Over the years I’ve often written about Ramana but I don’t think I ever summarized his basic instructions in plain modern English. A recent conversation in comments made me realize I should do this. Here goes.
1. When you notice you are thinking…
2. Notice the part of your mind that knows the thought and transfer your attention from the thought to that part. In other words, be aware of it.
3. When you do this, the ego (which is mental activity, a sequence of events in the brain) ceases to function — at least temporarily to some degree.
4. The reason the ego ceases to function is that you are depriving it of objects (the thoughts it was thinking).
5. When the ego activity stops to a sufficient degree, you become aware of the ego’s “birthplace”, the Self.
6. The more you do this, the greater the mind’s power becomes to settle and remain (taṅgi niṟgum) in its birthplace.
7. Repeated practice leads to permanent cessation of the ego.
Commentary
1. When you notice you are thinking. Today we know from neuroscience that this noticing will usually take place when we snap out of default mode network rumination, i.e., at the moment when the salience network activates executive processes which seem to give us a degree of voluntary control over attention. The classic paper about this is Hasenkamp et al., 2012. It’s worthwhile to understand this because it means that noticing we are thinking (step 1) and deliberately focusing attention (step 2) use different parts of the brain, i.e., neurologically they are different exercises.
2. Notice the part of your mind that knows the thought. The way we recognize that part is its sense of knowing. Instead of “be aware of the sense of knowing” Ramana says “ask to whom the thought occurs.” (Whenever Ramana tells us to “ask” in this way he means we should observe the answer.) My paraphrase may seem distant but the two formulas mean the same thing. I’m using the word “knowing” as a synonym for “being consciously aware of”. Ramana calls this “part” the ego, mind, aham-vritti (usually mistranslated as I-thought), thinker, etc.
3. When you do this, the ego (which is mental activity, a sequence of events in the brain) ceases to function — at least temporarily to some degree. Ramana expresses the idea that ego is mental activity by saying it’s nothing but thoughts. This idea has two main ramifications: (1) When the activity stops, the mind no longer exists, and (2) the sense that the mind has an owner, an “I”, is itself a thought, itself a part of the mind.
4. The reason the ego ceases to function is that you are depriving it of objects (the thoughts it was thinking). This is stated more clearly in Ulladu Narpadu verse 25 than Nan Ar. With the advantage of modern science we can amplify this as follows: The ego is part of the brain’s subjective representation or model of the body acting in the world. The entire model including ego and world operates neurologically as a unit. If one of its main aspects is suppressed the model stops operating.
5. When the ego activity stops to a sufficient degree, you become aware of the ego’s “birthplace”, the Self. From Nan Ar, paragraph 6: “When the mind settles in the heart, that ‘I’ which is the root of all thoughts departs, and that Self (tān) which always exists alone shines.” In this context “shines” means “there is awareness of it.”
6. The more you do this, the greater the mind’s power becomes to settle and remain (taṅgi niṟgum) in its birthplace. From paragraph 6 of Nan Ar: “As one practices in this way repeatedly, the mind’s power (shakti) to remain settled in its birthplace increases.” Ramana is saying here that repetition causes an increase in duration; in context, this presents repetition as the means and duration as the end. As noted in the step 1 commentary, the two activities use different parts of the brain.
7. Repeated practice leads to permanent cessation of the ego. When this happens, there is permanent unending awareness of the source, of Brahman: Self-realization.
Links
English translations of Nan Ar on Realization.org
Discussion: Hasenkamp et al., 2012 on Freddie Yam’s substack.
Have you ever experimented with mantra meditation? I have been practicing Sohum meditation for the last 2 months and find it a very fascinating practice. It did manage to change several ‘sharp edges’ of my personality quite quickly . Something that 23 years of other meditation practices couldn’t do.
Only a little but I was a musician for many years and I would expect some similar effects.
Thank you for these instructions from Ramana’s Nan Yar. When described this way they seem to me more complex than necessary. When I check my own process, it is more simply becoming aware of awareness, present between any thoughts or language/labels . . . and then removing any witness (a ‘me’) to that awareness. This disappearing of the thought/concept of an imaginary separate being allows the taking on of the whole of hereness in the thoughtfree now. In a way it could be thought of as turning inside out. Once established in this, it is noticed that thoughts may or may not arise, but no longer be identified with. And doing continues to happen, without ego ownership. Re the sohum/soham meditation Jelke mentions, Swami Muktananda reversed that to hamsa meditation and, if I recall correctly, in his book I Am That, he describes the breakthrough to enlightenment occurring when with this meditation his outbreath became the inbreath . . . in other words, he became the Universe exhaling into the body and inhaling back in to Itself.
