Annamalai Swami

Annamalai Swami
1906-1995
Annamalai Swami was born in 1906 in a small village in Tamil Nadu, southern India. He was named Sella
Perumal, and from an early age showed a keen interest in spirituality.
In 1928, when he was 22 years old, he traveled to Tiruvannamalai to meet Bhagavan Sri Ramana
Maharshi who lived near the city along the base of the slope of the holy mountain Arunachala. Following
in the footsteps of Sri Seshadri Swamigal, who saved the young Ramana from the ravages of insects and
vermin in the underground vault he first inhabited, and Palaniswami, who stayed with Ramana in
Virupaksha Cave and Skandasraman Cave, he became the Maharshi’s personal attendant and given the
name Annamalai Swami (Annamalai is another name for Arunachala). Swami Annamalai’s duties, after
being directed to do so by Sri Ramana, was to oversee all phases of the ongoing construction, continuing
expansion, and positive growth of the Ramana Ashram, including the goshala (cow shed), dining hall,
dispensary and other projects.
HOW THE ASHRAM LOOKED WHEN ANNAMALAI ARRIVED IN

1928
"Just remain like the sky and let thought-clouds come and go."
QUESTION : What is the easiest way to be free of the 'little self'?
The Self is always attained, it is always realised; it is not something that you have to seek, reach or
discover. Your vasanas [mental habits and tendencies] and all the wrong ideas you have about
yourself are blocking and hiding the experience of the real Self. If you don't identify with the wrong
ideas, your Self-nature will not be hidden from you.
You said that you needed help. If you desire to gain a proper understanding of your real nature is
intense enough, help will automatically come. If you want to generate an awareness of your real
nature you will be immeasurably helped by having contact with a jnani [realised being]. The power
and grace which a jnani radiates quieten the mind and automatically eliminate the wrong ideas you
have about yourself. You can make progress by having satsang [association] of a realised Guru and
by constant spiritual practice. The Guru cannot do everything for you. If you want to give up the
limiting habits of many lifetimes, you must practise constantly.
Most people take the appearance of the snake in the rope to be reality. Acting on their
misperceptions they think up many different ways of killing the snake. They can never succeed in
getting rid of the snake until they give up the idea that there is a snake there at all. People who
want to kill or control the mind have the same problem: they imagine that there is a mind which
needs to be controlled and take drastic steps to beat it into submission. If, instead, they generated
the understanding that there is no such thing as the mind, all there problems would come to an
end. You must generate the conviction, "I am the all-pervasive consciousness in which all bodies
and minds in the world are appearing and disappearing. I am that consciousness which remains
unchanged and unaffected by these appearances and disappearances". Stabilise yourself in that
conviction. That is all you need to do.
Bhagavan [Ramana Maharshi] once told a story about a man who wanted to bury his own shadow
in a deep pit. He dug the pit and stood in such a position that his shadow was on the bottom of it.
The man then tried to bury it by covering it with earth. Each time he threw some soil in the hole the
shadow appeared on top of it. Of course, he never succeeded in burying the shadow. Many people
behave like this when they meditate. They take the mind to be real, try to fight it and kill it, and
always fail. These fights against the mind are all mental activities which strengthen the mind
instead of weakening it. If you want to get rid of the mind, all you have to do is understand that it is
'not me'. Cultivate the awareness "I am the immanent consciousness". When that understanding
becomes firm, the non-existent mind will not trouble you.
Question: I don't think that repeating "I am not the mind, I am consciousness" will ever convince
me that I am not the mind. It will just be another thought going on within the mind. If I could
experience, even for a moment, what it is like to be without the mind, the conviction would
automatically come. I think that one second of experiencing consciousness as it really is would be
more convincing that several years of mental repetitions.
Annamalai Swami: Every time you go to sleep you have the experience of being without a mind.
You cannot deny that you exist while you are asleep and you cannot deny that your mind is not
functioning while you are in dreamless sleep. This daily experience should convince you that it is
possible to continue your existence without a mind. Of course, you do not have the full experience
of consciousness while you are asleep, but if you think about what happens during this state you
should come to understand that your existence, the continuity of your being, is in no way
dependent on your mind or your identification with it. When the mind reappears every morning
you instantly jump to the conclusion "This is the real me". If you reflect on this proposition for some
time you will see how absurd it is. If what you really are only exists when the mind is present, you
have to accept that you didn't exist while you were asleep. No one will accept such an absurd
conclusion. If you analyse your alternating states you will discover that it is your direct experience
that you exist whether you are awake or asleep. You will also discover that the mind only becomes
active while you are waking or dreaming. From these simple daily experiences it should be easy to
understand that the mind is something that comes and goes. Your existence is not wiped out each
time the mind ceases to function. I am not telling you some philosophical theory; I am telling you
something that you can validate by direct experience in any twenty-four hour period of your life.
Take these facts, which you can discover by directly experiencing them, and investigate them a little
more. When the mind appears every morning don't jump to the usual conclusion, "This is me; these
thoughts are mine." Instead, watch these thoughts come and go without identifying with them in
any way. If you can resist the impulse to claim each and every thought as your own, you will come
to a startling conclusion: you will discover that you are the consciousness in which the thoughts
appear and disappear. You are allowed to run free. Like the snake which appears in the rope, you
will discover that the mind is only an illusion which appears through ignorance or misperception.
You want some experience which will convince you that what I am saying is true. You can have that
experience if you give up your life-long habit of inventing an 'I' which claims all thoughts as 'mine'.
Be conscious of yourself as consciousness alone, watch all the thoughts come and go. Come to the
conclusion, by direct experience, that you are really consciousness itself, not its ephemeral
contents.
Clouds come and go in the sky but the appearance and disappearance of the clouds doesn't affect
the sky. Your real nature is like the sky, like space. Just remain like the sky and let thought-clouds
come and go. If you cultivate this attitude of indifference towards the mind, gradually you will cease
