Some Verses from
Garland of Guru's Sayings
Invocation to the Guru
1 To save from dire despondency
Those who yearn for, and yet are, far,
Far from the goal of final Freedom,
This Lamp of Guru’s wisdom lit
To put to flight the illusion of ‘I’
And ‘mine’, shines as the very Self.
2 While I lay writhing in the body Mistaking it for me,
the gracious, silent guru took pity on me
And made me see that I was not this form inert, decaying,
but imperishable true Awareness. with His twin Feet I crown my head.
3 The Sage accomplished who reveals with clarity and certitude
The ultimate Truth which reconciles all the discordant creeds and doctrines,
His Feet my head wears as a crown.
17. To those who look within,
the highest good gained by the Master’s grace
is wakeful sleep, the fourth state,
the undying flame, the sweet, uncloying fruit, forever fresh.
The Quest
Actuality of the World
19. From cause alone proceeds effect. The big world, which the scriptures say is only names and forms, proceeds From Pure Awareness which is real, clear as the berry in one’s palm. Hence you may say this big world too Is real. 21. For those who take the world appearance As real and enjoy it, it is the Lord’s creation. But for those who, free from fear, have known the Truth, The undeluded Self, it is no more than a mere mental image Projected by desire. 25. From your true being as Awareness Alienated and deluded from your true being as Awareness, do not pursue appearances, deeming them as real. They are false, since they must disappear. Your own being as Awareness is real, and cannot cease to be. 34. The bewildered mind, which mistakes the body for oneself, conceives the transient world of names and forms, makes it seem real and lovable, and promptly entraps one in the strong, illusive bondage of desire. 51. Only those who have utterly renounced the world and all attachment, and rejoicing in Self-luminous Awareness, have minds pure and free from illusion’s power only they know the sense in which “The World is Real”. 52. If mind turned towards Awareness and concentrating on Awareness, seeks the Self, the world made up of ether and other elements is real, as all things are Awareness, the one sole substance of true Being. 60. With mind turned inward, drown the world in the great void and dispel illusion. Beholding then the void as void, destroy the void, by drowning it in the deep ocean of Self-Awareness.
Unreality of the World
63. Some assert, “This world before Our eyes lacks permanence, ’tis true. But it is real while it lasts.” We deny it, saying, “Permanence Is a criterion of Reality.”
Allurement of the World
71. How piteous is the spectacle of people wandering aimless in the world’s ways, and ignoring the discipline that leads to permanent freedom.
Aridity of the World
77. What does one gain, you well may ask, by giving up the “immense wealth” of worldly pleasure, and seeking only “mere” Awareness? The benefit of true Awareness is the unbroken prevalence of peace within the heart, the bliss of one’s own natural being.
Playing Ones Roles in the World
81. Knowing your true identity and ever in the Heart abiding as the Self supreme alone,
Play perfectly your human role, tasting every pain and pleasure in common with all creatures.
Illusory Appearance (Vivarta)
97. Only the mind deluded by illusion’s might, and looking outward, sees the body. The true Self knows no body. To call the Self of pure Awareness, the body’s owner or indweller, is an error.
Doctrine of No Creation (Ajata)
100. To meet the needs of various seekers Master Ramana did expound various doctrines.
But we have Heard him say that his true teaching,
Firmly based on his own experience, is Ajatavada.
Why DiverseTheories of Creation
102. By their diverse cosmogonies What do the Holy Books intend?
Not telling how the world began, But starting the enquiry,
“What is True Being, the primal cause of this World-appearance?”
Part Played by God
108. In the mere presence of the Lord, himself free from all traces of thought, individuals set out in numerous paths of action, work away, and wearied, turn inward and return to freedom.
The Three Prime Entities
110. Inward in the heart enquiring Keenly “Who am I?” the seeker
Vanishes and Siva alone Shines clear. When the avid beholder
Does not exist, it would be madness To say that the world beheld Exists.
115. Though thus Reality is one,
all schools concede at first, three primal entities,
God, individual and world,
because the discursive, outward looking mind
cannot straightaway, face the unity of Being.
Veiling (Tiroda)
116. The Lord’s compassionate grace it is
That dark oblivion hides from view
Our countless former births each filled
With griefs we suffered and inflicted.
Individuality (Vyakti}
118. Vyakti and sakti owe their being
To the wandering mind’s conceptual power.
But in the Self’s Reality Beyond the mind’s bewildering play
They have not and have never had Existence.
Wrong Identification
125. Like one who takes a crocodile for a boat,
and with its help tries to cross a river,
are those who, while they pamper the trivial flesh,
claim that they are earnest seekers of the living Self-Awareness.
126. Give up the thought that this frail body is the Self-Awareness.
Pursue the Self-Awareness, which is eternal bliss. To seek It,
while cherishing the perishable body, is like trying to cross a
river, using a crocodile for a raft. – Sri Ramana, #1
127. Those who desire, like, and live, the trivial life the ego knows,
reject, as if it were unreal,
the natural life of infinite bliss within their own hearts,
ever present for their enjoyment.
128. Those who forget the harm the false world does,
and cling to it as real and comfortable,
mistake a floating bear for a boat,
only to be crushed and drowned in the sea of births.
130. When will the fool, who thinks the body and the world are permanent,
and clings to them, find peace?
Only when this foolishness leaves him,
and like a limpet, he clings to that Self-Awareness within.
From then on, he shall never know pain.
131. Those who enjoy the ego’s life of false phenomena, perish and die.
The state of grace, supreme Awareness, the life lived in Self-Being,
this alone is the bliss worth seeking.
The Pandit
132. Why do people call me learned? What is the mark of real learning?
Learning that all collected knowledge of things is empty ignorance,
and that true knowledge is the search for the Knower.
133. He, who by questing inward for the Knower,
has destroyed the ego and transcended so-called knowledge, abides as the Self.
He alone is a true Knower, not one who has not seen the Self
and therefore is an ego still.
134. Those who, learning to forget completely all objective knowledge,
turn inward firmly, and see clearly the truth, abide serene.
Those who try to recall forgotten things, pine bewildered,
fretting over false phenomena.
The Poet
140. True poetry, springs only from the calm heart’s clarity,
which follows the elimination of the ego,
by inward search, and finding out that none of the five sheaths is I.
Futility of Mere Learning
144. Unless by one means or another mind dies out
and certitude from true Self-recognition comes,
the knowledge which mere learning brings, is like the horse’s horn, unreal.
Truth of Vedanta
148. Those who know nothing but sense-pleasure, to ruin and destruction doomed,
Resent transcendence of the senses and call this fresh and fruitful wisdom dry Vedanta!
The Course of Prarabdha
150. What we experience now is only The fruit of former actions. Knowing
This, one should not worry what Happens to one. Whether or not one likes it,
One may not escape, one needs must eat the food one has prepared.
The Power of Prarabdha
153. How is it that the eight-fold siddhis and supreme Self-knowledge do not
Come together when so desired?
It is because the world is such that wealth and wisdom stand far apart.
False Jiva and Self
154. To jump about and play vile tricks Like a little Satan, to flit from thought to thought,
to look and see and suffer much, this is the false Jiva’s nature.
The Self’s true nature Is but to be and shine.
Strength of Vasanas
155. Flung back by vasanas (naughty boys) Into samsara’s eddying stream,
Some creatures suffer, alas, unable To stand firm on the bank, the Self.
The Ego Knot
156. Lapsing from the Self, the seat, The Being-Awareness vast, unbroken,
A separate ‘I’ springs up which falls Into the error of confronting
A world perceived as something other Than the Self.
The Ego's Strength
161. When ego ends, then one becomes a devotee true; when ego ends, One becomes a knower too;
When ego ends, one becomes Being supreme. When ego ends, Grace fills all space.
The Ego's Dance
169. Much like the boast of the cripple who said:
“Single-handed I would meet
This host of enemies, lay them low
And raise a pile of corpses here,
If only someone first would lift And prop me up!”
The madcaps who forget that they themselves are by Great Sakti moved,
And busily gather thaumaturgic powers, are like the cripple who claimed,
“If someone would but lift me up, I would scatter these foes, I would!” – Sri Ramana, #2
171. With knowledge by illusion veiled, staggering under a load of sin, Blind and unseeing the Supreme,
The egos play their comic role Like figures on the temple tower.[1]
The Lord sustains the universe.
The pseudo-self, which thinks it bears it,
like the grinning figure which seems to carry the weight of the temple tower.
If a traveller in a cart does not put down his luggage in the cart
But carries it painfully on his head, whose is the fault? – Sri Ramana, #3
Treachery to the Self
177. Traitors to the Self are those Deluded fools who do not see
That all these worlds and creatures seeming So many and various, are the Self,
The Self alone, held and beheld Within its own ethereal space Of Pure Awareness.
Heaven and Hell
178. Please don’t debate, good folk, whether Heaven and hell exist.
As long, As much, as this our world exists, So long, so much, they too exist.
Terror of Hell (Naraka)
180. In fear of hell they tremble who Know not that hell is the ego’s fault.
Those who know what causes hell Have found the way to the heaven of Truth.
Victory over Naraka
182. The ceremonial bathing done during Dipavali, celebrates the victory over the demon Naraka.
seeking out his dwelling place and slaying him there, one bathes oneself
in the pure waters of Awareness.
“The demon Naraka, who rules Hell With the notion ‘body is I’,
Where is this demon?” enquiring thus With the discus of jnana, Narayana
Destroys the demon. And this day Is Naraka-chaturdasi. – Sri Raman #4
183. Searching out and slaying Naraka
Who wallowed in the putrid body
Of flesh as ‘I’, and the resulting
Dawn eternal of the Self,
This is the festival of light, Dipavali.
Shining as the Self in glory after slaying Naraka,
The sinner vile who suffered much
Because he deemed as ‘I’ the wretched Home of pains , the body of flesh,
This is the festival of light, Dipavali. – Sri Ramana, #5
Turning Inward
184. Even the knowledge sense-perceived Of the world without has for its ground
The Self above. To search for knowledge Somewhere else, apart from That,
Is but to grasp the shadow, not The substance.
185. How to make the mind, which now looks painfully,
at forms and features without, turn inward?
By asking who is this “I”, this mind, which sees this trivial world,
and thus directing it towards the Self-Awareness.
