Few Deepak Chopra Quotes

The world is sensations in the body, the body is sensations in the mind, the mind is thoughts in consciousness.

Mind, body & universe are projections of consciousness, personal, collective & universal. They are qualia.

When you see the world in yourself, there are no more outward obstacles to happiness. The inner and outer worlds are mirrors of each other

When consciousness splits into subject & object, it measures its distance from itself as space & time.

We are all a single consciousness with unique ways of experiencing the world. Wholeness is a state of profound peace and happiness

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Important Points From The BOOK of SECRETS Unlocking the Hidden Dimensions of Your Life

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Point 1:

The body’s wisdom is a good entry point into the hidden dimensions of life, because although completely invisible, the body’s wisdom is undeniably real—a fact that medical researchers began to accept in the mid-1980s. The former view was that the brain’s capacity for intelligence was unique. But then signs of intelligence began to be discovered in the immune system, and then in the digestive system. In both these
systems, special messenger molecules could be observed circulating through every organ, bringing information to and from the brain, but also functioning on their own. A white cell that can distinguish between invading enemy bacteria and harmless pollen is making an intelligent decision, even though it floats in the bloodstream apart from the brain.
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Point 2:

Ten years ago, it would have seemed absurd to speak of intestines being intelligent. The lining of the digestive tract was known to possess thousands of nerve endings, but these were just remote outposts of the nervous system—a way for it to keep in touch with the lowly business of extracting nutrition from food. Now it turns out that the intestines are not so lowly after all. Their scattered nerve cells form a finely tuned system for reacting to outside events—an upsetting remark at work, the threat of danger, a death in the family. The stomach’s reactions are just as reliable as the brain’s thoughts, and just as intricate. Your colon, your liver, and your stomach cells alsothink, only not in the brain’s verbal language. What people
had been calling a “gut reaction” turned out to be a mere hint of the complex intelligence at work in a hundred thousand billion cells.
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Point 3:

Although every cell has a set of unique functions (liver cells, for example, can perform fifty separate tasks), these combine in creative ways. A person can digest food never eaten before, think thoughts never thought before, dance in a way never seen before. Clinging to old behavior is not an option.
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Point 4:

Why we need to sleep remains a medical mystery, yet complete dysfunction
develops if we don’t enjoy its benefits. In the silence of inactivity, the future of the body is incubating.
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Point 5:

The fifty functions that a liver cell performs are totally unique, not overlapping with the tasks of muscle,kidney, heart, or brain cells—yet it would be catastrophic if even one function were compromised.
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Point 6:

Any neurologist will assure you that the brain offers no proof that the outside world really exists and many hints that it doesn’t.

All the brain does, in fact, is to receive continuous signals about the body’s state of chemical balance,temperature, and oxygen consumption, along with a crackling stream of nerve impulses. This mass of raw data starts out as chemical bursts with attached electrical charges. These blips run up and down a tangled web of spidery nerve cells, and once a signal reaches the brain, like a runner from the edge of the Empire bringing a message to Rome, the cortex assembles the raw data into even more complex arrangements of electrical and chemical blips.

The cortex doesn’t inform us about this never-ending data processing, which is all that is happening inside gray matter. Instead, the cortex tells us about the world—it allows us to perceive sights, sounds,tastes, smells, and textures—the whole array of creation. The brain has pulled an enormous trick on us, a remarkable sleight of hand, because there is no direct connection between the body’s raw data and our
subjective sense of an outside world.

For all anyone knows, the entire outside world could be a dream. When I’m in bed having a dream, I see a world of events just as vivid as the waking world (for most of us, the other four senses are scattered unevenly throughout our dreams, but some dreamers can touch, taste, hear, and smell as accurately as they can while awake). But when I open my eyes in the morning, I know that these vivid events were all produced inside my head. I’d never make the mistake of falling for this trick because I already assume that dreams aren’t real.

So does my brain dedicate one apparatus to making the dream world and another to the waking world? No, it doesn’t. In terms of cerebral function, the dream mechanism doesn’t flick off when I wake up. The same visual cortex in the rear of my skull allows me to see an object—a tree, a face, the sky—whether I am seeing it in memory, in a dream, in a photo, or standing before me. The locations of brain cell activity
shift slightly from one to the other, which is why I can distinguish among a dream, a photo, and the real thing, yet the same fundamental process is constantly taking place. I am manufacturing a tree, a face, or the sky from what is actually a random tangle of spidery nerves shooting bursts of chemicals and electrical charges in my brain and all around my body. No matter how hard I try, I will never find a single
pattern of chemicals and charges in the shape of a tree, a face, or any other shape. There is just a fire-storm of electrochemical activity.

This embarrassing problem—that there is no way to prove the existence of an outside
world—undermines the entire basis of materialism. Thus we arrive at the second spiritual secret:You are not in the world; the world is in you.

The only reason that rocks are solid is that the brain registers a flurry of electrical signals as touch; the only reason the sun shines is that the brain registers another flurry of electrical signals as sight. There is no sunlight in my brain, whose interior remains as dark as a limestone cavern no matter how bright it is outside.

Having said that the whole world is created in me, I immediately realize that you could say the same thing. Are you in my dream or am I in yours—or are we all trapped in some bizarre combination of each other’s personal version of events? To me, this isn’t a problem but the very heart of spirituality. Everyone is a creator. The mystery of how all these individual viewpoints somehow mesh, so that your world and
mine can harmonize, is the very thing that makes people seek spiritual answers. For there is no doubt that reality is full of conflict but also full of harmony. It is very liberating to realize that as creators we generate every aspect, good or bad, of our experience. In this way, each of us is the center of creation.
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Point 7:

Few Unexplained Facts

Desert birds living by the Grand Canyon bury thousands of pine nuts in widely scattered locations along the canyon rim. They retrieve this stored food during the winter, returning precisely to the nuts each one buried and finding them under a deep layer of snow.

Salmon born in a small stream that feeds the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest swim out to sea. After several years spent roaming vast distances of ocean, they return to spawn at the precise place where they were born, never winding up in the wrong stream.

Little children from several countries were read to in Japanese; afterward they were asked to pick whether they had just heard some nonsense words or a lovely Japanese poem. The children from Japan all got the answer right, but so did significantly more than half the children from other countries who had never listened to a word of Japanese in their lives.

Identical twins hundreds or thousands of miles apart have immediately sensed the moment when their sibling died in an accident.

Fireflies in Indonesia numbering in the millions are able to synchronize their flashes over an area of several square miles.

In Africa, certain trees that are being overforaged can signal other trees miles away to increase the tannin in their leaves, a chemical that makes them inedible to foraging animals. The distant trees receive the message and alter their chemistry accordingly.

Twins separated at birth have met for the first time years later, only to find that they’ve each married a woman with the same first name in the same year and now have the same number of children.

Mother albatrosses returning to a nesting site with food in their beaks immediately locate their chicks among hundreds of thousands of identical offspring on a crowded beach.

Once a year at the full moon several million horseshoe crabs emerge together on one beach to mate. They have answered the same call, from depths of the ocean where no light ever penetrates.

When air molecules cause your eardrum to quiver no differently from a cymbal being hit with a stick, you hear a voice that you recognize speaking words you understand.

On their own, sodium and chlorine are deadly poisons. When they combine as salt, they form the most basic chemical in support of life.

To read this sentence, several million neurons in your cerebral cortex had to form an
instantaneous pattern that is completely original and never appeared before in your life.

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Point 8:

Deepak Chopra Explains that there is concept of one reality

Example 1 : caterpillar turning into butterfly

what goes on invisibly inside the chrysalis remains deeply mysterious. The caterpillar’s organs and tissues dissolve into an amorphous, souplike state, only to reconstitute into the structure of a butterfly’s body that bears no resemblance to a caterpillar at all.

Science has no idea why metamorphosis evolved. It is almost impossible to imagine that insects hit on it by chance-the chemical complexity of turning into a butterfly is incredible; thousands of steps are all minutely interconnected. (It’s as if you dropped off a bicycle at the shop to be repaired, and when you came back the parts had become a Gulfstream jet.)

But we do have some idea about how this delicate chain of events is linked. Two hormones, one called juvenile hormone, the otherecdysone, regulate the process, which looks to the naked eye like a caterpillar dissolving into soup. These two hormones make sure that the cells moving from larva to butterfly know where they are going and how they are to change. Some cells are told to die; others digest themselves, while still others turn into eyes, antennae, and wings. This implies a fragile (and miraculous) rhythm that must remain in precise balance between creation and destruction. That rhythm, it turns out,depends on day length, which in turn depends on the earth’s rotation around the sun. Therefore, a cosmic rhythm has been intimately connected to the birth of butterflies for millions of years.

Science concentrates on the molecules, but this is a striking example of intelligence at work, using molecules as a vehicle for its own intent. The intent in this case was to create a new creature without wasting old ingredients. (And if there is only one reality, we can’t say, as science does, that day length causes the pupa’s hormones to begin the metamorphosis into a butterfly. Day length and hormones come from the same creative source, weaving one reality. That source uses cosmic rhythms or molecules as it sees fit. Day length doesn’t cause hormones to change any more than hormones cause the day to change—both are tied to a hidden intelligence that creates both at once. In a dream or a painting, a boy may hit a baseball, but his bat doesn’t cause the ball to fly through the air. The whole dream or painting fits together seamlessly.)

Example 2: How insects learned to fly

Two chemicals called actin andmyosin evolved eons ago to allow the muscles
in insect wings to contract and relax. Thus, insects learned to fly. When one of these paired molecules is absent, wings will grow but they cannot flap and are therefore useless. Today, the same two proteins are responsible for the beating of the human heart, and when one is absent, the person’s heartbeat is inefficient and weak, ultimately leading to heart failure.

Again, science marvels at the way molecules adapt over millions of years, but isn’t there a deeper intent? In our hearts, we feel the impulse to fly, to break free of boundaries. Isn’t that the same impulse nature expressed when insects began to take flight? The prolactin that generates milk in a mother’s breast is unchanged from the prolactin that sends salmon upstream to breed, enabling them to cross from saltwater
to fresh. The insulin in a cow is exactly the same as the insulin in an amoeba; both serve to metabolize carbohydrates, even though a cow is millions of times more complex than an amoeba.

To believe in one reality that is totally interconnected isn’t mystical at all, it turns out.
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Point 9:

One of the most spiritual figures in the twentieth century was asked how England should handle the threat of Nazism.

He replied:

I want you to fight Nazism without arms. I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions. Let them take possession of your beautiful island, with your many beautiful buildings. You will give all these but neither your souls, nor your minds.

The author of this passage was Mahatma Gandhi, and needless to say his “open letter” to the British was greeted with shock and outrage. Yet Gandhi was being true to the principle ofAhimsa, or nonviolence.He successfully used passive nonviolence to persuade the British to grant freedom to India, so by refusing to go to war against Hitler—a stand he took throughout World War II—Gandhi was consistent in his
spiritual beliefs. Would Ahimsa really have worked to persuade Hitler, a man who declared that “war is the father of all things”? We will never know. Certainly passivity itself has a dark aspect. The Catholic Church marks as one of its darkest eras the years when it permitted millions of Jews to be killed under
Nazism, to the extent that Italian Jews were rounded up within sight of the Vatican windows.

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Point 10:

In 1971, students at Stanford University were asked to volunteer for an unusual experiment in role playing. One group of students was to pretend that they were prison guards in charge of another group who pretended to be prisoners. Although it was understood that this was make-believe, a jail setting was provided, and the two groups lived together for the duration of the experiment. According to plan,
everyone would play their roles for two weeks, but after only six days the prison experiment had to be terminated. The reason? The boys chosen for their mental health and moral values turned into sadistic,out-of-control guards on the one hand and depressed victims of exorbitant stress on the other.The professors conducting the experiment were shocked but couldn’t deny what had occurred.

The lead researcher, Philip Zimbardo, wrote: “My guards repeatedly stripped their prisoners naked, hooded them,chained them, denied them food or bedding privileges, put them into solitary confinement, and made them clean toilet bowls with their bare hands.” Those who didn’t descend to such atrocious behavior did nothing to stop the ones who did. (The parallel with infamous acts by American prison guards in Iraq in
2004 prompted Zimbardo to bring the Stanford experiment back to light after more than thirty years.) There was no extreme to which the student guards would not resort short of outright physical torture.Zimbardo mournfully recalls, “As the boredom of their job increased, they began using the prisoners as their playthings, devising ever more humiliating and degrading games for them to play. Over time, these
amusements took a sexual turn, such as having the prisoners simulate sodomy on each other. Once aware of such deviant behavior, I closed down the Stanford prison.”
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Deepak Chopra says Science is God explaining God through a human nervous system

Point 11:

When people argue that there is no scientific proof that the universe is conscious, my immediate response is, “I am conscious, and am I not an activity of the universe?” The brain, which operates on electromagnetic impulses, is as much an activity of the universe as are the electromagnetic storms in the atmosphere or on a distant star. Therefore, science is one form of electromagnetism that spends its time
studying another form. I like the remark that a physicist once made to me: “Science should never be considered the enemy of spirituality because science is its greatest ally. Science is God explaining God through a human nervous system. Isn’t spirituality the same thing?”
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Point 12:

Deepak Chopra says after seeing Apoptosis At Work No one can really remain a materialist

Phenomenon called apoptosis says “For every cell there is a time to live and a time to die.”

