Ramana Maharshi's Teachings On The Guru - Session 5

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.

We'll quickly revise what we did yesterday and then we'll move ahead.

The entire chapter is based on this higher understanding that I create my own universe.

There is nobody else that creates it for me.

There is no devil that is punishing me for any of my karmas.

I create my own karmas from my own sankalpas.

In English,

I create my own effects because my own intentions are the cause.

It is simply a continuous chain of cause-effect cause-effect.

So we'll quickly revise what we did yesterday.

The awareness,

The consciousness,

The witness.

It's like a wave.

This wave moves from its quiet and silent source towards the mind and projects the mind in form of thoughts,

Feelings,

Ideas,

Its own intentions and that projects the world.

When it is pure witnessing,

When it is just pure consciousness,

I experience it on a daily basis in my deep sleep.

It is in its source at that time.

There's an absolute stop to this entire drama.

There's absolute blankness.

That's why you say that I slept very soundly.

We call that deep sleep.

We think that we are not experiencing or we are not conscious.

But it is only an idea from the view,

The perspective of the mind.

There are no mental objects.

Mental objects means thoughts,

Perceptions,

Feelings,

Ideas,

Images,

Concepts.

All that has shut down in deep sleep.

But in deep sleep,

We are actually experiencing the blankness,

The absence of these objects.

Every night,

I go closest to my own nature.

Pure silence,

Pure peace,

Absence of mental and physical objects that seemingly cause turbulence in my life,

That are the cause of suffering in my life are all gone.

They do not exist there.

That is my pure nature.

I experience it every night in deep sleep.

In deep sleep,

There is complete rest because I am in not doing.

I am just being.

I am not doing.

I am just being.

Now I move from deep sleep to the dream state.

And the wave of awareness moves within this blankness and that current gives rise to that first sensation,

That first ripple is nothing but the I-thought.

In this silent,

Quiet lake,

There is that first sense of identification with the ripple or that sensation,

The I-thought is born.

And then it brings up all the stored impressions.

And that's how I start dreaming again.

Early morning dreams these are.

You are coming out of your deep sleep.

You've again started dreaming.

It's blurry.

It's not clear.

It does not make sense.

There is no sequential thought,

No logic.

It's just images.

That's how you come into the dream state.

Really what is happening?

The light of awareness which is the pure witness,

The pure consciousness,

It is projecting images.

It's projecting images on a screen.

If you remember the projector and the screen.

Now also if you go to army grounds,

They have this cinema day where they all come and sit in one ground and there is a big projector and there is a big screen on which the images project.

In deep sleep,

There were absolutely no images on that screen.

It was the absence of mental and physical objects both.

But soon you move from that deep sleep into the dreaming state and images come up.

These images don't make sense.

It's blurry.

These images have come up because of that identification.

The first I thought.

It has just kicked up the memory and brought up all my stored impressions.

That is what you call sanskaras.

Sankaras are nothing but stored impressions of the past.

Anything that I fuel,

I create an impression.

I fuel anger with the spouse,

With the family member,

With the parent,

With the child.

That creates an impression,

Goes and sits in my memory.

Now in dreams,

These only impressions are getting kicked.

I am just giving one example but you have lots of impressions like that created.

Those are the ones that are projecting in the dreams state.

Yes,

The body is not awake yet.

The body is still lying on the bed as if it is inert,

As if it is dead.

There is no consciousness of the body.

There is no awareness of the body yet.

The light of pure witnessing has just shone only on the mind and these images are kicked out from the memory.

All these stored images,

Beliefs,

They keep going,

Keep going.

It's like an engine coughing out its smoke.

Slowly you move from your blurriness to a proper logical thought process and you move into the waking state.

You slowly become aware.

You become fully conscious and awake and then when you are fully conscious and awake,

You project the same outside world.

You project your world every single morning.

Why can't I project a different world every single morning?

Oh,

Because of my own stored impressions.

I am holding on to things.

No,

I am so attached to things.

My own attachment is my impressions and the same impressions I am projecting.

I project the world the moment I move from the dreaming state into the waking state.

We experience our own mind's phenomena as perceptions.

Yes,

And we assume that there is an object out there.

That object out there is saying something to me.

That is another person and I am another person.

I have created this illusion.

I really do not have any proof if there is really a person out there or if there is matter out there.

Whatever I experience is here.

However far that tree must be outside the window.

Where is seeing happening?

S-E-E-I-N-G.

Where is seeing happening?

Is it happening there or is it happening here?

It is happening here.

However far that cuckoo,

That coil is and it is making a sound,

It is chirping on that tree very far away.

Where is the sound heard?

Is it heard out there or is it heard here?

