WHAT IS INTUITION?

This, again, will be very difficult to explain. If intuition comes through some kind of waves, then sooner or later the intellect will be able to explain it. It comes without any medium; that is the point. It comes without a vehicle! It travels without any vehicle, that is why it is a jump, that is why it is a leap. If some waves are there and it comes to you through those waves, then it is not a jump, it is not a leap.

It is a jump from one point to another point, with no interconnection between the two; that is why it is a jump. If I come to you step by step, it is not a jump; only if I come to you without any steps is it a jump. And a real jump is even deeper: it means that something exists on point A and then it exists on point B, and between the two there is no existence. That is a real jump.

Intuition is a jump. It is not something coming to you; that is a linguistic error. It is not something coming to you: it is something happening to you, not coming to you – something happening to you without any causality anywhere, without any source anywhere. This sudden happening means intuition. If it is not sudden, not completely discontinuous with what went before, then reason will discover the path.

It will take time, but it can be done. If some X-rays, some waves or anything are carrying it to you, reason will be capable of knowing and understanding and controlling it. Then any day an instrument can be developed – just like radio or TV – in which intuitions can be received. If intuition comes through rays or waves, then we can make an instrument to receive them. Then Mohammed is not needed. But as I see it, Mohammed will be needed.

No instrument can pick up intuition because it is not a wave phenomenon. It is not a phenomenon at all; it is just a leap from nothing to being. Intuition means just that. That is why reason denies it. Reason denies it because reason is incapable of encountering it; reason can only encounter phenomena that can be divided into cause and effect.

According to reason there are two realms of existence: the known and the unknown. And the unknown means that which is not yet known, but someday will be known. But religion says that there are three realms: the known, the unknown, and the unknowable. By the unknowable religion means that which can never be known.

Intellect is involved with the known and the unknown, not with the unknowable, and intuition works with the unknowable, with that which cannot be known. It is not just a question of time before it will be known; ”unknowability” is its intrinsic quality. It is not that your instruments are not fine enough or your logic not up to date or your mathematics primitive – that is not the question. The intrinsic quality of the unknowable is unknowability; it will always exist as the unknowable. This is the realm of intuition.

When something from the unknowable comes to be known, it is a jump. It is a jump! There is no interlink, there is no passage, there is no going from one point to another point. But it seems inconceivable, so when I say, ”You can feel it, but you cannot understand it,” when I say such things, I know very well that I am uttering nonsense. Nonsense only means ”that which cannot be understood by our senses.” And mind is a sense, the most subtle, and wisdom is a sense.

Intuition is possible because the unknowable is there. Science denies the existence of the divine because it says, ”There is only one division: the known and the unknown. If there is any God, we will discover him through laboratory methods. If he exists, science will discover him.”

Religion, on the other hand, says, ”Whatever you do, something in the very foundation of existence will remain unknowable – a mystery.”

And if religion is not right then I think that science is going to destroy the whole meaning of life. If there is no mystery, the whole meaning of life is destroyed and the whole beauty is destroyed. The unknowable is the beauty, the meaning, the aspiration, the goal. Because of the unknowable, life means something. When everything is known, then everything is flat. You will be fed up, bored. The unknowable is the secret; it is life itself.

I will say this: that reason is an effort to know the unknown and intuition is the happening of the unknowable. To penetrate the unknowable is possible, but to explain it is not. The feeling is possible; the explanation is not.

The more you try to explain it the more closed you will become, so do not try. Let reason work in its own field, but remember continuously that there are deeper realms. There are deeper reasons which reason cannot understand, higher reasons that reason is incapable of conceiving.

INTUITION EXPLAINED

When reason fails, only intuition can work.  And all the great scientists have become aware of it: that all their great discoveries are made not by reason but by intuition.

Madame Curie was working on a certain mathematical problem for three years continuously and the more she tried, the farther and farther away the solution seemed. She tried every possible way, but nothing was working, nothing was happening. And there was somewhere a deep, tacit feeling that "The solution exists. I am not struggling with something absurd." This tacit feeling continued all the time as an undercurrent; hence she could not drop the effort either. She was getting tired -- three years wasted for a single problem. But deep down within herself somebody was saying, "The solution IS possible. This exercise is not futile. Go on." And she went on stubbornly, she persisted. She dropped all other projects, she forced herself totally into the one problem. But the more she tried, the more impossible it became.

One night it happened, almost as it happened to Gautama the Buddha; of course, the problems were different, but the process was the same. Buddha had struggled for six years to attain enlightenment and he had attained nothing. Then one night he dropped the whole effort, went to sleep, and, by the morning when the last star was setting, he became enlightened.

That night Madame Curie dropped the idea, the whole project -- she closed the chapter. "Enough is enough! Three years wasted is too much for one problem." There were other problems which were waiting to be solved. It was finished in her mind, although the tacit understanding was still there just like a constant murmur. But she had followed it long enough, it was time. One has only a limited time; three years is too much for one problem. Deliberately she dropped the idea. As far as she was concerned she closed the whole project. She went to sleep never to be bothered by that problem again.

And in the morning when she got up she was surprised. On a piece of paper on her table, the solution was there, written in her own handwriting. She could not believe her eyes. Who had done it? The servant could not have done it -- he knew nothing of mathematics, and if Madame Curie had not been able to do it in three years, how could the servant have done it? And there was nobody else in the house. And the servant had not entered in the night -- the doors were locked from inside. She looked closely and the handwriting resembled hers.
Then suddenly she remembered a dream. In the dream she had seen that she had got up, gone to the table, written something.... Slowly slowly, the dream became clear. Slowly slowly, she remembered that she had done it in the night. It was not a dream, she had actually done it. And this was the solution! For three years she had been struggling hard and nothing was happening -- and the night she dropped the project, it happened. What happened? She became relaxed.

Once you have dropped the effort you become relaxed, you become restful, you become soft, you become wide, you become open. It was there inside her, it surfaced. Finding the mind no longer tense, it surfaced.

She had come to the conclusion from some other door which was not reason.  It was intuition.  But first the reason had to be exhausted.  Intuition functions only when reason is exhausted.  Intuition has no process; it simply jumps from the problem to the conclusion.  It is a shortcut.  It is a flash.

BELIEF, FAITH and TRUST

There are three words which are synonymous in the dictionary but not in actual experience. One is belief, the second is faith, the third is trust. In actual experience they have nothing to do with each other – not only that: they are totally different dimensions. Belief is intellectual; it is a kind of information that has been fed to you.

 

One is a Christian, another is a Hindu; this is a belief. A system of thought has been imposed on the child and he accepted it because he was not aware when it was imposed on him. He had to accept it because he was helpless; he had to accept whatsoever the parents were feeding him.

