2024-11-24 Chicago Ramana devotees: Fix your mind on yourself, do not think of anything else

In an online meeting with the Chicago Ramana devotees on 24th November 2024, Michael answers various questions about Bhagavan’s teachings.
A clearer audio copy of this video can be listened to on Sri Ramana Teachings podcast (ramanahou.podb...) or downloaded from ramanahou.podb... and a more compressed audio copy in Opus format (which can be listened on the VLC media player and some other apps) can be downloaded from mediafire.com/...

[@SriRamanaTeachings]

A clearer audio copy of this video can be listened to on our podcast (ramanahou.podbean.com) or downloaded from ramanahou.podbean.com/e/fix-the-mind-on-yourself-do-not-think-of-anything-else/ and a compressed audio copy in Opus format can be downloaded from mediafire.com/file/ompekha7fy8fu9s . Sri Arunachala Aksharamanamalai, sung by Sri Sadhu Om and translated by Michael James, can be accessed here: vimeo.com/ramanahou/am000

[@christianandersson2217]

Thank You! 🙏

[@visweshwaranr]

Listening to Michael ji after some gap. Don't really know what great punya we all have accumulated to be in this satsang. My prostrations to him

[@LieutenantBoreyko]

Grace is not dependent on our good works because grace is a state of pure being in which there is no action. Why does grace manifest in our lives? Because it is who we really are and it cannot be absent. It is better to think that grace manifests in our lives despite our sins.

[@shanti9040]

Thank You so much🙏🙏🙏💕❤🌹🕉

[@mohanbhaibhad3703]

🙏🙏 Om Namo Ramanay

[@AllOrNothing35427]

Thank you

[@michaeldillon3113]

🙏🕉️

[@nooshinkhalili7277]

❤

[@rviswanathan]

🙏

[@rblais]

While whether animals can attain liberation cannot be proven, I think Bhagavan’s absolute inclusiveness contributed to my trust in him. But so Michael pointed out what can be gained: Now we have taken a human birth. Let’s not waste the opportunity that we have, let’s take advantage of this human birth (where we are aware of three distinct states) and not worry if we can do the same in another form. The important thing is, who am I?, here and now.

[@LieutenantBoreyko]

According to Bhagavan the body is the sum of five sheaths so if an animal has a physical body, prana, mind, intellect and will then the ego can identify with such a body and if the ego can identify with the body then it can also turn its attention inwards and stop identifying with the body. Plants have a physical body and prana but we have no reason to believe that they have mind, intellect and will so although plants are living organisms they are not sentient beings. People who are in a coma are said to be "vegetables" because their body is alive but the mind is not present. I think if plants were conscious beings then vegetarianism would not make sense. This does not mean that we should treat plants badly because even a body that is in a coma deserves respect.

[@rblais]

@@LieutenantBoreyko (deleted)

[@LieutenantBoreyko]

@@rblais When I spoke of respecting plants, I meant, for example, cutting down forests, not picking a plant to eat it. The way we behave reflects our state of mind, so if we behave like barbarians, it means that our minds are impure and we are harming ourselves, and it doesn't matter whether the tree feels something or not. If we identify with the body and believe that our body is conscious, then the bodies of other people and animals whose behavior exhibits characteristics of having a mind must also be accepted as conscious. If you don't want to accept this, then you must also accept that others have the right to harm you. However, if we become aware that our consciousness is not the body, then we automatically become aware that other bodies are not conscious either.

[@rblais]

@@LieutenantBoreyko 🙏

[@LieutenantBoreyko]

@@rblais I often hear people say that we should not try to understand this or that because "only practice matters" but if we do not understand certain things it will be difficult for us to practice atma-vichara. For example, understanding that phenomena do not exist when we do not perceive them is not just some impractical philosophical speculation because it has a direct bearing on practice. If we do not understand that the world is just thoughts our attention will constantly wander outside. It is similar with other issues. Now it may seem that analyzing how animals differ from plants is a waste of time but sooner or later it will turn out that we do not understand such things because we do not understand ourselves. Maybe I am crazy but I think it is good to try to understand the things we experience. It is difficult to talk about anything with any non-dualist because everyone just says that understanding anything is pointless. It is a bit sad.

