Articles on the Teachings of Sri Ramana

1. Introduction
2. Search the blog
3. List of Articles — arranged under the following headings:
• Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai
• Upadēśa Undiyār
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu Anubandham
• Ēkāṉma Pañcakam
• Appaḷa Pāṭṭu
• Āṉma-Viddai
• Other original writings of Bhagavan
• The practice of ātma-vicāra: self-investigation or self-enquiry
• ‘I am’, ‘I am this’ or ‘I am that’, and ‘I am I’
• Ahaṁ-sphuraṇa: the clear shining of ‘I’
• What is our real ‘I’?
• The nature of ego and its five sheaths
• Our three states of consciousness: waking, dream and sleep
• The state of true self-knowledge
• The philosophy of Bhagavan’s teachings
• God, guru, grace, devotion and sat-saṅga
• Action or karma cannot give liberation
• Purification of mind
• Compassion and ahiṁsā
• Death and immortality
• Non-duality or advaita
• The appearance of duality
• The role of reason in understanding and applying Bhagavan’s teachings
• The science of consciousness
• Books about Bhagavan’s teachings
4. Italian translations of these articles

Introduction

This page is intended to form the principal link between this website and its extension, a blog named Sri Ramana Teachings, which is a growing archive of articles written by Michael James on the philosophy and practice of the spiritual teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana.

Search the blog

List of Articles — arranged under the following headings:

In the following list, links to all the main articles in this archive are arranged under different headings, but this arrangement is far from perfect, because many of these articles could well be classified under more than one heading. In particular, the practice of ātma-vicāra — self-investigation, self-scrutiny or ‘self-enquiry’ — is a theme that runs through most of them, but under the heading The practice of ātma-vicāra: self-investigation or self-enquiry I have included only those articles that focus strongly on this central topic.

In addition to being listed here, the articles are indexed clearly in the left margin of every page of the archive, firstly according to date in reverse chronological order under the heading Article Archive, and secondly in greater detail according to subject arranged alphabetically under the heading Index of Topics.

Some of the articles listed below are extracts from Happiness and the Art of Being (HAB), because they are portions that were not in the first PDF edition but were added either in the second PDF edition or in the third PDF edition, which is the same as the first edition of the printed book. I have therefore indicated all such articles by placing in brackets after each of them the initials HAB followed by a link to the chapter in which it appears.

Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai

1. Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai: pāyiram, kāppu and verse 1 (Thursday, 10 March 2022)
2. Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 2 (Thursday, 31 March 2022)
3. Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 3 (Thursday, 14 April 2022)
4. Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 4 (Sunday, 17 April 2022)
5. Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 5 (Friday, 22 April 2022)
6. Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 6 (Thursday, 28 April 2022)
7. Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 7 (Friday, 17 June 2022)
8. Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 8 (Saturday, 2 July 2022)
9. Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 9 (Thursday, 21 July 2022)
10. Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 10 (Thursday, 4 August 2022)
11. Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 11 (Wednesday, 24 August 2022)
12. Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 12 (Tuesday, 6 September 2022)
13. Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 13 (Friday, 23 September 2022)
14. Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 14 (Friday, 7 October 2022)
15. Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 15 (Thursday, 27 October 2022)
16. Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 16 (Wednesday, 9 November 2022)
17. Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 17 (Friday, 25 November 2022)
18. Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 18 (Wednesday, 7 December 2022)
19. Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 19 (Saturday, 24 December 2022)
20. Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 20 (Friday, 27 January 2023)
21. Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 21 (Wednesday, 8 February 2023)

Upadēśa Undiyār

22. Upadēśa Undiyār: Tamil text, transliteration and translation (Friday, 29 September 2017)
• Verse 1: karma is insentient, so it gives fruit only as ordained by God
• Verse 2: karma leaves seeds so it does not give liberation
• Verse 3: action done for God purifies the mind and shows the way to liberation
• Verse 4: actions of body, speech and mind are progressively more purifying
• Verse 5: worshipping anything considering it to be God is good worship of God
• Verse 6: doing japa mentally is more purifying than otherwise
• Verse 7: meditating uninterruptedly is more purifying than otherwise
• Verse 8: meditation on nothing other than oneself is most purifying of all
• Verse 9: being in one’s real state of being by self-attentiveness is supreme devotion
• Verse 10: being in one’s source is karma, bhakti, yōga and jñāna
• Verse 11: when breath is restrained mind will subside
• Verse 12: the root of mind and breath is one
• Verse 13: dissolution of mind is of two kinds, laya and nāśa
• Verse 14: only by self-investigation will the mind die
• Verse 15: when the mind is dead, there is no action but only one’s real nature
• Verse 16: knowing nothing but awareness is real awareness
• Verse 17: when one keenly investigates it, there is no mind
• Verse 18: mind is essentially just the ego, the root of all other thoughts
• Verse 19: when one investigates from what the ego rises, it will die
• Verse 20: where the ego dies, the infinite whole will shine forth as ‘I am I’
• Verse 21: that infinite whole is always the true import of the word ‘I’
• Verse 22: the five sheaths are jaḍa and asat, so they are not ‘I’
• Verse 23: what exists is awareness, which is what we are
• Verse 24: God and soul are just one substance, but only their adjuncts differ
• Verse 25: knowing oneself without adjuncts is knowing God, because he is oneself
• Verse 26: being oneself alone is knowing oneself, because oneself is not two
• Verse 27: there is nothing to know, so real awareness is devoid of knowledge and ignorance
• Verse 28: one’s real nature is beginningless, infinite and indivisible sat-cit-ānanda
• Verse 29: abiding as supreme bliss devoid of bondage or liberation is serving God
• Verse 30: knowing what remains when the ego has ceased is tapas
23. Upadēśa Sāraḥ: Sanskrit text, transliteration and translation (with the original Tamil text) (Thursday, 24 March 2022)
Introduction

• The cause for our falling in the vast ocean of action is our viṣaya-vāsanās
• To see what is real, the mind must see its own real nature, which is pure awareness
• We cannot see our own cittva merely by keeping our mind back from all dṛśya
• The mind can see its own cittva only by being its own cittva, and it can be it only by being swallowed by it
• Since the five sheaths are all jaḍa and asat, they are not ‘I’, which is sat
• The ānandamaya kōśa is not the darkness of ignorance but the darkness of desire
• This text will reveal its profound import to us only to the extent to which we study it carefully, think deeply about its meaning and look deep within ourself
உபதேச வுந்தியார் (Upadēśa-v-Undiyār) and उपदेश सारः (Upadēśa Sāraḥ): The Essence of Spiritual Teachings

• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 1
  Upadēśa Sāraḥ verse 1: karma is insentient, so it gives fruit only as ordained by God
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 2
  Upadēśa Sāraḥ verse 2: karma is caused by vāsanās, so it does not give liberation
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 3
  Upadēśa Sāraḥ verse 3: action done for God purifies the mind, so it is an indirect means for liberation
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 4
  Upadēśa Sāraḥ verse 4: actions of body, speech and mind are progressively more purifying
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 5
  Upadēśa Sāraḥ verse 5: worshipping anything considering it to be God is worship of God
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 6
  Upadēśa Sāraḥ verse 6: doing japa mentally is more purifying than otherwise
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 7
  Upadēśa Sāraḥ verse 7: meditating uninterruptedly is more purifying than otherwise
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 8
  Upadēśa Sāraḥ verse 8: meditation on nothing other than oneself is most purifying of all
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 9
  Upadēśa Sāraḥ verse 9: being in one’s real state of being by self-attentiveness is supreme devotion
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 10
  Upadēśa Sāraḥ verse 10: being in one’s source is karma, bhakti, yōga and jñāna
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 11
  Upadēśa Sāraḥ verse 11: when breath is restrained mind will subside
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 12
  Upadēśa Sāraḥ verse 12: the root of mind and breath is one
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 13
  Upadēśa Sāraḥ verse 13: dissolution of mind is of two kinds, laya and nāśa
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 14
  Upadēśa Sāraḥ verse 14: only by self-investigation will the mind die
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 15
  Upadēśa Sāraḥ verse 15: when the mind is dead, there is no action but only one’s real nature
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 16
  Upadēśa Sāraḥ verse 16: seeing nothing but awareness is seeing what is real
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 17
  Upadēśa Sāraḥ verse 17: when one keenly investigates it, there is no mind
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 18
  Upadēśa Sāraḥ verse 18: mind is essentially just the ego, the root of all other thoughts
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 19
  Upadēśa Sāraḥ verse 19: when one investigates from where the ego rises, it will die
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 20
  Upadēśa Sāraḥ verse 20: when ego is annihated, the infinite whole will shine forth as ‘I am I’
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 21
  Upadēśa Sāraḥ verse 21: that infinite whole is always the true import of the word ‘I’
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 22
  Upadēśa Sāraḥ verse 22: the five sheaths are jaḍa and asat, so they are not ‘I’
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 23
  Upadēśa Sāraḥ verse 23: what exists is awareness, which is what we are
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 24
  Upadēśa Sāraḥ verse 24: God and soul are just one substance, but only their adjuncts differ
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 25
  Upadēśa Sāraḥ verse 25: seeing oneself without adjuncts is seeing God, because he is oneself
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 26
  Upadēśa Sāraḥ verse 26: being oneself alone is seeing oneself, because oneself is not two
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 27
  Upadēśa Sāraḥ verse 27: there is nothing to know, so real awareness is devoid of knowledge and ignorance
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 28
  Upadēśa Sāraḥ verse 28: one’s real nature is imperishable unborn full awareness-happiness
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 29
  Upadēśa Sāraḥ verse 29: the divine soul experiences supreme happiness beyond bondage and liberation
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 30
  Upadēśa Sāraḥ verse 30: one’s shining devoid of ‘I’ is great tapas
24. An explanation of the first ten verses of Upadēśa Undiyār (Wednesday, 12 October 2016)
25. Upadēśa Undiyār verse 16: a practical definition of real awareness (Thursday, 28 November 2019)
• What is the difference between sphuraṇa and our natural state?
• How can we experience our natural state of real awareness?
• What did Sadhu Om mean by the ‘ascending process’ and ‘descending process’?
26. Upadēśa Undiyār — an explanatory paraphrase (8th June 2009)

Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu

27. Introduction to Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu (Tuesday 10 September 2024)
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu and its essential import
• Why and how should we study Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu and other writings of Bhagavan?
• Bhagavan’s teachings are advaita vēdānta in its purest form
28. Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu: Tamil text, transliteration and translation (Friday, 20 October 2017)
Pāyiram: introductory verse composed by Sri Muruganar
Maṅgalam verse 1: what exists is only thought-free awareness, which is called ‘heart’, so being as it is is alone meditating on it
Maṅgalam verse 2: by surrendering to God, who is devoid of death and birth, the ego, who fears death, will die, and what will remain is deathless
• Verse 1: because we see the world, it is best to accept that one fundamental, which is ourself, is what appears as all this multiplicity
• Verse 2: instead of the ego arguing whether there is just one fundamental or three fundamentals, standing in the real state of oneself by destroying the ego is best
• Verse 3: the state in which the ego has died by investigating itself, leaving aside the world and all differences and disputes, is agreeable to all
• Verse 4: if one perceives oneself as a form, one will perceive everything else as forms, but one’s real nature is infinite (hence formless) awareness, so it perceives no forms at all
• Verse 5: the body is a form consisting of five sheaths, and without such a body has anyone ever perceived any world?
• Verse 6: the world consists of nothing but the five kinds of sense-impressions, and the mind alone perceives it, so is there any world besides the mind?
• Verse 7: the world shines only by the mind, but what shines as the space for the appearing and disappearing of the world and mind is the real substance, the infinite whole
• Verse 8: worshipping in name and form is the way to see in name and form, but seeing oneself and thereby becoming one with the real substance is true seeing
• Verse 9: dyads and triads depend on one thing (the ego), so if one sees within the mind what that one thing is, they will all cease to exist and what is real will be seen
• Verse 10: knowledge and ignorance of other things are mutually dependent, but only the awareness that knows the reality of the ego, to whom they appear, is real awareness
• Verse 11: knowing anything other than oneself is ignorance, but when one knows the reality of oneself, knowledge and ignorance of everything else will cease
• Verse 12: oneself is real awareness, which shines without anything else to know, so it is devoid of both knowledge and ignorance of other things, but it is not void or nothingness
• Verse 13: oneself, who is pure awareness, alone is real, so awareness of multiplicity is ignorance and unreal, and hence it does not exist except as oneself
• Verse 14: if one investigates the reality of the first person, it will cease to exist along with all second and third persons, and what then shines as one is one’s real nature
• Verse 15: past and future depend on the present, the only time that actually exists, so trying to know the past or future without knowing the reality of the present is like trying to calculate without knowing the value of one
• Verse 16: if we are a body, we are ensnared in time and place, but if we investigate ourself, there is no time or place but only ourself, who are the same one always and everywhere
• Verse 17: for those who do not know themself and for those who do, the body is ‘I’, but for the former ‘I’ is limited to the body, whereas for the latter ‘I’ shines without limit
• Verse 18: for those who do not know themself and for those who do, the world is real, but for the former reality is limited to the world, whereas for the latter it pervades without form as the substratum of the world
• Verse 19: dispute about which prevails, fate or will, arises only for those who do not discern the ego as the root of them both, but if one knows the reality of the ego, one will thereby discard them
• Verse 20: seeing God without seeing oneself is seeing a mental vision, so only one who has seen oneself, the origin of one’s ego, is one who has seen God, because oneself is not other than God
• Verse 21: since oneself is one, how is oneself to see oneself, and how to see God, except by becoming food to him?
• Verse 22: how to know God, who shines within the mind illumining it, except by turning the mind back within and thereby immersing it in him?
• Verse 23: this body is not aware of itself as ‘I’, and ‘I’ does not cease to exist in sleep, but after something called ‘I’ rises, everything rises, so keenly discern where it rises
• Verse 24: the jaḍa body is not aware of itself as ‘I’, and sat-cit does not rise, but in between something called ‘I’ rises as the extent of the body, and this is cit-jaḍa-granthi, the ego, mind and so on
• Verse 25: grasping form the formless phantom-ego comes into existence, stands, feeds itself and flourishes, but if it seeks itself, it will take flight
• Verse 26: if the ego comes into existence, everything comes into existence, and if it does not exist, nothing exists, so investigating what it is is giving up everything
• Verse 27: the state in which the ego does not rise is the state in which we are that, but without investigating the place where it rises, how can one annihilate it and stand as that?
• Verse 28: like sinking to find something that has fallen in water, sinking within by a keenly focused mind it is necessary to know oneself, the source where the ego rises
• Verse 29: investigating by an inward sinking mind where one rises as ‘I’ alone is the path of jñāna, whereas thinking ‘I am not this, I am that’ is an aid but not vicāra
• Verse 30: as soon as the ego dies by inwardly investigating who am I, one thing appears spontaneously as ‘I am I’, which is not the ego but the infinite substance, namely oneself
• Verse 31: when the ego is destroyed by tanmayānanda, there is nothing to do, because one is not aware of anything other than oneself, so who can conceive such a state?
• Verse 32: when the Vēdas proclaim ‘That is you’, instead of knowing and being oneself by investigating what am I, thinking ‘I am that, not this’ is due to lack of strength
• Verse 33: saying ‘I do not know myself’ or ‘I have known myself’ is ridiculous, because there are not two selves for one to know the other as an object
• Verse 34: instead of merging the mind within and thereby knowing and standing firmly as the real substance, quarrelling about its existence and nature is mischief born of māyā
• Verse 35: knowing and being the ever-accomplished real substance is the real siddhi, whereas all other siddhis are unreal, like siddhis experienced in a dream
• Verse 36: if we think that we are a body, thinking ‘No, we are that’ will be just a good aid, but since we are already that, why should we always be thinking ‘We are that’?
• Verse 37: even the contention ‘Duality in spiritual practice, non-duality in attainment’ is not true, because even while one is searching for the tenth man, who is one other than him?
• Verse 38: if we are the doer of action, we will experience the resulting fruit, but when one knows oneself by investigating who is the doer, actions and their fruits will cease to exist
• Verse 39: thoughts of bondage and liberation exist only so long as one seems to be bound, but when one looks at oneself to see who is bound, one will see that one is ever liberated
• Verse 40: if it is said that liberation is with form, without form, or either with form or without form, I will reply that only destruction of the ego is liberation
29. Upadēśa Kaliveṇbā: the extended version of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu (Thursday, 28 December 2017)
• Pāyiram verse 1 (introduction to Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu)
• Pāyiram verse 2 (introduction to Upadēśa Kaliveṇbā)
• நூல் (nūl): Text
• Translation
• Lines 1-4: extended version of the first maṅgalam verse of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 4-8: extended version of the second maṅgalam verse of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 8-12: extended version of verse 1 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 12-16: extended version of verse 2 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 16-20: extended version of verse 3 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 20-24: extended version of verse 4 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 24-28: extended version of verse 5 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 28-32: extended version of verse 6 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 32-36: extended version of verse 7 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 36-40: extended version of verse 8 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 40-44: extended version of verse 9 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 44-48: extended version of verse 10 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 48-52: extended version of verse 11 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 52-56: extended version of verse 12 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 56-60: extended version of verse 13 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 60-64: extended version of verse 14 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 64-68: extended version of verse 15 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 68-72: extended version of verse 16 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 72-76: extended version of verse 17 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 76-80: extended version of verse 18 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 80-84: extended version of verse 19 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 84-88: extended version of verse 20 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 88-92: extended version of verse 21 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 92-96: extended version of verse 22 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 96-100: extended version of verse 23 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 101-104: verse 24 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 104-108: extended version of verse 25 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 108-112: extended version of verse 26 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 112-116: extended version of verse 27 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 116-120: extended version of verse 28 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 120-124: extended version of verse 29 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 124-128: extended version of verse 30 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 128-132: extended version of verse 31 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 132-136: extended version of verse 32 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 136-140: extended version of verse 33 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 140-144: extended version of verse 34 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 144-148: extended version of verse 35 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 148-152: extended version of verse 36 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 152-156: extended version of verse 37 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 156-160: extended version of verse 38 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 160-164: extended version of verse 39 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 164-168: extended version of verse 40 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Lines 168-170: concluding lines of the kaliveṇbā
30. Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu first maṅgalam verse: what exists is only thought-free awareness, which is called ‘heart’, so being as it is is alone meditating on it (Monday, 1 January 2018)
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu maṅgalam verse 1
• Upadēśa Kaliveṇbā lines 1-4: the extended version of this verse
• The original kuṟaḷ veṇbā form of this verse
• The question that Bhagavan asks in this kuṟaḷ: ‘How to think of the existing substance?’
• The answer he gives to this question: ‘Being in the heart as it is alone is thinking [of it]’
• The first sentence of the veṇbā
• The first meaning of the first sentence: ‘If what exists were not, would existing awareness exist?’
• The second meaning of the first sentence: ‘Other than what exists, does existing awareness exist?’
• The third meaning of the first sentence: ‘Other than what exists, is there awareness to think [of it]?’
• The second sentence of the veṇbā: ‘Since the existing substance exists in the heart without thought, how to think of the existing substance, which is called the heart?’
• The third sentence of the veṇbā: ‘Being in the heart as it is alone is thinking [of it]’
• The paradox of what seems to exist but does not actually exist
• உள் (uḷ) as a verb and as a noun
• The final word of this verse and its kaliveṇbā extension
31. Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 12: other than the real awareness that we actually are, there is nothing to know or make known (Saturday, 28 January 2017)
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 12 and its meaning
• The first sentence: real awareness is devoid of knowledge and ignorance of anything else
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 27: what is real is only awareness devoid of knowledge and ignorance, because nothing at all exists for it to know
• The second sentence: what knows anything other than itself is not real awareness
• The third sentence: real awareness is ourself, other than which nothing exists to know or make known
• The ego is the false awareness that knows other things, whereas what we actually are is the real awareness other than which nothing exists to know
• The fourth sentence: real awareness is not śūnya, void or non-existent
• The fifth sentence: know or be aware
32. Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu — an explanatory paraphrase (14th June 2009)

Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu Anubandham

33. Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu Anubandham (the supplement to Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu): Tamil text, transliteration and translation (Monday, 27 May 2024)
• Pāyiram verse 1: introductory verse adapted by Sadhu Om from a prāstāvika ślōka composed by Bhagavan
• Pāyiram verse 2: introductory verse composed by Muruganar
• Maṅgalam (benedictory verse): Let us hold in our heart that svarūpa, the existing substance in which, of which, from which, for which and by which all this arises, and which is itself all this
• Verse 1: Cherish satsaṇga, by which attachment will leave, movement will cease and liberation will be attained
• Verse 2: The exalted state is achieved by clear vicāra, which arises in the heart when one takes refuge in sādhu-association
• Verse 3: If one adheres to living with sādhus, for what are all these niyamas?
• Verse 4: Heat, poverty and sin will depart just by the great sight of peerless sādhus
• Verse 5: Sādhus give rise to purity as soon as they see by eye
• Verse 6: You, who know the mind, are actually God
• Verse 7: I am the light to all lights
• Verse 8: In the centre of the heart-cave brahman alone shines as ‘I am I’
• Verse 9: Only that awareness that is the blemishless, motionless ‘I’-form in the heart is what will give liberation by removing ‘I’
• Verse 10: The body (dēham) is not I (nāham). Who am I (kōham)? He is I (sōham)
• Verse 11: He who has been born is only he who, carefully investigating where I was born, has been born in his source, brahman
• Verse 12: Investigate yourself, who are ever-unceasing happiness, and thereby cease considering the wretched body ‘I’
• Verse 13: Destroying the awareness ‘I am this body’ is all virtues, good deeds and worthy achievements
• Verse 14: Investigating for whom are all defects is karma, bhakti, yōga and jñāna
• Verse 15: The buffoonery of lunatics who strive to acquire all siddhis, not knowing that they move by divine power
• Verse 16: Since cessation of mind alone is liberation, how will those whose mind is yoked on siddhis immerse in the bliss of liberation?
• Verse 17: When God bears the burden of the world, the spurious soul bearing it is mockery
• Verse 18: The seeming location of the heart in the body
• Verse 19: A metaphorical description of the heart
• Verse 20: By meditating ‘The Lord who shines in my heart as I alone is I’, if one remains firmly as ‘I’, the ignorance ‘I am this body’ will perish
• Verse 21: The two kinds of heart, in one of which all these phenomena appear as a reflection
• Verse 22: The organ called ‘heart’ inside the chest is to be rejected, and the heart in the form of the one omnipresent awareness is to be accepted
• Verse 23: In this principal heart the entire universe resides, so it is not a small portion in the perishable and insentient body
• Verse 24: By fixing the mind in this pure heart composed of awareness, complete dissolution of breath and vāsanās will be achieved
• Verse 25: By constant meditation ‘Awareness devoid of all adjuncts is I’, dispel every attachment
• Verse 26: Firmly holding the supreme state devoid of falsity, having known what exists in the heart as the reality for all appearances, without ever abandoning that view, play in the world, hero, as if desirous
• Verse 27: Having seeming rising, delight, agitation, aversion and effortful initiative, but being devoid of defects, freed from delusion and steadily equanimous in all circumstances, doing actions on the outside to suit your disguise, play in the world as required, hero
• Verse 28: One who has destroyed the senses by knowledge, and who is fixed firmly as existence-awareness, is a self-knower
• Verse 29: Brightness and strength of intellect automatically increase for those who have seen the reality
• Verse 30: The mind in which vāsanās have been erased is actually not doing even though doing, whereas the mind that vāsanās soak is actually doing even though not doing
• Verse 31: The knower of reality is asleep to the body’s activity, niṣṭhā and sleep
• Verse 32: For those who experience waking, dream and sleep, waking-sleep is called ‘turya’, but since that turya alone exists, it is turīyātīta.
• Verse 33: Saying ‘sañcita and āgāmya do not adhere to the jñāni; prārabdha does remain’ is a reply said to the questions of others
• Verse 34: In the heart of the learned, many book-families exist as obstacles to yōga
• Verse 35: The learned who do not intend to erase the writing of fate by investigating where they were born have acquired the nature of a sound-recording machine
• Verse 36: Rather than those who have not subsided though learned, those who are not learned are saved
• Verse 37: Those who have come under the sway of the wicked whore who is praise, escaping slavery to her is difficult
• Verse 38: When one always stands in one’s real state, who is there besides oneself? Whoever says whatever about oneself, so what?
• Verse 39: Always experience advaita in the heart, but never perform it in action, particularly not with guru
• Verse 40: The essence of the final conclusion of all vēdānta: if I dies and I become that, that I, which is awareness, alone remains
34. Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu Anubandham — an explanatory paraphrase (21st June 2009)

Ēkāṉma Pañcakam

35. Ēkātma Pañcakam — an explanatory paraphrase (22nd June 2009)
36. Ēkātma Vivēkam – the kaliveṇbā version of Ēkātma Pañcakam (28th May 2009)

Appaḷa Pāṭṭu

37. Appaḷa Pāṭṭu (The Appaḷam Song): Tamil text, transliteration, translation and explanation (Thursday, 18 November 2021)
• Verse 1: in the hand-mill of jñāna-vicāra, who am I, we should break and pulverise ego, the dēhābhimāna, thereby separating the body from ourself as ‘not I’
• Verse 2: together with sat-saṅga, śama, dama and uparati, we should add sat-vāsanā in the heart
• Verse 3: we should incessantly, joyfully and without inattentiveness (pramāda) face inwards, thereby seeing ourself more and more clearly as ‘I am I’
• Verse 4: in the ghee that is ourself (brahman) heated by the fire that is ourself (jñāna) in the infinite pan that is ourself (mauna), we should constantly fry the appaḷam composed of ourself, and then eat it by experiencing ourself as ‘myself alone is myself’
38. Appaḷa Pāṭṭu – an explanatory paraphrase (23rd June 2009)

Āṉma-Viddai

39. Āṉma-Viddai: Tamil text, transliteration and translation (Monday, 31 January 2022)
• Verse 1: when thought is dissolved completely, the sun of pure self-awareness will shine spontaneously and the darkness of self-ignorance will cease
• Verse 2: since the thought ‘I am this body’ alone is the one thread on which all other thoughts are strung, if one investigates from where it spreads, thoughts will cease and ātma-jñāna will shine spontaneously as ‘I am I’
• Verse 3: knowing anything else without knowing oneself is worthless, and if one knows oneself there is nothing else to know
• Verse 4: more than any other path, this path is exceedingly easy, because if one remains without even the least action of mind, speech or body, in one’s heart the light that is oneself will shine forth
• Verse 5: if one investigates within without thinking of anything else, one’s real nature, which is called Annamalai, the eye to the mind-eye, will certainly be seen
40. Āṉma-Viddai verse 1: thought is what causes the appearance of the unreal body and world (Tuesday, 8 February 2022)
• The existence of ourself as the fundamental awareness ‘I am’ is constant, imperishable and indubitably real
• Those who deny the existence of ‘self’ do so because they reify the meaning of this term and therefore fail to recognise that there is no such thing as a ‘self’ other than the thing whose self it is
• Since we always exist and shine imperishably and indubitably as ‘I am’, we can always attend to ourself, and it is never difficult to do so
• We are always aware of ourself as ‘I am’, so in order to be aware of ourself as we actually are, all we need do is to remove the false awareness ‘I am this body’
• Since we are never aware of anything other than ourself except when we are aware of ourself as ‘I am this body’, we cannot eradicate this false awareness ‘I am this body’ without thereby ceasing to be aware of anything other than ourself
• What is real is only ourself as the fundamental awareness ‘I am’, but since we are now aware of ourself as ‘I am this body’, this unreal body seems to be real, and consequently the entire world also seems to be real
• The body and world are just thoughts, so when all thoughts cease there is no body or world but only the fundamental awareness ‘I am’
• Since all other thoughts exist only in the view of ego, which is the darkness of self-ignorance, they sprout only from this darkness, which is unreal, so they are composed of nothing but unreal darkness
• Since thought alone is what prevents us being aware of ourself as we actually are, as soon as all thoughts cease in such a manner that they can never reappear, our real nature will shine forth spontaneously
• When the all-consuming light of pure self-awareness shines forth, the darkness of self-ignorance will cease, suffering will end and infinite happiness will surge forth
• In order to make all thoughts cease in such a manner that they can never revive even an iota, it is sufficient just to eradicate ego, their root
41. Āṉma-Viddai verse 2: the thought ‘I am this body’ is what supports all other thoughts (Tuesday, 16 May 2023)
• Ego, the thought that is aware of itself as ‘I am this body’, is the one thread on which all other thoughts are strung
• If we go within investigating the source from which we have spread out, ego and all other thoughts will cease
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 25: the nature of ourself as ego is to rise, stand and flourish to the extent that we attend to anything other than ourself, but to subside and dissolve back within to the extent that we attend to ourself alone
• When ego and all other thoughts cease as a result of our going within investigating the source from which we have spread out, ātma-jñāna will shine spontaneously as ‘I am I’
• Our real identity is not ‘I am this’ or ‘I am that’ but only ‘I am I’, so though statements such as ‘I am brahman’ are useful as preliminary teachings, the ultimate teaching about our real identity is just ‘I am I’
• Not only is ‘I am I’ the ultimate teaching about our real identity, but it is also the most practical teaching, because to keep our attention fixed firmly on ourself alone we should not think that we are anything other than ‘I’
• God or brahman is what shines eternally in our heart as ‘I am I’, so when we are aware of ourself as we actually are we will not be aware of ourself as ‘I am brahman’ or ‘I am God’ but only as ‘I am I’
• When we investigate ‘I am’, the source from which we have risen as ego, ego will die, and what will then shine forth as ‘I am I’ is our real nature, which is the one real substance (poruḷ), the infinite whole (pūrṇa)
• The clear recognition ‘I am I’ is both the path and the goal, because the deeper we go in the practice of self-investigation, the more clearly we recognise that we are nothing other than ‘I’, and when this recognition becomes perfectly clear, that is awareness of ourself as we actually are
• Vicāra Saṅgraham section 1.1: if we keenly investigate what it is that shines as ‘I’, we will experience a sphurippu or fresh clarity of self-awareness as ‘I am I’, and if we hold on to that without letting go, it will thoroughly annihilate ego, the false awareness ‘I am this body’
• Nāṉ Ār? paragraph 5: thinking ‘I, I’ or ‘I am I’ can help us to become familiar with being self-attentive, but in order to sink deep within ourself we need to stop thinking even such thoughts
• When we recognise that the clear awareness ‘I am I’ is not anything new but what is eternal and therefore natural (sahaja), that is what he describes as the subsidence, cessation or extinguishing of sphuraṇa
• ‘தானே தான்’ (tāṉē tāṉ), ‘oneself alone is oneself’, means that what we actually are is only ourself, which is beginningless, infinite and undivided sat-cit-ānanda
• Clear self-awareness (ātma-jñāna), which shines forth spontaneously as ‘I am I’ when all thoughts cease, is sat-cit-ānanda: the silence of pure being, the one space of pure awareness and the abode of infinite happiness
42. Āṉma-Viddai verse 3: knowledge of all other things is caused by ignorance of ourself (Thursday, 27 July 2023)
• We are not what we now seem to be, so how can we know that anything else is what it seems to be?
• We exist and are aware of our existence in sleep, so we cannot be anything we were not aware of then
• Before trying to know anything else, we should first try to know what we ourself actually are, and we cannot know what we actually are by attending to anything other than ourself
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 4: forms or phenomena seems to exist only because we as ego mistake ourself to be the form of a body
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 9: the triad of knower, knowing and known depends upon the knower, namely ego, which will cease to exist as such when it knows what it actually is
• We do not need to realise what is real, but only to unrealise what is unreal, meaning that we do not need to gain any new knowledge but just to relinquish all wrong knowledge
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 10: real awareness is only awareness that is aware of ourself as we actually are, which is the reality of ego, the one to whom all knowledge and ignorance about other things appear
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 11: when we know ourself as we actually are, knowledge and ignorance about everything else will cease to exist
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 12: since we as we actually are shine without any other thing to know, we alone are real awareness
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 27: real awareness is devoid of both knowledge and ignorance of anything other than itself, because there is nothing other than itself for it either to know or to not know
• Though the real awareness that we actually are is completely devoid of both knowledge and ignorance of any other thing, it is not a void (śūnya) but infinitely full (pūrṇa), being the fullness of sat-cit-ānanda
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 13: being aware of many things is ignorance, which is unreal, but even this ignorance does not exist except as ourself, the one real awareness
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 14: when we as ego investigate our own reality, ego will thereby cease to exist, and all its knowledge of the seeming existence of everything else will cease to exist along with it
• Knowledge or awareness of anything other than ourself is not real, because when we know ourself as we actually are, nothing other than ourself exists for us to know
• When one knows in oneself that self, which is the light that shines without separation in separate sentient beings, within oneself the shining of oneself alone will flash forth
• The flashing forth of ourself as the light of pure awareness is the shining forth of grace, the annihilation of ego and the blossoming of happiness
43. Āṉma-Viddai verse 4: self-investigation is the easiest of all paths, because it is not doing but just being (Wednesday, 8 November 2023)
• We can untie ourself from the bonds of karma and saṁsāra only by eradicating the root of them, namely ego, and we can eradicate ego only by investigating and knowing what we actually are
• The root cause of both the bonds beginning with karma and the devastation beginning with birth is ego, because so long as we rise and stand as ego we are aware of ourself as ‘I am this body’ and consequently we seem to be born and to die, and in this state of embodied existence we seem to be the doer of karma and the experiencer of its fruit
• We can know what we actually are just by being as we actually are, without rising as ego to do even the slightest action by mind, speech or body
• What Bhagavan implies by ‘just being, resting without the least action of mind, speech or body’ is not manōlaya (temporary dissolution of mind) but only manōnāśa (annihilation of mind)
• We need to cling to self-attentiveness so firmly that we do not allow ourself to be swayed even to the slightest extent by any viṣaya-vāsanās, because only then will we dissolve in manōnāśa, thereby remaining forever without the least action of action of mind, speech or body
• We will truly be ‘without the least karma of mind, speech or body’ only when all the seeds of karma, namely viṣaya-vāsanās, are completely eradicated along with their root, namely ego
• When one just is, resting without the least action of mind, speech or body, ah, in the heart the light of oneself alone will shine forth clearly as ‘I am I’
• To know ourself as the light of pure awareness, which is the eternal experience of infinite happiness devoid of even the slight trace of any fear, we do not need to do anything at all, but just be as we always actually are, with our entire attention fixed firmly and unshakeably on ourself alone
44. Āṉma-Viddai verse 5: in the heart that looks within without thinking of anything else, oneself will be seen (Thursday, 7 December 2023)
• The structure and meaning of the first sentence
• We ourself are ‘the eye even to the mind-eye, which is the eye to all the sense organs beginning with eyes, which illumine what begins with space’
• Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 15: Arunachala is ‘the eye to the mind-eye’, because it is the eye of pure awareness, which is what illumines the mind-eye, so it cannot be seen or known by any eye other than itself
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 4: The mind-eye sees forms because it sees itself as the form of a body, whereas the ‘eye to the mind-eye’ is infinite and hence formless, so it sees no forms but only itself, the infinite whole
• We are ‘the space even to the mind-space’, so we are the one real substance, of which everything else is just an appearance
• There is only one substance, Arunachala, the heart, the light of awareness, which shines without appearing or disappearing as the space for the appearing and disappearing of the mind-eye and everything known by it
• What we actually are is what is called Annamalai, but so long as we rise as ego and thereby mistake ourself to be the form of a body, Annamalai appears outwardly in the form of a hill and in the human form of Bhagavan Ramana
• As ego we can never see ourself as we actually are, but we must try to see ourself thus, because as soon as we see ourself as we actually are we will thereby cease to be ego and remain as we actually are
• We can see ourself as we actually are only by turning our entire mind back to look within instead of thinking of anything else, thereby being as we always actually are
• Though looking at ourself and thereby being as we actually are is exceedingly easy, it seems difficult so long as we rise and stand as ego, because the very nature of ego is to be constantly grasping forms
• Grace is certainly necessary, because the all-consuming love to look deep within and thereby let go everything else can come only from grace, not from ego
• If we cultivate and nurture love in our heart to know and to be what we actually are, infinite and eternal happiness, which is what we always actually are, will shine forth
45. Āṉma-Viddai (Ātma-Vidyā) – an explanatory paraphrase (24th June 2009)

Other original writings of Bhagavan

46. Śrī Aruṇācala Stuti Pañcakam — English translation by Sri Sadhu Om and Michael James (25th September 2007)
47. Śrī Aruṇācala Stuti Pañcakam — an overview (4th June 2009)
48. Śrī Ramaṇōpadēśa Nūṉmālai — English translation by Sri Sadhu Om and Michael James (15th May 2008)
49. Upadēśa Taṉippākkaḷ – an explanatory paraphrase (26th June 2009)
50. The second and third paragraphs of Nāṉ Ār? (Monday, 22 March 2021)
• The second paragraph of Nāṉ Ār? and answers 1 to 3 of most question and answer versions
• The third paragraph of Nāṉ Ār? and answers 4 to 7 of most question and answer versions
• Why does Bhagavan say in the third and fourth paragraphs of Nāṉ Ār? that awareness of our real nature (svarūpa-darśana) will not arise unless perception of the world (jagad-dṛṣṭi) ceases?
• Sivaprakasam Pillai’s first question was ‘நானார்?’ (nāṉ ār?) or ‘நான் யார்?’ (nāṉ yār?), ‘Who am I?’, to which Bhagavan replied just ‘அறிவே நான்’ (aṟivē nāṉ), ‘Awareness alone is I’
51. Nāṉ Yār? — complete translation now added to Happiness of Being website (1st September 2007)
52. Bhagavan’s verses on birthday celebrations (Thursday, 31 December 2020)
• Upadēśa Taṉippākkaḷ verse 4: the real birthday is only the day when we are born in our own real substance, the one birthless and deathless awareness ‘I am’
• Upadēśa Taṉippākkaḷ verse 5: real awareness is only being aware of ourself as we actually are and thereby ceasing to rise as ego
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu Anubandham verse 11: real birth is only being born in brahman by lovingly attending to the source from which we rose
• Through these verses he reminds us that the real purpose of his appearance in our life is only to turn our attention back within and thereby enable us to experience ourself as infinite and eternal happiness
53. Dīpāvali Tattva: the reality of Deepavali (Saturday, 14 November 2020)
• Guru Vācaka Kōvai verse 181
• Guru Vācaka Kōvai verse 182
• Upadēśa Taṉippākkaḷ verse 2 (Guru Vācaka Kōvai verse B4)
• Guru Vācaka Kōvai verse 183
• Upadēśa Taṉippākkaḷ verse 3 (Guru Vācaka Kōvai verse B5)
• Video discussion about these verses
54. Sri Ramana’s maṅgalam verse to Vivēkacūḍāmaṇi (9th January 2010)