Apoptosis is programmed cell death, and although we don’t realize it, each of us has been dying every day, right on schedule, in order to remain alive. Cells die because they want to. The cell carefully reverses the birth process: It shrinks, it destroys its basic proteins, and then it goes on to dismantle its own DNA.Bubbles appear on the surface membrane as the cell opens its portals to the outside world and expels
every vital chemical, to finally be swallowed up by the body’s white cells exactly as they would devour an invading microbe. When the process is complete, the cell has dissolved and leaves no trace behind.

When we read this graphic account of a cell sacrificing itself so methodically, you can’t help being touched. Yet the mystical part is still to come. Apoptosis isn’t a way to get rid of sick or old cells, as you might suppose. The process gave us birth. As embryos in the womb, each of us passed through primitive stages of development when we had tadpole tails, fishlike gills, webbing between our fingers, and most
surprisingly, too many brain cells. Apoptosis took care of these unwanted vestiges—in the case of the brain, a newborn baby forms proper neural connections by removing the excess brain tissue that we were all born with. (It came as a surprise when neurologists discovered that our brains contain the most cells at
birth, a number which gets whittled down by the millions so that higher intelligence can forge its delicate web of connections. It was long thought that killing off brain cells was a pathological process associated with aging. Now the whole issue must be reconsidered.)

Apoptosis doesn’t end in the womb, however. Our bodies continue to thrive on death. The immune cells that engulf and consume invading bacteria would turn on the body’s own tissues if they didn’t induce death in each other and then turn on themselves with the same poisons used against invaders. Whenever any cell detects that its DNA is damaged or defective, it knows that the body will suffer if this defect is
passed on. Fortunately, every cell carries a poison gene known as p53 that can be activated to make itself die.

These few facts barely scratch the surface. Anatomists long ago knew that skin cells die every few days;that retinal cells, red blood cells, and stomach cells also are programmed with specific short life spans so that their tissues can be quickly replenished. Each dies for its own unique reason. Skin cells have to be
sloughed off so that our skin remains supple, while stomach cells die as part of the potent chemical combustion that digests food.

Death cannot be our enemy if we have depended upon it from the womb. Consider the following irony.As it turns out, the body is capable of taking a vacation from death by producing cells that decide to live forever. These cells don’t trigger p53 when they detect defects in their own DNA. And by refusing to issue their own death warrants, these cells divide relentlessly and invasively. Cancer, the most feared of
diseases, is the body’s vacation from death, while programmed death is its ticket to life. This is the paradox of life and death confronted head on. The mystical notion of dying every day turns out to be the body’s most concrete fact.

What this means is that we are exquisitely sensitive to the balance of positive and negative forces, and when the balance is tipped, death is the natural response. Nietzsche once remarked that humans are the only creatures who must be encouraged to stay alive. He couldn’t have known that this is literally true.Cells receive positive signals that tell them to stay alive—chemicals called growth factors. If these positive signals are withdrawn, the cell loses its will to live. Like the Mafia’s kiss of death, the cell can also be sent messengers that bind to its outer receptors to signal that death has arrived—these chemical messengers are actually known as “death activators.”

A Harvard Medical School professor had discovered an amazing fact. There is a substance that causes cancer cells to activate new blood vessels so that they
can get food. Medical research has focused on finding out how to block this unknown substance so that malignant growths can be deprived of nutrients and thus killed. The professor discovered that the exact opposite substance causes toxemia in pregnant women, a potentially fatal disorder in which the blood vessels are “unhappy” that they are undergoing normal programmed cell death. “You realize what this
means?” he said with deep awe. “The body can trigger chemicals in a balancing act between life and death, and yet science has totally ignored who is doing the balancing. Doesn’t the whole secret of health lie in that part of ourselves, not in the chemicals being used?” The fact that consciousness could be the missing ingredient, theX factor behind the scenes, came to him as a revelation.

Apoptosis rescues us from fear, I think. The death of a single cell makes no difference to the body.What counts is not the act but the plan—an overarching design that brings the balance of positive and negative signals that every cell responds to. The plan is beyond time because it dates to the very construction of time. The plan is beyond space because it is everywhere in the body and yet nowhere—every cell as it dies takes the plan with it, and yet the plan survives.

So after seeing Apoptosis At Work No one can really remain a materialist.
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Point 13:

When Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by a religious fanatic on January 30, 1948, the killer claimed another victim. A thread. The traditional costume of the Brahmin caste included a double thread worn over the shoulder. There were many evils in the caste system, but in my mind the double thread symbolized a deep truth—that enlightenment was possible. Until modern times, everyone in India knew that the double thread was the promise of a second birth. It stood for a legacy going back before memory began. Today, enlightenment is no longer the goal of life, not even in India. The most that any teacher can do is to open the door again; he can answer three questions in the age-old way:

• Who am I?You are the totality of the universe acting through a human nervous system.
• Where did I come from?You came from a source that was never born and will never die.
• Why am I here?To create the world in every moment.
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Read More

Deepak Chopra says after seeing Apoptosis At Work No one can really remain a materialist

Phenomenon called apoptosis says “For every cell there is a time to live and a time to die.”

Apoptosis is programmed cell death, and although we don’t realize it, each of us has been dying every day, right on schedule, in order to remain alive. Cells die because they want to. The cell carefully reverses the birth process: It shrinks, it destroys its basic proteins, and then it goes on to dismantle its own DNA.Bubbles appear on the surface membrane as the cell opens its portals to the outside world and expels
every vital chemical, to finally be swallowed up by the body’s white cells exactly as they would devour an invading microbe. When the process is complete, the cell has dissolved and leaves no trace behind.

When we read this graphic account of a cell sacrificing itself so methodically, you can’t help being touched. Yet the mystical part is still to come. Apoptosis isn’t a way to get rid of sick or old cells, as you might suppose. The process gave us birth. As embryos in the womb, each of us passed through primitive stages of development when we had tadpole tails, fishlike gills, webbing between our fingers, and most
surprisingly, too many brain cells. Apoptosis took care of these unwanted vestiges—in the case of the brain, a newborn baby forms proper neural connections by removing the excess brain tissue that we were all born with. (It came as a surprise when neurologists discovered that our brains contain the most cells at birth, a number which gets whittled down by the millions so that higher intelligence can forge its delicate web of connections. It was long thought that killing off brain cells was a pathological process associated with aging. Now the whole issue must be reconsidered.)

Apoptosis doesn’t end in the womb, however. Our bodies continue to thrive on death. The immune cells that engulf and consume invading bacteria would turn on the body’s own tissues if they didn’t induce death in each other and then turn on themselves with the same poisons used against invaders. Whenever any cell detects that its DNA is damaged or defective, it knows that the body will suffer if this defect is
passed on. Fortunately, every cell carries a poison gene known as p53 that can be activated to make itself die.

These few facts barely scratch the surface. Anatomists long ago knew that skin cells die every few days;that retinal cells, red blood cells, and stomach cells also are programmed with specific short life spans so that their tissues can be quickly replenished. Each dies for its own unique reason. Skin cells have to be sloughed off so that our skin remains supple, while stomach cells die as part of the potent chemical combustion that digests food.

Death cannot be our enemy if we have depended upon it from the womb. Consider the following irony.As it turns out, the body is capable of taking a vacation from death by producing cells that decide to live forever. These cells don’t trigger p53 when they detect defects in their own DNA. And by refusing to issue their own death warrants, these cells divide relentlessly and invasively. Cancer, the most feared of
diseases, is the body’s vacation from death, while programmed death is its ticket to life. This is the paradox of life and death confronted head on. The mystical notion of dying every day turns out to be the body’s most concrete fact.

What this means is that we are exquisitely sensitive to the balance of positive and negative forces, and when the balance is tipped, death is the natural response. Nietzsche once remarked that humans are the only creatures who must be encouraged to stay alive. He couldn’t have known that this is literally true.Cells receive positive signals that tell them to stay alive—chemicals called growth factors. If these positive signals are withdrawn, the cell loses its will to live. Like the Mafia’s kiss of death, the cell can also be sent messengers that bind to its outer receptors to signal that death has arrived—these chemical messengers are actually known as “death activators.”

A Harvard Medical School professor had discovered an amazing fact. There is a substance that causes cancer cells to activate new blood vessels so that they
can get food. Medical research has focused on finding out how to block this unknown substance so that malignant growths can be deprived of nutrients and thus killed. The professor discovered that the exact opposite substance causes toxemia in pregnant women, a potentially fatal disorder in which the blood vessels are “unhappy” that they are undergoing normal programmed cell death. “You realize what this means?” he said with deep awe. “The body can trigger chemicals in a balancing act between life and death, and yet science has totally ignored who is doing the balancing. Doesn’t the whole secret of health lie in that part of ourselves, not in the chemicals being used?” The fact that consciousness could be the missing ingredient, theX factor behind the scenes, came to him as a revelation.

Apoptosis rescues us from fear, I think. The death of a single cell makes no difference to the body.What counts is not the act but the plan—an overarching design that brings the balance of positive and negative signals that every cell responds to. The plan is beyond time because it dates to the very construction of time. The plan is beyond space because it is everywhere in the body and yet nowhere—every cell as it dies takes the plan with it, and yet the plan survives.

So after seeing Apoptosis At Work No one can really remain a materialist.

Source: The BOOK of SECRETS Unlocking the Hidden Dimensions of Your Life

Read More

Deepak Chopra says Science is God explaining God through a human nervous system

When people argue that there is no scientific proof that the universe is conscious, my immediate response is, “I am conscious, and am I not an activity of the universe?” The brain, which operates on electromagnetic impulses, is as much an activity of the universe as are the electromagnetic storms in the atmosphere or on a distant star.

Therefore, science is one form of electromagnetism that spends its time
studying another form. I like the remark that a physicist once made to me: “Science should never be considered the enemy of spirituality because science is its greatest ally. Science is God explaining God through a human nervous system. Isn’t spirituality the same thing?”

Source: Book Of Secrets Unlocking the Hidden Dimensions of Your Life

Read More

Deepak Chopra Explains that there is concept of one reality

Example 1 : caterpillar turning into butterfly

what goes on invisibly inside the chrysalis remains deeply mysterious. The caterpillar’s organs and tissues dissolve into an amorphous, souplike
state, only to reconstitute into the structure of a butterfly’s body that bears no resemblance to a caterpillar at all.

Science has no idea why metamorphosis evolved. It is almost impossible to imagine that insects hit on it by chance-the chemical complexity of turning into a butterfly is incredible; thousands of steps are all minutely interconnected. (It’s as if you dropped off a bicycle at the shop to be repaired, and when you came back the parts had become a Gulfstream jet.)

But we do have some idea about how this delicate chain of events is linked. Two hormones, one called juvenile hormone, the otherecdysone, regulate the process, which looks to the naked eye like a caterpillar dissolving into soup. These two hormones make sure that the cells moving from larva to butterfly know where they are going and how they are to change. Some cells are told to die; others digest
themselves, while still others turn into eyes, antennae, and wings. This implies a fragile (and miraculous) rhythm that must remain in precise balance between creation and destruction. That rhythm, it turns out,depends on day length, which in turn depends on the earth’s rotation around the sun. Therefore, a cosmic
rhythm has been intimately connected to the birth of butterflies for millions of years.

Science concentrates on the molecules, but this is a striking example of intelligence at work, using molecules as a vehicle for its own intent. The intent in this case was to create a new creature without wasting old ingredients. (And if there is only one reality, we can’t say, as science does, that day length
causes the pupa’s hormones to begin the metamorphosis into a butterfly. Day length and hormones come from the same creative source, weaving one reality. That source uses cosmic rhythms or molecules as it sees fit. Day length doesn’t cause hormones to change any more than hormones cause the day to change—both are tied to a hidden intelligence that creates both at once. In a dream or a painting, a boy may hit a baseball, but his bat doesn’t cause the ball to fly through the air. The whole dream or painting fits together seamlessly.)

Example 2: How insects learned to fly

Two chemicals called actin andmyosin evolved eons ago to allow the muscles
in insect wings to contract and relax. Thus, insects learned to fly. When one of these paired molecules is absent, wings will grow but they cannot flap and are therefore useless. Today, the same two proteins are responsible for the beating of the human heart, and when one is absent, the person’s heartbeat is inefficient and weak, ultimately leading to heart failure.

Again, science marvels at the way molecules adapt over millions of years, but isn’t there a deeper intent? In our hearts, we feel the impulse to fly, to break free of boundaries. Isn’t that the same impulse nature expressed when insects began to take flight? The prolactin that generates milk in a mother’s breast is unchanged from the prolactin that sends salmon upstream to breed, enabling them to cross from saltwater
to fresh. The insulin in a cow is exactly the same as the insulin in an amoeba; both serve to metabolize carbohydrates, even though a cow is millions of times more complex than an amoeba.

To believe in one reality that is totally interconnected isn’t mystical at all, it turns out.

Source: The Book Of Secrets

Read More

Deepak Chopra Says there there is no way to prove existence of an outside world

Any neurologist will assure you that the brain offers no proof that the outside world really exists and many hints that it doesn’t.

All the brain does, in fact, is to receive continuous signals about the body’s state of chemical balance,temperature, and oxygen consumption, along with a crackling stream of nerve impulses. This mass of raw data starts out as chemical bursts with attached electrical charges. These blips run up and down a tangled web of spidery nerve cells, and once a signal reaches the brain, like a runner from the edge of the Empire bringing a message to Rome, the cortex assembles the raw data into even more complex arrangements of electrical and chemical blips.

