Ramana Maharshi's Teachings On The Guru - Session 2

Listen to Ektaji talk about Ramana Maharshi's teachings on the Guru. These teachings are aimed at the experiential understanding of the true nature of the self and that consciousness is the only existing reality.

Transcript

Salaam.

Salaam.

Salaam.

Salaam.

Salaam.

This is a thought experiment.

This is a pot.

Matka in Hindi.

A clay pot.

This is a favourite example used by Advaitans.

So you will see it in a lot of Advaita Vedanta texts.

The Brahma Sutras,

Aparvaksha,

Anubhuti,

Vivekachudamani.

You pick up any text,

You will see the example of the pot.

So it is repeatedly given as an example by many many Advaitan teachers.

This is a pot.

It's made of clay.

You know the law of cause and effect?

Yes.

This pot is an effect.

The material cause of this pot is clay.

Pot is an effect.

Clay is the cause.

Before this was a pot,

It was clay.

So that clay was the cause and this pot is the effect.

It will last for whatever 10 years,

15 years and one day I will drop it,

It will break.

The pot will be gone when it's broken.

Will the clay be there?

Yeah.

The clay is going to be there.

So the birth and death.

In between,

Is this a pot or is it clay?

What is its reality?

Top is clay,

Bottom is clay,

Inside,

Outside,

Right side,

Left side,

All clay.

Everything is clay.

It is pervaded by clay.

There is nothing here other than clay.

Is this a pot or is it clay?

You will say,

It is a pot in clay.

Really?

Okay,

I'm taking the clay away.

Keep your pot.

Pot is just the name and form.

Nama and Rupa.

We've learnt this in many texts before.

Nama is name,

Rupa is form.

Pot is just Nama Rupa,

Is name and form.

The reality of this is only one.

The reality is clay.

Apart from clay,

There is no pot here really.

It is only clay existing there.

The name is pot.

The shape is pot.

Even the function is of a pot.

But there is only clay.

Its reality is clay.

There is only clay existing.

Obviously,

When you see it,

You say,

Okay great,

But it's still a pot.

Really?

If you touch it,

What do you touch?

Do you touch clay or do you touch pot?

What am I touching right now?

Clay.

When I see,

My eyes come in contact with it,

What are my eyes in contact with?

Clay or pot?

Clay.

It is just clay.

The same example has been given in Ashtavakra Gita as gold and ornament.

You remember that?

Those who have done Ashtavakra Gita,

Earrings,

Necklace,

Bangle,

Everything is just gold.

Same example has been given in another Upanishad for wood.

Different kinds of wood in your whole room.

Table,

Chair,

The study table,

The centre table,

Everything.

Sofa,

Couch,

All different,

Different things,

But it is all wood.

One more example in Ashtavakra Gita was the wave and the water.

Remember?

Is there water in the wave or is there wave in the water?

It is only water.

There is just an appearance of a wave.

Wave is just a name and form,

Nama and Rupa,

That I have given to it.

Now,

You apply this analogy to this body-mind complex.

How is this body different from this pot?

You will say,

Oh,

Very simple.

Here I feel awareness,

Consciousness.

I feel it's alive.

It's a living being and this is not alive.

This is a non-living thing.

Okay,

Granted.

Here you feel alive.

You feel aware here.

I am aware of the body as if the body is conscious but the pot is not conscious.

So now we have identified two things here.

The body and the awareness or the consciousness intermingled.

Because the body has this awareness or consciousness,

The body is called a living being and the pot is called a non-living thing.

Clear?

Do you ever experience the body without the consciousness or awareness?

Your own experience.

Okay,

Forget the whole body.

Do you experience in my little toe that there is no consciousness,

No awareness?

Never.

Can you experience the pot apart from the clay?

Can you experience the body apart from the consciousness or awareness?

Not possible.

What part of the body can be experienced?

Tell me.

Apart from awareness,

Apart from consciousness,

Apart from knowingness.

Nothing.

Inside the body,

Outside the body,

Everything is consciousness.

Every experience of the body is consciousness,

Is in consciousness.

So far with me?

So this understanding that I have is wrong.

Which one?

That I have a body and then I have a mind inside the body and in that mind I have some little consciousness or awareness.

And my consciousness and awareness sometimes in the morning especially it's high and at the end of the day my awareness or consciousness is low.

Now does this hold any water?

It is absolutely wrong.

Consciousness itself is like space.

In that consciousness the body appears.

It is available to you 14 hours,

16 hours,

18 hours till the time you are awake.

