Did Ramana contradict himself?

Freddie

One of Ramana Maharshi’s main ideas is that the mind/ego exists only while it pays attention to objects. This is one of the reasons, he said, why mind/ego gets destroyed by his method of self-attention.

He expressed this idea often. For example, in his little textbook, Nan Ar, paragraph 4, he wrote:

The mind exists only while attaching to something gross/physical; it cannot exist independently.

That translation is a collaboration between Claude Sonnet 3.5 (my favorite AI) and me. In case you have the good sense not to trust us, here’s Michael James’s translation:

The mind stands only [by] always going after [attending and thereby attaching itself to] something gross [something other than ‘I’]; solitarily it does not stand.

Another place Ramana expressed this idea is verse 25 of his philosophical poem Ulladu Narpadu. The quality of the poetry comes through even in Michael’s hyper-literal translation:

Grasping form, the formless phantom-ego rises into being; grasping form it stands [or endures]; grasping and feeding on form it grows [or flourishes] abundantly; leaving [one] form, it grasps [another] form. If sought [examined or investigated], it will take flight. Investigate [or know thus].

Michael calls this idea the crucial secret revealed by Sri Ramana. It’s fundamental to Ramana’s teaching.

However, there are at least two recorded conversations in which Ramana seems to say the opposite. The first one makes up chapter 6 of Maharshi’s Gospel, book 2, which was recorded by Maurice Frydman, the literary genius who 40 years later translated, edited, and probably ghost-wrote Nisargadatta’s I Am That. Here’s the relevant passage from that chapter. The Sanskrit term used in it, aham-vritti, is usually translated as “I-thought” but Frydman wisely kept it in Sanskrit because vritti doesn’t actually mean “thought”. It means any kind of mental activity including emotions, wishes, concepts, sensations, etc. (That’s the meaning of vritti in later Advaita Vedanta. It had a narrower meaning in early Advaita Vedanta and some other traditions.)

Devotee: The question still remains why the quest for the source of aham-vritti, as distinguished from other vrittis, should be considered the direct means to Self-realization.

Maharshi: …Although the concept of ‘I’-ness or ‘I-am’-ness is by usage known as aham-vritti, it is not really a vritti like the other vrittis of the mind. Because, unlike the other vrittis which have no essential interrelation, the aham-vritti is equally and essentially related to each and every vritti of the mind. Without the aham-vritti there can be no other vritti, but the aham-vritti can subsist by itself without depending on any other vritti of the mind. The aham-vritti is therefore fundamentally different from other vrittis.

The second example of apparent contradiction comes from the diary of a man named Yalamanchili about whom I know nothing.

Question: What is the difference between a thought and the ‘I’?

Bhagavan: Thoughts are not independent. They have a standing only when they are associated with the ‘I’. But the ‘I’ can stand by itself. Actually, this ‘I’ is also not independent. In its turn it is supported by the Atman.

I’ll leave it to my esteemed readers to explain this apparent contradiction, but I’d like to describe my initial reaction to these passages and my second thoughts.

My initial reaction was, “Frydman and Yalamanchili misunderstood Ramana.” This thought came very easily because a large fraction of the recorded conversations in books about Ramana are inaccurate.

But then I had second thoughts. Two of them.

1. Maurice Frydman was extraordinarily gifted intellectually. This doesn’t mean he was immune from making mistakes — no one is — and it’s apparent from the questions he asks in his book that Ramana’s teachings were new to him (he had recently emigrated to India where he would spend the rest of his life), but even so I think it’s doubtful that he made a mistake of this magnitude.

2. If the two authors had simply written that Ramana said the “I-thought can exist by itself” it would be very likely that they made a mistake. But they wrote more than that. They also wrote that Ramana said there is a one-way dependency between the aham-vritti and other vrittis, i.e., that other vrittis depend on the aham-vritti but not vice-versa, and therefore the aham-vritti can exist alone. This is a syllogism — a logical argument — with a premise that rests on a sophisticated idea (asymmetric dependency). Ramana often made logical arguments of this kind. See the first paragraph of Nan Ar for an extreme example. It seems to me that the likelihood of both authors inventing this Ramana-ish syllogism on their own is low. I don’t recall Frydman writing syllogisms of this kind in I Am That. His great literary gifts, if I remember correctly, are metaphor — wonderful metaphors — and superb prose.

10 thoughts to “Did Ramana contradict himself?”

