Behind My Hand

  Explanations are always expressed using existent knowledge.  If you do not share this knowledge, they have little value. While they may be considered to be pointers, without appropriate discrimination,  they are like decomposing heaps of dung.

  The universe is the game of the self, which plays hide and seek forever and ever. When it plays 'hide,' it plays it so well, hides so cleverly, that it pretends to be all of us, and all things whatsoever, and we don't know it because it's playing 'hide.' But when it plays 'seek,' it enters onto a path of yoga, and through following this path it wakes up, and the scales fall from one's eyes. - Alan Watts in “The World as Emptiness”.

  Talk 1 A wandering monk (sannyasi) was trying to clear his doubt: “How to realise that all the world is God?” Maharshi: If you make your outlook that of wisdom, you will find the world to be God. Without knowing the Supreme Spirit (Brahman), how will you find His all-pervasiveness? (Ramana Maharshi in Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi) ————- “Dealing with the world is part of the illusion. It is symptomatic of the human condition which, having forgotten its own Self, dwells in an external, material universe. As long as one does not see the Self as the origin of all, and one's very identity, so long can it (world and objects) be described as illusionary.”   (Excerpt From Talks on Self Enquiry, Miles Wright & edited by Gabriele Ebert) ————- naiva cintyam na cAcintyam na cintyam cintyameva tat /   pakshapAtavinirmuktam brahma sampadyate tadA // 6 //   'Neither is that, which is conceivable (the phenomenal manifestation), to be ignored (or dismissed as unreal), nor th...

Ramana Maharshi mentioned Svetaketu’s fast in Talk 105 when discussing the mahavakya  tattvamasi. ————- Svetaketu’s Fast Mind is made up of food. Breath (vital force) is made up of water. Speech is made up of heat. (so ends Chandogya Upanishad, 6.6) ————- Chandogya Upanishad 6.7 As an experiment, in a bid to further a deeper understanding, śvetaketu was asked, by his father, not to eat for fifteen days but to drink as much water as he needed. Since the vital force is made up of water, life will be maintained. When fifteen days were up, śvetaketu returned to his father and asked what he should recite.  His father said, "Mantras from ṛg Veda, Yajur, and Sāma." śvetaketu, no matter how hard he tried, could not bring any mantras to mind. His father then said, "Listen to this example. When a huge fire, with a lot of fuel, has reduced to an ember the size of a firefly, with very little fuel, that fire can no longer burn very much. Similarly you are left depleted, for want of f...

  Mahāvākyas       (- the following phrases are said to be phrases of truth) prajñānam brahma - "Knowledge is Brahman"       (Aitareya Upanishad) tat tvam asi - "That you are"                         (Chãndogya Upanishad) aham brahmāsmi - "I am Brahman"               (Bṛhadãranyaka Upanishad) ayam ātmā brahma - "This Self is Brahman"       (Mãndükya Upanishad) —- —- —- Ramana Maharshi, in Talk 105, discusses Chandogya Upanishad, Chapter 6, with Madhavaswami .  (Chandogya references added by MW) M.: Yena asrutam srutam bhavati (Chandogya Upanishad). (CU 6.1.3 - By which the unheard of becomes heard, the unthought of becomes thought of, the unknown becomes known.)  Madhavaswami, Bhagavan’s attendant: Are there nine methods of teaching the Mahavakya ‘ Tattvamasi ’ in the Chandogya Upanishad? M.: No. Not so. The metho...

“Bhagavan said that instead of holding on to that which exists, we are looking for that which does not. We bother about the past and the future, not realising the truth of the present. We do not know the beginning or the end. But we know the middle. If we find out the truth of this, we shall know the beginning and the end. Bhagavan quoted from Bhagavad Gita (10:20) “I am in the heart of all beings and am their beginning, middle and end.” (Day by Day, 21.11. 45)

 Day by Day, 2-2-46 Morning A visitor told Bhagavan that he was working for Harijan uplift, that he and his co-workers in the cause had darshan of Mahatma Gandhi and got his blessings, that Mahatma Gandhi told them that if they could bring about marriages between Harijan girls and higher caste gentlemen, such marriages would have his blessings; and that he (visitor) would like to have Bhagavan’s views in the matter. Bhagavan said, “If Mahatma Gandhi has said so, we will all hear what he has said. What more is there for us to do? He is a distinguished man and is working in that field. What have we to do with that?” Turning to us, Bhagavan added, “If I open my mouth, something will appear in the papers that so-and-so has also said such-and-such a thing. The next day there will be people to criticise it. Our business is to keep quiet. If we enter into all these, people will naturally ask, and justifiably, ‘Why is he interfering in all these instead of keeping quiet?’ Similarly if Maha...

  चित्तमणीयो   वित्तं   य   इदं   मूल्ये   प्रपञ्चतोऽप्यधिकम्   । हृदयगुहायां   निहितं   जानीते   स   विजहाति   बहिराशाः   ॥   ४ . २१॥ cittamaṇīyo vittaṁ ya idaṁ mūlye prapañcato'pyadhikam |  hṛdayaguhāyāṁ nihitaṁ jānīte sa vijahāti bahirāśāḥ  ॥  4.21 ॥ “ Whoever has found the pure mind, encamped within the Cave of the Heart, worth more than the conceptual universe, gives up all desires .” ( trans. MWright) Here is Ramana’s explanation of the above verse from Umasahasram as found in Nayana’s Biography by Dr G. Krishna (1978; p. 194): “Ramana explained slowly - Nayana has extolled the very precious nature of Chitta in the first sloka and then explained his own experience gained by spiritual practice. Though the radiance passing from Heart to head gets entangled in external influences due to its association with sense organs, it will be experienced in its pristine purity by those who arrest the flow of th...

tam yogam iti manyate sthiram indriya-dharanam                                                                     apramattas tada bhavati yogo hi prabhavapyayau Katha Upanishad 6.11 Yoga is considered to be the continuous concentration of the senses. One then becomes attentive, thereby yoking the coming and going (of thought). naiva vācā na manasā prāptum śakyō na cakṣuṣā    astīti bruvato’nyatra katham    tadupalabhyatē  Katha Upanishad 6.12   Not by speech, nor by mind, nor by eye is it to be obtained. How else can it be ascertained other than to ascertain for itself,  “It is!” ———— Trans. MWright

  From N.N.Rajan's diary, November 6, 1943 After a brief discussion between Major Chadwick and Bhagavan on the necessity of periodic action to ensure that the body remains healthy, there was a ten-minute silence. Then a devotee asked, "It is stated that one should dive into oneself with a keen one-pointed mind controlling speech and breath. Is it necessary to control the breath also?" Bhagavan replied, "If all thoughts are controlled, automatically the breath is also controlled. By intense and sustained practice it will become habitual. Controlling the breath through various yogic exercises is like putting brakes to the train when the entire engine is working. But by watching the source of the mind with full concentration, the thoughts would get controlled. This method will be more effective and easy. It is like shutting the power of the engine and thereby stopping the train completely."