Best of the different yogas
D.: Which is the best of the different yogas, Karma, Jnana, Bhakti or Hatha?
M.: See stanza 10 of “Upadesa Sara” [see below]. To remain in the Self amounts to all these in their highest sense.
Maharshi added: In dreamless sleep there is no world, no ego and no unhappiness. But the Self remains. In the waking state there are all these; yet there is the Self. One has only to remove the transitory happenings in order to realise the ever-present beatitude of the Self. Your nature is Bliss. Find that on which all the rest are superimposed and you then remain as the pure Self. (Ramana Maharshi in Talk 189)
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Upadesa Saram v. 10
hrtsthalemanah svasthatAkriyA /
bhaktiyogabodhAScaniScitam //
The act (kriyA) of abiding in one’s natural state, the mind set in the Heart, is without doubt, Devotion, Yoga and Knowledge.
Notes:
Here, kriyA (action) refers to the one truly continuous, uncaused, meritorious ‘act’ (kriyAyoga). This is eternal Being, the Self. Where the mind finds this place (dhyAna), i.e. its place of birth, there is the culmination of karma, bhakti, yoga, and jnana. For the purified mind, this takes the form of constant remembrance, also called nididhyAsana. This is realisation of one’s natural state. Referring to this verse Sri Bhagavan proclaims, “That is the whole truth in a nut-shell.” (Talk 222)
In practice this may take the form of, daily attention to the silent murmur of the Self, pulling the mind back through Self-enquiry (the vibration … ‘I’, ‘I’, ‘I’ …, at times even becoming physically manifest on the right side of the chest), the abolition of viyoga through work/actions attended to selflessly, without desire for the fruits, or, the setting up of and perpetual remembrance of Sri Bhagavan in the temple of the Heart. The devotee, by Sri Bhagavan’s Grace, often finds all of these in his/her life.
“Swa swarupanusandhanam bhaktirityabhidheeyate (Reflection on one’s own Self is called bhakti). Bhakti and Self-Enquiry are one and the same. The Self of the Advaitins is the God of the bhaktas.” (Talk 274)
“D.: What is Jana Marga?
M.: Concentration of the mind is in a way common to both Knowledge and Yoga. Yoga aims at union of the individual with the universal, the Reality. This Reality cannot be new. It must exist even now, and it does exist.
Therefore the Path of Knowledge tries to find out how viyoga (separation) came about. The separation is from the Reality only.” (Talk 17)
(From Essence of Instruction (Upadesa Saram) Ramana Maharshi, Trans. Miles Wright & Edited by Gabriele Ebert)