  1. If we read Ramana’s original works, there will never be any contradiction.

    If we begin to compare what Ramana wrote with what Ramana might have said, then, contradiction might arise.

    If, as Freddie said earlier, we put total attention on ourself (and not ‘on our self’), no doubt about anything will rise. If a doubt rises, attention should be put on ‘I am’, again and again, and not on the doubt itself.

    Lack of practice leaves room for doubt. Self-attention is not a part-time job.

  2. You once wrote about psychology professor in England…perhaps Blackmore,her name was…
    She did the practice asking `Am I aware?`
    Whoever that `I `is, does not matter to me as long as I am doing it right.
    How do you know you are doing it right?
    By the result you get.
    I understand Maurice Frydman was one of a few westerner who ever came close to Nisargadatta or Ramama.

    1. Hi Pema Devi,

      Yep, Susan Blackmore. Her book is called “Ten Zen Questions.”

      Whoever that `I `is, does not matter to me as long as I am doing it right.

      I would say the opposite. Whatever I’m doing doesn’t matter as long as I’m aware of myself.

      I think the value of Susan Blackmore’s question is that it takes us to a state where we can choose to be aware of ourself. But it’s up to us to make the choice.

  3. “I think the value of Susan Blackmore’s question is that it takes us to a state where we can choose to be aware of ourself. But it’s up to us to make the choice.”

    Who is the one that can make that choice? I mean this not as some sort of neo-Advaita “gotcha” but as a crucial question. If one is the Self, then one is most certainly not the doer of actions and the maker of choices. Do you still believe in free will or is this just a matter of speaking in “descriptive” rather than “prescriptive” language?

    My biggest takeaways from my experience with self-attention were:

    1. There truly is no doer. Thoughts arise, actions are done, but there isn’t a doer at the center with volitional control. (this is what isn’t real)

    2. That which is aware, as pure subject, is ALWAYS present and is perfectly content. (this is what IS real.)

    I think it’s helpful for people to see the unreality of (1) before the greater reality of (2) can be really understood. The reason for that is that the mind keeps jumping in and claiming control and asserting it’s place on center stage, whereas seeing non-doership is the trap door that opens up and swallows him whole. 🙂

    “One must realise that he is not the doer, but that he is only a tool of some Higher Power. Let the Higher Power do what is inevitable and let me act only according to its dictates. The actions are not mine. Therefore the result of the actions cannot be mine. If one thinks and acts so, where is the trouble?” (Talk 58)

    1. Hi K. Amutham,

      You’re right. I corrected my earlier comment.

      Would you agree that although there is no volitional control, the body/mind (the brain), like a computer, makes choices (decides what to do next) hundreds of times a day?

      And would you agree that these decisions are affected by what is known and understood?

      Thank you very much for writing.

      1. Hello dear Freddie,

        Please forgive me for my slow reply, I’ve been traveling for the holidays.

        Yes, I do agree. It’s affected by what is known and understood. Our conditioning, if you will.

        Real contact with oneself does away with a lot of fear and anxiety around death, along with putting to bed many existential questions about reality, so naturally it is a powerful thing when such a realisation is integrated. However, I do think this experience of seeing through the doer is transformative in its own way, and it is fundamental for our human society to realise. As Ramesh (from my native Mumbai, though unfortunately we never met) was fond of saying, how can you hate anyone when you see that no one can do anything?

        If one really sees nondoership (and I mean really sees, not just taking on a conceptual belief) then it completely erodes away any vasanas we may have for hatred, anger or blame. For example, If I receive an email from my boss and get angry at his words, it is because I haven’t actually seen the pervasive reality of the truth of nondoership. And granted, my getting angry is also up to me, just as the moment of realisation is not up to me. However, once it occurs and is truly understood, then those tendencies simply evaporate.

        1. Hello dear friend,

          It’s a rare pleasure and privilege to receive a comment like yours — a first-person report from someone who has really gotten somewhere with sadhana, written with the simplicity and clarity that comes only from experience. One of the reasons I started this blog was the hope of receiving comments like this. Your comment will be the last one on this blog. After nearly ten years I’ve closed comments, and I’m glad to see them finish on such a beautiful note.

  4. Freddie, there is no contradiction. When you arrive at aham vritti, the phantom ego/mind has already disappeared (taken flight). You are now with the Self. One has to stay here, and the rest is done by the Self. This has been explained in “Self enquiry “ chapter 2.

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