Behind My Hand

असतो मा सद्गमय । तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय । मृत्योर् मामृतं गमय ।  asato mā sadgamaya,  tamaso mā jyotirgamaya,  mṛtyor mā'mṛtaṃ gamaya, From untruth lead me to truth, From darkness lead me to light, From death lead me to immortality. —- Note: “Where truth is ... falsehood is not. Brahman is truth. The Self cannot be attained without practising truth. Suffering is the result of false relationships, false fears, false ideas. Liberation is truth. How is this liberation realised? Through right action of mind, speech and body. That is jnana, that is freedom, that is moksha. Self Enquiry is constant truth. Maintaining the quest even in the midst of worldly duties ensures right action.” Excerpt From Talks on Self Enquiry Miles Wright & Gabriele Ebert https://books.apple.com/gb/book/talks-on-self-enquiry/id1078197373 This material may be protected by copyright. —- A very nice musical rendition of the verse by Ravi Shankar and George Harrison. Being a fan of both

yathā somyai kena mrtpindena sarvam mrnmayam vijñātam syādvācārambhanam vikāro nāmadheyam mrttiketyeva satyam || 6. 1. 4 | “O gentle sir, as by knowing a lump of earth everything made of earth becomes known, the transformation begins with speech. It is name only. In fact, ‘earth’ is the reality.” ( Chandogya Upanishad) na so ’sti pratyayo loke yah śabdānugamād rte |  anuviddham iva jñānam sarvam śabdena bhāsate   ||   Bhartrhari’s   Vakyapadiya 1. 123 “In this world, there is no cognition which does not follow language. All knowledge appears as if permeated by words.” api prayoktur ātmānau śabdam antaravasthitam | prāhur mahāntam rsabham yena sāyujyam isyate || tasmād yah śabdasamskārah sā siddhih paramātmanah |  tasya pravrttitattvajñas tad brahmāmrtam aśnute || VP 1. 130-131 “It is also said that the self of the speaker is the word situated within, the Great Bull with whom one desires union. Therefore that which purifies the word is attainment of the Supr

"Bhagavan is among the most severely intellectual of our sages. And yet he warns us that the idea of the Absolute is only, to use the words of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, the correlative of the relative. It is still a category of thought, whereas the final realization is the annihilation of the mind and all its categories. How shall that which shines with borrowed light illumine the source of its brightness?  - from K. Subrahmanyam's article, "Bhagavan Ramana the White Radiance of Truth" as it appears in Arunachala's Ramana volume 6, page 252.

.... the culture which most of us have inherited is too extroverted and too aggressively intellectual to permit us to understand within a short time what it all means to be a sadhaka, a practical aspirant for a truth of which in our homes and colleges we were not given an inkling. We are apt, moreover, to bring with us scraps of knowledge gleaned from a wide reading of miracle ridden theology and "occultism", including an endeavour to accommodate the Vedanta inside them. The result is that we return from the Guru (the qualified Teacher) and his Ashram with our doubts still in our heads, uncleared, and our minds, about truth and untruth, still befogged. -S. S. Cohen in " Advaitic Sadhana "  (note:  Cohen was an ashram resident during Ramana Maharshi's lifetime )

There is a telling paragraph at the beginning of Chapter One of S. S. Cohen's " Advaitic Sadhana -  The Yoga of Direct Liberation " - "This is the age of shortcuts. Time has shrunk and space more so, and the dual inconvenience has affected men's moods and temper. Even the supreme knowledge has nowadays to be given in massive doses and has to produce quick results too, or they will have none of it." Telling because it reveals that there was a deep seated impatience even back in the days when westerners used to flock to the Ashram on short visits to "bask" in the presence of Sri Ramana Maharshi. This essay was drafted during Ramana Maharshi's lifetime, although first published in 1975. If there was an impatience then what must one say of today! In his introduction to the book Cohen says that, "he used to watch their comings and goings and the haste with which most of them expected to pluck the plum of Self-realisation,

It has taken next to no time at all for young Venkataraman's gift of dis- cover -y to become largely disregarded. Pure simplicity having been replaced with the dullard's contrived attempt to explain that which he has never experienced [and never will] in a form which most appeals to his ego. Of course, this very act can, at best, only ever be counterproductive. Ego appealing to ego begets ego. How to perform Vichara (self enquiry)

A new page describing how to do Vichara  (Self enquiry) has been published. Although this is the simplest of practices there have been some torturous explanations over the years. The above link removes the nonsense.