[@LieutenantBoreyko]

If we try to keep our attention on our fundamental consciousness, we find that everything can work perfectly without our intervention. The idea that God decides what fruits of our past actions we will experience is helpful, and while it is not an unreasonable hypothesis, it is nevertheless just a hypothesis. The truth is that the only thing we can be absolutely sure of is the awareness of our own being. Everything else may simply be a fabrication of our minds, including God who decides our destiny. Thinking about this, I have come to the conclusion that the only reason we postulate a God who controls our world is because we do not control what happens in the world. I did not decide that it would rain, so a power greater than my mind caused it to rain. But is this the only possible explanation? What if the lack of control over the world is itself an integral part of how the mind works? If the ego is a movie projector, vasanas are the pictures on the film reels and the spinning of the film reel is fate, then the mind is responsible for everything we experience in the world because it is the mind that is aware of the world even though the mind does not control the spinning of the film reel. The key element in the operation of all this is consciousness because it is in consciousness that we experience these pictures on the screen of our mind. Without consciousness, the spinning of the film reel would have no meaning because no pictures could be projected so it is consciousness that actually decides what we experience and what we do not experience. That is, although we cannot control the spinning of the film reel and therefore cannot control world events, we can choose not to illuminate the images on the film reel with our consciousness In short, we have two options: turn our attention outward and live in a world over which we have no control, or turn our attention inward and be aware only of ourselves. The good news is that we decide where we direct our attention because we are the consciousness that is aware of anything. In the fourth paragraph of "Nāṉ Ār?" Bhagavan says directly that the world is simply thoughts projected by the mind, so I assume that "the world" is also the fruits of our actions, which means that the mind projects outward the fruits of its actions. It does not matter that the mind does not control its own imagination because control is not necessary to create the fruits of past actions. Therefore, we cannot say that we ourselves choose what fruits of our past actions we will experience. It is simply not something that we do of our own free will, although we experience it only because we direct our attention to phenomena that we are not. The only reason we feel like we are experiencing an intelligently written script is because we identify with the body. If we try to remember yesterday's dream, we will think that the dream was chaotic and made no sense. However, while we were experiencing the dream, everything seemed to make sense to us. This is because our sense of "normality" comes from our belief that it is normal to identify with the body. When we identify with another body, everything we experienced in the other body suddenly becomes chaotic to us. I think about this a lot because the belief that some higher power is influencing my mind as if from outside my mind makes me imagine that things are happening independently of my mind which in turn makes it difficult for me to keep my attention on myself. I think that what I have written above does not contradict the words of Bhagavan who wrote "Action giving fruit is by the ordainment of God. Since action is non-aware, is action God?" because he points to consciousness as a necessary condition for us to experience the fruits of our actions and I myself am the only conscious being I know. The idea that some higher power is influencing my mind is simply one of the unconscious thoughts in my mind. Unless we experience our true nature with complete clarity the fullness of our being appears to our mind as some higher being but this idea is a mental fabrication like everything else.

[@Chad-vo8pz]

Your comment (as are all comments) is also a mental fabrication as everything else. Any notion is a fabrication of mind including Nan Yar? and all of the texts you are parroting. If you discard certain concepts (because you do not like them) with the argument of "fabrication of mind" then you must concede that ALL concepts are that! Including your arguments and all texts written down by all sages. Thus to discard concepts merely because they are a fabrication of mind is a fallacy and evidence of someone who regurgitates a lot of undigested concepts. There is a reason why Bhagavan considered Silence as the highest teaching! He always discouraged bookworms like you from reading and instead to walk around Arunachala and turn within. The mind can never grasp reality! And that is a fact taught by Bhagavan and the sooner we accept that the sooner we may grow a little (actually ego deflates a little). You are chasing your own tail my friend. Vichara is the remedy for that. With one thing you are right, all concepts are a fabrication of mind. *Then why are you constantly dwelling in these fabrications of mind?????* Looks like a blind spot for me. That's why texts by sages like Bhagavan are all *pointers!* We use them to move to the pointed direction ("I am") and then discard that now useless pointer unless we need to remind us that we are rather practicing anatma-vichara (dwelling in teachings/other phenomena) than atma-vichara.

