#self-attention

[shinymoonbird]

[...] as Bhagavan often said, 'Nobody has ever succeeded on this path without perseverance'. No matter how many obstacles we may face, and how many times we may seem to fail, if we patiently persevere in trying our best to cling firmly to self-attentiveness, by his grace we will surely succeed eventually in sinking back into the innermost depth of our heart, where he shines eternally as the infinitely clear light of pure awareness [...]

From the Book: Ramana Maharshi’s Forty Verses on What Is - A compilation of the writings and talks on Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu - By Michael James (published by Sandra Derksen)

[shinymoonbird]

🔱  Om Namo Bhagavathe Sri ArunachalaRamanaya   🔱  

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The Paramount Importance of Self Attention, by Sri Sadhu Om, As recorded by Michael James

Part Five - Mountain Path: April – June 2013 - Excerpt

Note of 6th January 1978

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Swami Natanananda: What is meditation? Who can meditate? Can the body meditate? Can self meditate? Meditation is just a means of feeding the non-existent 'I'. The true sādhanā is to be vigilant, at all times, against the rising of this 'I'.

One way to prevent the rising of 'I' is to try to behave [inwardly as well as outwardly] in every situation as you think Bhagavan would behave. If you practise this, there will be less and less of 'I' and more and more of Bhagavan, until finally you will be swallowed by him.

Whenever peace is disturbed, it is due to the rising of 'I'. Peace cannot be enjoyed while 'I' is active. Therefore the only means to hold on to peace is to be self-vigilant, thus guarding against the intrusion of disturbing thoughts. Self-attention is not an activity, but a calm state of being vigilant, keenly watching 'I' and thereby preventing the intrusion of mental activity.

Meditation, which is a mental activity, is unreal, so it can never reveal what is real. Non-meditation, which is avoiding mental activity, alone can reveal the realίty. In the first mangalam verse of Ulladυ Narpadu Bhagavan says:

[...] Since the reality ['I am'] exists without thought in the heart, how to meditate upon that reality, which is called 'heart'? Being in the heart as it is [that is, as 'I am'] is alone meditating [correctly upon the reality].

Since thought is paying attention to second or third persons, the only effective means to avoid thought is self-attention. The rising of 'I' is attention to second and third persons, so attention to the first person alone can make 'I' subside.

The reason why Bhagavan emphasises that the appearance of the world is dependent upon the delusion 'I am this body' is to kindle vairāgya [desirelessness] by making us understand that 'I am the body' is the root of all misery, and that it must therefore be eradicated.

Cutting the branches or even the trunk of the tree of delusion is futile, because its root, 'I am the body', must be destroyed. It is destroyed only by self-attention. This is why Bhagavan says in verse twenty six of Ulladu Narpadu:

If the ego, which is the embryo [or root], comes into existence, everything comes into existence. If the ego does not exist, everything does not exist. The ego itself is everything. Therefore, know that investigating 'what is this [ego]?' is alone giving up everything.

We must fly on the two wings of viveka [discrimination] and vairāgya [desirelessness].

Sadhu Om: We all have a clear knowledge of our own existence, 'I am'. If we give importance only to that, and try to remain as it, that is self-attention, guarding against the rising of 'I', avoiding attention to second and third persons, and vigilance against the intrusion of thoughts.

In everything we do there is 'am'-ness: I am walking, I am thinking, and so on. If we attend to this 'am'-ness and try to abide as it that is sufficient. There is no need to be concerned about thoughts: let them come or go. Thoughts are only thoughts because we attend to them. If we ignore them, they do not exist. Our sense of 'am'-ness [asmi-tva] signifies our self-awareness or mere being. Mere being is the final goal. That is why Natananandar was saying that one day we will laugh at our present efforts.

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[shinymoonbird]

🔱  Om Namo Bhagavathe Sri ArunachalaRamanaya   🔱

Photos by Guy Gonyea

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The Paramount Importance of Self Attention, by Sri Sadhu Om, As recorded by Michael James

Part Four - Mountain Path: January – March 2013 - Excerpt

Note of 1st January 1978

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Sadhu Om:   When we awake from sleep we experience a new clarity of knowledge before we become aware of the body and world. The practice of sādhanā is trying to cling to this clarity.

