2024-02-04 San Diego Ramana Satsang: ātma vicāra is attending to what is permanent, namely ‘I am’
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- Опубліковано 10 лют 2024
- In a Zoom meeting with the San Diego Ramana Satsang (ramana-satsang-sd@googlegroups.com) on 4th February 2024, Michael answers various questions about Bhagavan’s teachings.
Some of the questions he answered were:
1. During my atma vichara practice I feel like I go through many days of serene calm, then my mind will suddenly grow agitated, latching onto this and that for days on end… Is this normal?
Also during these periods of serenity wild things in the world (almost comical things they are so unexpected) will arise as though trying to pull me back… is this my mind manifesting tests, or opportunities for growth?
2. Michael, there is an author Michael Langford who has provided a unique means of turning within. Michael, you have commented on this in a blogpost.
Langford basically has the person shut his eyes and focus on their everyday, ordinary awareness. If thoughts arise, one is to simply let them pass and try to notice awareness watching awareness.
As I recall you commented positively on this approach. Could you please expand on your thoughts regarding this approach. Is this akin to comments by Sadhu Om in the Path of Sri Ramana where he uses the analogy of the reflected light from a broken shard of mirror in a dark room that leads one to the pervading light of the sun?
3. At the conclusion of answer 11 of Nan Yar is the following:
Thus, when the mind stays in the Heart, the 'I' which is the source of all thoughts will go, and the Self which ever exists will shine. Whatever one does, one should do without the egoity "I". If one acts in that way, all will appear as of the nature of Siva (God).
Isn’t the apparent ego the apparent doer? If there is no ego, is there also no doer? Who is the one acting in that case?
4. In the little 40 page "Manual", Nan Yar, Bhagavan, in verse 11, sets out in precisely the way of realising oneself. Some pundits have pronounced this as containing the ultimate guide for Self-enquiry.
I find it amazing that there are libraries full of conversations and instructions which veer away from this central guide.
That little manual, Nan Yar, states "The thought 'Who Am I' will destroy all other thoughts and like the stick used for stirring the burning pyre it will itself in the end get destroyed. Then there will arise Self-realisation”.
I have been hooked onto verse 11 only, for many years. Is this narrow-mindedness?
5. Within the philosophical context of Advaita Vedanta the Ego is the dreamer, not the universal self. So when the ego is dreaming and then awakens, the dream characters were not real.
Advaita Vedanta argues that the Waking state is similar to the Dream state in that in both cases the (illusory) Ego was projecting itself into multiplicity in both.
This is where I get confused. The one Ego projects a dream world and a waking world by the power of Maya so how can each character in the projections of the one Ego experience their independent existence when, according to Advaita Vedanta all is One - ēkam ēva advitiyam?
Or perhaps put another way: You wrote in your amazing book Ramana Maharshi’s Forty Verses on What is: “So long as we are aware of any phenomena or forms other than ourself, we have risen and are standing as ego and we are thereby nourishing the ego. To make it subside back into its source, to starve the ego, we need to give up being aware of anything other than ourself and be aware of ourself alone.”
Who is the “We” and “ourself?
A clearer audio copy of this video can be listened to on Sri Ramana Teachings podcast (ramanahou.podbean.com) or downloaded from ramanahou.podbean.com/e/atma-... and a more compressed audio copy in Opus format (which can be listened to in the VLC media player and some other apps) can be downloaded from mediafire.com/file/5mz68whdbv...
A clearer audio copy of this video can be listened to on Sri Ramana Teachings podcast (ramanahou.podbean.com) or downloaded from ramanahou.podbean.com/e/atma-vicara-is-attending-to-what-is-permanent-namely-i-am and a more compressed audio copy in Opus format (which can be listened to in the VLC media player and some other apps) can be downloaded from mediafire.com/file/5mz68whdbvhz44c
In consciousness i am is the awareness that appears.
With one single thought, the senses and body appear. Yet,
Still, alone, the reality remains unchanged and unimaginable.
To bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi you give praise
Your observation regarding the reality of papaji is erroneous.
You see a man, but who sees you, seeing?
Locate the source of Micheal James, and what makes him think he can rely on his own understanding of knowledge. The truth will be revealed, in oneself, to oneself, by oneself.