Seeing is happening here.

Hearing is happening here.

Sensations are perceived here.

Touch is perceived here.

Taste is perceived here.

We have no idea in our experience whether the object exists out there or not.

It's just a projection.

I have projected and I feel that it is out there.

I have assumed some things.

Really,

I am only creating my own waking state.

The realness of these objects are also experienced exactly like this in the dream state.

In the dream state,

When you are sleeping,

You feel the same fear when there is a tiger chasing you.

You feel the same passion during lovemaking.

You taste the same deliciousness of chocobar ice cream.

In the dream state,

The dreamer is the subject and the dream world is the object.

Similarly,

Ashtavakra says,

In the waking state,

The waker is the subject and the waking world is the object.

And it is just the same dream-like projection.

There is no difference.

This is Jagrith Swatna.

In the dream,

For the dreamer,

It was Nidrith Swatna.

This is the waking dream and that is the sleeping dream,

Through sleep translated.

There is no difference between this waking state and the dreaming state that I experience every single 24-hour cycle.

So the one who is saying there is a higher reality.

There is a higher reality.

Recognise that you already recognised that when you did it in Advaita 1,

Where you move from the eyes to the mind.

From the mind,

You recognise the one who is knowing all this.

That witness,

That is my reality.

That is who I am.

You also did this process last time in Advaita retreat where I told you,

Look out the window.

What do you see?

You see the lawn.

What do you see beyond the lawn?

Maybe the road.

Maybe the people on the road.

What do you see beyond them?

You see the buildings.

What do you see beyond the buildings?

You see the sky.

What do you see beyond the sky?

What do you see beyond the sky?

It's my own awareness.

It's my own field of awareness.

I say myself,

It is all happening within me,

Playing for a while within me and within my awareness and it is dissolving within me.

Can this field of awareness be different than that field of awareness?

It is the same field of awareness.

It is infinite.

There is no separate individual here.

There is no separate soul.

There is no separate self.

There is no personal self.

It is just one single pool of awareness,

One field of consciousness.

One field of consciousness with many projections.

All individual projections.

And wherever our projections intersect,

That is where we have a common experience together like this Advaita session,

Like the effects of the pandemic.

Still there are some people on this planet who probably live on an isolated island.

There are some tribes that are untouched by the pandemic,

That are living life as usual.

There are some zillionaires who own small islands in the ocean.

Their houses are on those islands.

They are untouched by this pandemic.

Only the people whose created dreams are intercepting,

They are experiencing something common.

Recognise this truth.

This is nothing but a waking dream,

Says Ashutavakra.

This is mentioned in the higher chapters of Ashutavakra Gita.

Again,

I am not saying that this world of people's situations seems not real.

That is for you to decide.

I am helping you with certain pointers where you look within and recognise that witness.

You look and you recognise this field of awareness in which everything arises,

Plays drama for a while and goes away.

And the best example,

I sleep every night,

The drama ends and next morning it begins again.

So which is my reality?

Is this waking,

Dream-like situation my reality or that pure consciousness,

That blankness?

The source from which everything comes and into which everything goes back,

Every single night.

Is that my reality?

You have to think on this.

You must do your own self-exploration and reach this by your own recognition.

Don't believe it just because Ekta says it.

So now this question also occurs.

How do events occur?

Events are nothing other than my mind sankalpa.

We discussed yesterday,

Sankalpa is nothing but an inclination or attraction towards something or a repulsion towards something.

From that sankalpa,

If I fuel the sankalpa,

What happens?

Karma,

Lust comes out.

Because of that karma,

The lust,

I create an impression in my mind because I am repeating it like a broken record in my mind.

And that projects my reality.

If you keep repeating to yourself,

Chakkuba ice cream,

Chakkuba ice cream,

You will definitely go and have chakkuba ice cream.

How many of you went and had chakkuba ice cream yesterday?

Tell me.

It's our own impression that we collect that which we get attracted to,

We create it.

Those who did not collect that impression,

Those who did not create a strong inclination,

A strong lust for it,

They didn't even think about chakkuba ice cream in the evening.

You see,

Right here amongst us,

We create our own realities.

We create our own bubble and we believe in this bubble.

We think this is the truth and this is how it is.

And that firm belief in this is called conditioning.

Now you have created the conditioning.

Who has to come out of it?

You have to come out of it.

And how will you come out of it?

By breaking your own created conditioning.

And what is the problem?

Who does not want to break it?

The ego says,

Ah,

Come on,

I created my great empire.

I am not going to let this go.

So your own ego becomes your own obstacle.

Your ego becomes your own obstacle in recognizing that this is nothing else but a waking dream.