Sitting in the Old Hall [where Bhagavan lived] is not essential if you are able to be aware of this clarity at other times. [...] There is something special in the Old Hall that automatically reminds us of our own being, but of course we can be aware of our being anywhere else as well.

Effort is unnecessary for self, because self-attention is natural and effortless. Effort is only needed for the mind. It is the nature of self to attend to self, and it is the nature of the mind to attend to second and third persons. Sādhanā is only for the mind, and the effort to attend to the feeling 'I' is only to keep the mind quiet — in its natural state of pure self-awareness.

It is not strictly true to say that self-enquiry begins with effort and ends with effortlessness, but for the sake of the sādhaka [practitioner] we may say so. Effort is required so long as the mind needs to be reminded of its true nature, 'I am', but when even awareness of second and third persons automatically reminds one of one's own existence, 'I am' (because what is aware of them is 'I'), then effort is no longer needed. When we can see only waves we must make some effort to notice the ocean underlying them, but when we knοω that the waves are nothing other than the ocean, effort is not needed.

All thoughts contain an element of the past or future in them. Can you make a thought about the present moment? If you seriously try to do so, all thoughts, including the thought 'I', will cease. This is another clue for self-attention. There are so many clues, you see.

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Question: In practice we never actually attend to self. All the time we spend in the Old Hall we are only trying to do so. If we really attended to self for one moment, that would be liberation, would it not?

Sadhu Om: What, do you mean to say that even now you are not liberated? Are you not always attending to self? You knοω 'I am', and you only knοω something if you are attending to it. Even when you attend to second and third persons, it is 'I' that is attending, and that 'I' is always aware of itself.

Such manana [cogitation or deep reflection] is essential until you understand thoroughly that self-attention is natural and eternal and that all else shines by the light of that self-awareness. This manana will lead you right up to the boundary. Nididhyasαnα [contemplation, the practice of pure self-attention] is actually only for a moment. When you really practise what you have heard and understood, you cross the boundary, and that is jñāna.

Ignore the mind, it needn't concern us. We are not the mind, so when we lose interest in it, it will die a natural death. This is why Bhagavan is always drawing our attention to self. He never allows us to become interested in the thinking mind or anything other than the feeling 'I'.

'What is this 'I'? What is the source from which it appears?' — All that is required is that our interest in this feeling 'I' should increase. That is bhakti.

Enquiry, faith and bhakti are not contradictory. They are all necessary. Enquiry begins with faith. Unless we have faith in the guru who tells us that self-attention is the means to true happiness, we would not be interested in attending to the first person. And when we practise self-attention, our experience of inner clarity confirms our faith, and thus our love for the guru increases.

Some people think that they can practise self-enquiry, so they do not need faith or bhakti. Such people know neither what bhakti nor what enquiry actually is.

The purpose of the outer guru is to make us understand the need for self-attention and to enkindle love for it in our heart. A living person is of course not needed for that. Bhagavan's books serve the same purpose, and he provides us with fellow devotees and other outer aids as and when necessary. The environment or circumstances in which we live are provided by the guru, who knows what the most suitable environment is for maturing us.

When we start trying to attend to the first person, the guru within, who is self, will start working. Whenever we attend to 'I', the guru's work is going on. Once we have been given a taste for self-attention, our love for it naturally increases and matures, like the momentum of a rubber ball as it bounces down a flight of stairs. 

To think of the real greatness of a jñāni is a good means to quieten the mind. When Arjuna's grandson, King Parikshit, was cursed that he would die in seven days, he went to his guru, Suka Brahmarishi. Suka told him that he was fortunate, because he was assured seven days, and then he started to tell him the story of Krishna. Parikshit was so absorbed in hearing the greatness of Krishna that six days passed by unnoticed, and when Suka reminded him that he would die that day, he replied, 'Who will die, only this body!' Hearing about Krishna had given him jñāna. Sometimes, when I used to think of Bhagavan and his real greatness, hours would pass without my noticing them. Great jñānis are such that even thinking of them can quieten our mind.

