Beauty ＆ Pure 245

 

Are there any aids to
(1) concentration and (2) casting off distractions?
M.:
Physically the digestive and other organs are kept free from irritation. Therefore food is regulated both in quantity and quality. Non-irritants are eaten, avoiding chillies, excess of salt, onions, wine, opium, etc. Avoid constipation, drowsiness and excitement, and all foods which induce them. Mentally take interest in one thing and fix the mind on it. Let such interest be all-absorbing to the exclusion of everything else. This is dispassion (vairagya) and concentration. God or mantra may be chosen. The mind gains strength to grasp the subtle and merge into it.
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Beauty ＆ Pure 244

PRACTICE (Abhyasa)
1. What is the method of practice?
As the Self of a person who tries to attain Self-realization is not different from him and as there is nothing other than or superior to him to be attained by him, Self-realization being only the realization of one’s own nature, the seeker of Liberation realizes, without doubts or misconceptions, his real nature by distinguishing the eternal from the transient, and never swerves from his natural state. This is known as the practice of knowledge. This is the enquiry leading to Self-realization.

Beauty ＆ Pure 243

It is the nature of the mind to wander.
You are not the mind.
The mind springs up and sinks down.
It is impermanent, transitory,
whereas you are eternal.
There is nothing but the Self.
To inhere in the Self is the thing.
Never mind the mind.
If its source is sought,
it will vanish
leaving the Self unaffecte

Beauty ＆ Pure 242

People often say that a mukta purusha should go out and preach his message to the people. They argue, how can anyone be a mukta so long as there is misery by his side?


True. But who is a mukta? Does he see misery beside him? They want to determine the state of a mukta without themselves realizing the state. From the standpoint of the mukta their contention amounts to this: a man dreams a dream in which he finds several persons. On waking up, he asks, “Have the dream individuals also wakened?”
It is ridiculous.

Again, a good man says, “It does not matter even if I do not get mukti. Or let me be the last man to get it so that I shall help all others to be muktas before I am one.” It is all very good. Imagine a dreamer saying, “May all these wake up before I do”. The dreamer is no more absurd than the amiable philosopher aforesaid

Beauty ＆ Pure 241

Although Guru Ramana taught various doctrines according to the level of understanding of those who came to Him, we heard from Him that ‘Ajata’* alone is truly His own experience. Thus should you know.

('Guru Vachaka Kovai', v. 100)

* Sadu Om: 'Ajata’ is the knowledge that nothing – neither the world, soul nor God – ever comes into existence, and that ‘That Which Is’ ever exists as IT is.

Beauty ＆ Pure 240

That which is, is peace. All that we need do is to keep quiet. Peace is our real nature. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

Beauty ＆ Pure 239

Sri Ramana Maharshi ;

Keep your mind steadily on your family deity,
discard outside thoughts and meditate,
or keep the Self itself before your mind
and meditate.

If that is done,
that which comes from outside
will gradually disappear
and meditation alone will remain.

You need not meditate separately.
The meditation on Self will steady itself
and will remain constant.

What IS, is meditation.
There is no such thing as attaining deliverance.
Getting rid of extraneous things itself is deliverance.

Breath control (pranayama)
and other spiritual practices are only
for concentrating the mind on one thing.

Breath control
keeps the wandering mind within the body.
That is why breath control has been prescribed first,
and only then the practising of japa
(repetition of Divine name),
tapa (austerities) and the rest.

If breath is controlled and kept within for a while,
it helps in practising Self-enquiry.

If the family deity or some other form is meditated upon,
the mind becomes controlled of its own accord.
Where that is done repeatedly,
that meditation itself leads on to the realization of the Self.

You will not then have the duality of the doer
and the thing done.
All becomes one’s natural state (Swarupa) only.