Let’s look at this well-known quote from Ramana Maharshi’s pamphlet Who Am I? The thought ‘who am I?’ will destroy all other thoughts, and like the stick used for stirring the burning pyre, will itself in the end get destroyed. There are two separate ideas in this statement: 1. A thought exists which, when you […]
Year: 2017
Two sutras on meditation
1. Like your hand on a puppy’s belly: The quivering, the warmth. “Oh! It’s alive!” 2. Like a kite string tugging your hand. You tug back. The dynamic give and take. Unpredictable, surprising, never the same. (The second one is based on a remark by Rajiv Kapur on this page.)
Self-enquiry is the simulation of sahaja samadhi
If there’s one quote from Ramana that every serious seeker should know, it’s this one: Inquiry consists in retaining the mind in the Self. That’s from Who Am I? Here’s the same sentence in another translation: The name ‘ātma-vicāra’ [refers] only to [the practice of] always keeping the mind in [or on] ātmā [oneself]. That’s […]
Peas in a Pod
The eyes are very similar, don’t you think? Both these young men realized the Self spontaneously as children, and at the time when the pictures were taken, both were spending a lot of time absorbed in the Self. The fellow on the left grew up to be Ramana Maharshi, who said that nirvikalpa samadhi can’t […]