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[shinymoonbird]

🕉️ 🔱  Om Namo Bhagavate Sri Arunachala Ramanaya   🔱 🕉️

The Paramount Importance of Self Attention, by Sri Sadhu Om, As recorded by Michael James

Part Three - Mountain Path: April-June 2012 - Excerpt

Note of 23rd December 1977

'How can we live a pure life in this world?'

Sadhu Om:  Once a PWD inspector asked Bhagavan, 'How can we live a pure life in this world?' and he replied, 'You know the nattan-kal [a standing stone fixed at a road junction] we have in our villages [in the Madurai district]. See  how many uses it has: villagers place their head-loads on it when they take rest, cows use it as a scratching-post, betel-chewers wipe their surplus chunnambu [lime-paste] on it, and others spit on it. We must live in this world like those nattan-kals.'

It is only in our view that Bhagavan appears to be compassionate. He actually has no compassion, because compassion entails the existence of others, and in his view there are no others. However, it is also true to say that he has perfect compassion, because he loves us all as himself, so he truly suffers with each of our sufferings. See the paradoxical nature of self-knowledge. It reconciles irreconcilable opposites. It makes having no compassion the same as having perfect compassion. Who can understand the state of self-knowledge?

'Love is our being, desire is our rising'. Love wants oneness, desire wants manyness. The movement of love is towards oneness, and of desire is towards manyness. Love is ever self-contented, desire is ever discontented. The fulfilment and perfect state of love is self-love (svatma-bhakti), which is the experience of absolute oneness, but desire can never be fulfilled.

Therefore all yogas or sādhanās aim towards oneness (which is sometimes called 'union' with God or the reality), and one-pointedness of mind is their vehicle. Sādhanā is a growth from desire to love, and self-love is the driving force behind this growth. The development of this growth towards love leads the aspirant to love just one God or one guru, which is the highest form of dualistic love, and the most effective aid to develop perfect self-love.

The guru shows the aspirant that the only means to achieve perfect self-love is self-attention. The aspirant therefore eagerly practises self-attention, but until his practice blossoms into true self-love, he continues clinging to his guru as the object of his love. His guru-bhakti is the stay and support that steadies and strengthens his growth towards self-love. This is the state that Bhagavan describes in verse 72 of Aksaramanamalai:

Arunāchala, protect [me] as a support to cling to so that I may not droop down like a tender creeper without support.

The aspirant's love for and faith in his guru constantly drives him back to self-attention, which is the path taught by the guru, and as a result he comes to be increasingly convinced that his own self is the true form of his guru. Thus his dualistic guru-bhakti dissolves naturally and smoothly into non-dualistic svātma-bhakti [love for self alone], which is his true nature. One-pointed fidelity to the guru and his teachings is therefore an essential ingredient in sādhanā, and it alone will yield the much longed for fruit of self-knowledge.

In Sri Arunāchala Stuti Panchakam Bhagavan teaches us the true nature of guru-bhakti. For example:

Arunāchala, when I took refuge in you as [my only] God, you completely annihilated me. (Aksaramanamalai verse 48)

... Is there any deficiency [or grievance] for me? ... Do whatever you wish, my beloved, only give me ever-increasing love for your two feet. (Navamanimalai verse 7) 

What to say? Your will is my will, [and] that [alone] is happiness for me, lord of my life. (Patikam verse 2)

It is necessary to attempt to practise self-attention before one can possibly write commentaries on or translate Bhagavan's works. Only *--by repeatedly trying and failing can one begin to understand his teachings.

Take for instance the first sentence of Ulladu Narpadu: 'Except what is, does consciousness that is exist?' To a mind that is unaccustomed to the practice of self-attention this will seem a very abstract idea, because the first word ulladu ['what is' or existence] will immediately suggest the existence of things, so such a mind will understand this sentence to mean, 'Unless things exist, can they be known?' But Bhagavan is always pointing to self, so by the word ulladu he means nothing other than 'I', which is the sole reality, that which alone actually exists.

However this will be immediately understood only by those who are well-soaked in the practice of self-attention. Such a person will understand this sentence to mean, 'Other than what is [namely 'I'], can there be any consciousness of being [any awareness 'am']?' which they will understand as implying, 'My self-awareness [cit] is not other than my being [sat]'. It is so simple, but to ordinary people it seems abstract.