The cortex doesn’t inform us about this never-ending data processing, which is all that is happening inside gray matter. Instead, the cortex tells us about the world—it allows us to perceive sights, sounds,tastes, smells, and textures—the whole array of creation. The brain has pulled an enormous trick on us, a remarkable sleight of hand, because there is no direct connection between the body’s raw data and our
subjective sense of an outside world.

For all anyone knows, the entire outside world could be a dream. When I’m in bed having a dream, I see a world of events just as vivid as the waking world (for most of us, the other four senses are scattered unevenly throughout our dreams, but some dreamers can touch, taste, hear, and smell as accurately as they can while awake). But when I open my eyes in the morning, I know that these vivid events were all produced inside my head. I’d never make the mistake of falling for this trick because I already assume that dreams aren’t real.

So does my brain dedicate one apparatus to making the dream world and another to the waking world? No, it doesn’t. In terms of cerebral function, the dream mechanism doesn’t flick off when I wake up. The same visual cortex in the rear of my skull allows me to see an object—a tree, a face, the sky—whether I am seeing it in memory, in a dream, in a photo, or standing before me. The locations of brain cell activity
shift slightly from one to the other, which is why I can distinguish among a dream, a photo, and the real thing, yet the same fundamental process is constantly taking place. I am manufacturing a tree, a face, or the sky from what is actually a random tangle of spidery nerves shooting bursts of chemicals and electrical charges in my brain and all around my body. No matter how hard I try, I will never find a single
pattern of chemicals and charges in the shape of a tree, a face, or any other shape. There is just a fire-storm of electrochemical activity.

This embarrassing problem—that there is no way to prove the existence of an outside world—undermines the entire basis of materialism. Thus we arrive at the second spiritual secret:You are not in the world; the world is in you.

The only reason that rocks are solid is that the brain registers a flurry of electrical signals as touch; the only reason the sun shines is that the brain registers another flurry of electrical signals as sight. There is no sunlight in my brain, whose interior remains as dark as a limestone cavern no matter how bright it is outside.

Having said that the whole world is created in me, I immediately realize that you could say the same thing. Are you in my dream or am I in yours—or are we all trapped in some bizarre combination of each other’s personal version of events? To me, this isn’t a problem but the very heart of spirituality. Everyone is a creator. The mystery of how all these individual viewpoints somehow mesh, so that your world and
mine can harmonize, is the very thing that makes people seek spiritual answers. For there is no doubt that reality is full of conflict but also full of harmony. It is very liberating to realize that as creators we generate every aspect, good or bad, of our experience. In this way, each of us is the center of creation.

Source: Book Of Secrets

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Deepak Chopra Reveals Few Unexplained Facts

Desert birds living by the Grand Canyon bury thousands of pine nuts in widely scattered locations along the canyon rim. They retrieve this stored food during the winter, returning precisely to the nuts each one buried and finding them under a deep layer of snow.

Salmon born in a small stream that feeds the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest swim out to sea. After several years spent roaming vast distances of ocean, they return to spawn at the precise place where they were born, never winding up in the wrong stream.

Little children from several countries were read to in Japanese; afterward they were asked to pick whether they had just heard some nonsense words or a lovely Japanese poem. The children from Japan all got the answer right, but so did significantly more than half the children from other countries who had never listened to a word of Japanese in their lives.

Identical twins hundreds or thousands of miles apart have immediately sensed the moment when their sibling died in an accident.

Fireflies in Indonesia numbering in the millions are able to synchronize their flashes over an area of several square miles.

In Africa, certain trees that are being overforaged can signal other trees miles away to increase the tannin in their leaves, a chemical that makes them inedible to foraging animals. The distant trees receive the message and alter their chemistry accordingly.

Twins separated at birth have met for the first time years later, only to find that they’ve each married a woman with the same first name in the same year and now have the same number of children.

Mother albatrosses returning to a nesting site with food in their beaks immediately locate their chicks among hundreds of thousands of identical offspring on a crowded beach.

Once a year at the full moon several million horseshoe crabs emerge together on one beach to mate. They have answered the same call, from depths of the ocean where no light ever penetrates.

When air molecules cause your eardrum to quiver no differently from a cymbal being hit with a stick, you hear a voice that you recognize speaking words you understand.

On their own, sodium and chlorine are deadly poisons. When they combine as salt, they form the most basic chemical in support of life.

To read this sentence, several million neurons in your cerebral cortex had to form an instantaneous pattern that is completely original and never appeared before in your life.

Why we need to sleep remains a medical mystery, yet complete dysfunction develops if we don’t enjoy its benefits. In the silence of inactivity, the future of the body is incubating.

Source: Book Of Secrets

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Important Points From Deepak Chopra "Life After Death" Book

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=> Twenty four transformations of Prakriti are:
5 basic elements earth water fire air Ether
5 sense objects smell taste sight touch sound
5 sense organs nose tongue eye skin ear
5 organs of action mouth hand leg anus urethra
4 subtle organs mind intellect chitta ahankaar

Our physical body, without life force, is made up of these twenty four elements.

1 Purush or spirit Chetnaa, life force

So Total = 25

Atma or Brahm is the source of both Purush (spirit) and Prakriti(matter)

The Guna Theory of Sankhya Doctrine

Three Gunas goodness action ignorance
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=> Near Death Experiences
http://www.near-death.com/experiences/reincarnation04.html
www.mellen-thomas.com

Lingza Chokyi's Near-Death Experience and Dawa Drolma in Tibet
http://www.near-death.com/experiences/buddhism02.html
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=> God's Definition According to Deepak Chopra
Infinite Counscionesss Is God Which Is Outside Time/Space. In Vedanta Infinite Counscionesss Is Called Brahman.
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=> Dr. Pim van Lommel, M.D.: Continuity of Consciousness Article
http://iands.org/research/important-research-articles/43-dr-pim-van-lommel-md-continuity-of-consciousness.html
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=> Several Reincarnation Proofs

Scientific Proof of Reincarnation proved by Dr. Ian Stevenson's Life Work
http://reluctant-messenger.com/reincarnation-proof.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Stevenson

F Holmes Atwater
http://www.monroeinstitute.org/research/exploring-consciousness-through-the-hemi-sync-process/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Luria
He had one patient who called 100% past life

More information from below link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Reincarnation_research
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Reincarnation In Christinity

Matthew 17:9-13

http://www.bartleby.com/108/40/17.html

9 And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying, Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of man be risen again from the dead.
10 And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Eli'jah must first come Mal. 4.5 ?
11 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Eli'jah truly shall first come, and restore all things.
12 But I say unto you, That Eli'jah is come already, Mt. 11.14 and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them.
13 Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist.

------
followers of John the Bapist bestowed that he was either the Messaih or the return of the prophet elijah called Elias in new testament

Later it seems it has been removed from bible in AD 533.

Gnostics are a set of early christians espoused reincarnation before being wiped out as HERETICS.

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=> God doesn't speak in works or in a language like eng or spanish.communication takes place on astral planes by telepathy.
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=> Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home Book is written by Rupert Sheldrake which means cats and dogs read owner's brains
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Sheldrake
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=> Below 3 people believe "mind is controller of brain" and conducted various experiments

Henry Stapp & Mario Beauregard & Jeffrey Schwartz

We cannot measure directly the human mind or consciousness, and it is not at all clear whether consciousness is inside or outside of 3-D space, as acknowledged by your co-author Henry Stapp [Ref. 2].

http://www.god-does-not-play-dice.net/Beauregard.html
http://www.newdualism.org/papers/H.Stapp/Stapp-PTB6.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Stapp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_M._Schwartz
http://www.harpercollins.com/authors/30251/Mario_Beauregard/index.aspx
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=> Regarding Brain Counscioness and Thoughts

How did counscioness creep in somewhere between oxygen atoms and cerebral cortex?

Answer: answer does not lie in brain. brain is an inert object formed of organic checmials.

organic chemicals are made up of molecules and atoms.

atoms are made up of subatomic particles which in turn can be divied into energy waves.

These energy waves have their source in an invisible field.

So Eventually brain is nothing but energy.
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=> Sometimes ordinary thought can affect the world.

There is a SQUID experiment conducted at stanford to prove this.
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/october/squids-for-kids-102210.html
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=> Interesting to know about this person and his zero-point field theories.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_E._Puthoff
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Part 1 - Ramana Maharshi Devotee V. Ganapati Sthapati (1927|2011)

Born in 1927, V.Ganapati was the son of Sri Vaidyanatha Sthapati and Smt.Velammal. His father was the builder of the Mathrubhuteswar Temple at Sri Ramanasramam. In the following article the late V.Ganapati Sthapati writes about the two Maharshis to whom he attributes his enormous success in restoring and elevating the status of traditional Hindu architecture in modern Indian society and throughout the world.

During my boyhood, from 1939 to 1949, my father Sri Vaidyanatha Sthapati, was working as the architect and builder of the Sri Mathrubhuteswara Temple at Sri Ramanasramam in Thiruvannamalai. This was the temple built over the samadhi of the holy mother who gave birth to Bhagavan Ramana. I was around 13 when my father started building the temple and also sculpting the holy image of Bhagavan Ramana in stone.

For the sake of my education, my father had to shift to Salem for the construction of a temple there. I did my SSLC and intermediate in the local college. Still my father and I used to visit the Maharishi on work. During such visits I closely watched the face of the Maharishi which was always lustrous whenever the talk turned to our family affairs and on me. He never enquired about my studies, but he used to look at me with a kind smile which I interpreted as a flow of grace.

On one fine morning the results of the Intermediate Examination appeared in the newspapers. To our surprise, there was a call from the Maharishi to which my father and I responded at once. All the time there was a large gathering of devotees in what is called Bhagavan’s Hall. There was a newspaper in the hands of the Maharishi. Both of us standing near his Yogasana, he spoke to the devotees with inestimable joy, saying,Sthapati’s son has passed the examination with distinction. His future is going to be very bright.

The other Maharishi under whose influence I came next was His Holiness Paramacharyal of Kanchi. I had to leave the position of a Sthapati that I was enjoying under the Palaniandavar Devasthanam, Palani in 1961 to assume the principalship of the School of Sculpture and Architecture, a position my father had held from 1957 to 1960. My father had to retire as he fell seriously ill. He had a severe stroke, followed by a paralytic attack and was unable to speak. Even expert medical treatment was of no use. Finally, on the advice of Sri S. Ganesan "Kamban Adippodi", I took him to Pillaiyarpatti (near Karaikudi) for Ayurvedic treatment. Sri S. Ganesan was my godfather since my early days. Even this Ayurvedic treatment produced no results.

It was around this time in 1963 that I met Paramacharyal when he was camping at Ilayattankudi, a village about 10 miles from Pillaiyarpatti where I was born. I had never met him before, though my father had known him intimately for many years. The intimacy between Paramacharyal and my father was at its all-time high when he was commissioned to build a stone mandapam in the premises of the Kanchi Mutt. This is the mandapam where pujas are performed today.