The practice of ātma-vicāra: self-investigation or self-enquiry

55. How to know and to be what we actually are (Tuesday 3 September 2024)
• Being as we actually are without rising as ego is knowing ourself as we actually are
• Investigating what ego actually is alone is giving up everything
• To go deep in this practice of self-investigation we require wholehearted and all-consuming love
• The love required to know and to be what we actually are sprouts and is nurtured in our heart by grace
56. The crest-jewel of Sri Ramana’s teachings (20th August 2007: extract from HAB chapter 10)
57. The essential teachings of Sri Ramana (12th October 2014)
58. The crucial secret revealed by Sri Ramana: the only means to subdue our mind permanently (29th August 2014)
59. The fundamental law of experience or consciousness discovered by Sri Ramana (4th January 2015)
• Self-attentiveness is the simplest possible state
• Self-attentiveness in the midst of daily activities
• Love to experience ourself alone is essential
• Investigating ourself is investigating our source
• The fundamental law of experience
• The importance of grasping this fundamental principle
60. We cannot experience ourself as we actually are so long as we experience anything other than ‘I’ (19th October 2014)
61. To be aware of ourself as we actually are, what we need to investigate is only ourself and not anything else (Thursday, 7 September 2017)
62. Our aim should be to experience ourself alone, in complete isolation from everything else (28th December 2014)
63. We can separate ourself permanently from whatever is not ourself only by attending to ourself alone (Tuesday, 17 May 2016)
• The only means to see what we actually are is to attend to ourself
• What we actually are is just pure intransitive awareness
• We are transitively aware because we allow our attention to be diverted away from ourself
• Having understood what we are not, we should attend only to what we actually are
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 16: we must attend only to ourself and thereby leave aside all phenomena
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 8: we cannot annihilate our ego by any means other than ātma-vicāra
• We can ignore all thoughts only by attending to ourself alone
• What Bhagavan meant by the term ‘thought’ is mental phenomena of any kind
• We cannot terminate thought or the thinking process by attending to it, but only by attending to ourself
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 25: this ego will cease to exist only if we attend to it alone
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 36: thinking ‘I am not this body but only brahman’ is just a preliminary aid
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 29: thinking ‘I am not this, I am that’ is an aid but not vicāra
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 32: clinging to such aids is due to ‘deficiency of strength’
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 2: the awareness that stands isolated from everything else alone is ‘I’
64. We should ignore all thoughts or mental activity and attend only to ourself, the fundamental awareness ‘I am’ (Saturday, 29 December 2018)
65. Is there more than one way in which we can investigate and know ourself? (17th November 2015)
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 16: ātma-vicāra is only the practice of keeping one’s attention on oneself
• Our aim should be to destroy the illusion that we are this ego
• Upadēśa Undiyār verses 24 and 25: experiencing ourself without adjuncts is experiencing what we actually are
• To destroy our ego we must try to be attentively self-aware
• Being attentively self-aware is what is called vṛtti-jñāna
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 25: our ego rises and endures by attending to other things, so it will die only by attending to itself
• We can investigate and know what we actually are only by trying to be self-attentive
• Self-enquiry means investigating who am I, not merely asking who am I
• Since we alone are the source of our ego, investigating our source means investigating what we actually are
• Investigation entails meditation, but not every meditation entails investigation
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 26: our ego and its thoughts are mutually dependent
• Being attentively self-aware entails just being without any thought
• All we need to focus on is ourself, because we are thereby doing everything that Bhagavan instructed us to do
66. Is there any difference between being self-attentive and sitting down quietly in meditation? (Tuesday, 26 November 2019)
67. What is ‘the I-feeling’, and do we need to be ‘off the movement of thought’ to be aware of it? (Sunday, 19 June 2016)
• The pronoun ‘I’ refers to ourself, and we are not just a ‘feeling’ but clear and indubitable awareness
• We are always clearly aware of ourself, whether we happen to be thinking or not
• When we are aware of anything other than ourself, we are not aware of ourself as we actually are
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 23: we are awareness, and awareness alone is what actually exists
• What prevents the annihilation of our ego is not just thoughts but only self-negligence (pramāda)
• Śrī Aruṇācala Aṣṭakam verse 6: let thoughts appear or disappear, they should be no concern of ours
• Śrī Aruṇācala Aṣṭakam verse 7: whatever thought may appear, we should investigate ourself, to whom it has appeared
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 6: if we keenly investigate ourself, our mind will subside along with all its thoughts
• First sentence: the mind can be annihilated only by self-investigation
• Second sentence: after consuming all other thoughts, self-attentiveness will itself be consumed
• Third sentence: if other thoughts appear, we should investigate to whom they have appeared
• Fourth sentence: however many thoughts appear, what does it matter?
• Fifth sentence: investigating to whom each thought appears will focus our attention on ourself
• Sixth sentence: if we investigate who we are, our mind will subside back into ourself, its source
• Seventh sentence: if we investigate who we are, whatever thought had arisen will also subside
• Eighth sentence: by persistently practising being self-attentive, our ability to remain firmly established in our source will increase
• Since everything other than pure self-awareness is just a thought, how should we deal with the appearance of thoughts?
• The first movement of thought is the rising of our ego, so we are completely ‘off the movement of thought’ only in manōlaya or manōnāśa
68. To eradicate the mind we must watch only its first thought, the ego (Tuesday, 21 March 2017)
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 25: the ego will be eradicated only when it attends to itself alone
• The mind cannot be quietened permanently by any means other self-attentiveness
• Upadēśa Undiyār verses 17 and 18: what we should watch is only the ego, the root thought called ‘I’, and not any other thought
69. Thought of oneself will destroy all other thoughts (10 December 2015)
• Only our ego can be and need be attentively self-aware
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 17: Avoiding self-negligence (pramāda) is the only means to destroy our ego
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 6: what does Bhagavan mean by ‘the thought who am I’, which will destroy all thoughts, including itself?
• Nan Yar? paragraph 13: thought of oneself will destroy all other thoughts, including their root, our primal thought called ‘I’ or ‘ego’
• Why is self-attentiveness or ‘thought of oneself’ necessary, and why is mere self-awareness insufficient?
• How can we choose to attend to one thing rather than another?
• Our ego and its dream creation do not exist in the clear view of our actual self
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 7: the world seems to exist only because it is perceived by our ego
• Mere belief in ajāta or anything else is not an adequate means to free ourself from this ego illusion
• What is actually real?
• Why is it so important to distinguish what is actually real from what merely seems to be real?
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 26: why does Bhagavan say that if our ego does not exist, nothing else exists?
• A thought is anything fabricated by our ego or mind, so everything other than ourself is a thought
• Birth and death are both mere thoughts, as is any kind of body that we may experience as ourself
• Is self-investigation (ātma-vicāra) a ‘method’ or just a simple and direct means?
• Since Bhagavan says ātma-vicāra is ‘the direct path for everyone’, we would be wise to follow it from the outset
• Is there any difference between attending to ourself and attending to our sense of ‘I’?
• Is analysis of any use or relevance to self-investigation?
• Bhagavan’s teachings and ātma-vicāra are the sharpest of all razors, comparable to Ockham’s razor in their aim and effect
• Is ātma-vicāra an exclusive or inclusive practice?
• Does explaining the unique efficacy of ātma-vicāra imply that we are ‘putting down’ all other kind of spiritual practice?
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 9: why is ēkāgratā (one-pointedness) considered so necessary?
• What skill is required to practise ātma-vicāra?
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 40: annihilating our ego by means of ātma-vicāra is fulfilling the ultimate purpose of sanātanadharma
70. Names and forms are all just thoughts, so we can free ourself from them only by investigating their root, our ego (Saturday, 2 July 2016)
• Why are phenomena called ‘names and forms’ (nāma-rūpa)?
• Names and forms are just thoughts or ideas
• Whatever we perceive any form to be is metaphorically called a ‘name’ because it is the identity we have attributed to it
• Nothing exists or even seems to exist unless we are aware of it
• Mental chatter is not the only kind of thought, so stopping this ‘flow of words’ is not silencing our ego
71. Asparśa yōga is the practice of not ‘touching’ or attending to anything other than oneself (Wednesday, 13 July 2016)
• Attending only to oneself and thereby isolating oneself from everything else is what Gaudapada calls asparśa yōga
• Asparśa yōga entails not touching either thoughts or manōlaya
• We should try to be self-attentive whether our eyes are open or closed
• All worlds cease to appear only when our ego subsides completely
• Everything that arises or appears in our awareness is a projection of our ego, which is the first to rise
• Our aim is not to experience stillness but only to be attentively aware of ourself alone
• Intense curiosity to be aware of ourself as we actually are will focus our attention on ourself, thereby restraining it from touching anything else
• Ātma-vicāra is not asking any question or thinking any thought but only keeping one’s mind fixed firmly on oneself
• Ātma-jñāna is the only real state and is immutable and indivisible, so there are no stages of it or states other than it
• We are already real, so there is no need for us to ‘realise’ ourself
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 40: liberation is destruction of our ego, the sole cause of all differences
72. If we are able to be steadily self-attentive, where do we go from here? (Sunday, 17 July 2016)
73. Do we need to do anything at all? (Saturday, 27 May 2017)
74. What is the ‘self’ we are investigating when we try to be attentively self-aware? (Wednesday, 31 August 2016)
75. Is it incorrect to say that ātma-vicāra is the only direct means by which we can eradicate our ego? (Sunday, 21 August 2016)
76. The direct path to direct perception of our real nature (Friday, 16 October 2020)
• Eradication of ego is instantaneous, but preparation for it takes time and effort
• What seems to be ego or mind when facing outwards is found to be pure awareness when facing inwards
• Self-investigation (ātma-vicāra) is the direct path to direct perception of our real nature (ātma-svarūpa)
• Self-investigation is the simple practice of turning our attention inwards to face ourself alone, so it is the same from beginning to end, and has no distinct stages
77. Why should we try to be aware of ourself alone? (Tuesday, 10 December 2019)
78. What can be simpler than just being self-attentive? (Thursday, 12 March 2020)
79. Self-investigation as the way to love (Wednesday, 20 May 2020)
80. How to deal with whatever feelings may arise while we are investigating ourself? (Thursday, 5 December 2019)
81. How to practise surrender when faced with a dilemma? (Monday, 26 October 2020)
82. Self-investigation is the only means by which we can surrender ourself entirely and thereby eradicate ego (Saturday, 21 December 2019)
• Bhagavan does not give us liberation, but turns our attention back to face ourself and thereby enables us to see that we are ever-liberated
• Bhagavan made it very clear that the only means by which we can eradicate ego and thereby be liberated is self-investigation (ātma-vicāra)
• Nāṉ Ār? paragraph 13: we cannot surrender ourself entirely without investigating what we actually are
• Success in ātma-vicāra, namely annihilation of ego, has nothing to do with destiny and everything to do with whether or not we want it enough
• What Bhagavan teaches us through silence is exactly the same as what he teaches us by words, but the effect of his silent teachings is much deeper and more powerful
• Only by being in the heart as it is (uḷḷattē uḷḷapaḍi uḷḷadē) are we truly sitting in Bhagavan’s presence
• Pure awareness, which is our real nature and what shines within us as ‘I’, is the gracious feet of guru, so clinging to that awareness is the means for us to remove the bondage called ego
• Bhagavan’s teachings are extremely simple and clear, but at the same time very deep and radical, so they are the perfect medicine for anyone who is tired of this ego-life with all its complications, confusions and deceptions
83. Can there be any viable substitute for patient and persistent practice of self-investigation and self-surrender? (Friday, 19 April 2019)
• If there were a shortcut that effectively bypasses the need for long and persistent practice, why did Bhagavan teach us that such practice is necessary?
• Nāṉ Yār?: Bhagavan’s answer to question 19 in the 30-question-and-answer version was that it is necessary for each one of us to attain liberation only by our own effort in following the path that guru has shown
• We should never call off the search for our real nature, because this search is necessary so long as we rise and stand as ego, and when ego is thereby eradicated, no one will remain either to continue the search or to call it off
• Nāṉ Ār? paragraphs 6, 10, 11 and 12: until ego is eradicated forever we need to continue this practice of trying patiently and persistently to turn within to attend to ourself alone
• Why did Bhagavan say even God or guru cannot of their own accord make us merge in liberation?
• Grace and effort are both necessary, because grace works by igniting within us the love that drives us to make the effort needed to face ourself and thereby to see what we actually are
84. Why is it necessary to make effort to practise self-investigation (ātma-vicāra)? (Thursday, 24 March 2016)
• We must practise ātma-vicāra for as long as it takes to destroy all our viṣaya-vāsanās
• Persistent effort is required to keep our entire mind fixed firmly and unwaveringly in our pure self-awareness
• Being self-attentive entails keeping quiet, and keeping quiet entails being self-attentive
• We can free ourself from our viṣaya-vāsanās and bondage only by persistently practising ātma-vicāra
• To experience ourself as we actually are is extremely easy, but we must cultivate all-consuming love in order to succeed
• Guru Vācaka Kōvai verse 696: ātma-jñāna can be attained only by those who have made the required effort
• விட்டகுறை தொட்டகுறை (viṭṭakuṟai toṭṭakuṟai): resumption of what was left incomplete
85. Why is effort required for us to go deep in our practice of self-investigation? (Sunday, 16 April 2017)
• We are always self-aware, but we must make effort to be attentively self-aware
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 16: to the extent that our attention is focused on ourself it will thereby be withdrawn from other things
• The more we are able to be partially self-attentive, the easier it will be for us to be more keenly self-attentive when free from other activities
• Effort is required to overcome our ego’s natural resistance to being self-attentive
• The way to proceed with our self-investigation will gradually unfold as we proceed
86. Self-investigation (ātma-vicāra) entails nothing more than just being persistently and tenaciously self-attentive (Friday, 8 April 2016)
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 18: the ego is our first thought, the root of our mind
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 25: the ego seems to exist only by attending to other things
• Self-attentiveness is a thought only in a metaphorical sense
• Self-attentiveness is the only effective means to be free from thoughts
• If we cling firmly to self-attentiveness, no thoughts can rise, so there will then be no need to investigate to whom they appear
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraphs 10 and 11: all we need do is to try to cling tenaciously to self-attentiveness
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 16: ātma-vicāra is just keeping our attention on ourself
• Bhagavad Gītā Sāram verse 27: fixing our attention on ourself, we should not think of anything else whatsoever
87. Self-attentiveness and self-awareness (14th March 2015)
• What is the difference between attention and awareness?
• We are one, so we can experience ourself as we really are only when we experience ourself alone
• We should try to attend only to ourself and not to anything else
• Being self-attentive in the midst of other work
• Our ego is nourished and sustained by attending to thoughts
• Thoughts distract our attention away from ourself, so we should try to attend to ourself alone
88. Self-investigation (ātma-vicāra) is just the simple practice of trying to be attentively self-aware (19th October 2015)
89. Why is it necessary to be attentively self-aware, rather than just not aware of anything else? (12th October 2015)
• The oneness of self-attentiveness, self-abidance and self-surrender
• Merely giving up being aware of anything other than ourself will not destroy our ego
• We can dissolve our ego only by trying to be attentively self-aware
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 16: we must attentively observe our own self-awareness
90. We can practise self-abidance only by being self-attentive (Sunday, 1 November 2020)
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 26: since we are awareness and not an object, we know ourself just by being ourself
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 33: we are not an object, and can never become an object, so we are not the sort of thing that we can know at one time and not know at another time
• Upadēśa Undiyār verses 24-25: we already know ourself, so we do not need to know anything new, but just need to know ourself without adjuncts
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 23: what actually exists is only awareness, awareness that is aware only of its own existence, ‘I am’, and we are that
• ‘Self-abidance’ means being as we actually are, and what we actually are is pure awareness, which is aware of nothing other than itself, so we can be as we actually are only by attending to nothing other than ourself
• Since the nature of the path must be the same as the nature of the goal, and since perfect self-abidance is our goal, to reach it we must try to abide as ourself, which we can do only by being keenly self-attentive
• Upadēśa Undiyār verses 8 and 9: ‘பாவ பலம்’ (bhāva balam), ‘the strength of meditation’, means keenness of self-attentiveness, so what he implies in these two verses is that by keenness of self-attentiveness we will be in sat-bhāva, the state of being as we actually are
• Though the practice of self-abidance entails trying to be self-attentive, the need to try being so ceases as soon as our self-abidance becomes perfect
91. Do we need to try to ignore all thoughts, and if so how? (18th April 2015)
• Trying to attend to ourself alone is the only effective way to ignore all thoughts
• We should try to be self-attentive just now, not for a prolonged duration
• We can be self-attentive only in this precise present moment
• Deliberately trying to ignore thoughts would be a self-defeating endeavour
• Thinking can be destroyed only by self-attentiveness
• The only way in which we can investigate ourself is by trying to be self-attentive
92. How to avoid following or completing any thought whatsoever? (Saturday, 13 May 2017)
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraphs 10 and 11: we should cling to self-attentiveness so firmly that all other thoughts are annihilated as and when they appear
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraphs 4 and 14: what Bhagavan means by ‘thoughts’ is phenomena of any kind whatsoever
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 5: thoughts appear only because we have appeared as this ego
• We can surrender and eradicate our ego only by giving no room to the appearance of any thought other than self-attentiveness
• We must gradually wean ourself away from our attachment to thoughts or phenomena
• There is never any real need for us to think about or attend to anything other than ourself
• Bhagavad Gītā Sāram verses 27 and 28: we must gently and gradually wean our ego off thinking by persistently trying to fix our attention on ourself
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 6: it does not matter how many thoughts appear so long as we persevere to turning our attention back to ourself, the one to whom they all appear
93. Whatever experience may arise, we should investigate to whom it arises (Friday, 23 December 2016)
94. What is the purpose of questions such as ‘To whom have these thoughts arisen?’? (Thursday, 1 June 2017)
95. Spontaneously and wordlessly applying the clue: ‘to whom? to me; who am I?’ (5th February 2014)
96. Can self-investigation boost the mind or kuṇḍalinī or cause sleeplessness and other health issues? (Monday, 17 May 2021)
• Nāṉ Ār? paragraphs 10 and 11: the only way to overcome viṣaya-vāsanās and the thoughts, feelings and perceptions that they give rise to is to ignore them by clinging firmly to self-attentiveness
• Bhagavad Gītā Sāram verses 27 and 28: gently try to fix your mind on yourself and do not think of anything else at all
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 26: to the extent that we cling to ourself (our fundamental awareness of our own existence, ‘I am’) we are thereby letting go of (or giving up) everything else
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 25: the nature of ego is to rise, stand and flourish to the extent that it attends to anything other than itself, but to subside and dissolve back into its source to the extent that it attends to itself
• Nāṉ Ār? paragraph 6: if or as soon as anything other than ourself appears in our awareness, we should simply turn our attention back towards ourself, the one to whom all other things (all thoughts, forms or phenomena) appear
• If we are vigilantly self-attentive, as we should try to be, we will thereby ward off both thoughts and sleep, but when we are tired we are naturally less vigilant, so we may then fall asleep as a result of our trying to be self-attentive
• What the word ‘I’ essentially refers to is only what is aware, so if we are just being aware of what is aware, we are thereby meditating on ‘I’
• No matter what may distract us or seem a problem to us, let us not be concerned about them but just patiently and persistently continue trying to be self-attentive, unmindful of everything else
97. What are vāsanās and how do they work? (Saturday, 4 December 2021)
98. Why do viṣaya-vāsanās sprout as thoughts, and how to eradicate them? (Wednesday, 24 January 2018)
99. How can we weaken and eventually destroy all our viṣaya-vāsanās? (Monday, 16 November 2020)
• The cittam is often described as ‘the storehouse of vāsanās’, but cittam does not mean memory but only will
• Vāsanākṣaya (annihilation of all vāsanās) can be achieved only by complete eradication of ego, which can be achieved only by patient and persistent practice of self-investigation (ātma-vicāra)
100. The non-existence of the ego, body and world in manōlaya is only temporary, whereas in manōnāśa it is permanent (Friday, 7 July 2017)
• Apart from whatever sleep we require, we should avoid remaining in manōlaya, because we cannot destroy our mind except in waking or dream
• By teaching us that there is no difference between sleep and pure self-awareness Bhagavan gave us a valuable clue and prompted us to change our perspective
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 13: from the perspective of the ego in waking or dream the distinction between manōlaya and manōnāśa is in effect real
• The permanent non-existence of any ego, body or world in manōnāśa, and not their temporary non-existence in manōlaya, is the only worthwhile aim
• Even though the ego or mind seems to exist, it does not actually exist, so we can destroy it only by looking at it carefully enough to see what it actually is
101. Why does ego rise again from manōlaya and not from manōnāśa? (Monday, 29 July 2019)
102. Whether it be called ‘yōga nidrā’ or ‘nirvikalpa samādhi’, any kind of manōlaya is of no spiritual benefit (Friday, 6 January 2017)
103. Doership, sleep and the practice of self-attentiveness (Tuesday, 27 October 2020)
104. Freedom, surrender and clinging fast to ‘I am’ (Monday, 12 July 2021)
105. We abide as ourself only to the extent to which we attend to ourself alone (Thursday, 5 August 2021)
106. Self-investigation is not a matter of one ‘I’ looking for another ‘I’ (Wednesday, 23 June 2021)
107. Is it possible for us to attend to ourself, the subject, rather than to any object? (Monday, 7 October 2019)
• This is a path of investigation, so the more we investigate ourself the more focused and finely tuned our investigation becomes
• Since we are not an object, how is it possible for us to attend to ourself?
• All thoughts or phenomena arise only from ourself as ego, so investigating where they arose means investigating ourself
• Though there is actually nothing easier than to be attentively self-aware, in order to be so we must be willing to give up (surrender) ego and everything else
108. How to practise self-enquiry (ātma-vicāra)? (Tuesday, 14 May 2019)
109. How to attend to ourself? (Wednesday, 25 May 2016)
110. How to attend to ‘I’? (16th May 2014)
111. What is self-attentiveness? (21st January 2009)
112. How to be self-attentive even while we are engaged in other activities? (Tuesday, 29 January 2019)
113. How can we just be? (Tuesday, 31 March 2020)
• Being aware of anything other than ourself is an action, so in order to just be we must cease being aware of anything else
• Though it is necessary for us to cease being aware of anything other than ourself, that is not sufficient, so what is the missing ingredient that is required for us to eradicate ego?
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 23: what we actually are is only awareness (uṇarvu or cit), which is what alone actually exists (uḷḷadu or sat)
• In waking and dream, when we have risen as ego, we must try to attend to ourself so keenly that we thereby cease to be aware of anything other than ourself
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 16: what is required is that we withdraw our attention from all other things by being keenly self-attentive
• Āṉma-Viddai verse 4: how can we just be without even the least action of mind, speech or body?
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 25: the nature of ego is such that we rise, stand and flourish as ego by grasping things other than ourself, and we will subside and disappear if we try to grasp ourself alone
• Just being means being self-attentive, and being self-attentive means just being
114. Learning how to be self-attentive (Thursday, 13 May 2021)
• Investigating ego is investigating our real nature, because we are just one, and ego is ourself conflated with adjuncts
• ‘I’ is neither an object nor something unknown, so rather than looking for it, we need to look at it, which means we just need to be self-attentive
• Anything that appears or disappears is not ourself, so we should ignore all such things, and try to be aware only of that which is permanent and unchanging, namely our own being
• As the knower we always know ourself just by being ourself, but in order to know ourself as we actually are we need to be so keenly self-attentive that we thereby cease to be aware of anything else whatsoever
• We need to turn our attention back to ourself only when we have allowed it to slip away towards anything else, and until then we just need to continue holding fast to self-attentiveness
115. How can we refine and sharpen our power of attention so that we can discern what we actually are? (Thursday, 30 May 2019)
• Desires, fears and so on are part of the person whom we seem to be, but what desires, fears and so on is not this person but only ourself as ego
• If we do not constantly remember to attend to ourself, that is because of our lack of sufficient vairāgya, freedom from desire to be aware of anything other than ourself
• What blunts our power of attention and thereby prevents us attending to ourself keenly enough to see what we actually are is our likes, dislikes, desires, attachments, hopes and fears for things other than ourself
• The simple, keen and subtle intellect that we require in order to discern what we actually are can be cultivated only by our trying to be self-attentive as much as we are willing to be
116. Cultivating uninterrupted self-attentiveness (27th June 2008)
117. Self-attentiveness, intensity and continuity (31st December 2008)
118. Intensity, frequency and duration of self-attentiveness (6th March 2015)
119. Self-attentiveness and time (31st December 2008)
120. ‘I’ is the centre and source of time and space (17th January 2014)
121. By discovering what ‘I’ actually is, we will swallow time (25th January 2014)
122. Just being (summā irukkai) is not an activity but a state of perfect stillness (24th February 2015)
123. Self-attentiveness is not an action, because we ourself are not two but only one (9th February 2015)
124. There is only one ‘I’, and investigation will reveal that it is not a finite ego but the infinite self (26th October 2014)
125. The terms ‘I’ or ‘we’ refer only to ourself, whether we experience ourself as we actually are or as the ego that we now seem to be (4th February 2015)
• The ego is essentially just what we actually are
• Attention is cit-śakti, the supreme power that creates, sustains and destroys the entire universe
• Persistently trying to be self-attentive is the only way to succeed
126. How to find the source of ‘I’, the ego? (Monday, 11 September 2017)
127. Attending to our ego is attending to its source, ourself (5 June 2015)
128. By attending to our ego we are attending to ourself (31 July 2015)
• Our ego is distinct from our real self only to a limited extent
• The terms ‘the self’ and ‘the Self’ are an indirect and confusing way to refer to ourself
• Upadēśa Undiyār verses 24 and 25: the essential oneness of our ego and our real self
• We cannot look at our ego without actually looking at ourself
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 37: even when we experience ourself as this ego, we are actually what we always really are
• Why did Bhagavan sometimes say that all we need investigate is only our ego?
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 33: we are not two selves, for one to be an object known by the other
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 21: our infinite self is always the true import of the word ‘I’
• David Godman’s reply citing Muruganar’s explanation of verse 44 of Akṣaramaṇamālai
• Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 44: reconsidering the meaning of Muruganar’s explanation
• Muruganar’s explanatory paraphrase (poṙippurai) of verse 44
• The initial sentences of Muruganar’s commentary (virutti-v-urai)
• Muruganar’s explanation of ‘oneself’ (taṉai), the viṣaya for investigation
• Muruganar’s clarification about the viṣaya for investigation
• The inaccuracy in Robert’s translation of this clarification
• Muruganar’s explanation of ‘daily see by the inner eye’ (diṉam aha-k-kaṇ kāṉ)
• Muruganar’s explanation of ‘facing within’ or ‘facing I’ (ahamukham)
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 32: when we are told ‘that is you’ we should investigate ‘what am I?’
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 19: we should investigate the source of our ego, which is what we actually are
• Guru Vācaka Kōvai verse 579: ourself whom we are investigating and ourself whom we seek to know are not different
• Guru Vācaka Kōvai verse 1094: what we should attend to is our svarūpa or own real self
• Pādamālai: some verses that do not specify whether we should attend to our ego or our real self
• Pādamālai: some verses that indicate that we should attend to ourself as we really are
• What then was the actual view of Muruganar?
• Conclusion: however it may be described, there is only one correct practice of self-investigation
129. The ego is essentially a formless and hence featureless phantom (28th May 2015)
• The ego is formless and hence featureless
• The ego is a phantom and hence insubstantial
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 25: how does this ‘formless phantom-ego’ seem to exist?
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 24: the ego is cit-jaḍa-granthi
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 23: why is this body not what I actually am?
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 4: this body and world are a projection of the ego or mind
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 5: without the ego nothing else exists
• The ego and other things are mutually but asymmetrically dependent
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 26: investigating the ego is giving up everything
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verses 22 and 27: except by self-investigation, how can we experience what we really are?
• The ego does not actually exist
• The ego is a confused mixture of self-awareness and awareness of other things
• Can self-awareness be considered to be a feature of the ego?
• A feature is anything that stands out in our awareness
• If our real self and our ego are both featureless, how can they be different?
130. The term nirviśēṣa or ‘featureless’ denotes an absolute experience but can be comprehended conceptually only in a relative sense (25 June 2015)
• In what sense is the peacefulness of sleep not a feature?
• Sat, cit and ānanda are not features
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 23: what exists is what is aware
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 28: sat-cit-ānanda is eternal, infinite and indivisible
• Our ego is distinct from brahman only in appearance, not in substance
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 24: our ego and God are only one substance
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 25: knowing ourself without adjuncts is knowing God
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 25: if investigated, this phantom ego will vanish
• Featurelessness is a vital clue in self-investigation
• The blossoming of pure self-awareness will consume our ego and everything else
131. What is cidābhāsa, the reflection of self-awareness? (11th August 2015)
• Cidābhāsa is our mind or ego, and its reflecting medium is our body
• ‘How does this reflection (our ego) arise?’ is the wrong question to ask
• Pure self-awareness is the source of this reflected light, our ego
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verses 26 and 7: everything else exists and shines by this reflected light
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 22: this reflected light must turn back within and merge in its source
• The metaphor of light
• By self-investigation the reflected ray will contract back into its source
132. When Bhagavan says that we must look within, what does he mean by ‘within’? (Sunday, 7 October 2018)
133. How to experience the clarity of self-awareness that appears between sleep and waking? (30th November 2014)
134. Is consciousness a product of the mind? (19th June 2014)
135. The connection between consciousness and body (18th January 2015)
136. Self-investigation and body-consciousness (20th February 2015)
137. What should we believe? (25th July 2014)
138. Why should we believe that ‘the Self’ is as we believe it to be? (9th November 2014)
139. Science and self-investigation (23rd December 2014)
140. Investigating ‘I’ is the most radical scientific research (20th January 2014)
141. Investigating ourself is the only way to solve all the problems we see in this world (2nd March 2015)
142. There is no difference between investigating ‘who am I’ and investigating ‘whence am I’ (9th May 2014)
143. The mind’s role in investigating ‘I’ (25th May 2014)
144. Since we always experience ‘I’, we do not need to find ‘I’, but only need to experience it as it actually is (31st May 2014)
145. We ourself are what we are looking for (23rd September 2015)
146. We must experience what is, not what merely seems to be (8th August 2014)
147. Trying to distinguish ourself from our ego is what is called self-investigation (ātma-vicāra) (15th August 2015)
• Self-investigation is a single seamless process with no distinct stages
• What seems to be this ego is only our true self
• Distinguishing ourself from the ego we seem to be
148. Dṛg-dṛśya-vivēka: distinguishing the seer from the seen (20th May 2015)
• Bhagavan’s view about ‘effortless and choiceless awareness’
• The ego is not ‘a bundle of circumstances’ but what experiences all circumstances
• Whatever is experienced depends for its seeming existence upon the ego that experiences it
• Distinguishing the ego from the rest of the mind
• Distinguishing the experiencer (dṛś) from the experienced (dṛśya)
• The essence of the mind is the ego, and the essence of the ego is pure self-awareness
• To see what is real we must give up seeing what is seen (dṛśya)
• What we really are is not the witness (sākṣin) or seer (dṛś) of anything
• To experience what we really are, we must cease witnessing or being aware of anything else
149. God is not actually the witness of anything but the real substance underlying and supporting the illusory appearance of the witness and of everything witnessed by it (Thursday, 6 October 2016)
150. What is meant by the term sākṣi or ‘witness’? (21st April 2015)
• In a literal sense, the only sākṣin is our ego
• Can sākṣi-bhāva be an effective spiritual practice?
151. What we need to investigate is not the act of witnessing but the witness itself (Wednesday, 11 December 2019)
152. Witnessing or being aware of anything other than ourself nourishes our ego and thereby reinforces our attachments (28th April 2015)
• Other things seem to exist only when we experience ourself as this ego
• Nisargadatta and ‘the witness attitude’
• Sākṣi-bhāva can mean either a state of being or a state of mind
• Sākṣi-bhāva can also mean meditation on the sākṣi, namely ourself
• There are no distinguishable stages on the path of self-investigation
• At no stage on this path should we try to be a witness of anything other than ourself
• Self-attentiveness alone is the key to real detachment
• Vipassanā is similar to the practice of sākṣi-bhāva as it is generally understood
• When we experience what we actually are, there will be nothing else for us to observe or witness
153. The observer is the observed only when we observe ourself alone (Monday, 1 August 2016)
154. ‘Observation without the observer’ and ‘choiceless awareness’: Why the teachings of J. Krishnamurti are diametrically opposed to those of Sri Ramana (11th May 2015)
• Our ego is the observer, and without it there can be no observation
• We cannot choose to be ‘choicelessly aware’
• Our awareness of other things is not our primary illusion but only a secondary one
• What Krishnamurti teaches is diametrically opposed what Bhagavan teaches us
155. Trying to see the seer (30th April 2015)
• No words can adequately describe the practice of being self-attentive
• What I actually am must be something that I always experience
• Thoughts occur only to ourself as an ego, not ourself as we really are
• Can we see ourself, the seer?
• ‘Attending to myself’ means trying to be attentively self-aware
• Our curiosity to see what we really are is what is called grace
• Trying to see what sees
156. Being attentively self-aware does not entail any subject-object relationship (3rd May 2015)
• We are the subject, and can never be an object
• We are aware of ourself even though we are featureless
• Being self-aware is not an adjunct but what I essentially am
• Because we are self-aware we can choose to be attentively self-aware
• Is it possible to be attentively self-aware?
157. Does the practice of ātma-vicāra work? (3rd March 2014)
158. Why is ātma-vicāra necessary? (18 April 2014)
159. Ātma-vicāra is the only means by which we can experience ourself as we really are (20 March 2014: Interview on Celibacy – Part 2)
160. Ātma-vicāra and nirvikalpa samādhi (11th April 2014: Interview on Celibacy – Part 5)
161. Ātma-vicāra: stress and other related issues (2nd May 2014)
162. Self-investigation, effort and sleep (5th June 2014)
163. Self-attentiveness, effort and grace (23rd November 2008)
164. The featurelessness of self-attentiveness (22nd August 2014)
165. Any experience we can describe is something other than the experience of pure self-attentiveness (3rd April 2015)
166. Other than ourself, there are no signs or milestones on the path of self-discovery (23rd November 2014)
167. Can self-enquiry be practised during work? (13th February 2014)
168. Self-attentiveness and citta-vṛtti nirōdha (16 February 2014)
169. Prāṇāyāma is just an aid to restrain the mind but will not bring about its annihilation (18 June 2015)
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 8: the connection between mind and breath
• Upadēśa Undiyār verses 11 and 12: how breath-restraint is a means to restrain the mind
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 13: the two kinds of subsidence of mind
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 14: our mind will die only by self-investigation
• Upadēśa Sāram verse 14: the meaning of ēka-cintanā
• Can our ego or mind be annihilated by any means other than self-investigation?
• Can our ego or mind be annihilated by meditating on a form or name?
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 9
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 25
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 4
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 20
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 8
• Is it wrong to say that self-investigation is the only means by which the mind can be annihilated?
• Prāṇāyāma is neither sufficient nor necessary
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 28: subsidence of the breath is an effect of self-investigation
170. ‘That alone is tapas’: the first teachings that Sri Ramana gave to Kavyakantha Ganapati Sastri (22nd August 2015)
• The two replies that Bhagavan gave to Kavyakantha
• The implication of Bhagavan’s first reply
• The practice of self-investigation entails nothing but attentively observing ourself
• The implication of Bhagavan’s second reply
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 30: experiencing what remains when the ego dissolves is tapas
• Guru Vācaka Kōvai verse 706: a paraphrase of Bhagavan’s second reply
• Upadēśa Taṉippākkaḷ verse 14: Bhagavan’s condensation of verse 706 of Guru Vācaka Kōvai
171. Why did Bhagavan sometimes say the heart is on the right side of the chest? (Monday, 22 June 2020)
172. What is meditation on the heart? (29th August 2015)
• Can we make sense of Bhagavan’s final answer recorded in section 131 of Talks?
• Cohen’s interpretation of this final answer recorded in section 131 of Talks
• What did Bhagavan mean by the term ‘heart’?
• Why did Bhagavan specify the right side of the chest as the location of the heart?
• Distinguishing hṛdaya from hṛdaya-sthāna
• Meditating on hṛdaya-sthāna is not meditation on hṛdaya
• Being attentively self-aware alone is meditation on hṛdaya
173. What is the difference between meditation and self-investigation? (14th April 2015)
• Meditation on ourself is self-investigation (ātma-vicāra)
• We should not meditate on anything other than ourself
• Meditation on the idea ‘I am brahman’ is not ātma-vicāra
• Meditation on ‘I am’ alone is ātma-vicāra
• Our ego is just ourself (‘I am’) seemingly mixed and confused with adjuncts
• We seem to be this ego only when we are experiencing anything other than ourself
174. We should meditate only on ‘I’, not on ideas such as ‘I am brahman’ (24th February 2014)
175. Experiencing the pure ‘I’ here and now (25th January 2011)
176. Can our mind be too strong for our actual self to dissolve it completely? (Wednesday, 8 June 2016)
177. Why do we not immediately experience ourself as we really are? (25th January 2014)
178. The aim of self-enquiry is to experience a perfect clarity of self-consciousness (21st January 2007)
179. By self-attentiveness we can experience our true self-consciousness unadulterated by our mind (2nd March 2007: extract from HAB chapter 3)
180. Manōnāśa — destruction of mind (7th October 2011)
181. Self-attentiveness is nirvikalpa — devoid of all differences or variation (27th July 2009)
182. Svarūpa-dhyāna and svarūpa-darśana (8th July 2009)
183. ‘Tracing the ego back to its source’ (12th July 2009)
184. Knowing our source by a ‘sharp intellect’ or kūrnda mati (16th March 2007: extract from HAB chapter 10)
185. How to start practising ātma-vicāra? (16th April 2009)
186. Making effort to pay attention to our mind is being attentive only to our essential self (6th December 2008)
187. Our basic thought ‘I’ is the portal through which we can know our real ‘I’ (30th December 2008)
188. Focusing only on ‘I’ (4th January 2014)
189. Second and third person objects (10th January 2011)
• Second and third person are thoughts that depend upon the first person, the thinking thought ‘I’
• The world is nothing but a series of thoughts
• The broad meaning of ‘thought’ as it is used by Sri Ramana
• Second person thoughts and third person thoughts
• The ‘subjective’-‘objective’ distinction
• The unreality of the ‘second person’-‘third person’ distinction
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 14
• The fundamental principle of Sri Ramana’s teachings
• Pramāda: the first person seems to exist only because we do not attend to it
• The practical application of the rope-snake analogy
• Sri Ramana’s teachings are a subtle refinement of advaita vēdanta
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 26
• Parallels between verses 14 and 26 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Interpreting the terms ‘second person’ and ‘third person’ individually
• Interpretation in Happiness and the Art of Being
• An alternative interpretation in Part Two of The Path of Sri Ramana
• Interpretations must be appropriate to the context and the audience
190. The need for manana and vivēka: reflection, critical thinking, discrimination and judgement (13th December 2014)
• Manana in relation to śravaṇa and nididhyāsana
• Vivēka in relation to manana
• Critical thinking
• Perseverance is the only true sign of progress
• The danger of not using vivēka and not thinking critically
• The teachings of Sri Ramana and Nisargadatta are significantly different
• Uncritical belief in authority is an enemy of vivēka
• Confusion exists even in the minds of sincere devotees
• We should be wary of unsound inferences
• Conclusion
191. What is unique about the teachings of Sri Ramana? (7th May 2015)
192. In order to understand the essence of Sri Ramana’s teachings, we need to carefully study his original writings (30th May 2015)
• The original writings of Sri Ramana express the essence of his teachings
• Guru Vācaka Kōvai is also an authentic and reliable record of his teachings
• The essence of his teachings are based entirely upon his own experience of pure non-dual self-awareness
• If his essential teachings are true, there are actually no ‘external factors’ that are reliable
193. The logic underlying the practice of self-investigation (ātma-vicāra) (31st October 2015)
• Should we rely on what others claim to be their experience?
• What is the goal that we should aim to experience or attain?
• By knowing what goal we should seek, we can logically infer what must be the means to achieve it
• No matter how long it may take us to reach our destination, patient perseverance is required
194. Self-enquiry: the underlying philosophy can be clearly understood only by putting it into practice (17th June 2008)
195. The true nature of consciousness can be known only by self-enquiry (20th June 2008)
• True understanding and conviction can be gained only by practising self-enquiry
• ‘I am’ is the only indubitable reality
• Consciousness is one indivisible whole, other than which nothing exists
• The empirical science of self-enquiry taught by Sri Ramana
• Doubt the doubter
• The true meaning of the word ‘I’ or ‘we’
• Waking, dream and sleep are all experienced by us, the one and only ‘I’
• Our mind usurps our self-consciousness ‘I am’
• Sleep is a state that exists only in our consciousness
• We should refine our self-consciousness by practising self-enquiry
• What is the ‘bigger picture’?
• The correct practice of self-enquiry
196. Self-enquiry, personal experiences and daily routine (12th June 2008)
197. Is ‘guided meditation’ possible in Bhagavan’s path of self-investigation? (Tuesday, 14 March 2017)
198. Ātma-vicāra is only the practice of keeping our mind fixed firmly in self (15th August 2007: extract from HAB chapter 9)
199. Ātma-vicāra and the question ‘who am I?’ (16th August 2007: extract from HAB chapter 9)
200. Sri Ramana’s figurative use of simple words (17th August 2007: extract from HAB chapter 9)
201. The question ‘who am I?’ as a verbalised thought (18th August 2007: extract from HAB chapter 9)
202. The practice of self-investigation is our natural state of self-conscious being (19th August 2007: extract from HAB chapter 9)
203. ‘Just sitting’ (shikantaza) and ‘choiceless awareness’ (11th July 2009)
204. Ātma-vicāra and metta bhāvana (‘loving-kindness’ meditation) (4th July 2009)
205. Repeating ‘who am I?’ is not self-enquiry (25th January 2007)
206. Japa of ‘I am’ as an aid to self-attentiveness (29th October 2009)
207. Staying with ‘I am’ (1st July 2009)
208. Thinking, free will and self-attentiveness (16th August 2009)
209. ‘Holy indifference’ and the love to be self-attentive (21st October 2009)
210. Ātma-vicāra and the ‘practice’ of nēti nēti (20th November 2008)
211. ‘Awareness watching awareness’ (7th January 2007)
212. Rather than being aware of being aware, we should be aware only of what is aware, namely ourself (Wednesday, 8 March 2017)
• What we need to be aware of is only ourself and not anything else
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 25: being aware of anything other than ourself is the food that nourishes and sustains our ego
• We will forever cease to rise as this ego only when we attend to ourself alone
• Why do we need to make effort to attend to ourself?
213. Self-enquiry, self-attention and self-awareness (27th December 2008)
214. Ātma-vicāra — the practice of ‘looking at’ or ‘seeking’ ourself (14th April 2009)
215. ‘Putting it all together’ (30th December 2006)
216. Reading, reflection and practice (9th January 2007)
217. Exposing the unreality of our ego (13th January 2007)
218. Self-enquiry and body-awareness (23rd January 2007)
219. Self-investigation and sexual restraint (15th March 2014: Interview on Celibacy – Part 1)