[@LieutenantBoreyko]

Every phenomenon is a mental fabrication but some phenomena are manifestations of our sat-vasana and help us to turn our attention inward. Bhagavan's teachings are not a manifestation of my vishaya-vasanas but they are a manifestation of grace, i.e. they are a manifestation of the love that my true nature has for itself. Therefore I love to hear and think about these teachings and I do not consider them as my mental fabrication but as a manifestation of my own self manifested in the form of words in a fabricated world of my mind. No words of an anonymous neo-advaitic internet mentor can make me stop thinking about these teachings and it will continue to be so until I am completely absorbed by grace as it really is. Until that happens I am dependent on the grace manifested in these teachings. I can see that my comments are causing you mental pain and you cannot bear my presence here. I do not know where this irrational aversion to me comes from but I think if you are suffering reading these comments then just try to ignore them. No matter how many times you change your nickname, you will not discourage me from following Bhagavan's teachings.

[@Chad-vo8pz]

@@LieutenantBoreyko Studying Bhagavan's teaching does not create sat-vasanas, that is baloney. Only atma-vichara, the desire, like, love and intention for vichara creates sat-vasanas, nothing else. Stop distorting Bhagavan for the desperate attempt to be right. By the way, how do you get the idea that I am trying to discourage you from following Bhagavan's teachings? That is not the case at all. You are making way too many assumptions about me, some of them I do not give the courtesy of my attention since they must be derived from paranoia.

[@LieutenantBoreyko]

Could you explain how attention is different from intellect (if it is different)? Attention is the ability to be aware of one thing and ignore other things so we can call it the ability to discriminate i.e. attention and intellect are one and the same. On the other hand, our attention is ourselves and is conscious whereas intellect is considered as one of the five sheaths i.e. it is an unconscious object which is not us. Trying to find the answer to this question I came to the conclusion that according to the principle "the mind turned outwards is the thoughts and the world and the mind turned inwards is the self" when our attention is turned outwards it manifests as unconscious activity of intellect which we as ego are aware of. When we turn our attention inwards this unconscious intellect gets absorbed by pure consciousness. I am sure Sadhu Om wrote something like "our attention, previously called intellect" in the chapter on self-investigation practice. I think this is important because according to Bhagavan, sharp intellect is the tool we use to practice self-investigation (Ulladu Narpadu verse 28, Guru Vachaka Kovai saying 446) . In another way: What we essentially are is consciousness, and as consciousness we have the ability to be conscious of ourselves or to be conscious of things that are not us. This ability is called attention. Our attention and our consciousness are the same because we are our attention. When our attention goes out, we become aware of unconscious phenomena starting with the body, which is the point from which we seem to experience a world that is not us. The moment our attention goes out, a fundamental error occurs, which is the experience of "I am this body," although the body we identify with is an unconscious object like all other objects we are aware of. The attention that is our consciousness becomes the unconscious intellect that discriminates between other unconscious objects. The moment we direct our attention to consciousness alone, ignoring all objects, what previously appeared to be unconscious intellect turns out to be pure consciousness. When Krishna or Ramana talk about directing the mind towards ourselves, "mind" means attention.

[@Chad-vo8pz]

@@LieutenantBoreyko There is a point where only actual practicing vichara can give you clarity. Book knowledge is not a substitute for actual practice and the evidence for this are these redundant two comments by you where mind intellectually tries to grasp a meaning it cannot grasp but by actually being "I am" - vichara. Nobody, not Michael nor Bhagavan can explain to you how to practice vichara, they can only give pointers, as are verse 28 of Ulladu Narpadu and GVK 446. The mind or intellect cannot attend to "I am" as much as the snake cannot attend to the rope, it IS the rope, the subject. Once mind has "moved" to "I am" it has no function whatsoever unless there is an distraction. When Bhagavan talked about a keen mind for vichara he meant a one-pointed mind which is not easily distracted - that's it. He did not mean an "intellectual" mind as yours since that is rather an obstacle than of help for vichara. Someone with an IQ of 90 can have the same strong one-pointed mind as someone with an IQ of 130. Intellect is irrelevant for atma-vichara, in fact it is usually an obstacle.