This is a social strategy so that the children always remain in the boundaries of the parental fold. It is a kind of slavery, mental slavery. It is a spiritual poisoning; it is harmful. In a better world there will be no Hindu, no Mohammedan, no Christian. In a more intelligent worldwe will not feed children any system of thought.

We will simply help them to become more and more alert and intelligent so that they can choose their own system of thought, whatsoever it is; we will leave it to them. We will give intelligence to them, we will help their intelligence to become sharpened so that they are not deceived. But right now the parents themselves are deceiving their children. They are doing just what their parents had done to them. Belief is an ugly phenomenon; it should disappear from the world.

Faith is a little better; faith is of feeling. Just as belief is of intellect, thought, faith is of feeling. It is a little better because it goes a little deeper, but it too is without any awareness. It is emotional, sentimental, but blind. It goes deeper and transforms your life a little more than belief. Belief simply remains a facade, because it never touches your heart; faith makes you more devoted. But that devotion is also based on a kind of blindness, and blindness in itself has to be dropped to know the truth.

Trust is neither of the head nor of the heart: it is a transcendental phenomenon. It comes by becoming more aware of the mechanism of the mind and the heart. You watch how the mind functions, how thinking proceeds – the whole process of thought – and you watch the whole process of emotions. You remain aloof, you remain just a watcher. Then slowly slowly a third dimension opens in you: that is trust. It is existential, it comes only when you have known something on your own.

Belief is given by others and faith is also given by others. Trust arises out of one’s own experience. Then one falls in love with existence; that love is true religion. It is not a dogma, it is not a doctrine, it is not a church. That is the meaning of TRUST

ALL BELIEF IS OUT OF FEAR

I believe in God, And it is not out of fear. Why do you say that all belief is out of fear?

Then why do you believe? You don’t know. If you know, there is no need to believe. All belief is out of ignorance Belief MEANS ignorance. Buddha knows, he does not believe. I know, I don’t believe at all. But why do you believe? From where comes your belief? It is not coming from your experience – then from where is it coming? It can come only from two sources, which are basically the same source – either fear or greed. Either you are afraid or you are greedy. And these are the two aspects of the same coin, fear and greed.

Greed is out of fear, and out of greed more fear arises. They go together. So either you are afraid of hell or you are greedy for heaven. Otherwise why do you believe in God? How can you believe in God? Your very belief simply says that alone you are afraid; you need a protection. You need a father, you need somebody to control the destiny, you need somebody to look up to.

And all belief is based in fear, and your gods are nothing but your fears personified. Your gods don’t say anything about the God, they simply say something about your pathology, about your mind.

A very religious man, deep asleep, had a dream. In his dream, God appeared and said to him: ’I have news for you – bad news and good news. Which would you like to hear first?’

’The good news,’ said the man.

’Well, the good news is that when you die you will be going to Heaven.’

The man, very happy, said, ’And what is the bad news?’

Said God: ’The bad news is that you are expected there by tomorrow.’

Even about Heaven you are afraid. You are afraid to die.

One alpinist fell down from a steep rock, and when he was falling he took a hold of a branch and kept suspended.

’Help me, help me!’ he shouted. ’Is there anybody above me?’

Suddenly a strong and deep voice echoed over the abyss: ’I’m going to help you, my son. But first I need your faith and you have to trust me.’

The man answered, ’Sure, I’ll do everything you want, my Lord. I trust you, I believe you.’

’Then,’ replied the voice, ’let loose the branch.’

A deep silence followed and the man shouted again: ’Hey! Is there another one above me?’

Even if God comes to you and says: ’Let go! Die! Disappear!’ you will turn your back towards Him. You will start searching for another god.

All beliefs are rooted in fear. And a really religious person is born only when all fears and all beliefs are burned, and the scriptures and the idols destroyed. When you are free of belief you are ready for truth.

ADI-SHANKARAR

ADI-SHANKARACHARYA – [OH IDIOT! SING THE SONG OF THE DIVINE]

Because you are! To call you anything else will be a lie! When Shankara says: OH IDIOT! SING THE SONG OF THE DIVINE, he says this with great love, he says this because of his compassion. He is not cursing you, he is not calling you names, because Shankara just cannot curse or call names; it is impossible for him. He is shaking you, he is waking you up. He is saying "Get up! It is morning and you are still sleeping." He is calling you 'idiot' because until he uses some strong words your sleep is not going to be disturbed and you are not going to wake up. He is calling you 'idiot' because this is true, this is a fact.

Idiocy means unconsciousness. Idiocy means to live in sleep. Idiocy means to be without discretion. Idiocy means not being wakeful, not being conscious when you are angry. Then you become more idiotic because then you lose consciousness even more. But sometimes, when you are conscious, then you are not too idiotic. And you also know that sometimes you are less idiotic and sometimes you are more idiotic.

Idiocy is that energy which is asleep today but will wake up tomorrow. It is hidden today but it will be revealed tomorrow. This idiocy will become your wisdom. Your sleep will become your awakening. So do not be angry with it, do not condemn it, and do not try to hide your idiocy. Most of the people are doing this. They are trying to hide their idiocy -- so they are even bigger idiots! You collect information and you try to cover up your idiocy with this information. You cover up the inner wounds with flowers.

Knowledge borrowed from scriptures is like these flowers, the borrowed information from others is like these flowers with which you cover your idiocy to help you forget it. Idiocy is not to be forgotten. Idiocy is to be remembered because it can be destroyed only if it is remembered. That is why Shankara goes on repeating: SING THE SONG OF THE DIVINE, SING THE SONG OF THE DIVINE, OH IDIOT!

Seeing your unconsciousness, he goes on repeating it out of compassion so that you may not forget that you are an idiot. You try your best to forget it. You make all effort to forget that you are an idiot. You believe that you are a very knowledgeable person. Only a really knowledgeable person knows that he is not knowledgeable. All the ignorant people believe that they are knowledgeable. The ignorant person is not ready to accept that he does not know. Only the most knowledgeable person is ready to question his own knowledge.

Edison has said, "People say that I know a lot. But the reality is that a child on the seashore who has gathered a few seashells.... My knowledge is only that much -- a few seashells in my hands and there is this vast sea which I do not know."

Your little knowledge seems great to you. You have lit a small lamp; its dim light is able to light up a small place and you think it is great knowledge. But you are not aware of the unlimited darkness surrounding you. When you understand your idiocy then you will say, "Is this knowledge, this dim light? I have gathered a few seashells in my hand and I think that I have become knowledgeable. But the journey of knowledge is endless, the search is unlimited." Then you will give up that knowledge also.


