I don’t know of a single living person who:
1. Claims to have reached Ramana’s state by following the method that he taught, and
2. Teaches that method.
The only person I can think of who met those criteria was Arunachala Ramana, the man who started Aham and wrote this book, but he died in 2010. (I think he probably really was in Ramana’s state.)
I mainly know about teachers who write and give talks in English, so it’s likely that I’m overlooking people who teach mostly in other languages.
Who can we add to the list?
Michael Langford perhaps?
Hi Freddie,
Gary Weber seems to have reached Ramana’s state and there is also science to back this up. Gary was part of studies.
https://happinessbeyondthought.blogspot.com/?m=1
In my understanding and experience there are three steps:
1) Landing in Awareness , the first glimpse of Self… you know that thinking and Awareness are different.
2. Start abiding in Awareness… it increases as we start staying in self, even during normal walks of Life. One keeps shifting between Awareness and losing to mind. As we advance moments of Awareness are more and we catch ourselves when we get lost with mind.
3. Effortless , choice less Awareness … Sahaja Samadhi…. where we are in Oneness!
There is no difference between seer and seen! The ultimate state of Being… Sahaja Samadhi.!!
In my view, second stage is where few of us are … but to reach Ramana’s stage, either needs God’s grace ( in rare cases as sudden exaltation ) and/ or incessant practice!
Nevertheless, there is no reason to prove to anyone . It’s better to spend our time to perfect that stage.
Please do not publish my comments, name or details anywhere. My request
Grateful that you have posted this question. I agree as another commenter suggests, possibly Michael Langford, but still not fully certain. I was in a private yahoo group with him almost ten years ago and my experience in this group left me not so sure. Given that I am not self-realized, I acknowledge too that my doubts could very easily be my own ignorance. He has now (at least to my knowledge) almost completely disappeared from his already reclusive public life. I wish he were more available now, maybe my “growth” (God-willing there has been growth), would allow me to see things differently, more clearly in regard to him. This post reminded has me that I need to read his personal account — I actually just paused and ordered it from Amazon in the middle of typing this comment 🙂
A bit off-topic, ie., not specific to Ramana Maharshi, is that I have a long-list of “gurus”, that that at first glance seem quite compelling and possibly self-realized, only to find out that they are abusive, controlling, donned with worldly-possessions and money (not that this necessarily preclude self-realization), and clearly have an ego-self that is alive and well. It is disconcerting and makes an already challenging (and beautiful) path for seekers even more difficult.
Barbara, are you okay? I wrote to you several times this past week by email and Facebook Messenger but no answer. I don’t mean to nag you for a reply, just wondering if you’re okay.
Hi Freddie, yes, I am ok. Will get back shortly
I don’t know of people in Raman’a state (complete self-knowing or absorption without a sense of identity) thanks to his method besides Michael Langford who understood that the ‘I’ Ramana was referring to (and Nisargadata’s I am) is this everyday awareness (dog shit awareness/Paul Hedderman, silent spectator/Paul Brunton) .
Self inquiry is a very clever and direct way.
I used to paraphrase the “who am I?” question:
Who is trying to wake up/find herself/know the truth?
Who is looking for an answer?
Who is looking, period? THAT STOPPED ME..✌
and it still does…
It’s not really a question, it’s a looking.
Right now, even in dreadful situations
I keep on looking at the one looking
(being the looking – knowing – being)
by stilling and relaxing the eyes
even while taking in bad things.
and again and again and again……………
After years of “spiritual searching’ (=reading/writing/talking)
I finally got how simple this is and funny too – practicing myself
❤
An awakened teacher based in Yorkshire, UK uses different tools to help students, including self-inquiry. She makes clear it is not an intellectual exercise. She has talks and meditations available, some of which are on this topic. https://www.helenhamilton.org/
Has anyone obtained realization by practicing the “Who am I?” method of self-inquiry? Did Ramana himself obtain realization by practicing this method? If not, perhaps that’s why no one is teaching it. And anyway, what is there to teach? We have Ramana’s instructions for the method.
To me, the question is pointless and meaningless. My immediate answer is I don’t know. Moreover, I will never know. So why bother asking that question? I don’t believe it will lead me to the imperishable Self or Brahman seated in my heart.
The most interesting take on Ramana’s death experience comes from David Godman’s original blog on Ramana — and it has always stuck with me. Is it possible that the “flash of excitement,” the “heat” that Ramana experienced at age 16 on the upper story of his uncle’s house, which instantly made him fear for his life — the obliteration of his previously bounded and circumscribed self-identity? — was actually some sort of spirit or deity possessing him? Godman provides a lot of evidence for this, much of it in Ramana’s own words: “It appeared to be like some avesam or some spirit possessing me,” states Bhagavan in that account.
