Q: ... All I want is peace.
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj: You can have for the asking all the peace you want.
Q: I am asking.
M: You must ask with an undivided heart and live an integrated life.
Q: How?
M: Detach yourself from all that makes your mind restless. Renounce all that disturbs its peace. If you want peace, deserve it.
Q: Surely everybody deserves peace.
M: Those only deserve it, who don't disturb it.
Q: In what way do I disturb peace?
M: By being a slave to your desires and fears.
Q: Even when they are justified?
M: Emotional reactions, born of ignorance or inadvertence, are never justified. Seek a clear mind and a clean heart. All you need is to keep quietly alert, enquiring into the real nature of yourself. This is the only way to peace.
~ I Am That
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Thursday, July 31, 2008
I Am
I found this really helpful ...
What is the first name of God?
I Am.
Exactly. I Am is the first name of God. When you want to think of God, you think of I Am with your respiration. I Am is the first name of God. Close your eyes and try. Inhale and say, "I." Exhale and say, "am." Inhale say, "I," exhale say, "am." Doesn't that make you feel good? Just by saying I Am to yourself, it lifts you up. So the thing to do is this: Whenever you have a problem, I don't care what it is, I don't care how serious you think it is, whether it's personal or worldly, wherever it came from, the secret is to forget yourself. For the moment, forget about the problem for as long as you can, and do the I Am meditation. Every time the problem comes back to you, do the I Am meditation. If your mind wanders, bring it back again and do the I Am meditation.
When I explain this to some people they say, "Robert, but you tell us we have to get rid of our minds. We have to annihilate the mind, not think with it." This is true. This is the highest truth. But yet most people cannot do this. Remember Advaita Vedanta is really for mature souls. People who have practiced sadhana in previous lives. It's like going to school. Self- inquiry, Advaita Vedanta, is like the university of spiritual life. You cannot fool yourself.
There are so many people who try to practice Self- inquiry and they give it up. Then I tell them to surrender, surrender completely. That's the other way. Again this becomes difficult. They try it for awhile and they always revert back to themselves, your personal self. So I give them the I Am meditation. Everybody can do that. When nothing seems to work, go back to the I Am. It's really very powerful. Do not take it simple. I can guarantee you this. If you can practice I Am for one day, just one day, all of your troubles will be transcended. You will feel happiness you've never felt before. You will feel a peace that you never even knew existed. As you keep practicing I Am, your thoughts will become less and less. Your personal self will go into the background and you will begin to feel an inner Bliss. You will begin to feel that it no longer matters what I'm going through. It makes no difference, because it is God who is going through this, not me. And God has no problems. You automatically become happy, just by using the I Am meditation.
In the Bhagavad Gita it says, "Out of a million people, one searches for God. And out of a million people who search, one finds Him." It's sort of difficult. That's how it appears. But if you begin to use I Am as a meditation and you allow the I Am to go deeper and deeper, your bodily consciousness will disappear, and I Am will take over.
If you want to mix Self-inquiry, Atma Vichara, with I Am, that's permissible. You can use them both together. I'll explain how. Say you're using the I Am meditation. In between, thoughts keep popping up. Whether they're good thoughts or bad thoughts makes no difference, but thoughts keep interfering. You can now inquire, "To whom come these thoughts?" and you don't have to go any further. Just observe and watch. When your mind becomes silent again, you go back to the I Am meditation with your respiration. When thoughts come again you inquire, "To whom do they come?" As you progress in this method, you complete the question. "The thoughts come to me. What is the Source of me? Who am I? What is the Source of I?" You begin to feel and see that the I that seems to have the problem is not you. You begin to feel, "I" have a problem. "I" am sick. "I" am angry. "I" have no peace of mind. And you begin to laugh. For the realization tells you, "I" has all these things, I don't. "I" is the culprit. "I" appears to want this and need that. So it is with desires, wants, self-aggrandizement. All of this belongs to the "I." Who is this I? Where does it come from? If the "I" isn't really me, then who am I? And you keep still.
