Bhavagan Ramana on Solitude

November 17, 2013

Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi was a realized man who ceaselessly highlighted the importance of अात्म विचार (atma vichara) or Self-Enquiry. Thanks to Him, the phrase "Who Am I?" or "Naan Yaar?" (in Tamil) became quite fashionable in intellectual circles in the South. His core teachings can be seen in the publication "Who Am I?".

I came across a very nice discussion on solitude on Sri Ramana's facebook page. It goes to the core of some questions about solitude.

SOLITUDE MEANS ONLY CONTINUOUS PRACTICE
D: When I spent an hour or two on the hill yonder, I sometimes found even better peace than here, which suggests that a solitary place is after all more conducive to mind-control.
B: True, but if you had stayed there for an hour longer, you would have found that place too not giving you the calm of which you speak. Control the mind and even Hell will be Heaven to you. All other talk of solitude, living in a forest etc., is mere prattle. D: If solitude and abandonment of home were not required, where then was the necessity for Sri Bhagavan to come here in his seventeenth year? B: If the same force that took this (meaning himself ) here, should take you also out of your home by all means let it, but there is no use of your deserting your home by an effort of your own. Your duty lies in practice, continuous practice of Self-enquiry.
D: Is it not necessary to seek the company of the wise (the Saints and Sages)?
B: Yes; but the best sat-sangam is inhering in your "Self". It is also the real guhavasam (living in the cave). Dwelling in the cave is retiring into your "Self". Association with the wise will certainly help a great deal.

Crumbs from His Table

Hari Om and Namaskaar until the next post

Comments

Geeta in Literature - IF by Rudyard Kipling

September 12, 2011 I came across a nice YouTube video that is an animation of Rudyard Kipling reading his famous poem IF . The full text sourced from wikisource is below: If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too: If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise; If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim, If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same: If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools; If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And los...

Geeta Dhyānaṁ 2 - Vyāsā's Vast Intellect

January 7, 2013 Previously on Geeta Jayanti, I had posted on the eternal debt of gratitude to Mother Geeta that is the basis of Geeta Dhyānaṁ. I love Param Pujya Gurudev 's commentary on the Geeta Dhyānaṁ. Pujya Gurudev's commentary is after the introduction to the Bhagavad Geeta in the commentary on Chapters 1 & 2 published by the the Chinmaya Mission. I personally believe it should be a book by itself. After invoking Mother Geeta, we now pay tribute to the wise Vyāsa Rishi - the Guru whose Jayanti marks Guru Pūrnima every year. Pujya Gurudev starts His tribute to Veda Vyāsā in his commentary on the 1st verse of the Dhyānaṁ. Vyāsa, the father of the Vedās, who, first collected, edited and published the Veda texts and who thereafter, gave us the dialectics of Vedānta in his Brahma Sūtra, himself a great man of realization, was indeed well fitted for the job. The ancient seer had both the mastery of the theoretical science of religion - Hinduism and also the practical expe...

Philip Glass and "Satyagraha", the Opera

May 27, 2012 The famous music composer Philip Glass composed an Opera called Satyagraha on Mahatma Gandhi's movement against the South African apartheid laws (strictly speaking the system wasn't officially called apartheid until ater the Second World War). I was intrigued by this because the Wikipedia entry for this opera says that the opera is sung in Sanskrit. Yet the link to the libretto (the latin name for the lyrics of an opera) on the Metropolitan's website, shows the text in English. Act 1 of opera is titled "The Kuru Field of Justice" begins with Gandhiji narrating, "I see them here assembled, ready to fight, seeking to please the King’s sinful son by waging war.” And thus addressed by Arjuna, Krishna brought that splendid chariot to a halt between the two armies. In front of Bhisma and Drona and all the rulers of the world, he said, “Behold Arjuna, these kinsmen assembled here.” And the Prince marked on each hand relatives and friends in both a...

Everyday Geeta

Search This Blog