From ‘Meditation. Translate Spiritual Ideals into Daily Life’ by Eknath Easwaran

Saint Francis de Sales explains, “Even if you did nothing during the whole of your hour [of meditation] but bring your mind back and place it again in our Lord’s presence, though it went away every time you bought it back, your hours would be very well employed.”

……… Today you may have to bring it back fifteen times, perhaps thirty. But in three years, you may bring it back only a few times; in six years, perhaps twice; in ten years, not at all.



Buddha opened his Dhammapada with the magnificent line, “All that we are is a result of what we have thought..”



The best time for meditation is early in the morning. In a tropical country like India, “early” has to be very early – sometimes three o’clock in traditional ashrams. But in a milder climate, I would say between five and six is a reasonable hour to begin, depending on your schedule.



For those beginning to meditate, half an hour is the requisite period. Less than that will not be enough; more than that may be hazardous.



The scriptures say that the place of mediation should be calm, clean, and cool. I would add, well-ventilated – and, if possible, quiet. If there are spiritual figures who appeal to you deeply – Jesus, the Buddha ……. – have a picture of one or two. But otherwise the place should be very simple, even austere, not cluttered with furniture and other things.



The correct posture for meditation is to sit erect with the spinal column, the nape of the neck, and the head in a straight line: not like a ramrod, rigid and tense, but easily upright. Your hands may be placed anyway they feel comfortable. ………



The human mind is rather like the trunk of an elephant. It never rests …….. most of the time it wanders at large, simply because we do not know how to keep it quiet or profitably engaged.

But what should we give it to hold on to? For this purpose I recommend the systematic repetition of the mantram, which can steady the mind at any time and in any place …… man, “the mind,” and tri, “to cross”. The mantram, repeated regularly for a long time, enables us to cross the sea of the mind.



……. Mantrams have different sounds and come from diverse traditions. But essentially they all do the same thing; turn us away from our dependency on what lies outside …… to the serenity and goodness within our own being. ….. Please exercise some care in your choice of a mantram. After all, it will be with you for a long time. Deliberate for a while and take into account the practical significance of the words, your religious background, and your personal response. ……. I strongly urge you to choose a mantram that has been sanctified by long use – one of proven power, that has enabled many men and women before you to realize the unity of life. ……. The mantram works best when we repeat it silently in the mind with as much concentration as possible.



Between the last waking moment and the first sleeping moment, a tunnel stretches down deep into consciousness. Most people do not perceive this subtle state; indeed, you cannot be aware of it with everyday mind. At that instance, when you are neither awake nor asleep, this tunnel opens up, and if you know how, you can send the mantram down it as you might a bowling ball. The proof is that you may hear the mantram during sleep; when an unpleasant dream begins, you may discover the mantram echoing through consciousness, dissolving that dream completely.



…….. After a long while, the mind builds up sensational strength and has a permanent hold on the mantram.

In this glorious state, the mantram repeats itself ceaselessly without any effort whatsoever. ….. Sanskrit has a precise word for this state: ajapajapam. Japam alone means “the repetition of the mantram,” and a means “without”: ajapajapam is japam without having to do japam. You receive all the benefits without having to do the work.



Buddha ……… “When you are walking, walk. When you are standing, stand. When you are sitting, sit. Don’t wobble.”



The Sufis …… advise us to speak only after our words have managed to issue through three gates. At the first gate, we ask ourselves, “Are these words true?” If so, let them pass on; if not, back they go.

At the second gate, we ask, “Are they necessary?” They may be true, but it doesn’t follow that they have to be uttered; they must serve some meaningful purpose. Do they clarify the situation or help someone? Or do they strike a discordant or irrelevant note?

At the last gate we ask, “Are they kind?” If we still feel we must speak out, we need to choose words that will be supportive and loving, not words that embarrass or wound another person. ….. we do not realize that words can created a more painful injury, one that can last for many years.

From ‘Amma. A Living Saint’ by Judith Cornell

Sudhamani [Amma] said, “There are six chakras, or centers of spiritual power in the human body. The vital life force [Kundalini shakti] that flows through all living beings is called serpent power, and it rests below the base of the spine in the form of a coiled, sleeping female snake.”