All scriptures and gurus aim at drawing our attention to ourselves, but as I said in the first part of The Path of Sri Ramana, up till now they have all started by conceding to our ignorant outlook of taking the ego to be real, and so they start their teaching from that perspective. But why not start from the source — from what is actually real? Bhagavan was a revolutionary, so he never conceded that our viewpoint was correct, but instead always pointed directly to the one selfevident reality, 'I am'.

Nowadays people have so many strange ideas about yoga, but in Ulladu Narpadu Bhagavan has given us a clear idea of what real yoga actually is.

It is to Muruganar that we owe the composition of Ulladu Narpadu. If it were not for him those twenty-one verses would have been ignored [a reference to the twenty-one stray verses composed by Bhagavan that Muruganar gathered together and asked him on 21st July 1928 to enlarge upon to form a work revealing the nature of reality and the means by which we can experience it, which prompted him to compose during the next three weeks Ulladu Narpadu, in which eventually only three of the original twenty-one verses were included (namely verses 16, 37 and 40), leaving the other eighteen to be relegated to the supplement (anubandham). Bhagavan was so confident of the power of his silence that he took no initiative to write or record his teachings, so it is to Muruganar that we owe the composition and compilation of the three principal sāstras [scriptural texts] containing Bhagavan's philosophy, namely Upadesa Undiyar, Ulladu Narpadu and Guru Vachaka Kovai.

Arunachala - Unnamalai and Annamalai

Photo by  G Anand Giri

[shinymoonbird]

The Paramount Importance of Self Attention, by Sri Sadhu Om, As recorded by Michael James

Part One - Mountain Path: April-June 2012 - Excerpt

[...] Practising Self attention is of paramount importance, and [...] directing our attention towards Self is the sole aim of all that Bhagavan taught us. In order to experience what we really are we must attend to ourself keenly and vigilantly, to the exclusion of everything else.

Bhagavan used various Tamil and Sanskrit terms to mean 'self-attention', 'self-scrutiny' or 'self-investigation', but one that he often used is the Tamil term tannāttam, which is a compound of tan (the inflexional base and oblique case form of tan, which means 'self') and nāttam (which in this context means investigation, examination, scrutiny, observation or attention), so whenever Sadhu Om uses the term 'self-attention'; it should be understood to be a translation of tannāttam or any of the other terms that Bhagavan used in this sense, such as

tat-gavanam (self-attention), ātma-vicāra (self-investigation), svarūpa-dhyāna (self-contemplation), svarūpa-smarana (self-remembrance), atma-cintana (self-meditation), ātmānusamdhāna (self-contemplation), ahamukham (facing inwards, towards I) or ahanόkku (looking inwards, at I).

— Michael James

[shinymoonbird]

🔱  Om Namo Bhagavathe Sri ArunachalaRamanaya   🔱 

Photo by Guy Gonyea

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The Paramount Importance of Self Attention, by Sri Sadhu Om, As recorded by Michael James

Part Three - Mountain Path: April-June 2012 - Excerpt

Note of 29th December 1977 

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 Sadhu Om (in reply to my question whether he was doing any sādhanā in the years before he came to Bhagavan): 

I was longing for grace and always thinking of God. That is sādhanā enough!

Some people say that the light seen at the time of Bhagavan's passing was him returning to Skandaloka [the world of Skanda, the younger son of Lord Siva]. First they try to limit him as a body, and then they try to limit him as a light. Their minds are so bound up in limitations that they have to limit even the illimitable. Bhagavan always said:

'Do not think this body is me. I am shining in each one of you as 'I'. Attend only to that'. 

How often and for how many lives have we fooled ourselves thinking that our social service is selfless? We did it only for our own self-satisfaction or glory. It is natural for each one of us to love ourself. We are all naturally selfish, so we should first find out what is self. When we knοw ourself as we really are, we will experience everything as not other than ourself, and thus our selfishness will then be the highest virtue. Only a jñāni knows how to be truly selfish, because without knowing self we cannot knοw what real (unlimited) selfishness is.

