Ramana Maharshi's Teachings On The Guru - Session 1

Salaam.

Salaam.

Salaam.

Salaam.

Salaam.

In Advaita Level 1,

We did that this entire Jagat,

This entire universe that I am experiencing,

This is the scene.

S-E-E-N,

Scene.

And my eyes are the seer.

In the same way you can take the ears here.

And this Jagat is the sound that the ears hear.

Applied to all the five senses.

This Jagat is the scene.

Eyes are the seer.

This was step 1.

Step 2 is,

The mind is the seer and the eyes are the scene.

Doesn't the mind know right now eyes are open?

Mind knows.

Close your eyes.

Does the mind know that the eyes are closed?

The mind knows.

Very clear?

The mind is the seer and the eyes are the scene.

Third step,

There is something beyond the mind that knows that the mind is saying yes,

That the mind is saying no,

That the mind is saying yes.

I notice that the eyes are closed.

There is something behind.

Yes?

Can I turn back and see it?

No,

I cannot turn back and see it.

But I can experience it.

I can be it.

Because it is there.

It's not something that I've manufactured right now.

It was there throughout my life.

Right now,

That witness knows.

Yes?

That witness,

That consciousness,

That knowingness is called Brahman.

So it was a three-step process to come to the Brahman,

Recognise,

Oh yeah,

This knowingness is always there.

It gets lost in the mind,

Gets involved in the mind and the body,

Gets consumed by this world of people,

Situations and things and it forgets that it is that silent witness.

Yeah?

It is that simple.

Look at the quality of this witness.

It's absolutely silent.

It's speculous.

Is it just at the background?

Is it behind the head?

Oh no,

I can,

I am aware even in front.

I am aware even up here.

I am aware down.

See,

Oh I am aware of the whole room.

Oh,

I am aware of everything that is in this field.

Oh,

It's a field.

It's a field of awareness.

It's a field of witnessing.

It is a field of consciousness.

It's not a background.

Only at the initial level because I didn't understand it before,

I felt that it is behind and the mind is in front and then the eyes are in front of that.

No,

Actually there is no such sequence.

It is like space.

In this space only there is the mind that arises.

It does and it goes away.

In this space only the body is there.

Oh,

It's like space.

We understood this in Advaita level 1.

Yes?

We also had taken a third step where we start recognising whatever objects I notice,

I touch,

I smell,

I hear,

All that is nothing else but mind phenomena.

And we just established right now that the awareness is like space.

The mind arises in it,

Plays for a while and goes away.

So everything is nothing else but knowingness.

So these are different words that I use interchangeably.

Awareness is equal to knowingness,

Is equal to consciousness,

Is equal to Brahman,

Is equal to Chidakasha,

Is equal to self,

Is equal to absolute awareness,

Is equal to is-ness,

Is equal to presence.

There are so many words that we have used in all the scriptures.

Everything means the same.

Yes?

Ramana will take you one more step ahead.

This is where Ramana starts,

Okay?

Ramana started at a higher level not because he wanted to teach you at a higher level but because his audience was like that.

The teacher has to teach to whoever comes.

If a PhD level person comes to me,

Can I teach him ABCD?

He will be like,

What are you doing?

I already know all this.

Don't throw words at me like karma and jnana and bhakti and chidakasha and chitakasha.

Oh,

All this.

I know everything.

When that level kind of person comes to Ramana,

Ramana has to start teaching at that level.

So now that we've quickly revised Advaita 1,

We move over to Advaita level 2.

At Advaita level 1,

What has become clear to you?

I am not the body.

I am not the mind.

I am the knower of the body and mind.

Yes?

Very clear?

I know the body.

I know the mind.

So I have to be separate from them.

Book.

I know there is a book.

I know the book.

Means I am separate from the book.

Similarly,

I know the body.

That means I am separate from the body.

That capital I that is separate from the body.

We are working towards it.

We want to move towards it and find out what this I is.

Now the same logic applies to the mind.

I am the knower of the mind.

I am not the mind.

I know the thoughts arise.

They play some drama for a while and then they go away.

I know sensations arise.

They play their role for a while and then they go away.

I see them arising and I see them setting.

Means I am separate from them.

Is that clear?

So I am not the mind.

I am the knower of the mind.

Yeah?

So far we have established an Advaita level 1.

Yes.

After the session you went back home and you started being more in the knower.

But what happened?

You kept shuttling,

No?

You get lost in the body.

You get lost in the mind.

One little pain.

My knee is paining.

Finished.

Knower,

Witness,

Chidakasha all gone for a toss.

My knee is paining.

My knee is paining.

Ah,

My knee.

I am hurting.

Suddenly I had become the body.

I had forgotten that I am the witness of the body.

I am the knower of the pain.

I am not hurting.

I am knowing that there is a sensation arising in the body and I have labelled it as pain.

Look at the same thing in the mind.

Some little fight you had with your darling spouse.

Yes?

And then you became very sad.

And then,

Oh,

I am sad.

Everything is bad in my life.

My spouse is like this.

There is so much turbulence in the mind.

That time you forgot I am the knower of this turbulence.

You became one with that turbulence and you forgot that you are the knower of the turbulence.

You are not turbulent.

Then that bad phase passed away and again you started watching Advaita videos and you realised,

Oh,

I am the witness.

I am just witnessing these ups and downs.

I am the knower of the peace and the knower of the turbulence.

I am the knower of happiness.

I am the knower of sorrow.

These ups and downs,

Ups and downs are happening where?