‘I am’, ‘I am this’ or ‘I am that’, and ‘I am I’

220. The Ramaṇa mahāvākya: ‘நான் நான்’ (nāṉ nāṉ) or ‘अहम् अहम्’ (aham aham), ‘I am I’ (Friday, 26 November 2021)
• If we go within investigating the source from which we have spread out, ego and all other thoughts will cease, and ātma-jñāna will shine spontaneously as ‘I am I’
• Our real identity is not ‘I am this’ or ‘I am that’ but only ‘I am I’, so though statements such as ‘I am brahman’ are useful as preliminary teachings, the ultimate teaching about our real identity is just ‘I am I’
• Not only is ‘I am I’ the ultimate teaching about our real identity, but it is also the most practical teaching, because to keep our attention fixed firmly on ourself alone we should not think that we are anything other than ‘I’
• God or brahman is what shines eternally in our heart as ‘I am I’, so when we are aware of ourself as we actually are we will not be aware of ourself as ‘I am brahman’ or ‘I am God’ but only as ‘I am I’
• When we investigate ‘I am’, the source from which we have risen as ego, ego will die, and what will then shine forth as ‘I am I’ is our real nature, which is the one real substance (poruḷ), the infinite whole (pūrṇa)
• The clear recognition ‘I am I’ is both the path and the goal, because the deeper we go in the practice of self-investigation, the more clearly we recognise that we are nothing other than ‘I’, and when this recognition becomes perfectly clear, that is awareness of ourself as we actually are
• Vicāra Saṅgraham section 1.1: if we keenly investigate what it is that shines as ‘I’, we will experience a sphurippu or fresh clarity of self-awareness as ‘I am I’, and if we hold on to that without letting go, it will thoroughly annihilate ego, the false awareness ‘I am this body’
• Nāṉ Ār? paragraph 5: thinking ‘I, I’ or ‘I am I’ can help us to become familiar with being self-attentive, but in order to sink deep within ourself we need to stop thinking even such thoughts
• When we recognise that the clear awareness ‘I am I’ is not anything new but what is eternal and therefore natural (sahaja), that is what he describes as the subsidence, cessation or extinguishing of sphuraṇa
• ‘தானே தான்’ (tāṉē tāṉ), ‘oneself alone is oneself’, means that what we actually are is only ourself, which is beginningless, infinite and undivided sat-cit-ānanda
221. ‘I am’ is the reality, ‘I am this’ or ‘I am that’ is the ego (Sunday, 2 October 2016)
• Who am I? Am I this unreal ego, or the reality that underlies it?
• The truth is not ‘I am this’ or ‘I am that’ but only ‘I am I’
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 18: the mind is essentially ‘I’, the ego or mixed awareness ‘I am this body’
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 19: if we investigate ourself, the source from which we rose as this ego, it will die
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 20: where ‘I am this’ merges, what remains shining is ‘I am I’
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 28: the pure self-awareness ‘I am I’ is beginningless, endless and indivisible
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 30: though ‘I am I’ appears, it is not the ego
• Āṉma-Viddai verse 2: what shines as ‘I am I’ is the one silent and blissful space of pure self-awareness
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 21: what shines as ‘I am I’ is the real import of the word ‘I’
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 22: the body and other adjuncts are not real and not aware, so they are not ‘I’
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 23: we are the one existence-awareness that always shines as ‘I am’
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 24: what seemingly separates us from the reality that we actually are is only our awareness of adjuncts
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 25: being aware of ‘I am’ without adjuncts is being aware of the reality
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu Anubandham verse 29: clarity of intellect will shine automatically in the outward form of an atma-jnani
222. Why does the term ‘I am’ refer not just to our ego but to what we actually are? (Tuesday, 4 October 2016)

Ahaṁ-sphuraṇa: the clear shining of ‘I’

223. Demystifying the term ‘sphuraṇa’ (1st July 2014)
224. Self-awareness: ‘I’-thought, ‘I’-feeling and ahaṁ-sphuraṇa (8th July 2014)
• ‘I’-thought, ‘I’-feeling and ahaṁ-sphuraṇa
• நான் நான் (nāṉ nāṉ) means ‘I am I’, not ‘I-I’
• The exact meaning of sphuraṇa is determined by the context in which it is used
• When we try to attend only to ‘I’, it shines more clearly
• Aham-sphurana is an experience that cannot be described adequately in words
• தன்னுணர்வு (taṉ-ṉ-uṇarvu) means self-awareness rather than ‘I’-feeling
• The Path of Sri Ramana explains the practice of ātma-vicāra more clearly than any other English book
• Viśēsa-jñāna and aham-spurippu
• Ātmākāram is nothing other than ātman itself
• A paradox: sphuraṇa means ‘shining’ or ‘clarity’, yet misinterpretations of it have created so much confusion
225. A paradox: sphuraṇa means ‘shining’ or ‘clarity’, yet misinterpretations of it have created so much confusion (12th July 2014)

What is our real ‘I’?