The day you become aware of your idiocy, the day you are aware that you are an idiot, your idiocy will start dissolving, because that awareness will bring you out of it. Idiocy is unconsciousness; it will start dissolving with awareness. Psychologists say that a madman will become alright if he realizes that he is mad. A mad person never knows that he is mad, he thinks that the world is mad.

An insane person cannot understand that he is insane. If he had that much understanding he would not have gone insane. If he understands that he is insane, then insanity will disappear. If at night in your sleep you realize that you are dreaming, then the dreaming will stop. To dream it is necessary that you do not remember that you are dreaming. In the morning you will remember it when the dream is over. As long as you are dreaming it will seem real to you. But if right in the middle of the dream you remember that this is a dream, it will be over.

Gurdjieff used to tell his disciples that before breaking big dreams they should learn how to break small dreams. This big world is an illusion, a big dream; you cannot break it till you break the small dreams. How can you stop the day-dream when you cannot stop the night-dream? So Gurdjieff used to tell his disciples that while going to sleep at night they must go on reminding themselves that whenever they start dreaming, at once they must remember that this is a dream. It takes about three years to break the night dreaming. For three years continuously, every night while going to sleep, if you go on thinking, contemplating, meditating on this thought then that moment comes -- that fortunate moment -- when suddenly you remember that this is a dream. And this remembrance breaks the dream and consciousness even enters the sleep. From that moment dreaming stops. Then there is no more dreaming.

Shankara is reminding you again and again that you are an idiot -- so do not get annoyed. If you get annoyed then you are proving that Shankara is right in calling you an idiot. Perhaps you are a big idiot and Shankara is calling you just an idiot, he is hesitant. Do not insist on proving that you are not an idiot, otherwise this insistence will strengthen your idiocy. You must accept it. Your acceptance will dissolve your idiocy.

Not only should you accept it but you should also remind yourself every moment that you are an idiot -- you are unconscious, ignorant and insane. Then your consciousness will move into a new direction, your inner quality will change, your actions will change. If you could only remember that you are not sensible then that will be the beginning of your becoming sensible.

Realization of one's ignorance is the first step towards knowledge. The effort to kindle the fire, the light, starts only after understanding the darkness. If one does not know darkness as darkness and blindness as blindness, he will not try to heal his eyes. When you go to a doctor he does not give you the medicine at once. First of all he tries to diagnose the illness, then he gives the medicine. If the diagnosis is correct then it is easy to give the treatment. That is why all the great doctors take the fee for the diagnosis and not for the treatment, because after the diagnosis anyone can give the medicines. Once the illness is diagnosed, its treatment will be easy.

Shankara is telling you again and again: OH IDIOT! SING THE SONG OF THE DIVINE. He has diagnosed your sickness. Idiocy is your sickness and SINGING THE SONG OF THE DIVINE is the treatment. If you go on protecting your illness, if you go on claiming that your illness is your health, then of course you are incurable, nobody can treat you.

JESUS and MIRACLES

Jesus’ miracles happened because the people were very trusting. Once it happened: he was walking and a woman — a very poor woman, afraid and apprehensive about whether Jesus would treat her or not, because he was always crowded by so many people — the woman thought to herself, “Just touch Jesus’ garment from behind.”

She did, and she was cured. Jesus looked back and the woman started thanking him. She fell at his feet and was very grateful. He said, “Don’t be grateful to me, be grateful to God. Your faith has healed you, not I.”

Do you believe Jesus also cured me !

The world was deep in trust; people were rooted in faith. Then just the idea that “If Jesus touches my eyes, they will be cured” — the very idea becomes the root cause of the cure. It is not that Jesus cures; if you are skeptical then Jesus can’t help, then he will not be able to cure you.

I was reading a story. One day Jesus was running out of a town. A farmer working in his fields saw him running, so he inquired, “What is the matter? Where are you going?” But he was in such a hurry that he would not answer. So the farmer followed him, stopped him after a while, and said, “Please tell me, I have become too curious. If you don’t tell me, then why you were running will haunt me again and again. Where are you going? From whom are you escaping?”

Jesus said, “From a fool.” The farmer started laughing. He said, “What are you saying? I know well that you have cured blind people, you have cured people who were almost dying — I have heard that you have cured people who were dead already! Can’t you cure a fool? ”

Jesus said, “No. I tried, but I can’t because he is a fool and he won’t believe. I have cured all sorts of illnesses and I have never failed, but with this fool I have failed. He goes on following me and he says, ‘Cure me,’ but I have tried every way that I know and everything fails. That’s why I am escaping from the town.”

A fool cannot be cured… and a fool cannot be hypnotized. Ordinarily, amongst the common masses, the idea is prevalent that very intelligent people cannot be hypnotized. That is absolutely wrong.

Only fools cannot be hypnotized, idiots cannot be hypnotized, mad people cannot be hypnotized. The greater the intelligence, the more possibility there is of your going deep into hypnosis — because in hypnosis your trust is needed, the first requirement is your trust. The first requirement is your cooperation, and an idiot, a madman, cannot cooperate and cannot trust.

PHILOSOPHY and PYTHAGORAS

When Pythagoras coined the word PHILOSOPHY he did not mean what you mean by  PHILOSOPHY.

Pythagoras meant. ‘Sophy’ means SOPHIA; in Greek ‘SOPHIA’ means WISDOM; ‘PHILO’ means LOVE: He meant LOVE FOR THE ULTIMATE WISDOM.

Your PHILOSOPHY means mind, Your  philosophy means thinking, Your  philosophy means going away from yourself, Your Philosophy is the art of losing yourself in thoughts, becoming identified with dreams. Hence I am against Your  philosophy, because I am all for religion.

You cannot be philosophical if you want to be religious; that is not possible. Religion is existential, philosophy is intellectual. Philosophy is about and about, religion is direct. Philosophy is thinking about things you don’t know.

Religion is a knowing, not thinking. Philosophy depends on doubt, because the more you can doubt the more you can think. Doubt is the mother of thinking. Religion is trust, because the more you trust the more there is no need to think.

Trust kills thinking; in trust, thinking commits suicide. And when there is no thinking and trust pulsates in your being, in each pore of your being trust permeates you, overwhelms you, you know what is.

Philosophy TRIES to know, but never knows. Religion never tries to know, but knows. Philosophy is an exercise in futility, of futility. Yes, it talks about great things — freedom, love, God, meditation — but it only TALKS about.

The philosopher never meditates. He talks about meditation, he spins and weaves theories, hypotheses, inferences ABOUT meditation, but he never tastes anything about meditation. He never meditates.

Hegel, Kant — these are philosophers; Buddha, Kabir — these are NOT philosophers — Plato, Aristotle — these are philosophers; Heraclitus, Plotinus — these are not philosophers, although in the books of philosophy they are also called philosophers.

