When your world gets “too loud” how do you get quiet? What are the two most important -go-to practices that keep you in touch with your (true) self. Combining Bhakti and Jnani , Jesus instructed his followers that they should not merely love God with all their heart, they should also love their neighbors as themselves.
“The Self alone is real. All others are unreal. The mind and intellect do not remain apart from you. The Bible says, ‘Be still and know that I am God.’ Stillness is the sole requisite for the realisation of the Self as God”. – Ramana Maharshi
Sri Bhagavan, (Ramana Maharshi ) an Indian sage who lived and taught for more than fifty years at Arunachala, a sacred mountain in Tamil Nadu, India) said that this automatically happens when the first commandment, loving God with all one’s heart, is fulfilled.
This is an amazing intersection of the teachings of two great Sages meeting at the same conclusion from two different wisdom traditions 2000 years apart. A wise seeker should seriously take notice. One might call this form of worship “devotional non-duality”.
Loving and completely devoted to God on the one hand while also surrendering the individual self’s very ideation or “Ego mind”, on the other. This is the combination of Bhakti and Jnani yoga. These are the two methods prescribed by the great sage Maharshi.
The great Sufi poet Hafiz put it this way:
Pulling out the chair
Beneath your mind
And watching you fall upon God—
There is nothing else for Hafiz to do
That is any fun in this world!
Though art that.
Om Sri Yesu Bhagavate Namaha – which means – I bow to you Yeshua (Jesus Christ), the Supreme consciousness
“The lazy state of just being and shining [as ‘I am’] is the state of Self, and that is the highest state that one can become. Revere as most virtuous ones those who have attained that lazy state, which cannot be attained except by very great and rare tapas.” (Sri Ramana Maharshi)
Let’s learn more from Maharshi’s words:
“The experience of not forgetting consciousness [‘I am’] alone is the state of bhakti, which is the relationship of unfading real love, because the real knowledge of Self, which shines in the undivided supreme bliss itself, surges up as the nature of love. Only if one knows the truth of love, which is the real nature of Self, will the strong entangled knot of life be untied. Only if one attains the height of love will liberation be attained. Such is the heart of all religions. The experience of Self is only love, which is seeing only love, hearing only love, feeling only love, tasting only love and smelling only love, which is bliss”
As other thoughts arise, one should, without attempting to complete them, enquire, ‘To whom did they occur?’ What does it matter if ever so many thoughts arise? At the very moment that each thought rises, if one vigilantly enquires ‘To whom did this appear?’ it will be known ‘To me’. If one then enquires ‘Who am I?’ the mind will turn back to its source and the thought that had arisen will also subside. By repeatedly practicing in this way, the mind will increasingly acquire the power to abide at its source. When the mind, which is subtle, is externalized via the brain and the sense organs, names and forms, which are material, appear. When it abides in the Heart, names and forms disappear. Keeping the mind in the Heart, not allowing it to go out, is called ‘facing the Self’ or ‘facing inwards’. Allowing it to go out from the Heart is termed ‘facing outwards’ When the mind abides in the Heart in this way, the ‘I’, the root of all thoughts, [vanishes]. Having vanished, the ever-existing Self alone will shine. The state where not even the slightest trace of the thought ‘I’ remains is alone swarupa [one’s real nature]. This alone is called mauna [silence]. Being still in this way can alone be called jnana drishti [seeing through true knowledge]. Making the mind subside into the Self is ‘being still’. On the other hand, knowing the thoughts of others, knowing the three times [past present and future] and knowing events in distant places — these can never be jnana drishti.
Words of Ramana Maharshi – (source) – David Goodman.
Sri Ramana used to say that there are two ways to Self-Realization as the following:
“Either one has to inquire deeply with steadfastness about the arising of the aham vritti (the “I” thought–the feeling awareness of I AM) or surrender entirely to the Guru that is one’s own Self, the very Heart of one’s existence.
In either approach, the pure ego, the sense of identity, the “I” ness merges in the Heart and the Self reveals It Self to It Self.
Bhagavan Ramana often made the point that, although the spiritual effort is critical, one cannot go beyond a certain point with effort alone, and that Grace is needed.
When asked, how one could obtain Grace, Sri Ramana would say that Grace is ever-existent and always there. One only needed to be aware of It.
That is why Sri Ramana often brought attention to the nature of awareness and it’s source, the Heart. This can be grasped at many different levels depending on the spiritual maturity of the aspirant.
The fact that Self is Always Realized, and that the Grace is eternally present, can be meditated upon.
So one makes the sincere effort, the human effort, and does what is possible. Then Grace takes over, some Power, the Holy Spirit, Power of the Self—that takes the surrendered mind and merges it in the Heart.
The Heart is the magnet. The words of the Guru are Grace because they make the student alert and aware of the eternal divine nature.
When meditation is ripe, and all the effort that is possible has been made, through Grace, mind and Shakti are drawn to the Heart, and the Heart swallows up everything. The Supreme Silence beyond time and space shines forth as one’s own Self.
Sri Ramana used to say that there is no seeing the Self. There is only Being It!” 1
Source 1 from Dr. Harsh K. Luthar — Ramana on two ways to Self
“All directions are within the mind. I am not asking you to look in any particular direction. Just look away from all that happens in your mind and bring it to the feeling ‘I am’. The ‘I am’ is not a direction. It is the negation of all directions. Ultimately even the ‘I am’ will have to go for you need not keep asserting what is obvious. Bringing the mind to the feeling ‘I am’ merely helps turning the mind away from everything else.
Without the intake of food, there is no opportunity to say ‘I am’, out of the essence of the earth sprouts vegetation and out of that sprouts the ‘I am’, realize this without eyesight or intellect. That principle likes to cry, enjoy, and laugh, but you are not that, realize this only. Become one with the ‘I am’, then you can transcend it, then ‘I the Absolute’ am not the ‘I am’.”
- Nisargadatta Maharaj …Excerpt From
The Essential Nisargadatta Maharaj
Roy Melvyn
“I am the way and the truth and the life”
“Before Abraham was , I am” – Jesus Christ