to identify yourself with it.
Question: When I began to do sadhana [spiritual practice] everything went smoothly at first. There
was a lot of peace and happiness and jnana [true knowledge] seemed very near. But nowadays
there is hardly any peace, just mental obstacles and hindrances.
Annamalai Swami: Whenever obstacles come on the path, think of them as not me'. Cultivate the
attitude that the real you is beyond the reach of all troubles and obstacles. There are no obstacles
for the Self. If you can remember that you always are the Self, obstacles will be of no importance.
One of the alvars [a group of Vaishnavite saints] once remarked that if one is not doing any spiritual
practice one is not aware of any mind problems. He said that it is only when one starts to do
meditation that one becomes aware of the different ways that the mind causes us trouble. This is
very true. But one should not worry about any of the obstacles or fear them. One should merely
regard them as being not me. They can only cause you trouble while you think that they are your
problems.
The obstructing vasanas may look like a large mountain which obstructs your progress. Don't be
intimidated by the size. It is not a mountain of rock, it is a mountain of camphor. If you light one
corner of it with the flame of discriminative attention, it will all burn to nothing.
Stand back from the mountain of problems, refuse to acknowledge that they are yours, and they
will dissolve and disappear before your eyes.
Don’t be deluded by your thoughts and vasanas. They are always trying to trick you into believing
that you are a real person, that the world is real, and that all your problems are real. Don't fight
them; just ignore them. Don't accept delivery of all the wrong ideas that keep coming to you.
Establish yourself in the conviction that you are the Self and that nothing can stick to you or affect
you. Once you have that conviction you will find that you automatically ignore the habits of the
mind. When the rejection of mental activities becomes continuous and automatic, you will begin to
have the experience of the Self.
If you see two strangers quarrelling in the distance you do not give much attention to them because
you know that the dispute is none of your business. Treat the contents of your mind in the same
way. Instead of filling your mind with thoughts and then organising fights between them, pay no
attention to the mind at all. Rest quietly in the feeling of "I am", which is consciousness, and
cultivate the attitude that all thoughts, all perceptions are 'not me'. When you have learned to
regard your mind as a distant stranger, you will not pay any attention to all the obstacles it keeps
inventing for you.
Mental problems feed on the attention that you give them. The more you worry about them, the
stronger they become. If you ignore them, they lose their power and finally vanish.
Question: I am always thinking and believing that there is only the Self but somehow there is still a
feeling that I want or need something more.
Annamalai Swami: Who is it that wants? If you can find the answer to that question there will be no
one to want anything.
Question: Children are born without egos. As they begin to grow up, how do their egos arise and
cover the Self?
Annamalai Swami: As young children may appear to have no egos but its ego and all the latent
vasanas that go with it are there in seed form. As the child's body grows bigger, the ego also grows
bigger. The ego is produced by the power of maya [illusion], which is one of the shaktis [powers] of
the Self.
Question: How does maya operate? How does it originate? Since nothing exists except the Self,
how does the Self manage to conceal its own nature from itself?
Annamalai Swami: The Self, which is infinite power and the source of all power, is indivisible. Yet
within this indivisible Self there are five shaktis or powers, with varying functions, which operate
simultaneously. The five shaktis are creation, preservation, destruction, veiling [maya shakti] and
grace. The fifth shakti, grace, counteracts and removes the fourth shakti, which is maya.
When maya is totally inactive, that is, when the identity with the body and the mind has been
dropped, there is an awareness of consciousness, of being. When one is established in that state
there is no body, no mind and no world. These three things are just ideas which are brought into an
apparent existence when maya is present and active.
When maya is active, the sole effective way to dissolve it is the path shown by Bhagavan: one must
do self-enquiry and discriminate between what is real and what is unreal. It is the power of maya
which makes us believe in the reality of things which have no reality outside our imagination. If you
ask, "What are these imaginary things?" the answer is, "Everything that is not the formless Self".
The Self alone is real; everything else is a figment of our imagination.
It is not helpful to enquire why there is maya and how it operates. If you are in a boat which is
leaking, you don’t waste time asking whether the hole was made by an Italian, a Frenchman or an
Indian. You just plug the leak. Don't worry about where maya comes from. Put all your energy into
escaping from its effect. If you try to investigate the origin of maya with your mind you are doomed
to fail because any answer you come up with will be a maya answer. If you want to understand how
maya operates and originates you should establish yourself in the Self, the one place where you can
be free of it, and then watch how it takes you over each time you fail to keep your attention there.
Question: You say that maya is one of the shaktis. What exactly do you mean by shakti?
Annamalai Swami: Shakti is energy or power. It is a name for the dynamic aspect of the Self. Shakti
and shanti [peace] are two aspects of the same consciousness. If you want to separate them at all,
you can say that shanti is the unmanifest aspect of the Self while shakti is the manifest. But really
they are not separate. A flame has two properties: light and heat. The two cannot be separate.
Shanti and shakti are like the sea and its waves. Shanti, the unmanifest aspect, is the vast unmoving
body of water. The waves that appear and move on the surface are shakti. Shanti is motionless, vast
and all-encompassing, whereas waves are active.
Bhagavan used to say that after realisation the jivanmukta [liberated one] experiences shanti within
and is established permanently in that shanti. In that state of realisation he sees that all activities
are caused by shakti. After realisation one is aware that there is no individual people doing
anything. Instead there is an awareness that all activities are the shakti of the one Self. The jnani,
who is fully established in the shanti, is always aware that shakti is not separate from him. In that
awareness everything is his Self and all actions are his. Alternatively, it is equally correct to say that
he never does anything. This is one of the paradoxes of the Self.
The universe is controlled by the one shakti, sometimes called Parameswara shakti [the power of
the Supreme Lord]. This moves and orders all things. Natural laws, such as the laws that keep the
planets in their orbits, are all manifestations of this shakti.
