Sri Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi about Meditation

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Sri Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi about Meditation (from the book Conscious

Immortality)

 

Thoughts must cease and reason disappear. Feeling is the prime factor in

meditation, not reason. It ought to come in the right side of the chest, not in

the head. because the Heart is there. It must be held tight.

 

Your present experience of thought-ceasing is due to the influence of the

atmosphere you are now in. [i.e. Ashrama]Can you find the same experience away

from this atmosphere?

It is spasmodic. Until it becomes permanent practice is necessary. After one

gets established in Truth, practice drops away naturally.

 

Q: Is meditation analytical or synthetical?

 

A: Analysis and synthesis are in the region of intellect. The Self transcends

the intellect.

 

What is meditation? It is to think about one thing. Therefore in meditation

try to hold on to one thought, and all the other thoughts will gradually go

away. They may be present for some time but if you resolutely hold to your

single

thought, they will not trouble you.

Our minds are weak through habit, unable to concentrate. We must take the

mind strong so as to keep to one thought.

 

Absence of mental operations is Solitude.

 

Q: Why is it so difficult to practice meditation and to conquer the mind?

 

A: Because of the Past Vasanas which prevent us. But we must go on trying

(tendencies from former births is called vasanas).

 

Those who take opium or alcoholic liquor are unconsciously seeking the

blissful thoughtlessness of the real Self. They get an initiation of that bliss

by

drugs but afterwards they must resume their normal state and the craving comes

back stronger till they become chronic addicts and slaves. To all such

artificial rises there must be a fall back.

 

If the mind is subdued, everything is conquered.

 

Where is renunciation? It is not outside of us, it is here (pointing to the

heart). Where is solitude? In the mind.We must achieve these things within

ourselves. The kingdom of Heaven is to be found within us.

 

Q: If the efforts at meditation are hindered through past karma what remedy

can there be?

 

A:It is self-stultifying to drown oneself in such fanciful fears. Fate and

past Karma relate to the external world. Dive boldly within you. These will not

hinder you. It is the thinking of hindrances that forms a serious hindrance.

 

We have all to return to our source. Every human being is seeking its source

and must one day come to it. We came from Within; we have gone outward; now we

must turn inward.

 

What is meditation?

 

It is our natural self. We have covered ourself over with thoughts and

passions.

To throw them off we must concentrate on one Thought - the Self.

 

When is Mouna (silence) necessary? It is but one of the aids to attain

realisation.

Once realisation is complete, it can be cast aside for it will be of no

further use.

Realisation itself is Mouna. Speech is regarded by mounis as a waste of

energy, which latter they are directing inwards towards the Self.

 

....

 

What is mental conception except it be, meditation?

Vocal japa becomes mental which is the same as meditation.

 

Q: How can you say that the Heart is on the right when anatomists find it on

the left?

 

A: It is not denied that the physical organ is on the left; quite correct.

But the Heart of which I speak is on the right only. It is my experience. No

authority is required. Still you can find confirmation in the Sita Upanishad.

There is a mantra in the latter saying so.

 

The whole cosmos is combined in one pinhole in the Heart. a tiny hole in the

Heart remains closed and is opened by Vichara(investigation into the Self).

The result is 'I' consciousness, the same as Samadhi.

 

Q: How can the all immanent God reside in the Heart?

 

A: ...The Heart is not a place. Some name is mentioned for the place of God

because we think we are in the body. This kind of instruction is meant for

those who can appreciate only relative knowledge. being immanent everywhere,

there

is no place for God. Because we think we are in the body, we also believe

that we are born....Paramatma is that from which the body is born, in which it

lives and into which it resolves. We however think that we reside in the body.

Hence such instruction is given. The instruction means: Look within. The Heart

is not physical. Meditation should not be on the right or the left. Meditation

should be on the Self....

 

What are you? Are you the body? No. you are pure consciousness. Retirement

means abidance in the Self, nothing more. It is not leaving one set of

surroundings to become entangled in another nor even leaving the concrete world

and

wallowing in mental world...

 

All wish to rush out. ...Happiness lies within and not without.

 

....Q: Why is regulation of breath necessary?

 

A: Concentration of breath or its regulation is only for controlling the mind

so that the mind may not wander about......

 

Q: Nevertheless, the mind proves a cork at attempts to sink it.

 

A: What does it matter if the mind is active? It is so, after all, on the

substratum of the Self. Hold on to the Self even during mental activities.

 

Q: I cannot go within sufficiently deep?

 

A: It is wrong to say so. Where are you now, if not in the Self? Where should

you go? All that is necessary is the stern belief that you are the Self. Say

rather that the other activities throw a veil on you.

.....

.....

the best posture is to plant the Guru firmly in your heart.

 

Q: How can the mind be stilled?

 

A: Vichara [self-Enquiry] alone will do.....

 

Jai Guru Datta