Source: http://www.arunachala.org/newsletters/2011/?pg=nov-dec

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Ramana Maharshi Qut in this hemisphere then in the2foner. Knowledge implies ignorance of what is known and what lies beyond, and is always limited. Q: Is solitude necessary for vichara (Self-Inquiry)? M: Solitude is everywhere. The individual is always solitary. Our business is to find it within, not to seek it outside ourselves. Solitude is (to be attained) in the mind. A person might be in the midst of the world and yet maintain serenity; such a one is in solitude. Another may stay in a remote forest and still be unable to control the mind; he cannot be said to be in solitude. Those attached to desire are unable to attain solitude wherever they are, whereas those who are detached are always in solitude, even if thereas t 3 ! P P J D * - =  P P P P P 0 P ' BC^ b2/ z L3 L4 C This is discrimination. The initial viveka (discrimination) must persist to the end, and its fruit is moksha (liberation). Q: What is the best way of living? M: It depends on whether one is a jnani (realized) or not. A jnani does not find anything different or separate from the Self. Everything is in the Self. The universe and what is beyond are to be found in the Self. The outlook differs according to the sight of the person, based on whether he is realized or not. Q: How is mouna (silence) possible when we are engaged in worldly transactions? M: When women walk with water pots on their heads, they are able to talk with their companions while all the time remaining intent on the water above. Similarly, when a sage engages in activities, they do not disturb him because his mind abides in Brahman. The difficulty is that people think they are the doer; it is a mistake. It is the higher power which does everything and people are only a tool. If they accept that position, they will be free from troubles; otherwise they court them. Do your work without anticipating its fruits. That is all that you should do. Q: What kind of teaching is suitable for young people -- they would not understand the naked truth? M: Their attention might be drawn to the truth from time to time in an appropriate way. Q: Why is the world in ignorance? M: Let the world take care of itself. If you are the body, then there the gross world appears. If you are the spirit, everything is just spirit. Look for the ego, and it vanishes. If you inquire, ignorance will be found to be non-existent. It is the mind which feels misery and darkness. See the Self. Q: If one always remembers the Self, will one's actions always be right? M: They ought to be, but such a person is not concerned with the right or wrong of actions. His actions are God's and therefore right. Q: Is it useful to bring the East and the West closer? M: Such events will take place automatically. There is a power guiding the destinies of nations. These questions arise only when you have lost touch with reality. Q: Is it harder for Westerners to withdraw inwards? M: Yes, they are rajasic (more active mentally) -tempt to realizeoes outwards. We must be inwardlt to go to Kailash (the reputed home of Lord Siva, the Hindu god). M: One can see these places only if it is destined, not otherwise. But even after seeing everything, there will still be more places to visit, if not in this hemisphere then in the other. Knowledge implies ignorance of what is known and what lies beyond, and is always limited. Q: Is solitude necessary for vichara (Self-Inquiry)? M: Solitude is everywhere. The individual is always solitary. Our business is to find it within, not to seek it outside ourselves. Solitude is (to be attained) in the mind. A person might be in the midst of the world and yet maintain serenity; such a one is in solitude. Another may stay in a remote forest and still be unable to control the mind; he cannot be said to be in solitude. Those attached to desire are unable to attain solitude wherever they are, whereas those who are detached are always in solitude, even if t so? It is very good if you can just keep quiet without engaging in any other activities. If that cant be done, what is the use of being quiet? Even if you are obliged to be active, do not give up your attempt to realize the Self. Q: I want to go to Kailash (the reputed home of Lord Siva, the Hindu god). M: One can see these places only if it is destined, not otherwise. But even after seeing everything, there will still be more places to visit, if not in this hemisphere then in the other. Knowledge implies ignorance of what is known and what lies beyond, and is always limited. Q: Is solitude necessary for vichara (Self-Inquiry)? M: Solitude is everywhere. The individual is always solitary. Our business is to find it within, not to seek it outside ourselves. Solitude is (to be attained) in the mind. A person might be in the midst of the world and yet maintain serenity; such a one is in solitude. Another may stay in a remote forest and still be unable to control the mind; he cannot be said to be in solitude. Those attached to desire are unable to attain solitude wherever they are, whereas those who are detached are always in solitude, even if they are engaged in work. When work is performed with attachment it is a shackle. Solitude is not only to be found in forests, it can also be had in the midst of worldly occupations. Helping others Cast all alms, aspirations, desires to serve humanity and schemes to reform the world upon the Universal Power which sustains this universe. He is not a fool. He will do what is required. Lose the sense, "I am doing this." Get rid of egoism. Do not think that you are the one to bring about some reform. Leave these aims alone and let God attend to them. Then, by getting rid of egoism, God may use you as an instrument to effect them, but the difference is that you will not be conscious of doing them; the Infinite will be working through you and there will be no (ego or) self worship to spoil the work. Otherwise there is desire for name or fame and one will be serving the personal self rather than humanity. What people call Satan, the Devil, or black forces, are simply ignorance of the true Self. Nearly all human beings are more or less unhappy because they do not know the true Self. Real happiness abides in Self-knowledge alone. All else is fleeting. To know one's Self is to be always blissful. Q: My friend is keen to do social service work, even at the expense of his own interests. M: His selfless work is helpful; its utility cannot be denied. See how he has continued to work there (where he is) and how you sent him the extract from these conversations. There is a link between the two. The work purified his mind so that he gained an insight into the wisdomway of living? M: It depends on whether one is a jnani (realized) or not. A jnani does not find anything different or separate from the Self. Everything is in the Self. The universe and what is beyond are to be found in the Self. The outlook differs according to the sight of the person, based on whether he is realized or not. Q: How is mouna (silence) possible when we are engaged in worldly transactions? M: When women walk with water pots on their heads, they are able to talk with their companions while all the time remaining intent on the water above. Similarly, when a sage engages in activities, they do not disturb him because his mind abides in Brahman. The difficulty is that people think they are the doer; it is a mied action? M: Let activities go on. They do n =  P P P P P 0 the higher power which does eve z L3 L4 t that position they will be free from troubles, otherwise they court them. The sculptured figure on the temple tower shows great strain, but really, the tower rests on the ground, an ask for divine powers to be utilized for human welfare. This is like the lame man who said he would overpower the enemy if only he were helped to his feet! The intention is good but there is no sense of proportion. Q: How can I help others? M: What other is there for you to help? Who is the "I" that is going to help others? First clear up that point and then everything will settle itself. Q: In the West people cannot see how sages in solitude can be helpful. M: Never mind Europe and America. Where are they except in your mind? If you wake up from a dream, do you try to ascertain if the people of your dream creation are also awake? Have compassionatevironment. It is the mind that matters. The fact is that the mind has been trained to think certain 0AQ: I am a doctor. How can I best heal people? M: The permanent cure is jnana (knowledge of Self); the patients must realize it for themselves, and that depends on their maturity. Otherwise, when one disease goes another will come. A young man came and demanded to be given powers to stamp out the world's materialism. M: People who are incapable themselves, ask for divine powers to be utilized for human welfare. This is like the lame man who said he would overpower the enemy if only he were helped to his feet! The intention is good but there is no sense of proportion. Q: How can I help others? M: What other is there for you to help? Who is the "I" that is going to help others? First clear up that point and then everything will settle itself. Q: In the West people cannot see how sages in solitude can be helpful. M: Never mind Europe and America. Where are they except in your mind? If you wake up from a dream, do you try to ascertain if the people of your dream creation are also awake? Have compassionatevironment. It is the mind that matters. The fact is that the mind has been trained to think certain res are fulfilled, do not be elated; and if you are frustrated do not be disappointed. The elation may be deceptive; it should be checked, for initial joy may end in final grief. After all, whatever happens, you remain unaffected, just as you are. Q: But how can I help another with his problems? M: What is this talk of another? There is only the One. Try to realize there is no I, no you, no he, only the one Self which is all. If you believe in the problem of another, you are believing in something outside the Self. You will help him best by realizing the oneness of everything, rather than by outward activity. Q: Has the body any value to the Self? M: Yes, it is through the body's help that the Self is realized Q: What about diet? M: Food affects the mind. The right food makes it more sattvic (harmonious, clear). For the practice of any kind of (spiritual) yoga, vegetarianism is absolutely necessary Q: What about those not accustomed to a vegetarian diet? M: Habit is only adjustment to the environment. It is the mind that matters. The fact is that the mind has been trained to think certain foods tasty. Nourishment may be obtained from vegetarian food no less than from flesh. But the realized person's mind is not influenced by the food eaten. However, get accustomed to vegetarianism gradually. Q: Do you recommend that meat and alcohol be given up? M: Yes. It is a useful aid in the beginning. The difficulty in surrendering them is not that they are really necessary, but that we have become habituated to them. Until the mind is firm in realization, it must have some picture or idea to dwell on, or else the meditation will quickly give way to sleep or (wandering) thoughts. There is a subtle essence in all food; it is this which affects the mind. So, for those who are practicing meditation to find the Self, dietetic rules have been laid down, which it is advisable to follow. Sattvic (pure, bland) foods promote meditation, whereas rajasic (spicy hot) food and tamasic (aged, stale, heavy) food like meat hinder it. Q: Could one receive spiritual illumination while eating meat? M: Yes, but abandon it gradually and accustom yourself to sattvic (pure) food. Once you have attained illumination, what you eat will make less difference, just as on a great fire it is immaterial what fuel is added. A devotee had been following a strict regime, eating only one very light meal a day. The Maharshi remarked at breakfast, "Why don't you also give up coffee" His implication was to rebuke the over-importance placed on diet regulation. Q: But if it is a matter of non-killing, then even plants have life. M: And so do the tiles which you are sitting on! Q: Why do you take milk but not eggs? M: Domesticated cows yield more milk than their calves require and they find it a pleasure to be relieved. Eggs contain potential lives. Q: I take food three or four times a day and attend to bodily wants so much that I am oppressed by the body. Is there a state when I shall be disembodied so that I might be free from the scourge of bodily wants? M: It is the attachments that are harmful: the actions are not bad in themselves. There is no harm in eating three or four times a day, but just do not say, "I want this kind of food and not that kind," and so on. Not only that, but you take these meals in twelve hours of the waking state, whereas you are not eating in the twelve hours of sleep. Does sleep lead you to mukti (liberation)? It is wrong to suppose that simple inactivity (in itself) leads one to mukti. Q: Is it harmless to continue smoking? M: No, tobacco is a poison. It is better to do without it. Tobacco gives only a temporary stimulation to which there must be a reaction with craving for more. Also, it is not good for meditation practice. Q: Is there any drug to promote meditation? M: No, because afterwards the user would be unable to meditate without taking it habitually. Those who take opium or alcohol are unconsciously seeking the blind sexuality Q: What are the passions? M: They are the same force that is used in meditation, but diverted into other channels The news of a devotees marriage was conveyed to the Maharshi. Q: Why has he done this? Surely it is a step back? M: (Laughing.) Why should marriage interfere with his spiritual progress? Unless bodily wants such as hunger, thirst, and evacuation are satisfied, meditation cannot progress. The results of vichara (Self-Inquiry) meditation, are will-power, dreturn to remind me of its existence. Animals can think like human beings. We must not imagine they are senseless creatures. Some who have been in contact wfor the higher life then sexual desire will drop away. When the mind is destroyed the other desires are also destroyed. Q: How can we root out the sex idea? M: By rooting out the false idea of the body being the Self. There is no sex in the Self. Be the real Self, then there will be no trouble with sex Q: Do you approve of sexual continence? M:. A true brahmachari is one who dwells in Brahman. In that case there will be no question of desires any more. Q: At Sri Aurobindo's Ashram there is a strict rule that married couples can live there on condition that they abstain from sexual intercourse. M: What use is that? If it exists in the mind, what use is there in forcing people to abstain? Q: Does the use of birth-control lead to immorality? M: You must go to the root of things. Find out the true cause of birth and then stifle that. Let that which is born control itself. For whom is this birth? There is an ancient verse which says, "Desires go on increasing and burn more fiercely as they are fed," so the only effective control is to check the causes within, to restrain the desires and thus become moral. Q: Is continence the only method to control the size of a family? M: Yes. The other methods only give temporary relief and treat just the symptoms.

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SRI ANNAPURNA-STOTRAM

Sri Sundara Chaitanya Swami gari pravachanam in telugu 6 Volumes where each volume contains approx 9 videos each.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=AnnapoornaStotram+Volume6&aq=f

Note: Sri Sundara Chaitanya Swami says he pity for people who says my aim is to act in movies always or my aim is to dance always or my aim is to sing.

Reason he pity because they cannot get happiness when they are not doing those habits.

nityánandakarè varábhayakarè saundaryarathákarè
nirdhütákhila doúpávanákari pratyaqkúamáheùvarè
práleyácalavamùapávanakarè káùèpurádhèùvarè
bhikùám dehi krpávalambanakarè mátánnapürïùvari(1)

Oh! Mother Annapurna! renderer of the support of compassion, the bestower of eternal happiness, the donor of gifts and protection, the ocean of beauty, the destroyer of all sins and purifier, the great goddess, the purifier of the family of Himavan, and the great deity of Kasi, (thou) grant us alms.

nánáratnavicitrabhüúaïkarè hemámbaráãambari
muktáháravilambamánavilasadvakúojakumbhántarè
káùmèrágaruvásitá rucikari káùèpurádhèùvarè
bhikùám dehi krpávalambanakarè mátánnapürïùvari(2)

Oh! Mother Annapurna! renderer of the support of compassion, one who is adorned with ornaments made up of different kinds of gems, wearer of golden-laced dress, the space, in between whose breasts shines with the pendant garland of pearls, the beautiful - bodied, rendered and the presiding deity of Kasi, (thou) grant us alms.

yogánandakarèvalambanakarè mátánnapürïùvari(7)

Oh! Mother Annapurna! the renderer of the support of compassion, the form of the earth, the governess of all men, the cause of victory, the mother, the ocean of compassion, the possessor of beautiful and dark braid of hari resembling the flower of the indigo plant, the giver of food daily, the direct bestower of emancipation and eternal welfare, and the presiding deity of Kasi, (thou) grant us alms.

devè sarvavicitraratnaracitá dákúáyaïè sundarè
vámá svádupayodhará priyakari# saubhágyamáheùvarè
bhaktábhèùûakarè sadá ùubhakarè káùèpurádhèùvarè
bhikùám dehi krpávalambanakarè mátánnapürïùvari(8)

Oh! Mother Annapurna! the renderer of the support of compassion, Oh! Goddess! adorned with different kinds of gems, the daughter of Daksha, theanakarè mátánnapürïùvari(4)

Oh! Mother Annapurna! the renderer of the support of compassion, the resident of the caves of the Kailasa mountains, golden-complexioned, Oh! Uma! the consort of Sankara, endowed always with maidenhood, the cause of our comprehension of the purport of the Vedas, whose basic syllable is the syllable `Om', the opener of the doors of emancipation and the presiding deity of Kasi, (thou) grant us alms.

døyádøùyavibhütèvá hanakarè brahmáïãabháïã odarè
lèlánáûakasütrakhelanakarè vijòánádèpáñkurè
ùrèviùveùamanaç prasádanakarè káùèpurádhèùvari
bhikùám dehi krpávalambanakarè mátánnapürïùvari(5)

Oh! Mother Annapurna! the renderer of the support of compassion, the conveyor of the visible and invisible prosperity, the container of the primordial egg, the directress of the sportive drama (of the world), the flame of the lamp of true knowledge, the source of the mental happiness of Sri Visvanatha, and the presiding deity of Kasi, (thou) grant us alms.


