ that is not important. We are not concerned with anything less than the Self. About that we are certain, no doubts or discus­sions. The Chakras are for concentration purposes and are in­terpreted symbolically. The current of 'Kundalini' is ourselves.

Q: The 'Kundalini' is said to rise from the base of the spine.

M: That current is ourselves.

Mind is the real 'Kundalini'. The representation of 'Kundalini' as a serpent is merely to assist duller minds. The forms of rep­resentation of the Chakras are also illusory.

The illumination is experienced in the right side of the
chest, in the Heart, when the Self is realized. 'Kundalini' and Chakras exist for those who practice that path of yoga but not for those who practice Self-inquiry.

- Conscious Immortality ~Ramana Maharshi

*WORDS OF WISDOM* - 'Ramana Maharshi'

"He who sees the Self, sees only the Self in the world also. To the jnani it is immaterial whether the world appears or not. Whether it appears or not, his attention is always on the Self."
(Bhagavan in 'Day by Day with Bhagavan' 12-9-46)

*WORDS OF WISDOM* - 'SUFFERING' - 'Ramana Maharshi'

Q: What is the purpose of all the suffering and evil in the world?

Bhagavan: There has been evil and sorrow since the beginning of creation. You ask why the rishis do not put matters right. The Vedas tell of the demons (asurus) who have existed since the earliest times. There is a force of opposition in the world which produces strife and suffering but it works to make humankind grow and evolve. It is a force in nature which exists with the good.

Your question is itself an outcome of the suffering. Sorrow makes one think of God. If it were not for the suffering, would you have asked the question? Except for jnanis, everybody, from a king to a peasant, has a certain amount of sorrow. Even in cases where it seems to be absent it is only a matter of time­ sooner or later it comes. Also, one may not question sorrow or God at the first blow, but one is likely to at the fifth. We have taken this vehicle (the body) in order to know our real state.

Q: But why should imperfection-come from perfection?
Bhagavan: Had it not been for the manifestation of the universe, we would not have thought about the real state. The purpose of the manifestation is for you to know the cause of it. There is no maya when you know your real state. It is your fault if you do not know yourself.

Conscious Immortality ~ Ramana Maharshi

Purity of heart, self-restraint, evenness of temper, tenderness towards all beings, fortitude and freedom from desire, hatred and arrogance are the outstanding virtues of the sattvic mind. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

The moment (by any of the methods) you effect subsidence or merger of the mind into its source, the grace rushes forth, spouting as from a spring, from within you~Ramana Maharshi

*POINTS TO PONDER*

A barrister from Bombay asked Bhagavan, “I have read the works of Bhagavan and others and, though I can understand them intellectually, I have not been able to realize anything in experience. I have tried Bhagavan’s method for about six years and yet I have not made any progress. When I meditate, other thoughts come. For people like me, living in cities and doing our work and coming here only occasionally, what sadhana would Bhagavan advise so that we may succeed better than I have so far been able to do?”

Bhagavan: Your real nature is always there, your meditation, etc., come only temporarily. Reality being your Self, there is nothing for you to realize. All that is required is that you should give up regarding the unreal as real, which is what all are doing. The object of all meditation, dhyana or japa is only that, to give up all thoughts regarding the not-self, to give up many thoughts and to keep to the one thought.

As for sadhana, there are many methods. You may do vichara, asking yourself ‘Who am I?’ or, if that does not appeal to you, you may do dhyana ‘I am Brahman’ or otherwise, or you may concentrate on a mantra or name in japa. The object is to make the mind one-pointed, to concentrate it on one thought and thus exclude our many thoughts, and if we do this, eventually even the one thought will go and the mind will get extinguished in its source.
Visitor: In actual practice I find I am not able to succeed in my efforts. Unless Bhagavan’s grace descends on me I cannot succeed.

Bhagavan: Guru’s grace is always there. You imagine it is something, somewhere high up in the sky, far away, and has to descend. It is really inside you, in your heart, and the moment (by any of the methods) you effect subsidence or merger of the mind into its source, the grace rushes forth, spouting as from a spring, from within you.

-Ramana Maharshi

Day by Day with Bhagavan

The Self cannot be found in books. You have to find it for yourself in yourself. ~ Sri Ramana.

*WORDS OF WISDOM* - LAO Tzu