And what happens at the end of the day?

11 o'clock,

12 o'clock in the night.

You lose the consciousness of this body.

You move from the waking state to the dreaming state.

When you are dreaming,

Are you conscious of the body?

Do you remember I am this person so and so lying on the bed and I am dreaming that I am somewhere on Mars?

No.

You are not conscious of the body.

So the body that had appeared in the morning at 6 a.

M.

Has disappeared from the consciousness at 11.

30,

12 in the night.

The mind still continues in the dream for a while and then the mind also disappears.

And you are just pure consciousness.

In your deep sleep state you are that pure witness that is devoid of any mental or physical objects.

In that space of pure witness,

Pure consciousness,

After 2-3 hours the I thought arises,

The mind arises.

It sees some dreams and then you wake up in the morning and the body arises.

Every morning the body appears,

The mind appears.

Every night the body disappears,

The mind disappears.

The consciousness is the bigger aspect here in which the body appears,

The mind appears.

It plays for a while and disappears.

I am that consciousness.

I am not this body.

I am not this mind that comes up.

This is Advaita level 2.

Now this is very experiential,

So homework for you tonight.

After this session we will continue to be very aware.

We are going into bed completely aware.

Can I just be in this witnessing mode and observe what happens?

And just keep observing,

Keep observing and let sleep come.

It will happen naturally to the body anyways.

If you are observant enough,

You do come for a moment over there in your dream and recognize I am dreaming.

And it has happened to all of us at least once in our lifetime,

Correct?

You recognize,

Oh I am dreaming.

You will go into deep sleep state,

You will not have an experience of course because it is the absence of experience.

But when you come out of it,

You will know that ah I had slept really well last night.

Like I had fantastic sleep,

Sound sleep.

What does it mean your sound sleep?

Oh there was no dreams.

There was absolute silence.

You yourself say it.

Recognize that this happens every night to us.

Now the main thing begins.

With this clear understanding that I am that consciousness in which the body appears and disappears.

I am that consciousness in which the mind appears and disappears.

I am that consciousness in which memory comes and goes.

I am that consciousness in which intellect comes up,

Says see I understood this and goes.

I am that consciousness in which the ego arises and says I.

The consciousness never says I.

Have you reached this realization?

Recognition,

Not intellectual understanding.

Recognition by exploration.

Those who have,

Fantastic,

Good job.

Those who haven't,

Take it down as homework number two.

There is a difference between I,

The ego that always says I and the pure witness which is the real I,

It never says I.

Now as we move ahead on the path,

The question comes up,

Okay I understand that the mind appears and plays for whatever 18,

16,

18 hours during the day because I am counting dream state also.

It's your mind.

It plays and then it goes away.

Every day this is happening.

Birth,

Death,

Birth,

Death.

It is actually the birth of the body and the death of the body.

Birth of the mind,

Death of the mind.

So the question arises next is then how does this world seem so real to me?

Well,

When you are dreaming in the night and you are running away from a tiger,

That also seems so real,

Doesn't it?

You are actually sweating and panting and you feel finished.

Now this is it.

I am going to die.

Most of us remember our nightmares.

We hardly remember our angelic dreams.

But we have one nightmare that we remember that creates that fear in us and we know that fear is so real.

Like it happens in your dreams,

It seems so real.

Exactly the same thing is happening in this waking dream.

Ashutavakra says,

Both are dreams Janaka.

The dream that you see in the night,

That is also a dream.

This waking world,

This is also a dream.

Both are dreams Janaka.

So both are dreams.

Now you have to start recognising this at this level.

This is a dream and how has this dream come about?

Advaita gives you a step by step understanding.

Number one,

First step,

There is a sankalpa in your mind and you can actually prove this to yourself if you have that much interest in your own self.

You will be able to do it.

A sankalpa arises in your mind.

Sankalpa is nothing but a like,

A relish.

The correct word used in the text is rati.

Rati is in Hindi a ki chav towards something.

An attraction towards something.

It's not even in words yet.

It is just like a sensation.

A ki chav,

I want to have chakubar ice cream.

You've not even said the whole sentence in your mind.

It's just coming from a past memory and that is called sankalpa.

A sankalpa arises in you is step one.

Step two,

You make the sankalpa a karma.

What is karma?

You lust for it.

No,

I have to have chakubar ice cream today.

Yes,

Come what may I want my chakubar ice cream.

This is lusting for it.

Step one,

He says is sankalpa.

Step two,

It becomes a karma if you give attention to it.

