Ramana Maharshi About Pure Materialists

24-3-46

Devotee: “A pure materialist does not believe in God. How are we to deal with him?”

Bhagavan: He will come gradually, step by step, to find out the source of ‘I’. First, adversity will make him feel that there is a power beyond his control, upsetting his plans. Then,he will begin with rituals, ceremonial worship, and through japa, kirtan, dhyana, go on to vichara.

For we know nothing about God or any source from which power comes and gets into us. All that is not known. But ‘I exist’ is known beyond all dispute by all men. So let us know who that ‘I’ is. If,after knowing it, there still remain any doubts such as are now raised, it will be time enough then to try and clear such doubts.”

Source: DAY BY DAY WITH BHAGAVAN From the Diary of A. DEVARAJA MUDALIAR

Readers interested are requested to read below articles as well

http://prashantaboutindia.blogspot.com/2009/08/ramana-maharshis-answer-to-materialists.html

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Ramana Maharshi Says Existence Or Consciousness Is The Only Reality

Young man from Colombo asked Bhagavan,“How are the three states of consciousness inferior in degree of reality to the fourth? What is the actual relation between these three states and the fourth?”

Bhagavan: There is only one state, that of consciousness or awareness or existence. The three states of waking, dream and sleep cannot be real. They simply come and go. The real will always exist. The ‘I’ or existence that alone persists in all the three states is real. The other three are not real and so it is not possible to say they have such and such a degree of reality.

We may roughly put it like this.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. Because by long habit we have been regarding these three states as real, we call the state of mere awareness or consciousness as the fourth. There is however no fourth state,but only one state.

In this connection Bhagavan quoted one verse composed By Thayumanavar and said this
so-called fourth state is described as waking sleep or sleep in waking — meaning asleep to the world and awake in the Self.

Source: DAY BY DAY WITH BHAGAVAN From the Diary of A. DEVARAJA MUDALIAR

Readers interested are requested to read below articles as well

http://prashantaboutindia.blogspot.com/2010/01/ramana-maharshi-says-jnanis-walking-and.html

http://prashantaboutindia.blogspot.com/2009/05/michael-james-about-nature-of-mind.html

http://prashantaboutindia.blogspot.com/2009/05/michael-james-about-self-enquiry-based.html

http://prashantaboutindia.blogspot.com/2010/03/ramana-maharshi-about-process-of-doing.html

http://prashantaboutindia.blogspot.com/2010/03/ramana-maharshi-answers-to-why-is-there.html

http://prashantaboutindia.blogspot.com/2010/03/ramana-maharshi-says-walking-and-dream.html

http://prashantaboutindia.blogspot.com/2010/03/ramana-maharshi-about-transition-stage.html

http://prashantaboutindia.blogspot.com/2010/02/ramana-maharshi-answer-to-question-can.html

http://prashantaboutindia.blogspot.com/2009/10/sri-ramakrishna-says-according-to.html

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Ramana Maharshi Answers Though Our Real Nature Is Mukti We Imagine We Are Bound

5-1-46 Afternoon

Our real nature is mukti. But we are imagining we are bound and are making various strenuous attempts to become free, while we are all the while free. This will be understood only when we reach that stage. We will be surprised that we were frantically trying to attain something which we have always been and are.

An illustration will make this clear.

A man goes to sleep in this hall. He dreams he has gone on a world tour, is roaming over hill and dale, forest and country,desert and sea, across various continents and after many years of weary and strenuous travel, returns to this country, reaches Tiruvannamalai, enters the Asramam and walks into the hall.Just at that moment he wakes up and finds he has not moved an inch but was sleeping where he lay down. He has not returned after great effort to this hall, but is and always has been in the hall. It is exactly like that.

If it is asked, why being free we imagine we are bound, I answer, “Why being in the hall did you imagine you were on a world adventure, crossing hill and dale, desert and sea? It is all mind or maya.”

Source: DAY BY DAY WITH BHAGAVAN From the Diary of A. DEVARAJA MUDALIAR

Readers interested are requested to read below article as well

http://prashantaboutindia.blogspot.com/2010/02/it-is-mind-which-creates-duality.html

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Ramana Maharshi Opinion About Rituals And Pujas

5-1-46 Afternoon

A visitor asked Bhagavan, “Priests prescribe various rituals and pujas and people are told that unless they properly observe these with fasts, feasts, etc., sin will accrue, and so on. Is there any necessity to observe such rituals and ceremonial worship?”

