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Indiaspirituality Blog

Sri Ramana Maharshi on Meditation, Surrender and Prayer

Legends:

D: Devotee

B: Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi

Comments in Italics: Comments by Arthur Osborne, Author of book, ‘Teachings of Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi in his own Words’

Sri Ramana Maharshi on Meditation

For one who found Self-enquiry too difficult, he would recommend worship and submission.

D.: What should one think of when meditating?

B.: What is meditation? It is the suspension of thoughts.

You are perturbed by thoughts which rush one after another. Hold on to one thought so that others are expelled. Continuous practice gives the necessary strength of mind to engage in meditation. Meditation differs according to the degree of advancement of the seeker. If one is fit for it one can hold directly to the thinker; and the thinker will automatically sink into his source, which is Pure Consciousness. If one cannot directly hold on to the thinker, one must meditate on God; and in due course the same individual will have become sufficiently pure to hold on to the thinker and sink into the absolute Being.

Sri Ramana Maharshi on Meditation

In case the path of worship was chosen, he demanded absolute surrender.

D.: God is described as manifest and unmanifest. As the former, He is said to include the world as a part of His Being. If that is so, we, as part of the world, should find it easy to know Him in His manifested form.

B.: Know yourself before you seek to know the nature of God and the world.

D.: Does knowing myself imply knowing God?

B.: Yes, God is within you.

D.: Then, what stands in the way of my knowing myself or God?

B.: Your wandering mind and perverted ways.

D.: I am a weak creature. But why does not the superior power of the Lord within remove the obstacles?

B.: Yes, He will, if you have the aspiration.

D.: Why should He not create the aspiration in me?

B.: Then surrender yourself.

D.: If I surrender myself, is no prayer to God necessary?

B.: Surrender itself is a mighty prayer.

D.: But is it not necessary to understand His nature before one surrenders oneself?

B.: If you believe that God will do all the things that you want Him to do, then surrender yourself to Him. Otherwise let God alone, and know yourself.

 

If there be true surrender, there can be no complaint or frustration.

D.: We are worldly people and are afflicted by some grief that we cannot get over. We pray to God and are still not satisfied. What should we do?

B.: Trust God.

D.: We surrender but still there is no help.

B.: But if you have surrendered, it means that you must accept the will of God and not make a grievance of what may not happen to please you. Things may turn out differently from what they appear. Distress often leads people to faith in God.

D.: But we are worldly people. We have wife, children, friends and relations. We cannot ignore them and resign ourselves to the Divine will without retaining some trace of individuality.

B.: That means that you have not really surrendered, as you say you have. All you need to do is to trust God.

 

Following the path of devotion, one should leave everything to God.

 

The Lord bears the burden of the world. Know that the spurious ego which presumes to bear that burden is like a sculptured figure at the foot of a temple tower which appears to sustain the tower’s weight. Whose fault is it if the traveller, instead of putting his luggage in the cart which bears the load anyway, carries it on his head, to his own inconvenience?

 

There cannot even be impatience for speedy realisation. To one who was so afflicted, he replied:

Surrender to Him and accept His will whether He appears or vanishes. Await His pleasure. If you want Him to do as you want, it is not surrender but command. You cannot ask Him to obey you and yet think you have surrendered. He knows what is best and when and how to do it. Leave everything entirely to Him. The burden is His and you have no more cares. All your cares are His. That is what is meant by surrender.

Sri Ramana Maharshi on Prayer

Even prayer can betoken a lack of trust and Bhagavan did not normally encourage prayer in the sense of petition.

They pray to God and finish with: ‘Thy will be done’. If His will be done, why do they pray at all? It is true that the Divine will prevails at all times and under all circumstances. Individuals cannot act of their own accord. Recognise the force of the Divine will and keep quiet. Everyone is looked after by God. He created all. You are only one among two thousand millions. When He looks after so many, will He omit you? Even common sense dictates that one should accept His will. There is no need to tell Him your requirements. He knows them Himself and will look after them.

 

On other occasions, however, he would confirm the efficacy of prayer. As in other matters, he would put the viewpoint which would best help the spiritual development of the particular questioner.

 

D.: Are our prayers granted?

B.: Yes, they are granted. No thought will ever go in vain. Every thought will produce its effect some time or other. Thought force will never go in vain.

 

It will be seen that this hints at a doctrine far wider than personal response by an anthropomorphic God. It indicates the general power of thought for good or evil and its repercussions on the thinker. Understanding of this involves a great responsibility for thoughts no less than for actions, just as Christ indicated that to look at a woman lustfully was a sin, the same as committing adultery with her. The following passage shows how far this teaching was from any humanised conception of a God.

 

Not from any desire, resolve, or effort on the part of the rising sun, but merely due to the presence of his rays, the lens emits heat, the lotus blossoms, water evaporates, and people attend to their various duties in life. In the proximity of the magnet the needle moves. Similarly, the soul or jiva subjected to the threefold activity of creation, preservation and destruction, which takes place merely due to the unique Presence of the Supreme Lord, performs acts in accordance with its karma, and subsides to rest after such activity. But the Lord Himself has no resolve; no act or event touches even the fringe of His Being. This state of immaculate aloofness can be likened to that of the sun, which is untouched by the activities of life, or to that of the all-pervasive ether, which is not affected by the interaction of the complex qualities of the other four elements.