They are not! To use the word ‘philosopher’ for them is not right, unless you change the whole meaning of the word. Aristotle and Heraclitus cannot be called philosophers in the same sense. ]f Aristotle is a philosopher, then Heraclitus is not; if Heraclitus is a philosopher, then Aristotle is not.

Philosophy talks about water, religion drinks. Talking about food is utterly stupid; you will have to prepare food. You will have to eat, you will have to chew, you will have to digest. Unless food becomes blood and bones and marrow, just talking about it is not going to help. Hence I am against philosophy.

Philosophy is pseudo-religion. Religion is true philosophy, because religion leads you into the world of seeing, knowing, experiencing. Exactly in that sense, Pythagoras has coined the word ‘philosophy’. ‘Sophy’ means SOPHIA; ‘philo’ means love: love for the ultimate wisdom. That was the meaning given by the man who coined the word ‘philosophy’; he was Pythagoras. He had travelled all over the world. He had been to India, he had conferred with great mystics of the East, he had met seers, enlightened people. It was he who first coined the word.

The original meaning is beautiful, but it got lost. If you open the doors of love, then God is. No proof is needed, one simply feels. It is a feeling. It is a feeling in the guts. One simply knows, for no other reason.

RAMANUJAM - THIRD EYE

Ramanujam and his Third Eye

In the 1888 a person named Ramanujan was born in a poor Brahmin family in South India. He became a very famous mathematician. He could not study much, but still his genius in mathematics was unique. Many well educated mathematicians have earned a name because of their training and guidance from others for a number of years. But Ramanuja, was not even a matriculate and had no training or guidance from anyone.
 

With great difficulty he got a clerical job, but very soon news spread that he had an amazing talent in mathematics. Someone suggested that he write a letter to the famous mathematician, Professor Hardy, of Cambridge University – he was the most eminent mathematician of those days. He didn’t write a letter, but solved two theorems of geometry and sent them to Professor Hardy. Hardy was astonished to receive them and could not believe that someone so young could solve such theorems.

He immediately wrote back to Ramanujan and invited him to England. When Hardy met him for the first time, he felt that he was like a child before Ramanujan in the field of mathematics. The genius and capabilities of Ramanujan were such that they could not be due to mental powers, because the intellect moves very slowly, thinking takes time, but Ramanujan didn’t take any time in responding to Hardy’s questions. No sooner was the problem written down on the blackboard or put to him verbally than Ramanujan began to reply, without any time gap for thinking. It was very difficult for great mathematicians to understand how it happened. A problem which would take about six hours for an eminent mathematician to solve – and then too he was not sure about being right – Ramanujan solved instantaneously, unerringly.

It proved that Ramanujan was not replying through the medium of the mind. He was not very learned, he had actually failed in matriculation; there was no other sign of intellectual ability, but in connection with mathematics he was superhuman. Something happened that was beyond the human mind. He died when he was thirty-six because of tuberculosis.

When he was in hospital, Hardy, along with two or three other mathematician friends, went to see him. As it happened, he parked his car in such a place so that Ramanujan could see its number plate. When Hardy went into Ramanujan’s room, he told Hardy that his number plate was unique: it had four special aspects to it. After that, Ramanujan died. Hardy took six months to understand what Ramanujan meant, but he could only discover three of the four aspects. On his death he left a will that research work on that number should continue, to find out the fourth aspect. Because Ramanujan had said there was a fourth, there had to be. Twenty-two years after Hardy’s death, the fourth was discovered. Ramanujan was right.

Whenever he began to look into any mathematical problem something began to happen in the middle space between his two eyebrows. Both his eyeballs turned upwards, centering on that middle space. In Yoga, that space is described as the third eye spot. It is called the third eye because if that eye becomes activated it is possible to see events and scenes of some different world in their entirety.

It is like looking out of your house through a small hole in the door, and suddenly, when the door opens, you see the whole sky. There is a space between the two eyebrows where there is a small aperture which sometimes opens – as in the case of Ramanujan. His eyes rose to his third eye while solving a problem. Neither Hardy could understand this phenomenon nor would other Western mathematicians ever understand it in the future.

HUMBLENESS

Essentially love is humbleness — there is no other kind of humbleness. If humbleness is cultivated without love, it is just a face for the ego, just another trick of the ego. When humbleness comes naturally out of love, then it is tremendously beautiful. So fall in love with existence — and the beginning is to fall in love with yourself.

Once you are in love with yourself you start feeling in love with many many people, and by and by that space becomes bigger and bigger. One day you suddenly find that the whole existence is included in it, that love is now no more addressed to anybody in particular, that it is simply there for anybody to take — it is simply flowing. Even if nobody is there to take it, it is flowing….

Then love is not a relationship, it is a state of being. And in that state of being is humbleness, true humbleness. Jesus is humble in that way.

There is a very beautiful anecdote about a mystic who came to see Socrates…. The mystic used to say that he was the most humble man in the world. He used to wear a gown full of holes — dirty, rotten, very ancient. When he came to see Socrates, Socrates looked at him and said ‘But through the holes of your robe, only ego is looking at me, nothing else.’ And he was right!

So somebody can cultivate poverty and become very egoistic about it, somebody can cultivate humbleness and become egoistic about it. To me, real humbleness arises as a fragrance of love. It cannot be cultivated, you cannot practise it, there is no way to learn it. You have to go into love and one day suddenly you find that love has flowered — spring has come and love has bloomed and there is a certain fragrance which was never there before: you are humble!

It is not that you practise it — one day you are suddenly surprised that it is there. And the taste of that humbleness is that we are all one, so how can we be superior or inferior? Remember, a humble person does not think that he is inferior. A humble person knows no superiority, knows no inferiority; both have become irrelevant.

A humble person knows only this much, that this whole existence interpenetrates, is interdependent, we are all together. He is not separate, the other is not separate, so how can he be superior and the other inferior? How can he be inferior or the other superior? There is nobody superior and there is nobody inferior. You participate in the greatest saint and you participate in the greatest sinner. In that light of understanding, ego is not found.

Humbleness means that one searched and could not find the ego. So the humble person is neither ego-full nor egoless. A humble person simply says that he looked deep into himself and could not find any ego — so he cannot be either ego-full or egoless; he is simply he. This is what he is, this is how he is, and there is no claim. But this happens only out of love — so grow into love!

ONLY LOVE WILL FLOWER

Only a loving person will flower.

This is my observation: if you are unhappy you will find somebody who is unhappy. Unhappy people are attracted towards unhappy people. And it is good, it is natural. It is good that the unhappy people are not attracted towards happy people; otherwise they would destroy their happiness. It is perfectly okay.

Only happy people are attracted towards happy people.