Hi, Brian. What do you think about the possibility that Ramana’s instructions are different from yours because he is trying to guide people to a different state than the one you’ve reached?
Hi,
My sense is that the very good summary you provided added some comments which are not relevant and could even be confusing, like bringing in brain/neurological involvement. Awareness is independent of anything in manifestation, though aspects in creation, such as a sattvic diet and physical/mental practices can help foster an atmosphere encouraging awakening. . . .
A great barrier to self-realization is the myth that we have failed if we do not duplicate what we think are the states of past or current masters. . . . Identifying with thinking itself is a huge barrier as it involves the one who is thinking and the thought. . . . Pure awareness is simply that. It is unlimited and outside of the dimensions of creation. It has no center, no inside or outside and no ownership. Yet it contains the ever-changing ‘mirage’ of creation. Creation is like a waking dream . . . which I recently heard can be compared to a bubble of self-reflection we spend our waking states in. . . . How can there be two pure awarenesses? Our here and now is it – with or without gross or subtle objects. This is my sense of it when I let go of language and names. ….. PS, as a clarification on the comment about Swami Muktananda’s awakening, the phrase, ‘he became the Universe exhaling into the body and inhaling back in to Itself’ might better have been said that Muktanada realized breathing is occurring within the Self with no outside or inside. At least that’s my take at the moment.
Hi Brian. I mentioned the neuroscience in notes/commentary in relation to practice instructions, not in relation to awareness, specifically an aspect of practice that had been discussed a few days earlier by two commentators in a different thread. The cited neuroscience paper addresses parts of that conversation precisely. I didn’t say explicitly that I was reacting to the earlier conversation, although I hinted at the top of this post that this was my reason, because I didn’t want to discourage other people from reading about the neuroscience or following the link to the paper.
I think most people regard “notes/commentary” as the author saying, “This is extra and optional and perhaps a digression.”
I very rarely mention science here because I’ve noticed over the years that the reaction is almost always hostile. That’s why I created my Substack. In this case, however, the cited paper is so relevant to the earlier conversation that I thought I’d test the waters again by putting a couple of sentences and a citation in a footnote.
But then, this is also a valid question. I’ve begun to think, with the help of Freddie :), with his pointers, that the state Ramana describes is much much rarer than people commonly believe. A Tibetan Bön practitioner I know who’s studying to become a Lama once told me that currently there are no Buddhas on the world. Perhaps what Ramana describes is that state, that’s currently non-existent in the world. How very encouraging!! 🙂 I’d rather spend my life for goals more achievable, but alas, there’s no turning back from where I’m now. And nothing else means much anymore. Almost…
Hi Focus and Brian,
If I had more time and energy I’d go through the Ramana literature and write a series of articles about the differences between what Ramana says about his state and what almost everyone else says about theirs. Maybe it’s only a matter of degree, but maybe it’s something more.
Maybe that’s really what I should use this blog for, going forward, for a while.
I’m only interested in this stuff because of Ramana, because of something that happened to me in 1985 when I entered the temple next to the house where he realized the Self. As I’ve said here many times, I was a tourist who had never heard of Ramana, who knew nothing about Hinduism or meditation or liberation. I think I got inoculated that day by lingering echoes of what Ramana experienced in that building during the six weeks following his realization. A sort of transmission across time. Since then Ramana and his state have been attracting me like a magnet. The transmission apparently infected me but it was so far above me that although I knew something remarkable had happened, I didn’t suspect what it was for many years.
For whatever it’s worth — probably nothing, I’m not competent to judge — I’ve only met or found online one person who seems to me to be in Ramana’s state.
“ Maybe it’s only a matter of degree, but maybe it’s something more.”
I have been thinking about this every day at least once, for the last couple of years and you’re guilty for that 😀
Also this story of yours never ceases to amaze me.
I’m sure it’s not “nothing”! You’re on to something big here!
Let’s hope we’ll both agree soon that it was worth it. 🙂
In the meantime, I apologize but I’m glad to know I’m not the only one. 🙂
It is a common trap (I fell into, too) for the ‘I’ to claim ownership of an awakening experience, when it is impersonal Awakeness Itself that awakens. Chogyam Trungpa said ‘If someone tells you they are enlightened, they are not. If someone tells you they are not enlightened, they are probably not. Re no turning back, Gurdjieff said (paraphrased), ‘Blessed is he who has a soul and blessed is he who has none. But woe to he who has a soul in embryo.’