186. Poor seer who suffers endlessly,
because you still perceive the object, not the subject,
please look inward, not without,
and taste the bliss of non-duality.
187. O heart of mine, it is not wise to stay out. It is safe to stay within.
Conceal yourself from illusion, which plans to draw you out and to destroy you.
Stay within.
188. Do not perish running out in search of wonders, and dancing there with pleasure.
better with the light of grace to look, look within,
and find certitude in being and abiding as your true Self-Awareness.
191. Not like a boat’s sail, outspread wide and worn away by wind and weather,
but like the humble anchor, sunk in the vast ocean’s depth,
the mind should plunge and settle in the heart of wisdom.
190. You pilgrims, who without discovering what is within,
proceed from place to place, forever hovering like a bird,
the Self supreme is but Awareness, Absolutely still, centered in the Heart.
192. For the man of Truth, seeking experience of the supreme state,
the heroic action needed, is to draw in, the outward darting mind,
and fix it firmly in the Heart.
193. If the mind turned outward and distracted, starts observing its own being,
alienation ends, and the vestige ego, merges in the light of true Awareness, shining in the heart.
The Kingdom of God[2]
194. Because we think we are the body we imagine that Heaven exists somewhere, afar.
The pure, bright world Of Siva is not a place to go to. Nowhere but in your heart alone It is.
Sivahood
197. When the distracted and bewildered Ego-mind and the last trace Of difference having ended,
life becomes a natural state of perfect Purity and peace,
one lives In Siva and as Siva Himself.
Non-Difference of Hari and Hara
200. They say that Hara gives to jivas knowledge, while Hari gives them heavenly Bliss.
But since firm Awareness is Both God and heaven, Hari and Hara Are one and the same.
Sakti and Siva
201. The Self, the whole, sole source of Sakti Supreme, the Power of thought, that Self,
The primal Being, the Heart alone Is Siva pure, the dweller in Tillai.[3]
Siva-worship
204. Know well that perfect Selfhood, peace serene, all thought in stillness lost,
Identity with Being-Awareness, This alone is pure Siva-puja.
Meaning of Prostration
207. When the imperfect jiva bows his proud head at the Feet of God,
It means the overcoming of ‘I’, The individual self, by Siva-Awareness.
Image-Worship
208. You who do not feel the secret melting power of image-worship and so condemn it,
why then do you Cherish this flawed, crawling body, mistaking it for you?
Sacred Ashes (Vibhuti)
209. When the ego false, with ancient memories laden is burnt up In the fire of Pure Awareness,
The remnant ashes manifest mere Being, true form of the Supreme.
Riding the Bull
214. ’Tis said that Siva for His service chose the Bull and other Creatures.
This is to give us, step by step, the basic attitude that all
The forms we see are forms of God.
Sakti and Santi
215. There is no deed too hard for soul-force to accomplish;
The soul-force is the power of love divine.
To say that numbers of weapons can do what soul-force cannot
Is but the folly of reliance on the body vile.
216. The truth they know not who assert that power and peace are different things.
What abides as peace within appears to outward sight as power.
What to inward sight is peace Appears as power to outward sight.
For those who truly know, the two are one and the same. – Sri Ramana, #6
Macro and Micro
218. When the opposite poles of two magnets, one huge, the other tiny, come Together, the small acquires and shares the power and nature of the large.[4]
Desire for Thaumaturgic Powers (Siddhis)
222. If a seeker after moksha sets
His mind on miscellaneous siddhis,
Bondage tightens, as the roots
Of ego swell in size and strength.
Peace of mind is moksha ever present. Siddhis arise from movements of the mind.
How can those who hanker after siddhis know moksha’s bliss, the stillness of the mind? – Sri Ramana, #7
True Immortality
225. Unfailing immortality accrues only to those who have destroyed the ego whose demon-dance
Obstructs the vision of the precious truth that we are ever-perfect Being-Awareness-Bliss.
Elixir for Immortality
230. Only by courtesy is the body, vulnerable and born to die, called an entity substantial. The sole reality, the only thing permanent and ultimate, is Self-awareness, That alone.
Body-Preservation
232. The body is the prime, original malady, the mother of all other maladies.
To labour hard for body’s permanence is wasting water on desert sand
Or welcoming and cherishing, not dreading, a disease.
Of Non-Attachment
236. O hero stern, intent on tapas, do the world’s praise and worship, its eager prayers for your favours,
Please your heart? Know that these are but maya’s golden baits spread out to entangle you.
237. Some fortunate, through former deeds,
naturally disdain pleasures, of this world and the next.
To these alone, does true Awareness come with ease.
Awareness IS Detachment
243. Awareness clear and pure is nothing but seeing the world as nothing other than the perceiver.
Mind indrawn and planted in the heart, deeming this world as a mere seeming, not an object, is detachment.
Mind’s Puissance
244. Even as a piece of glass acquires redness from a red flower near it,
Chit, Awareness Pure, becomes chitta, the mind, by imposition Of sense-impressions.
Remove this ta And chitta becomes chit again, Awareness pure.
This ta then stands For maya, mere illusion.
Inner Purity
245. The world’s many and various bright objects, give pleasure,
only to bring grievous evil.
Unlike these, inner purity alone has true beauty.
Hence, the wise regard and marvel at the sage, the living embodiment of truth,
as God made manifest, here on this earth.
Of Death
247. What else is death, but straying from,
the perfect state of Being the immortal Self,
home of eternal love and supreme bliss,
the heaven of true Awareness?
Locus of Life
The Heart
262. Within us is the body. The fool
Who thinks he is in the body
Makes the same mistake as he
Who takes the screen on which the picture
Is projected for a piece
Of cloth shown in the film.
Within us is the body. He Who thinks that he is in the body
makes the same mistake as he who takes the piece of cloth shown in
the picture for the screen on which the picture is projected. – Sri Ramana, #8
The True Guru
Guru's Grace
284. Tiger's Jaw (Guru's Grace) Those on whom the Guru's glance of Grace has fallen are like the deer caught in a tiger's jaw. They are bound to have their wretched ego slain and know the one Supreme Awareness. They will never be forsaken.
Certitude
288. Grasping aright the ineffable grace of the supreme Teacher,
being unentangled in the illusory world that stands in front,
abidance in mere Being, is true bliss.
291. For those who seek eternal life, the assurance stands:
the five senses retracted like a tortoise,
the mind turned homeward to the Self-Awareness,
and there abiding, is pure bliss.
293. Know that these countless things are pictures in a dream,
and none is real, apart from the beholder.
Shun this phantom world of names and forms,
and dwell in the pure, blissful being of Awareness.
The Left-Overs (Uchishtam)
301.
Reverence for the Guru
304.
Guru's Greatness
321. Though you give up all faults, acquire
All merits, cast off every kinship
And practice every penance known,
You cannot gain the ultimate bliss
Until you reach the Teacher’s Feet.
327. Steadfast clinging to the wisdom learnt,
the mind restrained and withdrawn from the field of the false senses,
living within,
in the clear light of Truth,
such practice is the only true teaching.
Of Satsang (Association with the Wise)
328. Sensible people shun the company of empty talkers
who are not content to humbly tread the path of righteousness,
and uphold in practice life’s ideals,
who instead proudly mouth vain words.
329. Many are the ills that flow from mixing with mad folks
afflicted with confused minds and rattling tongues.
The best friendship is with those good men whose minds are dead
and who abide in the pure silence of Awareness.
330. Give up without delay, O mind,
the friendship of worthless folks with speech perverse and wicked ways.
From now on, live in the company of sages steadfast in their state of motionless stillness.
Hence, gain new life by dwelling in the company of those
who live in the purity of true Awareness, free from all falsehood.
331. Since every vice springs from the false pleasures
of swerving from the Self-Awareness,
the completion of virtue, is the perfect peace of pure Awareness,
following the end of the ego, which is fed by such false pleasures.
The Greatness of Devotees
333. Ripened by the matchless power
Of Self-awareness, now the Guru
Stands as transcendent Being supreme.
He who, penance done, becomes
The target of His glance of grace
Gains greatness that surpasses speech.
Of Brahma-Vidya (Knowledge of Brahman)
336. The only science worth our learning
Is Brahma-Vidya. Those who have known
The ultimate Truth define this science
As knowledge, not of the world we see,
But of ourselves who see it.
337. Awareness which survives,
when all illusions, the mirage-like world,
he who beholds it and the sight his eyes drink in,
are destroyed without a vestige,
this Awareness, this and nothing else, is Knowledge.
The Living Truth in Religions
338. Questing within, enquiring “Who Am I, this indispensable True living Self?”,
this search alone is the one single stream of life
Pulsating through the many faiths that promise life eternal.
341. Had there been no utterance[5] showing the grand Himalaya of transcendence
Standing in the vast inner space,
The loud polemics of cults and schools concerning the Supreme would be but noisy bustle in a bazaar.
Infinite Vision
343. Those who, diving deep within, have found the Self-Awareness,
have nothing else to know. And why?
Because they have gone beyond all forms, and are Awareness without form.
Ego-Loss
351. Scan the troublesome phantom called
The ego, and you find it is
A word importing nothing. If
Import it has, then like the real
Rope beneath the illusive snake,
Its sole substratum is the Self,
The one Reality.
The True I
359. The separate ego wholly dead,
The indivisible Self as pure
Awareness brightly shines. This I
Is not the false conceptual self
Earth-bound and body-bound.
Self-Awakening
362. It’s only when one knows one’s source,
The Heart, that ‘I’, the false god, dies.
It’s only when the false god dies
That I, the true God-Self, springs forth
Direct, victorious from the depths.
368. What is That, forgetting which,
we have fallen under the powerful spell of this false world?
Unless we know That, the Real,
there is no chance for the death, and disappearance, of our pain.
Freedom from Sorrow
367. How can the jiva sore bewildered
By failure and frustration gain
Blest freedom and relief from care?
Only by knowing that He who rules,
The Grace Supreme, is its own Self.
Desirelessness
372. Good hearts, that yearn for dear contentment,
to swim across this poverty of heart, it is good to gain serenity of mind,
instead of gathering piles of tangible things.
Freedom from Bondage
380. Decay and disappearance of the false
Illusion that the body is one’s self,
This alone is the true blissful
Sovereignty of the Self. The sole
Common lesson taught by all
The branches of all faiths is this,
The ego’s end.