ádikúántasamastavarïankari ùambhostribhávákari
káùmirá tripureùvri trinayani viùveùvari ùarvaè
svargadvárakaváûanakarè káùèpurádhèùvarè
bhikùám dehi krpávalambanakarè mátánnapürïùvari(6)

Oh! Mother Annapurna! the renderer of the support of compassion, the maker of the letters 'a' (‚) to 'ksha' (®¸), he cause of the three acts of Sambhu, namely, the creation, protection and destruction, the wearer of saffron, the consort of the destroyer of the three cities, the consort of the three-eyed lord, the governess of universe, the form of the goddess of night, the opener of the gates of heavens, and the presiding deity of Kasi, (thou) grant us alms.

urvi sarvajaneùvarè jayakarè mátá køpáságarè
veïinilasamána kuntaladharè nètyánnadáneùvarè
sákúánmokúakarè sadá ùubhakarè káúèpurádhèùvarè
bhikùám dehi krpávalambanakarè mátánnapürïùvari(7)

Oh! Mother Annapurna! the renderer of the support of compassion, the form of the earth, the governess of all men, the cause of victory, the mother, the ocean of compassion, the possessor of beautiful and dark braid of hari resembling the flower of the indigo plant, the giver of food daily, the direct bestower of emancipation and eternal welfare, and the presiding deity of Kasi, (thou) grant us alms.

devè sarvavicitraratnaracitá dákúáyaïè sundarè
vámá svádupayodhará priyakari# saubhágyamáheùvarè
bhaktábhèùûakarè sadá ùubhakarè káùèpurádhèùvarè
bhikùám dehi krpávalambanakarè mátánnapürïùvari(8)

Oh! Mother Annapurna! the renderer of the support of compassion, Oh! Goddess! adorned with different kinds of gems, the daughter of Daksha, the most beautiful, bearer of benign breasts, doer of good to all, endowed with good fortune, fulfiller of the desires of the devotees, doer of auspicious acts, and the presiding deity of Kasi, (thou) grant us alms.

candarárkánalakoûikoûisadøùi candrámùubimbádharè
candrákágnidamánakuïãaladharè candrárkavarïeùvarè
málápustakapáùasáñkuùadhari káù�ne who makes us free from diseases, and the presiding deity of Kasi, (thou) grant us alms.

annapürïe sadápürïe
ùañkarapráïavallabhe
jòánavarágyasiddyartham
bhikúám dehi ca párvati(11)

Oh! Parvati! Annapurna! always full, the dear consort of Sankara, grant us alms for the sake of securing knowledge and detachment.

mátáf ca párvatè devè pitá devo maheùvaraç
bándhavaáç sivabhaktáùca swadeùo bhuvanatrayam

Goddess Parvati is my Mother, Lord Maùivakarè viùeùvari ùridhari
dakúakrandakari nirámaykari káùipuradhèùvarè
bhikùám dehi krpávalambanakarè mátánnapürïùvari(10)

Oh! Mother Annapurna! the renderer of the support of compassion, the protector of the dominion remover of great fear, the mother, the ocean of compassion, the cause of the happiness of all, the eternal doer of good, the consort of Visvesvara, the form of Lakshmi, the destroyer of the sacrifice of Daksha, one who makes us free from diseases, and the presiding deity of Kasi, (thou) grant us alms.

annapürïe sadápürïe
ùañkarapráïavallabhe
jòánavarágyasiddyartham
bhikúám dehi ca párvati(11)

Oh! Parvati! Annapurna! always full, the dear consort of Sankara, grant us alms for the sake of securing knowledge and detachment.

mátáf ca párvatè devè pitá devo maheùvaraç
bándhavaáç sivabhaktáùca swadeùo bhuvanatrayam

Goddess Parvati is my Mother, Lord Mahesvara is my Father, the devotees of Lord Siva are my relatives; and the three worlds are my own country.

Source: http://www.kamakoti.org/shlokas/kshlok13.htm

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Part 1 - Ramana Maharshi Devotee Maurice Frydman

Born a Polish Jew in Warsaw in 1901, Frydman learned Russian, German, Polish and Hebrew in school until he migrated to Paris to take up study at the Sorbonne,
where he learned French and English in order to complete his degree in electrical engineering. After graduation he took up a position as a research engineer
in a large Paris manufacturing firm. It was during this period that a fateful encounter took place between Frydman and Sir Mirza Ismail, the Dewan of Mysore.
When Frydman began enthusiastically questioning the Dewan about India, Sir Mirza proposed that Frydman come to live in India to organise and manage the State
Government Electrical Factory in Bangalore. Frydman accepted this offer immediately and soon was in India as head the Mysore Electrical Industries, Ltd.

It was during this period of the early thirties that he met Gandhi-ji and began to visit Wardha. Frydman made use of his engineering genius to help the Mahatma create several new types of charkha (spinning wheel), in hopes of finding the most efficient and economical spinning wheel for India. It was Gandhi who gave Frydman the name Bharatananda (after Frydman took sannyas), the name by which he was known in Gandhian circles.

In September 1935, Frydman came to Tiruvannamalai to meet Bhagavan for the first time. Immediately taken with Bhagavan, he became a regular visitor and even took up residence in the Ashram for three years. Many of the questions published in Maharshi’s Gospel (some of which also appear in Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi) were posed by Frydman directly, and Bhagavan seems to have delighted in Frydman’s queries born of a penetrating insight into the teaching.

It was also during this period that a number of the younger Ashram inmates such as T. K. Sundaresa Iyer’s son, joined Frydman to work in his firm at Bangalore.On Saturdays Frydman would come to the Ashram and go back to Bangalore the following day in his jeep along with the Ashram youngsters who were working with him. When once asked why he spent so much money on weekly (instead of monthly) visits, he replied: “What
to do? My battery can only last a week, then it dries up. I have to come to Bhagavan to get it recharged!

Source: http://www.sriramanamaharshi.org/pdf/Saranagathi_eNewsletter_November_2011.pdf

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Lingza Chokyi's Near-Death Experience In Tibet

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/buddhism02.html

A curious phenomenon, little known in the West, but familiar to Tibetans, is the delok. In Tibet, delok means returned from death, and traditionally deloks are people who seemingly "die" as a result of an illness, and find themselves traveling in the bardo - one of many Tibetan Buddhist afterlife states. They visit the hell realms, where they witness the judgment of the dead and the suffering of hell, and sometimes they go to paradises and Buddha realms. They can be accompanied by a deity, who protects them and explains what is happening. After a week the delok is sent back to the body with a message from the Lord of Death for the living, urging them toward spiritual practice and a beneficial way of life. Often the deloks have great difficulty making people believe their story, and they spend the rest of their lives recounting their experiences to others in order to draw them toward the path of wisdom.

The biographies of some of the more famous deloks, such as Dawa Drolma, one of the great lamas of the century. At the age of 16 she fell ill and died, but returned to her body after five days. For the benefit of others she recorded every detail of her experiences in the bardo and pure realms. The experiences of deloks were often sung all over Tibet by traveling minstrels. A number of aspects of the delok correspond not only with, as you would expect, the bardo teachings, such as the Tibetan Book of the Dead, but also with the near-death experience. Dawa Drolma is the author of the book, Delog: Journey to Realms Beyond Death, the source for the information on this web page.

Lingza Chokyi was a famous delok who lived in the sixteenth century.In her biography she tells how she failed to realize she was dead, how she found herself out of her body, and saw a pig's corpse lying on her bed, wearing her clothes. Frantically she tried in vain to communicate with her family as they set about the business of the practices for her death. She grew furious with them when they took no notice of her and did not give her a plate of food. When her children wept, she felt a "hail of pus and blood" fall, which caused her intense pain.

She tells us she felt joy each time the practices were done, and immeasurable happiness when finally she came before the master who was practicing for her and who was resting in the nature of mind, and her mind and his became one. After a while she heard someone whom she thought was her father calling to her, and she followed him. She arrived in the bardo realm, which appeared to her like a country. From there, she tells us, there was a bridge that led to the hell realms, and to where the Lord of Death was counting the good or evil actions of the dead. In this realm she met various people who recounted their stories, and she saw a great yogin who had come into the hell realms in order to liberate beings.

Finally Lingza Chokyi was sent back to the world, as there had been an error concerning her name and family, and it was not yet her time to die. With the message from the Lord of Death to the living, she returned to her body and recovered, and spent the rest of her life telling of what she had learned. The phenomenon of the delok was not simply a historical one; it continued up until very recently in Tibet.

There are many similarities to the teachings of the afterlife as revealed by the Tibetan Book of the Dead and NDE.

In the NDE, the mind is momentarily released from the body, and goes through a number of experiences akin to those of the mental body in the "bardo of becoming."

NDEs very often begins with an out-of-body experience: people can see their own body, as well as the environment around them. This coincides with what the Tibetan Book of the Dead describes. In the bardo of becoming, the dead are able to see and hear their living relatives, but are unable, sometimes frustratingly, to communicate with them.The mental body in the bardo of becoming is described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead as being "like a body of the golden age," and as having almost supernatural mobility and clairvoyance. NDErs also find that the form they have is complete and in the prime of life.They find also that they can travel instantaneously, simply by the power of thought.

In the Tibetan teachings, the mental body in the bardo of becoming meets other beings in the bardo. Similarly, NDErs are often able to converse with others who have died.

In the bardo of becoming, as well as many other kinds of visions, the mental body will see visions and signs of different realms. A small percentage of those who have survived a NDE describe visions of inner worlds, paradises, and cities of light with transcendental music.

Of course, the most astounding similarity is the encounter with the Being of Light, or the "Clear Light" as described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. According to the Tibetan teachings, at the moment of death, the Clear Light dawns in all its splendor before the dying person. It says: "Oh son/daughter of an enlightened family ... your Rigpa is inseparable luminosity and emptiness and dwells as a great expanse of light; beyond birth or death, it is, in fact, the Buddha of Unchanging Light." Tibetan teachings stress that by recognizing yourself as this Clear Light, you will attain liberation from the cycle of reincarnation. Many NDErs are convinced the Being of Light is their Higher Self.This is certainly in agreement with the Tibetan teachings.

The life review appears again and again in NDE reports, and demonstrates so clearly the inevitability of karma and the far-reaching and powerful effects of all our actions, words, and thoughts.

The central message that NDErs bring back from their encounter with death, or the presence of the Being of Light, is exactly the same as that of Buddha and of the bardo teachings: that the essential and most important qualities in life are love and knowledge, compassion and wisdom.

The bardo teachings tell us that life and death are in the mind itself. The confidence which many NDErs seem to have after this experience reflects this deeper understanding of mind.

Not all NDE reports today, however, are positive, and this corresponds to the Tibetan teachings as well. Some people report terrifying experiences of fear, panic, loneliness, desolation, and gloom, all vividly reminiscent of the descriptions of the bardo of becoming.

In many NDE reports, a border or limit is occasionally perceived; a point of no return is reached. At this border the person then chooses (or is instructed) to return to life, sometimes by the presence of light.Of course in the Tibetan bardo teachings there is no parallel to this, because they describe what happens to a person who actually dies.It has been said the NDE can be viewed as an evolutionary device to bring about a transformation in humanity as a whole, over a period of years, in millions of persons (Ring, 1985).

Whether this is true or not depends on all of us: on whether we really have the courage to face the implications of the NDE and the bardo teachings, and by transforming ourselves we transform the world around us, and so, by stages, the whole future of humanity.

"One in all, All in one, If only this is realized, No more worry about not being perfect!" - the Third Patriarch of Zen

Source: Delog: Journey to Realms Beyond Death By Dawa Drolma

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How I Came to Bhagavan By Hamsa Ramiah

My grandfather, Manavasi Ramaswami lyer, was a strict man and when we were children, we were afraid of him. Bhagavan would be talking with us in the hall and upon seeing my grandfather enter the hall, in a jesting spirit, Bhagavan would have us all himself included keep very quiet and still and sit upright as good children should do.



We also used to cut vegetables in the kitchen with Bhagavan who would join us in singing Aksharamanamalai. He was very meticulous in cutting vegetables and particular that nothing be wasted.



When I was 13 yrs old, Echammal proposed a marriage alliance to my mother and my grandfather.Gowri Ammal and Rajagopala Iyer, the relations of the boy in question, were present.Bhagavan gave his nod of approval for which Ramaswami lyer immediately assented saying he was prepared to receive it as Bhagavan’s gift.The marriage took place two years later and it seems that it was Bhagavan who fixed the wedding date. Only on the day of the wedding did we come to fully understand that this had all been the intervention of the Lord.



Immediately following the ceremony, I and my husband, still in our wedding clothes, came to pay our respects to Bhagavan. It so happened that as we entered the hall to do our namaskars, Bhagavan was just narrating an incident from the Purana about the holy wedding of Lord Siva and Goddess Meenakshi.



On seeing us, Bhagavan singled us out and announced to the gathering,See, here comes Meenakshi Sundareswarar. On hearing this from Bhagavan’s lips, feelings of joy surged up within us; it came as if a blessing from the Lord of Lords.



Source: http://www.sriramanamaharshi.org/pdf/Saranagathi_eNewsletter_September_2011.pdf

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Few Quotes Of Ramana Maharshi

The Self - 1

In the Transcendent state, identity with Brahman places the man in harmony with everything, and there is nothing apart from the Self.

The Self - 2

The conclusion is that happiness is inherent in man and is not due to external causes. One must realize his Self in order to open the store of unalloyed happiness.

The Self - 3

You see the objects on forgetting your own Self. If you keep hold of your Self you will not see the objective world.

The Self - 4

The Self is ever there, there is nothing without it. Be the Self and the desires and doubts will disappear.

