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 […]
Tag: Sri Ramana Maharshi
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 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 […]
Stars are visible only after sunset, and attention is a trap
I rewrote this article extensively on May 28, 2024, so some of the comments may no longer apply to it. People sometimes summarize Ramana’s method as, “Keep your attention incessantly on yourself.” This is a pretty good summary except for one big problem. Normally when we pay attention to something, we target or select it. […]
How I was brought to Ramana
A friend asked me recently to write about how I came to Ramana. I was brought to him by a chain of events that started with my father’s death and culminated in a visit to Meenakshi Amman Temple in southern India. I’ve written about some of those events on this blog in individual posts but […]
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 They look for an object
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 […]
More about Ramana’s transmissions
A few days ago I wrote about Ramana giving initiation or transmission by looking into people’s eyes. Here’s another quote that makes the point even more clearly and concisely than the ones I already posted. The speaker is Sankarammal, a woman who worked in the ashram kitchen. V. Ganesan, who recorded her words, says she […]
Ramana’s glance of grace Initiation by look
I wonder how many people know today that Ramana Maharshi was famous during his lifetime for giving initiation or transmission to visitors by looking into their eyes. He often did this for almost an hour at a time. His devotees at the ashram sometimes called this his “glance of grace.” The effect was often strong […]