Doubt

When Maharishi Ramana was asked by a disciple, “I have a doubt”, His response was, “Find out to whom this doubt arises and doubt the doubter”. Who is the person having a doubt? Who is the person facing the pleasures and sufferings alternatively? Who is the person having desires and attachments that makes him/her to aspire for longer life and firmly place him rooted to the planet earth? Who is the person having the evil qualities of hatred, jealousy, anger and greed that deprives him/her to achieve equanimity and contentment? There are more questions than answers in life.

We always call the beginning of a person’s body/mind as birth, existence of the individual’s body/mind as life and disappearance of the person’s body/mind as death. When a child is delivered from a secured mother’s womb, it cries profusely and the worldly thoughts suggest that the child cries because of the exposure to the outside world and hunger. The nurses and the mother attend to the child, comfort and feed as someone who gained knowledge about how to look after a child. But how did the child know that crying would provide the sense of security and protection? How did the child know to inhale and exhale? Before birth a baby's lungs are filled with amniotic fluid. They do "practice" breathing towards the end of the pregnancy with periodic inhaling and exhaling of amniotic fluid.

When the child grows into a man/woman, their cerebral development gives them ability to question the doubts they possess, watch, learn and emulate behaviors of the persons they interact and educate themselves through reading, writing and speaking and build values through constant interaction with outside world. They learn by living the life of a human being.

However, the end of life is never illustrated to anyone. Every one of us, at some point, spent time with people in death bed attending to their needs but they never explained their experiences in words to us. Those who left us is never able to come back to share their experiences of dying. That is why death is never researched nor much talked about among the human beings. Many are even afraid of discussing death whether it is about their own or their kith and kin. We attend funerals and feel emotional about the departure of a close family member or friend and feel life could be taken away in a trice but after we leave the place and eat one meal, we forget everything and assume we are here to stay forever.

In fact, the only source for learning about death is the traditional scriptures. The scriptures teach us how to face death and how to practice not to be afraid of death. Conceptually, we must conclude that we are pure consciousness and are never born and never die. It is the body and mind that made from earth, water, air, fire and ether that deteriorate as we age and eventually decay once the life force ceases to exist. The energy that runs this body/mind like a well-oiled machine eventually leaves and continue to exist.

In our normal life, when we visit someone, we call that as a “Meeting”. When someone dies and his/her body is kept for other fellow-beings to pay respect, this process is called “Viewing”. We need to think about what changed what we call as “Meeting” to “Viewing”? So, our mind recognizes something is missing from the person we view after his/her death as opposed to meet when he/she is alive. Their lies the answer to our question. We are not the senses, body or mind or intellect or diminutive ego. We are the infinite Universal Absolute. We must establish ourselves firmly, unshakably in this awareness. That is our destiny, our duty to ourselves.

Our reality is the Consciousness, which is a wave in the sea called Universal Consciousness. We runaway for a period to touch the seashore but we are always part of the sea and definitely return to merge with the sea. The sole object of human existence is to visualize that reality and the relationship between the wave and the sea. We only play a role as an actor in a play directed by all-knowing power. All other activities we do as a wave are trivial. But, the ability to know who we really are, is the unique privilege of a human being. We have clambered through all the steps in the ladder of evolution to inherit this high destiny. If all the years between birth and death are frittered away in seeking food and shelter, comfort and pleasure as birds and animals do, humans are condemning themselves to a further life-sentence.

 

Dear Sabitha,

Thank you for your first response. Cheeniya Sir nicely articulated in one of his responses about the Tamil saying, "Kandavar Vindilar, Vindavar Kandilar" meaning (Those who have seen won't describe it and those who describe it has not seen it). I myself belong to the second category and my knowledge is very bookish and I have not experienced my Self in any form. Only positive think about me is I try my best to incorporate right living constantly in my life hoping someday, I will get the grace to experience what we all long for.

Maharishi Ramana is someone who had no worldly education and his experience with His Self is due to the longing for realization for many lives. It is very visible to many from his early stage discourses. According to His major disciples such as Cohen and Sri Sadhu Om, Maharishi Ramana was not able to articulate His experiences in such a manner that ordinary human beings could understand and relate. He eventually ended up reading the Scriptures to explain things to His disciples even though such reading is not for His own realization.

Bach is an educated philosopher who was able to publish several books and articulate wonderfully about His philosophical thoughts in a way ordinary beings like me can understand.

Sri Sathya Sai Baba said, "We are born to learn not to be born again" which is in away relate with Bach's assertion mentioned above. Until we experience that our true Self is never born and never die, we continue our journey.