Self-Enquiry
384. Ending this vast, external wandering
Of the mind, enquiring “Who are you?”
And “Who is he?”, ’tis best to quest
Within unceasing, eager, keen
Enquiring “Who am I?”
389. The method of Self-inquiry is:
to turn the outward-going mind back to its source,
the Heart, the Self-Awareness, and fix it forever there,
preventing the rising of the empty “I”.
391. Those who do not dive into the Heart and there confront the Self,
in the five sheaths hid,
are only students answering out of books, clever questions raised by books,
and not true seekers of the Self.
393. One who has wisely chosen the straight path of Self-inquiry,
can never go astray;
for like the bright, clear Sun,
the Self-Awareness reveals itself to whomever turns towards it.
True Penance (Tapas)
415. To recognize through reason, the Supreme,
and in the heart, renounce the relative,
to act without a sense of “I” and “mine”,
is the sage’s way of life divine.
Awareness
417. Who in the golden temple of awareness
Sees Siva as the form of Pure Awareness
And offers Him the worship of awareness,
His awareness is the Truth supreme.
418. The only true and full Awareness is
Awareness of Awareness.
Until Awareness is Awareness of itself,
it knows no peace at all.
420. The knowledge that ignores the Self, the Knower,
and holds as true the field perceived, is but illusive foolishness.
No matter how much one has learned,
true knowledge is the merging of all indicative knowledge in Awareness of the Self.
421. The one true light there is, is pure Awareness.
Other kinds of knowledge clinging to it, and claiming to be real,
are ego-born conceptual clouds.
To trust them is sheer foolishness.
422. All other kinds of knowledge are base, trivial.
The only true and perfect knowledge is the stillness of pure Awareness.
The many differences perceived in the Self, whose nature is Awareness,
are wrong attributions, and not real at all.
423. What sort of knowledge is this wretched Bodily-mental knowledge of objects?
Would those who long for pure Awareness hanker after this?
To know pure Awareness is true wisdom.
All other knowledge is mere folly.
424. What if one knows, the subtle secret, of manifold inscrutable mysteries?
Until one knows the Awareness which reveals all other knowledge,
does one know the Truth?
427. What is lifeless and unreal, needs for support pure Being-Awareness.
The mind deluded and impure, forgets its oneness with the Self-Being-Awareness,
and then looks for some other object of Awareness.
428. Not like other things unreal, but always by its Being real,
the Self as permanent Awareness, has no other dwelling place, than in its own radiant Awareness.
429. While in truth you are that Awareness,
you do not abide as such, but suffer,
since you only recognize this worldly life alone,
which rises from yourself, this sole Awareness.
How shall I describe this foolishness?
430. Those who have not searched and found the truth of their own natural Being,
will perish, deluded by alien forms.
Live as one sole Being-Awareness.
Everything, except for this, is false appearance, the realm of illusion.
431. How can any treatise thrust some wisdom into that human-seeming heap of clay,
which keenly watches things perceived and not the Self, Awareness?
432. Is it not because you are yourself Awareness,
that you now perceive this universe?
If you observe Awareness steadily,
this Awareness as Teacher, will reveal the Truth.
435. True natural Awareness, which does not go after alien objects, is the Heart.
Since actionless Awareness shines as real Being,
its joy consists in concentration on itself.
436. Incomparable liberation, is the truth of clear, shining Self-Awareness,
when, all differences destroyed by concentration,
knowledge being but Awareness,
becomes merged in the Self, which is Awareness.
Nirvana
441. Look with what utter unconcern
The serpent in the ant-hill puts away
Its slough. Our highest duty is
The like removal of the five-fold sheath,
Illusive, burning, clinging to us fast.
Self-Realisation
443. Even in the absence of this world in sleep
A bodiless Awareness is our Being.
Release from all the sheaths, from form and ego,
Is realisation of our natural Self.
Firm Awareness
447. Since in His silent presence concepts
Do not rise, since all three persons
Are only concepts and the other two
Persons rise only after the first,
The Self is the origin of all three persons.
Enjoyment of Bliss
451. The deeper into the Heart one dives,
the greater grows the bliss enjoyed,
the intense bliss of the sole Self-Awareness,
which once appeared in various forms.
452. Once you are well established in the Heart,
true Awareness rises bright.
Then you live like an unsetting Sun,
Resplendent with the light of Truth,
enjoying the blissful peace of eternal Self-Awareness.
454. In the false, frenzied ego life,
created by the mind, constricted to some thought,
who can enjoy the clear, bright, bliss of pure Awareness, free from thought?
Sleep
455. For those who have enjoyed the supreme bliss of profound sleep,
devoid of every object,
it is foolishness not to cherish pure Awareness,
and to long for some other object,
pretending it could give dependable relief from suffering.
True Being
463. Present when we do not search and absent when we truly see, the petty mind’s illusive serpent Sinks, disappears and merges In the rope of Self-Awareness, which now, as sole Reality, Alone abides.
Ending of Doership
466. Only for those free from all sense of doership the bliss of tranquil peace
Shines pure within.
For the ego proud Is the sole evil seed whence spring All known calamities.
Non-Action
476. Whether one is or one is not engaged in work, one gains the state of non-action
only when the ego with its proud delusion “I am the doer” Has died and disappeared.
Self-Surrender
477. To those who wholly dedicate their being to the Lord, to them the Lord gives here and now Himself.
Only those who are egoless and so aware that they are That
rejoice in the supernal bliss Of pure Siva-experience.
How to Treat Enemies
488. However hateful enemies may be,
The noble mind should never nurse
Aversion. Hatred, like attachment,
Deserves only to be eschewed.
489. What I despise as not-myself
My enemies despise as well.
Their insults then serve but to beat
And shape me, as the goldsmith’s anvil
Helps him in his work.
490. The valiant hero who subdues
Hate by love is the genuine sage.
Moderation in Life
491. If but the few with wealth abundant
Abandoned ostentatious living,
Millions pining pitifully now
In poverty could live in plenty.
492. The Lord munificent produces
Enough for all, no more, no less.
Consuming more than what we need
Is the sin of wresting by sheer force
And eating someone else’s food.
The Sin of Excess
493. Excess, the sin, makes nectar poison,
And it brings on countless curses.
Those who perceive it as an evil
Are therefore bound to end it.
Meekness
494. One’s nearness to Perfection may
Be measured by the meekness
Of one’s behaviour. When even unawares
One’s turbid ego never rises, one
Attains the height supreme of meekness
Which all the world adores in God.
What is Worth Doing
500. Worth pursuing is Self-inquiry,
worth enjoying is the infinite Self-Awareness.
Worth giving up is the ego sense.
To end all sorrow, the final refuge is one’s source,
the Self of pure Awareness.
Part II -Continued Practice
Teaching and Learning
502. The apt speech of one firmly established in the Heart,
prevents the bewildered and confused devotee’s mind,
from wastefully running in the desert of the senses,
and points the way inward,
to permanent liberation.
Mahavakyas
505. The essential truth and import of all four Vedas when churned out
Of the multitudes of words employed To cast out ignorance,
Is the one word of Silence, sealing Jiva’s identity with the Supreme.
The Upanishads
509. The only service which the vain ego, frenzied by vijnana, can offer to the God of grace
Who from all ignorance is free, is to install on wisdom’s altar
The golden sandals of the Upanishads hallowed by His lotus Feet.
Worship
510. Those happy ones alone who in their hearts behold the Lord’s bright, holy lotus Feet
Shine forth with radiant Awareness, their vasanas, inauspicious, foul having disappeared.
Silent Worship
520. Enthroning in the heart the Lord supreme, his true, unceasing, natural worship
By the mind steady, self-absorbed, proceeds in perfect silence.
521. The pure desire for Grace, free from other attachment, practising
The state of silence sans an object, such merging in and being That amounts to mental worship true.
Vanity of Argument
522. “Of fate and effort, which is stronger? Which will yield? Which will prevail?”
Those who wage this war of words are wholly ignorant
of That from which the world and the ego both appear
and into which they disappear.
523. Some there are who endlessly jump and, sweating,
shout full throated refuting or elaborating doctrines,
instead of biding in clear silence, inquiring into That which is,
and in the Heart enjoying it.
524. None can perceive the Sun, the Self, by arguments.
Irritating mental disputes are but conceits that cloud the light of truth
and make the eyes swim in dizziness.
525. Far from revealing Truth, words only darken and conceal It.
To let the Truth shine of itself, instead of burying It in words,
merge in the Heart both word and thought.
526. Let not your intellect become a slave
to the mere sound and fury of controversy.
Enter the Heart with mind clear, concept free,
and realize your natural Being as the Truth.
Maya of Measurement
527. Which is the measure measuring or revealing
The Being-Awareness shining in the heart,
Whose light alone reveals all measuring,
Measure, measurer and things measured?
528. Only so long as there is a measurer[6] do measuring and things measured seem to be.
But when the measurer sees the Self, true Being, and gets lost in It,
all other things perish Along with him and disappear.
Indirect Knowledge
529. The individual’s thirst will vanish,
only when the habits-predispositions-tendencies of the frenzied mind die,
and the direct experience of pure Awareness comes.
530. True, non-dual experience of the Self supreme as pure Being
is called direct Knowledge.
False dualistic knowledge too is called knowledge though qualified as indirect,
even as a demon might be called “virtuous”!
531. From questing inward in the Heart comes knowledge which destroys all false illusions.
Searching books for pure, clear wisdom is like trying to cook and eat the picture of a gourd.
532. Can hunger be appeased by eating food cooked over a painted flame?
The end of pain, the bliss of peace results from egoless Awareness, not from “verbal wisdom”.
533. Never through argument, but only by abiding in the heart as pure Awareness,
which lights up and shines within the mind,
can one enjoy the thrill, the throb, the bliss supreme of being the Self.
Jiva one-only
534.
Knowledge and Ignorance
536. O worldly folk, who long for, and run after, an endless series of temporary things,
it is true wisdom, to seek and know, That one thing,
on knowing which, all other things will cease to be.
537. For those who see with keen insight the subtle Truth,
what is there to gain from knowledge of gross material things?
What the imperishable inner sense perceives,
surpasses by far, the sight seen by the physical eye.
538. Knowing aright the nature of the Self-Awareness,
and abandoning the non-self as void and unreal, is true wisdom.
All other knowledge is ignorance, and not wisdom.