No amount of determination or effort or desire will achieve the goal and the annihilation of ego
Surrender quietly in love.
give up the search for you are already that. Be still, know the silence, in that perfect, reality, remaining in the heart. cx
🙏
Thank You! 🙏
Short Q&A videos from this channel can be watched on youtube.com/@sriramanateachingsqa
The broken shard of mirror reflecting the light into a dark room reminds me of Plato's allegory of the cave. Powerful teachings 🙏
🙏🕉️
Amazing talk 🙏🙏🙏
I love Ted's sense of humor 😊🙏😆😄
Namaste Michael🙏
Am presenting a humble request if you can allow GuruDev Ramana Maharshi’s teaching on Sahaja Samadhi follow through your presence. Please elaborate on its nature, practice, and being in the state. As always thank you for your consideration🙏
I believe i understand what michael saying around 1:35:00. But It's hard not to get attached when we are to see ourselves and everyone as real. Hard to think of it as a dream. Seems very real to me.
Sri Arunachala Aksharamanamalai sung by Sri Sadhu Om, with English translation by Michael James, can be watched here: vimeo.com/ramanahou/am000 . For advertisement-free videos on teachings and songs related to Bhagavan Ramana, please visit vimeo.com/ramanahou and click 'showcases' on the bottom left. Each original work of Bhagavan Ramana has its own showcase with explanations of Michael James.
I appreciate Stuart's question. I still don't quite understand the answer, though I know there is an important truth to be unearthed here. I will ponder on it and listen to the question and answer more and do what I can to understand. Thanks Bhagavan.
Very nice and propound session by Sir Michael James entered. Actually my problem is that I cannot join this group. I do not have that mastery on the net technology.
Hmmm... Nine questions in the line, but... Hundreds maybe wanted to hear the complex answer of this
own will toppic.. Grrr.... Was thinking
Now I am close to understand
Finally.. Haha...
But, destroyed by host 😢😅🎉
Ok, I can understand the hosts will
But... Michael knows the importance of some toppics...
Thanks to all❤
Fortunately, we now have this great Sri Ramana Q&A Channel resource now which eventually will cover most common questions on an individual basis .🙏
Yes, I was one of those that wanted to go deeper into the answer, but maybe it worked out perfectly. I don't know. May Bhagavan's will be done, not mine.
I am ego, do you know how this world came to be in possession of your ego ? What isn’t just a deceiving ego thought exists alone. I am the intellect,body, mind, life and will knows ego is maya and bhagavan is self. cx
@@jobbob6031
Hi
The English language is hard for me
Understanding the text was not possible
Sadly
Hi @@doughijones3781 I’m sorry, English isn’t easy for me also. ☺️
Reality is complete full pure being, existing, happiness. All that is, all that exists alone, is being happiness existence.
Ego is the conviction that the world itself is reality. Ego is the illusion that there is knowledge to be gained, acquired and achieved, somewhere else, out there in the material world.
Ego, thinks I appear in reality.
Reality is still and unchanging.
It is like two sides of a coin
A side is being
B side thinks it is being but isn’t sure what exactly it is being, it thinks its face on a coin but it feel uncertain.
That’s ego.
Ego is the false awareness that it is reality and we are living in reality as people everywhere have done for countless centuries. That’s what ego is. The belief that this life of many experiences is real and that the reality of silence is false.
That’s the lying ego’s doing. cx
Sorry Michael. There can’t be a mix of destiny and free will. Either all events are predestined or none. If free will can change the sequence of events, predestined sequence collapses completely.
Ramana Maharshi said everything to the smallest detail is predestined. I take his word 🙏
All events are predestined and the doership causes Agamya. If I think I am the doer, I accrue Agamya. Even this comment is predestined 😂
I concur, the way it sounds and as it is understood by many who enjoy the talks by Michael is that supposedly what happens to us is prarabdha but what “we” do is free will.
That is not correct and not what Bhagavan has taught.
The reason why all events have to be destined can be explained easily and logically: So what “happens to us” is destiny and that fact is accepted by most. Now let's take the extreme example of the holocaust and since that happened to those unfortunate ones it was all destined. But what about the people who killed all of these Jews? Did they have truly free will and actually could change their actions and therefore not kill the Jews? Absolutely not since that would have changed the destiny of these Jews and it would not have been their destiny anymore if free will could really change one's actions!
That means if we really could change the actions of our body per free will there would be chaos in this world and it is actually impossible. That can be easily verified with some manana. We always can WISH it would be different but cannot affect destiny at all!
Now how then is fresh karma created? Back to the example, those people who killed these Jews either agreed with these actions and that [mental] agreement created fresh karma or they were repulsed by these actions (but did it because it was ordered and/or they were afraid of repercussions) and that mental attitude in form of thoughts created fresh karma or they were an advanced devotee of Bhagavan and were completely turning within while killing Jews and no karma would have been created at all (extreme example since most are not that proficient with atma-vichara).