The same attracts the same. Intelligent people are attracted towards intelligent people; stupid people are attracted towards stupid people.

You meet people of the same plane. So the first thing to remember is: a relationship is bound to be bitter if it has grown out of unhappiness. First be happy, be joyful, be celebrating, and then you will find some other soul celebrating and there will be a meeting of two dancing souls and a great dance will arise out of it.

First learn how to be alone. Meditation is a way of being alone.

If you can be happy when you are alone, you have learned the secret of being happy. Now you can be happy together. If you are happy, then you have something to share, to give. And when you give you get; it is not the other way. Then a need arises to love somebody.
Ordinarily the need is to be loved by somebody. It is a wrong need. It is a childish need; you are not mature. It is a child’s attitude.

“Is it possible for two people in a relationship to be bad for each other?” Yes, that’s what is happening all over the world. To be good is very difficult. You are not good even to yourself. How can you be good to somebody else?

You don’t even love yourself! How can you love somebody else? Love yourself, be good to yourself.

I teach you that the first and foremost thing is to be loving towards yourself. Don’t be hard; be soft. Care about yourself. Learn how to forgive yourself — again and again and again — seven times, seventy-seven times, seven hundred seventy-seven times. Learn how to forgive yourself. Don’t be hard; don’t be antagonistic towards yourself. Then you will flower.

In that flowering you will attract some other flower. It is natural. Stones attract stones; flowers attract flowers. Then there is a relationship which has grace, which has beauty, which has a benediction in it. If you can find such a relationship, your relationship will grow into prayer; your love will become an ecstasy and through love you will know what the divine is.

THE LAW OF MAGIC

I will tell you one of the deepest laws of life. You may not have thought about it at all. You have heard — the whole of science depends on it — that cause and effect is the base. You create the cause and the effect follows. Life is a causal link. You put the seed in the soil and it will sprout. If the cause is there, then the tree will follow. The fire is there: you put your hand in it and it will burn. The cause is there and the effect will follow. You take poison and you will die. You arrange for the cause and then the effect follows.

This is one of the most basic scientific laws, that cause and effect is the innermost link of all processes of life. Religion knows about a second law which is still deeper than this. But the second law which is deeper than this will look absurd if you don’t know it and don’t experiment with it. 

Religion says: Produce the effect and the cause follows. This is absolutely absurd in scientific terms. Science says: If the cause is there, the effect follows. Religion says the converse is also true: you create the effect, and see: the cause follows.

There is a situation in which you feel happy. A friend has come, a beloved has called. A situation is the cause — you feel happy. Happiness is the effect. The coming of the beloved is the cause. Religion says: Be happy and the beloved comes. Create the effect and the cause follows.

The second law is more basic than the first. Just be happy: the beloved comes. Just be happy: friends are there. Just be happy: everything follows.

Jesus says the same thing in different words: Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, then all else will follow. But the Kingdom of God is the end, the effect. Seek ye first the end — the end means the effect, the result — and the cause will follow. This is as it should be.

It is not only that you place a seed in the soil and the tree follows; let there be a tree and there are millions of seeds. If the cause is followed by the effect, the effect is again followed by the cause. This is the chain! Then it becomes a circle — start from anywhere, create the cause or create the effect.

It is easier to create the effect because the effect depends totally upon you; the cause may not be so dependent on you. If I say I can only be happy when a certain friend is there, then it depends on a certain friend, whether he is there or not. If I say I cannot be happy until I attain this much wealth, then it depends on the whole world and the economic situations and everything. It may not happen, and then I cannot be happy.

The cause is beyond me. The effect is within me. The cause is in the surroundings, in the situations — the cause is without. The effect is me! If I can create the effect, the cause will follow.

Choose happiness — that means you are choosing the effect — and then see what happens. Choose ecstasy and see what happens. Choose to be blissful and see what happens. Your whole life will change immediately and you will see miracles happening around you...because now you have created the effect and causes will have to follow.

This will look magical; you can even call it “The Law of Magic.” The first is the law of science and the second is the law of magic. Religion is magic, and you can be the magician. That’s what I teach you: to be the magician, to know the secret of magic.

Try it! You have been trying the other your whole life — not only this but many other lives also. Now listen to me! Try this magic formula, this mantra I give to you. Create the effect and see what happens; causes immediately surround you, they follow. Don’t wait for the causes; you have waited long enough. Choose happiness and you will be happy.

What is the problem? Why can’t you choose? Why can’t you work on this law? Because your mind, the whole mind, which has been trained by scientific thinking, says that if you are not happy and you try to be happy, that happiness will be artificial. If you are not happy and you try to be happy that will be just acting, that will not be real. This is what scientific thinking says, that that will not be real, you will be just acting.

But you don’t know: life energy has its own ways of working. If you can act totally it will become the real. The only thing is, the actor must not be there. Move totally in it, then there is no difference. If you are acting half-heartedly then it will remain artificial.

Create the effect, become the emperor, be a magician... and from this very moment, because there is no need to wait. One has to wait if the kingdom has to come first. If the cause has to be created first, then one has to wait and wait and wait and postpone. There is no need to wait to create the effect. You can be the emperor this very moment.

But it depends on you, if you can create the effect. And I say to you, you can create it. It is the easiest thing possible. It looks very difficult because you have not tried it yet. Give it a try!

S E L F – LOVE

If you don’t love yourself you will never be able to love anybody else. If you are not kind to yourself you cannot be kind to anybody else. Your so-called saints who are so very hard on themselves are just pretending that they are kind to others. It is not possible. Psychologically it is impossible. If you cannot be kind to yourself, how can you be kind to others?

Whatsoever you are with yourself you are with others. Let that be a basic dictum. If you hate yourself you will hate others — and you have been taught to hate yourself. Nobody has ever said to you, “Love yourself!” The very idea seems absurd: loving oneself? The very idea makes no sense — loving oneself? We always think that to love one needs somebody else. But if you don’t learn it with yourself you will not be able to practise it with others.

You have been told, constantly conditioned, that you are not of any worth. From every direction you have been shown, you have been told, that you are unworthy, that you are not what you should be, that you are not accepted as you are. There are many shoulds hanging over your head, and those shoulds are almost impossible to fulfill. And when you cannot fulfill them, when you fall short, you feel condemned. A deep hatred arises in you about yourself.

How can you love others? So full of hatred, where are you going to find love? So you only pretend, you only show that you are in love. Deep down you are not in love with anybody; you cannot be. Those pretensions are good for a few days, then the color disappears, then reality asserts itself

The first step is: accept yourself as you are; drop all shoulds. Don’t carry any ought on your heart! You are not to be somebody else; you are not expected to do something which doesn’t belong to you. You are just to be yourself. Relax and just be yourself. Be respectful to your individuality and have the courage to sign your own signature. Don’t go on copying others signatures.