The Self - 5

The thought is projected out from your Self. Find out wherefrom it rises. Thoughts will cease to rise and the Self alone will remain.

The Self - 6

If you see the Self, the same will be found to be all, everywhere and always. Nothing but the Self exists.

The Self - 7

The One Reality is the Self from whom has sprung the ego which contains within itself the seeds of predispositions acquired in previous births.

The Self - 8

Qs: Loss of lives is wrong. Are wars justified?
As: For a realized man, the one who remains ever in the Self, the loss of one or several or all lives either in this world or in all the three worlds makes no difference.

The Self - 9

Realization of the Self is the greatest help that can be rendered to humanity.

The Self - 10

Maharshi: A saint helps the whole of humanity, unknown to the latter.
Devotee: Would it not be better if he mixed with others?
Maharshi: There are no others to mix with. The Self is the one and only reality.


The Self - 11

Who is a Master? He is the Self after all. According to the stages of the development of the mind the Self manifests as the Master externally.

The Self - 12

The `I' has no location. Everything is the Self. There is nothing but that. So the Heart must be said to be entire body of ourselves and of the entire universe.

The Self - 13

Investigate and the thoughts cease. What is, namely the Self, will be revealed as the inescapable residue.

The Self - 14

The sea is not aware of its wave. Similarly the Self is not aware of its ego.

The Self - 15

Let the man find out his undying Self and die and be immortal and happy.

The Self - 16

Everyone is aware of the eternal Self. He sees so many dying but still believes himself eternal because it is the Truth.

The Self - 17

Let activities go on. They do not affect the pure Self.

The Self - 18

Self remains veiled by vasanas and reveals itself when there are no vasanas. Owing to the fluctuation of the vasanas, jnana takes time to steady itself. Unsteady jnana is not enough to check rebirths.

The Self - 19

Wandering higher and higher you must return to the Self only. Then, why not abide in the Self even here and now.

The Self - 20

Those who have discovered great Truths have done so in the still depths of the Self.

The Self - 21

The Self is only one. If limited it is the ego. If unlimited it is Infinite.

The Self - 22

Hold the Self and the world will not appear

The Self - 23

Devotee: A man on realizing the Self, can help the world more effectively. Is it not so?

Maharshi: If the world be apart from the Self.


The Self – 24

Those unfit for investigation must practice meditation. In this practice the aspirant forgetting himself meditates `I am Brahman' or `I am Siva'; thus he continues to hold to Brahman or Siva; this will ultimately end on the residual Being as Brahman or Siva which he will realize to be Pure Being i.e., the Self.

The Self – 25

Those unfit for investigation must practice meditation. In this practice the aspirant forgetting himself meditates `I am Brahman' or `I am Siva'; thus he continues to hold to Brahman or Siva; this will ultimately end on the residual Being as Brahman or Siva which he will realize to be Pure Being i.e., the Self.

The Self - 26

Sahaja jnani remains unawares of his bodily activities because his mind is dead- having been resolved in the ecstasy of `Chid-Ananda' or Self.

THE SELF - 27

One has only to remove the transitory happenings in order to realize the ever present Self.

THE SELF - 28

When the mind is examined, its activities cease automatically. This is the method of Jnana. The pure mind is the Self.

The Self – 29

Contemplation helps one to overcome that the Self must be visual. In truth, there is nothing visual. How do you feel the `I' now? Do you hold a mirror before you to know your own being? The awareness is the `I'.

The Self – 30

The Self is that to which we surrender our ego and let the Supreme Power, i.e., the Self, do what it pleases. The ego is already the Self's. We have no right over the ego, even as it is. However, supposing we had, we must surrender them.

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Ramana Maharshi Devotee "Veterinarian" Dr Narayana Reddy

Reddivari Narayana Reddy’s contact with the Ashram began when Cow Lakshmi fell sick in the year 1948 and his teacher, Prof. Ananathanarayana Rao,advised Chinnaswami to invite his former student to treat her.

At the time Dr. Reddy was the Government Touring Veterinary Assistant Surgeon working in the veterinary hospital at Tiruvannamalai. He came to see Lakshmi several times and determined that she was suffering from indigestion.

Despite his treatment, however, she eventually succumbed,much to the dismay of devotees. Dr. Reddy says Lakshmi’s digestive condition may have been caused in part, or at least complicated by, devotee’s indiscriminate, though nevertheless well-intended,feeding of Lakshmi with all sorts of delicacies.

Bhagavan acknowledged Dr. Reddy’s efforts and it seems, one day enquired of Chinnaswami whether the doctor had been paid for his visits.

Though Chinnaswami had offered payment for his services,the veterinarian had refused to accept it.When Dr.Reddy met Bhagavan in the old hall, declining once again to accept any form of payment, Bhagavan graciously instructed the attendant to gift him copies of all the Ashram publications in English and Telugu.

Born in 1908 Dr. Reddy ultimately came to Bhagavan through Cow Lakshmi after a long series of bends and turns. He had been attracted to the Theosophical Society and participated in the Salt Satyagraha as part of the Civil Disobedience movement of Gandhiji.

He then came into contact with Sri Ramakrishna Math,Visakapatnam, and was initiated into the order by Swami Yatiswaranandaji. By virtue of his position as the Veterinary Assistant Surgeon at Tiruvannamalai he was blessed to come in contact with the Ashram
and finally to meet Bhagavan Sri Ramana which altered the course of his life forever.

With his spiritual leanings since childhood,and as a gifted orator, Dr. Reddy became and remained an active speaker. To his credit he wrote and published a book (in Telugu) on Bhagavan’s teachings entitled,Atmavicharamu: Sri Ramana Maharshi.

Dr.Reddy is now 103 years old.Healthy and managing on his own, he lives with his son in their native Tanapalli, near Tirupati. —

Source: http://www.sriramanamaharshi.org/pdf/Saranagathi_eNewsletter_August_2011.pdf

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Few Ramana Maharshi Talks

Happiness is born of Peace and can reign only when there is no disturbance. Disturbance is due to thoughts, which arise in the mind. When the mind is absent, there will be perfect Peace.

Even the present is mere imagination, for the sense of time is purely mental.

"You and I are the same. What I have done is surely possible for all. You are the Self now and can never be anything else. Throw your worries to the wind, turn within and find Peace." ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

The ultimate truth is so simple; it is nothing more than being in one’s natural, original state.

The Self is always there. It is you. There is nothing but you.

Everyday life is not divorced from the Eternal State. So long as the daily life is imagined to be different from the spiritual life these difficulties arise. If the spiritual life is rightly understood, the active life will be found to be not different from it (Talk 375).

When a pot is broken, the space within it is not, and similarly, when the body dies the Self in it remains eternal.

All that is required to realize the Self is to be still.

By day I praised you, and never knew it. By night I stayed with you, and never knew it. I always thought that I was me--but no, I was you and never knew it

The realized person weeps with the weeping, laughs with the laughing, plays with the playful, sings with those who sing, keeping time to the song.

By whatever path you go, you will have to lose yourself in the One.

Since the one aim is to realize the Self by destroying the ego, to engage oneself in verbal wrangling about the nature of the world is but vain. ~ Truth Revealed (Sadvidya)

We are always the Self. Only, we don’t realise it.

There are no stages in Realization or degrees in Liberation.

You speak as if you are here, and the Self is somewhere else and you had to go and reach it, but in fact the Self is here and now, and you are always It.

Your business is simply to surrender and leave everything to me.

Engage yourself in the living present. The future will take care of itself.

The body itself is a thought. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

You imagine it is something somewhere high in the sky, far away, and has to descend. It is really inside you, in your Heart, and the moment you effect subsidence or merger of the mind into its Source, grace rushes forth, sprouting as from a spring within you.

Your duty is to Be, and not to be this or that.

Since you shine as ''I'' in the Heart, your name itself is Heart. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

It does not matter how many thoughts arise. As each thought arises, one should inquire with diligence, "To whom has this thought arisen?"

The mind is commonly said to be strong if it can think furiously. But here the mind is strong if it is free from thoughts.

I would like to take a moment to thank each and everyOne of you who support this page with your wonderful insights. May you rediscover your true nature and live as That. Lॐve blessings from the Heart

Apart from thoughts, there is no such thing as mind.

The mind cannot seek the mind.

Grace is not something to be acquired from others. If it is external, it is useless. All that is necessary is to know its existence in you.

You know that you know nothing.

Without consciousness, time and space do not exist; they appear within Consciousness but have no reality of their own.

When will the realization of the Self be gained? When the world which is what-is-seen has been removed, there will be realization of the Self which is the seer. ~ from Who Am I? (Nan Yar?)

Be yourself and nothing more.

You and I are the same. What I have done is surely possible for all. You are the Self now and can never be anything else.Throw your worries to the wind, turn within and find Peace.

True humanity lies not in returning violence for violence, but in forgiveness.

"Only those who need not engage in action, are happy; they are perfectly content, and self-contained, and they experience happiness which extends to all the pores of the body." ~ Tripura Rahasya

When there is no "I" there is no karma.

Questioner: What is the state beyond bliss? Maharshi: It is the state of unceasing peace of mind which is found in the state of absolute quiescence.

The existence of this existence-consciousness can be inferred by the objects illuminated by it. It does not become the object of consciousness.

Guru is none other than the Self. If there is a external guru he will only point to the self

Q: How long does it take a man to be reborn after death? Is it immediately after death or some time later? 

Maharshi: You do not know what you were before birth, yet you want to know what you will be after death. Do you know what you are now?

Existence or Consciousness is the only reality. Consciousness plus waking we call waking. Consciousness plus sleep we call sleep. Consciousness plus dream, we call dream. Consciousness is the screen on which all the pictures come and go. The screen is real, the pictures are mere shadows on it.

"Only the knowledge of direct experience can be true and useful; the Self is to be realized and not to be talked about." ~ The Lamp of Non-Dual Knowledge

To the ignorant and the wise alike the world exists. To the former, the world observed alone is real. To the wise, the formless source of the visible is the one world, Real and Perfect." ~ Sat-Darshana Bhashya

You know that you are.

"The Self is one and is identical with the Lord. In order to see the Self or to see the Lord, the ego must get consumed and lost, having surrendered itself to the Supreme Being." Truth Revealed (Sadvidya)


The seat of Realization is within and the seeker cannot find it as an object outside him. That seat is bliss and is the core of all beings. Hence it is called the Heart.

The realized being does not see the world as different from himself.

Married or unmarried, a man can realise the Self, because that is here and now. If it were not so, but attainable by some efforts at some other time, and if it were new and something to be acquired, it would not be worthy of pursuit. Because what is not natural cannot be permanent either. But what I say is that the Self is here and now and alone.

Be what you are. That which is, is ever present. Even now you are It, and not apart from It. The expectation to see and the desire to get something are all the working of the ego. Be yourself and nothing more.

"The changeless infinite Self transcends time and space, which are relative to the body and the mind." ~ Truth Revealed (Sadvidya)

All will come right in the end.

A Self-realised being cannot help benefiting the world. His very existence is the highest good.

If the mind is turned inward God manifests as inner consciousness.

The Heart is not physical; it is spiritual. Hridayam = hrit + ayam - This is the centre. It is that from which thoughts arise, on which they subsist and where they are resolved.

Satisfaction can be only when you reach the Source. Otherwise restlessness remains.

The conception that there is a goal and a path to it, is wrong. We are the goal or peace always.

The thing to do is to concentrate on the seer and not on the seen, not on the objects, but on the Light which reveals them.

Grace is ever present. All that is necessary is that you surrender to It.

The body itself is a thought. Be as you really are.

Forgetfulness of your real nature is true death;
remembrance of it is rebirth.

When you speak of a path, where are you now?

Guru is not the physical form. So the contact will remain even after the physical form of the Guru vanishes.

If the light of the sun is invisible to the owl, it is onlyquiry realize that the mind which remains at the end of the inquiry is Brahman." ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

There is no difference between the dream and the waking states except that the dream is short and the waking long. Both are the result of the mind. Our real state, called turiya (fourth), is beyond the waking, dream and sleep states.

Regulation of life, such as getting up at a fixed hour, bathing, doing mantra, japa, observing ritual, all this is for people who do not feel drawn to self-enquiry or are not capable of it. But for those who can practise this method all rules and discipline are unnecessary.

Reality lies beyond the mind. So long as the mind functions, there is duality. Once it is transcended, Reality shines forth.

Birth and death pertain only to the body…they are superimposed on the Swe are free.

The fact of your existence is also your realization.

'I exist' is the only permanent self-evident experience of everyone.

Eventually, all that one has learnt will have to be forgotten.

Doesn't one find some kind of peace while in meditation? That is a sign of progress. That peace will become deeper and more prolonged with continued practice. It will also lead to the goal.

OAM NAMO BHAGAVATE SRI RAMANAYA

"Those who follow the path of inquiry realize that the mind which remains at theby this intense activity which is called 'silence' (mauna).

There is no help in changing your environment.The obstacle is the mind, which must be overcome, whether at home or in the forest. If you can do it in the forest, why not in the home? Therefore, why change the environment?

Mind and breath have the same source. Hence breath is controlled when mind is controlled and mind when breath is controlled. Breath is the gross form of the mind. Pranayama (breath control) is only an aid to subdue the mind and will not serve to kill it. Like pranayama, worship of a deity, japa (repetition) with a mantra, strict regulation of diet are all aids for mind control.