This body also,

I have no proof that this is reality,

That this is really matter.

I have no proof in my experience.

I can create a hypothesis,

An assumption and believe that assumption to be truth.

And that's what has happened.

Says,

Ashtavakra,

Says Dattatre,

Says,

Nisargadatta,

Says Ramana Maharshi.

I have believed that conditioning to be truth.

If this clarity has happened to you and you started saying,

Oh,

I create everything,

Then it will become very clear that if there is a problem in my life because of another person who has created it,

I have created it.

So whoever this person is in your life,

Remember he is your own creation.

If you think somebody else is hurtful,

Your own creation,

You create either from not wanting hurt or wanting some pleasure,

Something that attracts its opposite tax.

We have to look very closely within and recognize who am I.

That's it.

You don't have to do anything else.

The moment you recognize who really I am,

I am that witness.

I am the knower who is knowing right now that the eyes are looking at Ekta on the computer screen.

I am the knower of the mind saying yes,

No,

What she is saying is right.

No,

No,

What she is saying does not seem right.

I am the knower of the mind.

Recognize it.

It is there.

It's a quiet silent space.

It does not speak.

It knows everything when there is activity.

When there is no activity,

It's a pure rest.

It is pure witnessing.

That is why Ramana says,

There are no others.

There are no others.

And you can come to this same understanding.

Once you start seeing that life is just a projection.

Just a projection.

So just like I project the material world,

I also project my spiritual world.

You see yourself over there meditating in that little bubble.

You projected that.

You go and sit and meditate and do years of sadhana and tapasya and going through scriptures and going through knowledge and going to this guru,

Going to that guru and then saying,

Oh this guru is bogus and that guru is not good.

All created by my own self,

Everything.

You have no idea whether ekta really exists or not over there in Jhana.

No proof.

In my own experience,

I only know whatever is happening in my own mind,

My own mind's phenomena.

There are no others.

The thinker and the thought are conceptual.

The feeler and the feelings are conceptual.

The sensor and the sensed are conceptual.

Perceiver and perceived both are conceptual.

The mower and the known are conceptual.

There is no gyata,

No gaya.

There is only pure jhana,

Keval jhana.

There is only the field of consciousness,

The field of awareness.

The source where I go back every night,

Every night when I sleep,

I go back there.

Only knowingness really exists.

From that knowingness,

The dream world comes.

From that dream world,

This physical world is projected for 13,

14,

15,

16 hours.

Again,

It draws back into the dream world.

The dream world goes back to its source,

The pure witnessing,

The pure consciousness.

Every single day this happens.

Every single day.

So really,

There is no time,

There is no space in relation to the pure consciousness,

The pure witness that I am.

Time and space are conceptual ideas created for this waking world.

Waking world is nothing but a dream.

When you are in a dream,

You have another kind of time and space.

Have you noticed?

Your body is lying on the bed maybe in US or in India,

Wherever you are or UK.

But you go to Africa,

Dance in the jungle with the tribals and come back.

Really,

Does your mind follow any time?

Does it have anything like space?

Even your mind doesn't follow it.

Dream state is nothing but the state of the mind,

The mental state.

So there is no time and space in your dreams.

Forget about the pure consciousness.

Time and space are both created realities,

Man-made for this waking dream.

Think about it.

This is your first homework.

On this path,

Without proper manana,

You cannot go to nididhyasa.

We discussed about manana yesterday.

Without manana,

You cannot move on to proper nididhyasa.

Manana involves the process of coming up with all your doubts,

Clarifying them,

Asking the same question 10 times.

Don't worry,

I don't mind it.

As long as it is helping you,

You clarify all your doubts.

When all doubts are aside,

You will be in a different space where the mind has now become friends with the idea of not doing and just being the witness.

The mind will not become friends with this idea till there are doubts in you.

And this is what stops a lot of people from progressing on the spiritual path.

So if you come up with any doubts,

Always feel free to ask questions via email,

Via one-on-one sessions,

Whatever.

I am always there to help you get rid of these doubts.

Then only will your phase of manana end and the proper application,

Nididhyasa,

Will start blossoming in life.

Advaita is very real.

It is not philosophy,

Remember that.

It is very real,

It is very experiential,

Provided you put in that much interest in knowing yourself.

If you are not interested,

You are like,

Oh,

Only two hours on one weekend of one month and I should get it,

Then of course you will get chavani.

25 paisa.

25 cents.

That's all you are going to get because you are giving that much.

If you really have interest in yourself,

Start exploring.

Revisit all the videos of Advaita from the beginning with the pure intention of experimenting,

Exploring,

Going within and figuring it out for yourself.

Then nobody can take this truth away from you.

Thank you.

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