Illusion
548.
549. When the full identity is reached,
the Self-Awareness is all, and there is no “other”,
the various common perceptions,
in the absence of self-inquiry and Self-Abidance,
are all seen as mere mistakes.
550. Like a dream,
this “waking” world is but a mind conceived appearance in mind space.
Hence, greatness lies, in firmly ending indicative knowledge,
and the foolishness of fondness for outer objects.
551. Only those foolish folk,
who have not searched and found the Truth supreme, the Heart,
flounder in fear, in the treacherous illusion.
Those who have known the supreme bliss,
the boundless flood of heavenly brightness,
fear no more.
Waking Dream
553.
554. The deeds we do in a dream do not touch our “waking” life,
and they slip away when we “awake”.
Our deeds done in this clouded ego life, disappear and leave no trace,
when we wake up, in the divine white light of Self-Awareness.
560. “A dream in a moment comes and goes. This ‘waking’ life is enduring.”
Such argument is but the trick played by mind and illusion conspiring.
565. The dreamer sunk in ignorance feels
Lost, helpless in some dreary desert
And seeks and seeks and finds at last
His own home-town, and wakes up happy.
Such waking is attaining moksha
After much suffering in samsara.
[Both bondage and attaining mukti are mere concepts.]
One forgets the Self and thinks the body is oneself and goes through innumerable births
and in the end remembers and remains the Self. Know this is only like
awaking from a dream wherein one has wandered all over the world. – Sri Ramana, #9
Different States
566.
Deeds Good and Bad
570.
Dyads and Triads
575.
581. Knowledge is multiple and various,
say those who know objects,
but not freedom from, the dire delusion of differences.
When the five senses, driven outward by desire, are pulled back,
then, true, full Awareness comes,
and there is no “other” to be known.
Sense Pleasures
582.
584. The only Being is Awareness,
and Bliss is nothing but Awareness.
Pleasure from elsewhere is mere delusion.
Apart from the Self of Being-Awareness,
how can real joy come from objects merely fancied?
585. வறட்டெலும்பு கவ்வித்தன் வாய்நனிபுண் ணாகப்
பறட்டுப் பறட்டெணத்தன் பல்லாற் - கறித்துமகிழ்ந்
தென்புபோ லின்சுவைவே றின்றெனவப் புண்ணீராற்
புன்புலநாய் போற்றும் புகழ்ந்து.
(பத சேதம்)
வறட்டு எலும்பு கவ்வி தன் வாய் நனி புண் ஆக
பறட்டு பறட்டு என தன் பல்லால் கடித்து மகிழ்ந்து
என்பு போல் இன் சுவை வேறு இன்று என அப் புண்
நீரால் புன்புல நாய் போற்றும் புகழ்ந்து
When one works hard towards attaining an object of desire, and accomplishes
that task, his/her mind rests for a moment in its substratum, the Self.
That stillness of mind is experienced as joy. Anyone that enjoys the
material pleasures of this world is just enjoying the stillness of the,
otherwise wavering, mind and its settling down in its true source, the
Self. But out of ignorance, he associates pleasure to the object of
pleasure and runs in search of more of that object.
Like the foolish dog that suffers bleeding gum while munching on the bone,
he suffers while pursuing the object of desire. He suffers when he does not
get the object of pursuit. Because he cannot get permanent happiness out of
that object, he suffers (craves for more, fears that someone else will take
it away etc.) even when he attains the object of pursuit as well.
Though the dog appears foolish to us, we do not fathom that we are engaged
in a similar enterprise all along and hence we are as foolish as the foolish dog
586. Not knowing the bliss of Self-Awareness,
people highly rate sex and other similar pleasures.
Living thus, they yearn for these, even when they die.
587. Forgetting the pure bliss eternal,
welling up in the heart for our enjoyment,
foolish people yearn for honey driblets,
squeezed from objects, worse than broken rice.
589. Sense pleasures, sought and found by blind, unguarded fools,
are fit only for contempt by those who long to taste the rich,
ripe fruit of immeasurable sweet, supreme Bliss.
Illusion of the mind
594. Non-existent illusion, this alone,
seeming to be real and powerful,
makes fools of even the cleverest folk,
and smiles inwardly, with wonder at its own success.
Ignorance
598.
599. The innocent bride thinking that betrothal is full conjugal union is filled with joy.
Even so the learned who have yet to turn within and taste true bliss,
claim that the “verbal wisdom” which they prattle is non-dual Knowledge.
600. Those whom from books have learnt about the Truth supreme,
esteem themselves supreme in Wisdom,
and fail to seek the Knower and taste the bliss of Self,
but they test and measure the silent sage. What foolishness is this!
Immaturity
605. Those who with minds far from mature,
yearn for and wallow in sense pleasures,
why would they seek, why would they join,
the company of saints whose conquest of the senses is complete and final?
Forgetfulness
606.
611. Seeing this mind-projected world is sheer delusion,
then taking it as real,
and swerving from the sublime truth of one’s own Being as pure Awareness,
one but proves oneself insane.
612. Undeluded by whatever may come and go,
unwinking, watch the Self-Awareness,
because the little fault of forgetting for one moment,
one’s true Being as Pure Awareness,
brings tremendous loss.
Samsara
613.
615. Except the Self-Awareness, nothing exists.
But then the deep delusion that the body is one’s self,
makes one let go the solid, non-dual bliss of immortality,
and fall into birth and death.
Afflictions
617.
Wonderful Maya
621.
The Harm of Praise
623.
Evil of Egotism
625.
Origin of Sorrow
627.
The Jiva (Separate Self)
629.
630. Having felt the sun’s fierce heat,
the wise one stays in the shade,
and those who know the fire raging in the world,
will never leave the Heart and turn again towards the world.
The Jiva's Unreality
634.
The World's "Reality"
635.
638. If, instead of looking outward at objects,
you observe that looking,
all things now shine as I, the seer.
Perception of objects is mere illusion.
Denotative knowledge
640.
643. The Self, the sole Reality, the light of pure Awareness,
shines clear as “I, I” in the heart.
This dear, dear Being, directly known, alone is true,
not the things perceived by the eye and the other senses.
644. Those who do not keenly seek and recognize
the Being Awareness shinning incessant in the heart,
sink deep into delusive illusion,
due to the denotative knowledge piled up by the mounting ego.
Ending Indicative Knowledge
645. The import of the teaching “Know the Self”
is only giving up the illusive knowledge of the non-self.
For bright like the true Sun, shines Being-Awareness as “I am, I am”, in everyone.
647. If you refrain from looking at this, that, or any other object,
then by that overpowering look into Absolute Being,
you become yourself the boundless space of pure Awareness,
which alone is real Being.
649. Do not wander endlessly searching in vain for certitude
through strenuous study, listening, learning.
In love surrender to the Love supreme, the Lord,
and reach and hold the supreme state of Real Being.
Love
650.
Embodiment as Form
656.
657. Worship of the Formless is for him alone
who has left behind the notion “I am this form, this body.”
One who is still identified mentally with his body-form, worships only form,
though he may think he is worshipping the Formless.
Five-Fold Function
666.
Freedom from Doership
668.
Jiva's Creation and God's
669.
The Process of Neti (Not this)
671.
673. Destroying through discrimination, the basic error that I am the body,
an object, and rejecting it, and the world as mere false mirages,
the surviving Awareness that shines alone as Being, That I am.
Freedom from vasanas
675.
True Fasting
678. Absence of mental craving for sense enjoyment is true fasting.
Abidance in the Self is true worship,
hence, those with pure, clear wisdom,
cherish as most precious, this fasting and this worship.
Diet Regulation
679.
True Purity
680.
682. Those who love, deeming they are this putrid body of flesh,
that in a brief while turns clean food to filth,
are baser than the swine that feast on filth as food.
Those who deem themselves the body, that soon converts clean food to filth,
are worse than swine that feed on filth. – Sri Ramana, #10
Freedom from Desire
683.
Sense-control
685.
686. Instead of plugging holes, and keeping Awareness still within,
to break the lock, and spill it through the senses, is despicable,
like demolishing the bank and draining out the tank,
to devastate the land.
Conquest of the Senses
688. What is conquest of the elements?
Destroying the ego, the attachment to the body,
made up of the five elements,
and scorning with contempt the flaws of the flesh,
which have nothing to do with the true Self-Awareness,
but are only based on the five elements.
Asanas
690.
Becoming Pure
691.
692. Since it was one’s own past effort,
that has now ripened into fate,
one can with greater present effort, change one’s fate.
694. Even in this worldly life one’s labors bear no fruit
without abundant faith.
Hence till one merges in the bliss Supreme and boundless,
one’s strong zeal in spiritual practice should never slacken.
697. They say that fate can never bind those heaven bound. what does this mean?
not an iota of the past can touch those,
Who dwell unceasingly in the firmament of vast, boundless, borderless, full Self-Awareness.
Breath-Control
700.
Secret of Karma
703. Karma, bhakti, yoga, jnana are but enquiring “Who has Karma?
who lacks devotion? Who stands alienated? Who is ignorant?”
enquiring thus, the enquiring ‘I’ Disappears.
firm abidance As the Self is the only Truth. – Sri Ramana, #11
703 The essential meaning of Karma yoga is true Self-knowledge through the quest
“Who is this ‘I’, this doer who starts doing karma?”
unless one seeks and so destroys the doer-ego, the source of action,
one cannot reach The end of action, perfect peace.
Japa
706. Those who cannot plunge within
The silent mind and with keen search
Discover whence the ‘I’ arises
May mentally repeat some japa
And listen to the subtle sound Vibration.
Those who cannot reach the source
Of ‘I’ along the path of jnana
May reach it by the inward watching
Of the source of the subtle japa-sound. – Sri Ramana, #12
708. Till in the seer’s Awareness objects disappear,
till firm and clear one knows the truth of Self aright,
what use is it to mouth in vain the words “I am God, I am God”?
709. Instead of wandering about proclaiming “I am God”, abide as the Supreme.
For such abidance in the Self, not loud repeated noise, puts an end to sorrow.
710. For curing a dire malady, one must consume, not merely name, the medicine.
Even so, the bonds of birth won’t snap by merely muttering “I am That” and so on.
The True Temple
711.
The Holy Name
712. When the true Being, the Heart itself,
Emerges slowly and spreads out
As awareness, countless are
Its Names. Of these the first is ‘I’.
