The Path, the Effort and the Goal

[Guest guest]

Another inspirational passage from Ramana Maharishi. If the group

members like I can continue posting here. Basically, I got this from

another spirituality group that focuses on Ramana Maharishi. I

thought I'd share it with this group as well.

 

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Meditation means many things to many individuals and ranges from

quiet brooding on a concept or an ideal to the beatitude of the

highest spiritual contemplation. But in the sadhana (repeated

spiriutal practice) propounded by the Maharshi it strictly means,

whatever the method, the attempt to still the thinking faculty, the

perpetually-surging waves of the mind, in order that the calm ocean

of pure awareness, from which they rise and on which they move, may

be experienced.

 

Finding the answer to the query " Who am I? " is not the immediate

burden of the practice in the beginning. Stability and fixity of the

restless, mercurial mind is the first aim, and this can be achieved

by constant practice and by frequently pulling oneself back to the

subject of the meditation whenever the mind strays away.

 

Meditation has by then taken a firm grip and has turned from an

erstwhile painful and apparently fruitless effort to a joyful,

eagerly-looked-forward-to performance, which can no longer be

abandoned or even slackened. The thinking processes have by now

considerably slowed down and with it, naturally, the restlessness of

the mind. Profound peace and inner joy impel more frequent and longer

meditation, which in turn reduces thinking still further, till the

moment of full maturity is reached, when all of a sudden all thoughts

completely cease, and the meditator, the 'I', having nothing to

disturb or preoccupy him, spontaneously finds himself in his pure

Being, which is the Absolute State or Substratum. This is what the

second and third sutras of Patanjali's yoga mean by saying:

 

" Yoga is the suppression of the vritti (modifications of the thinking

principle). Then the seer abides in himself. "

 

And what is that Self in actual experience? Sri Bhagavan tells us

that it is the Light which ever shines in the Cave of the Heart as

the flame of the Consciousness 'I' 'I' †" the eternal and blissful

Sat-chit-ananda. This is the answer to the vichara and its

fulfillment. The 'I', which has carried out a determined and

protracted search into its own nature, has at long last found itself

to be not other than the Pure Mind, the immaculate Being, which is

eternally wrapped in blissful stillness. This is Turiya, the Fourth,

or Samadhi. There remains nothing more for one to achieve but to

consolidate this state into the permanent experience of Sahaja

Nirvikalpa, which is the Great Liberation.

 

Sadhakas take courage from the personal assurance of Sri Maharshi

and the testimony of those who have found the Ultimate Peace, and

relentlessly continue their efforts however sterile these may at

first appear to be, strong in the belief of the descent of the Divine

Grace on their endeavor to crown them with the greatest of all

crowns, that of Supreme Enlightenment. *

 

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*Posted within " Spiritual instructions " on the website

www.spiritualpracticeofbhagavan.org , taken from a chapter in the

book Guru Ramana, S.S. Cohen, Sri Ramanashramam 2003