There is no greater mystery than this: Being Reality ourselves, we seek to gain Reality.

.lf, giving rise to the delusion that birth and death relate to the Self. Discover the undying Self and be immortal and happy.

The highest form of grace is silence. It is also the highest
spiritual instruction. .. All other modes of instruction are derived
from silence and are therefore secondary. Silence is the primary
form. If the Guru is silent the seeker's mind gets purified by itself. Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, 518.

Maya (delusion or ignorance) which cannot be desYour duty is to Be, and not to be this or that.

To him who is one with the formless Self, everything is formless.

They say I am dying, but I am not going away. Where could I go? I am here.

Be as you already are.

"If mind-consciousness subsides into the source from which it arose, the experience of Being, absolute perfection, will unite with you here and now." ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

Christ is the ego. The Cross is the body.When the ego is crucified, and it perishes, what survives is the Absolute Being, and this glorious survival is called Resurrection. - Talks, November 6, 1935

All spiritual teachings are only meant to make us retrace our steps to our Original Source...We need not acquire anything new, only give up false ideas and useless accretions...Instead of doing this, we tr2That which is, is only Sat. That is called Brahman. The luster of Sat is chit and its nature is ananda. These are not different from Sat. And the three together are known as Sat-chit-ananda."

The mind is only a bundle of thoughts. The thoughts arise because there is the thinker. The thinker is the ego. The ego, if sought, will vanish automatically. The ego and the mind are the same. The ego is the root-thought from which all other thoughts arise.

What exists in truth is the Self alone.

Your duty is to Be, and not to be this or that.

To him who is one with the formless Self, everything is formless.

Thit must be ddying, but I athe truth is gained. This is clearly ridiculous. A day will dawn when you will laugh at your past efforts. What you realize on the day you laugh is also here and now.

The world is nothing more than an embodiment of the objects perceived by the five sense-organs. Since, through these five sense-organs, a single mind perceives the world, the world is nothing but the mind. Apart from the mind can there be a world? ~ Forty Verses on Reality,verse 6

f one has form oneself, the world and God also will appear to have form, but if one is formless, who is it that sees those forms, and how? Without the eye can any object be seen? The seeing Self is the Eye, and that Eye is y to grasp something strange and mysterious because we believe happiness lies elsewhere. This is the mistake.

Do not think too much of psychical phenomena and such things. Their number is legion; and once faith in the psychical thing is established in the heart of a seeker, such phenomena have done their work. Clairvoyance, clairaudience, and such things are not worth having, when so much far greater illumination and peace are possible without them than with them." ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

There is no greater mystery than this: Being Reality ourselves, we seek to gain Reality. We think that there is something hiding Reality and that it must be destroyed before the truth is gained. This is clearly ridiculous. A day will dawn when you will laugh at your past efforts. What you realize on the day you laugh is also here and now.

The world is nothing more than an embodiment of the objects perceived by the five sense-organs. Since, through these five sense-organs, a single mind perceives the world, the world is nothing but the mind. Apart from the mind can there be a world? ~ Forty Verses on Reality,verse 6

f one has form oneself, the world and God also will appear to have form, but if one is formless, who is it that sees those forms, and how? Without the eye can any object be seen? The seeing Self is the Eye, and that Eye is the Eye of Infinity. ~ Forty Verses on Reality,verse 4

Abide as That in which there is no beginning or end, no top or bottom or middle, no holy place or god, no gifts or pious acts, no time or space, no objects of perception - and be always happy, free from all traces of thought. ~ The Heart of the Ribhu Gita

Reality is simply loss of the ego. Destroy the ego by seeking its identity.Because the ego has no real existence, it will automatically vanish, and Reality will shine forth by itself in all its glory. This is the direct method. All other methods retain the ego.

Without consciousness, time and space do not exist; they appear within Consciousness but have no reality of their own.

You speak as if you are here, and the Self is somewhere else and you had to go and reach it… …But in fact the Self is here and now, and you are always It. It is like being here and asking people the way to the ashram, then complaining that each one shows a different path and asking which to follow

Happiness is born of Peace and can reign only when there is no disturbance. Disturbance is due to thoughts, which arise in the mind. When the mind is absent there will be perfect Peace.

The world does not exist in sleep and forms a projection of your mind in the waking state. It is therefore an idea and nothing else.

"If you seek God with your whole Heart, then you may be assured that the Grace of God is also seeking you." ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi

Place your burden at the feet of the Lord of the Universe who accomplishes everything. Remain all the time steadfast in the heart, in the Transcendental Absolute. God knows the past, present and future. He will determine the future for you and accomplish the work. What is to be done will be done at the proper time. Don’t worry. Abide in the heart and surrender your acts to the divine.

Your duty is to Be, and not be this or that.Let the world bother about its reality or falsehood. Find out first about your own reality. Then all things will become clear.

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Ramana Maharshi's 100 frequently asked question answers

52. Question: How to meditate?

Bhagavan: Being aware of the Self is the real meditation. When the mind gives up its habit of choosing and deciding, it then turns towards its own real nature. At that time, it gets into the fundamental state. When the ego gets or stays more powerful, entry into this state does not take place.

53. Question: What must I do to avoid sleep during my meditation?

Bhagavan: Meditators must not work too much, nor should they fill their stomachs with excessive food. The more one fills the stomach, the lower one's mental state becomes. If the stomach is mostly empty, one will go higher spiritually. One should not tighten the strings of the veena (stringed musical instrument) either too much or too little. The body must be kept like that.

Likewise with sleep. One third of the night has been allotted for sleep. That is, one must go to bed at 10 p.m. and wake up at 2 a.m. One should not sleep during the daytime. There is anbody? How could I feel this in the body?

Bhagavan: You can feel yourself as one with the One that exists: the whole body becomes a mere power, a force-current; your life becomes a needle drawn to a huge mass of magnet; and, as you go deeper and deeper, you become a mere center, and then not even that for you become mere consciousness.


71. Question: Then when you say, "Know thyself" you want me to know this ego-self?

Bhagavan: The moment the ego-self tries to know itself, it changes its character; it begins to partake less and less of the Jada (inert nature) in which it is absorbed, and more and more of the Consciousness of the Self, the Atman.


72. Question: Now be pleased to tell me where it (the Real Self) is in the body.

Bhagavan: You cannot know it with your mind. You cannot realize it by imagination, when I tell you here is the center (pointing to the right side of the chest). The only direct way to realize it is to cease to fancy, and (simply) try to be yourself. Then you realize, automatically feel, that the center is there. This is the center, the Heart spoken of in the scriptures as Hridayaguha (Cavity of the Hearin order to prevent it from running everywhere. Inquiring, "Who Am I?" is a much easier method of controlling the mind.

56. Question: I am often tempted to try other centers (of concentration), such as the base of the mind, the tip of the nose, and the space between the eyebrows. What does Bhagavan think about it?

Bhagavan: When the Heart center is there (is present), why not go directly to it instead of going through other centers? To come to Tiruvannamalai from Madras (in South India), why should you go to Banaras (in North India) first and come down all the way, or why go to Rameswaram (another city further south in India) and come up here. Why not come straight?


57. Question: Some people advise that one should concentrate on the center of the eyebrows. Is this correct?

Bhagavan: What is important is (ones) determination. The source of everython. Accept your true identity with the Real. Be the water and not the froth. That is done by diving in.


65.Question: Sri Bhagavan speaks of the Heart as the seat of Consciousness, and as identical with the Self. What does the Heart signify exactly?

Bhagavan: The question about the Heart arises because you are interested in seeking the source of Consciousness. To all deep thinking minds, the inquiry about the "I" and ? How can the mind be made to over cy toward diffus ' BC^ b2/ ^ b2/ imal state of freedom from thought?

Bhagavan: It is the mind's attachment to objects, constituting the non-self, which makes the mind wander about during meditation. Therefore, the mind should be withdrawn from the non-self, and 63. Question: How can meditation become steady?

ng imagination. Accept your true identity with the Real. Be the water and not the froth. That is done by diving in.


65.Question: Sri Bhagavan speaks of the Heart as the seat of Consciousness, and as identical with the Self. What does the Heart signify exactly?



64. Question: Am I the froth?

Bhagavan: Cease that identification with the unreal and know your real identity. Then you will be firm and no doubts can arise. Because you think that way there is worry. It is a wrong imagination. Accept your true identity with the Real. Be the water and not the froth. That is done by diving in.


65.Question: Sri Bhagavan speaks of the Heart as the seat of Consciousness, and as identical with the Self. What does the Heart signify exactly?

Bhagavan: The question about the Heart arises because you are interested in seeking the source of Consciousness. To all deep thinking minds, the inquiry about the "I" and 0A
62. Question: What books should I read for swadhyaya (introspection, or self study)?

Bhagavan: The Self is the real book. You can glance anywhere in that "book"; nobody can take it away from you. Whenever (or since) you are free, turn towards the Sed know your realou may read whateverwill be firm and no doubts can arise. Because you think that way there is worry. It is a wrong imagination. Accept your true identity with the Real. Be the water and not the froth. That is done by diving in.


65.Question: Sri Bhagavan speaks of the Heart as the seat of Consciousness, and as identical with the Self. What does the Heart signify exactly?



64. Question: Am I the froth?

Bhagavan: Cease that identification with tonsciousness. To all deep thinking minds, the inquiry about the "I" and its nature has an irresistible fascination.

Call it by any name: God, Self, the Heart, or the seat of Consciousness, it is all the same. The point to be grasped is this, that Heart means the very core of one's being, the center without which there is nothing whatever.


66. Question: But Sri Bhagavan has spec
Bhagavan: The question about the Heart arises because you are interested in seeking the source of Consciousness. To all deep thinking minds, the inquiry about the "I" and its nature has an irresistible fascination.

Call it by any name: God, Self, the Heart, or the seat of Consciousness, it is all the same. The point to be grasped is this, that Heart means the very core of one's being, the center without which there is nothing whatever.


66. Question: But Sri Bhagavan has specified a particular place for the Heart within, i.e., a physical place of the Heart within the physical body, which is in the chest two digits to the right from the median.

Bhagavan: Yes, that is the center of spiritual experience according to the testimony of Sages. This spiritual Heart-center is quite different from the blood-propelling, muscular organ known by the same name. The spiritual Heart-center is not an organ of the body. All that you can say of this Heart is that it is the very core of your being. That with which you are really identical (as the word in Sanskrit literally means), whether you are awake, asleep, or dreaming, whether you are engaged in work or immersed in samadhi (absorbed in Self).


67. Question: How can it (the Heart-center) be localized in any part of the body? Fixing a place for the Heart (within the body) would imply setting physiological limitations to that which is beyond space and tf Consciousness. To all deep thinking minds, the inquiry about the "I" astion about the position of the Heart, considers himself as existing within the body. While putting the question now, would you say that your body alone is here but that you are speaking from somewhere else? No, you accept your bodily existence. It is from this point of view that any reference to a physical body is made.


68. Question: You often say that there is the real meaning of "I" in the Heart. What does it mean?

Bhagavan: Yes, when you go deeper within, you lose yourself as it were in the abysmal depths; then the Reality, which is the Self that was behind you all the while, takes hold of you. It is an incessant flash (or current) of I-consciousness, you can be aware of it, feel it, hear it, sense it, so to say; this is what I call the throb (or current) of the "I"-"I."


69. Question: You said that the Atman (the Self) is immutable, self-effulgent, etc. But, if you speak at the same time of the incessant flash (or current) of I-consciousness, does that not imply movement, which cannot be complete realization in which there is no movement?

Bhagavan: What do you mean by complete realization? Does it mean becoming a stone, an inert mass? The thought "I," is different from that which says "I." The former is the activity of the ego, and is bound to lose itself and Aurl (Ullam).


73. Question: Then what is Samadhi?

Bhagavan: In yoga the samadhi term refers to some kind of trance, and there are various kinds of samadhi. However, the samadhi I speak of is different. It is Sahaja Samadhi (state of permanent Realization). For, here you have Samadhana (see all things as the same), you remain calm and composed even while you are active; you realize that you are moved by the deeper Real Self within. You have no worries, no anxieties, no cares.

For, here you come to realize that there is nothing belonging to you. And everything is done by Something with which you get into conscious union.


74. Question: If this is Sahaja Samadhi (the natural state) and the most desirable condition, there is no need for Nirvikalpa Samadhi (highest state of Yoga that sees no differences).

Bhagavan: The Nirvikalpa Samadhi (no differences perceived) of Raja (Royal) Yoga may have its use. But, in Jnana (pure Knowledge), this Sahaja Sthiti (abidance in the natural state) itself is the Nirvikalpa (no concepts) state. For, in this state the mind is free from doubts (and modifications). It has no need to swing between alternatives of possibilities and probabilities. It has noity without any thought is Nirvikalpa Samadhi. Permanently abiding in the Selft), Aurl (Ullam).


73. Question: Then what is Samadhi?

Bhagavan: In yoga the samadhi term refers to some kind of trance, and there are various kinds of samadhi. However, the samadhi I speak of is different. It is Sahaja Samadhi (state of permanent Realization). For, here you have Samadhana (see all things as the same), you remain calm and composed even while you are active; you realize that you are moved by the deeper Real Self within. You have no worries, no anxieties, no cares.

For, here you come to realize that there is nothing belonging to you. And everything is done by Something with which you get into conscious union.


74. Question: If this is Sahaja Samadhi (the natural state) and the most desirable condition, there is no need for Nirvikalpa Samadhi (highest state of Yoga that sees no differences).