In the path of surrender saints sing, 'Send me to heaven or hell, but never let me forget you', as if heaven and hell really exist. Their prayer only shows their total love for God alone. They teach us the right attitude, but they know that heaven and hell have no real existence. All these dualities — heaven and hell, good and bad, God and individual — exist only in the mind. So ultimately we must learn to make this mind subside.

When I first came to Bhagavan and heard him repeating constantly that everyone must eventually come to the path of self-enquiry, I wondered whether he was being partial to his own teaching, but I soon understood why he insisted that this is so. The final goal is only oneness, and to experience oneness our mind must subside, which will happen entirely only when we attend to nothing other than ourself.

So long as we attend to anything other than ourself, our mind cannot subside, because attention to other things sustains it, since that which experiences otherness is only this mind. When the mind subsides completely, only self-attention remains, and self-attention alone is the state of absolute oneness. Bhagavan used to repeat this teaching every day, maybe ten or twenty times, but still we didn't change. He didn't change his teaching either, because to him this truth was so clear.

The basic mistake we all make is to take a body to be 'I'. This deeply entrenched feeling 'I am this body called so-and-so' is the root of all our trouble. If this tape-recorder is not working, we must attend to it and not to other things, because then only will we be able to repair it. Likewise, to rectify this mistaken identity, 'I am so-and-so', we must attend to it in order to knοw what it really is: what or who am I?

Only when we thus investigate ourself will the false adjunct 'so-and-so' drop off, and what will then remain is only the reality, 'I am'. 'I am so-and-so' is the naivedyam [the food to be offered to God] [1], and when Bhagavan has consumed the adjunct 'so-and-so', what remains is only 'I am', which is his prasadam [the purified remnant of God's food, which is shared among devotees as a token of his grace].

'I am' alone really exists, so it is the true form of God and guru. To treat and cherish this filthy body as 'I' is therefore the worst kind of idol-worship. If we give up this idol-worship by knowing the truth of ourself, then we can worship anything as God, because we will know that nothing is other than him, our real self.

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[1] Refer to Guru Vachaka Kovai, V.486 

The flame of Bhagavan burns timelessly.

Photo by Guy Gonyea

[shinymoonbird]

🔱  Om Namo Bhagavathe Sri ArunachalaRamanaya   🔱  

Photo  by Markus Horlacher

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The Paramount Importance of Self Attention, by Sri Sadhu Om, As recorded by Michael James

Part Five - Mountain Path: April – June 2013 - Excerpt

Note of 3rd January 1978

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Question: Is attention to the present moment the same as self-attention?

Sadhu Om: Yes, or rather it is a clue leading to self-attention. Attention to any second or third person is not possible in the precise present moment, because thoughts, which are attention paid to second or third persons [1], are always moving. Such wavering attention can never result in knowledge of what is real, because to know what is real attention must stand still [since stillness is the nature of reality]. If you look for the present moment among second and third persons, you will find no such thing, but will find only a constant movement from past to future. However, if you attend to the first person, attention will stand still, and when attention is still it subsides into its source. You will then know that self is always present in the 'now', and that all else is non-existent.

When people are told to pay attention to the 'now', they find they cannot do so, because they are only attending to second and third persons. The clue of self-attention is essential, because then only can we understand what the present moment actually is.

In the first sentence of the first mangalam [Benedictory] verse of Ulladu Νarρadu Bhagavan asks: "Without [or except as] that which is, can there be consciousness of being?" That is, if there were not that which is, namely 'I', could there be the awareness 'am'? This awareness which is self-shining, shows clearly that something real does exist, and that real something cannot be other than this awareness [because the awareness 'am' is a first-person awareness — an awareness only of itself, not of anything else]. This sentence is clearly referring to the existence and awareness of 'I', and not to that of any object, because to be known objects depend upon 'I'.

Since this reality 'I' exists beyond thought, in the heart, and is therefore called 'heart', how to meditate upon it? This clearly shows the absurdity of meditation. All religions teach that we should think of or meditate upon the reality or God, but since it exists beyond thought, how can we think of or meditate upon it? Bhagavan therefore teaches us that subsiding in the heart as it is — that is, as 'I am' — is alone 'meditating' upon it correctly. That is, the only way we can truly 'meditate' upon what is real is to remain as we are, without thought. Since what is real is beyond thought, thought can never take us to it. To attain it, we must give up all thought [including the first thought, the 'I' that thinks] and just be as it is.