Writes Godman:
“There are two important points in this account that are not brought out in the published version. The first is Bhagavan’s repeated use of the word avesam to describe his initial perception of his experience. In Tamil the word means ‘possession’ in the sense of being taken over by a spirit. For the first few weeks Bhagavan felt that he had been taken over by a spirit which had taken up residence in his body. The second related point is that the feeling persisted until shortly before he left home.”
http://sri-ramana-maharshi.blogspot.com/2008/05/bhagavans-death-experience.html
Perhaps it was something he picked up in the Meenakshi Sundaresan Temple. Fred, you have had similar experiences from visiting that temple, have you not?
Godman’s blog post continues. Bhagavan is speaking:
“[T]he possession led me frequently to the Meenakshi Sundaresan Temple [in Madurai]. Formerly I would visit it occasionally with friends, but at that time [it] produced no noticeable emotional effect, much less a change in my habits. But after the awakening I would go there almost every evening, and in that obsession I would go and stand there for a long time alone before Siva, Nataraja, Meenakshi and the sixty-three saints. I would sob and shed tears, and would tremble with emotion.”
If possession by a spirit is indeed what led to Ramana’s death experience at 16, then his “Who am I?” self-inquiry would be a perfectly natural reaction to that event. Suddenly feeling he was dying, being wiped away, young Ramana had to think fast, think on his feet. In just a few minutes, he had to greatly expand — or reduce — his idea of self. In what felt like a life-or-death emergency, Ramana had to redefine himself almost instantly in order to survive. He came to identify himself with his new feeling: “I AM that feeling, that current. I AM the eternal ‘I.’” (my paraphrase)
Bhagavan: “‘I’, being a subtle current, … had no death to fear. … I was only feeling that everything was being done by the current and not by me, a feeling I had had ever since I wrote my parting note and left home. I had ceased to regard the current as my narrow ‘I’. This current, or avesam, now felt as if it was my Self, not a superimposition. … [T]he awakening gave me a continuous … feeling that my Self was a current or force in which I was perpetually absorbed whatever I did.”
So Ramana yielded to this force and learned to identify with it instead of with his previous self-identity. To him, the avesam became the Self. Or perhaps it was just a spontaneous awakening of his kundalini — which often happens in late adolescence and can be terrifying.
Finally, Godman adds in a subsequent post: “I think this is a more correct narration of the events, for Bhagavan himself said in Day by Day with Bhagavan, 4th October 1946, ‘The fact is, I did nothing. Some higher power took hold of me and I was entirely in its hand.’”
http://sri-ramana-maharshi.blogspot.com/2008/06/more-on-bhagavans-death-experience.html
As for “Who am I?” self-inquiry method, I quote in parting the wise words of my own guru, U.G. Krishnamurti: “Buddhism has never produced another Buddha. Christianity has never produced another Christ. Shankaracharya has never produced another Shankara.” Perhaps the same can be said for the self-inquiry method of Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi. (^_^)
An Indian spiritual teacher was given two books – one called Conscious Eating which I co-authored and the other titled ‘Who Am I?’
He told me the book was good and I asked him which one he was referring to and he said ‘What Am I?’ So, he clearly thought of our essence as more of a ‘what’ than a ‘who’ which gels with my own experience and the comment above, ‘what is alive in me’ rather than ‘who am I?’.
Hi Miron,
In reponse to your question, “Has anyone obtained realization by practicing the “Who am I?” method of self-inquiry? Did Ramana himself obtain realization by practicing this method?”
Yes, I think Ramana realized by practicing the method he taught. The words “Who am I?” are extremely misleading. Here’s my take on your question:
How did Ramana Maharshi realize the Self?
Fred, I think you’ve become a bit of a “Nan Yar?” apologist. Ramana himself “became realized” by another method — namely, death suddenly overcame him at age 16, through no method or intervention of his own. To me, “Nan Yar?” is how he restructured his understanding of himself, under extreme pressure, to claw his way back from the jaws of death. Then he spent 19 years in a cave on Arunachala hill (is that right?), in what today we would refer to as “integrating” that experience.
By his own account, the “realization” itself — the great restructuring of his vital energies and self-identity — lasted just minutes (like 6 mins?). Fred, you’ve been aware of Ramana’s method since — when? — since the 1980s? If it hasn’t worked for the past 40 years, why would you expect it to work at some unspecified future time?
A better question might be if each of us believes in gradual realization — a progressive path — or in the instant realization of being struck by Shiva’s thunderbolt, reducing us to ashes. “Whomsoever it chooses, to him it is revealed.”
