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In the seventeenth paragraph of Nāṉ Yār? (Who am I?) Sri Ramana advises us that if we wish to know what we really are, we should completely ignore and reject everything else: குப்பையைக் கூட்டித் தள்ளவேண்டிய ஒருவன் அதை யாராய்வதா லெப்படிப் பயனில்லையோ அப்படியே தன்னை யறியவேண்டிய ஒருவன் தன்னை மறைத்துகொண்டிருக்கும் தத்துவங்க ளனைத்தையும் சேர்த்துத் தள்ளிவிடாமல் அவை இத்தனையென்று கணக்கிடுவதாலும், அவற்றின் குணங்களை ஆராய்வதாலும் பயனில்லை. பிரபஞ்சத்தை ஒரு சொப்பனத்தைப்போ லெண்ணிக்கொள்ள வேண்டும். kuppaiyai-k kūṭṭi-t taḷḷa-vēṇḍiya oruvaṉ adai y-ārāyvadāl eppaḍi-p payaṉ-illai-y-ō appaḍi-y-ē taṉṉai y-aṟiya-vēṇḍiya oruvaṉ taṉṉai maṟaittu-koṇḍirukkum tattuvaṅgaḷ aṉaittaiyum sērttu-t taḷḷi-viḍāmal avai ittaṉai-y-eṉḏṟu kaṇakkiḍuvadāl-um, avaṯṟiṉ guṇaṅgaḷai ārāyvadāl-um payaṉ-illai. pirapañcattai oru soppaṉattai-p-pōl eṇṇi-k-koḷḷa vēṇḍum . Just as one who needs to sweep up and throw away rubbish [would derive] no benefit by analysing it, so one who needs to know oneself [will derive] no benefit by calcula...

In continuation of my previous three articles, Upadesa Undiyar – an explanatory paraphrase , Ulladu Narpadu – an explanatory paraphrase and Ulladu Narpadu Anubandham – an explanatory paraphrase , the following is the fourth of seven extracts from the introductory page that I have drafted for Sri Ramanopadesa Noonmalai : ஏகான்ம பஞ்சகம் ( Ekanma Panchakam ), the ‘Five Verses on the Oneness of Self’, is a poem that Sri Ramana composed in February 1947, first in Telugu, then in Tamil, and later in Malayalam. The word ஆன்மா ( anma ) is a Tamil form the Sanskrit word atman , which means ‘self’, and hence in the title ஏகான்ம பஞ்சகம் ( Ekanma Panchakam ) the compound word ஏகான்ம ( ekanma ) means ‘the one self’, ‘self, the one’ or (by implication) ‘the oneness of self’, and பஞ்சகம் ( panchakam ) means a ‘set of five [verses]’. Thus this title implies not only that self is only one (and not many), but also that self is the only one (that is, the only one existing reality), which is the true ...

A question that I am asked quite frequently is why I take so much trouble to write about the nature of self and the means by which we can know ourself as we really are, when all that we really need to do is just to be vigilantly self-attentive. For example, a friend wrote to me recently asking: If we are Infinite Self (Being), without qualities and interests, wherefrom comes the urge or interest to engage in so much writing on the subject of the Self. If the mind is a myth, is then also all your writing a myth? We can say yes, but this ultimate myth (concept) of Self will destroy all other myths and concepts. Is then your desire to write so much on the subject of the Self, satisfying your spiritual need, or is a consequence of your compassion for deceived suffering souls? The following is the reply that I wrote: Yes, the mind is certainly a myth, māyā , a figment of our self-deceiving power of imagination. Therefore our whole mind-centred life is also just a myth, as is our writing or ...

Last week a person called Teck posted two comments on one of my recent articles, Making effort to pay attention to our mind is being attentive only to our essential self , in the first of which he or she wrote: … My question is, how important is CONTINUITY and INTENSITY of self abidance/attention for our progress (of recognizing our true being)? Recently I started to intuit that these 2 factors are of very critical importance in our progress. … In his or her second comment , Teck continued: I think I need to elaborate more about what I mean by intensity and continuity. By the 1st I mean the degree of “alertness/mindfulness” of our attention to awareness itself, while ignoring others eg feeling, thoughts etc., kind like when a cat trying to catch a mouse, it’s attention is very alert/focused. Continuity is very obvious, it’s simply the ability to sustain our attention on our consciousness/awareness without interruption. I suspect that the speed of our realization (progress) depends on ...

I began to write this article on Thursday of last week, 11th December, which was the day of Kārttikai Deepam , but for various reasons I was unable to complete it till today, 18th December. Kārttikai Deepam is an annual festival celebrated in the Tamil month of Kārttikai (mid-November to mid-December) on the day on which the moon is in conjunction with the constellation Pleiades (known in Tamil as kārttikai and in Sanskrit as kṛttikā ), which always coincides with the full moon or comes one or two days before or after it. On this day a beacon light or dīpam (popularly spelt as deepam ) is lit on the summit of the holy mountain Arunachala, at the foot of which lies the temple-town of Tiruvannamalai, where Bhagavan Sri Ramana lived for the last fifty-four years of his bodily life. On Kārttikai Deepam day in 1931 (called prajōtpatti in Hindu calendars, the fifth year in the 60-year Jupiter cycle), which was 24th November, when answering some questions on the subject Sri Ramana expla...

Referring to a sentence that I wrote in my recent article Self-attentiveness, effort and grace , “We can free ourself from thoughts, sense-perceptions and body-consciousness only by ignoring them entirely and being attentive only to our essential self, ‘I am’”, an anonymous friend wrote in a comment today: As I see it, thoughts, sense-perceptions and body-consciousness can’t be ignored nor we can be attentive only to our essential self then. If we are attentive only to our essential self, it is because there is not thought, sense-perception nor body-consciousness to be ignored by us. Otherwise, we have to be attentive to thoughts and so on, because it is only then, through this practice, that attention becomes self-attentive and therefore self-consciousness because then, there is not thought, sense-perception nor body-consciousness as a natural result of the practice, obtained without an act of will nor effort. Effort is in paying attention to mind which is a reflection of true consci...

In a comment on one of my recent articles, Self-enquiry, personal experiences and daily routine , an anonymous friend wrote: “...uninterrupted self-attentiveness...” This is not quite possible in my daily work life. I work as a software developer where I have to constantly think to write programs. I try to do be self-attentive while using elevators, walking the corridors... sometimes even while smoking, and also try to be self-attentive while driving. So please tell me how to hold on to the “I” while working. Here the words “... uninterrupted self-attentiveness ...” refer to a sentence that Sri Ramana wrote in the eleventh paragraph of Nan Yar? (Who am I?) , which I quoted in that article , namely: … If one clings fast to uninterrupted svarupa-smarana [self-remembrance] until one attains svarupa [one’s own essential self], that alone [will be] sufficient. … As I explained in a subsequent article, Where to find and how to reach the real presence of our guru ? , the adjective that S...