Question: You say that everything is the Self, even maya. If this is so, why can't I see the Self
clearly? Why is it hidden from me?
Annamalai Swami: Because you are looking in the wrong direction. You have the idea that the Self is
something that you see or experience. This is not so. The Self is the awareness or the consciousness
in which the seeing and the experiencing take place.
Even if you don't see the Self, the Self is still there. Bhagavan sometimes remarked humorously:
"People just open a newspaper and glance through it. Then they say, "I have seen the paper". But
really they haven't seen the paper, they have only seen the letters and pictures that are on it. There
can be no words or pictures without the paper, but people always forget the paper while they are
reading the words."
Bhagavan would then use this analogy to show that while people see the names and forms that
appear on the screen of consciousness, the ignore the screen itself. With this kind of partial vision it
is easy to come to the conclusion that all forms are unconnected with each other and separate from
the person who sees them. If people were to be aware of the consciousness instead of the forms
that appear in it, they would realise that all forms are just appearances which manifest within the
one indivisible consciousness.
That consciousness is the Self that you are looking for. You can be that consciousness but you can
never see it because it is not something that is separate from you.
Question: You talk a lot about vasanas. Could you please tell me exactly what they are and how
they function?
Annamalai Swami: Vasanas are habits of the mind. They are the mistaken identifications and the
repeated thought patterns that occur again and again. It is the vasanas which cover up the
experience of the Self. Vasanas arise, catch your attention, and pull you outwards towards the
world rather than inwards towards the Self. This happens so often and so continuously that the
mind never gets a chance to rest or to understand its real nature.
Cocks like to claw the ground. It is a perpetual habit with them. Even if they are standing on bare
rock they still try to scratch the ground.
Vasanas function in much the same the way. They are habits and patterns of thought that appear
again and again even if they are not wanted. Most of our ideas and thoughts are incorrect. When
they rise habitually as vasanas they brainwash us into thinking that they are true. The fundamental
vasanas such as "I am the body" or "I am the mind" have appeared in us so many times that we
automatically accept that they are true. Even our desire to transcend our vasanas is a vasana. When
we think "I must meditate" or "I must make an effort" we are just organising a fight between two
different vasanas. You can only escape the habits of the mind by abiding in consciousness as
consciousness. Be who you are. Just be still. Ignore all the vasanas that rise in the mind and instead
fix your attention in the Self.
Question: Bhagavan often told devotees to "Be still". Did he mean "Be mentally still"?
Annamalai Swami: Bhagavan's famous instruction "summa iru" [be still] is often misunderstood. It
does not mean that you should be physically still; it means that you should always abide in the Self.
If there is too much physical stillness, tamoguna [a state of mental torpor] arises and predominates.
In that state you will feel very sleepy and mentally dull. Rajoguna [a state of excessive mental
activity], on the other hand, produces emotions and a mind which is restless. In sattva guna [a state
of mental quietness and clarity] there is stillness and harmony. If mental activity is necessary while
one is in sattva guna it takes place. But for the rest of the time there is stillness. When tamoguna
and rajoguna predominate, the Self cannot be felt. If sattva guna predominates one experiences
peace, bliss, clarity and an absence of wandering thoughts. That is the stillness that Bhagavan was
prescribing.
Question: Bhagavan, in Talks with Ramana Maharshi, speaks of bhoga vasanas [vasanas which are
for enjoyment] and bandha vasanas [vasanas which produce bondage]. He says that for the jnani
there are bhoga vasanas but no bandha vasanas. Would Swamiji please clarify the difference.
Annamalai Swami: Nothing can cause bondage for the jnani because his mind is dead. In the
absence of a mind he knows himself only as consciousness. Because the mind is dead, he is no
longer able to identify himself with the body. But even though he knows that he is not the body, it
is a fact that the body is still alive. That body will continue to live, and the jnani will continue to be
aware of it, until its own karma [destined action] is exhausted. Because the jnani is still aware of the
body, he will also be aware of the thoughts and vasanas that arise in that body. None of these
vasanas has the power to cause bondage for him because he never identifies with them, but they
do have the power to make the body behave in certain ways. The body of the jnani enjoys and
experiences these vasanas although the jnani himself is not affected by them. That is why it is
sometimes said that for the jnani there are bhoga vasanas but no bandha vasanas.
The bhoga vasanas differ from jnani to jnani. Some jnanis may accumulate wealth, some may sit in
silence; some may study the shastra [Scriptures] while others may remain illiterate; some may get
married ands raise families, but others may become celibate monks. It is the bhoga vasanas which
determine the kind of lifestyle a jnani will lead. The jnani is aware of the consequences of all these
vasanas without ever identifying with them. Because of this he never falls back into samsara
[worldly illusion] again.
The vasanas arise because of the habits and practices of previous lifetimes. That is why they differ
from jnani to jnani. When vasanas rise in ordinary people who still identify with the body and the
mind, they cause likes and dislikes. Some vasanas are embraced wholeheartedly while others are
rejected as being undesirable. These likes and dislikes generate desires and fears which in turn
produce more karma. While you are still making judgements about what is good and what is bad,
you are identifying with the mind and making new karma for yourself. When new karma has been
created like this, it means you have to take another birth to enjoy it.
The jnani's body carries out all the acts which are destined for it. But because the jnani makes no
judgement about what is good or bad, and because he has no likes or dislikes, he is not creating any
new karma for himself. Because he knows that he is not the body, he can witness all its activities
without getting involved in them in any way.
There will be no rebirth for the jnani because once the mind has been destroyed there is no
possibility of any new karma being created.
Question: So whatever happens to us in life only happens because of our past likes and dislikes?
Annamalai Swami: Yes.
Question: How can one learn not to react when vasanas arise in the mind? Is there anything special
that we should be looking out for?
Annamalai Swami: You must learn to recognise them when they arise. That is the only way. If you
can catch them early enough and frequently enough they will not cause you trouble. If you want to
