my article

In a comment that he wrote on my previous article, ‘Observation without the observer’ and ‘choiceless awareness’: Why the teachings of J. Krishnamurti are diametrically opposed to those of Sri Ramana , a friend called Venkat quoted two passages that record what Bhagavan replied on two occasions, first in response to a question that he was asked about the teachings of J. Krishnamurti and second in response to a comment about them. Bhagavan’s view about ‘effortless and choiceless awareness’ The ego is not ‘a bundle of circumstances’ but what experiences all circumstances Whatever is experienced depends for its seeming existence upon the ego that experiences it Distinguishing the ego from the rest of the mind Distinguishing the experiencer ( dṛś ) from the experienced ( dṛśya ) The essence of the mind is the ego, and the essence of the ego is pure self-awareness To see what is real we must give up seeing what is seen ( dṛśya ) What we really are is not the witness ( sākṣin ) or seer ( dṛ...

Last Sunday I talked via Skype with a friend in Argentina about the teachings of Sri Ramana, and at the end of our discussion he asked me to write a summary of the main ideas that I had explained to him, because English is a foreign language to him, so he wanted to be sure that he had correctly understood and grasped all that I had said. This article is the summary that I wrote for him, so some of the ideas that I express in it were what I said in reference to what he had told me. For example, what I say about our inability to meditate on ourself continuously for five hours, or even five minutes, was with reference to what he told about how in the past when he was practising other forms of meditation he was able to meditate continuously for five hours, but that now when he tries to practise self-investigation ( ātma-vicāra ) he finds that he is unable to do so for even five minutes. The following is the summary I wrote: To summarise what we talked today, one of the main points I was tr...

A friend recently wrote to me saying: When you say to experience “I” in total isolation, I try to ignore thoughts, and other perceptions. But the “ignoring act” seems to involve some sort of force. Otherwise its duration will be so short, the thoughts are pounding at the door quite soon. The somewhat forceful rejection of thoughts maybe is the wrong way to do it? To ignore thoughts sounds like a soft and tender way, but I feel it to be a bit harsh. I do not see any other way though. This article is adapted from the reply I wrote to him. Trying to attend to ourself alone is the only effective way to ignore all thoughts We should try to be self-attentive just now, not for a prolonged duration We can be self-attentive only in this precise present moment Deliberately trying to ignore thoughts would be a self-defeating endeavour Thinking can be destroyed only by self-attentiveness The only way in which we can investigate ourself is by trying to be self-attentive 1. Trying to attend to ourse...

Last month a friend wrote to me describing what he experiences when he tries to practise self-investigation ( ātma-vicāra ) and asking whether his description indicates that his practice is on the right track. This article is adapted from the reply I wrote to him. The experience of self-attentiveness or self-awareness cannot be expressed in words, because it is featureless, so any words we use to describe what we experience when we are trying to be self-attentive are only a description of something other than pure self-attentiveness. However, if I try to see beyond the words you use, what I infer is that the first type of experience you describe is a state of partial self-attentiveness (a state in which you are aware both of yourself and of other things) and that the second type is a state of purer self-attentiveness — a state in which you are not yet exclusively self-attentive, but in which you are aware of yourself much more than you are of anything else. Would you agree that this is...