[@LieutenantBoreyko]

@@Chad-vo8pz I'm not asking about chopping wood, but about subtle issues related to the practice of self-investigation. If you want to chop wood, then the advice to "just do it" is correct, but if you want to practice self-investigation, then you need to understand what it's all about. It's arrogant to suggest that I'm just a bookworm. but it is the height of arrogance to suggest that Bhagavan is not able to explain something to me but your comment can clear all my doubts. You don't seem to understand the snake and rope analogy. What appears to be mind is really pure consciousness so the mind has to examine itself to see what it really is so the snake can turn its attention to the rope even though the moment it sees the rope it ceases to appear to be a snake. In this analogy the subject is the snake, not the rope. I'm almost certain you're the same person who's been showing up under different nicknames. I think that what is measured as IQ is not the same as what is called buddhi in Advaita philosophy. Intellect according to Advaita is the ability to make a correct judgment and IQ tests measure the speed at which you connect facts or the speed at which you do mathematical operations. IQ is more related to manas than buddhi. Many who have a high IQ are not able to understand non-dualism but I do not think that a mathematical genius has a sharper intellect than that of 16 year old Venkataraman. That is why I think my question is important. People have a wrong idea about intellect and followers of Bhagavan often demonize intellect and repeat like parrots that truth is beyond the mind and neither understands nor practices anything because you cannot practice something that you do not understand. By repeating such slogans they want to be seen as veterans who have gone so deep in their practice that the questions of newbies like me seem like a pathetic attempt to know something that the mind cannot know.

[@SriRamanaTeachings]

Namaskaram. The mind has various powers, and each power has varying degrees of subtlety, but its powers are closely interwoven and overlapping, so the boundaries between them are blurred and cannot be precisely demarcated. ‘Intellect’ is a term that encompasses a range of powers and a range of degrees of subtlety, so it cannot be defined precisely. At its subtlest level, intellect (which in this sense is what is also called vivēka) is the ability to see clearly what is real (in other words, what actually exists) by distinguishing it from all that seems real but is actually unreal, so it is at this level that our intellect guides our attention to focus on what alone is real, namely the extremely subtle being-awareness 'I am'. It is this sharp and subtle intellect or vivēka that Bhagavan refers to in verse 23 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu as ‘நுண் மதி’ (nuṇ mati), ‘subtle mind’ or ‘subtle intellect’, and in verse 28 as ‘கூர்ந்த மதி’ (kūrnda mati), ‘sharpened mind’ or ‘sharpened intellect’ blog.sriramanateachings.org/2017/10/ulladu-narpadu-tamil-text.html#un23 blog.sriramanateachings.org/2017/10/ulladu-narpadu-tamil-text.html#un28 Namo Ramanaya 🙏🙏🙏

[@LieutenantBoreyko]

Thanks. I think attention is simply the essence of totality of mind because attention directed outward manifests as thoughts, feelings, perceptions etc. (manas) but in addition to that we use attention to distinguish one thing from another (buddhi) and we direct our attention to what we want to direct it to so we use will (citta) for that. When we try to experience our fundamental awareness "I am" we use both will and intellect for that (because we have to know what we are focusing on and we have to love what we are focusing on) but in short we can say that we direct attention to ourselves. Besides, we will not try to direct our attention to our fundamental self if we have not thought about why it is important to do so in the first place. Thinking about whether this world is any different from ordinary dream and such matters will make us more motivated to direct our attention inward, so we need to engage both manas and buddhi and citta. People often say that thinking about such things is not helpful because our true nature does not think anything, but these same people do not see the problem in thinking about a thousand other things that do not contribute in any way to their realization of their true nature. Thinking about what we should eat or what movie we should watch is OK, but thinking about these teachings is not OK because "it is just mind". The purpose of atma-vichara is not simply to stop thinking but to experience our true nature in a completely clear way and for this our mind needs to break through the ignorance that envelops it. To achieve this we have to engage all our mental powers, that is, our thinking, intellect and will. People who write books about Ramana Maharshi tend to describe him as a yogi and not as a jnani. They use the word jnani but they write about a yogi. Ramana sat in caves and crypts with his eyes closed and did not speak, so it seems to them that he practiced yoga. When he spoke about pure awareness, people thought that he was talking about some "stream of energy". When he said that thoughts will cease when we turn our attention to our fundamental awareness, people wrote that our goal is to stop thinking.