Thus I agree with your comment and maybe Michael wants to change the way how he explains karma or clarifies if he believes that people can change the actions of their bodies despite their prarabdha karma. Also that nobody can act outside of prarabdha karma, ALL actions of our bodies MUST be prarabdha karma, we only have the free will to agree or disagree with the actions of our bodies.
I believe he never said that and people tend to misunderstand him.
There is also the story by Bhagavan about a prostitute whose destiny was to live that life however she could bear this life in turning within. Bhagavan did not say, "why did this woman not use her free will to stop being a prostitute!" Why? Because that is not how it works!!!! She has the free will to dislike what she does (or better turn within) but cannot actually escape that destiny through her free will at all.
Absolutely concur. I believe Michael's confusion stemmed from the direct translation of Tamil into English. When Michael cites Bhagavan, stating, "Whatever is destined to happen will happen despite your efforts," it's akin to a colloquial Tamil expression that emphasizes impossibility, like saying, "Do whatever you want, but you can't fly." The phrase "Do whatever you want" is added for emphasis, not to convey the possibility of doing anything one desires.
@@balakalidoss I am not implying that I presume to better know than Michael nor do I understand Tamil, thus regarding translations I cannot render any judgment.
My manana regarding destiny resulted into that there are two kinds of classes of thoughts, those which are, as prarabdha karma, destined and those which are freshly created at that moment per our free will.
Those new thoughts which stem from free will create agamya karma. However all of the actions of a body are destined at birth as chosen by Ishwara. New freshly created karma will bear fruit in future lives but not in the current one.
Now karma is not real and therefore it is always advised to attend to "I am" and let karma do whatever it will do. It should not be of any concern.
A.Devaraja Mudaliar
Is Everything Ordained?
By Devaraja Mudaliar
A.Devaraja Mudaliar, a lawyer, used to address Sri Ramana as 'my father and mother' and sign as Ramana's Child - Ramana Sei. He authored the famous Day by Day with Bhagavan and My Recollections of Bhagavan Sri Ramana.
ONE summer afternoon I was sitting opposite Bhagavan in the Old Hall with a fan in my hand and said to him: "I can understand that the outstanding events in a man's life, such as his country, nationality, family, career or profession, marriage, death, etc. are all predestined by his karma, but can it be that all the details of his life, down to the minutest, have already been determined? Now, for instance, I put this fan that is in my hand down on the floor here. Can it be that it was already decided that on such and such a day, at such and a such an hour, I shall move the fan like this and put it down here?"
Bhagavan replied "Certainly." He continued: "Whatever this body is to do and whatever experiences it is to pass through was already decided when it came into existence."
Thereupon I naturally exclaimed: "What becomes then of man's freedom and responsibility for his actions?"
Bhagavan explained: "The only freedom man has is to strive for and acquire the jnana which will enable him not to identify himself with the body. The body will go through the actions rendered inevitable by prarabdha (destiny based on the balance sheet of past lives) and a man is free either to identify himself with the body and be attached to the fruits of its actions, or to be detached from it and be a mere witness of its activities."
This may not be acceptable to many learned people or philosophers, but I am sure I have made no error in transmitting as above the gist of the conversation that took place between Bhagavan and me. Though this answer of Bhagavan may upset the apple cart of our careful reasonings and conclusions, I am satisfied that what Bhagavan said must be the truth. I also recall in this connection the following lines that Bhagavan once quoted to me from Thayumanavar on another occasion: "This is not to be taught to all. Even if we tell them, it will only lead to endless discussion."
@@balakalidoss "That will only lead to endless discussions."
Those certainly were prophetic words. I just noticed that Michael has published a few minutes ago a new video with the topic "If everything is predetermined, how can we have freedom of will and action?".
Michael may have graciously picked up on that topic, I will be looking forward to the "freedom of action" part which seems impossible for me, at least in the sense of freedom of action of the BODY.
Looking at the comments on Michael's videos it is apparent that many are not practicing proper atma-vichara or self-attention despite what these people say.
For instant, as soon as one attempts to practice vichara one will be painfully aware how much one is attached to that body and one's likes and dislikes. For most it will seem almost hopeless when confronted with one's own addiction to phenomena.
Therefore it is painful to observe those many confused one's who keep blabbering "there is no ego" or "nothing is happening" stating the concept of ajata. Bhagavan said that this is the ultimate reality, however as long as one perceives things to happen (and we all do!), one is obviously in the deluded ego-state. Self-realization is NOT easy, far from it, it is extremely difficult if one is honest with oneself. Thus all those who imply that this is simple and a matter of a "shift" or any other nonsense have been corrupted my mind/ego.
There are so many "teachers" of advaita who spread nonsense, the list is endless, and they distort Bhagavan. UA-cam is a breeding ground of those teachers. They are not worth of any attention.