pay attention to a special area of danger, watch how the five senses operate. It is the nature of the
mind to seek stimulation through the five senses. The mind catches hold of sense impressions and
processes them in such a way that they produce long chains of uncontrolled thoughts. Learn to
watch how your senses behave. Learn to watch how the mind reacts to sense impressions. If you
can stop the mind from reacting to sense impressions you can eliminate a large number of your
vasanas.
Bhagavan never like or disliked anything. If we have likes or dislikes, if we hate or love someone or
something, some bondage will arise in the mind. Jnanis never like or dislike anything. That is why
they are free of all bondage.
……………………………………………………………………………………..
Annamalai Swami – Bhagavan [Ramana Maharshi] has said: ‘When
thoughts arise stop them from developing by enquiring, “To whom is this
thought coming?” as soon as the thought appears. What does it matter if
many thoughts keep coming up? Enquire into their origin or find out who
has the thoughts and sooner or later the flow of thoughts will stop.’ This is
how self-enquiry should be practiced.
When Bhagavan spoke like this he sometimes used the analogy of a
besiged fort. If one systematically loses off all the entrances to such a fort
and then picks off the occupants one by one as they try to come out,
sooner or later the fort willl be be empty.
Bhagavan said that we should apply these same tactics to the mind. How
to go about doing this? Seal off the entrances and exits to the mind by not
reacting to rising thoughts or sense impressions. Don’t let new ideas,
judgements, likes, dislikes, etc. enter the mind, and don’t let rising thoughts
flourish and escape your attention.
When you have sealed off the mind in this way, challenge each emerging
thought as it appears by asking, ‘Where have you come from?’ or ‘Who is
the person who is having this thought?’ If you can do this continuously,
with full attention, new thoughts will appear momentarily and then
disappear.
If you can maintain the siege for long enough, a time will come when no
more thoughts arise; or if they do, they will only be fleeting, undistracting
images on the periphery of consciousness. In that thought-free state you
wlil begin to experience yourself as consciousness, not as mind or body.
However, if you relax your vigilance even for a few seconds and allow new
thoughts to escape and develop unchallenged, the siege will be lifted and
the mind will regain some or all of its former strength.
In a real fort the occupants need a continuous supply of food and water to
hold out during a siege. When the supplies run out, the occupants must
surrender or die. In the fort of the mind the occupants, which are thoughts,
need a thinker to pay attention to them and indulge in them.
If the thinker witholds his attention from rising thoughts or challenges them
before they have a chance to develop, the thoughts will all die of
starvation. You challenge them by repeatedly asking yourself ‘Who am I?
Who is the person who is having these thoughts?’ If the challenge is to be
effective you must make it before the rising thought has had a chance to
develop into a stream of thoughts.
Mind is only a collection of thoughts and the thinker who thinks them. The
thinker is the ‘I’-thought, the primal thought which rises from the Self before
all others, which identifies with all other thoughts and says, ‘I am this body’.
When you have eradicated all thoughts except for the thinker himself by
ceaseless enquiry or by refusing to give them any attention, the ‘I’-thought
sinks into the Heart and surrenders, leaving behind it only an awareness of
consciousness.
This surrender will only take place when the ‘I’-thought has ceased to
identify with rising thoughts. While there are still stray thoughts which
attract or evade your attentoin, the ‘I’-thought will always be directing its
attention outwards rather than inwards. The purpose of self-enquiry is to
make the ‘I’-thought move inwards, towards the Self. This will happen
automatically as soon as you cease to be interested in any of your rising
thoughts.
Source: from book “Living by the Words of Bhagavan”, pages 272–73.
This book is written by David Godman and it contains wonderful account of
Annamalai Swami Life with Ramana Maharshi, Stories of How Ramana
Ashram was constructed, Annamalai Swami answers to meditation
Questions of Seekers
If you are having trouble with your enthusiasm for sadhana, just tell
yourself, ‘I may be dead in seven days’. Let go of all the things that you
pretend are important in your daily life and instead focus on the Self for
twenty-four hours a day. Do it and see what happens.
Remember that nothing that happens in the mind is ‘you’, and none of it is
your business. You don’t have to worry about the thoughts that rise up
inside you. It is enough that you remember that the thoughts are not you.
Go deeply into this feeling of ‘I’. Be aware of it so strongly and so intensely
that no other thoughts have the energy to arise and distract you. If you
hold this feeling of ‘I’ long enough and strongly enough, the false ‘I’ wll
vanish leaving only the unbroken awareness of the real, immanent ‘I’,
consciousness itself..
Continuous attentiveness will only come with long practice. If you are truly
watchful, each thought will dissolve at the moment that it appears. But to
reach this level of disassociation you must have no attachments at all. If
you have the slightest interest in any particular thought, it will evade your
attentiveness, connect with other thoughts, and take over your mind for a
few seconds. This will happen more easily if you are accustomed to
reacting emotionally to a particular thought.
Self-inquiry must be done continuously. It doesn’t work if you regard it as a
part-time activity.
Sadhana is a battlefield. You have to be vigilant. Don’t take delivery of
wrong beliefs and don’t identify with the incoming thoughts that will give
you pain and suffering. But if these things start happening to you, fight
back by affirming, ‘I am the Self; I am the Self; I am the Self;’. These
affirmations will lessen the power of the ‘I am the body’ arrows and
eventually they will armour-plate you so successfully, the ‘I am the body’
thoughts that come your way will no longer have the power to touch you,
affect you or make you suffer.
If you can hold on to this knowledge ‘I am Self’ at all times, no further
practice is necessary.
There is nothing wrong with looking at Bhagavan’s picture. It is a very good
practice. But you should not get sidetracked from you main objective which
is establishing yourself as consciousness. Don’t get attached to states of
bliss or give them priority over the quest for the Self.
There are so many thoughts in the mind. Thought after thought after
thought. But there is one thought that is continuous, though it is mostly
sub-conscious: ‘I am the body’. This is the string on which all other
thoughts are threaded. Once we identify ourselves with the body by
thinking this thought, maya follows. It also follows that if we cease to
identify with the body, maya will not affect us anymore.
When the rejection of mental activities becomes continuous and
automatic, you will begin to have the experience of the Self.
A strong determination to pursue enquiry in this way will dissolve all