226. Only ‘I am’ is certain and self-evident (24th January 2014)
227. Establishing that I am and analysing what I am (15 August 2014)
228. Self-awareness is the very nature of ‘I’ (1st August 2014)
229. Though we now seem to be ego, if we look at ourself keenly enough we will see that we are actually just pure awarenes (Monday, 24 February 2020)
• ‘I am’ without any adjuncts is our fundamental awareness of our own existence (sat-cit), whereas ‘I am this body’ is the adjunct-conflated awareness called ego
• Awareness of anything other than ourself as we actually are is a thought, so ego is just a thought, the ‘thought called I’, but of all thoughts it is the first and root
• Ego is a form of self-awareness, but not self-awareness as it actually is, because it is self-awareness conflated with awareness of adjuncts
• If we look at the snake carefully enough we will see that it is actually just a rope, and likewise if we attend to ourself, who now seem to be ego, keenly enough, we will see that what we actually are is just pure awareness
• Self-awareness, which is the very nature of ourself, is our fundamental experience, and the basis of everything else that we experience, so we can never not be self-aware
• As ego we can experience pure awareness, but as soon as we experience pure awareness we thereby cease to be ego, just as we can see the tropical midday sun by looking at it directly, but as soon as we do so we will thereby be blinded
• If we attend only to ‘I am’, thereby withdrawing our attention from everything else, we will thereby leave aside all adjuncts, and what will then remain is only pure awareness
• In order to get rid of all that is unreal, namely ego and all its progeny, we must cling firmly to what is real, namely our fundamental awareness ‘I am’
• If we imagine that we are two different selves, a ‘true self’ and an ‘ego’, we are unnecessarily confusing ourself and thereby making the simple practice of self-investigation (atma-vicara) seem complicated
• Though our awareness ‘I am’ is now mixed and confused with our awareness of adjuncts, it is nevertheless the clue by which we as ego can retrace our way back to the source from which we arose
230. What we actually are is just pure self-awareness: awareness that is aware of nothing other than itself (Thursday, 6 July 2017)
231. As we actually are, we do nothing and are aware of nothing other than ourself (Wednesday, 19 October 2016)
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 1: our ego is nothing other than our actual self, but our actual self is not this ego
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 7: our actual self alone exists, so as such we are aware of nothing other than ourself
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 26: transitive awareness is the nature of our ego, not of our actual self
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraphs 3 and 4: when we shine as our actual self, nothing else seems to exist
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 25: we rise as this ego only by grasping a form as ourself
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 4: we can perceive forms only if we perceive ourself as a form
• Our actual self never becomes this transitively aware ego, but merely seems to be it
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 17: what seems to the ignorant to be a finite body is actually only the infinite ‘I’
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 18: the world is real not as a finite set of forms but only as its formless substratum
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 15: as our actual self, God does not do anything
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 22: we cannot fathom God except by turning our mind within and drowning it in him
• As this ego we can never ‘realise’ ourself, and as our actual self we do not need to ‘realise’ ourself
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 16: we must not just cease attending to other things but must keenly attend to ourself alone
• Grace is our infinite love for ourself, and its ‘action’ is ‘doing without doing’
• Our actual self is the presentness of the present moment
• Our actual self does not look at or see anything other than itself
• The mistake of seeing ourself as a person is made only by our ego and not by our actual self
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 17: if we keenly investigate our ego, we will find that there is actually no such thing at all, and hence no world or anything else other than ourself
232. The true import of ‘I am’ (9th January 2007)
233. The true import of the word ‘I’ (7th March 2007: extract from HAB chapter 5)
234. I think because I am, but I am even when I do not think (8th March 2007: extract from HAB chapter 6)
235. Our real ‘I’ is formless and therefore unlimited (28th February 2007: extract from HAB chapter 2)
236. Our body, mind and other adjuncts are not ‘I’ (26th February 2007: extract from HAB chapter 2)
237. The unique clarity and simplicity of Sri Ramana’s teachings (26th December 2013)

The nature of ego and its five sheaths

238. I certainly exist, but I am not necessarily what I seem to be (Sunday, 26 February 2017)
• There can be no thinking, saying or doing without an ‘I’ who is doing such actions
• We cannot reasonably doubt that I am, but we can and should doubt what I am
• What is this ‘I’ who thinks, says and does?
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 26: the seeming existence of the ego is the sole cause for the seeming existence of everything else
• Viṣaya-vāsanās are the very nature of the ego, so they can be eradicated only by eradicating their root, the ego
• Real peace can be experienced only in the absence of the ego
239. The ego is a spurious entity, but an entity nonetheless, until we investigate it keenly enough to see that it does not actually exist (Thursday, 24 August 2017)
240. The ego does not actually exist, but it seems to exist, and only so long as it seems to exist do all other things seem to exist (Wednesday, 18 April 2018)
• There can be no suffering without someone who suffers, and no deed without a doer
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 26: everything else depends for its seeming existence on the seeming existence of the ego
• Doership is the very nature of the ego, because it always experiences the instruments of action as itself
• The idea that actions or suffering can happen without the ego is ‘a reply said to the questions of others’
• The five sheaths are all insentient objects of perception, whereas the ego is the perceiving subject
• The ego is not real awareness (sat-cit), but just a semblance of awareness (cidābhāsa)
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 18: though the term ‘mind’ can refer to all thoughts collectively, what the mind essentially is is just the ego
• What needs to investigate itself is not pure self-awareness (sat-cit) but only the ego (cidābhāsa)
• The intellectual self-analysis that enables us to understand that we cannot be anything that we perceive but are only the awareness that perceives them is a prerequisite for self-investigation but not the actual practice of self-investigation
• What we actually are is not transitive awareness (suṭṭaṟivu) but only pure intransitive awareness (suṭṭaṯṟa aṟivu), so we need to distinguish the latter from the former
• A deep, clear and subtle understanding is necessary for us to be able investigate what we actually are, but understanding appears and disappears with the ego, so it is not the goal we are seeking
• Understanding is possible only for the ego, so what is the use of understanding that there is no ego if one does not make use of that understanding by turning back within to investigate what one actually is?
• The knowledge that will eradicate self-ignorance cannot be obtained just by śravaṇa or from any source outside ourself, but only by turning within and dissolving in the light of pure awareness
• The sole purpose of whatever the guru teaches us is to prompt us to turn back within to see what we actually are
241. The ego seems to exist only because we have not looked at it carefully enough to see that there is no such thing (Monday, 30 April 2018)
• Cartesian dualism and Bhagavan’s radical non-dualism
• The view that all views are one is due to lack of vivēka
• Does anything exist independent of our perception of it?
• If we look at ourself alone, we see nothing else, and if we look at anything else, we do not see ourself as we really are
• We must look within to see Bhagavan seeing us as we actually are
• Ajāta is the ultimate truth, but it being so is of no use to the ego, so Bhagavan’s teachings are focused mainly on the ego and the means to eradicate it
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 27: the state in which ‘I’ does not rise is the state in which we are that, and unless one investigates where ‘I’ rises, how to abide in that state in which it does not rise?
• The ego will not cease except by self-investigation (ātma-vicāra)
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 33: the ego is ridiculous whatever it may think or say, whether ‘I do not know myself’ or ‘I do know myself’
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 12 and Upadēśa Undiyār verse 27: real knowledge or awareness is that which is completely devoid of both knowing and not knowing
• Bhagavan focused his teachings on the ego more than on that, because we need to investigate the ego in order to know that
• Bhagavan saves without saving, because in his view there is no one to be saved
• The I who says I can’t find the ego is itself the ego whom it says it can’t find
• The ego will go only when we are willing to let go of it
• We cannot surrender ourself without investigating ourself
• The ‘I’ that says ‘I look but cannot find myself’ is what we should be looking at
242. To curb our rising as ego, all we need do is watch ourself vigilantly (Friday, 7 February 2020)
243. Ego seems to exist only when we look elsewhere, away from ourself (Friday, 8 November 2019)
• Looking ‘elsewhere’ means looking at anything other than ourself
• None of the other things that ego looks at exist prior to or independent of it, because they are created by its perception of them
• Though ego seems to exist only when we are looking elsewhere, this does not mean that it comes into existence by looking elsewhere
• Ego is the first cause, the cause of all other causes, so no cause could exist prior to our rising as ego
• What is the atiśaya śakti (extraordinary power) that Bhagavan refers to in verse 6 of Śrī Aruṇācala Aṣṭakam and the fourth paragraph of Nāṉ Ār??
• When Bhagavan says that this atiśaya śakti called mind or ego exists in and is not other than ātma-svarūpa, what he implies is not that it is real but that it does not actually exist
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 17: if we incessantly investigate this atiśaya śakti called mind or ego, it will be clear that no such thing exists at all
• The nature of ego is to be always aware of itself as ‘I am this body’ and consequently always aware of things other than itself
244. The ego is the thinker, not the act of thinking (Sunday, 8 May 2016)
245. What creates all thoughts is only the ego, which is the root and essence of the mind (Monday, 18 September 2017)
• In Nāṉ Yār? Bhagavan says unequivocally that the mind creates or projects all thoughts
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 18: though the term ‘mind’ can refer to the totality of all thoughts, what the mind essentially is is just the ego
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraphs 5 and 8: the ego is the original thought, being the thought that is aware of all other thoughts, so without it no other thought could exist
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 4: because it is aware, the ego has the power to create the appearance of everything in its awareness
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 26: the ego is the first cause, being the sole cause for the appearance of everything else, so if the ego does not exist nothing else exists
• The consciousness in which all thoughts appear is the mind, which is a mere semblance of real consciousness, so without the mind there could be no thoughts
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 14: other thoughts are second and third persons, which depend for their seeming existence on the ego, the first person
• Nothing else can seem to exist unless perceived by the ego, so the ego is the root cause or creator of everything
• Bhagavan’s body and mind are created only by our ego, but the actions of his mind, speech and body are controlled only by grace
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 15: grace in the form of guru saves us from the ego without actually doing anything
246. Thoughts and dreams appear only in the self-ignorant view of ourself as ego, not in the clear view of ourself as we actually are (Friday, 15 February 2019)
• We can be aware of phenomena only when we rise as ego and not when we are aware of ourself as we actually are
• In order to be what we actually are we need to be aware of ourself alone and not anything else whatsoever
247. What is deluded is not our real nature but only ego (Wednesday, 30 January 2019)
248. The ego is the sole cause, creator, source, substance and foundation of all other things (Sunday, 13 May 2018)
• According to dṛṣṭi-sṛṣṭi-vāda, perception is not only the cause of creation but is itself creation
• The awareness in which and to which phenomena appear is not real awareness but only a semblance of awareness (cidābhāsa)
• This semblance of awareness (cidābhāsa) is the ego or mind, which is what causes all thoughts or phenomena to appear
• The ego or mind causes all thoughts or phenomena to appear only from itself, so it alone is their source or origin
• A cause and its effect can occur simultaneously, but logically the cause comes first and the effect comes only after it
• Since the ego has created all that it perceives, why does it have so little control over what it has created?
• Thoughts come only from ourself, the ego, the one who perceives them, so we alone are the root of all thoughts
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 26: everything depends for its seeming existence on the seeming existence of the ego, so when we investigate the ego keenly enough to see that it does not exist, that is giving up everything
249. Everything depends for its seeming existence on the seeming existence of ourself as ego (Thursday, 8 November 2018)
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 24: ego is neither the body, which is jaḍa (non-aware), nor sat-cit (real awareness), but just the false awareness ‘I am this body’
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 18: though all thoughts are included in mind, what mind essentially is is only ego, the root thought called ‘I’
• Why does Bhagavan say that ego is the subtle body, saṁsāra and bondage?
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 26: everything is ego, the false awareness ‘I am this body’
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verses 4 to 7: the world is perceived only by mind or ego and does not exist without it
• According to Bhagavan ego or mind is what projects and perceives all phenomena, so they seem to exist only when we seem to be ego
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verses 10 to 13: real awareness is not aware of anything other than itself, because there is nothing else for it to be aware of
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 16: since awareness of anything other than ourself is ignorance and unreal, we can be aware of ourself as real awareness only by withdrawing our attention from everything else and turning back towards ourself to know our own ‘form of light’
• Bhagavan’s teachings are the pinnacle of advaita, because he has greatly simplified and clarified the essential import of all its more ancient texts
• What is aware of ego and all phenomena is only ourself as ego and not ourself as we actually are
• Since our goal is to be aware of nothing other than ourself, the means to achieve it is simply to try to be aware of nothing other than ourself
• Ego projects and simultaneously perceives itself as all forms or phenomena
• What misperceives brahman as ego and world is not brahman as such but only ego
• Whatever comes into existence or ceases to exist does not actually exist but merely seems to exist
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verses 17 and 18: what the ātma-jñāni sees and what the ajñāni sees is exactly the same, but what they each see it as is different
• Since ‘advaita’ means non-twoness, it has to explain the seeming existence of all this multiplicity, and the simplest explanation it gives is dṛṣṭi-sṛṣṭi-vāda
250. The return of the prodigal son (Tuesday, 8 September 2020)
251. In a dream there is only one dreamer, and if the one dreamer wakes up the entire dream will come to an end (Saturday, 2 February 2019)
252. The nature of ego and its viṣaya-vāsanās and how to eradicate them (Tuesday, 29 June 2021)
• The very nature of ego is to have viṣaya-vāsanās, and they are the seeds that give rise to everything else, including this entire universe
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 2: viṣaya-vāsanās are the seeds that cause us to fall in the great ocean of action (karma)
• Nāṉ Ār? paragraphs 10 and 11: in order to eradicate ego, we need to weaken its army of viṣaya-vāsanās by clinging firmly to self-attentiveness
• The less we allow ourself to be swayed by any rising of a viṣaya-vāsanā, the more we will thereby be weakening it, so the extent to which we weaken viṣaya-vāsanās is inversely proportional to the extent to which we allow ourself to be swayed by them
• When practising self-investigation our aim is to be so keenly and steadily self-attentive that we are not swayed by viṣaya-vāsanās of any kind whatsoever, so it is only when we allow ourself to be swayed by them that it matters whether they are śubha vāsanās or aśubha vāsanās
• When practising self-investigation our aim is not to experience anything but only to investigate and know the reality of ourself, the experiencer
• Nāṉ Ār? paragraph 6: whether our mind is calm or agitated, we should investigate ourself, the one to whom such calmness or agitation appears
• What is important is not whether the current state of our mind is relatively quiet or relatively active, but how much love we have to cling firmly to self-attentiveness
• What we actually are is nirviśēṣa (devoid of distinguishing features), so any viśēṣa anubhava (experience with distinguishing features) is something other than ourself and therefore an indication that our attention has been distracted away from ourself
• The ‘I-thought’ is not an object but the subject, so it is what we experience as ‘I’ so long as we are aware of anything other than ourself, and hence it cannot be hidden from us even in a state of mental quietness
• In waking and dream we can never experience genuine thoughtlessness, because the ‘I’ who experiences these two states is only ego, which is the thought called ‘I’, and hence everything experienced by it is likewise just thoughts
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 23: only after ego rises does everything else rise, so with keen discernment investigate yourself, the source where ego rises
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 24: though ego is aware of itself as ‘I am this body’, it is not the body, because unlike the body it is aware, and though it is aware, it is not sat-cit, because unlike sat-cit it rises and subsides
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 25: the formless phantom called ego rises, stands and flourishes to the extent that it grasps things other than itself, but will take flight if it tries to grasp itself by being keenly self-attentive
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 26: ego itself is what appears as everything else, so since ego will cease to exist if we investigate it keenly enough, investigating what it actually is is giving up everything
• The practical significance of the two fundamental laws of nature that Bhagavan points out in verses 25 and 26 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu
• Nāṉ Ār? paragraph 5: ego is the first thought and cause of all other thoughts, so since all phenomena are just thoughts, without ego they do not exist
• Śrī Aruṇācala Aṣṭakam verse 7: if the thought called ‘I’ does not exist, nothing else will exist, so if anything else appears, investigate to whom it has appeared and thereby sink within and merge back into the heart, the source from which this ‘I’ rose
253. How is ego to be destroyed? (Saturday, 19 September 2020)
• Talks section 615: Bhagavan did not mean that we should not try to destroy ego, but that we should not try to destroy it by any means other than self-investigation
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 25: being just a formless phantom, ego does not actually exist, even though it seems to exist, so if it is sought it will take flight
• What Bhagavan has explained to us about the nature of ego neatly encapsulates the entire philosophy and practice of advaita in the simplest and clearest way possible
• We cannot eradicate ego or mind by any means other than self-investigation (ātma-vicāra), so we should not allow our attention to be distracted away from ourself towards anything else whatsoever
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 17: to see that there is no such thing as ego or mind at all, we need to be so keenly self-attentive that we give not even the slightest room for any pramāda (self-negligence) to creep in
• To see that there is no such thing as ego, we need to be aware of ourself as we actually are, and to be aware of ourself as we actually are we need to investigate ourself so keenly that we thereby cease to be aware of anything else whatsoever
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 26: if we want to see the non-existence of ego, we must investigate ourself, and in order to investigate ourself effectively we must be willing to give up not only ego but also everything else
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 16: to eradicate ego we not only need to cease being aware of anything other than ourself, but need to do so by being keenly self-attentive
• Since we are always self-aware, how can it ever be difficult for us to be attentively self-aware?
• The eye cannot see itself, because it is non-aware (jaḍa), so it is not a suitable analogy for ego, the essential element of which is awareness (cit)
254. There is only one ego, and even that does not actually exist (Wednesday, 8 March 2017)
• We who are aware of this world are the only ego
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 26: investigating what this ego is is giving up everything
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 28: when everything else ceases to exist, what remains is only beginningless, infinite and undivided sat-cit-ānanda
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 12: we are not nothingness but pure awareness
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 31: the jñāni is aware of nothing other than itself, so our mind cannot grasp its perspective
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 33: the ‘I’ that rises to say ‘I have seen’ has seen nothing
255. After the annihilation of the ego, no ‘I’ can rise to say ‘I have seen’ (Friday, 24 March 2017)
• Since there was no ego in Muruganar, what prompted him to sing in praise of Bhagavan’s grace was only his grace
• When Bhagavan spoke about his death experience, he did so without using the word ‘I’ in a personal sense
• Śrī Aruṇācala Aṣṭakam verses 1 and 2: when the seeing ego ceased to exist, the mind did not rise to say ‘I saw’
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 28: our real nature is infinite and undivided, so nothing else exists to know it
• Śrī Ramaṇa Sahasram verse 960: when you caught me in your jaws, what happened? Only you can say
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 31: egolessness is a state devoid of awareness of anything other than oneself, so how can the mind comprehend it?
256. Can we as ego ever experience pure awareness? (Friday, 25 October 2019)
• As we go deeper in the practice of self-investigation, the distinction between pure awareness and awareness of anything other than ourself becomes clearer
• As ego we can never experience awareness in its pure condition, but we must try to do so, because only when we succeed in experiencing it in its pure condition will ego be eradicated
• There is only one awareness, which is always pure, but when it seems to be mixed with adjuncts, it appears as ego
• As ego we are aware of ourself as a set of adjuncts and consequently we are aware of other phenomena, so to eradicate ego we must give up being aware of anything other than ourself
• In our natural state of pure awareness, nothing other than ourself exists, so pure awareness can be known only by ourself as pure awareness
• Being aware of anything other than ourself, which is the nature of ourself as ego, is not real awareness but only ignorance
• The more keenly and persistently we practise being self-attentive, the more clearly our fundamental self-awareness will shine in our mind, until eventually it will shine so clearly that it will swallow ego forever
• Whatever relative clarity we may experience, we must persevere in our practice of self-investigation until we become willing to surrender ourself entirely, whereupon we will subside and merge forever in the infinite silence of pure awareness
257. What is the difference between God and the ego? (Sunday, 19 February 2017)
258. What is the difference between pure awareness and the ego, and how are they related? (Saturday, 18 February 2017)
259. What is the relationship between the ‘I-thought’ and awareness? (Wednesday, 20 February 2019)
• ‘I-thought’ is ego, which is a semblance of awareness, an illusory appearance whose underlying reality is pure awareness
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verses 10 to 13: distinguishing intransitive awareness from transitive awareness
• As the subject or perceiver of all phenomena, ego is what projects everything, because projection (sṛṣṭi) is nothing other than perception (dṛṣṭi)
• Ego is the witness (sākṣi) in the sense that it is the perceiver, whereas pure awareness is the witness in the sense that it is that in the presence of which ego and all phenomena appear and disappear
• When ego merges back into pure awareness, everything perceived by it will merge along with it
260. In what sense is ego actually just pure awareness? (Thursday, 18 February 2021)
• Ego has no substance or form of its own, but it seems to have both, because it borrows the substance of sat-cit and the form of a body as if they were its own
• Though ‘tat tvam asi’ is addressed only to ego, it is intended to turn ego’s attention back towards its underlying reality, the fundamental, adjunct-free awareness ‘I am’
261. The dreamer is ourself as ego, not whatever person we seem to be in a dream (Wednesday, 15 April 2020)
• Distinguishing ourself as ego from the person we seem to be is very important if we are to understand Bhagavan’s teachings correctly
• Whatever may happen is the sweet will of Bhagavan, given to us to help us follow his path ever more diligently and unwaveringly
• When Bhagavan talks about eka jiva, what he means by jiva is ego, the one dreamer and perceiver of all phenomena
262. Why do we need to distinguish ourself as ego from whatever person we seem to be? (Sunday, 15 December 2019)
• The perceiver is always distinct from whatever phenomena it perceives, including whatever person it mistakenly perceives as if it were itself
• To investigate and surrender ourself effectively, we need to distinguish ourself as ego from whatever person we seem to be
• When our attention is turned outwards, we should be concerned about others as much as we are concerned about the person we seem to be, but our concern for them should prompt us to turn back within, knowing that that is the best we can do for them
• Ego is neither ‘the ego’, because the definite article ‘the’ would tend to imply that it is an object of some sort, nor is it ‘my ego’, because it is myself and not a possession of mine
• Whatever phenomena we as ego perceive are in substance nothing other than ourself, but since we are the substance and phenomena are just forms, we need to clearly distinguish ourself from all phenomena, including whatever person we currently seem to be
263. The person we seem to be is a form composed of five sheaths (Thursday, 5 May 2016)
264. To know what we actually are, we need to cease being interested in any person (Thursday, 23 January 2020)

