Reading & the Good Life
Join the conversation! Every Friday at Noon EST (Register here), Perennial Meditations readers are welcome to gather for Reading & the Good Life (a space for connection, contemplation, and casual conversations on the art of living). This Friday, we are continuing our exploration of selected readings from Be As You Are: The Teaching of Sri Ramana Maharshi, edited by David Godman.
The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi
Be As You Are is the definitive compendium of Ramana Maharshi’s teachings, edited by the former librarian from Sri Maharshi's ashram, which can be found flourishing at the foot of the holy mountain of Arunachala. The book collects conversations with the many seekers who came to him for guidance, answering the questions sought on the road to enlightenment. “The essence of Sri Ramana's teachings is conveyed in his frequent assertions that there is a single immanent reality, directly experienced by everyone,” writes Godson, “which is simultaneously the source, the substance, and the real nature of everything that exists.”
Selected Passages from Be As You Are:
As soon as one ceases to imagine that one is an individual person, inhabiting a particular body, the whole superstructure of wrong ideas collapses and is replaced by a conscious and permanent awareness of the real Self. At this level of the teaching there is no question of effort or practice. All that is required is an understanding that the Self is not a goal to be attained, it is merely the awareness that prevails when all the limiting ideas about the not-Self have been discarded.
— Ramana Maharshi, Be As You Are
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Q: How shall I reach the Self?
A: There is no reaching the Self. If Self were to be reached, it would mean that the Self is not here and now and that it is yet to be obtained. What is got afresh will also be lost. So it will be impermanent. What is not permanent is not worth striving for. So I say the Self is not reached. You are the Self, you are already that. The fact is, you are ignorant of your blissful state. Ignorance supervenes and draws a veil over the pure Self which is bliss. Attempts are directed only to remove this veil of ignorance which is merely wrong knowledge. The wrong knowledge is the false identification of the Self with the body and the mind. This false identification must go, and then the Self alone remains.
— Ramana Maharshi, Be As You Are
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Q: Is not the realisation of one's absolute being, that is, Brahma-jnana, something quite unattainable for a layman like me?
A: Brahma-jnana is not a knowledge to be acquired, so that acquiring it one may obtain happiness. It is one's ignorant outlook that one should give up. The Self you seek to know is truly yourself. Your supposed ignorance causes you needless grief like that of the ten foolish men who grieved at the loss of the tenth man who was never lost.
— Ramana Maharshi, Be As You Are
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Such is the case with you. Truly there is no cause for you to be miserable and unhappy. You yourself impose limitations on your true nature of infinite being, and then weep that you are but a finite creature. Then you take up this or that spiritual practice to transcend the non-existent limitations. But if your spiritual practice itself assumes the existence of the limitations, how can it help you to transcend them?
— Ramana Maharshi, Be As You Are
Who was Sri Ramana Maharshi?
Ramana Maharshi (“Bhagavan”) was a 20th-century South Indian sage who continues to radiate peace and Self-awareness to the global community of spiritual seekers. You do not need to join any organization, adopt any belief system, or worship anyone or anything to experience this transmission of bliss and clarity. Bhagavan simply points you toward your innermost Self, the unchanging reality underlying all that exists.
“Happiness is your nature. It is not wrong to desire it. What is wrong is seeking it outside when it is inside.”
― Sri Ramana Maharshi
It is as if your life and the world are a movie; Bhagavan’s practice of asking Who Am I? allows you to find real happiness through the realization you are the screen itself, not the projected movie.
Source: The Official website of Ramana Maharshi
The Nature of the Self
“The essence of Sri Ramana's teachings is conveyed in his frequent assertions that there is a single immanent reality, directly experienced by everyone,” writes Godson, “which is simultaneously the source, the substance, and the real nature of everything that exists.” Maharshi gave it several names, each signifying a different aspect of the same indivisible reality.
However, most frequently, he utilized the term The Self,
Maharshi defined it by saying that the real Self or real ‘I’ is, contrary to perceptible experience, not an experience of individuality but a non-personal, all-inclusive awareness. It is not to be confused with the individual self, which he said was essentially non-existent, being a fabrication of the mind which obscures the true experience of the real Self. He maintained that the real Self is always present and always experienced, but he emphasized that one is only consciously aware of it as it really is when the self-limiting tendencies of the mind have ceased. Permanent and continuous Self-awareness is known as Self-realization.
If you are available on a Friday (at Noon EST), feel free to drop into one of our Reading & the Good Life meetups (Register here). It’s a highly casual space for connection and conversations on the art of living.
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Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, be wise and be well,
P.S. As always, feel free to comment, ask questions, or suggest future reads!
Hi. Am.i wrong to state that the Self is equal to the Infinte indwelling Spirit created by the one and only Almighty Spirit some call GOD. and by being created by that Spirit or one.may call it also Energy it will never cease to exist.even after the body fall apart in.pieces.
herbert