713. With this first Name of ‘I’, as its
True meaning, shines Eternal Being.
Since ‘I’ as Being shines, the phrase
I AM, too, is the Name supreme.
714. Of all the many thousand Names divine
None is so true, so beautiful, so apt
As this I AM for God abiding ever
In the heart transcending thought.”
Bhakti
718.
Bhakti-Vichara, Identity
722.
Bhakti-Vichara
724. When one adopting self-enquiry
Reaches the journey’s end and gains
Samadhi’s bliss, it is solely due
To the grace of God, one’s inmost Self,
Life of one’s life.
731. The way of knowledge and the way of love
Are interwoven close. Don’t tear
Asunder these inseparables.
But practise both together holding
In the heart the two as one.
Meditation on the Self Is devotion to the Lord
Supreme, since He abides as this, Our very Self. – Sri Ramana, #13
One -Pointed Devotion
734.
Dhyana-Vichara
738.
Meditation on Form
742. In the Self, he stands firm fixed who dwells
and truly meditates on himself as pure awareness.
Meditation on Time
746.
Steady, Continuous Meditation (Nidhyasana)
749. The universe out there appears when scanned.
When not scanned, the universe disappears.
Turning away from this,
search keenly for the Self-Awareness within the Heart,
and think no more of birth.
750. What we incessantly think of, that we become.
Hence, if we keenly seek the Self-Awareness,
and think of nothing else,
the malady of birth will cease,
and all thoughts will end.
Other Sadhanas
755. If without wasting time,
one starts and keeps up steady self-inquiry,
one’s life becomes at once ennobled,
one is no more this wretched body,
and there wells up within one’s heart,
a sea of supreme bliss.
756. Barring fruitful self-inquiry there is, for real mind control,
no other spiritual practice whatsoever.
The mind may seem to be controlled by other methods,
but after a while it will spring up again.
Aids to Enquiry
758.
763. Only a one-pointed mind, turned inward,
succeeds in Self-inquiry.
Weak, faltering minds, like green banana trees,
are not fit fuel to feed this fire.
764. Seeing that desires, bring in their wake, increasing sorrow,
noble ones, renouncing all desires, begin direct self-inquiry
and attain the infinite bliss, of the Self-Awareness within.
completion of Sadhana
765.
Meditation and Discrimination (Viveka)
769.
Pure Being (Summa Irutthal)
773. What our Master clearly teaches
By way of great, good, powerful tapas
Is only this and nothing more
BE STILL.
Apart from this, the mind has no
Task to do or thought to think.
774. The stillness shining as pure Being
Is our true nature, the Self-state.
Only through rare, strenuous tapas
This “laziness” is attained. Praise those
Abiding thus as paragons of virtue.
The Separate "I"
775. He who, being ignorant of the truth that he is “I, I”, the Self-Awareness,
regards this body as himself,
can only perish with the perishing flesh,
caught in the web, the dreamlike web,
woven by his own illusions.
780. Swerve not from your true state,
thinking some thought,
but if you do,
do not commit the same foolishness again.
Do nothing you may regret later,
even if you did it once, never repeat it.
The Basic Quest
782.
783. O mind, you wander far in search of bliss,
not knowing your natural state of freedom.
You will regain your home of infinite bliss,
only if you go back the way you came.
784. Until you taste the bliss at the Heart’s core,
the five senses will never subside.
Till these distracting senses utterly die,
you will not gain true Being’s bliss.
785. O heart of mine,
instead of being confused by this conceptual world,
enter within, and seek the source.
Then in the realm of pure Awareness,
you experience sheer non-duality,
where the one Self-Awareness,
shines as all things.
Seeker's Conduct
786. If in an earnest seeker it is a fault
to slip from the high summit of pure non-dual Self-experience,
would it be right for him to interfere in other’s affairs?
790. To err is human.
When those strong in virtue err,
they do not hide it in their pride.
Instead, they own up to their lapse,
and quickly reform themselves.
Peace
796.
Disciple's conduct
798.
801. Experience in the heart advaita.
Never put it into action.
You may through all three worlds express
Advaita to gain life immortal,
But never with the Guru.
Retain at heart always the sense of non-duality, but never express it in action.
My son, the sense of non-duality may apply to the three worlds,
but it is not to be used towards the Guru. – Sri Ramana, #14
Real Compassion for Creatures
802. Only he who has attained immortal life, can save the world.
For the ignorant one to help another, is but the blind leading the blind.
Only a liberated sage can save the world. The blind cannot guide the blind. – Sri Ramana, #15
804. The true physician is one’s Self-Awareness. Hence, people tell the would-be Teacher:
“Before you start prescribing medicines for us,
first cure yourself (of blindness), and then come to us.”
Rites for Ancestors
805. How strange are the world’s ways! People, neglecting parents while they are alive,
perform with pious pride elaborate rites for ancestors.
Service to 'Others'
806. Deceiving others one becomes one’s own foe and hurts oneself.
807. Whatever one to “others” gives is well and truly given to oneself.
Who knowing this would fail to give generous service to the world?
Sympathy
810. He whose word, strength-giving, frees from fear all creatures, he who lives
In bliss perennial, being firm-fixed in Self-Awareness, knows no fear
Even when he meets the god of Death.
811. When the strong with violence harm the weak, the virtuous one[7] unflurried
Comforts and protects the victim,
Letting the Lord, who pities the poor, deal out appropriate punishment
813. Alas, through wicked conduct based on a sense of otherness, foolish people
Tend to become cowardly and cruel; and so like angry cobras they
Strike ruthlessly to kill because they are at heart afraid.[8]
814. Great ones, strong of mind, endure unflinching all the blows that may Fall on themselves.
But they in tears of pity melt when others stricken by sorrow or suffering come to them for solace.
815. Putting your foot in what you thought was a green herb bush, you had it stung
By hornets till it swelled up big. why should you regret and pay for
This accidental fault as if it were intentional?[9]
If hornets sting and cause to swell a foot that crushed their hidden nest,
Should not the man regret the event, accidental though it was? – Sri Ramana, #16
Question
815. Putting your foot in what you thought was a green herb bush, you had it stung
by hornets till it swelled up big.
Why should you regret and pay for this accidental fault as if it were intentional?
Equality
816. Those who profess to be good people should take care to avoid the fault Of claiming for themselves some special privileges beyond what is available to all alike.
Testimony of Conscience
819. Good people may sometimes forsake the seeker following his own conscience.
Then he should heed, not hush, his pure inner voice and wend his lonely way.
Truthfulness
820. One has to blame oneself alone if one should try to teach the Truth Supreme to those who are immature.
These might reject the highest truth as false because it contradicted
What they had been told before and had believed as true.
Detachment
822. The boat moves in the water,
but water should never enter into it.
Though one lives in the world,
the world should not occupy one’s mind.
825. The tamarind fruit grows unattached to its dry shell.
Even so, the wise renounce at heart,
and quite forget the wondrous charms of this false world,
which only ruins those who trust it.
826. A superstructure raised, without a strong foundation,
soon collapses in disgrace.
Hence, earnest seekers first ensure by every means,
their own stern self-discipline
through devotion and detachment.
The Greatness of Renunciation
828.
829. Even the strongest willed aspirant,
does not know how long his life will last.
Hence, when you feel the body and the world turn sour,
renounce them all at once.
833. Seeing how transient the world is,
Lord Buddha gave up wealth and kingship.
When one has seen how false and fleeting
that which is perceived by the senses is,
how can one still be worldly minded?
834. Courageous ones, who know no fear,
renounce the world, and find the world to be worthless,
and so gain true wisdom.
Others are foolish folk, blinded by falsehood.
835. Renouncing this phenomenal world,
which seems to, but does not, exist,
we gain (the great Ones say) the Self,
the shining, unseen, Awareness.
836. After we have renounced whatever can be renounced,
That which abides, and cannot be renounced,
is True Being shining in the Heart,
the fount, the flood of Bliss.
True Renunciation
840.
The Whole mind
841.
Destruction of the Ego
844.
847. What is liberation, the bliss supreme attained by few?
And what is noble renunciation?
What is Death that brings immortality?
What is the highest achievement?
All are but this one thing:
the ending of the foolish, false illusion that “I am the body”.
862. Losing the false ego in awareness,
and firm abidance as awareness, is true clarity.
True Being
865. In the wonder-World created by scheming Maya’s power, imperious the ego false arises.
Only When this ego dies is born Experience of the Self supreme.
866. When the sense that “I am the body” dies,
all troublesome illusions and confusions vanish once and for all.
Within the explored heart,
the non-dual Self of pure Awareness appears as “I, I”.
876. Until the snake illusion goes,
its ground, the real rope, will not be recognized.
Until the world of false phenomena disappears,
the Self-Awareness, its ground, will not shine clear.
Who is the Witness?
869. ’Tis a foolish fancy to ascribe the role of “witness” to the Self,
The luminous Sun, the mighty sky of Pure Awareness.
In the Self Immutable there is no room For maya’s darkness void.
The Self Is one sole whole without a second.
877. Only when the world illusion goes,
does the blissful light of Self-Awareness arrive.
Life lived in this bright, blissful light, is our true natural life.
Other ways of life are full of trouble and fear.
Part III - Experience of Realty
Direct Knowledge
878. Self-Awareness alone is the true Eye.
One has direct immediate knowledge, only of the Self-Awareness .
But minds averted from the Self-Awareness,
look through the senses at a world other than the Self-Awareness,
and mistakenly think it can be known directly.
Eternal Awareness
881. The whole, sole fruit of the inward quest is removal of the ego false.
It would be wrong to say that one “Attains” the Self, the entity Ever present, ever clear.
884. A woman with a necklace around her neck imagines it is lost,
and after a long search elsewhere,
touches her own neck and there finds it;
even so, the Self-Awareness is here within.
Probe for it within and find it.
885. Except the path of Self-inquiry, probing the mysterious I-sense,
no other effort or action, however strenuously pursued,
can take one to the fount of bliss,
the treasure shining in the heart,
forever as the Self-Awareness.
Nirvikalpa Samadhi
893. ’Tis not not seeing the varied world without that is the mark of real nirvikalpa.
When mind is dead and never again comes sense of difference, this alone is firm, true nirvikalpa.