You are not expected to become a Jesus or a Buddha or a Ramakrishna; you are simply expected to become yourself. It was good that Ramakrishna never tried to become somebody else, so he became Ramakrishna. It was good that Jesus never tried to become like Abraham or Moses, so he became Jesus. It is good that Buddha never tried to become a Patanjali or Krishna; that’s why he became a Buddha.

When you are not trying to become anybody else, then you simply relax; then a grace arises. Then you are full of grandeur, splendor, harmony...because then there is no conflict! nowhere to go, nothing to fight for; nothing to force, enforce upon yourself violently. You become innocent.

In that innocence you will feel compassion and love for yourself. You will feel so happy with yourself that even if the divine comes and knocks at your door and says, “Would you like to become somebody else?” you will say, “Have you gone mad?! I am perfect! Thank you, but never try anything like that — I am perfect as I am.”

The moment you can say to existence, “I am perfect as I am, I am happy as I am, “this is what in the East we call shraddha — trust; then you have accepted yourself and in accepting yourself you have accepted your creator. Denying yourself you deny your creator.

There are only two ways. One is: rejecting, you can remain the same; condemning. you can remain the same;  

Or: accepting, surrendering, enjoying, delighting, you can be the same. Your attitude can be different, but you are going to remain the way you are, the person you are. Once you accept, compassion arises. And then you start accepting others!

TRANCEDENCE - RAMANA

Ramana Maharshi on Deep Sleep, Trance and Samadhi State

Question : What is the difference between deep sleep, laya [a trancelike state in which the mind is temporarily in abeyance] and samadhi?

Ramana Maharshi : In deep sleep the mind is merged and not destroyed. That which merges reappears. It may happen in meditation also. But the mind which is destroyed cannot reappear. The yogi's aim must be to destroy it and not to sink into laya. In the peace of meditation, laya sometimes ensues but it is not enough. It must be supplemented by other practices for destroying the mind. 

Some people have gone into yogic samadhi with a trifling thought and after a long time awakened in the trail of the same thought. In the meantime generations have passed in the world. Such a yogi has not destroyed his mind. The true destruction of the mind is the non-recognition of it as being apart from the Self. Even now the mind is not. Recognise it. How can you do it if not in everyday activities which go on automatically? Know that the mind promoting them is not real but is only a phantom proceeding from the Self. That is how the mind is destroyed.

Question : Can the meditator be affected by physical disturbances during nirvikalpa samadhi? My friend and I disagree on this point.

Ramana Maharshi : Both of you are right. One of you is referring to kevala and the other to sahaja samadhi. In both cases the mind is immersed in the bliss of the Self. In the former, physical movements may cause disturbance to the meditator, because the mind has not completely died out. It is still alive and can, as after deep sleep, at any moment be active again. 

It is compared to a bucket, which, although completely submerged under water, can be pulled out by a rope which is still attached to it. In sahaja, the mind has sunk completely into the Self, like the bucket which has got drowned in the depths of the well along with its rope. In sahaja there is nothing left to be disturbed or pulled back to the world. One's activities then resemble that of the child who sucks its mother's milk in sleep, and is hardly aware of the feeding.

Question : How can one function in the world in such a state?

Ramana Maharshi : One who accustoms himself naturally to meditation and enjoys the bliss of meditation will not lose his samadhi state whatever external work he does, whatever thoughts may come to him. That is sahaja nirvikalpa. Sahaja nirvikalpa is nasa [total destruction of the mind] whereas kevala nirvikalpa is laya [temporary abeyance of the mind]. 

Those who are in the laya samadhi state will have to bring the mind back under control from time to time. If the mind is destroyed, as it is in sahaja samadhi, it will never sprout again. Whatever is done by such people is just incidental, they will never slide down from their high state. 

Those that are in the kevala nirvikalpa state are not realized, they are still seekers. Those who are in the sahaja nirvikalpa state are like a light in a windless place, or the ocean without waves; that is, there is no movement in them. They cannot find anything which is different from themselves. For those who do not reach that state, everything appears to be different from themselves.

Question : Is the experience of kevala nirvikalpa the same as that of sahaja, although one comes down from it to the relative world?

Ramana Maharshi : There is neither coming down nor going up - he who goes up and down is not real. In kevala nirvikalpa there is the mental bucket still in existence under the water, and it can be pulled out at any moment. Sahaja is like the river that has linked up with the ocean from which there is no return. Why do you ask all these questions? Go on practising till you have the experience yourself.

Question : What is the use of samadhi and does thought subsist then?

Ramana Maharshi : Samadhi alone can reveal the truth. Thoughts cast a veil over reality, and so it is not realized as such in states other than samadhi. In samadhi there is only the feeling `I am' and no thoughts. The experience of `I am' is `being still'.

Question : How can I repeat the experience of samadhi or the stillness that I obtain here in your presence?

Ramana Maharshi : Your present experience is due to the influence of the
atmosphere in which you find yourself. Can you have it outside this atmosphere? The experience is spasmodic. Until it becomes permanent, practice is necessary.

DESIRE - RAMANA

Ramana Maharshi on Desire

Question : What is the best way of dealing with desires with a view to getting rid of them - satisfying them or suppressing them?

Ramana Maharshi : If a desire can be got rid of by satisfying it, there will be no harm in satisfying such a desire. But desires generally are not eradicated by satisfaction. Trying to root them out that way is like trying to quench a fire by pouring inflammable spirits on it. At the same time, the proper remedy is not forcible suppression, since such repression is bound to react sooner or later into a forceful surging up of desires with undesirable consequences.

The proper way to get rid of a desire is to find out `Who gets the desire? What is its source?' When this is found, the desire is rooted out and it will never again emerge or grow. Small desires such as the desire to eat, drink, sleep and attend to calls of nature, though these may also be classed among desires, you can safely satisfy.

They will not implant in your mind, necessitating further birth. Those activities are just necessary to carry on life and are not likely to develop or leave behind tendencies. As a general rule, therefore, there is no harm in satisfying a desire where the satisfaction will not lead to further desires in the mind.

Ramana Maharsi on Restraining Desires

Question - “One must become satiate with the fulfilment of desires before they are renounced.”
 
Sri Bhagavan smiled and cut in: “Fire might as well be put out by pouring spirit over the flames. (All laugh). The more the desires are fulfilled, the deeper grows the samskara. They must become weaker before they cease to assert themselves. That weakness is brought about by restraining oneself and not by losing oneself in desires.

Question : How can they be rendered weaker?

Sri Ramana Maharshi : By knowledge. You know that you are not the mind. The desires are in the mind. Such knowledge helps one to control them.