Now you may go back to I Am with the respiration. You inhale and you say I. You exhale and you say Am. As you progress this way, you're going to find something interesting happening to your life. You're going to find there's more and more space between I Am. It will happen by itself. You will inhale and you will say I, and all of a sudden nothing will come out of that. Then you will exhale with Am. You will inhale again and say I. Remember you're not putting this on, you're not making it happen. It's happening all by itself. And the space between I Am is the fourth dimension of Consciousness. After waking, sleeping, dreaming. It is the state of the Jnani. It is your freedom. It is Pure Awareness. Pure Awareness is not the I Am. The I Am leads to Pure Awareness. And when you keep practicing, "Who am I?" alternating with both of them, there will be a greater space before you say, "Who am I?" again. That space is Bliss. You'll feel something you've never felt before. An inner joy, an inner delight. You will just know that the whole universe is the Self, and I Am That. As the months progress, the words will become less and less. You may start off with I Am, and then you will be in the Silence. You will not say another word. You will just experience the Silence. That Silence is Nirvana, Emptiness. It is no thing. It is the nothing I was talking about. You will just sit in the Silence.
~ Robert Adams, Silence of the Heart
What is the first name of God?
I Am.
Exactly. I Am is the first name of God. When you want to think of God, you think of I Am with your respiration. I Am is the first name of God. Close your eyes and try. Inhale and say, "I." Exhale and say, "am." Inhale say, "I," exhale say, "am." Doesn't that make you feel good? Just by saying I Am to yourself, it lifts you up. So the thing to do is this: Whenever you have a problem, I don't care what it is, I don't care how serious you think it is, whether it's personal or worldly, wherever it came from, the secret is to forget yourself. For the moment, forget about the problem for as long as you can, and do the I Am meditation. Every time the problem comes back to you, do the I Am meditation. If your mind wanders, bring it back again and do the I Am meditation.
When I explain this to some people they say, "Robert, but you tell us we have to get rid of our minds. We have to annihilate the mind, not think with it." This is true. This is the highest truth. But yet most people cannot do this. Remember Advaita Vedanta is really for mature souls. People who have practiced sadhana in previous lives. It's like going to school. Self- inquiry, Advaita Vedanta, is like the university of spiritual life. You cannot fool yourself.
There are so many people who try to practice Self- inquiry and they give it up. Then I tell them to surrender, surrender completely. That's the other way. Again this becomes difficult. They try it for awhile and they always revert back to themselves, your personal self. So I give them the I Am meditation. Everybody can do that. When nothing seems to work, go back to the I Am. It's really very powerful. Do not take it simple. I can guarantee you this. If you can practice I Am for one day, just one day, all of your troubles will be transcended. You will feel happiness you've never felt before. You will feel a peace that you never even knew existed. As you keep practicing I Am, your thoughts will become less and less. Your personal self will go into the background and you will begin to feel an inner Bliss. You will begin to feel that it no longer matters what I'm going through. It makes no difference, because it is God who is going through this, not me. And God has no problems. You automatically become happy, just by using the I Am meditation.
In the Bhagavad Gita it says, "Out of a million people, one searches for God. And out of a million people who search, one finds Him." It's sort of difficult. That's how it appears. But if you begin to use I Am as a meditation and you allow the I Am to go deeper and deeper, your bodily consciousness will disappear, and I Am will take over.
If you want to mix Self-inquiry, Atma Vichara, with I Am, that's permissible. You can use them both together. I'll explain how. Say you're using the I Am meditation. In between, thoughts keep popping up. Whether they're good thoughts or bad thoughts makes no difference, but thoughts keep interfering. You can now inquire, "To whom come these thoughts?" and you don't have to go any further. Just observe and watch. When your mind becomes silent again, you go back to the I Am meditation with your respiration. When thoughts come again you inquire, "To whom do they come?" As you progress in this method, you complete the question. "The thoughts come to me. What is the Source of me? Who am I? What is the Source of I?" You begin to feel and see that the I that seems to have the problem is not you. You begin to feel, "I" have a problem. "I" am sick. "I" am angry. "I" have no peace of mind. And you begin to laugh. For the realization tells you, "I" has all these things, I don't. "I" is the culprit. "I" appears to want this and need that. So it is with desires, wants, self-aggrandizement. All of this belongs to the "I." Who is this I? Where does it come from? If the "I" isn't really me, then who am I? And you keep still.