894. I AM. Abiding in this natural
State of pure Being is true samadhi.
Freed from the limiting sense
Of being this, that or the other
Stay as that boundless Infinite.
895. The ancient sages say that silent
Samadhi, the ultimate goal of jnana
Is the wholly egoless state.
Till you attain the silent stillness
Of being That, your aim and effort
Should be to destroy the ego. (895)
896. Unlike the ego, which rises and sets,
The true Self abides forever the same.
Turn your back on the false ego,
And so destroy it, and then shine
As the one Self alone.
902. The primal ground whose being is silence, That I am.
Why take the trouble of thinking “That am I”?
Meditation is stillness; it is the extinction of the “I”.
When “I” is gone, where is the room for thought?
Changelessness
903. Wise men and noble, tell me, please, how real is this changing world?
Are the rising and the setting of this phenomenal universe Real changes that occur in the Real?
Or are they mere Appearances that come and go?
What is your firm and final view?
905. Is there a greater foolishness, than the aching foolishness,
of supposing that the Self, the I of pure Awareness,
which does not see this changing world at all,
is subject to some change.
906. The troubles that result from change,
can never touch the Self-Awareness,
as changes and flaws in earth, water, fire and air,
do not affect the element ether,
which pervades and transcends them all.
Solitude
908. Of all the many qualities desirable,
in an earnest seeker of imperishable liberation,
none is more essential than love for the bliss of solitude.
Non-attachment
909. O heart, ’tis by the mighty power Of your presence that all tattvas
Meet in mutual love and sport and dance away. But even so,
You stand aloof and as a witness watch the show, yourself unmoved, firm fixed in your true Being.
911. Within, without, and through and through all objects,
the ethereal sky is present and yet is bound or affected by none.
And unless one knows one’s Self as the pure transcendent Self-Awareness,
one cannot but get caught in the world’s illusive bonds.
Destruction of Mind
913. Unsteady and wavering minds find only
failure and frustration always.
916. It is true wisdom to restrain the mind
from flowing out into any of the five senses,
the home of every sorrow and pain,
and to contain and keep it still,
like a once roaring ocean, now lying calm and tranquil.
917. As in the sky covered with thick clouds,
no eye can see the glorious sun,
one fails to see one’s Self-Awareness,
when the mind firmament is darkened by a dense cloud of thoughts.
918. He who has vanquished thought,
only he sits like an emperor on the neck of the majestic elephant, knowledge.
Know for certain that the mind’s movements alone
give rise to birth and every cruel pain and sorrow.
921. None can confront and overcome the mind.
Ignore it, then, as something false and unreal.
Know the Self-Awareness as the real ground and stand firm rooted in it.
Then the mind’s movements will gradually subside.
The Defunct Mind
924. I shall assert with certainty, that when the mind as thoughts has ceased to function,
it remains as a temple of Awareness-Bliss, hidden till then behind the veil of time.
Omniscience
926. Since save the Self there is no real being, supreme omniscience is the Pure Awareness
Which shines as one unbroken wholeness, not knowledge of what occurs in time
Past, present and to come.
927. For those whose mind has not completely subsided,
the false knowledge already theirs has only served to pile up sorrows.
Gaining more such so-called knowledge, only deepens illusion’s darkeness,
and does not help life at all.
Transcendence of Turiya (Turiyatita)
937. The sage whose ego is extinct is freed from the three seeming states Of waking, dreaming and deep sleep.
All that remains for such a sage Is turiya, the most noble state, First, last and all-transcendent.
939. If the three other states were real then indeed would Pure Awareness, Waking sleep, become the “Fourth”.
Since in turiya those three states are seen as false appearances,
The Fourth is also that beyond The Fourth, turiyatita.
Counting waking, dreaming and deep sleep as real states, one speaks of Waking Sleep
As turiya, the Fourth. But this Is the sole real state of Being. The three are false appearances.
The Fourth is also that beyond the Fourth, turiyatita. — Sri Ramana, #18
Wholeness and Movement
941. With movement must come separateness.
Brahman, Pure Being, the state transcendent, is perfect stillness, and to call it
Wholeness-movement is like calling a river in the ocean lost a river still.
Severing the Knot
942. The severance of the knot is proved by this one, bright, clear mark: the mind In perfect equanimity, lifted above the blows of pain and blandishments of pleasure, shines a limpid lake serene.
Fulfilment
945. Whatever experiences are gained by anyone from any object anywhere, what are they all,
When truly understood, but fragments Of one Self-experience only.
Non-existence of Suffering
952. The Heart, the Being true that shines in every creature, is an ocean of pure bliss.
Therefore suffering is like the blueness of the sky a mere illusion in our mind lacking all reality.
953. Our real Being, the Sun that never can see the darkness of illusion,
knows no trace of pain or suffering.
Misery is what one brings upon one’s self,
by fondly thinking that one is the body, not the Self-Awareness.
954. Blissful and auspicious is the Self-Awareness, our real Being.
One who knows this, sees in life no trace of suffering or pain.
Misery is what one brings upon one’s self,
by foolishly thinking that the body, not the Self-Awareness,
is one’s true self.
955. Not seeing one’s self as the One Self-Awareness,
one always suffers fear and aguish.
Destroy the “I am the body” thought,
and in Self-Awareness firmly fixed,
abide in real non-dual Being.
956. The goal, the Truth, is Self-Awareness.
Reaching it is the annihilation of the painful illusion of birth.
The Pervasiveness of Deep Sleep
957. Do not lose hope and feel dejected Because deep sleep has not pervaded the dream-state.
When in waking one attains deep sleep’s non-dual bliss it spreads into the dream-state too.
958. Till one attains non-dual bliss one must while waking persevere in self-enquiry, and till this bliss
spreads to the dream-state and pervades it, persist in this enquiry.
Unbroken self-enquiry leads to “deep sleep” in the waking state.
Till this non-dual bliss pervades alike the waking and dream states, persist in such enquiry. — Sri Ramana, #19
the Pervasiveness of Deep Sleep
957.
Waking Sleep
959. Ye who in the world’s snare caught and pierced by pain’s sharp arrows suffer
Anguish, and yearning go in search of moksha, sleep with full awareness is true imperishable bliss.
960. Those who, unlured by the false senses, abide in the heart lotus in waking sleep,
enjoy the bliss of true Awareness, which is liberation.
Others but slumber, lost forever, in the illusive world’s dense darkness.
Non-Dual Awareness
961. When through “Namasivaya” the ego burns and dies, the steady flame Of bhakti shines as the triumphant,
True, clear light of Self-experience Which is named “Sivoham”.
Grace
965. If towards the Lord you take one single step, then with much more than a mother’s love He takes
Nine steps towards you to accept you. Such is the Guru’s Grace.
966. That which Is, forever shines in Grace as I,
the Self-Awareness, the Heart.
Can that be blamed for lacking Grace?
The fault is theirs who do not turn within
and seek the Self-Awareness, in love.
967. Mind turned inward and ego dead, there shines the Self, the Being-Awareness,
and though transcending form and feature, It appears as Teacher.
Thus does God, the Self-Awareness, bestow as Teacher, His Grace.
970. Why should God’s glance of Grace,
which falls on all alike, seem to avoid some “sinners”?
The universal Eye avoids no creature.
We are blind, for we look outward, not within.
Sat-Chit-Ananda (Being-Awareness-Bliss)
971. When the intellect, withdrawn from questing after outer objects,
returns to its own natural home,
the Heart, our Being-Awareness-Bliss,
restored to us, abides forever.
974. Unbroken Self-Awareness is the true bright path of devotion or love.
Knowledge of our inherent nature, as indivisible supreme Bliss, wells up as love.
Being
980. Pure Being, our Self-nature, That alone exists eternally. Apart from That,
all objects we perceive are clusters of illusive appearances that come and go,
While That, unmoving and unchanged, abides the same forever.
984. The strong one who abides in Being,
knows neither fear or doubt.
All is Brahman
985. It is our Being, Pure Awareness, which appears as relative knowledge mirroring various false phenomena.
To those who have known and reached the Self, the Whole Awareness, all objects are but that one Self alone.
Harmony
989, Since mouna is the end of wisdom and the very nature of Vedanta,
All creeds conform and serve as means to true, unique, bright, clear Advaita.
993. While the mind exists, creeds too exist.
When the mind turns inward in Self-quest and gets caught up in the heart,
no creed can survive in that peace.
Childlikeness
994. Among the millions of mankind only the child-like sages free from movements of the ego-mind
Are cherished with consistent care by our universal Mother-Father.
Union with the Atman
996. The state non-dual where there is no ‘I’ or ‘He’, the ego-mind having slipped away
and one has merged in the true Self,
this heaven of pure awareness is the glorious crown Of union chaste with Siva.
997. What scope is there for speech or breath
in silent union where the two, the “I” and “He”, have merged in one?
When “I” is gone, and when two pairs of lover’s eyes have met and mingled,
of what use are spoken words?
998. Only those who have experienced this union with the Self can know Its bliss.
How else is one to know it?
Those who have the experience, know nothing but That,
lost in stillness, like honey bees drunk with honey.
The Grandeur of Awareness
1000. The ego’s relative knowledge, which perceives the world as something other
than the Self, is but ignorance.
When the ego dies, there shines the pure non-dual light, Awareness true, the source of knowledge.
Cosmic Consciousness
1005. The state in which no “other” is seen, no “other” heard, no “other” known,
Know that this and this alone is cosmic consciousness.
1006. Non-dual infinite Awareness,
where the error of seeing, hearing, and knowing various objects
has been destroyed,
this is the purest bliss supreme.
The Sky of Awareness
1007. You who in eager search of Truth,
roam over the world looking for saints,
when you examine what they teach as definitive,
it is only the empty sky of pure Awareness.
1008. Seekers hurrying round the world in search of teachers,
find at last that their paternal gift
is only the marvelous sky of ‘mere’ Awareness.
1012. When the false notion “I am the body” dies,
what abides is what’s worth having,
the vast, bright, silent void, the Self-Awareness.
Why is it so? Because in truth,
the only state free from all pain and all desire is pure Self-Being.
The Inner Space
1016. The inner light, self-luminous, shines all the time as I, as I.
To go from place to place in search of That,
is like looking at noon, torch in hand, for the bright Sun
which hides the full moon from our sight.