Question : But they are not controlled in our practical lives.

Sri Ramana Maharshi : Every time you attempt satisfaction of a desire the knowledge comes that it is better to desist. Repeated reminders of this kind will in due course weaken the desires. What is your true nature? How can you ever forget it? Waking, dream and sleep are mere
phases of the mind. They are not of the Self. You are the witness of these states. Your true nature is found in sleep.

Question : But we are advised not to fall into sleep during meditation.

Sri Ramana Maharshi : That is stupor you must guard against. That sleep which alternates with waking is not true sleep. That waking which alternates with sleep is not true waking. Are you now awake? You are not. You are required to wake up to your real state. You should not fall into false sleep nor keep falsely awake. Hence: Laye sambodhayeccittam vikshiptam samayet punah. What does it mean? It means that you should not fall into any one of these states but remain amidst them in your true unsullied nature.

Question : The states are of our mind only.

Sri Ramana Maharshi : Whose mind? Hold it and see.

Question : The mind cannot be held. It is that which creates all these. It is known only by its effects and not in its true nature.

Sri Ramana Maharshi : Quite so. You see the colours of the spectrum. Together they form the white light. But seven colours are seen through the prism. Similarly, the one Self resolves itself into so many phases, mind, world, body, etc. The Self is seen as the mind, the body or the
world. That is to say, it becomes whatever you perceive it to be.

Question : These are difficult to follow in practice. I will hold on to God and surrender.

Sri Ramana Maharshi : That is the best.

Question : How can I do my duties without attachment? There is my wife, there are my children. I must do my duty towards them. Affection is necessary. Am I right?

Sri Ramana Maharshi : How do you do your work in the College?

Question : (laughing) For wages.

Sri Ramana Maharshi : Not because you are attached, simply as doing your duty.

Question : But my pupils expect me to love them.

Sri Ramana Maharshi : “Detachment in the interior and attachment in appearance,” says
Yoga Vasishta.

LOVING ONESELF - SOCRATES

Difficulty in Loving Oneself - Learning to love oneself  - Socrates

Every child is born with tremendous love for himself. It is the society that destroys that love, it is the religion that destroys that love -- because if a child goes on growing in loving himself, who is going to love Jesus Christ? Who is going to love the parents? The child's love for himself has to be distracted. He has to be conditioned so that his love is always towards an object outside himself.

It makes man very poor, because when you love somebody outside of yourself, whether it is God, the father, the wife, the husband, the children -- whoever is the object of your love -- it makes you dependent on the object. You become secondary in your own eyes, you become a beggar. You were born an emperor, utterly contented within yourself. But the father wants you to love him, the mother wants you to love her. Everybody around you wants to become an object for your love.

Nobody bothers that a man who cannot love himself cannot love anybody else either. So a very mad society is created where everybody is trying to love somebody -- and they have nothing to give. Nor has the other person anything to give. Why are lovers continuously fighting, nagging, harassing each other? The simple reason is they are not getting what they were thinking to get. Both are beggars, both are empty.

A rightly brought up child will be allowed to grow in love towards himself so that he becomes so full of love that sharing becomes a necessity. He is so burdened with love that he wants somebody to share it. And then love never makes you dependent on anybody. You are the giver; the giver is never a beggar. And the other is also a giver. And when two emperors, masters of their own hearts, meet, there is tremendous joy. Nobody is dependent on anybody else; everybody is independent and individual, well-centered in himself, well-grounded in himself.

But learning to love oneself is not difficult, it is natural. If you have been able to do something which is unnatural, if you have learned how to love others without loving yourself, then the other thing is very simple. You have done the almost impossible. It is only a question of understanding, a simple understanding, that "I am to love myself; otherwise I will miss the meaning of life. I will never grow up, I will simply grow old. I will not have any individuality. I will not be truly human, dignified, integrated."

And moreover, if you cannot love yourself, you cannot love anybody else in the world. So many psychological problems have arisen because you have been distracted from yourself. You are unworthy, you are not what you should be; your actions have to be corrected. You have to be molded into a certain personality.

Respect yourself. Feel the joy and the pride that existence needs you; Can you see the beauty of an individual who is capable of standing on his own feet? And whatever happens -- joy or sorrow, life or death -- the man who has loved himself is so integrated that he will be able not only to enjoy life, he will be able to enjoy death too. Socrates was punished by his society. People like Socrates are bound to be punished, because they are individuals and they don't allow anybody to dominate them. He was given poison. He was lying in the bed and the man who was going to give him poison was preparing it.

The sun was setting -- that was the right time. The court had given the exact time, but the man was delaying in preparing the poison. Socrates asked the man, "Time is passing, the sun is setting -- what is the delay?"  The man could not believe that somebody who is going to die is so particular about the right time for his own death. In fact, he should be thankful for the delay. The man loved Socrates. He had heard him in the court and seen the beauty of the person: he alone had more intelligence than the whole of Athens.

He wanted to delay a little more so Socrates could live a little more. But Socrates would not allow him. He said, "Don't be lazy. Just bring the poison." The man giving poison to Socrates asked him, "Why are you so excited? I see such radiance on your face, I see such enquiry in your eyes. Don't you understand? -- you are going to Die."

Socrates said, "That's what I want to know. Life, I have known. It was beautiful; with all its anxieties, anguishes, still it was a joy. Just to breathe is joy enough. I have lived, I have loved; I have done whatever I wanted to do, I have said whatever I wanted to say. Now I want to taste death -- and the sooner the better.

"There are only two possibilities: either my soul will go on living in other forms as the Eastern mystics say -- that is a great excitement, to go on that journey of the soul free from the burden of the body. The body is a cage, it has limitations. Or perhaps the materialists are right, that when your body dies everything dies. Nobody remains afterwards. That too, is a great excitement -- not to be!

"I know what it means to be, and the moment has come to know what it means not to be. And when I am no more, what is the problem? Why should I be worried about it? I will not be there to worry, so why waste time now?"

This is the man who loves himself. Even the responsibility of death he has chosen -- because the court had nothing against him; it was just public prejudice, the prejudice of the mediocre people who could not understand the great flights of intelligence of Socrates. But they were in the majority, and they all decided on death for Socrates.

They could not answer a single argument proposed by him. I think they could not even understand what he was saying -- answering was out of the question. And he destroyed all their arguments; still, it was a city democracy -- the people decided that this man is dangerous, he should be given poison. What was his fault? His fault was that "He makes our youth rebellious, he makes our youth skeptical, he makes our youth strange. He creates a gap between the older generation and the younger generation.

