{"id":1998,"date":"2017-06-16T20:25:26","date_gmt":"2017-06-17T00:25:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freddieyam.com\/wordpress\/?p=1998"},"modified":"2017-06-17T01:25:03","modified_gmt":"2017-06-17T05:25:03","slug":"the-stick-that-stirs-the-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freddieyam.com\/wordpress\/the-stick-that-stirs-the-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"The stick that stirs the fire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let’s look at this well-known quote from Ramana Maharshi\u2019s pamphlet Who Am I?<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

\nThe thought \u2018who am I?\u2019 will destroy all other thoughts, and like the stick used for stirring the burning pyre, will itself in the end get destroyed.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are two separate ideas in this statement:<\/p>\n

1. A thought exists which, when you think it, destroys your mind.<\/p>\n

2. That thought will also get destroyed.<\/p>\n

The second idea gets most of the attention in this quote because of the vivid metaphor of the stick that stirs the fire. Note that this metaphor mainly describes the second idea, not the first.<\/p>\n

But the first idea is the important one: <\/p>\n

By thinking a particular thought, you can destroy your mind.<\/em><\/p>\n

That’s actually pretty scary, isn’t it? That thought should come with a red label:<\/p>\n

Warning! If you think this thought, your mind will get destroyed!<\/i><\/p>\n

That thought is like a song that destroys your vocal cords when you sing it.<\/p>\n

Like a photograph that destroys your eyes when you see it.<\/p>\n

Like somebody who destroys your heart when you fall in love with them (aren’t there about a million songs where that happens)?<\/p>\n

Like a program that destroys a computer when the computer runs it.<\/p>\n

That last metaphor about the computer is a common trope in science-fiction. The computer says “does not compute,” explodes, and expires in a cloud of smoke. It’s like a Windows blue screen of death on steroids. Wikipedia has a page about this trope called \u201cDoes Not Compute<\/a>.\u201d According to Wikipedia, it was probably invented by science-fiction author Isaac Asimov in 1941.<\/p>\n

Lethal computer programs are not just science fiction. I once saw something like this happen. I wrote a program that caused a component inside my computer to burn out. There was an audible crack!<\/i> as an unseen spark jumped inside the computer case; then a small cloud of smoke; and then my Hercules VGA graphics card was dead forever. Apparently I had mis-programmed registers on the card so it overheated and shorted out. This was in the 1980s. Hopefully graphics cards are more self-protective nowadays.<\/p>\n

On second thought, maybe it was the monitor that got destroyed, not the graphics card. This is the downside of getting old; I can’t remember anything. <\/p>\n

Another thing I wish I could remember is the upside of getting old.<\/p>\n

But enough rambling around. Here we are at last at the main point of this article. Somebody said here the other day that he couldn’t figure out the point of one of my posts. To prevent that from happening again, I’ll be explicit:<\/p>\n

The point of this post is to explain, “What is this thought that destroys your mind when you think it?”<\/p>\n

First, we must understand that this thought isn’t really a thought in the ordinary sense of the word \u2018thought\u2019. Ramana\u2019s translators use the word \u2018thought\u2019 for every possible kind of mental event, process, or activity.<\/p>\n

This \u201cthought\u201d is really a mental process or activity.<\/p>\n

Second, “who am I?” sounds like a question. But this “thought” isn’t a question. It’s an activity that answers the question.<\/p>\n

How do we answer this question? In the most obvious way. By looking at “I” and seeing what it is.<\/p>\n

So here’s what the quotation really means:<\/p>\n

Look at yourself to see what you are.<\/p>\n

Of course, it’s a little tricky to look at yourself because you can’t look in the ordinary way. But that’s a topic for another day.<\/p>\n

According to Ramana, that special kind of looking destroys the mind.<\/p>\n

That special kind of looking is called Self-enquiry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let’s look at this well-known quote from Ramana Maharshi\u2019s pamphlet Who Am I? The thought \u2018who am I?\u2019 will destroy all other thoughts, and like the stick used for stirring the burning pyre, will itself in the end get destroyed. There are two separate ideas in this statement: 1. A thought exists which, when you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6YVpx-we","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freddieyam.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freddieyam.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freddieyam.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freddieyam.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freddieyam.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1998"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/freddieyam.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2013,"href":"https:\/\/freddieyam.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1998\/revisions\/2013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freddieyam.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freddieyam.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freddieyam.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}