Viswa

 

Dear Vani,

Maharishi Ramana is clear in His teachings that the true "I" is "all-knowing" and the mind is not. Who we truly are, is full of knowledge. On many occasions, Maharishi Ramana taught His disciples through His total silence than answering their doubts because His presence removed the doubts for the disciples. This is possible by cosmic energy emanating from the Maharishi Ramana. The mistake we do is to understand our true Self (i.e.Knowledge) with our mind that is ignorant. Our effort is to remove everything we are not. If you are thinking, "You are a daughter, You are a sister, You are a wife, You are a mother", then, it is your mind that tells you that. The only true statement is "I am" followed by nothing. If we keep eliminating everything we are not or transiently believe we are, what is left is our true Self. It is the Knowledge that removes the ignorance and it is the light that removes the darkness.

When we inhale, we say "So" and when we exhale, we say, "Ham" together means, "SoHam" which means, "I am". Our body and mind are highly influenced by the magnetic vibrations from various planets based on the date and time of our birth. But our true Self is perfectly capable of receiving the Cosmic vibration from the Sun we worship as our energy source. The effort needed is, by using our freewill, to tune our body and mind to receive that Cosmic vibration to align our body and mind with the soul. This is why the learned teach about control of senses, body and mind.

When we don't like a person, instead of asking why I don't like that person, we need to ask, "Who doesn't like a person?" Then the answer is, "It is our mind or diminutive ego". Many learned Sages and Divine incarnations have articulated, "Unity, Purity and Divinity". When we serve the humanity selflessly, we connect with the divinity in each person and feel the oneness of all. When we develop our character, we eliminate all the dust covering up our true Self so that the light can shine with added luster. When we faithfully surrender to the Divinity, the Self in us reveal itself to us. These are what we call as Karma Yoga, Gnana Yoga and Bhakthi Yoga.

One has no use, for knowledge from outside, of worshiping the divinity, of performing actions, if One learns to delve in Self. One can be alive and still be Self-realized and perform actions in Sahajabhava. Such person's thoughts, words and deeds will be perfectly aligned and will be filled with Sathya, Dharma, Shanti, Prema and Ahimsha. The search of Self is inward journey and only the individual can do that journey despite all our day to day duties.

Let me stop here.

Viswa

 

Dear Satchi,

Many times I come to the conclusion that our true Self is "all-knowing" and our effort to unlearn everything we built in our thoughts that are not aimed at realizing our true Self, is the effort needed by us. The question I ask myself always is, "Can an invention understand the purpose of the Inventor?" If we are the sparks of the Universal Absolute, we already have that knowledge residing in us. We can't logically understand our Self through our mind and it is better to tune our senses, body and mind to align and experience the Divinity in us. That is where the Unity, Purity and Divinity I talked about in my response to Vani comes into play.

Viswa

 

After reading spiritual books and listening to spiritual discourses we do get the awareness
that the soul and the body are different. The soul never perishes, but the body it takes is temporary and perishable. Yet when a loved one dies we can't control our mind and take it easy.

That Thou Art/ Tat Tvam Asi

The identity of Brahman and Atman (the embodied soul) has been expressed in the well known Vedic formula as Maha Vakya "That Thou Art".

The very conception of Atman in the Upanishads implies that it is the knowing subject within us. It is the inner consciousness and the real agent of perception , the senses being mere instruments. Perception, which is a conscious act, is impossible without the presence of a sentient principle which is Atman(Self)

All the four Vedas stress this point.

Yet I conscious i.e: the ego which is present in the human mind finds it difficult to get rid of this and grab the good opportunity given to it and reach the ultimate goal of human life.

Controlling the sense organs and attachment to material things seems to be a Herculean task for people. Though easily said than done for ordinary people, yet it is not impossible for people who have a control over their mind through meditation.

PS[/QUOTE]

Dear Smt. Srinivasan:

What more to say than what you said already so eloquently? It is true that all our senses, body and mind don't function without the energy source from Self. It is like scratching the surface of the abundance of knowledge with our limited tools. Instead, we can become the Self by making the senses, body and mind subservient to the Self so that the knowledge will be total and complete. As you said, it is easier said than done.

I visualize the Self as the nucleus of an Atom. We know that electrons (Senses, Body and Mind) are orbiting the Nucleus with negative energy. But if we tune them to the positive energy of the nucleus, they can change the orbit and become one with the nucleus. Atom is the matter and its existence is possible only with a Nucleus and orbiting electrons. If we use the freewill of those orbiting electrons to merge with the Nucleus by tuning them to receive the positive energy of the Nucleus, the existence of the Atom ceases to exist.

Viswa