The Teachings of Sri Ramana

Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi

By Michael James

1. Happiness is our essential being

2. The philosophy, science and art of
true self-knowledge
3. The practice of ātma-vicāra —
‘self-enquiry’ or self-scrutiny

Happiness is our essential being

Happiness lies deep within us, in the very

core of our being. Happiness does not

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exist in any external object, but only in
us, who are the consciousness that
experiences happiness. Though we seem
to derive happiness from external objects
or experiences, the happiness that we thus
enjoy in fact arises from within us.
Whatever turmoil our mind may be in, in
the centre of our being there always
exists a state of perfect peace and joy,
like the calm in the eye of a storm. Desire
and fear agitate our mind, and obscure
from its vision the happiness that always
exists within it. When a desire is
satisfied, or the cause of a fear is
removed, the surface agitation of our
mind subsides, and in that temporary
calm our mind enjoys a taste of its own
innate happiness.
Happiness is thus a state of being — a
state in which our mind’s habitual
agitation is calmed. The activity of our
mind disturbs it from its calm state of
just being, and causes it to lose sight of
its own innermost happiness. To enjoy
happiness, therefore, all our mind need
do is to cease all activity, returning
calmly to its natural state of inactive
being, as it does daily in deep sleep.
True happiness is therefore the
happiness of just being, which is the
perfect and absolute happiness that in
mystical literature is known as
‘beatitude’. This true happiness of being
is also described as ‘the peace of God,
which passeth all understanding’,
because it is experienced in full only in
the perfectly peaceful state of just being,
which is the state in which all mental
activity has subsided in the clarity of
unobstructed self-consciousness. That is,
since it can be experienced perfectly
only in the state in which we are
conscious merely of our own essential
being and not of any thoughts or objects,
true happiness or peace is beyond all
mental comprehension.
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Not only does happiness exist within us —
it is in fact our true nature, our essential
being. The transient happiness that we
seem to derive from external experiences,
but which actually arises only from within
ourself, is in reality nothing other than our
own essential being. The more clearly we
are conscious of our own essential being,
the more deeply and intensely do we
experience happiness.
The degree of happiness that we
experience at any moment is directly
proportionate to the degree of clarity
with which we are then conscious of our
true and essential being. Therefore
happiness is not only our essential being,
but is also our consciousness of our
being. In fact, since we are the
consciousness that experiences our own
being as ‘I am’, we are both being and
consciousness. In other words, our
essential being is consciousness, or more
precisely it is self-consciousness —
consciousness that knows itself clearly as
‘I am’. Therefore, since our unobstructed
consciousness of our own being is
experienced by us as happiness, in our
essential nature we are non-dual being,
consciousness and happiness.
The rising and subsequent activity of our
mind distracts our attention away from our
essential being, thereby clouding our
natural clarity of self-consciousness and
obscuring our awareness of the happiness
that we really are. Therefore so long as
our mind is extroverted, attending to
anything other than our own essential
being, we can never experience perfect,
permanent and unqualified happiness. To
experience true and eternal happiness,
we must attain the experience of true
self-knowledge, that is, perfectly clear
consciousness of our own essential being.
In order to experience such true self-
knowledge, we must withdraw our
attention from everything other than
ourself, and focus it wholly and
exclusively upon our own essential being,
which we always experience in the form
of our fundamental consciousness — our
primary knowledge ‘I am’.
Until and unless we attend to our
innermost self in this manner, we cannot
know who or what we really are, and
unless we thereby experience a clear and
certain knowledge of what we really are,
we cannot be certain about the reality or
validity of any knowledge that we may
appear to have about other things. All our
knowledge about the world and God —
about science, religion, philosophy,
physics, cosmology, psychology, theology
or any other branch of human knowledge
— is open to serious doubt so long as our
knowledge about ourself — the
consciousness by which all those other
things are known — is confused and
uncertain.
Therefore, if we wish to experience
permanent and unqualified happiness, or
to attain knowledge about which we can
be absolutely certain, we must focus our
whole attention keenly upon ourself, our
fundamental consciousness of our own
essential being, ‘I am’, in order to
ascertain who or what we really are.
Such in brief is the simple but profound
truth revealed by Bhagavan Sri Ramana
Maharshi.
The philosophy, science and art of true
self-knowledge
The philosophy of Sri Ramana derives
solely from his experience of true,
absolute and non-dual self-knowledge, an
experience that transcends all thought,
both rational and irrational. However,
since we imagine the existence of duality,