Thanks for the Gurdjieff quote, that’s an interesting one. I had to ask it to ChatGPT to understand what he meant, in the context of his teachings regarding the soul.
Thank you for this perspective. I find myself drawn to this way all the time and have always found Ramana’s instructions too complex.
If this worked for you, well it might work for me, too 🙂
Thanks for the tip regarding Muktananda. I will order his book. I started with the Hamsa mantra meditation, but read later about the Soham mantra. For some reason the latter intuitively feels better to me, possibly because I end up breathing in the wrong sequence more often when I use the Hamsa mantra.
Until now, I quite like the idea and practice of mantra meditation. For the last couple of years, I find it difficult to concentrate well enough to use methods like that of Ramana, or Awareness watching Awareness, or even Kriya Yoga which was my main system for many years. Mantra meditation seems a bit more forgiving of poor meditators. Hopefully
Thanks for your continued posts, Freddie. It’s nice to have a space where this sort of thing can be discussed. Yet funnily enough, it’s probably the discussions that people focus on so much that end up being the distraction from the simple practice itself.
This is perhaps the second or third time I recall (either through conversing with you directly or reading comments + your responses to them) this possibility being brought up; that what Ramana was teaching may in fact be different than the state other people are referring to. I find this point quite interesting, though I’m not sure i’m convinced it isn’t simply a matter of degree, as you said.
I see a lot of different attempts to describe this practice. A lot of fingers pointing at the moon. Take Rupert Spira’s “Be knowingly the presence of awareness” or this more descriptive-rather-than-prescriptive pointer from John Wheeler:
“Everything simply arises and sets in your being
or innate presence. That presence remains as it is — solid, present,
profoundly cognisant, still and yet wonderfully alive and radiant. That
is the point — to see this, know this and be this. Even those words are
too much, for you effortlessly are this. It is just a noticing of a simple
fact that we may have overlooked.”
I think the issue for many people is that they actually do locate within their experience what these pointers refer to, but they are (out of habit, I presume) far more interested in talking about the pointers, the “theory”, the so-called “effects” of the practice than they are in actually just being what they truly are. For me, it is such a simple thing, so devoid of complexity. I think very few people actually want that, or maybe a better way of saying it is that few people are ready to be that simple. The mind seems to require steeping in that source for a bit, before the desire to analyze it and discuss it so much can dissipate.
From our previous talks you likely remember my saying that nondoership was my gateway into all of this. Seeing that “I” wasn’t authoring anything within experience, seeing that I was “being lived” as Ramesh often said, this left me with the only thing left: the pure knowing that was at the heart of it all. The machinations of the mind aren’t really “my” business in this sense, and it’s this sort of realization that I think is likely the lynchpin of the whole production when it comes to reducing suffering or stress in human life.
So despite the different attempts at describing this, I’d say my own two cents on the matter is something like this:
You know you are. You know this without thought. You aren’t the character you think you are, but rather the presence or “light” within experience that cannot be turned off. Seeing this and appreciating it (appreciating being another way of suggesting we “stay” with this, our birthplace) is always going to be more valuable than the discussion around it, enticing as the conversations are.
– Ben
Hi Ben,
Funny/interesting, I thought of you yesterday and was a little surprised to realize it was the first time in many weeks this had happened. I thought I would write to you and ask how you are but hadn’t got around to it yet.
Yes, I remember what you told me about doership. I thought about it quite a bit and “examined” it in myself.
Your comment stands perfectly well on is own so I won’t say anything about it. But I will say my reaction which has little to do with what you wrote. As I read it just now, it occurred to me that there is a very obvious difference between Ramana’s teaching and most of the teaching that people frequently talk about here.
Ramana’s little textbook Nan Ar is a manual for permanently destroying the mind/ego. That’s its subject matter. He says this again and again in the text. He repeatedly distinguishes permanent destruction from subsidance, from states where the mind is active sometimes or there is disidentification with the ego. Destruction means mental activity (including ego) can’t ever happen again.
It occurs to me that this is why Shiva Rudra Bala Yogi made such an enormous impression on me the day I found him sitting on his bed shaking his head in disbelief muttering either to himself or me — maybe the distinction didn’t exist for him — “the mind just doesn’t go out.” He meant it doesn’t go out ever. It was gone.