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Tuesday, June 17, 2014

DUAL & NON-DUAL DEVOTION, SELF SURRRENDER AND RIGHT AWARENESS - Sri Ramana Maharshi

 


DUAL & NON-DUAL DEVOTION,
SELF SURRRENDER AND RIGHT AWARENESS

Extract from the book ''Sri Ramana Paravidyopanishad''
''The Supreme Science as of the Self as Taught by Sri Ramana ''

THE TWO PATHS

210 Such a one who knows the truth of non-difference by the intellect alone, but is unable to achieve experience of the true nature of the real Self, must strive to attain deliverance by devotion and self-surrender to God.

211 Only two paths are laid down for the aspirant to deliverance:
a.      SELF-ENQUIRY. For the valiant, the quest of one’s own Self, (He must strive to attain deliverance   by Self –enquiry)
b.     DEVOTION AND SELF-SURRENDER TO GOD. For the fearful, self-surrender to God (He must strive to attain deliverance by devotion and self-surrender to God. What is called surrender of oneself to God is the final consummation of the practice of devotion)

 In these two all the paths are included.

212 This two-fold path has been taught by the most holy one, Ramana, thus: ‘Either seek the root of the ego-sense [the ‘I’ that rises within the body] or surrender that ego-sense to God to have it destroyed [by His grace].’

213 That foolish man, who, considering himself as an advaitin, but not being valiant enough [to take to the quest as taught by Bhagavan] and who looks down upon devotion as inferior, lives in vain, without devotion to God. He is a man with a tainted mind.
214 In this samsara the devotee is like a pot let down into a well with a rope tied to it. The man without devotion is like a pot fallen into the well, without a rope being tied to it.
215 Those who are endowed with the diabolic temperament cannot have the right kind of devotion. Hence the good one should take hold of the divine temperament for practicing devotion to God.

DEVOTION DUAL AND NON-DUAL

229 Devotion is also of two kinds:
a.    One with a sense of separateness(DUAL)
b.   and the other with a sense of non-difference (NONDUAL).
The former is prescribed for the unrefined; the latter is excellent for the well-refined ones.

Dual devotion
230 If one, considering Him, who is only the Self, as other than oneself, worships Him in a form and by a name, then in course of time, through the clarification of his intellect, he surely reaches the supreme state. There is no doubt about this.
231 ‘If a man adores God, who is nameless and formless, he will be liberated from the bondage due to names and forms.’ Such is the teaching of Sri Ramana.

232 The man who, being endowed with the divine temperament, meditates with devotion on God with a form, will attain that same State [of deliverance] that one attains by meditating on Him as formless.
233 One may adore that one Being by name and in any form, as one likes. Among the forms of the supreme one, the wise one, whose mind is pure, will not see any superiority or inferiority.
Devotion to Guru

235 Of all the forms of God, the best is the sage, who does not consider Himself as other than the Self. Indeed the sage, who is the Guru, is the second of the [three] forms of divine grace.

236 Bhagavan Sri Krishna himself says in the Gita: ‘I myself am the sage.’ Therefore to know this truth of him, as stated in the sacred lore, one should regard the sage as not different from God.

237 [Also] there is the text of the Upanishads, that one who wants deliverance must worship the knower of the Self. If he thinks of him [the sage, who is the Guru] as other than God, that thought will obstruct his path.
238 Those devotees who worship God as not the Self are wanting in catholicity. In the case of a few of them, this defect ceases after a long time by a clarification of the intellect.
The vision of God
239 The devotee yearns to see the form of God as conceived by himself. Sometimes he may even see that very form, but this vision is transitory and hence unreal.
240 Being himself that very Supreme Being, but regarding Him as other than the Self through ignorance, he strives through devotion to obtain a vision of Him! Is there anything more surprising than this?

241 How can the seeing of a form of the formless one be a true vision? And how can the vision as not-self, of Him that is the Self, be a true vision?

242 All form is mental, and hence the form of the spectacle is inside the spectator. It is the truth of the seer that should be sought, since that is the truth of the Supreme Being.
243 ‘The man who, by the practice of devotion, sees God as someone other than himself, sees only a mental form’ – such is the utterance of the most holy one [on this point].

244 That which remains over on the annihilation of the [would-be] seer, by the quest [for the truth of] the seer, is itself the truth of the Self and also the truth of the Supreme Being.
The non-dual devotion
252 Since the better devotee approaches God as the Self, knowing that the notion of difference, due to the ego, is false, for this aspirant for deliverance, the annihilation of the ego will be accomplished quickly.
THE SELF-SURRENDER
256 What is called surrender of oneself to God is the final consummation of the practice of devotion. This can be achieved by the purified mind when the might of the ego is greatly reduced.
257 Just as a small magnet becomes united to a big one by the juxtaposition of the opposite poles, so the finite soul becomes one with the Supreme Being by the conjunction of its head with His feet.
258 The self-surrender is truly made by him who always has the feeling, ‘Let all things happen according to your will. In all respects, I am bound to you.’
259 He that has surrendered himself will be at peace, remembering that He [God] is the bearer of the world’s burden. The one that bears the burden himself will be ridiculous, like the figure on the temple-tower appearing to bear the tower on its own shoulders.
260 As one travelling in a carriage puts down his luggage in the carriage itself and completes his journey, so should he resign his own [samsaric] burden to God and complete his life in the world.
261 The wise one should resign to God his cares concerning the good of the world, just as he resigns to Him his cares about his own body and family.

262 The ripe devotee must pass his time, patiently enduring whatever happens to him, whether pleasant or unpleasant or otherwise, without yielding to sorrow or joy, with his heart absorbed in Him.

263 When the ego dies, having been swallowed by divine grace, the devotee’s self-surrender becomes true and complete.
265 Since the Self is the Supreme Being Himself, by whom, how and to whom is the surrender to be made? True self-surrender is only the extinction of the ego, by which the sense of being different from Him arises.

266 ‘If you desire to give yourself to God, then first seek out and know your Self. The gift of oneself to God will be accomplished in this way.’ So said the most holy one.
267 The truth of namaskara also is only the perfect giving up of the ego-sense. 
Right awareness,
self-surrender
and namaskara,
all these three are one and the same.