Our three states of consciousness: waking, dream and sleep

265. We can be self-attentive in waking and dream but not in sleep (Tuesday, 2 June 2020)
• What we now take to waking is just another dream, and so long as we are dreaming any dream we should try to be as keenly self-attentive as possible
• Sleep is a state of pure awareness, in which we know nothing other than ourself, so we need not and cannot be self-attentive in sleep
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 13: if it is dissolved in sleep or any other state of laya, ego will rise again, but why?
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 14: only by means of self-investigation will ego dissolve in pure awareness in such a way that it will never rise again
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 16: being so keenly self-attentive that we thereby cease to be aware of anything else is real awareness
• Guru Vācaka Kōvai verse 957: if we experience sleep in waking, we will thereby experience sleep in dream
• Guru Vācaka Kōvai verse 958: in order to experience sleep throughout waking and dream, steadfastness in keenly attentive self-investigation is required
• Upadēśa Taṉippākkaḷ verse 16: until sleep pervades both waking and dream, incessantly persevere in being keenly self-attentive
266. We are aware of ourself while asleep, so pure self-awareness alone is what we actually are (Wednesday, 16 March 2016)
• Bhagavan’s entire teachings are based on the premise that we are always aware of ourself
• Why we must be aware during sleep
• Why is it necessary for us to recognise that we are aware of ourself while asleep?
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu Anubandham verse 31: the ātma-jñāni is aware of no difference between waking, dream and sleep
• The importance of distinguishing our permanent self-awareness from our temporary awareness of adjuncts
• Pure self-awareness is a timeless experience, so we are not aware of time while asleep
• The common assumption that awareness depends upon the brain being active is a fallacy
• We are intransitive awareness, which is permanent, whereas transitive awareness is temporary
• We can never be unaware that we are aware
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 23: we are both what exists and what is aware that we exist
• The only element of our ego that actually exists is its essential self-awareness
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 26: being aware what we are is not transitive awareness but just being the intransitive awareness that we actually are
• Silence is the only intransitive language, so it alone can reveal the true nature of pure intransitive awareness
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 13: real awareness is ourself, whereas awareness of other things is ignorance
• We can never forget ourself completely, because though as this ego we have forgotten what we are, we are always aware that we are
• Sleep is our true and eternal state of pure self-awareness, so it seems to be imperfect only from the perspective of our ego
• To destroy our ego and thereby sleep eternally, we must try to be attentively self-aware while awake or in dream
• Upadēśa Taṉippākkaḷ verse 16: by constant practice of ātma-vicāra we should try to experience sleep during waking and dream
267. Sleep is our natural state of pure self-awareness (11th November 2015)
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 1: in sleep we experience ourself in the absence of our mind
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 18: our mind is in essence just our primal thought called ‘I’
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraphs 5, 6 and 8: the thought called ‘I’ is an alternative name for our ego
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verses 25 and 26: our ego and other things cannot exist without each other
• Āṉma-Viddai verse 2: our primal thought called ‘I’ is just the illusory experience ‘I am this body’
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 4: thoughts exist only in waking and dream but not in sleep
• Śrī Aruṇācala Aṣṭakam verse 7: without the thought called ‘I’ nothing else exists
• Our ego cannot exist in sleep, because there is nothing there for it to grasp
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 17: our ego or mind does not actually exist at all, even now
• Sleep is not actually a state of darkness or ignorance but one of pure self-awareness
• Since our ego does not exist in sleep, how does it seem to come back into existence in waking and dream?
• Why is our ego not destroyed by the pure self-awareness that we experience in sleep?
• Our ego can be destroyed only by vṛtti-jñāna (self-attentiveness)
• Why the re-emergence of our ego from sleep cannot be adequately explained, and need not be explained
268. There is absolutely no difference between sleep and pure self-awareness (ātma-jñāna) (Wednesday, 28 June 2017)
269. What is aware of the absence of the ego and mind in sleep? (Tuesday, 25 July 2017)
270. What happens to our mind in sleep? (3rd November 2015)
271. What do we actually experience in sleep? (12th June 2014)
272. Though we are not aware of any phenomena in sleep, we are aware of our own existence, ‘I am’ (Thursday, 28 May 2020)
273. What exists and shines in sleep is nothing other than pure awareness (Wednesday, 17 June 2020)
274. How do we remember being asleep? (Sunday, 21 June 2020)
275. Our memory of ‘I’ in sleep (2nd November 2014)
276. In what sense and to what extent do we remember what we were aware of in sleep? (Tuesday, 11 June 2019)
• Our memory of our existence in sleep is not derived from the mind but solely from the very nature of our ever-present self-awareness
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 24: though ego as such does not exist in sleep, its essence and reality, sat-cit, which is our fundamental awareness ‘I am’, remains there, so ego remembers ‘I was asleep’ as if it existed in sleep
• Ego is the false awareness ‘I am this body’, so it obscures but does not entirely conceal the nature of our real awareness ‘I am’, and hence we as ego are vaguely aware both of our own immortality and of our existence in sleep
• Why can we not remember what we were aware of ourself as while asleep, even though we can remember that we were in that state?
• If we find it difficult to recognise that we were clearly aware of our existence in sleep, that is because we have not yet practised being self-attentive keenly and deeply enough
• If we exist in sleep, we cannot be this thinking mind, because it does not exist then, so to understand that we are not this thinking mind we need to recognise that we do exist in sleep
• Our memory of our existence in sleep is not only more useful but also far more reliable than our memory of any phenomena
• Our memory of having been aware of our existence without being aware of anything else in sleep is what guides us to go deep within ourself by trying to attend only to our fundamental self-awareness, as we experienced it in sleep
277. Why do we not experience the existence of any body or world in sleep? (15th June 2014)
278. The consciousness that we experience in sleep (18th March 2007: extract from HAB chapter 2)
279. The ‘unconsciousness’ that we seem to experience in sleep (19th March 2007: extract from HAB chapter 6)
280. Our imaginary sleep of self-forgetfulness or self-ignorance (6th February 2007: extract from HAB chapter 2)
281. Are there three states, two states or only one state? (Sunday, 1 December 2019)
282. Our waking life is just another dream (14th February 2007: extract from HAB chapter 2)
283. Is there any real difference between waking and dream? (25th March 2015)
• Any differences between waking and dream are qualitative rather than substantive
• The relative duration of waking and dream
• Memory creates the illusion of long or short duration
• Any argument that waking and dream are fundamentally different is begging the question
• While dreaming we seem to be awake
• The power of the illusion that whatever we are currently experiencing is real
• Investigating ourself is the only way to ascertain whether our present state is real or just another dream
284. All phenomena are just a dream, and the only way to wake up is to investigate who is dreaming (31st March 2015)
• We alone actually exist, so we are the only real tattva
• The only way to wake up permanently is to investigate who is dreaming
• In a dream there is only one dreamer or experiencer
• We are the centre and source of time and space
• Why do we not immediately experience ourself as we really are?
• Why is the practice of self-attentiveness is called vicāra or ‘investigation’?
• Physical space appears only in our mental space, and our mental space appears only in the space of our self-awareness
• Our awareness of ourself in sleep
• What happens to ourself when our body dies?
285. Why should we believe that dream is anything other than a fabrication of our dreaming mind? (Wednesday, 7 June 2017)
286. Only the absolute clarity of true self-knowledge will put an end to all our dreams (17th February 2007: extract from HAB chapter 2)
287. Our self-consciousness is the absolute reality (18th February 2007: extract from HAB chapter 2)

The state of true self-knowledge

288. Is it possible for us to have a ‘glimpse of Self’? (Saturday, 30 January 2021)
289. Is it possible to have a ‘direct but temporary experience of the self’ or to watch the disappearance of the I-thought? (Friday, 22 March 2019)
• Can either ego or our real nature have a ‘direct but temporary experience of the self’?
• Temporary disappearance of the I-thought is manōlaya, which is of no spiritual benefit whatsoever
• When the I-thought disappears, there is no one remaining to experience anything
• When the I-thought disappears, nothing happens, because there is no one to whom anything could happen, so no words can describe what remains there
• All phenomena are just a mental projection, because they do not exist except in the deluded view of ego, so their appearance has nothing to do with disappearance of ego
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 26: if we investigate ego keenly enough, it will cease to exist, and everything else will cease to exist along with it
• What is to investigate ego is only ego itself, so when it disappears there will be no one left to see its disappearance
• Śrī Aruṇācala Aṣṭakam verse 2: our real nature cannot be revealed by any means other than silence, which is what remains when we look within to see who the seer is
290. Any experience that is temporary is not manōnāśa and hence not ‘self-realisation’ (Thursday, 27 July 2017)
• Self-realisation (ātma-sākṣātkāra) is not ‘cosmic consciousness’ but awareness of oneself alone
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 6: the cosmos does not exist independent of the mind that perceives it
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 3: unless perception of any world or cosmos ceases, there can be no self-realisation (svarūpa-darśana)
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 4: when we see what we actually are, no world or cosmos will seem to exist
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 26: if we seem to be the ego, phenomena seem to exist, and if we do not seem to be the ego, no phenomena exist at all
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 13: awareness of phenomena is not real awareness (jñāna) but only ignorance (ajñāna)
• Since sleep is devoid of multiplicity or diversity (nānātva), it is pure self-awareness, whereas waking and dream are states of dense ignorance
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 13: the only difference between manōlaya and manōnāśa is that the ego will rise from manōlaya but never from manōnāśa
• In order to be annihilated our ego must turn its entire attention keenly back towards itself alone to see what it actually is
• Since viṣaya-vāsanās are the ego’s urges, none of them can survive when the ego is annihilated by ātma-sākṣātkāra
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 17: if we investigate it keenly enough, we will find that there is no such thing as an ego or mind
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 38: if we investigate it keenly enough, we will find that there is no ego and hence no bondage, so liberation is eternal
291. Self-knowledge is not a void (śūnya) (22nd September 2015)
• The void, blank and nothingness are just ideas
• The meaning of śūnya and śūnyatā
• We are not śūnya in the sense of non-existent or nothing
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 23: what exists (uḷḷadu) is what is aware (uṇarvu)
• Emptiness requires the existence of something that is empty
• Suñña Lōka Suttaṁ: the world is ‘empty of oneself or of anything belonging to oneself’
• What did Buddha mean by anattā?
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 28: the real nature of ourself
• We are fullness, not a void, because nothing other than ourself actually exists
• Ēkāṉma Pañcakam verse 5: what exists always by its own light is only ourself
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 27: we are devoid of knowledge and ignorance
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 10: knowing the non-existence of the ego is true knowledge
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 11: knowing anything other than oneself is ignorance
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 12: we are not a void, though devoid of knowledge and ignorance
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 31: when our ego is destroyed, we will not know anything other than ourself
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 18: when we know ourself, we will experience the world only as its formless substratum
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 4: we can experience the world as forms only if we experience ourself as a form
• Why is true knowledge devoid not only of knowledge but also of ignorance of anything other than ourself
• Since true knowledge is devoid of knowledge and ignorance, why does Bhagavan say it is not a void?
• We alone are what is full, whole or pūrṇa
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 7: the eternal and immutable ground and source of the ego and world is the infinite whole
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 20: what remains as ‘I am I’ after the ego dissolves is infinite fullness
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 30: ‘I am I’ means we are only ourself, and since nothing else exists we are the infinite whole
• Upadēśa Taṉippākkaḷ verse 12: being aware of multiplicity is ignorance
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 13: since we alone are real, being aware of anything else is ignorance
• Why do we fear to let go of everything?
• Why does sleep seem to our waking mind to have been a blank?
292. The jñāni is only pure awareness (prajñāna) and not whatever person it may seem to be (Tuesday, 27 December 2016)
• What Bhagavan replied to questions depended on the willingness and capacity of the questioner to understand and accept whatever he might say
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 15: for the jñāni there is no ego or mind and hence no action
• The body and mind that the jñāni seems to be exist only in the outward looking view of the ajñāni
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu Anubandham verse 32: in the clear view of the jñāni what exists is not waking, dream or sleep but only ‘wakeful sleep’
• The ego is dēhātma-buddhi (the awareness or idea that a body is oneself), so it cannot stand without attaching itself to a body
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu Anubandham verse 31: like someone who is asleep, the jñāni is not at all aware of the body or any other phenomena
293. Why does Bhagavan sometimes say that the ātma-jñāni is aware of the body and world? (Wednesday, 23 November 2016)
• The ātma-jñāni is not a person but the one infinite space of pure self-awareness, other than which nothing exists
• Aruṇācalaramaṇa is paramātman, which blissfully shines as awareness in the heart of each one of us
• When we are aware of ourself as we actually are, we cannot be aware of anything else whatsoever
• What we perceive as this world is what the ātma-jñāni perceives as itself, which is just pure self-awareness
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu Anubandham verse 33: though in the self-ignorant view of our ego the jñāni seems to be a person experiencing some prarabdha, it is not actually a person and therefore does not experience any prarabdha
294. Pure self-awareness is not nothingness but the only thing that actually exists (Thursday, 13 July 2017)
295. Self-consciousness alone is true knowledge (10th January 2007)
296. The transcendent state of true self-knowledge is the only real state (10th March 2007: extract from HAB chapter 6)
297. What is enlightenment, liberation or nirvāṇa? (19th July 2014)
298. Who has attained ‘self-realisation’? (30th December 2006)
299. Is there any such thing as a ‘self-realised’ person? (20th November 2014)
300. Whatever jñāna we believe we see in anyone else is false (Sunday, 31 March 2019)

The philosophy of Bhagavan’s teachings

301. In what sense does Bhagavan generally use the terms பொருள் (poruḷ) and வஸ்து (vastu)? (Thursday, 4 January 2018)
302. Could what exists ever not exist? (Wednesday, 12 May 2021)
303. Our existence is self-evident, because we shine by our own light of pure self-awareness (Wednesday, 28 February 2018)
304. Though we appear in two distinct modes, we are just one awareness (Monday, 9 March 2020)
• Intransitive awareness and transitive awareness are just two modes of one awareness, namely ourself
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verses 4 and 25: only when we grasp the form of a body as ourself are we aware of other forms
• We who are now aware of phenomena are the same awareness that shone alone as pure awareness in sleep, but it is only as ego that we are aware of phenomena
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 10: only awareness of ourself as we actually are, which is pure intransitive awareness, is real awareness
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 11: when we know the reality of ourself, who now know other things, transitive knowledge and ignorance will cease to exist
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 12: real awareness, which is ourself as we actually are, is devoid of transitive awareness and ignorance, because nothing else exists for it to know or not know
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 13: awareness of multiplicity is ignorance, and though it is unreal, in substance it is not other than oneself, who is real awareness
• When we practise self-investigation, we are trying to withdraw ourself from this transitive mode of awareness back into our natural intransitive mode of awareness
305. Which comes first: ego or self-negligence (pramāda)? (Tuesday, 30 July 2019)
306. Why or how we have risen as ego is inexplicable, but Bhagavan does explain why and how we can cease rising (Monday, 20 January 2020)
• The sole aim of all of Bhagavan’s teachings is to show us why and how we should get rid of ego
• Our rising and our desire to rise seem to occur only in the self-deluded view of ourself as ego
• As ego we need to accept full culpability for having risen, and consequently full responsibility for ceasing to rise
• Rising as ego is a misuse of our infinite freedom, so it is only as ego that we have misused it
• Whatever is said about ego is not intended to be an adequate explanation of its seeming existence but just a pointer showing us how to get rid of it
307. What does Bhagavan mean by the term ‘mind’? (Thursday, 16 January 2020)
• In many contexts Bhagavan uses ‘mind’ as a synonym for ego, but in other contexts he uses it in a broader sense to refer to the totality of all thoughts
• In other contexts ‘mind’ (manas) refers to the functions of the mind that are distinct from intellect (buddhi), will (cittam) and ego (ahaṁkāra)
• Mind (in the sense of ego) is the extraordinary power called māyā, which is a distorted reflection of the original power of awareness (cit-śakti), so it is what causes all phenomena to appear
• Āṉma-Viddai verse 5: mind (in the sense of ego) is both the space in which all phenomena appear and the eye in whose view alone they appear
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 4: only when we rise as ego and consequently grasp the form of a body as ourself are we able to perceive other forms
• Nāṉ Ār? paragraph 5: the mind is essentially just ego, the first thought, which is what rises as ‘I’, the false awareness ‘I am this body’, without which nothing else exists
1. First sentence: Whatever it is that rises in this body as ‘I’, that alone is the mind
2. Second sentence: If one investigates in what place the thought called ‘I’ first appears in the body, one will come to know that it is in the heart
3. Third sentence: That [the heart] alone is the birthplace of the mind
4. Fourth sentence: Even if one continues thinking I, I, it will take and leave in that place [the heart]
5. Fifth sentence: Of all the thoughts that appear in the mind, the thought called I alone is the first thought
6. Sixth sentence: Only after this [the thought called I] arises do other thoughts arise
7. Seventh sentence: Only after the first person appears do second and third persons appear
8. Eighth sentence: Without the first person second and third persons do not exist
• Whatever world we perceive is nothing but thoughts, so since no thoughts can exist without ego, when ego ceases to exist all worlds will cease to exist along with it
308. If we investigate the ego closely enough we will see that it is only brahman, but however closely we investigate the world we can never thereby see that it is brahman (Saturday, 10 March 2018)
309. How can there be any experience without something that is experiencing it? (Friday, 28 June 2019)
• The awareness that is an appearance is not real awareness, which exists and shines eternally, but only the false awareness called ego, which appears and disappears
• Since what experiences anything other than itself is only ego, which does not actually exist but merely seems to exist, all its experiences likewise do not actually exist but merely seem to exist
• We cannot experience anything without being aware of it, and since we could not be aware without being aware that we are aware, being aware always entails being self-aware
• Generally ‘experience’ refers to experience of something other than ourself, but we need to be flexible in our use and understanding of words, so it is not necessarily wrong to talk of self-experience
• As ego our view of ourself and of everything else is fundamentally distorted and erroneous, but in the clear view of pure awareness, which is what we actually are, there is no ego or any view other than its own
• As ego we are just a false appearance, which seems to exist only in the view of ourself as ego, so as pure awareness we are not aware of the appearance or disappearance of ourself as ego
• The only experience that exists and shines eternally is our fundamental awareness ‘I am’, so we cannot be any experience other than that
• Other than pure awareness, ‘I am’, everything that we experience is just a dream, and the dreamer of this dream is only ourself as ego, the false awareness ‘I am this body’
310. How can we be sure that we can wake up from this dream of our present life? (Monday, 24 June 2019)
311. If this world is just a dream, why should we justify to others that it is so? (Wednesday, 11 November 2020)
• Why try to justify that this world is a dream?
• Do we try to justify to people in our dreams, that it is a dream?
• Who realizes it is a dream?
• Real manana is closely connected with practice, because it should constantly draw our attention back to ourself
312. What is the correct meaning of ‘Be in the now’? (Tuesday, 12 February 2019)
• Different levels of spiritual teachings are intended to suit different levels of spiritual development
• Since the real ‘now’, the precise present moment, has no duration, nothing can ever happen or change in it
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 15: now is the only time that ever actually exists
• To be in the actual now we must cease rising as ego, and to cease rising as ego we must attend to ourself alone
313. In what sense is it true to say ‘everything is one’? (Tuesday, 2 February 2021)

