One of the first books I read in the Ramana tradition, 26 years ago or more, was No Mind — I am the Self<\/i> by David Godman. It describes the lives and teachings of two people who are, I think, Self-realized in the same way Ramana was Self-realized. <\/p>\n
No Mind<\/i> was the first book David wrote although not the first he published. The title seemed weird to me with its unusual em dash when I encountered the book a quarter of a century ago, but now that I know more about Ramana and the tradition that emerged from his example, I believe it states with perfect clarity two of the aspects of Ramana’s state that distinguish it from enlightenment as understood in other traditions. (There are more distinctive aspects than just those two including “aware of the Self 24\/7”, “irreversible”, and “constant”, but I suppose there’s a limit to how many em dashes will fit in a title.)<\/p>\n
I knew little about Ramana when I read the book in 1999 and wasn’t sure what to make of it. Some parts seemed ridiculous and uninteresting to me, other parts like gems. In recent years I often wanted to reread it to see how it would strike me now that I know more, but I couldn’t reread it because a digital edition was never published and nowadays my vision is too poor to read paper books.<\/p>\n
No Mind<\/i> has been out of print for years. I think this is unfortunate. There are unauthorized ebooks on the shadow library sites but they are god awful scanned PDFs that are even harder to read than paper books. Last week I searched the shadow libraries and was delighted to see a high quality version on Z-Lib — not a scan but a carefully made genuine digital edition.<\/p>\n
I reread the book last week and want to tell you my reaction. I think it is one of the most important, most valuable spiritual books ever written. I say this because if you read it carefully, you can learn more from it than any other book I know about the following questions:<\/p>\n
1. How does Ramana’s state differ from enlightenment as understood in other traditions?<\/p>\n
2. What is the process like of attaining that state? How are the instructions applied? What is the experience like?<\/p>\n
David did something almost unique in this book. He interviewed two genuinely enlightened people at incredible length and documented everything he could that might shed light on how they came to be Self-realized and what advice they offer other people. He probably erred on the side of including too much information, and that’s why parts of the book seemed unnecessary to me (and still seem that way to me), but that’s better than erring in the other direction. <\/p>\n
The only similar books that I can think of are also written or edited by David: Nothing Ever Happened<\/i> and Living by the Words of Bhagavan<\/i>, but I think No Mind<\/i>, although rougher around the edges (like I said, it was David’s first book), contains more valuable information.<\/p>\n