doubts. By questioning ‘Who am I?’ and by constantly meditating, one
comes to the clarity of being.As long as vasanas continue to exist they will
rise and cover the reality, obscuring awareness of it. As often as you
become aware of them, question, ‘To whom do they come?’ This
continuous enquiry will establish you in your own Self and you will have no
further problems. When you know that the snake of the mind never
existed, when you know that the rope of reality is all that exists, doubts and
fears will not trouble you again.
Meditation must be continuous. The current of meditation must be present
in all your activities. With practice, meditation and work can go on
simultaneously.
One must keep one’s attention on the Self if one wants to make progress
on the spiritual path
The thoughts that come and go are not you. Whatever comes and goes is
not you. Your reality is peace. If you don’t forget that, that will be enough.
Bhagavan’s famous instruction ‘summa iru’ [be still] is often
misunderstood. It does not mean that you should be physically still; it
means that you should always abide in the Self… In sattva guna [a state of
mental quietness and clarity] there is stillness and harmony. If mental
activity is necessary while one is in sattva guna it takes place. But for the
rest of the time there is stillness… If sattva guna predominates one
experiences pleace, bliss, clarity and an absence of wandering thoughts.
That is the stillness that Bhagavan was prescribing.
Bhagavan is always present, inside you and in front of you. If you don’t
cover the vision of Bhagavan with your ego, that will be enough. The ego
is the ‘I am the body’ idea. Remove this idea and you shine as the Self.
When I say, ‘Meditate on the Self’ I am asking you to be the Self, not think
about it. Be aware of what remains when thoughts stop. Be aware of the
consciousness that is the origin of all your thoughts. Be that
consciousness.
In the same way, mind is just a Self-inflicted area of darkness in which the
light of the Self has been deliberately shut out.
The mind and the body are both inert. Any energy or peace you
experience can only come from the Self. Drop the identification with the
body. These experiences are making you too body-conscious. Just be
aware of the Self and try to pay as little attention as possible to the body.
The Self is pure energy, pure power. Hold onto that.
If you can give up duality, Brahman alone remains, and you know yourself
to be that Brahman, but to make this discovery continuous meditation is
required. Don’t allocate periods of time for this. Don’t regard it as
something you do when you sit with your eyes closed. This meditation has
to be continuous. Do it while eating, walking and even talking. It has to be
continued all the time.
Remember that nothing that happens in the mind is ‘you’, and none of it is
your business. You don’t have to worry about the thoughts that rise up
inside you. It is enough that you remember that the thoughts are not you.
Tayumanuvar, a Tamil saint whom Bhagavan often quoted, wrote in one of
his poems: ‘My Guru merely told me that I am consciousness. Having
heard this, I held onto consciousness. What he told me was just one
sentence, but I cannot describe the bliss I attained from holding onto that
one simple sentence. Through that one sentence I attained a peace and a
happiness that can never be explained in words.’
In every moment you only have one real choice: to be aware of the Self or
to identify with the body and the mind.
You have to keep up the enquiry, ‘To whom is this happening?’ all the
time. If you are having trouble remind yourself, ‘This is just happening on
the surface of my mind. I am not this mind or the wandering thoughts.’
Then go back into enquiry ‘Who am I?’.
By doing this you will penetrate deeper and deeper and become detached
from the mind. This will only come about after you have made an intense
effort.
Your ultimate need is to get established in the changeless peace of the
Self. For this you have to give up all thoughts.
Annamalai Swami – Bhagavan [Ramana Maharshi] has said: ‘When thoughts arise
stop them from developing by enquiring, “To whom is this thought coming?” as
soon as the thought appears. What does it matter if many thoughts keep coming
up? Enquire into their origin or find out who has the thoughts and sooner or later
the flow of thoughts will stop.’ This is how self-enquiry should be practiced.
When Bhagavan spoke like this he sometimes used the analogy of a besiged fort. If
one systematically loses off all the entrances to such a fort and then picks off the
occupants one by one as they try to come out, sooner or later the fort willl be be
empty.
Bhagavan said that we should apply these same tactics to the mind. How to go
about doing this? Seal off the entrances and exits to the mind by not reacting to
rising thoughts or sense impressions. Don’t let new ideas, judgements, likes,
dislikes, etc. enter the mind, and don’t let rising thoughts flourish and escape your
attention.
When you have sealed off the mind in this way, challenge each emerging thought
as it appears by asking, ‘Where have you come from?’ or ‘Who is the person who
is having this thought?’ If you can do this continuously, with full attention, new
thoughts will appear momentarily and then disappear.
If you can maintain the siege for long enough, a time will come when no more
thoughts arise; or if they do, they will only be fleeting, undistracting images on the
periphery of consciousness. In that thought-free state you wlil begin to experience
yourself as consciousness, not as mind or body.
However, if you relax your vigilance even for a few seconds and allow new
thoughts to escape and develop unchallenged, the siege will be lifted and the mind
will regain some or all of its former strength.
In a real fort the occupants need a continuous supply of food and water to hold out
during a siege. When the supplies run out, the occupants must surrender or die. In
the fort of the mind the occupants, which are thoughts, need a thinker to pay
attention to them and indulge in them.
If the thinker witholds his attention from rising thoughts or challenges them before
they have a chance to develop, the thoughts will all die of starvation. You
challenge them by repeatedly asking yourself ‘Who am I? Who is the person who
is having these thoughts?’ If the challenge is to be effective you must make it
before the rising thought has had a chance to develop into a stream of thoughts.
Mind is only a collection of thoughts and the thinker who thinks them. The thinker
is the ‘I’-thought, the primal thought which rises from the Self before all others,
which identifies with all other thoughts and says, ‘I am this body’. When you have
eradicated all thoughts except for the thinker himself by ceaseless enquiry or by
refusing to give them any attention, the ‘I’-thought sinks into the Heart and
surrenders, leaving behind it only an awareness of consciousness.
This surrender will only take place when the ‘I’-thought has ceased to identify with
rising thoughts. While there are still stray thoughts which attract or evade your
attentoin, the ‘I’-thought will always be directing its attention outwards rather than
inwards. The purpose of self-enquiry is to make the ‘I’-thought move inwards,