“When this power is awakened, through incessant meditation, it ascends through the spine, passing through the chakras. When each chakra is reached, the physical body can suddenly become hot, and the person may start to sweat profusely. He or she may also have visions, both divine and earthly. When the serpent power has transcended all six chakras, it rises to the top of the head – to the crown chakra. At that moment the body suddenly experiences a refreshing coolness as it is transformed into a new vessel of tremendous spiritual power.”



“The body has a sheath or an aura. Just as a tape recorder records everything we say, our aura records our every thought vibration. And this recording remains even after we have died. When we commit suicide, we are causing the soul much pain.”

“When the opening of a blown-up balloon is untied, the air in it is gradually released. But when we prick a balloon and it bursts, it explodes with a bang. So too when we forcefully end our own life, sudden pain-filled vibrations will be formed in our aura. This aura forms the basis for the next birth of the soul in a body. All that we are experiencing now is the result of our past actions. Understanding this, we should move forward in life, surrendering to God whatever we have to experience.”

From ‘Out on the Limb’ Shirley MacLaine

“Never utter these words: ‘I do not know this, therefore it is false.’ One must study to know: know to understand: understand to judge.”

- Apothegm of Narada



“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

- Hamlet



“Pure logical thinking cannot yield us any knowledge of the empirical world, all knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it. Propositions arrived at by purely logical means are completely empty of reality”

- ALBERT EINSTEIN

Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist



“It is very difficult to explain this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it. The individual feels the nothingness of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. He looks upon individual existence as a sort of prison and wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole.”

- ALBERT EINSTEIN

The World As I See It



“There is a principle which is proof against all information, which is proof against all arguments, which cannot fail to keep a main in everlasting ignorance; that principle is contempt, prior to investigation.”

- HERBERT SPENCER



“I maintain that cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest incitement to scientific research.”

- ALBERT EINSTEIN

The World As I See It



“It is immediately apparent … that this sense-world, this seemingly real external universe, though it may be useful and valid in other respects, cannot be the external world, but only the self’s projected picture of it … The evidence of the senses cannot be accepted as evidence of the nature of ultimate reality.”

- E. UNDERHILL

Mysticism

From ‘Day by Day with Bhagavan’ from the diary of A. Devaraja Mudaliar

……..the seen regarded as an independent entity, independent of the Self, is unreal. The seen is not different from the seer. What exists is the one Self, not a seer and a seen. The seen regarded as the Self is real.



“We have to contend against age long samskaras. They will all go. Only, they go comparatively soon in the case of those who have already made sadhana in the past, and late in the case of the others.”



……he [Bhagavan] told me he feels that pain …….i.e. it was a passing and faint experience like that in a dream. These are clues to the sort of life Bhagavan leads in our midst, seeming to act and move and feel as we do, but really living in a world of his own where the things we experience don’t exist.



Desai: How to churn up the nadis, so that the kundalini may go up the sushumna?

Bhagavan: Though the yogi may have his methods of breath control, pranayama, mudras etc.…….the jnani’s method is only that of enquiry. When by this method the mind is merged in the Self, the Self, it's sakti or kundalini, rises automatically.



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 it's source.



Bhagavan: The thing is to kill the mind somehow. Those who have not the strength to follow the enquiry method are advised pranayama as a help to control the mind. And pranayama is of two kinds, one of controlling and regulating the breath and the other of simply watching the breath.



Mr. Prasad ….asked whether, for controlling breath, the regular pranayama is not better in which 1:4:2 proportion for breathing in, retaining, and breathing out is prescribed. Bhagavan replied, “All those proportions, sometimes regulated not by counting but by uttering mantras, etc. are aids for controlling the mind. That is all. Watching the breath is also one form of pranayama. Retaining breath, etc. is more violent and may be harmful in some cases e.g. when there is no proper Guru to guide the sadhak at every step and stage. But merely watching the breath is easy and involves no risk.”



……To enquire ‘Who am I?’ really means trying to find out the source of the ego or the ‘I’ thought. You are not to think of other thoughts, such as ‘I am not this body, etc.’ Seeking the source of ‘I’ serves as a means of getting rid of all other thoughts…….keep the attention fixed on finding out the source of the ‘I’ thought, by asking (as each thought arises) to whom the thought arises and if the answer is ‘I get the thought’ by asking further who is this ‘I’ and whence it's source?