Bhagavan: The Nirvikalpa Samadhi (no differences perceived) of Raja (Royal) Yoga may have its use. But, in Jnana (pure Knowledge), this Sahaja Sthiti (abidance in the natural state) itself is the Nirvikalpa (no concepts) state. For, in this state the mind is free from doubts (and modifications). It has no need to swing between alternatives of possibilities and probabilities. It has noity without any thought is Nirvikalpa Samadhi. Permanently abiding in the Selfadhi (the state of oneness where one experiences the Self) mean that one is unaware of everything?

Bhagavan: No. Meditation will go on without our effort. That is samadhi.


76. Question: Then what is Sahaja Samadhi?

Bhagavan: In that state, meditation will always be going on. In that state the thought, "I am meditating" or "I am not meditating" will not occur.

NOTE: Sahaja Samadhi is the permanent state of Self-Realization in which one functions normally in the world without thought, with no sense of oneness or separateness.

77. Question: In my meditation I am only aware of an all-pervasive blankness. Is that good?

Bhagavan: It is good if meditators meditate with Self-awareness.

78. Question: Can one practice Sahaja Samadhi (the permanent state of Self-Realization in which one functions normally in the world without thought, with no sense of oneness or separateness) right from the beginning?

Bhagavan: Yes.


79. Question: How does one practice Nirvikalpa Samadhi (the state with no perceived differences)? How many different kinds of samadhi are there?

Bhagavan: There is only one kind of samadhi, not many kinds. To remain temporarily subsided in the Reality without any thought is Nirvikalpa Samadhi. Permanently abiding in the Self, without forgetting it, is Sahaja Samadhi.


80. Question: God is omnipresent. Why should He become an avatara (one born Enlightened in a physical body) age after age? Couldn't He perform His function just by being present everywhere?

Bhagavan: By the order of Iswara (the Supreme Power, or personal God), authorized, eligible, or qualified beings (adhikarika purushas) along with their devotees are sent to take birth on earth. These beings become avataras in order to give their grace to those who have done nishkamya punya (meritorious acts without any desire), accomplish the mission for which they came, then go back to their own earlier positions. Though different bodies come to the avatara purushas (incarnate divine beings), their experience of the unity of the Self never changes. A man, after being born, undergoes the various stages of life -- childhood, youth, manhood, and old age -- but in all these stages, the thought that he is the same person who was born remains unchanged. Likewise, the avatara purushas knowingly remain as the one Self even though they go through many births. For them, it is rather like seeing ten different dreams in one night.

All these questions will not occur when you know yourself. Without knowing the truth about oneself, it is a waste of time trying to understand the differing teachings of other people.


81. Question: What is the difference between Iswara (personal God) and the liberated one?

Bhagavan: Iswara and the Jnani (liberated being) are one and the same, except that the liberated person was at first forgetful of the Self. Later, by strength of his practice, he eventually came to know the Self. For Iswara, it was not like that. Being the eternally liberated One, God is performing the five-fold functions of creation, preservation and destruction, veiling and grace. The activities, or functioning of Iswara and the Jnani, are one and the same.


82. Question: You have said that the jnani (realized being) can be as active, and deal with men and things. I have no doubt about it now. You say at the same time that he has no differences; to him all is one, he is always in the Consciousness... if so, how does he deal with differences --with men, with things, which are surely different?

Bhagavan: He sees these differences as but appearances. He sees them as not separate from the True, the Real, with which he is one.


83. Question: The jnani (realized being) seems to be more accurate in his expressions; he appreciates the differences better than the ordinary man. If sugar is sweet and wormwood is bitter to me, he too seems to realize it is so. In fact, all forms, all sounds, all tastes, etc., are the same to him as they are to others. If so, how can it be said that these are mere appearances? Do they not form part of his life experience?

Bhagavan: I have said that equality implies the existence of differences. It is a unity that the jnani perceives in all differences, which I call equality. Equality does not mean ignorance of distinctions. When you have the Realization you can see that these differences are very nominal, they are not at all substantial or permanent, and what is essential in all these appearances is the one Truth, and Real. That I call unity... You referred to sound, taste, form, smell, etc. True, the jnani appreciates the distinctions, but he always perceives and experiences the one Real in all of them. That is why he has no preferences. Whether he moves about or talks or acts, it is all the One Real in which he acts or moves or talks. He has nothing apart from the one supreme Truth.


84. Question: Sri Bhagavan has written that one should not show advaita (non-duality) in one's activities. Why so? All are one. Why differences?

Bhagavan: If you saw someone molesting a woman would you just let him go, thinking "All is one?" There is a scriptural story about this. Some people once gathered together to test whether it is true, as said in the Bhagavad Gita, that a jnani (realized being) sees everything as one. They took a Brahmin, (a member of the highest Hindu caste system), a cow, an elephant, and a dog to the court of King Janaka, who was a jnani. When all had arrived, King Janaka sent the Brahmin to the place of Brahmins, the cow to its shed, the elephant to the place allotted to elephants, the dog to its kennel. He then ordered his servants to take care of his guests and feed them all appropriate food. The people asked, "Why did you separate them individually? Is not everything one and the same for you?"

"Yes, all are one," replied Janaka, "but self-satisfaction varies according to the nature of the individual. Will a man eat the straw eaten by the cow? Will the cow enjoy the food that a man eats? One should only give what satisfies each individual person or animal. Although the same man may play the role of all the characters in a play, his actions will be determined by the role that he is playing at each moment. In the role of a king, he will sit on a throne and rule. If the same person takes on the role of a servant, he will carry the sandals of his master and follow him. His real Self is neither increased nor decreased while he plays these roles. The Jnani never forgets that he himself has played all these roles in the past."

85. Question: What is the difference between the bound man and the one liberated?

Bhagavan: From the Heart, the Self-center, there is a subtle passage leading to the mind's center. The ordinary man lives in the brain unaware of himself in the Heart. The enlightened one lives in the Heart. When he moves about and deals with men and things, he knows that what he sees is not separate from the one Supreme Reality, the Brahman, (the impersonal Absolute Reality) which he realized in the Heart as his own Self, the Real.

Question: What about the ordinary man?

Bhagavan: I have just said that he sees things outside himself. He is separate from the world, from his own deeper truth, from the truth that supports him and what he sees. The man who has realized the Supreme Truth of his own existence realizes that it is the one Supreme Reality that is there behind him, behind the world. In fact, he is aware of the One, as the Real, the Self in all selves, in all things, Eternal and Immutable, in all that is impermanent and mutable.


86. Question: Some say that to make an effort for one's liberation is selfish, and that instead of that, one should do good to others by selfless service.

Bhagavan: Those people believe that jnanis (realized beings) are selfish and that they themselves are selfless, but this is not a true belief. The jnani lives in the experience of Brahman (the impersonal Absolute Reality) and the effect of this experience spreads all over the world. A radio transmission is done from one point but its effect can be felt all over the world. Those who would like to benefit from it can do so. Similarly, the Self-realization of the jnani spreads everywhere and whosoever wants can tune into it. This is not a lesser service.


87. Question: How to maintain the thought that all is Brahman (the impersonal Absolute Reality) in the midst of worldly activities?

Bhagavan: When the harmonium is being played there is a constant note that is called the sruti. Along with that, other notes also come out. If the ear is fixed on this note that is constant, then, while listening to the other notes, that original note cannot be forgotten. Actually, that first note gives strength to all the other notes. So, the principle to understand is that the first note is the adhistana (substratum) while the other notes represent worldly activities. During worldly activities, if (awareness of) the note of the adhistana is continuous, whatever is spoken is then done with authority of this adhistana note. But an ordinary man does not keep his attention on the first note, the adhistana. He merely listens to the subsequent notes. Sukhdev (a sage of ancient India) used to keep such attention and maintain his awareness of Brahman. When the attention is fixed properly on the first note, the effect of the other notes will not be felt.


88. Question: How much sleep does a Jnani (realized being) require?

Bhagavan: Sleep is necessary to one who thinks, "I have risen from sleep." But, to those who are ever in changeless Sleep, what need is there for some other sleep? When the eyelids feel strained, it will do to close the eyes for a while. The three states of waking, dreaming, and deep sleep are for the mind and not for the body.


89. Bhagavan: Now I put a question to you. When a man with luggage gets into a railway carriage, where does he keep it?

Devotee: He keeps it in his compartment or in the luggage car.

90. Bhagavan: So he does not carry his luggage upon his head or in his lap?

Devotee: None but a fool would do so.

Bhagavan: If you call him a fool who keeps it on his head, a thousand times more foolish is it to bear your burden when you get into spiritual life, whether it is vichara-marga (the path of knowledge), or bhaki-marga (the path of devotion)?


91. Question: But can I throw off all my responsibilities, all my commitments?

Bhagavan: Now, look at the temple tower (Gopuram). There are many statues in it, and there is a big statue, one in each corner. Have you seen them? Well, do you think the statues support the temples entrance?

92. Devotee: When you speak like that, it would be as foolish as to think those statues also support the tall towers as well.

Bhagavan: Yes. Likewise, the Lord of the Universe carries the entire burden of this world. You imagine you do. You can hand all your burdens over to His care. Whatever you have to do, you will be made an instrument for doing it at the right time. Do not think you cannot do it unless you have the desire to do it. Desire does not give you the strength for doing. The entire strength is the Lord's.


93. Question: Am I to understand that you are giving me the essence of Karma Yoga (the way of action)?

Bhagavan: It is the essence of Karma Yoga (the path of action), of Bhakti Yoga (the way of devotion), even of Jnana Yoga (the path of knowledge or wisdom); for even though the paths may differ in the beginning, they all eventually lead to this same position.


94. Question: How is sadbuddhi (Pure Intellect) to be steadily kept up?

Bhagavan: All living beings are aware of their surroundings; and, therefore, intellect must be surmised in all of them. At the same time, there is a difference between the intellect of man and that of other animals because man not only sees the world as it is and acts accordingly, but also seeks fulfillment of desires. He extends his vision far and wide, and yet he turns away dissatisfied. He then begins to think and reason out. The desire for permanency of happiness and for peace bespeaks such permanency of his own nature. Therefore, he seeks to find and regain his own nature, i.e., his Self. That found, all is found.

Such inward seeking is the path to be gained by man's intellect. The intellect itself realizes after continuous practice that it is enabled by some Higher Power to function. It cannot itself reach that Power. So it ceases to function after a certain stage. When it thus ceases to function, the Supreme Power is still left there all alone. That is Realization; that is the finality; and that is the goal. It is thus plain that the purpose of the intellect is to realize its own dependence on the Higher Power and its inability to reach the same.


95. Question: What is Sat Sanga (Keeping Conscious Company or Association)

Bhagavan: Sat Sanga means only Self Sanga (association with the Self). Only those who cannot practice that, are to practice being in the company of Realized Beings, or sadhus (holy men)


96. Question: When does one get the company of a Satguru? (Spiritual Master living in Reality)

Bhagavan: The opportunity to be in the company of a Satguru comes effortlessly to those who have performed worship of God, japa (repetition of a name of God), tapas (burning off one's impurities by intense spiritual practice), pilgrimages, etc., for long periods in their previous births. There is a verse by Tayumanavar (a great Indian saint) which points out the same thing; "O Lord of the first and last, those who properly start the worship of idols, holy places, and sacred waters will meet the Satguru who will tell them the words of Truth."

Only he who has done plenty of nishkamya karmas (actions performed without any thought of a reward or consequence) in previous births will get abundant faith in the Guru. Having faith in the Guru's words, such a man will follow the path and reach the goal of liberation.


97. Question: In the supplement to Ulladu Narpadu (a poem of forty-two verses, composed by Bhagavan in Tamil, which explains the nature of Reality and the means of discovering it), it is said that the look of a "Mahatma (great soul) is far more effective than any number of pilgrimages, worship, and other devotional practices." I have already stayed here for some months but I do not feel any change in myself. Why?

Bhagavan: The purification by the look of a Mahatma is not visible. Coal takes time to ignite, but charcoal is proportionately quicker, while gunpowder ignites immediately. So it is with men under the powerful influence of a jnani (a realized being).


98. Question: How can one have a vision of God?

Bhagavan: Seeing God implies that he is not there now but will come later, is it not? That which appears and disappears is not permanent. Can one place faith in that which is impermanent? Is it not better to abide in God, instead of merely seeing Him? Self-abidance is what one should seek, not visions. It is only when the ego is merged in its source, the Heart, that true knowledge of one's identity with God will dawn.


99. Question: The fact is that God guides us. Then what is the use of these instructions to people?

Bhagavan: They are for those who seek instructions. If you are firm in your belief in the guidance of God, stick to it, and do not concern yourself with what happens around you. Furthermore, there may be happiness or misery. Be equally indifferent to both and abide in the faith of God. That will be so only when one's faith is strong that God looks after all of us.


100. Question: Does not God work His Will through some chosen person?

Bhagavan: God is in all and works through all. But His presence is better recognized in purified minds. The pure ones reflect God's actions more clearly than the impure minds. Therefore, people say that they are the chosen ones. However, the "chosen" man does not himself say so. If he thinks that he is the intermediary, then it is clear that he retains his individuality and that there is not complete surrender.


101. Question: How is "I-I" consciousness felt?

Bhagavan: As an unbroken awareness of "I." It is simply consciousness. You are that even now. There will be no mistaking it, when pure.

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