God, guru, grace, devotion and sat-saṅga

314. Can we experience what we actually are by following the path of devotion (bhakti mārga)? (18 July 2015)
• The diversity within bhakti mārga, the path of devotion
• The distinction between kāmya bhakti and niṣkāmya bhakti
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 2: no action or karma can give liberation
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 3: niṣkāmya karma done with love for God will show the way to liberation
• Why is purification of mind necessary?
• Śrī Aruṇācala Pañcaratnam verse 3: only by a pure mind can we know what we really are
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 18: our ego is the root of all our mental impurities
• We can free ourself from our ego only by self-investigation
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 25: by attending to anything other than ourself we are sustaining our ego
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 13: by attending to ourself we are surrendering ourself to God
• Upadēśa Taṉippākkaḷ verse 15: self-investigation is supreme devotion to God
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu Anubandham verse 14: self-investigation is karma, bhakti, yōga and jñāna
• The relative efficacy of niṣkāmya karmas done by body, speech and mind
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 4: dhyāna is more effective than japa, which is more effective than pūjā
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 5: anything can be worshipped as God
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 6: the relative efficacy of different modes of japa
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 7: uninterrupted meditation is superior to interrupted meditation
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 8: meditating on nothing other than ourself is ‘the best among all’
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 9: by meditating on ourself we will subside in our real state of being
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 10: subsiding and being in our source is karma, bhakti, yōga and jñāna
• Analysis of the various types of bhakti
• Sadhu Om’s analysis of bhakti
• Anya bhakti and ananya bhakti can be mutually supportive practices
• What is prayer?
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 12: we must without fail follow the path taught by our guru
• Is self-surrender an alternative to self-investigation?
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 26: we cannot surrender our ego so long as we are aware of anything other than ourself
• Partial surrender will gradually lead to complete surrender
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 13: the significance of the last three sentences
• Conclusion
315. Is any external help required for us to succeed in the practice of self-investigation? (Saturday, 24 August 2019)
• Self-investigation is both necessary and sufficient, so nothing else is either necessary or sufficient, and hence nothing in addition to self-investigation is required
• The only result we should expect from our practice of self-investigation is purification of mind culminating in eradication of ego
• What we are seeking can be found only within ourself and cannot be given by anyone else
• We do not need anything to be transmitted to us, because all that we need already exists within us
• Āṉma-Viddai verse 5: grace is also necessary, but it is already inside us, so it is always available to us if we have sufficient love to surrender ourself to it
316. The role of grace in all that ego creates (Monday, 5 August 2019)
• What manifested outwardly as the human form of Bhagavan and his teachings is what is called ‘grace’, which is the infinite love that he has for us as himself
• Though Bhagavan does not explicitly say in Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu that our present world is just a dream, he clearly implies this in many of its verses
• Nāṉ Ār? paragraph 4: the world is nothing but thoughts, the seeds of which are our viṣaya-vāsanās, and what makes these thoughts appear is ego, which is the root and essence of the mind
• Since we as ego have created all this, we can put an end to all the problems and sufferings we see in this world only by surrendering ourself back into the source from which we have risen
• What is called ‘the higher power’ is nothing other than grace, which is Bhagavan’s infinite love, so it does not create anything, but for our benefit it does regulate what we as ego create
• Nāṉ Ār? paragraph 13: grace is always shining in our heart and in many subtle ways it is gradually rectifying our will, so all we need do is to yield ourself to it entirely by being so keenly self-attentive that we give not even the slightest room to the rising of ourself as ego
• Nāṉ Ār? paragraph 15: everything happens by the mere presence of grace, but grace has no desire that anything should happen, and it does not itself do anything, nor is it affected by anything that is done
• Grace is the light of awareness that illumines our mind, so the correct use we can make of it is to turn our mind back within and attend to it with heart-melting love
317. The truth of Arunachala and of ‘seeing the light’ (deepa-darśana) (11th December 2008)
318. What is ‘remembering the Lord’ or ‘remembrance of Arunachala’? (Sunday, 19 March 2017)
319. How to merge in Arunachala like a river in the ocean? (Monday, 18 November 2019)
320. We should not be concerned with anything happening outside but only with what is happening inside (Sunday, 24 September 2017)
321. God as both nirguṇa brahman and saguṇa brahman (29th May 2008)
322. Experiencing God as he really is (5th June 2008)
323. God as pūrṇa — the one infinite whole (7th July 2008)
324. God as pāramārthika satya — the absolute reality (17th July 2008)
325. Dhyāna-p-Paṭṭu: The Song on Meditation (30th December 2013)
326. Repetition of Bhagavan’s name (11th June 2007)
327. ‘I am’ is the most appropriate name of God (6th March 2007: extract from HAB chapter 5)
328. Contemplating ‘I’, which is the original name of God (2nd March 2007: extract from HAB chapter 4)
329. Our real self can reveal itself only through silence (29th July 2007: extract from HAB chapter 5)
330. Where to find and how to reach the real presence of our guru? (15th June 2008)
331. What is the real ‘living guru’, and what is the look of its grace? (Sunday, 5 March 2017)
332. We should seek guru only within ourself (12th August 2010)
333. Is a ‘human guru’ really necessary? (6th January 2007)
334. Which spiritual teachings are truly credible? (7th January 2007)
335. Where can we find the clarity of true self-knowledge? (12th January 2007)
336. Let us not be distracted from following the real teachings of Sri Ramana (14th January 2007)
337. Which sat-saṅga will free us from our ego? (9th June 2008)
338. ‘Giving satsaṅga’ (13th January 2007)

Action or karma cannot give liberation

339. The karma theory as taught by Sri Ramana (5th September 2014)
340. Why did Sri Ramana teach a karma theory? (12th September 2014)
341. How is karma destroyed only by self-investigation? (31st May 2015)
342. If everything is predestined, how can the law of karma be true? (Friday, 18 December 2020)
• Though we are not free to change anything that is predetermined, we are free to want to change it and to try to change it
• Fate (vidhi) and will (mati) operate side by side in our life, without either ever intruding upon the domain of the other, so there is no question of either prevailing over the other
• Bhagavan expressed his teachings in a carefully nuanced manner, but most people who recorded his answers to questions lacked a sufficiently subtle understanding, so they often failed to grasp the nuances in what he said
• Freedom of will (icchā-svatantra) and consequent freedom of action (kriyā-svatantra) are implicit in all that Bhagavan taught us about the need for us to practise self-investigation and self-surrender
• So long as we rise as ego, will and fate both seem to be real, but if we investigate ourself keenly enough, we will see that we have never risen as ego and have therefore never acted under the sway of our will or experienced the fruit of such actions
• When Bhagavan said that ‘everything is predetermined’, the ‘everything’ he was referring to is everything that we are to experience according to prārabdha, so this does not at all contradict that fact that we do have freedom to will and act (icchā-kriyā-svatantra)
• When Bhagavan said ‘The only freedom you have is to turn your mind inward and renounce activities there’, it is clear from the context that what he meant is that the only freedom we have to renounce all activities is to turn our mind inwards
• We can use our freedom of will and action (icchā-kriyā-svatantra) to do either kāmya karmas of any kind or niṣkāmya pūjā, niṣkāmya japa or niṣkāmya dhyāna, but turning our mind inwards to attend to ourself alone is the best among all the possible uses we can make of this freedom
343. Concern about fate and free will arises only when our mind is turned away from ourself (Tuesday, 20 June 2017)
• Any state in which we experience ourself as a body and consequently perceive phenomena is just a dream
• The fundamental choice we have is between pravṛtti (going outwards) and nivṛtti (withdrawing back within)
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 25: we embark on the path of pravṛtti by rising as an ego, which we do by grasping forms
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 5: the body we grasp as ourself is a form composed of five sheaths
• None of these sheaths, not even the ānandamaya kōśa, exist or envelop us in sleep
• Experiencing oneself as this body of five sheaths cannot but give rise to the sense of doership, which is therefore the very nature of the ego
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 19: the ego is the root and foundation of fate and free will, because it alone has free will and experiences fate
• The actions of our mind, speech and body are driven by two forces, fate and free will
• Bhagavan’s note for his mother: we cannot alter whatever is destined to happen, but we are free to want and to try to do so
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 13: to be silent, we must be so keenly self-attentive that we do not give even the slightest room to the rising of any thought about anything other than ourself
• Śrī Aruṇācala Aṣṭakam verse 6: let any thoughts appear or disappear, we should be so keenly self-attentive that we are completely indifferent to them
• Distinguishing thoughts or actions driven by our fate from those driven by our free will is neither necessary nor possible
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 38: only by using our free will to investigate ourself can we free ourself from the ego and all its three karmas
• Unless our attention is turned outwards, away from ourself, prārabdha cannot bind us or make us think anything
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 2: being the fruit of our past actions, prārabdha cannot make our mind turn within and hence can never give us liberation
• Upadēśa Undiyār verses 8 and 9: by the intensity of self-attentiveness we will be in our real state of being, which is beyond thinking
• Prārabdha determines what we must experience only so long as we are facing outwards, so it can never prevent us turning back within to facr ourself
344. Actions or karmas are like seeds (27th July 2007: extract from HAB chapter 4)
345. How to avoid doing āgāmya and experiencing prārabdha? (19th September 2014)
346. How to avoid creating fresh karma (āgāmya)? (21st January 2011)
347. How can we see inaction in action? (Monday, 6 February 2017)
348. Can sexual energy really be liberated? (12th January 2007)

Purification of mind

349. Like everything else, karma is created solely by ego’s misuse of its will (cittam), so what needs to be rectified is its will (Saturday, 1 September 2018)
• What binds us is not action itself but the desire or will with which we do it
• Desireless action (niṣkāmya karma) can purify our mind only to a limited extent, so to purify it completely we must turn it back towards ourself
• Will is the key to both bondage and liberation, so we must use our will wisely by choosing to turn back within in order to merge forever in our real nature
• Rather than concerning ourself with actions we should concern ourself with the will that drives them
• The practice of self-surrender entails surrendering the will that drives us to rise as ego and thereby go outwards
• To turn within and surrender the ego entirely we need to cultivate intense vairāgya or desirelessness
• The key to success in self-investigation, self-surrender or any other spiritual practice is our will, so we succeed to the extent that our will is purified by our practice
• Will and free will are two distinct concepts, because though many people deny the existence of free will, no one can reasonably deny the existence of will
• The ego and its will are two distinct things
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 19: the origin, root and foundation of both fate and will is the ego
• In the dispute about which prevails, fate or will, both sides are incorrect, because fate and will each prevail in their own sphere
• Freedom of will is an essential premise of the law of karma and of all that Bhagavan taught us about spiritual practice
• Limitations on the freedom of our will are internal rather than external
• Since we are free to choose what we attend to, we can choose which vāsanās we feed with our attention and which we deprive of our attention
• Self-attentiveness is the most effective means to purify our will (cittam), but not the only means
• Fate does to some extent limit our freedom to act as we choose, but it does not even to the slightest extent limit our freedom to choose how we wish to act
• Nāṉ Ār? paragraph 9: to accomplish the aim of self-investigation we need the strength of one-pointed love to surrender ourself
• The role and influence of the will in the antaḥkaraṇa or ‘inner instrument’
• Our viṣaya-vāsanās are the bonds that keep us bound to saṁsāra, so we need to cleanse our mind of them in order to free ourself from this bondage
• We cannot get rid of the sense of doership merely by telling ourself that we are not the doer but only by eradicating ego by means of self-investigation
• The ego and its sense of doership are such a deep-rooted pair of identifications that they cannot be eradicated by any means other than self-investigation
• To free ourself from harmful desires, we must cultivate desires that support us in our efforts to turn within to merge in that which is desireless
• Whether a certain action is predetermined by prārabdha or not, if we have even the slightest liking or wish to do it or to achieve anything thereby, it is to that extent driven by our will
• Our will drives not only the actions we do by mind and speech but also those that we do by body, as Bhagavan implies in verse 4 of Upadēśa Undiyār
• Those who recorded what Bhagavan said in reply to questions about predetermination and freedom of will often failed to grasp all the nuances in his replies
• Everything that comes under the jurisdiction of prārabdha is predetermined, and everything that comes under the jurisdiction of our will, including āgāmya, is not predetermined
• Freedom to do whatever we want is not freedom of will (icchā-svatantra) but freedom of action (kriyā-svatantra), which is limited
• The pravṛtti elements of our will are the cause of our bondage and its nivṛtti elements will be the cause of our salvation
• No thought can rise unless we, the ego, are willing to attend to it, so we are ultimately responsible for everything we think
• The fog of avivēka consists of the pravṛtti elements of our will, and the clear light of vivēka is what remains when this fog is dispersed
• Whatever Bhagavan said about God was nuanced and adapted to the context and to the needs of whoever he was addressing
• Nāṉ Ār? paragraph 15: God does not actually do anything, but everything that happens or is done happens only by his mere presence
• Desires and other elements of our will are not predetermined but determined only by ego, whose will it is
• There is no will in sleep, because there is no ego then, and because it is ego’s will and therefore cannot exist without it
• Einstein was wrong to believe that we cannot want what we want and that our will is therefore not free
• Schopenhauer believed that the will is not free because there must be sufficient reason for it, but the nature of the ego is the sole reason for it, so it has no external cause and is therefore free
• Though ego and its free will are ultimately unreal, in prātibhāsika satya they are in effect real
• Love for happiness alone is what gives rise to and is the driving force behind every element of our will, so our will is essentially just love for happiness, and as such it is not illusory but real
• Sam Harris’s arguments against free will are superficial and based on faulty assumptions
• Whether our will is free or not is a metaphysical issue, and metaphysical issues cannot be resolved by science but only by considering deep metaphysical questions
• If we believe that we do not have any freedom of will, we cannot coherently believe that we are free to investigate or surrender ourself
• Freedom of will does not mean that our will itself is free, but that as ego we are free to want whatever we want
• Prārabdha is selected by grace, which is the infinite love that we as we really are have for ourself as we really are
• Liberation or ‘self-realisation’ is determined by nothing other than love, which is the focusing of our entire will on ourself alone
• The power that drives our mind, whether outwards or inwards, is our will, so grace works from within us to induce us to willingly rectify our will so that it drives us back within
• Self-investigation (ātma-vicāra) is not imagining, which is a mental activity, but the cessation of all mental activity
• Love to be aware of ourself alone can be cultivated by bhakti practices, of which self-investigation and self-surrender are the most efficacious
• In order to be still we must persistently try to be self-attentive, which we will do to the extent that we love to be aware of ourself as we actually are
• For eradicating ego, śubha vāsanās are generally more conducive than aśubha vāsanās
• Without rectifying its will, ego will not investigate itself keenly enough to see what it actually is
350. Why is self-investigation the only means to eradicate ego but not the only means to achieve citta-śuddhi? (Saturday, 22 December 2018)
• Guru Vācaka Kōvai verse 622: since we are always that, nothing is as astonishing as our striving to achieve that as if it were something other than ourself
• In order for us to lose everything, including ego, the root of everything, self-investigation and self-surrender are the only entirely effective means
• Why is self-investigation the only means to eradicate ego?
• Bhagavan gave different levels of teaching to suit different levels of spiritual maturity, but this does not mean that it is not correct to say that self-investigation is the only way to eradicate ego
• We should consider alternatives wherever they are possible, but should not look for them where they are logically impossible
351. Must we purify our mind by other means before we can practise ātma-vicāra?> (Tuesday, 25 September 2018)
• The only real yātrā (pilgrimage) is the inward one that Bhagavan has shown us
• If we have even the slightest inclination to practise ātma-vicāra, we have already gained sufficient citta-śuddhi by other means
• To follow this path we must be willing to surrender ourself along with all our cares and anxieties, likes and dislikes, hopes and fears
352. Praising or disparaging others is anātma-vicāra (Monday, 24 August 2020)
• ‘வந்த வேலையைப் பார்’ (vanda vēlaiyai-p pār), ‘Attend to the work for which you have come’
• Whatever person we currently seem to be is not real, so why should we be concerned about whatever others may say about this person?
• Nāṉ Ār? paragraph 19: however bad other people may appear to be, we should not dislike them
• Nāṉ Ār? paragraph 20: if we rise as ego, everything rises, and if we subside, everything subsides
• Nāṉ Ār? paragraphs 10 and 11: to curb and eventually eradicate all our viṣaya-vāsanās we must cling tenaciously to self-attentiveness (svarūpa-dhyāna)
• If anyone insults or maligns us, we should not feel hurt or offended but grateful to them
• Śrī Aruṇācala Navamaṇimālai verse 7: we should not think of any defects or qualities but only of Annamalai, our own real nature (svarūpa)
• Whatever is not destined to happen will not happen however much one may try to make it happen, and whatever is destined to happen will not stop however much one may try to prevent it happening
• So long as we rise as ego, we are responsible for our will and for whatever actions we allow our will to drive us to do
• Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 47: we can subside and merge in our real nature only if we are sufficiently pure in both mind and speech
• What is called purification of mind (citta-śuddhi) is just reduction in the strength of our viṣaya-vāsanās, so we can go deep in the practice of self-investigation and self-surrender only to the extent that our mind is purified
• If we do not yield ourself completely to the one paramēśvara śakti, under the sway of our vāsanās we will be constantly thinking that we need to do like this or like that, and such thinking will impel us to do āgāmya by mind, speech and body
• So long as we act under the sway (vaśa) of our inclinations (vāsanās) we are morally responsible for our actions
• We can refrain from acting under the sway of our vāsanās, and to the extent that we refrain from acting under their sway we are thereby purifying our mind
• Guru Vācaka Kōvai verse 790: to err is human nature, but we should acknowledge and rectify our errors and thereby strive wholeheartedly to reform ourself
353. If we choose to do any harmful actions, should we consider them to be done according to destiny (prārabdha)? (Tuesday, 5 September 2017)
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 19: the dispute about which prevails, fate or free will, is only for those who have not seen the non-existence of the ego
• Fate and free will each prevail in their own domain, so they are not opposed to each other
• Using our free will we must cultivate sat-vāsanā and thereby curb and eventually eradicate all other vāsanās
• We have no control over our fate, so it need not concern us, but we do have control over how we use our free will, so we should be concerned about what use we make of it
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 2: the cause of bondage is not fate but vāsanās, which belong only to the domain of free will
• Bhagavan’s note for his mother: only what is destined to happen will happen, and though that cannot be changed we are free to try to change it
• Those who recorded what Bhagavan said in reply to questions about fate and free will often failed to grasp all the nuances in his replies
• Our prārabdha is tailor-made to suit both our vāsanās and our willingness not to allow ourself to be swayed by them
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraphs 10 and 11: being self-attentive requires vairāgya, which entails not being swayed by our viṣaya-vāsanās
• The best use we can make of our free will is to choose to be self-attentive, but even when we attend to anything else we should choose at least to avoid doing harmful actions

Compassion and ahiṁsā

354. The supreme compassion of Sri Ramana (21st August 2007: extract from HAB chapter 10)
355. The importance of compassion and ahiṁsā (22nd August 2007: extract from HAB chapter 10)
356. Why are compassion and ahiṁsā necessary in a dream? (11th January 2015)
• A dream seems to be real so long as we are experiencing it
• How to respond to suffering seen in a dream?
• Waking up from a dream is the only solution to all the suffering we see in it
• Self-investigation is the only means by which we can wake up from this dream
• Until we wake up from this dream we must avoid causing harm to others
• We should not be too preoccupied with injustices or other worldly matters
• So long as our mind is turned outwards we should care about the well-being of others
• To keep our ego in check we must be vigilantly self-attentive
• Who is responsible for the creation of this world?
• Only in absolute silence can we experience what we actually are
357. Ahiṁsā and sexual morality (4th April 2014: Interview on Celibacy – Part 4)

Death and immortality

358. Overcoming our spiritual complacency (14th March 2007: extract from HAB chapter 9)
359. The fear of death is inherent in our love for our own being (18th March 2007: extract from HAB chapter 9)
360. Taking refuge at the ‘feet’ of God (15th March 2007: extract from HAB chapter 9)
361. The state of true immortality (16th March 2007: extract from HAB chapter 9)
362. Experiencing our natural state of true immortality (22 June 2008)

Non-duality or advaita

363. There are many interpretations of advaita, but Bhagavan’s teachings are the simplest, clearest and deepest (Sunday, 2 February 2020)
• What is required in order to go deep in the practice of self-investigation and self-surrender is not learning so much as unlearning
• What is the nature of the vidya that will dispel avidya, and how can we acquire it?
• No one before Bhagavan had ever explained the deep, subtle and radical principles and practice of advaita in such a clear, simple, coherent and convincing manner as he has done
• Why are the simple principles of advaita so often obscured by convoluted interpretations and explanations?
• Different interpretations of Bhagavan’s teachings are inevitable, because how each mind understands them is determined by its level of purity
• If we do manana correctly, it will draw our attention back to ourself and constantly remind us and motivate us to be self-attentive
364. Non-duality is the truth even when duality appears to exist (4th March 2007: extract from HAB chapter 5)
365. Is there really any difference between the advaita taught by Sri Ramana and that taught by Sri Adi Sankara? (27th December 2006)
366. What is advaita? (28th December 2006)
367. Advaita sādhana — non-dualistic spiritual practice (27th November 2008)
368. No differences exist in the non-dual view of Sri Ramana (28th March 2014: Interview on Celibacy – Part 3)