…….what are the steps by which I could achieve surrender.

Bhagavan: There are two ways; one is looking into the source of ‘I’ and merging into that source. The other is feeling “I am helpless by myself, God alone is all-powerful and except 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.



Bhagavan also says, ‘Contact with great men, exalted souls, is one efficacious means of realizing one’s true being.’



Visitor: …… What am I to do when the mind strays in various directions during dhyana?

Bhagavan: Simply draw the mind back each time it strays and fix it in dhyana. There is no other way.



……..as each thought arises, ask yourself: “To whom is this thought?” The answer will be, “to me”; then hold on to that “me”.



………about Tennyson ………..in a letter to B. P. Blood …… “…….a kind of waking trance I have frequently had, quite up from boyhood, when I have been all alone. This has generally come upon me through repeating my own name two or three times to myself, silently, till all at once, as it were out of the intensity of consciousness of individuality, the individuality itself seemed to dissolve and fade away into boundless being: and this not a confused state but the clearest of the clearest, the surest of the surest, the weirdest of the weirdest, utterly beyond words, where death was an almost laughable impossibility, the loss of personality (if so it were) seeming no extinction but the only true life.”

Bhagavan said, “That state is called abidance in the Self.”



Bhagavan: No learning or knowledge of scriptures is necessary to know the Self, as no man requires a mirror to see himself. All knowledge is required only to be given up eventually as not-Self. Nor is household work or cares with children necessarily an obstacle. If you can do nothing more, at least continue saying ‘I, I’ to yourself mentally all the time, as advises in Who am I?, whatever work you may be doing and whether you are sitting, standing or walking. ‘I’ is the name of God. It is the first and greatest of all mantras. Even OM is second to it.



Bhagavan: The more you get fixed in the Self, the more other thoughts will drop off by themselves. The mind is nothing but a bundle of thoughts, and the I-thought is the root of all of them. When you see who this ‘I’ is and whence it proceeds all thoughts get merged in the Self.



Bhagavan: Visions are not a necessary stage. To some they come and to others they don’t, but whether they come or not you always exist and you must stick to that.



Bhagavan …… : All you have to do is to give up being aware of other things, that is of the not-Self. If one gives up being aware of them then pure awareness alone remains, and that is the Self.”



Bhagavan said, “It is not true that birth as a man is necessarily the highest, and that one must attain realization only from being a man. Even an animal can attain Self-realisation.”



The Self is not attained by doing anything, but remaining still and being as we are.”



A visitor ……asked Bhagavan whether by doing annual ceremonies, etc. to the dead, we can confer any benefit on them. To this Bhagavan replied, “Yes. It all depends on one’s belief. ………They will receive benefit thought they are reborn several times and there is an agency to look after all this. Of course, Jnana marga does not say all this.”

From ‘Notes from a Small room’ by Ruskin Bond

Happiness is as elusive as a butterfly, and you must never pursue it. If you stay very still, it might come and settle on your hand. But only briefly. Savour those precious moments, for they will not come your way very often.

Contentment is easier to attain. The best example is the small ginger cat who arrives on the balcony every afternoon, to curl up in the sun and slumber peacefully for a couple of hours. There’s nothing like an afternoon siesta to help mind and body recuperate from the stress and toil of a busy morning.

From ‘Sri Ramana Leela. A biography of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi’ by ‘Telugu original: Sri Krishna Bhikshu. Edited and translated by Pingali Surya Sundaram’

‘The Ordainer controls the fate of souls in accordance with their past deeds – their prarabdhakarma. Whatever is destined not to happen will not happen – try how hard you may. Whatever is destined to happen will happen, do what you may to stop it. This is certain. The best course, therefore, is for one to be silent.’



“Rama! This enquiry into the Self or ‘Who am I?’ is the fire which burns up the seeds of the evil tree which is the mind.”


- Yoga Vasishta




“If you enquire and observe where this I-thought arises from, the mind gets absorbed in it. This is tapas. While performing mantra japa if you enquire and observe where the sound of the mantra arises from, the mind gets absorbed in it. This is tapas.”