If you don't give attention to it,

It withers away like a dried flower that does not get any rain or sunshine.

Sankalpa becomes a karma.

A little inclination or like becomes lust.

Inclination is the right word for sankalpa.

Inclination becomes lust.

Immediately,

This lust is recognised by the creative function of the pure witness and it creates an impression in your mind.

An impression is nothing but a mental note you make to yourself.

I have to have my chakubar ice cream today.

So I have to finish this work.

I have to do this,

Do that.

But on my way back home in the evening,

I will stop at the store and get a chakubar ice cream.

A very strong impression is formed in your mind.

In the text,

It is called karma phalam.

Sankalpa is still not karma.

Karma creates the karma.

Karma phalam is already decided by your mind.

And immediately,

The universe is created.

So I am creating my own universe moment to moment to moment.

And you can actually experiment with this.

Whatever is in your life,

You have created it.

Whether you have lovely people in your life,

You have obnoxious people in your life,

You have people in your life or you don't have people in your life.

Whether you have happy situations in life,

Whether you have sad situations in life,

Whether you have no situations in life,

You have created it.

You create your own universe like a bubble and you only keep pumping it with more creation.

Creation is happening moment to moment to moment by your own sankalpas.

There is no external force that is creating this life for me.

There is no God sitting up there that has granted this sukha and this dupkha to me.

Nope.

I am that God.

I am that creator.

That creative function is the function of this pure witness,

Satchitananda.

Do you get this?

This is the next level.

The part 2 of Advaita level 2.

I create my own universe.

I live in my own bubble.

And I feel it is true.

I have created my own dream world.

Nobody else is responsible for this.

Now this takes us into a higher level of understanding.

It's not as simple as just projecting your mind out.

Whatever has happened in your life,

You have created it.

So if there is a very sweet person in my life,

I am the one who has attracted sweetness through my energy,

Through my sankalpa.

If there is a not so sweet person in my life,

I have attracted that with my not so sweet energy.

Remember,

Pure witness does not understand your language.

You must have said,

I want this.

Pure witness just recognises energy.

That's it.

You must have said,

I don't want this.

It does not understand your English or your German or your Farsi or your French or your Telugu,

Malayalam.

Whatever.

It does not understand that.

It's like space.

The special property of this space is the creative function.

It creates.

So even if I have said,

I don't want this in my life and I have constantly repeated and hoped that this should not happen,

This should not happen,

This should not happen,

This should not happen,

This should not happen,

What have I done?

I have created energy towards that.

The creative function of the pure witness only recognises the energy.

It does not recognise whether you said you want or you don't want.

And it manifests in your life.

Very clear?

God and the Self are one and the same.

I keep creating,

I keep creating,

I keep creating,

I keep creating and I don't realise how my life is this disaster full of suffering.

Why is it like this?

I keep creating but I don't understand it.

Oh,

I'm saying I don't want this,

I don't want this.

But there is energy created towards that.

The energy of hatred,

The energy of negativity,

The energy of resistance,

It keeps increasing,

Keeps increasing.

Happy things happen in my life but every happiness comes with a tax,

No,

Of sadness.

Oh,

What is this life?

It's just my own bubble of misery that I have created.

If this is clear now,

You will recognise that this misery keeps continuing for some time,

For some lucky ones,

A short time,

For some people,

For lifetimes.

Before we realise,

I have to figure out myself,

I have to figure out my mind,

I have to figure out the truth and then you start your spiritual journey.

I'm not saying even after coming on to the spiritual path,

The misery ends.

No.

In fact,

Now you add more misery,

I'm coming to that also.

Now you have spiritual creations,

Spiritual world projections.

It should be like this,

It should not be like this.

Everybody should have a smile,

The Buddha smile,

Everybody should bow down to you and be sweet with you.

No,

But you experience the same problems there.

Who is projecting,

Remember?

I am projecting because I have carried my past impressions of the material world into the spiritual world expecting them to magically turn around.

Is that going to happen?

My projections are going to go with me.

So,

When you come to the spiritual path,

Your projections only manifest into the mistakes that you've made on the spiritual path or gone to different kinds of teachers who didn't teach you properly or you thought they are not teaching you properly and all the goof-ups that you did on the spiritual path.

All created by whom?

By my own self.

I am the creator of it.

Through my own projections comes a guru,

An external guru.

The job of this external guru is to do what?

To help me recognise that my real guru is internal.

My real God is internal and I am creating this.

That is the job of this external guru.

It is also created by my creative function.

So,

Whether your guru was right or it was wrong,

It's got nothing to do with that external person.