They don't listen to us anymore, they argue about everything -- and it is because of this man." But the judges were a little better than the common people. They said to Socrates, "We give you a few alternatives. If you leave Athens and promise never to come back again, you can save yourself from death. Or, if you want to remain in Athens, then stop speaking, go into silence. Then too we can persuade the people to let you live. Otherwise, the third alternative is: tomorrow as the sun sets you will have to drink poison."

What did Socrates do? He said, "I am ready to take the poison tomorrow or today, whenever the poison is ready, but I cannot stop saying the truth. If I am alive I will go on saying it till my last breath. And I cannot leave Athens just to save myself, because then I will feel always a weakling who became afraid of death, who escaped death, who could not take the responsibility of death also. I have lived according to my own thinking, feeling, being; I want to die that way also.

"And don't feel guilty. Nobody is responsible for my death, I am responsible. I knew that it was going to happen, because to talk about truth in a society which lives on lies, deceptions, illusions, is to ask for death. Don't blame these poor people who have decided for my death. If anybody is responsible, I am. And I want you all to know that I lived on my responsibility, and I am dying on my responsibility. "Living, I was an individual. Dying, I am an individual. Nobody decides for me; I am decisive about myself."

This is dignity. This is integrity. This is what a human being should be. Be yourself, just yourself, simply yourself. And remember, you are taking a great risk when you declare that you are simply yourself. You don't belong to any crowd, any herd. The crowd may not forgive you at all. But it is so beautiful to take the risk, to move on the razor's edge where every step is dangerous. The more dangerously you live, the more you live.

WHO AM I? THE QUEST

Only the quest `Who am I?' is necessary

Question : There are said to be six organs of different colours in the chest, of which the Heart is said to be two finger-breadths to the right of the middle line.But the Heart is also formless. Should we then imagine it to have a shape and meditate on it?

Ramana Maharshi: No. Only the quest `Who am I?' is necessary. What remains all through deep sleep and waking is the same. But in waking there is unhappiness and the effort to remove it. Asked who wakes up from sleep you say `I'. Now you are told to hold fast to this `I'.

If it is done the eternal being will reveal itself. Investigation of `I' is the point and not meditation on the Heart-centre. There is nothing like within or without. Both mean either the same thing or nothing.

Of course there is also the practice of meditation on the Heart centre. It is only a practice and not investigation. Only the one who meditates on the Heart can remain aware when the mind ceases to be active and remains still, whereas those who meditate on other centres cannot be so aware but infer that the mind was still only after it becomes again active.

In whatever place in the the body one thinks Self to be residing, due to the power of that thinking it will appear to the one who thinks thus as if Self is residing in that place. However, the beloved Heart alone is the refuge for the rising and subsiding of that `I'.

Know that though it is said that the Heart exists both inside and outside, in absolute truth it does not exist both inside and outside, because the body, which appears as the base of the differences `inside' and `outside', is an imagination of the thinking mind. Heart, the source, is the beginning, the middle and the end of all. Heart, the supreme space, is never a form. It is the light of truth.

AHAM BRAHMASMI?

Question : Shall I meditate on `I am Brahman' (aham Brahmasmi)?


Ramana Maharshi: The text is not meant for thinking `I am Brahman'. Aham [`I'] is known to every one. Brahman abides as aham in every one. Find out the `I'. The `I' is already Brahman. You need not think so. Simply find out the `I'.

Question : Is not discarding of the sheaths (neti-neti) mentioned in the sastras?


Ramana Maharshi: After the rise of the `I'-thought there is the false identification of the `I' with the body, the senses, the mind, etc. `I' is wrongly associated with them and the true `I' is lost sight of. In order to sift the pure `I' from the contaminated `I', this discarding is mentioned.

But it does not mean exactly discarding of the non - Self, it means the finding of the real Self. The real Self is the infinite `I'. That `I' is perfection. It is eternal. It has no origin and no end. The other `I' is born and also dies. It is impermanent. See to whom the changing thoughts belong. They will be found to arise after the `I'-thought. Hold the `I'-thought and they subside. Trace back the source of the `I'-thought. The Self alone will remain.

Question : It is difficult to follow. I understand the theory. But what is the practice?


Ramana Maharshi: The other methods are meant for those who cannot take to the investigation of the Self. Even to repeat aham Brahmasmi or think of it, a doer is necessary. Who is it? It is `I'. Be that `I'. It is the direct method. The other methods also will ultimately lead everyone to this method of the investigation of the Self.

Question : I am aware of the `I'. Yet my troubles are not ended.


Ramana Maharshi : This `I'-thought is not pure. It is contaminated with the association of the body and senses. See to whom the trouble is. It is to the `I'-thought. Hold it. Then the other thoughts vanish.

Question : Yes. How to do it? That is the whole trouble.


Ramana Maharshi : Think `I, I', and hold to that one thought to the exclusion of all others.

Question : Is not affirmation of God more effective than the quest, `Who am I?' Affirmation is positive, whereas the other is negation. Moreover, it indicates separateness.


Ramana Maharshi : So long as you seek to know how to realize, this advice is given to find your Self. Your seeking the method denotes your separateness.

Question : Is it not better to say `I am the supreme being' than ask `Who am I?'


Ramana Maharshi : Who affirms? There must be one to do it. Find that one.

Question : Is not meditation better than investigation?


Ramana Maharshi : Meditation implies mental imagery, whereas investigation is for the reality. The former is objective, whereas the latter is subjective.

Question : There must be a scientific approach to this subject.


Ramana Maharshi : To eschew unreality and seek the reality is scientific.

Question : I mean there must be a gradual elimination, first of the mind, then of the intellect, then of the ego.


Ramana Maharshi : The Self alone is real. All others are unreal. The mind and intellect do not remain apart from you. The Bible says, `Be still and know that I am God.' Stillness is the sole requisite for the realization of the Self as God.

Question : Is soham (the affirmation `I am he') the same as `Who am I?'


Ramana Maharshi : Aham [`I'] alone is common to them. One is soham. The other is koham [Who am I?]. They are different. Why should we go on saying soham? One must find out the real `I'. In the question `Who am I?', `I' refers to the ego. Trying to trace it and find its source, we see it has no separate existence but merges in the real `I'.

You see the difficulty. Vichara is different in method from the meditation sivoham or soham [`I am Siva' or `I am he']. I rather lay stress upon Self-knowledge, for you are first concerned with yourself before you proceed to know the world and its Lord. The soham meditation or `I am Brahman' meditation is more or less a mental thought.
But the quest for the Self I speak of is a direct method, indeed superior to the other meditation. The moment you start looking for the self and go deeper and deeper, the real Self is waiting there to take you in. Then whatever is done is done by something else and you have no hand in it. In this process, all doubts and discussions are automatically given up just as one who sleeps forgets, for the time being, all his cares.