multiplicity and relativity, we seem to lack
the non-dual and absolute knowledge of
our own essential self-conscious being that
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Sri Ramana experienced as his natural
state. Therefore he presented his
philosophy to us in terms of a rational
and logical analysis of our present
experience of ourself as a finite
individual consciousness, in order to
enable us to be firmly convinced of the
absolute reality that underlies this finite
consciousness that we now mistake to be
ourself.
However, the spiritual teachings of Sri
Ramana are not only a rational
philosophy, but are also a precise science
and art. He intended his philosophy to
serve only as the theoretical foundation
upon which we should practice the
empirical (experiential) science of self-
investigation, which is the art of abiding
firmly and steadily in our natural state of
keenly self-attentive and therefore
perfectly thought-free being.
The practice of ātma-vicāra — ‘self-
enquiry’ or self-scrutiny
A Sanskrit term that was often used, both
by Sri Ramana and by other more ancient
sages such as Sri Adi Sankara, to describe
this empirical practice of self-investigation
or self-attentiveness is ātma-vicāra (or
‘atma-vichara’, as it is often less precisely
transcribed), which is generally translated
in English as ‘self-enquiry’ or ‘self-inquiry’.
However, rather than ‘enquiry’, the
word vicāra can be more accurately
translated as ‘investigation’, ‘examination’
or ‘scrutiny’. Therefore the term ātma-
vicāra really means ‘self-investigation’,
‘self-examination’ or ‘self-scrutiny’, and
denotes the simple practice of closely
examining, inspecting or scrutinising our
fundamental and essential consciousness
of our own being, ‘I am’, with a keen and
concentrated power of attention.
Sri Ramana also referred to this empirical
practice of self-investigation, self-
examination, self-inspection, self-
scrutiny, self-attention or self-
attentiveness as the vicāra ‘who am I?’
However, when he described it thus, he
did not mean that it is a process of
questioning ourself ‘who am I?’ either
verbally or mentally. What he intended
us to understand by this term is that this
practice is a keenly attentive
examination or scrutiny of our basic
consciousness of our own being, which
we always experience as ‘I am’, in order
to discover the true nature of this ‘I’, our
essential being or ‘am’-ness.
That is, though (among its range of
meanings) vicāra does mean ‘enquiry’, in
the context of Sri Ramana’s teachings it
means enquiry in the sense of empirical
(experiential) investigation rather than in
the sense of mere verbal questioning. It
is not just mentally asking oneself the
question ‘who (or what) am I?’ but is
actually investigating what ‘I’ am —
scrutinising oneself in order to
experience oneself as one actually is. In
other words, it is not literally questioning
oneself ‘who am I?’ but is figuratively doing
so: investigating experientially what this ‘I’
actually is.
"Jnana [Self-Knowledge] is given neither
from outside nor from another person. It
can be realized by each and everyone in
his own Heart. The jnana Guru of everyone
is only the Supreme Self that is always
revealing its own truth in every Heart
through the being-consciousness 'I am, I
am.' The granting of true knowledge by
him is initiation into jnana. The grace of
the Guru is only that Self-awareness that
is one's own true nature. It is the inner
consciousness by which he is unceasingly
revealing his existence. This divine
upadesa [spiritual instruction] is always
going on naturally in everyone."  past efforts. That which will be on the day
“That in which all these worlds seem to
exist steadily, that of which all these
worlds are a possession, that from which
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all these worlds arise, that for which all
these exist, that by which all these worlds
come into existence and that which is
indeed all these — that alone is the
existing reality. Let us cherish that Self,
which is the Reality, in the Heart.”
— Sri Ramana Maharshi
[David Godman’s Website]
David Godman
Reality is simply the loss of the ego.
Destroy the ego by seeking its identity.
Because the ego is no entity it will
automatically vanish and reality will shine
forth by itself. This is the direct method.
Whereas all other methods are done, only
retaining the ego. In those paths there
arise so many doubts and the eternal
question remains to be tackled finally. But
in this method the final question is the
only one and it is raised from the very
beginning. No sadhanas are necessary for
engaging in this quest. There is no greater
mystery than this: ourselves being the
reality we seek to gain reality. We think
that there is something hiding our reality
and that it must be destroyed before the
reality is gained. It is ridiculous. A day will
dawn when you will yourself laugh at your
you laugh is also here and now.
-Ramana Mahasrhi [Innerquest Website]
"That which is worth taking up is the Self-
enquiry that reveals the knowledge of the Self;
that which is worth enjoying is the grandeur of
the Self; that which is worth renouncing is the
ego-mind; that in which it is worth taking
refuge, to eliminate sorrow completely, is one's
own source, the Heart. That which should be
attained is true knowledge of the Self; that
which the mind should meditate upon is the
feet of God; that on which one should firmly
depend is satsang; that which should well up in
the Heart is peace."