@johnmcdonald260, you presumably mean blabbering "there is no ego".🙂
@@josefbruckner7154 Thank you my friend, you presumed correctly and I corrected my mistake. Thank you again. 🙂
is everybody born into a body there in consciousness?
When I am the person in the body with a soul ego is reality and I am a body has happened.
Now that you appear, who you think is you, that appears, is the ego self delusion. It seems like you, but in reality that’s just how convincing the deceiver is.
To wake up from this dream, it’s as easy as giving up the thought, I am the one suffering.
Consciousness is the body you find yourself in, this is the false reality, where I am exists.
Theres dreaming that, this and that are existing. The body, is in the dream, the dreamers are oneself. the one dreaming of other dreamers is oneself. One
self is not a separate thing.
In binary, there are ones and there are zeros.
From zero, being nothing,
When one number appears,
many seemingly exist also.
Nothing in reality appears, Yet nothing becomes we. With the appearances of the first, one, we suddenly have a multitude.
This symbiotic dream,
It’s a wonderful thing. cx
Shiva is the Purusha the self n not Hindu God also Haha Shiv is not Lord Shiva but Shiv prakash Pillai ,that is what when ppl on UA-cam say it ie Ramana teaching seems like a Religion, please listen to this thankyou for clarifying Michael,many thanks 😊
The impostor Poonja distorted Bhagavan with telling people to not “make any effort” crudely misunderstanding Bhagavan. David Godman (being confused by his infatuation with Poonja) spread this nonsense in publishing a variety of books by or about Poonja. Those with little discrimination and a lack of a deeper understanding of Bhagavan's teaching bought this nonsense.
Proper atma-vichara cannot be done without effort. And the effort in particular is by ego to move the attention from phenomena and thoughts to “I am”. That cannot be done without an effort. As soon as the attention rests in “I am” no effort is needed nor necessary. In fact that is the main difference between atma-vichara and all other spiritual practices which focus on an object and that cannot ever work since this only transpires within duality while proper atma-vichara, resting in “I am”, transcends duality. That's why Bhagavan said, and I quote: “To ask the mind to kill itself is like making the thief the policeman. He will go with you and pretend to catch the thief, but nothing will be gained. So you must turn inward and see where the mind rises from, and then it will cease to exist.”
People who babble “there is no ego” again crudely distorting Bhagavan since any thoughts or bodily sensations perceived ARE mind/ego. Are these people so confused that they deny any thoughts or bodily sensations they perceive? Like it's not “my” thought and these thoughts are just happening? The confusion must be great indeed! It is apparent that only mind/ego is telling itself this nonsense and it wallows solely in the realm of imagination.
Atma-vichara is the only practice where, after the initial effort, no effort is required nor necessary. However since our attention, due to vasanas, is constantly drawn back to phenomena, we need to repeatedly use effort in order to move the attention back to “I am”. That must be clear.
Ego is not the person
Ego is the appearance
In a dream we see other people. Who is the dreamer?
Ego is the dream of a life is self separation.
This dream is that a body goes to sleep, then wakes up and sleeps again.
In this dream we see other people. These other people who lives also exists,Which one of the ego’s is the dreaming?
The ego is the whole appearance that the body think exists.
The ego is dreaming of other things.
You dream that others people are born into this world, in that dream state, we have things to do goals to achieve, a self to realise and an ego to destroy. Without thinking, we think, we have a body and mind of an individuals on a mission to solve the meaning of life. It is a fabulously realistic dream, Wake up. cx
Hi, is it ok to say that (1) now we all seem in the view of one other random person as the Others in the same dream? and (2) that this one ego identifies in parallel with others? (3) To my experience that one ego doesnt seem to have a complete view over all people. Why is that? So to speak the link is broken for the others on the other side of the planet to be projected:)
Hiya @@nikibotev5478 in life, ego is the infinite possibilities and probabilities of numerous thing happening in my personal limited lifetime of experiences.
We, seeing others, is ego identifying itself as I. The idea that we see others, is only the i-thought, I am one amongst many others.
We think I am because we know nothing else exists. But our eyes contradict the inner knowledge of the heart, and So, the things we see and feel are taken to be reality.
Ego is the movement I imagine, i think I see. I recall images, names, pictures and memories and i identify them as mine own experiences.
Ego is everything that appears as another in consciousness.
Ego is knowledge things aren’t right. Ego is that inclination to go out and do and enjoy things.
What appears, we appear as I. That I then appear to have a world to move around in. One world, billions of years old.
But that is the illusion. We believe that this world was here before we are. But who is really born into this world? Only a thought is born and I am is the thinker of thoughts that others, appear to be born too. cx