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[1] External world, and internal world as feelings, emotions, desires... 

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[shinymoonbird]

Bhagavan made it very clear that the only means by which we can eradicate ego and thereby be liberated is self-investigation (ātma-vicāra)

Bhagavan didn’t give any teachings unasked, but when he was asked his first inclination was to advise all questioners to look within to see what they actually are, because this is ‘the direct path for everyone whomsoever’, as he says in verse 17 (1) of Upadēśa Undiyār. 

  When one scrutinizes the form of the mind without forgetfulness [that is, without pramada or slackness of attention], [it will be found that] there is no such thing as mind; this is the direct path for all.

Only if they showed themself to be unwilling to accept this simple and direct teaching would he discuss with them whatever other type of practice they were interested in and encourage them in their own chosen path.

He made it very clear that the only means by which we can eradicate ego and thereby be liberated is self-investigation (ātma-vicāra). For example, in the eighth paragraph (2) of Nāṉ Ār? he wrote: 

For the mind to cease [settle, subside, yield, be subdued, be still or disappear], except vicāraṇā [self-investigation] there are no other adequate means. If made to cease [subside or disappear] by other means, the mind remaining [for a while] as if it had ceased, will again rise up [sprout, emerge or start].

What he clearly implies by saying this is that ātma-vicāra is the only means by which we can achieve manōnāśa (permanent dissolution of mind), and that by any other means we can only achieve manōlaya (temporary dissolution of mind), which is not big deal, because we achieve manōlaya every night when we fall asleep. He implied the same in verses 22 and 27 (3) of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu:  

Consider, except by, turning the mind back within, completely immersing it in God, who shines within that mind giving light to the mind, how to fathom God by the mind? Explanatory paraphrase: Consider, except by turning [bending or folding] mati [the mind or intellect] back within [and thereby] completely immersing [embedding or fixing] it in pati [the Lord or God], who shines [as pure awareness] within that mind giving light [of awareness] to the mind, how to fathom [or investigate and know] God by the mind?  

The state in which one exists without ‘I’ rising is the state in which we exist as That. Without investigating the place where ‘I’ rises, how to reach the annihilation of oneself, in which ‘I’ does not rise? Without reaching, say, how to stand in the state of oneself, in which oneself is That?

Explanatory paraphrase: The state in which one exists without ‘I’ [ego] rising is the state in which we exist as that [brahman, the ultimate reality and infinite whole, the nature of which is pure self-awareness, uncontaminated by the appearance of anything else]. Without investigating the place [namely one’s fundamental self-awareness] where [from which or in which] ‘I’ rises, how to reach [achieve or take refuge in] the annihilation of oneself [ego], [the state] in which ‘I’ does not rise? [In other words, the only way to annihilate ego is to investigate oneself, the source from which it rises, because only when one investigates oneself will one see oneself as one actually is, and only when one sees oneself as one actually is will one forever cease mistaking oneself to be ego, the false rising and subsiding ‘I’.] [And] without reaching [or taking refuge in] [the annihilation of ego], say [or explain], how to stand [stop, stay or abide] in the [real] state of oneself, in which oneself is that?

In each of these verses he asks one or two rhetorical questions, which in both cases imply essentially the same thing. In verse 22 he implies that we cannot know (pati), the Lord who shines within us as pure awareness, except by turning our mind back within and immersing it completely in him, and in verse 27 he implies that we cannot experience ourself as that (brahman), which is likewise pure awareness, without annihilating ego, and that we cannot annihilate ego without investigating ourself, the place or source from which we have risen as ego.

~ Extract from:  Self-investigation is the only means by which we can surrender ourself entirely and thereby eradicate ego, by Michael James

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Shinymoonbird Posts of (1) Upadēśa Undiyār v.17; (2) Nāṉ YĀr? §8; (3) Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu, verse 22 and verse 27 

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Image source: Arunachala Vedas