Suffering is Unnecessary
Since this “How?” question is so persistent, I thought it might be useful to return to basics by reading a page from a recently published book titled (in English): The Shining of My Lord. It is a collection of Muruganar’s poems and aphorisms regarding his own experience and imperience and sumerience in the process of attaining Self-Realization, in his relationship with Ramana. So I want to start reading a paragraph that I think was not written by Muruganar, but the translators, to, in a way, summarize what is in this section and explain the context. So the title of this section is Self Abidance.
“In Who Am I? Bhagavan wrote, ‘Inquiring who am I that am in bondage and knowing one’s Real nature alone is Liberation. Always keeping the mind fixed in the Self alone is called Self-enquiry.”
OK? So the question is not just, “Who am I?,” but “Who am I that am in bondage?” That’s the “I” that you want to know, not the actual Real Self because you can’t know that yet. You can know the ego. So you are witnessing the ego-mind that can’t stop chattering, that can’t stop its attachments and its externalization and its identification with the body, etc. So knowing one’s real nature is liberation from this false “I”—but you can’t get that directly. How you get that is: keeping the mind fixed in the Self alone, but keeping the mind fixed in that is the act of enquiring into the false self.
“This high-level definition of self-inquiry excludes all the preliminary efforts to withdraw attention from perceived thoughts and objects. Diverting attention from the content of the mind to the underlying ‘I’ that has the thoughts may consume most of the time of regular practitioners.”
But Bhagavan is saying here that proper Self-enquiry is not really happening until one learns to hold on to the inner sense of “I”. I—not the I-thought—by watching the I-thought without identifying.
“This restricted definition in Who am I? is consistent with other teachings that Bhagavan gave on enquiry in which he stated, ‘Really the vichara begins only when you cling to your Self and are already off the mental movement. When there are no longer thought waves. This process of clinging to the Real Self, undistracted by ephemeral rising thoughts that are competing for attention, is the highest level of self-inquiry.”
“When the ‘I’ retreats into its source and vanishes as a result of this intense effort, the Self then reveals itself. The Self abidance is usually temporary but repeated practice increases the frequency of these events. As Bhagavan wrote in Who Am I? in repeatedly practicing in this way the power of the mind to abide in its source increases.”
So now we go to Muruganar’s words: “Mind, manifesting in the form of thought, is the obstacle to the mind holding onto the Self. If the mind ceases to associate with anything, it will clearly shine as the space of consciousness.”
So there is a space in which the chattering thoughts arise. It’s not a thing. It’s not a being. It’s not a person. It’s simply the space.
“The gyanis say that the state of Liberation, the fullness of Being, is only the tranquility that abides as pure consciousness. This is the sadhana that has to be performed. Firmly establish yourself in Self-abidance and do not at all move outwards through the pathways of the senses which will only cause suffering.”
So here’s a paradox. The fullness of being is revealed in the Emptiness of the space of consciousness. When you are clinging to the Emptiness through realizing you are not the thoughts, but the space in which the thoughts arise, then that space is filled with the fullness of Being.
“Performing meditation on the Self in solitude then becomes the most delightful among the delightful experiences possible. If attaining the natural supreme state, existing as pure Being, is a desire that you want fulfilled, then the proper course is to return the mind back to the Self and stay merged there without thinking of anything else.”
So in other words, the attention has to be on the space that is free of thought, even if the thought arises in the space, the attention is focused on the space. And the space will then be filled with blissful energy, the most “delightful among the delightful”.
“The ego deserves to be stigmatized whereas the Self alone deserves to be worshipped. Save and protect yourself completely from the treacherous maya whose form is the ego by the practice of abidance in the pure Self in order that this abidance may become firm and habitual.”
So “stigmatizing”, what does that mean? It’s an immediate recognition that you are not those thoughts. You do not identify with the thoughts. You recognize that this is a foreign entity that has arisen in the space and by not entertaining it or identifying with it, gradually the thoughts simply get extinguished. They only come so long as you entertained by them—when you have lost interest in them because your attention is on the Emptiness, then, what fills the Emptiness is the delight, the bliss of the Fullness.
“The Self-abidance that mature sadhaks experience repeatedly in the heart is the unforsakable Truth that perpetually exists. What completely veils that self-abidance perpetually and unstoppably existing as one’s own nature in the heart is the mind.”
OK, mind meaning thoughts. The thoughts are the veil of maya. That veil is pierced simply by not paying attention to those but focusing on the silence from which they seem to be emerging. And then they won’t emerge from the silence but instead the silence will be filled with the light of the Self.
“One should ensure that the deceptive mind’s form is destroyed through Self-abidance by experiencing in the heart, through careful investigation, the reality that merely is. If instead one trains the mind more and more in grabbing onto imaginary concepts, this will only result in extending the strength and livelihood of the ego-mind.”
So it’s very important that you not become impressed by the insights that will arise in meditation, even if they are very useful to you. You go back to the silence from which those insights came and you will have even deeper understanding. But if you try to go back into language you will lose touch with the Self and then the ego has just become stronger and now you’re in its grip.
“To abide, clinging to the Self, is shanti; peace. The cessation and destruction of the rising ego is mona—silence. The consciousness that is free of thinking, and forgetting of the Self, is the experience of gyana. The total drying up of the vasanas is the life of Liberation.”
So it’s only a habit pattern of filling the mind with thoughts because of the fear of emptiness, the fear of death, the fear of nothingness. The fear of not knowing who you are. The fear of losing the thread, but actually you are gaining back the golden light of the Self through simply being able to tolerate the emptiness long enough to allow the fullness of your Being to emerge in the space. And once the tendency to produce thoughts has dried up, the light is always there, the bliss never leaves and the silence is never disturbed.
Audio File: Suffering is Unnecessary – Audio File.MP3