'Every being in the world yearns to be always happy, free from the taint of sorrow; and desires to get rid of bodily ailments, which are not of his true nature. Further everyone cherishes the greatest love for himself: and this love is not possible in the absence of happiness. In deep sleep, though devoid of everything, one has the experience of being happy. Yet, due to the ignorance of the real nature of one's own being, which is happiness itself, people flounder in the vast ocean of material existence forsaking the right path that leads to happiness and act under the mistaken belief that the way to be happy consists in obtaining the pleasures of this and the other world.'

From the Preface to Sankara's Crownjewel of Discrimination

 

Every time you read words of Ramana Maharshi something extraordinary happens. As his words meet your eyes, immediately a great stillness and quiet comes over you. There is something in the tone of his words (it must have been in his voice also) that makes you immediately feel at ease and happy. I have observed it may times and it is truly remarkable. No other writer does it quite like he does. Perhaps the effect comes from the great comfort in his words. For his message is very clear and simple: you are already happy right now, though you might have lost sight of it for the moment. For happiness is you true nature. It is the inner core of your very being. You can never escape being happy. For the sun of your very Self is always shining, though there may be clouds covering the sun. The only task in your life is to remove the clouds and then your own very Sun will be a shining in all its true splendour.

It's very funny in a way. People are born happy. They will always fall back in happiness if they would let nature take its course and just sit still and be. But somehow people distrust God/nature. They want to make happiness instead of being the happiness that they already are. They start to look outside of themselves for happiness. But there it cannot not so easily be found. For outer happiness can only respond to a realised inner happiness. And if we don't focus on this inner happiness, then it might get obscured, for the diversity of the outside world creates all sorts of images and feelings in our mind that can obstruct our inner wellbeing.

And this is what alienation is. We get alienated from our very Self. That is what makes us so miserable, to be alienated from our own natural happiness. So then we start looking again for this Self. But it really is absurd in a way, for how can you look for something that you already are, right at this very moment. It has never left you, for this happiness is your very existence. You would not be here if there was no happiness.

Ramana used to illustrate this stalemate situation with his story about a lady who thought she had lost her precious necklace. She put the whole house bottom up to find this piece of jewellery again. Her heart was sickened by great misery and desperation because of the loss. But all the while, looking in every drawer and cupboard there was in the house, she wore the necklace around her neck. So it is with happiness. You already have it.

So there is no question of finding happiness, but all it needs is to remove your unhappiness. And this unhappiness is your ignorance of who you really are. So you have to find out who you really are, like it was written on the temple of Apollo at Delphi: gnothi seauton, know thyself. Ramana tells us that when we close our eyes in meditation and repeatedly ask our self the question 'who am I?' that we will find the real I (or I-I as he called the Self, because it is found to be the I of the personality). For the unreal I, the ego-personality, will give way for the real One to shine out in its full splendour.

Everything emerges out of Pure Consciousness. We are born when from this Pure Consciousness a little spark shines forth. This spark is the 'I-thought' that was conceived in Consciousness. Out of the 'I-thought' all other thoughts rise up:

Pure Consciousness > the 'I-thought' > the variety of thoughts emerging from the 'I'

But only the first Source can considered to be real. All other thoughts that manifest in the mind/body structure are unreal, for they are for ever changing and fleeting. The 'I-thought' was born and itself and all that is born of it will die again. So it is not real. It is like a dream that starts and vanishes again. It has no everlasting being. Only our Source is real, for It is and will remain always. Now the Upanishads and Ramana say: Tattwamasi, you are That. You are this Source, this Pure Consciousness. It is not only the substratum of your existence, no, you are that. You are your own very Self. To think you are the non-Self is the great illusion and from it stems all unhappiness.

So you are not your body, at least not primarily. The same with your thoughts, feelings and sensual impressions. You have them, but you aren't them. As an illustration Ramana tells us to compare our situation with spectators at a cinema show (did he know about Plato's allegory of the Cave?). We are looking at images projected on a white screen and deeming them for real. These images exhilarate or depress us. We think that they are part of our life. We are drawn into the illusion, so to speak, to such an extent that we do not see the light anymore coming from the projector. All the time the white screen also can be seen if we alter the Gestalt of our vision, but we simply loose sight of it. To us only the images on the screen are for real.

The projector is the 'I-thought'. With its light it is sending all kinds of thoughts and feelings to our mind. We deem them for real. We tend to identify our self with these images. But these images can't exist without the screen. Only the screen is for real. Because it never changes and is always the same. It receives every kind of image, be it good or bad. It is amoral. It only gives life to the cinema show. The screen always remains pure and white. It is never affected by what it receives. It never gets stained. All the violence of all the cheap movies never affects the screen. When the light of the projector dies out ..... Well, there is the screen again. The screen is the Self.

