The basic idea of this post is, “Please put links to recordings of Ramana’s songs in comments below.” I recently added Michael James’s translations of Ramana’s written works to realization.org. I like Michael’s translations very much because he emphasizes the meaning of Ramana’s words above everything else. I think his translations are probably the most […]
Author: Freddie
Pathways Through to Space
Earlier today Louise quoted from a book that should be better known, Consciousness Without an Object by Franklin Merrell-Wolff. This is one of the greatest spiritual books of all time. Nothing like it has ever been written, as far as I know, except the same author’s other book, Pathways Through to Space. Unfortunately — multiply […]
On the difficulty of discussing spiritual experiences
It’s notoriously difficult to make other people know what our spiritual experiences are like. People often say this is due to the fact that spiritual experiences are beyond the mind and therefore are ineffable. In my opinion, in most cases, this is not the real reason. The only experiences that are beyond the mind (unknown […]
Francis Lucille comments on the observation that started this website
About twenty years ago I noticed something about my mind that seemed extraordinarily important to me for spiritual seekers, but to my surprise I couldn’t find more than partial mentions of it in spiritual literature. After reading and skimming many books over a period of about five years, I managed to find partial mentions in […]
John Grimes
I seldom read spiritual books anymore but a few days ago I ran across a mention of John Grimes and for some reason, I can’t remember why, decided to read his book on Ramana. All I knew was that he is a retired professor of philosophy who specialized in Advaita Vedanta. The book turned out […]
My new way of talking about Ramana’s method
From now on, for a while at least, I’m going to refer to Ramana’s method as Ramana’s method. I’m going to avoid saying “vichara” or “self-investigation” (Michael James’s favorite way to translate “vichara”) and “self-attention” (Michael’s second-favorite way). And I’ll avoid the commonest names, “Self-enquiry” and “Who Am I?”, because those names are the most […]
Why most people get nowhere with Ramana’s method
A friend wrote to me yesterday: More and more Ramana’s words come to mind, and I say, “Okay, but who or what is having those experiences?” As I go into that, nothing is there, and I find experience just is. How about that? My friend is finding nothing because he’s looking for an object (mental […]
A brief summary of the first half of Ramana’s method
Metta used the phrase “greed of knowing” yesterday in a comment, and it triggered a long reply from me. When I finished writing, I realized I had produced a summary of Ramana’s method. Because there is a great deal of misunderstanding and misinformation about Ramana’s method on the Internet, I’ve decided to publish my reply […]
The second way I meditated
When I was a freshman in college half a century ago, my favorite novelist was Doris Lessing. In one of her novels, maybe several of them, a character makes a deliberate effort to silence his or her mental chatter. The idea intrigued me because it touched a major feature of everyone’s experience yet I had […]
Words of Wisdom
If it’s true that Brahman is more real than things we experience, writings about the world, God, and our apparent selves cannot be as profound as writings about Self-realization. It often seems that way to me. But nonetheless, some writings about those topics are more profound than others, and it’s good to read and think […]