towards the Self. This will happen automatically as soon as you cease to be
interested in any of your rising thoughts.
Source: from book “Living by the Words of Bhagavan”, pages 272–73.
This book is written by David Godman and it contains wonderful account of
Annamalai Swami Life with Ramana Maharshi, Stories of How Ramana Ashram
was constructed, Annamalai Swami answers to meditation Questions of Seekers
If you are having trouble with your enthusiasm for sadhana, just tell yourself, ‘I
may be dead in seven days’. Let go of all the things that you pretend are important
in your daily life and instead focus on the Self for twenty-four hours a day. Do it
and see what happens.
Remember that nothing that happens in the mind is ‘you’, and none of it is your
business. You don’t have to worry about the thoughts that rise up inside you. It is
enough that you remember that the thoughts are not you.
Go deeply into this feeling of ‘I’. Be aware of it so strongly and so intensely that no
other thoughts have the energy to arise and distract you. If you hold this feeling of
‘I’ long enough and strongly enough, the false ‘I’ wll vanish leaving only the
unbroken awareness of the real, immanent ‘I’, consciousness itself..
watchful, each thought will dissolve at the moment that it appears. But to reach this
level of disassociation you must have no attachments at all. If you have the
slightest interest in any particular thought, it will evade your attentiveness, connect
with other thoughts, and take over your mind for a few seconds. This will happen
more easily if you are accustomed to reacting emotionally to a particular thought.
Self-inquiry must be done continuously. It doesn’t work if you regard it as a part-
time activity.
Sadhana is a battlefield. You have to be vigilant. Don’t take delivery of wrong
beliefs and don’t identify with the incoming thoughts that will give you pain and
suffering. But if these things start happening to you, fight back by affirming, ‘I am
the Self; I am the Self; I am the Self;’. These affirmations will lessen the power of
the ‘I am the body’ arrows and eventually they will armour-plate you so
successfully, the ‘I am the body’ thoughts that come your way will no longer have
the power to touch you, affect you or make you suffer.
If you can hold on to this knowledge ‘I am Self’ at all times, no further practice is
necessary.
There is nothing wrong with looking at Bhagavan’s picture. It is a very good
practice. But you should not get sidetracked from you main objective which is
establishing yourself as consciousness. Don’t get attached to states of bliss or give
them priority over the quest for the Self.
There are so many thoughts in the mind. Thought after thought after thought. But
there is one thought that is continuous, though it is mostly sub-conscious: ‘I am the
body’. This is the string on which all other thoughts are threaded. Once we identify
ourselves with the body by thinking this thought, maya follows. It also follows that
if we cease to identify with the body, maya will not affect us anymore.
When the rejection of mental activities becomes continuous and automatic, you
will begin to have the experience of the Self.
A strong determination to pursue enquiry in this way will dissolve all doubts. By
questioning ‘Who am I?’ and by constantly meditating, one comes to the clarity of
being.As long as vasanas continue to exist they will rise and cover the reality,
obscuring awareness of it. As often as you become aware of them, question, ‘To
whom do they come?’ This continuous enquiry will establish you in your own Self
and you will have no further problems. When you know that the snake of the mind
never existed, when you know that the rope of reality is all that exists, doubts and
fears will not trouble you again.
Meditation must be continuous. The current of meditation must be present in all
your activities. With practice, meditation and work can go on simultaneously.
One must keep one’s attention on the Self if one wants to make progress on the
spiritual path
The thoughts that come and go are not you. Whatever comes and goes is not you.
Your reality is peace. If you don’t forget that, that will be enough.
Bhagavan’s famous instruction ‘summa iru’ [be still] is often misunderstood. It
does not mean that you should be physically still; it means that you should always
abide in the Self… In sattva guna [a state of mental quietness and clarity] there is
stillness and harmony. If mental activity is necessary while one is in sattva guna it
takes place. But for the rest of the time there is stillness… If sattva guna
predominates one experiences pleace, bliss, clarity and an absence of wandering
thoughts. That is the stillness that Bhagavan was prescribing.
Bhagavan is always present, inside you and in front of you. If you don’t cover the
vision of Bhagavan with your ego, that will be enough. The ego is the ‘I am the
body’ idea. Remove this idea and you shine as the Self.
When I say, ‘Meditate on the Self’ I am asking you to be the Self, not think about
it. Be aware of what remains when thoughts stop. Be aware of the consciousness
that is the origin of all your thoughts. Be that consciousness.
In the same way, mind is just a Self-inflicted area of darkness in which the light of
the Self has been deliberately shut out.
The mind and the body are both inert. Any energy or peace you experience can
only come from the Self. Drop the identification with the body. These experiences
are making you too body-conscious. Just be aware of the Self and try to pay as
little attention as possible to the body. The Self is pure energy, pure power. Hold
onto that.
If you can give up duality, Brahman alone remains, and you know yourself to be
that Brahman, but to make this discovery continuous meditation is required. Don’t
allocate periods of time for this. Don’t regard it as something you do when you sit
with your eyes closed. This meditation has to be continuous. Do it while eating,
walking and even talking. It has to be continued all the time.
Remember that nothing that happens in the mind is ‘you’, and none of it is your
business. You don’t have to worry about the thoughts that rise up inside you. It is
enough that you remember that the thoughts are not you.
Tayumanuvar, a Tamil saint whom Bhagavan often quoted, wrote in one of his
poems: ‘My Guru merely told me that I am consciousness. Having heard this, I
held onto consciousness. What he told me was just one sentence, but I cannot
describe the bliss I attained from holding onto that one simple sentence. Through
that one sentence I attained a peace and a happiness that can never be explained in
words.’
In every moment you only have one real choice: to be aware of the Self or to
identify with the body and the mind.
You have to keep up the enquiry, ‘To whom is this happening?’ all the time. If you
are having trouble remind yourself, ‘This is just happening on the surface of my
mind. I am not this mind or the wandering thoughts.’ Then go back into enquiry
‘Who am I?’.
By doing this you will penetrate deeper and deeper and become detached from the
mind. This will only come about after you have made an intense effort.
Your ultimate need is to get established in the changeless peace of the Self. For this
you have to give up all thoughts.
Quotes from Annamalai Swami

