Behind My Hand

D.: What does Maharshi say about hatha yoga or Tantric practices? M.: Maharshi does not criticise any of the existing methods. All are good for the purification of the mind. Because the purified mind alone is capable of grasping his method and sticking to its practice. - Talk 189

"A man was going through the forest when he was ambushed by an enemy and shot with a poisoned arrow. One of his kin stumbled upon him and raised the alarm and soon others arrived with antidotes to the poison. As they attempted to pull the arrow prior to applying the healing ointment the man prevented them and began to ask various questions such as, “You must find out for me: Who was that enemy? What was his family? Was he tall? What colour was his hair? What kind of bow did he use? What was the arrow made of? etc...” When it was suggested that the questions were irrelevant in the present situation and that without application of the healing herbs he would die he just continued to prevent treatment intent on gathering maximum information. Needless to say... the cure was not effective. [Buddhist parable of the poisoned arrow]”

"The seeker of the Absolute must have no object in life but the persistent pursuit of the Absolute, to which he bends all the power of his soul. To approach it in any other attitude, say with motives not strictly spiritual, or with a surfeited, insubordinate intellect, or to expect the Absolute to bend and yield its secrets in the first week or first month for one's own sake, for the sake of one's worldly achievements, illustrious ancestry or community, denotes a lack of the most elementary qualities that make one eligible for it. Eclecticism likewise has no place in this path: its application is poor, its understanding diffused, so are its spiritual yearnings.” S. S. Cohen in “Advaitic Sadhana” p. 2 (1975)

"It is necessary at the outset to understand that it is not possible to hound out avidya (the primeval ignorance arising out of the  sense-perceptions) with a half-hearted approach, with scanty faith, with a mind weighed down by preconceptions, stubborn worldliness,  fixed ideas, and inordinate haste, these do not qualify for the supreme Knowledge (Jnana), which exacts a steady, unwavering,  whole-hearted discipline. ” - S. S. Cohen's " Advaitic Sadhana ” p. 2 (1975)

5th May, 1937  A visitor asked the meaning of Nirvana. Bh. Nirvana is that state wherein the sense of separateness does not exist and where the ego has sunk in its source, the Heart. S. S. Cohen in “Guru Ramana” p. 88

There I quietly sat and listened to the visitors’ talks with him and to his answers, which were sometimes translated into English, particularly if the questioner was a foreigner or a north Indian – not always. His answers were fresh and sweet. His influence was all pervasive in his silence not less than in his speech. To me in the beginning this was all the more perceptible in the contrast it offered to the hustle and bustle of the life on which I had just turned my back – to  the wasted energy, the false values, the foolish expectations from ideals which are in themselves hollow reeds, the dreary intercourse with people with whom one has very little in common; to the social rules which have been laid down by many generations of selfishness, convention and superstitions, not to speak of the mess of politics, of rank and wealth, and the bitter jealousy and hatred they breed in the minds of men. It is small wonder therefore that Bhagavan appears to the serious- minded as a beacon li...

Repost I had to be away from the Ashram for nearly two months and when I returned I saw Sri Cohen in a much worse condition and confined to a wheel-chair. His talk was no longer coherent: "See, Ganesan, I am maimed. Yet, the management has suddenly shifted me to a room on the seventh floor and there is no water there. What can I do?" - "They say they have given me an exclusive room for myself, but see, in the night nearly 12 people sleep here, squatting around me." - "Don't think there is only one Kannan (servant), There are nine Kannans, all looking alike!" I cried on seeing his pathetic condition and told Him: "Mr. Cohen! You are the most intelligent sadhak I have met. Why are you talking so incoherently?" He then adjusted himself and squarely looked at my face and said: "When the body becomes old, you lose control over it. And so over the mind! So, don't give any importance to how the body or mind behaves. They are not 'me...

The Guru you have in mind, one who gives you information and instructions, is not the real Guru. The real Guru is he who knows the real, beyond the glamour of appearances. To him your questions about obedience and discipline do not make sense, for in his eyes the person you take yourself to be does not exist, your questions are about a non-existing person. What exists for you does not exist for him. What you take for granted, he denies absolutely. He wants you to see yourself as he sees you. Then you will not need a Guru to obey and follow, for you will obey and follow your own reality. realise that whatever you think yourself to be is just a stream of events; that while all happens, comes and goes, you alone are , the changeless among the changeful, the self- evident among the inferred. Separate the observed from the observer and abandon false identifications. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj in I Am That, p. 169 

The natural state is not a 'thoughtless state' -- that is one of the greatest hoaxes perpetrated for thousands of years on poor, helpless Hindus. You will never be without thought until the body is a corpse, a very dead corpse. Being able to think is necessary to survive. But in this state thought stops choking you; it falls into its natural rhythm. There is no longer a 'you' who reads the thoughts and thinks that they are 'his’. U. G. Krishnamurti in The Mystique of Enlightenment.

M.: The birth of the ‘I-thought’ is one’s own birth, its death is the person’s death. After the ‘I-thought’ has arisen the wrong identity with the   body arises. Thinking yourself the body, you give false values to others and identify them with bodies. Just as your body has been born, grows and will perish, so also you think the other was born, grew up and died. Did you think of your son before his birth? The thought came after his birth and persists even after his death. Inasmuch  as you are thinking of him he is your son. Where has he gone? He  has gone to the source from which he sprang. He is one with you. So long as you are, he is there too. If you cease to identify yourself with  the body, but see the real Self, this confusion will vanish. You are eternal. The others also will similarly be found to be eternal. Until  this truth is realised there will always be this grief due to false values arising from wrong knowledge and wrong ide...

Vichara is the highest flight of Bhakti. Bhakti is the highest flight of Vichara.

Belief is the final resort of those who have given up the search.

You are the god of your world and you are both stupid and cruel. Let God be a concept -- your own creation. Find out who you are, how did you come to live, longing for truth, goodness and beauty in a world full of evil. Of what use is your arguing for or against God. when you just do not know who is God and what are you talking about. The God born of fear and hope, shaped by desire and imagination, cannot be the Power That is, the Mind and the Heart of the universe.  - “I Am That” - Nisargadatta Maharaj

D.: How shall I reach the Self? M.: There is no reaching the Self. If the Self were to be reached, it would mean that the Self is not now and here, but that it should be got anew. What is got afresh, will also be lost. So it will be impermanent. What is not permanent is not worth striving for. So I say, the Self is not reached. You are the Self. You are already That. The fact is that you are ignorant of your blissful state. Ignorance supervenes and draws a veil over the pure Bliss. Attempts are directed only to remove this ignorance. This ignorance consists in wrong knowledge. The wrong knowledge consists in the false identification of the Self with the body, the mind, etc. This false identity must go and there remains the Self. D.: How is that to happen? M.: By enquiry into the Self. Ramana Maharshi in Talk 251; Talks With Sri Ramana Maharshi