A devotee once asked Bhagavan whether it was possible for a human being to be re-born as an animal. Bhagavan’s reply was “Why not? Do we not have Lakshmi? (the cow)”



May 19, 1922 ….. was her (Bhagavan’s mother’s) last day; everyone could sense the impending end that day ………. After the violent gasps (urdhva-swasa) began, Bhagavan placed his right hand on her heaving heart and the left one on her head. He looked at her intently. The day passed that way. Subsequently Bhagavan himself narrated what had happened thus:

The latent tendencies and thoughts which are the cause of future births flared up. She had just then lost consciousness of the external world. Hence in the subtle world her subtle body was witnessing scene after scene of what was to happen. By this sequence of experiences, the soul went through the future births and travelled towards the highest.



Bhagavan pointed out that according to chapter 13 of Ramana Gita the body of one who attained mukti was to be buried and not cremated.



Bhagavan also said that the grace of the guru operates only at the final stages of sadhana. Though the world is not beheld by the sadhaka in the last stages, due to the persistence of vasanas the Self is not experienced and it is at this stage that the grace of the guru, which really is the grace of the atma, works and bestows the Ultimate. It is the same thing that is mentioned in the Kathopanishad.



Bhagavan himself said that several celestial bodies (devatas) surrounded siddha-purushas and that whatever was to be accomplished was done by those devatas.



Sundaresa Iyer once wrote a lyric where he said “Grace flows from Bhagavan.” Bhagavan corrected it saying, “It is not so. It should read – “Grace is made to flow.”



……. asked him if chanting the Gayatri mechanically had any use. Bhagavan told him, “Chanting mechanically also is useful. …….”



In the case of worship of the One with form Bhagavan also, like acharyas of the past, approved of bhakti and said that uninterrupted meditation was better than meditation in spells.



Another doubt expressed was how could one who had transcended the three states experience deep sleep. The reply was, “It is the body that sleeps and wakes up. The I is always there as a witness.”



Bhagavan pointed out ….. that he lived “simultaneously in twenty lokas in twenty bodies. The bodies keep coming and going. Who is to keep track of which body is coming or which is going? The important thing is to abide in the Self and not to observe the changes in the bodies.”



Even if they are in their respective lokas, devatas possess all powers and depending on the intensity of a bhakta’s prayers can appear anytime. At Sivasakti kshetras, which are places of deliverance, it is easy to invoke them and feel their presence. ……. It is therefore easy to invoke him at Arunachala – that is not to say that this cannot be done at other places but this depends almost entirely on the strength of the prayers of devotees. On the other hand, at Arunachala, owing to the favourableness of the kshetra it becomes easier. This is especially true of the spot of Ramanasramam where Ramana spent over two decades.



Once Bhagavan revealed that Arunagiri had a vast interior in which even an army battalion could stay and that several yogis performed tapas there.



Several people who perform japa of the Skanda mantra while thinking of Bhagavan obtain very beneficial results.

From ‘Powen Pen and Patronage. Media, Culture and the Marathi Society’ by Aroon Tikekar

The concept of intellectualization refers to the inculcation, assimilation and adherence to reason, rationality and progressive ideas including the scientific development. For any intellectualized society varied and enriched social and cultural activity is an essential condition. This, in other words, means not only giving preference to the societal intellectual attainment, but also denoting an acceptance and admittance of plurality of ideas. Intellectualizing a society means the willing participation in various debates and discussions in an attempt to assess and evaluate the veracity and efficacy of traditionally held opinions and beliefs. This still further means the evaluation and revaluation of a living tradition from time to time. Intellectualizing a society also means the acceptance of the belief that social change is desired and that such a change is possible to achieve through human endeavour. It means increasing socio-cultural and political awareness by creating a public space for everyone in the society with a view to making one ultimately a responsible and concerned citizen of the society. Even philanthropy for the public cause is part of that intellectualizing process. Such awareness in the end results in creating and strengthening a civil society through previously established as well as newly created associations and organizations and thus, leading the society into becoming a civil society with a civic culture. A civil society with a civic culture generally results in the blossoming of public life in all it's aspects.