We don't even know if the person exists or not as we learnt in Advaita 1.

You have no proof whether Etta really exists here in Germany or not.

Right now,

She is a part of your bubble.

How many ever people we are,

Right now our bubbles are intersecting.

You see,

Overlapping bubbles.

Wherever the bubbles overlap,

That is where we are having this common Advaita session and then we go our way.

We move on.

Creation of your own world by the creative function of your own pure witnessing.

Is this super clear?

This is where Ramana begins.

God,

Guru and yourself are one and the same.

It does not mean that they are three entities that are like each other.

It means they are one entity only.

The pure witnessing consciousness.

So it is my self,

The pure witness,

The consciousness that we are talking about from the beginning.

It is that consciousness that forgets itself.

It only becomes the mind.

In that,

That sankalpa arises.

Sankalpa is equal to inclination.

Then it does not let go of the sankalpa.

Lust arises which is karma.

That karma itself becomes a karmic impression.

That karmic impression is picked up by the creative function and that creative function within me itself is called God.

That pure witness itself is the God.

There is no God up there in the clouds,

Out there somewhere in some heaven.

That creative function in me,

That itself projects,

Makes that thing happen.

I go in the evening to the store,

Purchase my chocobar ice cream and I eat it.

I give you a very simple example.

This is happening moment to moment to moment in your life.

Take happy events and take unhappy events.

Each of them are your own projections,

Not just projections.

They are created by you,

By your own sankalpas.

Then you get tired of this creation.

This repetition brings so much misery.

Then you want to walk the spiritual path.

Now you start looking for a guru.

You have this thirst in you.

And then you start finding a guru according to your desires.

Some people want a guru,

Oh don't tell me to do something very hard.

Give me shortcut method.

Very easy.

10 minutes bus I want to do and nothing more.

Okay,

You do 10 minutes yoga stretches.

Good.

That is also from Patanjali Yoga Sutras.

Ha!

You like the big word.

Patanjali Yoga Sutras.

Nice.

Now I will do 10 minutes yoga.

I am a spiritual person.

I am going to be nice and calm.

What happened to you?

After 10 days of yoga,

I am the same old miserable person.

Still angry,

Still hateful,

Still lost in this world.

Now you want another guru.

So you leave your yoga studio and you start looking for something else.

You pick up some book.

You learn something more from the book.

Oh yes,

Yes.

Good,

Good.

Your friend sees you looking into that book.

Your friend says,

Come,

Come,

Let's go to this course.

Now you go to a personality developmental class and you think,

Oh this is real spirituality.

These are also stages we all go through and it's good.

Nothing is wrong with it.

We need to step by step go up.

And we do a nice personality developmental class and the mind feels a little polished.

I am good.

But what?

After a few days,

Your suit boot is gone and then you are back to the same miserable person.

What personality developmental class also gone down the drain and thousands of dollars also gone down the drain.

Now you start looking for something more,

Something more.

And the journey continues.

Then you can fill in the gaps.

Well,

Doesn't matter.

That is also ignorance.

That was also a part of my journey.

You take the next step.

Keep going up,

Keep going up.

Find the highest truth.

And unless you go to nursery,

You cannot go to kindergarten.

Unless you go to kindergarten,

You cannot go to primary school.

Unless you go to primary school,

You cannot go to high school.

Unless you do high school,

You cannot come to college.

So don't be harsh on yourself.

Obviously to reach here,

You had to take the step by step process and get there.

Some of us are lucky.

We did this process maybe in our previous lifetime.

But some of us are not like the ripe mango.

Some of us are raw.

Kachi Kairi,

He is saying.

Hindi.

The raw mango.

Can't do anything about it.

You have to wait till it takes its own time to ripen.

Then you get there.

When you get there,

Then you find that real guru.

The real meaning of guru in the ancient text is in today's language,

A GPS,

A guru positioning system.

The external guru is manifested by God to help point towards the internal guru.

That's what Ramana will tell you.

That's what we learnt in Kabir's session,

Those who attended St.

Kabir's teachings.

The external guru's job is just to cajole you,

Push you,

Look inwards,

Inwards,

There.

That is the real guru.

I am not the real guru.

So drop this external attraction,

Whether material or spiritual,

And start looking within.

Then your real journey begins.

That is where Ramana Maharshi begins.

Copyright © 2020 Mooji Media Ltd.

All Rights Reserved.

No part of this recording may be reproduced without Mooji Media Ltd.

's express consent.

Reviews

🙏🏼