Shutting Off The Sun-What Prevents The Inner Dive?

Ramana Maharshi

oi-Staff

By Staff

Monday, July 13, 2009, 11:56

Effort is needed to get back to the source, to experience natural joy and for an integral, pure mind. But there are few takers. Even the followers of Ramana seem to be content with surface dalliance, content with a few preliminary skirmishes with the massive thought flow. They seem only too ready to give up clinging to the core of the mind and the search for its source. Counter habit necessary for sustained inner movement is not developed.

By doing so they have shut off the constant glow of an illumined mind, merged totally in the Sun-Self. They do not even live in the reflected glory of the moonlight of a mind which is free from thoughts. The darkness of ignorance of the subject overpowers them. But they couldn't care less. Should one perish so? That too after the gracious entry of Ramana into our lives?

With so much at stake, so much to lose and so little to gain why is it that one is unable or unwilling even to try, let alone go the whole hog, for this inward search? What prevents the inner dive from the ego-centric mind towards its source, the ever conscious spiritual heart? One finds two crucial reasons for this. The first has been discussed threadbare in a few long question and answer sessions which B.V. Narasimha Swami (the first biographer of Ramana) had with Ramana. This relates to the question of location of happiness, the chasm between one's current experience and the truth.

Through long ingrained habit and the storehouse of memories of pain and pleasure carried forward from past action, the mind is outward bound. It is always searching, seeking happiness outside in objects, relationships, ideas and so on. The winter of discontent is bound to dog one unless one roots out the false notion about the subject, which arises by wrongly identifying it with 'this' or 'that', beginning with body and name. Ramana convinces Narasimha Swami, and through him all, that this situation is brought about because “we have never really cared to face our 'I'". In the never ending thought mix-up the individual, the perceiver, the enjoyer is forgotten. Hence Ramana declares that self-enquiry alone, an enquiry into the true nature of the subject only can free one from his bonded existence; his bondage to thoughts and dependence on them. Self-enquiry is the panacea.

The second significant stumbling block is discussed in another conversation. Viswanatha Swami was hardly out of his teens when he decided early in 1923 to stay permanently at the feet of Ramana, in his physical presence at Sri Ramanasramam. Understandably in his youthful mind, body centered thoughts would arise. When he sought guidance Ramana advised that the only way out was to nurture the inner experience. “It is only by awakening a power mightier than the senses and the mind that they can be subdued. If you awaken and sustain the growth of the power within you, everything else will be conquered." For this one has to mentally give it a pride of place and give it a whole-hearted trial. One would become aware, gradually, how immense is the loss when one is out of touch with the subject 'I' and its source. Little tit bits of the experience of inherent joy would start doing their work.

Having put our faith in the inward search the backup has to be continuous in the form of vigilance, constant attention to the birth and proliferation of thoughts. The breakthrough, subsidence of ceaseless thought movements, will be accompanied by the peace of a mind focused on itself, on the subject 'I'. One has to sustain this unfocussed attention by continuing the search, by enquiring about the source of the subject of the waking state, 'Where from did it arise?' This intense questioning would result in the mind being merged in its source, the abode of bliss. Nurturing this experience is what Ramana has counseled. It means vigilance to the birth of the first person 'I' thought. This would enable the steadying of the Self-experience. As one discovers the immensity of natural joy a wholly new life blossoms. The wonder of timeless, spaceless, existence while in the body would have been discovered and made one's own.

About the author

A.R.Natarajan

Sri A.R.Natarajan has had the opportunity of a long association of over 50 years with the Ramanashram. He was the editor of "Mountain Path" for two years. He was the secretary of Ramana Kendra, New Delhi for ten years. He founded the Ramana Maharshi centre for learning, a non profit institution. He has authored more than thirty six books and eleven pocket books on the life and teachings of Bhagavan Ramana.

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