Insights into The Ramana Way

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Sri Ramana Maharshi is a Jnani of the 20th Century who has clarified the doubts and problems of seekers of truth for over 54 years from 1898 to 1950. His message is timeless, springing as it does, from his natural abidance in the Self. This book is intended to help those who wish to practice Ramana’s direct path for discovering the abundance and joy of the natural state.

The sacred words of Ramana are timeless. Because they are based on his direct experience of steady Self-abidance. The hallmark of Ramana was his accessibility. His doors were always open, be it in the ‘Old Hall’ or the ‘New Hall’ or the ‘Nirvana Room’. The only thing he would insist upon was that none should be denied the opportunity of meeting him. As a result there was a free flow of visitors, devotees and serious seekers of truth. Their backgrounds, their earnestness and spiritual evolution were different. Consequently we have a variety of questions, a wide gambit of spiritual doubts which Ramana has handled with authority and simple directness. It is open to all those concerned with truth, with the search for Self-knowledge, to dwell on the meaning of his words, statements and clarifications. They are like an ‘open book’, from which one can derive strength and inspiration. There is no need for any special scriptural knowledge for understanding his teachings.

However it is absolutely necessary to ponder over and reflect on the guidance given. Such a need is there for any path but it is more so in the Ramana Way. Why? For it is bafflingly simple, seemingly without steps between the practice and the goal. There is no system of ‘dos’ and ‘donts’. No prescribed formulae. The nature of the experience, natural happiness, is the same during practice, and what one is used to calling the ‘ultimate’ experience. The difference being only that during the stage of practice one keeps moving in and out of this state of blissful, non-mental happiness. When the experience of this state is steady and undistracted, that itself is the goal.

The means and the goal being the same is so alien to our dualistic thoughts. Hence one has to go back, time and again, to Ramana’s statements, to understand their true meaning for practice. When it is a matter of unfoldment, of revelation, the progress is invisible and cannot be judged with reference to tangible and measurable yardsticks. Hence the great need for calm indwelling on the practical implications of Ramana’s direct path for getting a proper insight into his teachings.

Ramana accepts all the traditional spiritual methods. He would encourage people to continue their practice along the lines to which they were naturally inclined. If ritualistic worship is your cup of tea, tine, if you think action dedicated to God is your way, that too is fine. f your faith is in the sacred syllables, by all means do go ahead. If your attraction is for Patanjali and his breath-regulation method it is quite all right. On the other hand if you think that devotion to God is the way do not give it up. Ramana would say that all these methods are purificatory. They would prepare one for self-enquiry to which all seekers of truth have to come in the end.

Here it is necessary to go into some essential aspects of Ramana’s path for it has special features of its own. As Ramana says, “Yoga teaches control of the activities of the mind. But I say self-enquiry. This is a practical way”. What is the difference between the extant practices and what Ramana teaches? One might say that all other methods assume duality, the subject ‘I’ and the object, be it a sacred syllable, thoughts, or a form of a God held dear. Is this division really valid? Am I not the mind? The thinker and his thoughts are integral. Are they not? As Ramana remarks, “One must learn to realise that the subject and object are one”. Meditation on an object would therefore be based on a non-existing division. By ignoring the sense of oneness the other methods can take one only to the threshold and prepare one for self-enquiry by purifying the mind. Why? Because the sense individuality, the feeling of separate existence would remain untackled.

There would also be differences in practice. For, in other methods one would necessarily be dealing with the content of the mind in order to make it virtuous, pure and desireless. Cultivation of good thoughts, cultivation of desirelessness, practice of regulation of breath and so on would be attempted.

In contrast self-enquiry incessantly stressed by Ramana is holistic, unitary. Attention is only on the subject. The idea about one’s separate identity is constantly questioned until one discovers the falsity of the notion. The question ‘Who am I?’ is posed in order to raise a doubt about one’s assumption that one is a particular name and form, ‘I am is or ‘that’. Unless one enquires, unless one is saturated with the spirit of enquiry how can one find out? Attention is not allowed to wander from thought to thought. The whole world of thoughts, innumerable, varied and powerful in their numerical strength, is negated by shifting attention from thoughts to the thinker. Can there be thoughts without the thinker? Can there be doubts without a doubter? All dualistic ideas are put to sword for thoughts cannot flourish when the individual’s attention is not on them. They are literally starved to death for want of the attention which gives life to them. When the individual’s association with his thoughts are cut, he falls back on his true strength. The mind turns within and merges in the fullness of consciousness. The individual current of energy merges in the universal current which is ever existent, all embracing and whole. When this happens one is ‘inundated with happiness’, with joy which is at once spontaneous and natural.

What happens is the shedding of a great load; the load of thoughts. The mind is so full of thoughts, is it not? Functional thoughts, psychological thoughts and purposeless thoughts keep persisting. Purposeless for they have no relevance to one’s life. When there is a ‘load-shedding’ of these thoughts, one feels free, happy. The mind becomes spacious when its cluttering is cleared. Functioning directly from the universal current, termed the ‘Heart’ by Ramana, intuition and feeling will replace mental conceptualization. Each moment would then be new and suffused with joy.

The reader’s attention is drawn to the contents page which would give him a clear idea about the practice orientation of this book. The focus is on the mind, and the way to make it quiet, indrawn and restful. The primacy of self-enquiry for holistic meditation, for surrender and for freedom has also been covered. Because what we are looking for is not intellectual appreciation of the verbal beauty or the lofty logic of Ramana’s words but their significance for experiencing the natural state of joy. Hence the ‘insights’ in the book are from the angle of getting off the mental movement, the angle of fostering the inturning of the mind and the angle of merging the mind in its conscious source.

It would also be noticed that a good deal of emphasis is laid on the role of Ramana as the Sadguru. For it is difficult to overstate the need for being aware of his presence as the inner guru. Who can be a better guide than Ramana himself? At times of depression, listlessness, and doubt, his support would be needed to sustain the momentum of inwardness, It would be there, unfailingly, if one seeks it.