I’m going to kill two birds with one stone with this post. Oops — what an ugly metaphor. I’ve been hanging out with my cats too much. They’re so adorable I keep forgetting they’re sociopathic murderers. First thing I’m going to do is analyze and translate Ramana’s definition of “atma-vichara” from Nan Ar. This is […]
On translating Ramana with the word “attention”
If I correctly remember all the Ramana books I’ve read, and of course I don’t, it was Sadhu Om who invented the idea of describing Ramana’s method in English as “self-attention”. Regardless of who invented it, Michael James, Sadhu Om’s friend, student, collaborator, and literary executor, has done a great deal to popularize the term. […]
An interesting coincidence Can your own efforts be God's grace?
An interesting coincidence occurred the other day as a result of my writing a comment on this blog. At the time I pointed it out in the comments but I keep remembering that it happened so I’m going to elevate the matter to a full post. I was replying to a comment by Rico Rico. […]
The essence of Ramana’s method Transfer your attention completely from mental activity to yourself
The essence of Ramana Maharshi’s method is to transfer your attention from mental activity to yourself. Stop paying attention to thoughts, emotions, images, sensations, memories, wishes, awareness of awareness, etc. Instead pay attention to yourself. By “yourself” I mean you who experience all those mental activities. You who know them. To make this work you […]
The atomic bomb of jnana Not your social media guru's version of awakening
Ramana Maharshi speaking about Self-realization: Later in the morning, at Rishikesananda’s request, Bhagavan [Ramana Maharshi] recounted his first experience of the Self in his upstairs room at Madura. “When I lay down with limbs outstretched and mentally enacted the death scene and realised that the body would be taken and cremated and yet I would […]
The lost-in-thought state: Summary Simulated scenarios stimulate strong emotions
Over the last couple of weeks I wrote a half dozen articles exploring new ideas about the lost-in-thought state (LITS). They’re on my Substack blog in case anyone is interested. I wrote them mainly for myself to clarify my thinking. My main conclusion is that LITS is the primary function of the mind. It’s not […]
Retraction The big idea that kicked off this website is wrong
The reason I created this website is because I noticed something in the early 2000s that shocked me. It was and is the most surprising thing that ever happened to me. I couldn’t find a clear, unequivocal mention of it in any published book (it was harder to do literature searches in those days because […]
Luckily it only seems that way
This picture popped up in my Facebook feed. A good illustration, I think, of the fundamental attitude of many spiritual seekers. “I want to be free — I have to escape from the prison of my mind — I need to crack this damn lock.” The room, the door, the lock — they are the […]
Something younger Freddie got wrong
Last week I reprinted something I wrote almost 20 years ago about Shiva Rudra Bala Yogi who I knew at that time. I noticed when I reread it last week that I got several things wrong. Here’s my most important misunderstanding. I was bothered at that time because SRBY calls himself a yogi and Ramana […]