-Guru Vachaka Kovai [Innerquest Website]

"What is always natural to everyone is

liberation, which is bliss. Bondage is delusion
of mind, a false sensation. The ego alone is
bondage, and one's own true nature, free of the
contagion of the ego, is liberation. There is no
greater deception than believing that liberation,
which is ever present as one's own nature, will
be attained at some later stage. Even the
desire for liberation is the work of delusion.
Therefore, remain still."

-Padamalai [Innerquest Website]

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 40 new photos to the album: Reality in
Forty Verses (Supplement). From :
Collected Works of Sri Ramana Maharshi:
http://ramana-collected-
works.blogspot.in/…/reality-in-fort…
Translated by Prof. K. Swaminathan.

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 From the online book: http://
cincinnatitemple.com /articl…/Maharshi
UpadesaSaram.pdf SRI MAHARSHI’S WAY A
Translation and Commentary on  Upadesa
Saram, by D.M. Sastri

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 "Jnana [Self-knowledge] is given neither
from outside nor from another person. It
can be realised by each and everyone in
his own Heart. The jnana Guru of everyone
is only the Supreme Self that is always
revealing its own truth in every Heart
through the being-consciousness 'I am, I
am.' The granting of true knowledge by
him is initiation into jnana. The grace of
the Guru is only that Self-awareness that
is one's own true nature. It is the inner
consciousness by which he is unceasingly
revealing his existence. This divine
upadesa [spiritual instruction] is always
going on naturally in everyone." 

“That in which all these worlds seem to

exist steadily, that of which all these
worlds are a possession, that from which
all these worlds arise, that for which all
these exist, that by which all these worlds
come into existence and that which is
indeed all these — that alone is the
existing reality. Let us cherish that Self,
which is the Reality, in the Heart.” — Sri
Ramana Maharshi

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Michael James said...Ken, regarding what I

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 describing pure self-awareness as the
‘sleeper’, it would be more accurate to
describe it as the ‘wakeful sleeper’,
because it is eternally awake to itself,
though asleep to the illusory appearance of
everything else (including the ego that we
now seem to be), as we shall discover for
ourself if we investigate ourself keenly
enough to see that what we actually are is
nothing but that infinite, immutable and
eternally awake pure self-awareness, other
than which there is nothing.- 1 January
2017 at 11:15

Michael James said...Nirvisesa, yes, as you

say in your latest comment, rather than
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