Source: ‘Teachings of Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi in his own Words’ by Arthur Osborne

Sri Ramakrishna on Ego and Free Will

Surendra, a beloved lay disciple of the Master, had invited him to his house on the auspicious occasion of the Annapurna Puja. It was about six o'clock when Sri Ramakrishna arrived there with some of his devotees. The image of the Divine Mother had been installed in the worship hall. At Her feet lay hibiscus flowers and vilwa-leaves; from Her neck hung a garland of flowers. Sri Ramakrishna entered the hall and bowed down before the image. Then he went to the open courtyard, where he sat on a carpet, surrounded by his devotees and disciples. A few bolsters lay on the carpet, which was covered with a white linen sheet. He was asked to lean against one of these, but he pushed it aside.

Sri Ramakrishna (to the devotees): "To lean against a bolster!" (Rich and aristocratic persons seeking comfort generally sit in this fashion.) You see, it is very difficult to give up vanity. You may discriminate, saving that the ego is nothing at all; but still it comes, nobody knows from where. A goat's legs jerk for a few moments even after its head has been cut off. Or perhaps you are frightened in a dream; you shake off sleep and are wide awake, but still you feel your heart palpitating. Egotism is exactly like that. You may drive it away, but still it appears from somewhere. Then you look sullen and say: 'What! I have not been shown proper respect!'"

Note: A bolster is a long thick pillow. Here it indicates comfort. IMHO, the essence is to not let mind loose and always keep a check on ego. If a sadhaka (a seeker of truth) realizes that a certain attitude causes his / her ego to increase then one must make conscious effort to correct it. Sri Ramakrishna explains to us in a symbolic way through an incident.

Kedar: "'One should be lowlier than a straw and patient as a tree.'"

Sri Ramakrishna: "As for me, I consider myself as a speck of the dust of the devotee's feet."

Vaidyanath arrived. He was a well-educated man, a lawyer of the High Court of Calcutta. With folded hands he saluted Sri Ramakrishna and took his seat at one side.

Surendra (to Thakur ji - Sri Ramakrishna): "He is one of my relatives."

(Sri Ramakrishna is also known as Thakur ji)

Sri Ramakrishna: "Yes, I see he has a nice nature."

Surendra: "He has come here because he wants to ask you a question or two."

Sri Ramakrishna (to Vaidyanath): "All that you see is the manifestation of God's Power. No one can do anything without this Power. But you must remember that there is not an equal manifestation of God's Power in all things. Vidyasagar once asked me whether God endowed some with greater power than others. I said to him; 'If there are no greater and lesser manifestations of His Power, then why have we taken the trouble to visit you? Have you grown two horns?' So it stands to reason that God exists in all beings as the All-pervasive Power; but the manifestations of His Power are different in different beings."

Vaidyanath (to Sri Ramakrishna): "Thakur ji, I have a doubt. People speak of free will. They say that a man can do either good or evil according to his will. Is it true? Are we really free to do whatever we like?"

Sri Ramakrishna: "Everything depends on the will of God. The world is His play. He has created all these different things — great and small, strong and weak, good and bad, virtuous and vicious. This is all His maya, His sport. You must have observed that all the trees in a garden are not of the same kind.

"As long as a man has not realized God, he thinks he is free. It is God Himself who keeps this error in man. Otherwise sin would have multiplied. Man would not have been afraid of sin, and there would have been no punishment for it.

"But do you know the attitude of one who has realized God? He feels: 'I am the machine, and Thou, O Lord, art the Operator. I am the house and Thou art the Indweller. I am the chariot and Thou art the Driver. I move as Thou movest me; I speak as Thou makest me speak.'

Note: A Self Realised person will not have ego like layman. His ego is merged in God.

(To Vaidyanath): "It is not good to argue. Isn't that so?"

Vaidyanath: "Yes, sir. The desire to argue disappears when a man attains wisdom."

Sri Ramakrishna, out of his stock of a dozen English words, said, "Thank you!" in the most charming way, and all laughed.

Sri Ramakrishna (to Vaidyanath): "You will make spiritual progress. People don't trust a man when he speaks about God. Even if a great soul affirms that he has seen God, still the average person will not accept his words. He says to himself, 'If this man has really seen God, then let him show Him to me.' But can a man learn to feel a person's pulse in one day? He must go about with a physician for many days; only then can he distinguish the different pulses. He must be in the company of those with whom the examination of the pulse has become a regular profession.

"Can anyone and everyone pick out a yarn of a particular count? If you are in that trade, you can distinguish in a moment a forty-count thread from a forty-one."

Note: Constant company of holy men purifies one inwardly. After achieving certain purification of mind, one begins to understand spiritual path and the teachings of shastras.

Source: Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna