64
Question: If one renounces the jnana sastras, how can one attain the bliss of liberation?
Answer: Liberation is only delighting in the Self through tranquillity and without anxiety. When this is attained, books are of no use.
One may know the jnana sastras, or take up good sannyasa, or attempt to experience mauna samadhi, but the indescribable bliss of liberation is only becoming the Self, remaining without anxiety and experiencing bliss.
65
[continued from verse 64]
One may be endowed with learning, or established in great yoga, or one’s body and senses may be active, but he who does not merge with supreme grace will not know tranquillity and will not attain the wealth of liberation, the wealth that never leaves.
66
Question: If so, do they not have to experience even prarabdha?
Answer: If one remains without movement as the Self, like the column supporting the windmill, the prarabdha will exhaust itself.
You base, ignorant ones, wallowing in the three types of prarabdha! If you understand that those who accepted alms will now be donors, you can be like the column that supports the windmill.
[Bhagavan: Prarabdha [the actions the body has to perform in this life] is of three categories, iccha, anichha, and parechha [personally desired, without desire and due to others’ desire]. For him who has realised his Self, there is no iccha-prarabdha. The two others, anichha and parechha remain. Whatever he does is for others only. If there are things to be done by him for others, he does them but the results do not affect him. Whatever be the actions that such people do, there is no punya [merit] and no papa [sin] attached to them. (Letters from Sri Ramanasramam, 3rd June 1946, p. 65.)
The column that is necessary for the existence and operation of the windmill remains unaffected. Only the sails of the windmill move. Similarly, the Self is unaffected by prarabdha. Only the body is affected by it.]
67
Question: But will not this experience come to everyone?
Answer: If one becomes Selfward-turned instead of being externalised, this experience will come for everyone.
I declare: ‘If the mind attains the inward look, along with attention to the light [the Self], and does not get externalised, everyone in this world can see the Self, just as I have seen my Self.’
68
Question: Don’t jnanis have to perform activities?
Answer: Since they have seen the truth of both action and the one who performs the action, they do not have to perform activities.
He who has clearly seen in his mind both the performer of actions and the actions themselves, who has thus redeemed himself and become the reality, will he perform, without fail in every birth, every action at the prescribed time?
[This is a rhetorical question for which the assumed answer is ‘no’.]
69
Question: Will the jnanis hate the karmis [the performers of activities] when they see them?
Answer: They will enjoy seeing the karmis, witnessing their jugglery with delight, but they will not hate them.
Seeing the deceitful ones who cannot see and enjoy reality as it is and who cannot melt by experiencing it, I rejoiced. However many illusory lotus flowers bloom, is there any anger for the moon?
70
Question: How did this experience arise?
Answer: It was obtained providentially through the grace of the Guru.
Like a sweet mango fruit appearing under the thorny karuvelam tree, the divine lotus feet of the Guru – who can bestow the grace to transform me into the reality that is sought by everyone, everywhere – came to me who was evil and who was repeatedly taking births.
71
Question: Is getting this experience so difficult?
Answer: It is extremely difficult.
Where is my [state of] remaining as the ego? Where is my attachment? Where is my desire to rule heaven and earth? Siva! Siva! Where is the jnana Guru? Where is liberation? How can I express this?
[The wide disparity between his previous wretched state and the state of knowledge makes the author wonder at the greatness of the Guru’s grace that accomplished the transformation, and how little he deserved it.]
72
Question: What is the benefit of this experience?
Answer: It is obtaining the Self which is beyond the mind.
I did not obtain anything other than my Self. I had my Self in my possession all the time. Separate from me, there is no bondage or release. If one sees [this], even the mind that enquires into these in a non-existent entity.
73
Question: As soon as one obtains this experience, who should be worshipped?
Answer: The Guru, one’s own Self and the body should be worshipped, seeing them as the reality.
I will worship as my own Self the gracious Guru who showed everything to be like jugglery, or the Self that is realised after scrutinising everything, or the body-temple that came to terminate the evil of birth.
74
Question: How to get rid of the vasana of the gross body?
Answer: It should be rejected by seeing it as the form of food.
You body who remain as the sheath of food! If you do as I tell you, you will experience bliss as long as you live. I swear to this. Do not go near evil and useless vasanas. Whatever comes according to prarabdha, remain a mere witness.
75
Question: How to remove [or be rid of] the senses of perception?
Answer: They should be removed by seeing them as the Self.
O senses! You cherished and nourished me all these years. Now I have become blissful consciousness. I have known you too, you who separate from me as my Self. Henceforth, remain one with me, without becoming divergent.
76
Question: How to be rid of desires?
Answer: Through desire for realisation of the truth.
O desire! Though I suffered much through you, on account of your help I dwelt in the Self. I reached the Sadguru through you. In liberation I have, along with you, become the Self. I swear to this.
77
Question: How to destroy anger?
Answer Through tranquillity.
O anger! Through you I rid myself of my deficiency. Because of the weariness experienced by your rising that invariably produced misery, I rid myself of this danger and dwelt in supreme tranquillity. Even in dream, do not pine and rise, but remain calm.
78
Question: How to get rid of avarice?
Answer: By abiding peacefully in the Self.
O avarice! I took you as my relation. Those who do not know the truth say that your form is only sin. You will exert yourself hard merely to accumulate. [O sinner!] Because of you I am now possessed by peace.
79
Question: How to dissolve the mind?
Answer: It should be dissolved in the Self, which is its basis.
O mind! I myself am you. You yourself are me. Despite being so, deceitfully you forgot me. That I am surrendered to you is also true. But do not remain different from me, the reality.
80
[The same answer continues in verses 80, 81 and 82.]
My mind! You roamed about, laboured hard and learned many arts, seeking a way to make a living. You sought and gave me a Sadguru. To you who were so considerate to me, what help did I render in return?
81
O mind! Just as I once remained, assuming your form, now you have come and merged with me as my own form. Is there anyone like who you values the virtue of gratitude? From now on, you dwell in the loving care of the supreme state, without returning to your prior form.
82
O mind! You remained, right from the beginning, without renouncing love towards me. Through that love you gave me the benefit of cultivating all the virtues of a devotee, beginning with forbearance. You removed desire and its progeny. Now, like me, you remain still through good and proper discernment.
83
Question: Will the mind subside through the above means?
Answer: If it is firmly established in the experience of the Self, it will then shine as consciousness and remain still.
As mind roamed about, I too was similar to it, thus allowing myself to remain in an unquiet state. With my mind remaining still and motionless, I too remained similar to it, shining and dwelling like gold.
84
Question: Are there no likes and dislikes in this experience?
Answer: Since everything is experienced as the Self, these do not exist.
Whatever is to come, let it come. Whatever is to leave, let it leave. I will not reject even a life of living on alms as defective. Neither do I desire even the state of Brahma. I became all actions.
85
Question: Will he worship God?
Answer: He has no worship other than the worship of seeing everything as his own Self.
What I extol everywhere is only my Self. What I worship everywhere as God – that too is only my Self. In all places, sitting, lying down and running are all performed only in my Self. I myself am the consumer and the consumed.
86
Question: Is this the experience of all jnanis?
Answer: There is no experience other than this experience of the Self.
He who has attained liberation will see, as not different from his Self, all this world that rises in the Self, which remains in the Self, and which merges in the Self. Will he see it as opposed to his Self?
87
Question: Will likes and dislikes arise in him?
Answer: As everything has become his Self, they will not arise in him.
For what will he desire? For what will he rise as ‘I’? For what will he experience envy and malice? He will live as the unmoving support for the entire universe, like the great Meru mountain that is the axis for the seven worlds.
88
Question: Will not this experience cease?
Answer: Even if the creations of Iswara falter, this experience will not cease.
Even if the cardinal points change, even if the moon emits heat, fire becomes cold, or the sun travels north to south, the Self-state of the liberated one who has enquired thoroughly into the primal state will not cease.
89
Question: How to determine those with such experience?
Answer: They remain unruffled in joy and misery. They should be known by taking this as the hallmark.
Only he is a jnani whose mind does not get agitated, who does not identify with and desire objects before him, and whose state of purity never shakes whether he lives on alms in poverty or enjoys the illusory state of being Brahma.
90
Question: Will they not care for praise and slander?
Answer: No, they will not.
Some may utter praises and worship, or evil and cruel ones may utter words of slander and insult, but the jnani’s mind will not associate with them. He will remain without thoughts, like the sky that remains the same whether the sun rises or a vast collection of clouds appear.
91
Question: What is food for the jnani?
Answer: Whatever happens to come to him is food for him.
Whatever enjoyments happen to appear before him, and in whatever amount, he will experience those enjoyments to that same extent. Like the sun that spreads its ways, he will remain in the unique and natural state without bonds.
92
Question: Will not the ego-nature, beginning with desire, touch these jnanis?
Answer: As they have attained total destruction of vasanas, it will not.
Desire, anger and so on will not touch the liberated one – who has become the form of consciousness and the witness of the world – since he has uprooted and destroyed all the base vasanas, and is therefore without sankalpas.
93
Question: Do they not need to stay in a holy place, or take baths in holy waters, and so on?
Answer: The place where they reside is the holy place. Their look is holy water.
The place where the unique jivanmukta – who shines everywhere as consciousness – resides is itself the holy place. His look itself is holy water. The service to his lotus feet is itself liberation.
94
Question: What are the eternal attributes of a jnani?
Answer: They are soft words, and so on.
They are soft-spoken, have a desireless look, experience everything to be sat alone, have a slow gait and unsubsiding joy in the mind. The attributes of a jnani are being ever-firm in these.
95
Question: What does the jnani think?
Answer: There are only thoughts that everything is the Self.
The jivanmukta is the one who has become one with the reality through the experience ‘I have seen myself everywhere; I have seen everything in me,’ and who possesses intensely and clearly the experience of having learned ‘unlearning’, and who has renounced everything.
96
Question: What is proper conduct and what is prohibited conduct for jnanis?
Answer: Actions they undertake are proper conduct; actions they abandon are prohibited actions.
The jnani has become one, tranquil and blemishless. Everything, beginning with space [and including the other elements] is his own form. The actions he abandons are prohibited actions, and the actions he takes up are proper actions.
97
Question: What are the disciplines and pujas for the jnani?
Answer: They are meditating on the Self, and so on.
Meditating on consciousness is bathing for a jnani. Whatever external appearances he delights in, that is noble discipline. Whatever he obtains as alms and eats without ego, that is his supreme puja. His faultless movements are pure samadhi.
98
Question: The actions that should be performed, and the actions that should be avoided: are these not necessary for jnanis?
Answer: As they remain as Sivam, they do not exist for them.
To the jnani who has become Sivam, having seen all the universe as his Self and as the form of consciousness, for him, what is there that should be sifted and rejected, and what is there that should be accepted as proper?
99
Question: What is the state attained by those who criticise the conduct of jnanis?
Answer: It is the hell of transmigration.
Know that those cruel ones, who view as faulty the life of the jnani who has attained supreme bliss, will experience crores and crores of births like the silkworm that never gets detached from its cocoon.
100
Question: What is the benefit obtained by those who worship them?
Answer: It is becoming the non-dual Self.
Those who are able to obtain the grace of the jnani – who remains as the eternal, formless, blemishless, blissful and pure non-dual reality, and for whom everything is his own Self – will become jnanis.
101
Question: How will the jnani shine?
Answer: He will shine as everything and as different from everything.
They have rid themselves of the blemish of the mind; they have rid themselves of the mind; they have rid themselves of the entity within the mind; they have transcended the shore of jnana; they have rid themselves of the blissful state of consciousness, the supreme; they have rid themselves of the experience of Siva. They have also rid themselves of all concepts.
102
Those who are able to enjoy through their two ears the taste of the Swarupa Saram, which describes the experience attained at the proper stage of ripeness, will be able to see the entire world as their own Self.