Enlightenment is to be in an everlasting and natural contact with the Self. It can not be attained, for we are already It. The only thing to do is to remove in the waking state our ignorance about the Self . For every night in deep sleep we fall back again into that enlightened state. In deep sleep we are devoid of our body, of our name, of all thinking and feeling. To be empty like that is to be really happy. For when we wake up we say: ' I have slept happily!'. We have reminiscence of the happy state we were in. When we sink back into our Source in deep sleep, we regain energy and happiness. We recover from all our worries, fatigues and ailments. For the Self is our great healer and the source of all our happiness.

But this is astonishing, isn't it? So we have to become during the day, just as we are during the night, when unconscious? Yes, it really is as simple as that. Enlightenment is the most negative state possible. It is being bereft of all form, of all content of mind, of your name and your whole personality. It is living in the deep stillness and peace of deep sleep, totally empty and devoid of everything. 'Like a somnambulist?' somebody dared to ask. 'Yes, in a way', Ramana laughed, 'but then very conscious of everything'. For this is the big difference: in deep sleep we are unconscious of being, while in sahaja nirvikalpa samadhi (the natural state of enlightenment) we have become conscious as consciousness itself.

How simple, but how very difficult at the same time! Suppose we would accept this theoretically (but how few would, especially in the West), how could we manage to do so? How could we live like conscious sleepers? It all sounds so strange to us. Do we really have to become like walking sleepers? Isn't that total boredom? Would we still be able to work, to live and love? Can there be communication between sleepers?

These are all objections coming from the mind, that has not of yet realised this blissful state. Remember, it is like deep sleep. It is not deep sleep itself. Because of our lack of experience Ramana uses this analogy. In fact conscious deep sleep is a totally different state than deep sleep itself. For no, it is not total boredom. On the contrary, it is a state where there is never felt boredom anymore. For it is a state of total satisfaction, a being at ease with one's Self. Do we feel bored in sleep? Our work can also be done very properly and diligently, when in this state. For our ability to concentrate is greatly enhanced when we are totally still and not distracted anymore by all kinds of thoughts.

But how to arrive at this state of being? Maharshi tells us that the purpose of every form of yoga (and of every form of religion) is to realise 'a cessation of all modifications of mind' (citta-vritti-nirodhah Patanjali Yoga Sutra 2). All thoughts must quiet down and give way, in order to experience the source of mind, the Divine Reality, that is hidden behind it. Meditation is the way to do it. If we practise daily at becoming still, we will eventually reach the stage of sahaja nirvikalpa samadhi, ie. a natural state of being totally conscious of one's divine Source, which is the ultimate liberation for man.

Ramana mentions different ways of 'turning the mind off'. They all amount to some form of inner meditation.

1. Investigation (vichara) into the working of the mind.

Vichara is 'looking with the mind to the mind'. When done seriously and with passion during considerable time, thinking will stop of its own accord. When you close your eyes and look for the mind you will not find anything. The mind is not there when sought for. It will turn out to be unreal. And what there is will be found to have all kinds of limitations and shortcomings. So with Socrates you'll come to the conclusion that 'the only thing I know is that I don't know'. When you have reached this conclusion in your meditations, there will be no more thoughts. Only attention and awareness remain.

2. Investigation (vichara) into the source/ground of all thought

Investigation into the source of your thoughts will bring you to the 'I-thought'. When you look into this 'I' it will prove to be a superimposition onto an unlimited 'I'. The different religions call this unlimited 'I' : 'God', or 'the Self', or 'Pure Consciousness' etc. When you reach this Source all thoughts will end. The result will be samadhi, the experience of consciousness itself.

3. Concentration (dhyana) on one thought to exclude all other thoughts

This is called japa by the ancient masters. You take one word sound (a mantra) and repeat it over and over again with closed eyes. This concentration on one word sound will let the mind lose its activity, because it is now stopped in dissipating its energy. Eventually all thoughts will die down, including the mantra itself. Then the Source is revealed.

We all know that our mind becomes tranquil when we concentrate. Every student has had the experience. What happens when we concentrate on books, music or a hobby, happens even more when we concentrate on a divine name or a sublime and divine thought. With such a thought the mind is easily transcended and the divine origin reached. So we can use as a mantra the name of a divine person. Thinking about such a person with reverence is a form of devotion (bhakti). Christians can use the name of Jesus as a mantra. That way the thought of Jesus will help them to come to a 'a cessation of all modifications of mind'. Eventually they have to let go of this thought also to come to samadhi in formless consciousness.

(I have strongly recommended the use of a mantra in my guidelines for meditation here)

The purpose of the three named methods of meditation is to transcend the mind. When you feel a blank in your meditations you should hold on to it and let go of all other thoughts. For this blank and this emptiness (sunyata) is the goal of meditation. In this emptiness we come to feel and experience what we truly are, ie. sat-chit-ananda, truth, consciousness and bliss.

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