When the rejection of mental activities becomes continuous and automatic,
you will begin to have the experience of the Self.
— quoted in David Godman, Living by the Words of Bhagavan, page 263
Bhagavan's famous instruction 'summa iru' [be still] is often misunderstood.

It does not mean that you should be physically still; it means that you
should always abide in the Self… In sattva guna [a state of mental
quietness and clarity] there is stillness and harmony. If mental activity is
necessary while one is in sattva guna it takes place. But for the rest of the
time there is stillness… If sattva guna predominates one experiences
peace, bliss, clarity and an absence of wandering thoughts. That is the
stillness that Bhagavan was prescribing.
Meditation must be continuous. The current of meditation must be present

in all your activities. With practice, meditation and work can go on
simultaneously.
When I say, 'Meditate on the Self' I am asking you to be the Self, not think
about it. Be aware of what remains when thoughts stop. Be aware of the
consciousness that is the origin of all your thoughts. Be that
consciousness.
Go deeply into this feeling of 'I'. Be aware of it so strongly and so intensely

that no other thoughts have the energy to arise and distract you. If you hold
this feeling of 'I' long enough and strongly enough, the false 'I' wll vanish
leaving only the unbroken awareness of the real, immanent 'I',
consciousness itself..
The Self is always alert. That is its nature.
watchful, each thought will dissolve at the moment that it appears. But to
reach this level of disassociation you must have no attachments at all. If
you have the slightest interest in any particular thought, it will evade your
attentiveness, connect with other thoughts, and take over your mind for a
few seconds. This will happen more easily if you are accustomed to
reacting emotionally to a particular thought.
— quoted in David Godman, Living by the Words of Bhagavan, pages

