Category Archives: Meditation
Know Yourself To Be Free!
Know yourself to be free
and realize your bliss.
Thinking yourself bound
will make you miss
that which is easily found
by being still.
Secret of Happiness
What is the secret of happiness?
Don’t bother anyone.
Don’t be bothered by anyone.
That is the path of joy and freedom.
Help those who come your way. Help where needed.
But don’t bother anyone. Don’t impose yourself and your views on others.
Stay with people and be part of the community devoted to universal love and peace.
Stay away from those who like to argue. Let them find their way.
Sri Ramana used to say that the best help we can give others is to transform ourself.
Be a person of peace and compassion, and this will reflect in your actions.
Be the light. That light will illumine your path and that of others and will be the best help you can give.
Quietly shine in your own pure nature of peace and radiance.
You will have done all you can.
The Search For True Love
The search for true love is really the search for the ultimate reality of this universe.
It manifests outwardly as the search for that perfect person, the search for God, the search for the mystery of our existence.
Underlying all fears and anxieties is the fundamental agitation of not knowing who we are.
To solve this existential riddle, Sri Ramana advocates the sincere and keen inquiry that focuses on the question, “Who Am I?”
It is this inward focus with intent and intensity, that leads the mind to dive deep into the very heart of the unknown.
It is in the deepest core of our being, that we find the Heart, that is in reality the Self.
One never feels complete until one realizes that one who has been pursued and sought as one’s true love is one’s own Self.
In coming close to the Self, one is drawn to the Self, and then by Grace merges with the Self, the very Heart of Existence and becomes That.
Bhagavan Ramana used to say, “The Self is always there. It is you. There is nothing but you.”
Worries Do Not Belong To You!
The basic tenet of Advaita-Vedanta is that our original nature, the nature of the Self, is Sat-Chit-Ananda-Nityam-Purnum. Sat means Existence. Chit refers to Consciousness. Ananda means Bliss. Nityam mean Eternal. Purnum means whole or complete.
These are not qualities of the Self but its very nature as One monolithic whole. The Self is One without a second, A Mass of Conscious Bliss that is Eternal and Whole. When we experience the Self, we see that the ancient sages were very precise in describing our nature. It is unmistakable and leaves no room for any thought or doubt. Sages teach us that what comes and goes is not our true nature. What is transient has no permanent power or hold on us.
Although we view our personality as made up of mental traits and thoughts, Advaita teaches us that even our mind and thoughts are transient as they are constantly undergoing change. If our identity is based on mental fluctuations, suffering is the natural result.
Sri Ramana, the Sage of Arunachala, taught that through reflection, introspection, and self- inquiry, we can see through our mental conditioning, be free of it, and go beyond it.
Then we see that what comes and goes is not our nature.
Here is a conversation with Sri Ramana and a visitor to illustrate this point.
A visitor said: “I suffer from worries without end; there is no peace for me…” Sri Ramana asked: “Do these worries affect you in sleep?” The visitor admitted that they did not.
Sri Ramana asked him again: “Are you the very same man now, or are you different from him that slept without any worry?”
The visitor said, “Yes, I am the same person.”
Sri Ramana then said: “Then surely those worries do not belong to you. It is your own fault if you assume that they are yours.” (From Maha Yoga by K. Lakshmana Sarma).
The Most Powerful Yoga
Live your life without hurting anyone. ~ Nisargadatta Maharaj in “I Am That”
Meet your own self. Be with your own self, listen to it, obey it, cherish it, keep it in mind ceaselessly.
You need no other guide. As long as your urge for truth affects your daily life, all is well with you.
Live your life without hurting anybody.
Harmlessness is a most powerful form of Yoga and it will take you speedily to your goal.
This is what I call nisarga yoga, the Natural yoga.
It is the art of living in peace and harmony, in friendliness and love.
The fruit of it is happiness, uncaused and endless.
Nisargadatta Maharaj in “I Am That”
Solitude is in the Mind
Ramana Maharshi often spoke about the true nature of solitude. He has explained a number of times that silence, peace, and solitude are not a function of our environment but our mental state. Indeed solitude is in the mind and not to be found somewhere outside.
The Self Cannot Be Found In Books
“You may go on reading any number of books on Vedanta. They can only tell you ‘Realize the Self’. The Self cannot be found in books. You have to find it for yourself in yourself.” Bhagavan Ramana in Gems ~ Chapter 8.
Sri Ramana here states the truth directly and unmistakably. No matter how many books one reads, one cannot gain Self-Realization.
Reading, thinking, and conceptualizing involve mental activity. Yet, it is this mental activity that distracts us and covers up the pure essence of being.
It is the mind itself that has to subside into the Heart and dissolve in it. Upon the merging of the mind in the Heart, the Self, recognition of our true nature is instantaneous. With the mind absent as the intermediary, the wordless Realization is immediate. One recognizes and says that “It has been Me all along. I am the Self.”
This recognition is beyond thoughts, words, and concepts. We use the words only to indicate that our real Self stands always Self-revealed.
Bhagavan Ramana teaches that once we become conscious of our power of attention to scan its own nature, we should focus on that.
in the classic quote given at the beginning of the article, Bhagavan Ramana emphasizes the role of deliberate and conscious introversion of the mind by shifting our attention from perceptions to the perceiver via self-inquiry.
OM Shanti!
Namaste
Note: The featured picture is from Mirela Skerbic on Facebook
The Nature of Joy
I have left all my practices,
and words of the wise
now sound like noises
in the city at lunch time.
On entering the heart of awareness,
I saw that
joy is simply the glow of contentment
devoid of longing.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nature of the Ego
“When the ego rises, all things rise with it. When the ego is not, there is nothing else. Since the ego thus is everything, to question ‘What is this thing?’ is the extinction of all things”.
The quote above from Bhagavan Ramana is from ‘Reality in Forty Verses’ (‘Ulladu Narpadu’), v. 26. It can be found in Bhagavad’s “Collected Works”.
Here Bhagavan eloquently points out that one cannot force oneself to give up the ego. The very attempt to discard the ego, is itself based on the assumption of separation from the whole. In other words, the effort to conquer the ego is based on egotism!
Such forced efforts to overcome the ego end up only reinforcing the notion that we are “separate” from the Universal Existence. With such attempts, the nonexistent phantom of the ego appears real in our imagination.
Hence Bhagavan Ramana says, “Question, what is this thing, this ego which manifests as a sense of separateness from the whole”? Where does it come from?”
This inquiry requires us to simply bring our attention to the sense of identity, the sense of “I AM”. It is only by bringing quiet, nonjudgmental attention on the ego, that the ego can be see through as unreal. The method is simple and yet the mind has to be made pure and subtle to grasp it.
Love to all
Namaste
Luthar.com 
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