Bhagavan: Yes. All such worship is also necessary. It may not be necessary for you. But that does not mean it is necessary for nobody and is no good at all. What is necessary for the infant class pupil is not necessary for the graduate. But even the graduate has to make use of the very alphabet he learnt in the infant class.He knows the full use and significance of the alphabet now.

The same visitor asked, “I do Omkara puja. I say ‘Om Ram’. Is that good?”

Bhagavan: Yes. Any puja is good. ‘Om Ram’ or any other name will do. The point is to keep away all other thoughts except the one thought of Om or Ram or God. All mantra or japa helps that. He who does the japa of Ram, for example,becomes Rama-maya.The worshipper becomes in course of time the worshipped. It is only then that he will know the full meaning of the Omkar which he was repeating.

Source: DAY BY DAY WITH BHAGAVAN From the Diary of A. DEVARAJA MUDALIAR

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Photo Of Ramana Maharshi Devotees Kanakammal,Chaganlal Yogi,Echammal foster daughter Chellamal's son

Photo was scanned from Arunachala's Ramana Volume VI Book.

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Ramana Maharshi About Dvaita And Advaita

27-6-46

Devotee: According to the Vaishnavite teaching one must do kainkaryam or service to God.”

Bhagavan replied rather sarcastically: “So God can’t get on without their services? On the contrary, God asks: ‘Who are you to do service to Me?’ He is always saying: ‘I am within you; who are you?’ One must try to realize that and not speak of service.

Submission or surrender is the basic teaching of Vaishnavism, but it does not consist in paying a Guru a fee for initiation and telling him that you have surrendered. As often as one tries to surrender, the ego raises its head and one has to try to suppress it. Surrender is not an easy thing.

Killing the ego is not an easy thing. It is only when God Himself by His grace draws the mind inwards that complete surrender can be achieved. But such grace comes only to those who have already, in this or previous lives, gone through all the struggles and sadhanas preparatory to the extinction of the mind and killing of the ego.”

Bhagavan added, “In the old days these Vaishnavites used to come and advise me to undergo a samasanam but I used to keep silent.”

Bhagavan continued to speak of the Dvaitism of the Vaishnavites and quoted the Nammalvar song the gist of which is: “not knowing myself,I went about saying ‘I’ and ‘mine’. Then I discovered that ‘I’ was ‘You’ and ‘mine’ was ‘Yours’, oh God.”

He said: “This is clear Advaita, but these Vaishnavites would give it some interpretation to make it accord with their feeling of duality.They hold that they must exist and God must exist, but how is that possible? It seems that they must all remain for ever doing service in Vaikunta, but how many of them are to do service and where would there be room for all these Vaishnavites?”

Bhagavan said this laughing, and then, after a pause, he added, “On the other hand, Advaita does not mean that a man must always sit in samadhi and never engage in action. Many things are necessary to keep up the life of the body, and action can never be avoided. Nor is bhakti ruled out in Advaita.

Shankara is rightly regarded as the foremost exponent of Advaita, and yet look at the number of shrines he visited (action), and the devotional songs he wrote.”

Bhagavan then gave further quotations from the eighth decad of Tiruvoimozhi to show that some of Vaishnavite Alwars had clearly endorsed Advaita. He particularly emphasised the third stanza where it says: “I was lost in Him or in That” and
the fifth, which is very like the Thiruvachagam stanza that says the ego got attenuated more and more and was extinguished in the Self.

Source: DAY BY DAY WITH BHAGAVAN From the Diary of A. DEVARAJA MUDALIAR

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Ramana Maharshi About Jivatma And Paramatma

26-6-46

Devotee: “The illumination plus mind is jivatma and the illumination alone is paramatma; is that right?”

Bhagavan assented and then pointed to his towel and said,

“We call this a white cloth, but the cloth and its whiteness cannot be separated, and it is the same with the illumination and the mind that unite to form the ego.”

The lamp in the theatre is the Parabrahman or the illumination, as you put it. It illumines itself and the stage and actors. We see the stage and the actors by its light, but its light still continues when there is no more play.

Another illustration is an iron rod that is compared to the mind. Fire joins it and it becomes red-hot. It glows and can burn things,like fire, but still it has a definite shape, unlike fire. If we hammer it, it is the rod that receives the blows, not the fire.The rod is the jivatma and the fire the Self or Paramatma.”

Source: DAY BY DAY WITH BHAGAVAN From the Diary of A. DEVARAJA MUDALIAR

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