1017. The “I” is false; “this world is false”;
the seeing of “this world” by “I” is false.
The primal ignorance of illusion is also false.
The sole reality is the bright, marvelous inner space, Being-Awareness.
Making That Known
1020. This being so, Inner Awareness being itself Siva Supreme, the Truth beyond all human speech,
The great Sage Ramana, Siva Himself, made known to me the Self, this Being.
The Atman
1022. The ego which reveals the world conceals itself. But when it turns inward questing for its source,
The Awareness which shines in the heart brightly as I, as I, that is Our eternal Being.
1023. When the villainous mind,
instead of being bewildered by objects appearing there without,
looks inward, questing “Who am I?”,
and rests firmly in its ground, the Self-Awareness,
this is our true, authentic Being.
1026. Being is by its nature supreme bliss.
It is the treacherous mind’s fond, eager search
all day for pleasure in alien objects
that insures the loss of our inherent bliss.
1027. Having found that Self-relish is the highest bliss,
the wise abide as Self-Awareness alone.
But those who do not know
that the sole, certain, supreme bliss is in Self-Awareness alone,
they stay forever worldly minded.
1028. Those who cannot see that Bliss is their own Self-nature
roam bewildered like the musk deer in the forest.
Those who have know the Self-Awareness,
instead of wandering in the world,
abide in their own natural state.
1029. Bliss is the very nature of the Self-Awareness.
Self-Awareness is infinite Bliss.
Knowing this firmly,
abide in the Self-Awareness,
enjoying bliss forever.
The Puissance of the Self (Atman)
1030. The mighty seer whose Self-abidance has once for all destroyed desire,
Is Siva whose weapon of wisdom quelled Proud, invincible Yama;
he is the sun dispelling envy’s darkness.
1031. He who angrily confronts, drives back into the heart and there destroys the puissant and malignant
demon who through six senses sees And sustains the universe,
he is Kumara, the Sun-God, bringer of Bliss Supreme.
He who has known the truth and stands firm-fixed in knowledge,
having killed through knowledge all desires, He is himself the fire of knowledge,
Indra, wielder of the thunder-bolt. Yama to Yama, God of Time, And Siva, death-destroying hero. &mdash. Sri Ramana, #20
Nature of the Self (Atman)
1032. You who regard the body, which is but a picture, as yourself, can a picture think?
Jiva it is That both thinks and refrains from thinking. Hence we are jiva
1038. Awareness is not a quality of the Self. The Self is without qualities.
Awareness is not an action of the Self. The Self does nothing.
The Self, our Being, IS Awareness.
1039. That which unaided shines within as “I AM, I AM” without a break,
the strong, true Being free from all adjuncts,
this pure Awareness, is our firm, authentic nature.
The Grandeur of the Self (Atman)
1058. Since in the grandeur of absolute Being the seer becomes the world he sees,
The Self is the sole Reality. When the ego which “sees” has disappeared
The ensuing silence bright, the state of Pure Awareness, is the Self.
1059. The Self, the home of blissful Awareness,
is a vast ocean of serene peace.
He whose mind turns inward and dives deep within it,
gains the infinite treasure of its grace.
1062. The ever-present Self-Awareness,
the radiant gem, this is the rarest, richest treasure.
Look within, and find and hold it fast.
Your poverty, the grand illusion, source of every trouble on earth,
will vanish without delay.
1063. Not knowing the value of this treasure,
people perish through mere laziness.
The great ones who have found the clue and traced and gained it,
they enjoy eternal bliss.
which is but a state of dark illusion.
1065. Though one should win at one stroke all the powers people yearn for,
all one’s learning is just wasted,
if one fails to undo the primal knot,
and to reclaim the one sole, perfect Jewel,
the Self-Awareness.
1066. True wealth is but the gracious silence
of steady, unswerving Self-Awareness.
This bright, rare treasure can be gained
only by those who earnestly strive for the extinction of all thoughts.
1067. As the pearl fisher, with single thought, weighted with a stone,
dives deep into the sea and grasps the pearl most precious, and rejoices,
dive into the Heart with stern non-attachment,
gain the Self-treasure,
and so end all suffering and sorrow.
1068. In that flawless state of Being the Self-Awareness,
without a sense of “I” or “mine”,
the still abidance in and as pure Awareness,
this is the noblest victory worth winning.
The Self Supreme (Paramatman)
1069. The pure unflawed Awareness of Being
is the transcendent state wherein both mind and breath find bliss.
This state of supreme grace,
surcharged with peace,
serves also as the medicine which to the sick, restless mind
restores healthful peace.
1076. To search amid bewilderment some other truth than the Truth supreme,
the Truth of Self,
is the foolish barber’s vexed exploring
instead of swiftly sweeping out, the rubbish on the floor.
1077. To those who dwell within the Heart,
loving the Self-Awareness,
bliss comes surging up, mounting ever higher,
as love, Self, grace, Awareness, peace and liberation.
Bliss is the real nature of the Self-Awareness.
Freedom from Fear
1078. Even the high gods know fear because the foolish mind sees differences.
Wisdom it is to reach through neti the true Self and, in this non-dual
State supreme, abide forever free from fear.
1079. Only when the Self-Awareness is gained,
is permanent, perfect, blissful peace attained.
In this Self-sovereignty,
non-dual, heaven-like, all pervasive,
no desire and no fear can exist.
Advaita (Non-Duality)
1080. Whether in the pot or in the house space is ever one and the same.
Like space, awareness is but one. And so the Self, though manifest
In various forms as god and jiva Suffers no change in substance.
1085. The darkness of illusion never touches the seer who knows his true identity as pure Awareness,
vast as the sky, bright as the sun. Only the blind, who think they are bodies, suffer from dark ignorance.
Atheism
1082. He who doubts his own existence, He alone, O God, would say That You are non-existent.
How Can he who truly knows himself Deny as non-existent You
Who are the same true Being-Awareness?
True Faith
1083. For those with faith God does exist as Awareness in the heart. He never is in minds impure.
If with mind purified one looks Within straight, undeluded, He Shines clear, bright, joyous as the Self.
Eternal Freedom
1085. The darkness of illusion never touches the seer who knows his true identity as Awareness Pure,
Vast as the sky, bright as the sun. Only the blind, who think they are bodies Suffer from dark ignorance.
1088. Why do you suffer in vain,
believing you are hemmed in by the body?
Even in sleep, when you are free from thoughts of separateness,
your being abides intact and whole.
Authentic Living
1089. You desire life. But you do not know how to live.
Thinking that sinking in this deep, void, vain, illusive waking-dream is “life”,
you proudly claim you “live”. Pierce this illusion, go, grasp the Truth, eternal life.
1091. Abiding as Self-Being, living a life that is a steady unhindered flow of true love
welling up in the heart,
this is the bright, joyous Selfhood, which ends forever the inveterate, false, deceitful ego.
1093. That Heart which truly knows the Self-Awareness,
is full of love whence supreme Bliss wells up forever.
There, desire and its shadow, sorrow, have no place.
Such a life, whose nature is pure, flows serenely calm from Being.
1094. The only goal worth seeking is the supreme bliss of Self-Awareness.
Constant remembering and abiding as That,
within the Heart, amounts to completeness of life.
1095. Such a life of Grace alone, is life lived in full, real Being.
This worldly life of false phenomena, full of fear,
is sinking deeper in illusion, not authentic living.
1096. Those whose five senses no longer turn towards the world,
which once seemed real,
those who have learned to live without their mind being moved
by the illusive universe of forms,
they need perform no penance.
The Formless
1098. If I have form, the Lord, the source of Being, appears with form.
But if I am bodiless, formless, then there is No awareness of another.
How could one say that God has form?
1103. It is folly to waste one’s life running in all directions
searching different goals.
Learn to practice firm abidance at the feet of the Self supreme,
the eternal and auspicious silence, which alone can still the ego’s restlessness.
Sahaja Nishta (Those in the Natural State)
1105. The sage imperturbable who dwells within the body knows no difference
between work, meditation and sleep.
Even as a man who is fast asleep Inside a cart is not aware
whether it moves or stands, or whether The beasts are from the cart released.
As for a sleeper in a cart It’s all the same whether the cart
Moves, stops or has its bulls released,
So for the sage who is asleep Within the body, work, meditation And sleep are all the same. — Sri Ramana, #21
The Sthitaprajna (Steadfast Awareness)
1111. Who is the sthitaprajna, sage Of steadfast wisdom? Only he Who, knowing no difference between Being introverted and being extroverted, Shines and lives forever in one Steady state of Being-Awareness.
After the Knot is Cut Asunder
1113. As sense-misled the ignorant man Perceives the world as a collection
of various objects, so the sage Whose knot is cut asunder sees
only the ground, the one Awareness, Present and shining everywhere.
1117. Those whose minds are merged and lost in one non-dual fullness,
will never be bewildered by this false, phenomenal life.
In that blessed, supreme state of Being pure Awareness,
That exists alone without an “I” or “this”.
1118. The sage whose knot of doer-ship has snapped,
finds no more “duties” to discharge.
In his Awareness there is no other and no objects,
hence no doubt and no delusion.
1120. Those who live within the Heart, the life of pure Awareness,
find no happiness in the trivial pleasures of the senses.
Is not that still, silent state of Being,
the one boundless and unbroken supreme bliss of absolute Self-Awareness?
1121. The river that has merged in the ocean,
will never lapse again into separateness.
No more will he who has reached his Being as Awareness,
forget the Self and be reborn.
1124. If once the primal knot is cut, never again can one be bound, for this is one’s natural Being.
This is the divine state, this is the supreme power, this is the serene peace.
The Power of the Great Ones
1125. When he who has seen the Self within as God supreme now walks abroad
free from attachment, know that God himself beside him walks to guard
Him from all harm.
Service to the Great Ones
1130. He who obeys the gracious wishes Of a great sage and serves him gains
freedom from the bonds of maya And wealth of grace, and lives a life
rich with all its aims fulfilled.
Ending of Vasanas
1131. Free wholly from the thought that one is but the body, hence even in dreams
free from bewilderment of mind, such is the sage whose vasanas
have been extinguished once for all.
1134. One whose vasanas are not dead may sit still and yet work away
busily doing a lot of things, like one sleeping in his bed
and dreaming that he climbs uphill and falls head down into a pit.