In the mind.

I am not the mind.

I am not the body.

Why do I shuttle between this body-mind ego and the witness?

Simply because of my past habit patterns.

I have fuelled them so much in the past.

They will now continue till the fuel is exhausted.

You have made your car full tank.

Till the tank gets exhausted,

That car is going to keep running.

It is a special car.

It doesn't stop and it doesn't need you to drive it also.

It is going to keep running till that fuel is exhausted.

Which means you can get enlightened at this point but if the fuel is supposed to get exhausted here,

This car will keep running.

That means that particular situation will keep happening in my life.

That little habit pattern that I had fuelled will keep coming back,

Keep coming back only till the time this fuel is exhausted.

And that's fine.

Now I recognise I am not the mind.

I am the knower of the mind.

So again and again I have to just recognise.

It's not even a practice.

There is not even a step that you have to take if you have noticed.

If you have been really working on recognising the truth,

You must have seen that there is not even one step that you have to work on.

There is no activity here.

There is no process here.

There is no methodology.

There is no technique to follow.

It is simply recognising,

Oh this is who I am.

I am unnecessarily jumping into this mind.

I am unnecessarily becoming one with the pain of the body.

One who has understood this intellectually,

That is Shravana by listening to it and has recognised it.

Yeah,

I am that knower of the mind and body.

You have come to the completion of Advaita level 1.

You are ready to move ahead.

I am not saying that it has become completely the truth of your life.

You are always the witness.

No.

You will keep shuttling and that's fine.

Please be compassionate with yourself.

Do not expect yourself to become a rock star overnight.

So we came to this point where we have reached Advaita level 1.

At 1,

It was only my intellectual understanding but at 2,

It is my experiential knowing.

I am not the body.

I am not the mind.

I am the witness.

In the deep sleep state,

There is no knowing happening.

Correct?

When I am in the waking state,

I am knowing through my five senses.

I am knowing this world.

It is juggled through my five senses.

When I am in the dream state,

I am knowing the mental objects.

Basically,

I am knowing the impressions collected from this world of five sense objects.

Those impressions are in my mind and that is what plays in my dreams.

During the daytime,

I wanted to eat a chocobar ice cream.

I did not get chocobar ice cream during the day.

In the night,

In my dream,

That impression of chocobar ice cream evokes a dream where I am going out with my friends and we are all eating chocobar ice cream.

Yes?

So,

I am experiencing objects in the waking state.

These are the physical objects.

In the dream state,

I am experiencing the mental objects.

I am knowing them.

But in the deep sleep state,

There are no objects.

There is no physical object to experience.

There is no mental object to experience.

Does it mean that there is no consciousness?

No.

It means that there is no need to know anything.

There is no object of knowingness present there.

It is the experience of no objects.

It is the experience of pure consciousness itself.

Every single night,

You go into a state of deep sleep.

I am not talking about the dreaming state.

I am talking about those one,

Two,

Three hours depending from person to person it varies where you go into an absolute blank state.

It is blank because of absence of physical or mental objects.

It also starts opening up for you in the daytime.

You recognize when I am involved in objects just in seeing there is my mind going out and absorbing that information from that object.

I can be just at rest.

I am not really looking to absorb information.

I am just there.

I am in the present moment.

That is the state of pure witnessing without seeking to absorb any information,

Without seeking to know.

This is the meaning of just be,

Don't do.

We have heard this a lot on the spiritual path.

Just be,

Just be.

Just go with the flow.

This is the meaning of that.

When you seek for something,

You are not ready to be with the flow.

You want to create a flow of your own.

It should be according to my like.

It should not be according to my dislike.

When there is no more seeking,

There is no more wanting,

There is no more knowing,

That happens to you every single day.

For a few minutes you just sit and you are just there.

When you are not involved in any activity,

Just being,

You can experience the pure witnessing.

Experience is also like an activity but for the lack of words in English I have to say that.

But you will experience just being with open eyes.

Advaita level 2 brings you to this understanding that I am that pure witness.

Knowingness is my function.

My quality is just being,

To be,

Existing.

That is called sat.

My pure nature is just to be,

To exist.

Existence.

Sat.

S-A-T.

That's not a dead being.

It's not that when I am in pure witness,

I am dead.

No.

There is no more seeking.

Means there is no more activity in the mind feverishly grasping me.

There is an absolute quietness,

An absolute peace but that peace is lively.

It's alive.

That is called chid.

Consciousness.

These are aspects of my own being which I experience when I am in that pure witnessing.

And the third aspect,

The natural aspect.

These are three natural aspects that I am telling you.

To be,

Just existing.

It is alive.

It is not dead.

That awareness is very much alive.

It's conscious.

That is why it is called consciousness.

In Sanskrit it is chid and the third is ananda.

It is blissful.

Why?

Because it is devoid of wanting to know,

Wanting to learn,

Wanting to achieve,

Wanting to attain.

This going out is not there in the pure witness.

That is the quality of the mind.

The mind wants to know.

The mind wants to grasp.

The mind wants to attain,

Achieve.

That witness that I am is absolutely at peace.

It is peace itself.

It is not peaceful.

It is peace.

Do you understand what I am saying?

The mind can be turbulent or peaceful.

But the witness itself is peace.

The witness itself is peace.

You are peace.

Sat chit ananda.

So far we are absolutely clear.

We covered all this in Advaita level 1.

It was a revision.

This gives us a stepping stone to move to 2.

Thank you for watching.