I should add that I’m not convinced any method works. I now believe a method is simply the mind tricking you by tying you to a method — anything to ensure its survival and continuity, right? That method never yields results, and the ego continues on as always. Anytime I get close to something, when thinking stops, the mind sabotages me somehow, either by distracting me, or usually by trying to scare me. That has the effect of bringing me back into the endless discourse that goes on and on (i.e., thinking). Fred, you distinguished between shakti and consciousness (I prefer “awareness”), but I can tell you that I’ve experienced shakti many times, to a high level all the way up to my head, I’ve been able to open the crown chakra all my life, and none of that has amounted to “self-realization.” I suppose the opportune circumstances were never there, “the conditions” necessary for the person still living under the influence of “karma.” Every time I experience a “spiritual accomplishment” I am disappointed and saddened by all the bullshit that’s added on top of it, layer upon layer of it, volumes of books, courses, retreats, club memberships, guided meditations, lifelong learning — all to describe something so natural. How can a person be in the “guru business,” where their livelihood depends on selling realization and wisdom, and still be honest with themselves and their disciples? It’s a conflict of interest on its face. People still look up to Osho as though he was self-realized, because he gave them permission to have sex in a spiritual context, he enslaved scores of followers who put in hard labor for free, he collected Rolls Royces, his group broke the law, he was deported from the U.S. and denied entry into something like 27 countries, so he returned to India to die just 5 years later. That’s no accomplishment to me, no example. I listen to him speak and it’s all nonsense. He had a Master’s in philosophy — I guess that’s all he needed to be able to talk the talk. And people today still think he had some sort of answer. He is just one example. Swami Muktananda, who suffered from diabetes and toward the end of his life had several strokes that seem to have damaged his frontal cortex and impulse control, finally loosed a lifetime of repressed sexuality when, in his old age, he began raping devotees even though he was impotent by that time. He was a sadguru — the highest type of guru, who could give shaktipat initiation. His energy was unbelievable, people who met him say, but I’ve never seen anything but a look of scorn and disgust on his face. Muktananda’s teacher was a man who seems to have been a common thug who decided the guru lifestyle was preferable to honest work — they still build statutes to him in India. Every single person is unique — what works for one will not work for another, just like diet; each person has their own unique makeup and dietary needs. The same with spiritual ability and expression. No one can say what’s what, no one can teach you a universal method. You must discover something for yourself. If the awareness we seek if actually ordinary awareness, as Dzogchen, Zen and the instant illumination traditions maintain, then there is nothing to seek but a clear mind. I think that awareness is something like when you “space out” and stare into space and can’t collect yourself or even focus your eyes. It feels great, right? That might well be a spontaneous expression of the “state of consciousness” everyone is seeking. Every child has it before they learn to talk. When my daughter was very young, before age 2, she would stare into space without blinking in a way I’ve never seen anyone do before. I could see that it was pure absorption, and I was jealous — like the crystal-clear surface of an undisturbed lake. Now she talks, she cries, she complains, she asserts herself, she’s neurotic and needy, she screams and throws tantrums if we don’t fulfill her irrational desires. She’s 3-1/2 and that state of awareness is completely gone now (at least for the time being; I’m sure she’ll rediscover it later in life). Anyway, all that to say, I guess, that my method is no method.
I believe that Av Neryah (previously wrote under the pseudonym SantataGamana is fully self-realized at a level of a Ramana Maharshi
His background was originally in kriya yoga, as far as I know. So not the teachings of Ramana. But whatever works. I have read several of his books, and I am not sure that I am fully convinced that he is realized. But have never met him in person
First: SantataGamana’s first book on kriya yoga, ‘Kriya Yoga Exposed’ (2017), was admittedly a distillation of an Italian man’s firsthand experiences, who published all the material for free online — this man, Ennio Nimmis: https://www.kriyayogainfo.net/Eng_Home.html Who knows if SantataGamana in fact had ANY kriya yoga experience at all. He was a great compiler.
Second: None of us are in a position to determine who is self-realized and who is not; instead I offer you a quote from ‘Mind Is A Myth’: “You may be sure of one thing; he who says he
is a free man is a phoney. Of this you may be sure.” —U.G. Krishnamurti
True, I have no right to say if someone is realized or not. But I found it a bit strange that a realized Master would bother with analyzing and grading different kriya yoga schools, which he does in ‘kriya yoga exposed’. But who am I to judge. But I did have the sincere impression that he has a background in kriya. He talks about it in the same book. Anyway, whatever worked for him…
He probably does have a background in kriya. Who knows. I always thought SantataGamana was a young Tamil man, because in some of the books there used to be some cross-branding to other books, also anonymously written, but if you dig deep enough it leads from website to website to the YouTube channel of a man who also recommends only certain books. I did this research in 2021, so it’s not current. Anyway, the youngish Tamil man is very candid about having ADHD, not having a steady job, but also looking for a wife at the time. I wished I had saved his channel because now I can’t find it. :\
I think he is european or Israeli actually. https://avneryah.com/about/
His YouTube account doesn’t sound to be active anymore
I am re-reading his book (I have it at home) and it resonates more now than it did before. To his opinion, many kriyabans are too much pre-occupied with techniques, and should instead focus on paravastha, the silent state which should be a result of practicing kriya. He is right of course. His advice is to use the paravastha to get into the state of the watcher/observer. He wrote down several very simplified kriya techniques to easily get into paravastha. I am going to give them a good try again. see if it works.