The appearance of duality

369. Is anything other than ourself intrinsically existent? (Sunday, 29 August 2021)
• What evidence do we have that anything other than ourself exists?
• Is there anything that we experience in our present state that we could not equally well experience in a dream?
• Ego (the subject) and phenomena (objects) appear in waking and dream but disappear in sleep, so they are both just temporary appearances and hence not real
• Awareness of our own existence exists and shines in all three states without ever appearing or disappearing, so that alone is what we actually are
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 23: what actually exists is only our awareness of our own existence, and that alone is what we actually are
• Do we have any adequate reason to suppose that our present state is anything other than a dream?
• The simplest possible explanation for all that we experience is that everything other than ourself is just a dream
• Bhagavad Gītā Sāram verse 9: what actually exists must always exist, so what does not always exist does not actually exist even if it seems to exist
• Forms derive their existence from the substance or substances of which they consist, so they do not exist intrinsically but only contingently
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 26: ego is the one substance of which all phenomena consist, because they seem to exist only in the view of ourself as ego, and hence none of them could seem to exist without ego
• What exists and shines in sleep is only our fundamental awareness of our own existence, ‘I am’, so this alone is the source and substance of ego
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 16: real awareness is only awareness of what actually exists, namely ourself, so we can remain as real awareness only by knowing nothing other than ourself
370. Does anything exist independent of our perception of it? (Tuesday, 2 May 2017)
• Is the proposition that the world may not exist when we do not perceive it as far-fetched as it may seem?
• Even though this world may be a dream, we should act in it as if it were real
• Is there any significant difference between our present state and dream?
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 4: this world is a mental projection, so it does not exist independent of our perception of it
• What actually exists is perfect, so imperfection lies only in our misperception of it
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 18: there is no substantive difference between waking and dream
• If what we now take to be waking is actually just another dream, nothing that we perceive exists independent of our perception of it
• Since nothing other than ourself is certainly real, we should focus on investigating what we ourself actually are
371. When the ego seems to exist, other things seem to exist, and when it does not seem to exist, nothing else seems to exist (Sunday, 27 November 2016)
• Vāsanās are attributes of our ego, so they cannot exist independent of it
• Vāsanās seem to exist only in the view of our ego, so they are illusory appearances that only seem to exist relative to its seeming existence
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 26: the ego is the sole cause for the seeming existence of everything else
• Śrī Aruṇācala Aṣṭakam verse 7: if the ego does not exist, nothing else exists
• The ego is the root cause of everything, including the ‘causal body’ (kāraṇa śarīra)
• The ego is an enigma, being a formless phantom that seems to exist only when it does not look closely at itself
• The ego is the primal mistake that causes the appearance of everything else
• The ego is the first cause, so it cannot be caused by anything else, and hence its appearance is inexplicable
• The ego arises from nothing other than our actual self, but our actual self is not its efficient cause (nimitta kāraṇa)
• All vāsanās will be destroyed completely only when the ego is destroyed, even though the ‘destruction’ of both is metaphorical
• A single moment of pure self-attentiveness will annihilate the ego and all its vāsanās completely
372. What is aware of everything other than ourself is only the ego and not ourself as we actually are (Sunday, 15 January 2017)
• Being cit-jaḍa-granthi, the ego is a confused mixture of awareness (cit) and insentience (jaḍa), so it is aware of everything insentient
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 4: our actual self is infinite (and hence formless) awareness, so it cannot see any finite forms
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 26: everything seems to exist only in the view of the ego, so for its seeming existence it depends on the seeming existence of the ego
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 23: everything else arises only after the ego arises, and if we investigate this ego it will disappear
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 4: when we see ourself as we actually are, we will not be aware of any world
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 3: we cannot be aware of ourself as we actually are unless we cease being aware of any world
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 5: without the ego (the thought called ‘I’ or first person), no phenomena (no other thoughts or second and third persons) exist
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 5: unless we experience ourself as a body, there is no world for us to see
• Guru Vācaka Kōvai verse 98: unless we experience ourself as ‘I am this body’, nothing other than ourself appears
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 6: the mind alone perceives the world, so but for the mind there is no world
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 7: the world is illumined or made perceptible by the mind’s awareness of it
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 22 (kaliveṇbā version): our actual self gives light to the mind, which sees everything
• Guru Vācaka Kōvai verse 114: in the bright light of pure self-awareness, the false appearance of ego, world and God will vanish
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 9: if we look within to see what this ego is, all dyads and triads will cease to exist
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 11: when we know the non-existence of the ego, knowledge and ignorance of everything else will cease
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 10: knowledge and ignorance of phenomena are co-existent and mutually dependent
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 12: real awareness is our actual self, which shines without anything else to know or to cause to know
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 13: what is aware of multiplicity is not real awareness but only ignorance
• Upadēśa Taṉippākkaḷ verse 12: ignorance (ajñāna) is nothing other than awareness that sees the one reality as many forms or phenomena
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 31: when the ego is destroyed by tanmayānanda, what remains is not aware of anything other than itself
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 26: being oneself is knowing oneself
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 14: second and third persons do not exist except in the view of the first person, the ‘I’ who is aware of itself as a body
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 18: for the jñāni, what is real is not the world as such but only its formless ādhāra
• Guru Vācaka Kōvai verse 54: seeing with the infinite eye of sat-cit-āṉanda, the jñāni can see nothing other than that
• Only as this ego, which is not what it actually is, does brahman or ātman see anything other than itself
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 1: everything is in substance just oneself
373. Which is a more reasonable and useful explanation: dṛṣṭi-sṛṣṭi-vāda or sṛṣṭi-dṛṣṭi-vāda? (Sunday, 30 December 2018)
• A vāda is not an experience but an explanation of what is experienced
• Asking ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’ is ultimately a futile endeavour, because it cannot lead us to any useful conclusion
• If the universe does exist independent of our perception of it, is there any reason why it should not have existed forever?
• Is there any evidence that anything we perceive exists independent of our perception of it?
• Was Kant correct to claim that being unable to prove the existence of things external to ourselves is ‘a scandal to philosophy and to the general human reason’?
• Our consciousness of our existence is permanent and therefore independent of our consciousness of time, which appears only in the view of ego, which itself appears only in waking and dream
• Is ‘inference to the best explanation’ an adequate reason to believe in the existence of a mind-independent world?
• What evidence does our experience actually give us?
• We perceive phenomena only when we misperceive ourself as a body, so our perception of phenomena is based on a fundamental error in our perception of ourself
• Does the testimony of others provide us with sufficient evidence that any world exists when we do not perceive it?
• Do we have any adequate evidence to support the idea that our present state is anything but a dream?
• Bhagavan taught us that any state we take to be waking is actually just a dream, because this is the teaching that is most conducive to our developing vairāgya
• The idea that the gross, subtle and causal bodies correspond respectively to waking, dream and sleep is not compatible with the deeper teachings of Bhagavan
• If any state that we take to be waking is actually just a dream, we can infer that there is just one perceiver (ēka-jīva) and that its perception of phenomena is what creates them (dṛṣṭi-sṛṣṭi)
• Like Gaudapada and Sankara, Bhagavan offered different levels of explanation to suit people of different levels of spiritual development
• Guru Vācaka Kōvai verse 534: to accept dṛṣṭi-sṛṣṭi-vāda and ēka-jīva-vāda requires deep courage born of an earnest desire to eradicate ego
• For nivṛtti (withdrawing from activity and returning to one’s source), dṛṣṭi-sṛṣṭi-vāda is the most useful metaphysical view one can adopt, whereas for pravṛtti (going outwards) other views are more appropriate
• Since ego and phenomena do not actually exist but merely seem to exist, what does actually exist?
374. Metaphysical solipsism, idealism and creation theories in the teachings of Sri Ramana (26th September 2014)
375. Other people seem to be real because we seem to be a person (Tuesday, 7 September 2021)
376. The perceiver and the perceived are both unreal (28th September 2014)
377. Like Bhagavan, Sankara taught that objects are perceived only through ignorance and hence by the mind and not by ourself as we actually are (Sunday, 22 January 2017)
• The seeming contradiction between Sankara’s commentaries on Māṇḍukya Kārikā 2.12 and 2.33
• The ego or mind is māyā, and without it there can be no imagination or perception of objects
• Objects are perceived only through ignorance, so they are perceived only by ourself as the mind and not by ourself as the ultimate reality
• Objects are nothing other than ātma-svarūpa, but we cannot see ātma-svarūpa as it is while seeing it as objects
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraphs 3 and 4: perception of the world will cease when we see svarūpa, our ‘own form’ or real nature
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 7: what actually exists is only ātma-svarūpa, so whatever else may seem to exist is not what it seems to be but is only ātma-svarūpa
• Since ātma-svarūpa is not self-ignorant, it cannot see itself as anything other than itself, so everything else is perceived only by the self-ignorant mind
• Though ‘ātman’ is a masculine noun or pronoun, it refers to our genderless self, so its implied meaning is best conveyed by the generic and genderless pronouns ‘one’ and ‘oneself’
• Since ‘ātman’ serves as a generic pronoun referring to oneself, whether it refers to oneself in general, oneself as one actually is or oneself as one seems to be depends upon the context in which it is used
• Since some Buddhist philosophers deny the existence of any self whatsoever, they maintain that there is no support for knowledge and memory
• What we actually are is pure intransitive awareness, because in sleep we are aware without being aware of anything other than ourself
• In order to be aware of ourself as we actually are, we must be willing to cease forever being aware of anything else whatsoever
378. The ultimate truth is ajāta, but because we seem to have risen as ego and consequently perceive a world, Bhagavan, Gaudapada and Sankara teach us primarily from the perspective of vivarta vāda (Wednesday, 8 May 2019)
• Māṇḍukya Kārikā 2.32: the ultimate truth is that nothing has ever come into existence or ceased to exist, so there is no ego and hence no dream
• Ēkāṉma Pañcakam verse 1: knowing oneself is like waking from a dream, but only from the perspective of vivarta vāda and not from the perspective of ajāta
• According to ajāta there is absolutely no utpatti (coming into existence), so no illusion has ever come into existence
• Though ajāta is a direct contradiction of vivarta vāda, it is nevertheless the logical conclusion of it
• There is not just one but many different and often conflicting traditional interpretations of advaita and the writings of Sankara
• In his original writings, particularly in Nāṉ Ār?, Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu and Śrī Aruṇācala Aṣṭakam, Bhagavan explicitly and unequivocally teaches us dṛṣṭi-sṛṣṭi-vāda and ēka-jīva-vāda
• Bhagavan taught us dṛṣṭi-sṛṣṭi-vāda because of all views it is the one that will help us most effectively to free ourself from our desires for and attachment to anything other than ourself
• Though there are other interpretations of vivarta vāda, the simplest and purest form of it is dṛṣṭi-sṛṣṭi-vāda
379. What is the correct meaning of ajāta vāda? (Monday, 21 November 2016)
• What distinguishes ajāta vāda from vivarta vāda is concerning not what actually exists but only what does not actually exist
• Since vivarta vāda contends that non-existent things seem to exist only in the view of the non-existent ego, its logical conclusion can only be ajāta
• The ultimate truth is that no illusory appearance has ever come into existence
• According to vivarta vāda both the seer (the ego) and the seen (all phenomena) are illusory appearances
• The experience of the ātma-jñāni is that the ego and world never seemed to exist at all
380. The difference between vivarta vāda and ajāta vāda is not just semantic but substantive (Tuesday, 25 October 2016)
• Though vivarta vāda seems to be true so long as we seem to be this ego, when we dissolve this ego by investigating ourself we will find that ajāta alone is true
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 4: as we actually are, we are never aware of forms or anything other than ourself
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 6: the world is perceived only by our mind, so it does not exist independent of this mind
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 26: all phenomena seem to exist only when we rise as this ego, so no phenomenon exists independent of this ego
• In an absolute sense, ajāta is the sole reality, and therefore not an alternative or parallel reality
• What is unborn (ajāta) is only pure self-awareness, and since it is the infinite whole, nothing else actually exists
• Ajāta is the experience that there never was any dreamer and hence no dream has ever occurred
• Ajāta is the state in which there never was any ego to perceive any illusion at all
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 35: spiritual accomplishment is not acquiring supernatural powers but only knowing and being what is real
• So long as we seem to be this ego, we need to be taught and to make effort to investigate what we actually are
• We need to distinguish what actually exists from what seems to exist
• The veil of self-ignorance seems to exist only in the view of ourself as this ego and not in the view of ourself as we actually are
381. We can believe vivarta vāda directly but not ajāta vāda (5th October 2014)
382. Is it possible for us to see anything other than ourself as ‘the Self’? (Wednesday, 14 December 2016)
• Seeing anything other than ourself as ourself is the fundamental delusion from which we need to free ourself
• Since ‘the Self’ is ourself as we actually are, how can we see anything else as ‘the Self’ when we do not even see ourself as ‘the Self’?
• ‘Seeing the world as oneself’ is a metaphorical way of saying seeing oneself as oneself, because oneself alone exists
• We cannot know what we actually are and thereby give up our ego by imagining that we are seeing any phenomena as ‘the Self’
• If we try to see anything other than ourself as ‘the Self’, we would thereby be nourishing and sustaining our ego
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 25: attending to any phenomenon is ‘grasping form’ and thereby feeding the ego
• Whatever phenomenon we may perceive is only a thought, so if we give no room to the rising of any thought we will not see any phenomena
• Upadēśa Undiyār verse 28: the nature of ‘the Self’ is diametrically opposite to the nature of phenomena
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraphs 3 and 4: we cannot see ‘the Self’ so long as we see any world, and when we see ‘the Self’ we will not see any world
• There is no ‘return to the marketplace’, because the ‘marketplace’ seems to exist only in the view of the ego
383. How we can confidently dismiss the conclusions of materialist metaphysics (6th April 2015)
• Self-investigation is the only means by which we can eradicate all doubt
• Science cannot resolve any metaphysical doubts
• We cannot be the body that we now seem to be
• Belief in the reality of the waking state is not adequately justified
• Does our present body exist when we are dreaming or asleep?
• What actually exists is only ourself
• Materialist theories of consciousness cannot explain it satisfactorily
• Materialism cannot account for the experiencer
384. Māyā is nothing but our own mind, so it seems to exist only when we seem to be this mind (Tuesday, 27 June 2017)
385. Everything is only our own consciousness (1st March 2007: extract from HAB chapter 3)
386. Everything is just an expansion of our own mind or ego (5th March 2007: extract from HAB chapter 5)
387. Objective knowledge will disappear along with our mind when we know ourself as we really are (4th March 2007: extract from HAB chapter 5)
388. The foundation of all our thoughts is our primal imagination that we are a body (27th February 2007: extract from HAB chapter 3)
389. The cognition of duality (13th January 2007)
390. The truth that underlies cognition (15th January 2007)
391. Are we in this world, or is this world in us? (14th February 2007: extract from HAB chapter 2)
392. Does the world exist independent of our experience of it? (19th December 2014)
393. Why is it necessary to consider the world unreal? (15th February 2015)
394. The world is a creation of our imagination (23rd May 2008)
395. When can there be total recognition that the world is unreal? (Wednesday, 22 June 2016)
396. When this world is nothing but an illusion, why do we run after it? (Friday, 6 January 2017)
397. Why to write about self? (17th April 2009)

The role of reason in understanding and applying Bhagavan's teachings

398. Why do I believe that ātma-vicāra is the only direct means by which we can eradicate the illusion that we are this ego? (Wednesday, 6 January 2016)
• Questioning is the means to develop clarity of understanding and depth of conviction
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 33: it is ridiculous to say either ‘I do not know myself’ or ‘I have known myself’
• Which kind of sat-saṅga is more efficacious: physical or mental?
• Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 44: to see ourself, we must turn back and look at ourself
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 22: unless we turn within to look at ourself, how can we see what we actually are?
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 25: so long as we are aware of anything other than ourself, we seem to be this ego
• Distinguishing what is necessarily true from what is contingently true
• Will ātma-vicāra work for everyone?
• Ātma-vicāra is a guaranteed means to weaken our viṣaya-vāsanās and eventually annihilate our ego
• What Bhagavan said about the English terms ‘realise’ and ‘realisation’
• How I became convinced about the imperative need for ātma-vicāra
• How can we curtail and eventually destroy all desire for praise?
• Why do I consider it necessary to repudiate ideas that deviate from Bhagavan’s actual teachings?
• How can we practise ātma-vicāra in the midst of other activities?
• Why did Bhagavan teach us that manōlaya is not a spiritually beneficial state?
399. Why should we believe what Bhagavan taught us? (Monday, 8 February 2016)
• Why are arguments necessary to enable us to decide rationally what we should believe?
• What does ‘according to Bhagavan’ mean?
• Our beliefs should be based not just on blind intuition but on clear and coherent reasoning
• Why did Bhagavan employ logic when explaining the fundamental principles of his teachings?
• We cannot be anything that we do not experience permanently, so ‘I am only I’
• Since our ego seems to exist whenever we are aware of other things, we can destroy it only by being aware of ourself alone
• Bhagavan’s use of deductive and inductive logic
• If Bhagavan’s teachings were not so logical, why should we believe them?
• How can we be benefitted by understanding the logic underlying Bhagavan’s teachings?
• Belief in God can be beneficial but is not essential
1. Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 7: as a separate entity God is just an illusory fabrication (kalpanā)
2. Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 9: the concept of God as a separate entity provides a beneficial focus for our love
3. Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 13: the more we trust God the easier it will be for us to surrender ourself by attending to nothing other than ourself
4. Upadēśa Taṉippākkaḷ verse 15: God is ourself, so self-attentiveness is supreme devotion to God
5. Upadēśa Undiyār verse 8: love for God as nothing other than oneself is best of all
6. Though potentially beneficial, belief in God is not actually necessary
• The karma theory is an auxiliary but not a fundamental principle of Bhagavan’s teachings
1. Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 15: God is untouched by any karma and therefore does not do anything
2. Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 38: karma exists only for the ego
3. Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 19: fate and free will exist only for the ego
4. Upadēśa Undiyār: liberation is gained not by doing anything but only by just being
5. How can belief in the karma theory be beneficial?
• The relative efficacy of various forms of spiritual practice
400. The role of logic in developing a clear, coherent and uncomplicated understanding of Bhagavan’s teachings (Sunday, 28 February 2016)
• The rising of ourself as an ego causes the appearance of other things in our awareness
• Why must our ego be the cause and other things its effects?
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verses 23 and 28: we need a subtle and sharp mind in order to discern what we actually are
• Śrī Aruṇācala Aṣṭakam verse 5: we must purify our mind by polishing it on itself
• Why we should not be averse to understanding the logic of Bhagavan’s teachings
• The premises of the deductive inference that we are not a body or mind are not inferred inductively
• We can infer deductively that the world appears in our awareness only because we have risen as this ego
• Since all thoughts and perceptions appear only in our ego’s awareness, this ego is the sole cause for their appearance
• Though all deductive inferences are tautologies, they can nevertheless be extremely significant and valuable
• Why must we conclude that our ego is the cause of the world-appearance?
• Does any world exist independent of our ego or mind?
• How can we recognise clearly that we are aware of ourself while asleep?
401. What is the logic for believing that happiness is what we actually are? (Tuesday, 31 May 2016)
• Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 1: a summary of the arguments that happiness is our real nature
• Since we like to be happy, happiness is what causes love, so we love ourself because we ourself are happiness
• We are now aware of ourself as a person consisting of a body and mind, but are we actually this person?
• To recognise that we are aware while asleep, we must distinguish intransitive awareness from transitive awareness
• When Bhagavan said ‘Awareness alone is I’, the awareness he was referring to is only pure intransitive awareness
• சுட்டறிவு (suṭṭaṟivu) is transitive awareness, and what is transitively aware is only our ego
• Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu verse 25: ‘grasping form’ means being transitively aware
• In sleep we are intransitively aware even though we are aware of no phenomena
• The source of all energy is only ourself, who are pure intransitive awareness, so our mind can recuperate its energy only when we remain just intransitively aware in sleep
• We ourself are happiness, because we experience happiness in the absence of everything else in sleep, so to enjoy that happiness we must be aware of ourself as we actually are
402. Why should we rely on Bhagavan to carry all our burdens, both material and spiritual? (Monday, 6 June 2016)
403. Why is it so necessary for us to accept without reservation the fundamental principles of Bhagavan’s teachings? (Saturday, 13 August 2016)

The science of consciousness

404. Pure intransitive awareness alone is real consciousness and what actually exists (Thursday 12 September 2024)
405. To understand consciousness can we rely upon the observations and theories of neuroscience? (Thursday, 31 January 2019)
• To answer any deep metaphysical questions we need to investigate only ourself and not anything that appears in waking and/or dream but disappears in sleep
• We can never have any evidence that any physical phenomena exist independent of ourself, the consciousness that perceives them
406. Scientific research on consciousness (25th April 2014)
407. The true science of consciousness and dṛg-dṛśya-vivēka (12th March 2007: extract from HAB chapter 8)
408. Consciousness and time (31st December 2006)
409. Is there any such thing as ‘biological awareness’? (Wednesday, 24 July 2019)

Books about Bhagavan’s teachings

410. Guru Vācaka Kōvai — e-book (5th September 2007)
411. Guru Vācaka Kōvai — a new translation by TV Venkatasubramanian, Robert Butler and David Godman (12th November 2008)
412. Guru Vācaka Kōvai verse 579 and Anubhūti Veṇbā verse 610 (19th November 2008)
413. Sādhanai Sāram — The Essence of Spiritual Practice (sādhana) (27th June 2009)
414. The Path of Sri Ramana - Part One e-book copy now available (23rd November 2007)
415. New enlarged e-book edition of Happiness and the Art of Being [regarding the second PDF edition] (21st March 2007)
416. Third e-book edition of Happiness and the Art of Being (23rd August 2007)
417. Happiness and the Art of Being — additions to chapter 2 (27th July 2007: extracts from HAB chapter 2)
418. The Nature of Reality — additions to chapter 4 of Happiness and the Art of Being (3rd March 2007: extracts from HAB chapter 4)
419. Happiness and the Art of Being — additions to chapter 5 (28th July 2007: extracts from HAB chapter 5)
420. What is True Knowledge? — additions to chapter 5 of Happiness and the Art of Being (7th March 2007: extracts from HAB chapter 5)
421. Happiness and the Art of Being — additions to chapter 7 (30th July 2007: extracts from HAB chapter 7)
422. Introduction to The Truth of Otherness (22nd May 2008)

Italian translations of these articles

Carlo Barbera has translated many of these articles into Italian and posted them on his blog, La Caverna del Cuore, and a list of all the ones he has translated up to October 2015 is given on the Italian Articles page.