Now you may go back to I Am with the respiration. You inhale and you say I. You exhale and you say Am. As you progress this way, you're going to find something interesting happening to your life. You're going to find there's more and more space between I Am. It will happen by itself. You will inhale and you will say I, and all of a sudden nothing will come out of that. Then you will exhale with Am. You will inhale again and say I. Remember you're not putting this on, you're not making it happen. It's happening all by itself. And the space between I Am is the fourth dimension of Consciousness. After waking, sleeping, dreaming. It is the state of the Jnani. It is your freedom. It is Pure Awareness. Pure Awareness is not the I Am. The I Am leads to Pure Awareness. And when you keep practicing, "Who am I?" alternating with both of them, there will be a greater space before you say, "Who am I?" again. That space is Bliss. You'll feel something you've never felt before. An inner joy, an inner delight. You will just know that the whole universe is the Self, and I Am That. As the months progress, the words will become less and less. You may start off with I Am, and then you will be in the Silence. You will not say another word. You will just experience the Silence. That Silence is Nirvana, Emptiness. It is no thing. It is the nothing I was talking about. You will just sit in the Silence.
~ Robert Adams, Silence of the Heart
Saturday, April 12, 2008
“Please, I beg of you, help me with my temper problem.”
One of the great regrets of my life is the loss of a letter which I received in 1934. It was in reply to a rather hysterical missive I had despatched addressed ‘Personal and Private’ to Sri Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi at Tiruvannamalai. This communication dealt with a serious, self-admitted weakness of mine which was my mother’s despair — a combustible temper which would explode at the slightest provocation. It was a bad time for me.
I had just lost a father I had worshipped. I was twelve, going on thirteen, and at once all had been said.
I desperately needed a confidant, an adviser, somebody preferably outside the family, and out of the blue the name of Ramana Maharshi came to me. His was the only name I had ever heard my father — a stubborn, intolerant sceptic — mention without any codicils. I decided, therefore, to write to the sage of Tiruvannamalai secretly. After a number of unsuccessful attempts, I finally sent off a letter asking the Maharshi directly to “please, I beg of you, help me with my temper problem.” Within a week I received a reply signed by the Sarvadhikari, informing me that my letter had been received and placed before the Maharshi and that his message to me was that if I myself made a constant and earnest effort to overcome my temper I would rid myself of it, and that he sent me his blessings.
My first reaction to that letter was one of astonishment at being treated like a grown-up, since I had always been told what to do, guided, instructed, warned, but never challenged except on Sports Day. And here was this great Guru as good as telling me: “It is your temper, isn’t it? So, you yourself deal with it.” He had simply batted the ball back to my court in the nicest possible way by treating me as an individual in my own right. I rather liked that.
For the rest of this account, please see this.
~ Santha Rangachary, The Mountain Path
I had just lost a father I had worshipped. I was twelve, going on thirteen, and at once all had been said.
I desperately needed a confidant, an adviser, somebody preferably outside the family, and out of the blue the name of Ramana Maharshi came to me. His was the only name I had ever heard my father — a stubborn, intolerant sceptic — mention without any codicils. I decided, therefore, to write to the sage of Tiruvannamalai secretly. After a number of unsuccessful attempts, I finally sent off a letter asking the Maharshi directly to “please, I beg of you, help me with my temper problem.” Within a week I received a reply signed by the Sarvadhikari, informing me that my letter had been received and placed before the Maharshi and that his message to me was that if I myself made a constant and earnest effort to overcome my temper I would rid myself of it, and that he sent me his blessings.
My first reaction to that letter was one of astonishment at being treated like a grown-up, since I had always been told what to do, guided, instructed, warned, but never challenged except on Sports Day. And here was this great Guru as good as telling me: “It is your temper, isn’t it? So, you yourself deal with it.” He had simply batted the ball back to my court in the nicest possible way by treating me as an individual in my own right. I rather liked that.
For the rest of this account, please see this.
~ Santha Rangachary, The Mountain Path
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
The Groundnut Party
Finishing our inspection we were returning to the veranda by another side, when we heard a childish voice say "Chee, asatthe! (Fie, you creature!)."