[@Chad-vo8pz]

Alright, Michael gave us an explanation about the "subtle" mind. Has that info taken us closer to atma-svarupa? Not at all. It's another concept added to our collection of concepts stored into memory. In fact, what is subtlety or subtle mind but vishayas? Who is fascinated with "intellect" and "mental powers"? Only ego. If that cannot be seen then I give up. Atma-svarupa is devoid of thoughts and concepts and vishayas. Yes, the primary goal is not to avoid thoughts, BUT attending to "I am" IS devoid of thoughts. Otherwise we do not attend to "I am" but vishayas. It is the chit-aspect of ego who is mysteriously "doing" the work (diminishing vishayas/ego) *as long as we keep attending to "I am".* That is our only job. It is certainly not the thinking mind which somehow goes "deeper", that is an illusion. Ego cannot go deeper, it can only move its attention to "I am" and with that it slowly dissipates. The chit-aspect never changes, it is seemingly ego which deflates. However analyzing and mental powers inflate ego. There is no [thinking] mind in "I am". And intellect is very necessary in the phenomenal world, but not at all with atma-vichara.

[@Iiisgracebestill]

3:27 now we have taken a human birth? Who but imagination has ever taken form ? I think because I am . The thought I thinks. The i is thinking of a body with human life. Thinking I am, the I imagine ego’s reality. cx

[@demongirlmortalboy726]

Michael is intelligence an illusion too?

[@LieutenantBoreyko]

Bhagavan has written in the seventh paragraph of "Nāṉ Ār?": "What actually exists is only ātma-svarūpa [the ‘own form’ or real nature of oneself]" so everything else (including intelligence) does not really exist but only appears to exist when we arise as ego. However, to direct our attention to our fundamental consciousness we have to learn to distinguish consciousness from unconscious objects and for this we need a sharpened intellect. In the 28th verse of Ulladu Narpadu Bhagavan has written: "Like sinking wanting to see something that has fallen in water, sinking within restraining speech and breath by a sharpened mind it is necessary to know the place where the rising ego rises. Know." The best way to sharpen our intellect is to try to experience our consciousness in isolation from any phenomena. Our true nature is jnana (knowledge) and the intellect is its reflection, so when we try to experience our own self, the natural side effect of this practice is that our intellect becomes sharper. Therefore, there has never been a jnani who was not intelligent. If someone says that "only practice matters" but it is clear from his words that he does not understand the fundamental teachings of Bhagavan, then such a person is simply not practicing atma-vichara. Practice and understanding are always inseparable because we cannot practice what we do not understand. The same applies to morality. Moral principles are an illusion but that does not mean that we can follow the path of non-dualism and behave immorally. Immoral behavior is a manifestation of ignorance because the more value we give to a person we consider ourselves to be, the more impure our minds become. Bhagavan experienced a state that transcends morality but his behavior was always perfect and he never harmed anyone. Similarly, he transcended intellect completely but never taught illogical things. He did not read the Upanishads but when he heard about them he could explain them better than the scholars. This is because he experienced the source of all knowledge and therefore his knowledge could never be wrong. If someone does not understand Bhagavan's teachings it does not mean that he is "focused on practice and not theory". It is like saying that gold and a gold ring are two different things. We cannot separate our understanding and morality from our true nature because they are not two separate realities.

[@KGS922]

Ramana is not God. God made the crops grow and sent down the rain, and gives life and takes it. Don't equate him with God. Wise as his teachings on things like silence and calm may be.