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.