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.”