We could see no children around, and, therefore, peeped to find out the source of the voice. We observed movement among the leaves of the brinjal, lady's-finger and other plants in the kitchen garden near the veranda.
Looking more intently, we saw a small goat, a little monkey and a squirrel and Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi! Bhagavan was sitting on his haunches with his legs folded up to his breast. The goat nestled between his knees; the monkey had its head resting on his right knee; the squirrel was perched on his left knee. Holding a packet of paper in his left palm, Bhagavan picked ground nuts from it with his right-hand fingers, one by one, and fed the goat, the monkey and the squirrel, and himself, by turns. His remarks appeared to have been addressed to the monkey which had tried to snatch the nut he was going to place between the squirrel's lips.
As we watched, the four companions went on enjoying the eating. All four seemed to be equally happy; the way they looked at one another and kept close together was touching. The goat, the monkey, the squirrel, and Bhagavan, had obviously forgotten their differences in species! And we too, looking on, saw all the four only as good friends despite the differences in their forms.
No words could describe the feelings which passed through my being at the sight. The vision of the Transcendent appeared as a flash of lightning, and revealed to me the essence of being, awareness and bliss, sat-chit-ananda.
~ T. R. A. Narayana's account in Surpassing Love and Grace
We could see no children around, and, therefore, peeped to find out the source of the voice. We observed movement among the leaves of the brinjal, lady's-finger and other plants in the kitchen garden near the veranda.
Looking more intently, we saw a small goat, a little monkey and a squirrel and Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi! Bhagavan was sitting on his haunches with his legs folded up to his breast. The goat nestled between his knees; the monkey had its head resting on his right knee; the squirrel was perched on his left knee. Holding a packet of paper in his left palm, Bhagavan picked ground nuts from it with his right-hand fingers, one by one, and fed the goat, the monkey and the squirrel, and himself, by turns. His remarks appeared to have been addressed to the monkey which had tried to snatch the nut he was going to place between the squirrel's lips.
As we watched, the four companions went on enjoying the eating. All four seemed to be equally happy; the way they looked at one another and kept close together was touching. The goat, the monkey, the squirrel, and Bhagavan, had obviously forgotten their differences in species! And we too, looking on, saw all the four only as good friends despite the differences in their forms.
No words could describe the feelings which passed through my being at the sight. The vision of the Transcendent appeared as a flash of lightning, and revealed to me the essence of being, awareness and bliss, sat-chit-ananda.
~ T. R. A. Narayana's account in Surpassing Love and Grace
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Imagine being at Arunachala,
getting up very early
and taking a lantern
to feed hungry sadhus
rice and idlies.
Imagine doing hundreds of billions
of prostrations at Bhagavan's shrine
though I do not think I could manage
to do it ... I might have to jump
into Bhagavan's arms,
or I might be too overwhelmed by grace
to do anything for a few days.
We could find a little monkey
and call him Hobbler.
We could meet a relative
of Lakshmi's!
Imagine sitting exactly
where Bhagavan used to sit,
finding the spots,
and sitting in the same position.
I could find a little orphaned
peacock egg or chick
and take care of it.
It would be the perfect place
to give up all wants, all thoughts,
all needing.
I can't wait to clean the pradakshina path
sweeping it with a palm frond broom
and cleaning up any litter.
There is nothing else
I really want to do,
nowhere else I want to go.
I can't say any more,
I just have to go!
~T
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
let me be born in the presence of Bhagavan
Would you put up billions
of photographs of Ramana
everywhere in the universe
so that if I do not realise the Self
in this lifetime,
no matter where I am reborn
the first thing I see
will be his beautiful smiling face?
~ T to his mother
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Nestled in the Divine Presence
At times when the heart dances and the step is light, one is perched on cloud nine, like the squirrel on his knee. Or as we run to him to tell him our little stories, with outstretched arm he meets us as he does cow Lakshmi. Otherwise, tired of our constant wanderings in mind-made worlds, we rest at his feet like the cheetah cub or nestle close like the rabbit.
~ A. R. Natarajan, Bathing in the Divine Presence
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