Like one who, absent-minded, hears a tale, the sage with vasanas dead,
may seem to act yet never acts. The mind with vasanas alive
works busily while doing nothing, like someone lying still in sleep
and dreaming that he climbs uphill and tumbles down. — Sri Ramana, #22
Jivanmuktas (Liberated while Alive)
1135, Even if the sense of doership is dead, “How could one call the sage
1136. a mukta freed from all the bonds of karma? Do we not see him eating,
engaged in work, bearing a body of flesh, accepting prarabdha,
and suffering pain?” If you ask this, the answer is, “True, in your sight
he seems to suffer, you see him suffering, but did he tell you that he suffered?”
1145. When doership gone the doer dies, all three wives, his karmas, stand widowed, helpless.
Can one alone escape this fate and still retain the status of a wife?
Just as none of a man’s wives can remain unwidowed on his death, so when the doer
dies all three forms of karma end. — Sri Ramana, #23
1148. A man dead drunk, inebriate, blind knows not whether his clothes are on or off.
Even so the sage whose Being is bright Awareness knows not whether
his body, an object, false, inert is present or else absent.
The sage Self-realised knows not whether the transient body comes
and stays, or dies and leaves, even as the senseless drunkard knows not what
happens to his clothes. — Sri Ramana, #24
1151. The sages silent, firm abidance as Self-awareness which succeeds
The ego’s death, Brahman’s own state of bliss supreme, the total absence
Of another, this experience none can understand.
For one who has destroyed the ego, and is awake as Being-Awareness,
what remains to be accomplished? Nothing other than the Self He sees.
Who can comprehend His blissful state? – Sri Ramana, #25
Jnanis
1152. Beyond the reach of words extends the sage’s greatness.
None but he can know his state of Being, vaster than the sky and than the mountain firmer.
To experience it yourself, you should first shed your own body-consciousness.
1154. The sage abiding in Self-Being,
asleep and yet awake,
immersed in the still, deep, immutable ocean of supreme bliss,
will never lapse back into this ruinous world and suffer.
1155. The learned man who, letting go the Self, the real Being,
sees and cherishes this dream, this false, illusive world,
may be a scholar.
Something different is he who has gained the clarity of Knowing the Self;
he is a Knower.
1157. Holding in their hands the mirror,
the scripture which declares “The Self alone is to be known”,
many study with care the text and commentaries;
only a few seek the Self and gain true life.
1158. Far different from the scholar learned in books of wisdom, is the Seer.
Those who seek freedom from the bondage of ignorance had better leave scholars alone,
and enter the presence of Seers established in the Self supreme.
The Jnani's Actions
1160. If inaction is the mark of jnana then the inaction of the helpless
leper would be jnana. The real state of jnana is to rise
far above all liking and disliking and act without a sense of doership.
1161. What need is there for any thinking for those
who in the thought-free bliss of Self-Awareness, live their lives?
All they experience is bright stillness.
In this supreme state, there is no “other” and nothing to gain.
1166. Enjoying what comes of its own accord, envy-free, transcending
all duality, ever at peace, alike in victory and defeat,
the seers are not by actions bound even when they seem to act.
Contented with whatever comes, free from duality and envy,
The even-minded Seer may act, and is not bound. — Sri Ramana, #26
Self-abidance
1167. Those who would by external marks measure a Seer’s worth may look
in vain and turn back baffled. How can they with eyes of flesh
behold the light that shines within the sage’s heart?
Might of Mouna
1172. True Being, Pure Awareness, That, the one source of every sound,
spontaneous in the Heart forever shines who can write That down.
1176. What is true religion? It is not speculating with the inconstant mind and endless speaking:
“That is Being. No, that has no being. That has form. No, that is formless.
That is non-dual. No, it is dual.”
True religion is the silence, the experience of deathless Being-Awareness-Bliss.
1181. If we look deep, these troublesome questions and answers
both belong to the language of duality.
In silence, the transcendent speech of non-duality, they have no place at all.
In the language of duality alone are questions and answers.
In non-duality they are not. — Sri Ramana, #27
Pure Mouna
1183. What is the bliss supreme attained by keen inquiry,
and what is the Self in the Heart?
It is pure silence, free from false dualistic knowledge.
1184. Shining as the bright void,
devoid of concepts raised by the villainous ego,
this is the true experience of infinite Being-Awareness,
the one non-dual bliss of pure silence.
1186. Uninterrupted and whole minded concentration on Self-Awareness,
our true, non-dual Being,
this is pure, supreme silence, the goal;
Not the lazy mind’s inertia,
1187. Mar/Apr 2024
1188. Mar/Apr 2024
1189. Mar/Apr 2024
1192. The ego image moves reflected in the mind’s waves.
How to stop this movement, how to regain the state of stillness?
Don’t observe these movements, seek the Self instead.
It is wisdom to gain and abide in silence.
1193. The Seers declare that pure silence
is firm abidance in egoless, true Awareness.
For such thought-free silence,
the means is clinging to the Self-Awareness
within the Heart.
1194. When one refrains from looking out and noting outward objects,
and instead abides within the Heart in Self-Awareness,
the ego disappears.
The pure silence that then shines forth is the goal of Knowledge.
1197. When the ego, shaking off all tricky concepts,
finally merges in the silence of the Heart,
the fullness of blissful, bright Self-Awareness, this,
this is what the sages call transcendent speech.
1200. True silence is the state of being Self-Awareness in the heart ,
when the false, foolish sense that one is but the body, is no more.
Mere verbal silence, undertaken without inquiring “Who am I?”,
is no better than a mental trick.
1201. When the mad craving for false, trivial objects is no more,
and the ego is absorbed in its source and lost,
the life of true Self-Awareness,
that now shines forth, is supreme bliss.
1202. Those in whose Heart, pure silence shines,
and the perennial, blissful nectar of Self-Awareness overflows,
will never look at or get lost in this world,
and its false, trivial, maddening pleasures.
1204. The glory of mukti, peace serene, is that one gives up utterly dharma, artha and kama.
Give up all thoughts of other ends, pursue mouna alone, Siva Himself, the Being supreme.
Supreme Bhakti
1205. The mark of bhakti true, total self-surrender at Siva’s Feet,
Is perfect peace without a thought or word of prayer or plaint.
1209. When, the dense darkness of ignorance is gone,
the Heart’s wide open firmament is filled with serene, clear, bright peace,
and an inner fount of love springs up,
which is true devotion,
the pure auspiciousness of Self-Awareness.
The Miracle of Jnana
1212. Though many and various are the siddhis mentioned, jnana-siddhi tops them all.
Those who have the other siddhis yearn for jnana. Those who have gained jnana wish for nothing else.
Brahman
1215. Jiva, world and God, the three prime principles are pieces for maya,
the Great Power of Being, in her eternal game of chess played on the board which also is
the self-same still and blissful Being.
Mukti
1221. When one enquiring “Who is bound?” shakes off the thought of “being bound”
And so the thought of “being released from bondage”, That which in the heart
Remains as one’s own natural Being, that and that alone is mukti.
1222. That which alone abides and shines as pure Awareness,
perfect peace, is the eternal Self.
Egoless silence,
the supreme state of Being That,
this is the fullness of liberation.
1223. Firm, steady abidance in the serene peace
gained by the quest for Self, the Awareness,
the sole ground supporting all appearances,
and the consequent relinquishment of all objects as unreal,
this alone is liberation.
1224. Unless there is a final end
of so called “knowledge” of things out there,
one cannot gain release from bondage to the sense-created world.
This “knowledge” being destroyed by firm abidance in the Self-Awareness,
what remains is the supreme bliss of liberation.
1225. The foe desire, is the sole cause of our laughable bondage to birth and death.
Know and use the means to end desire.
Pure Being, free from all desire, this alone is liberation.
The Truth Supreme
1227. There is no creation, no destruction, no one bound, and none at all
For freedom yearning much and striving hard; none attaining mukti.
Know this to be the Truth supreme.
There is no creation, no destruction. None bound, none seeking, striving,
Gaining freedom. Know that this is the Truth supreme. — Sri Ramana, #28
True Being
1230. The things you think of as existing do not exist. But That of which
You know not if it does exist or does not, That alone exists.
1234. Reality is one and only one.
This permanent and perfect Being,
has been described variously by sages
who with keen minds have searched the Heart,
and there experienced It.
Transcendence of Thought
1237. While brightly shining in the hearts of sages who have left behind
all treacherous triads and now abide as That alone, advaita’s grandeur
cannot be by the mind perceived, Like this false, trivial, dualistic, thought-created world.
1238. The Self, who is pure Awareness, transcending thought,
is only known to heroic seers,
who with minds extinct,
abide thought-free within the Heart,
and not to those whose minds are still engaged in thought.
Describing the Experience
1240. Describing what the Master taught and we experience: the dense thicket
of desire, the world of sense we knew of old, was nothing but
the silent heaven of Pure Awareness beyond speech; all that trivial knowledge
was what we in a dream perceived.
Equanimity
1249. No caste or family obligations bind those established in the primal
dharma of pure Self-awareness. ’Tis for the body false and worthless,
not for the true Self, that all these many and various rules exist.
1253. The sages want and pray for nothing. But their very being is spontaneous
penance serving to bring to all the people of the world the wealth
and welfare that they may wish for.
Invocation
1254. Long live Aruna Hill. Long live guru Ramana. Long live This garland of His sayings.
May this Lamp lit to reveal transcendent truth prove fruitful
and spread far and wide the Light supreme.
Appendix
Glossary
Index
[1] Figures carved into the temple tower grimacing as if they carried the weight of the tower.
[2] “The Kingdom of God is within you” – St. Luke XVII, 21
[3] Tillai is Chidambaram where Siva is worshipped as Pure Awareness.
[4] When the jiva’s head joins the Feet of Siva the jivatma becomes Paramatma.
[5] The utterance divine, the mahavakya, proclaims the identity of Self and God, as in Tat-tvam-asi, ‘An-al-Haq’, and ‘I am that I am’.
[6] In Pure Being, there is no ego, no mind, no measurement.
[7] A good person is moved by sattva rather than rajas.
[8] From ignorance springs the sense of otherness, from this springs fear, from fear springs cruelty, from cruelty springs further fear. The only way to break the vicious circle is to gain knowledge and shed fear.
[9] This incident took place and Sri Bhagavan gave a devotee the answer in the following verse.