342–43
Self-inquiry must be done continuously. It doesn't work if you regard it as a

part-time activity.
— Annamalai Swami: Final Talks, page 30
If you can hold on to this knowledge 'I am Self' at all times, no further
practice is necessary.
In the same way, mind is just a Self-inflicted area of darkness in which the
light of the Self has been deliberately shut out.
In every moment you only have one real choice: to be aware of the Self or
to identify with the body and the mind.
Your ultimate need is to get established in the changeless peace of the

Self. For this you have to give up all thoughts.
Tayumanuvar, a Tamil saint whom Bhagavan often quoted, wrote in one of

his poems: 'My Guru merely told me that I am consciousness. Having
heard this, I held onto consciousness. What he told me was just one
sentence, but I cannot describe the bliss I attained from holding onto that
one simple sentence. Through that one sentence I attained a peace and a
happiness that can never be explained in words.'
…………………
Page 333 : living by the words of Bhagavan
Quote
Q: I feel that the bhakti path is an effortless way. When I enquire "Who am I" I feel that I
must make a great effort to make the mind subside. The Bhakti path seems to be more
sweet, more joyfull and more effortless.
A: It is always good to worship the guru, but abiding in the guru's teachings is far better.
You follow the bhakti path if you want to but you should remember that its almost
impossible for a devotee to judge whether he is making progress or not. you should not
jump to the conclusion that you are not making any progress with your self inquiry simply
because you find it hard to do. And you should not think tht you will make more progress as
a bhakta simply because you find it easy to generate joyful states of mind.
The same consciousness which is within you and within bhagavan's form is within all forms.
we must learn to contact this consciousness by being aware of this all the time.
Q: I know that Bhagavan is in all forms but some times I find it easier to feel his grace by
concentrating on an image of him. Self inquiry is such hard work. One rarely finds blissful or
peaceful doing it. sometimes i feel like treating myself to a little bliss by looking at
bhagavan's picture for a while.
A: There is nothign wrong with looking at Bhagavan's picture. Thats a good practise. But
you should not get sidetracked from our main objective which is establishing yourself as
consciousness. dont get attached to states of bliss or give them priority over the quest for
Self. If you become attached to peaceful or blissful states you may lose your interest in the
main quest. It is good to feel blissful and peaceful but don’t indulge yourself in these states
at the expense of self inquiry. If you realize the inner Self, if you realize that there is not an
atom which is apart from Self, you will experience the real peace and bliss of the Self. You
will be the peace or the bliss rather than being the experiencer of it. if you experience
temporary states of peace or bliss in the mind, the experiencer of that peace or bliss will not
want to subside into the Self and disappear.
Don’t get attached to mental peace. Go beyond it to the real peace which comes from being
the Self
POST 2
Page 84 of Final Talks
Quote
What ever kind of thought arises, have the same reaction: 'Not me, not my business'. IT
can be a good thought or a bad thought. Treat them the same way. To whom are these
thoughts arising ? To You. That means you are not the thought.
You are the Self. Remain as the Self, and don't latch onto anything that is not the Self.
POST 3:
Page 86: Final Talks

Quote
Whatever thoughts come, ignore them. You have to ignore anything that is connected to the
body-mind idea, anything that is based on the notion that you are the mind or the body. if
you can do this, the raising of thought will not disturb or distract you. in a split second , it
will run away.
All thoughts are distractiosn, including the thought ' i am meditating'. if you are the Self,
darkness will not overcome you. what ever thoughts arise in that state wont affect you.
POST 4
Page 82 of final talks

Quote
Sadhana, effort and practise , and any ideas you may have about them, are concepts that
can only arise when you believe that you are not the Self, and when you believe that you
have to do something to reach the Self.
Even the sequence "to whom has this thought come? To me" is based on ignorance of the
truth. Why? Because its verbalising a state of ignorance; its perpetuating an erroneous
assumption that there is a person who is having troublesome thoughts. You are the Self not
some make-believe person who is having thoughts
POST 5
Page 82, Final Talks

Quote
Remember , nothing that happens to mind is 'you', and none of it is your business. You dont
have to worry about thoughts that rise up inside you.Its enough that you remember that
the thoughts are not you.
POST 6:
Page 86 : Final Talks

Quote
Thoughts will come as long as the potential for them is inside you. Good thoughts, bad
thoughts, they will keep coming.
There is nothing you can do about this flow, but at the same time, this flow of thoughts
need not be a problem. Be the Self, be the peace that is your real nature, and it will not
matter what comes up.
Post 7:
Page 292: living by the words of Bhagavan

Quote
Giving up the identity with the body and the mind is tapas, samadhi, dhyana and nishta.
Spiritual seekers have a very strange habit: they are always looking for a way to reach,
attain,discover,experience, or realize the Self. They try many things because they cannot
comprehend that they are already the Self. This is like running around looking for one's
eyes with one's own eyes.
Why should you imagine that it is some new experience to be discovered or found ? You are
the Self right now, and you are aware of it right now. Do you need a new experience to
prove that you exist? The feeling "I am existing" is the Self. You pretend that you are not
experiencing it, or cover it up with all kinds of false ideas, and then you run around looking
for it as if it were something external to be reached or found. There is a story about
someone like thus.
Once a king imagined that he was a poverty-striken peasant. He thought , "if I go and meet
the king he may be able to help me by giving some money"
He searched for the king in many places but he could not find him anywhere. Ultimately he
became very depressed because his search was not yeilding any results. One day he met a
man on the road who asked him why he was so depressed.
He answered, " I am searching for the king. I think that he can solve all my problems and
make me happy but I cant find him anywhere".
The man, who already recognized him, said with some astonishment, "But you yourself as
the king!"
The king came to his senses and remembered who he was. His problems all ended the
moment he remembered his real identity.
You may think that the king was fairly stupid but he had at least enough sense to recognize
the truth when it was told to him.
The guru may tell his disciples a thousand times "You are the self, you are not what you
imagine youself ot be", they all keep asking the guru for methods and routes to reach the
place they are already are.
POST 8:
Page 293-294 living by the words of bhagavan

Quote
Q: Bhagavan said that repeating 'I am Self' or 'I am not the body' is an aid to enquiry but it
does not constitute enquiry itself.
AS: The meditation "I am not the body or the mind, I am the immanent Self" is a great aid
as long as one is not able to do self inquiry properly or constantly.
Bhagavan said, 'Keeping the mind in the heart is self-enquiry'. If you cannot do thys by
asking "who am I?" or by taking the "I"-thought back to its source, then meditation on the
awareness "I am the all pervasive Self" is a great aid.
Bhagavan often siad that we should read and study the Ribhu Gita regularly.
In Ribhu Gita its said: "That Bhavana "I am not the body, I am not the mind, I am
Brahman, I am everything" is to be repeated again and again until it becomes natural state.
Bhagavan sat with us every day while we chanted extracts from Ribhu Gita which affirm the
reality of the Self. Its true that he said that these repetitions are only an aid to self-enquiry,
but they are very powerful aids.
By practising this way the mind becomes more and more attuned to the reality. When the
mind has become purified by this practise its easier to take it back to the source and keep it
there. when one is able to abide in the Self directly, one does not need aids like this. But if
this is not possible these practises can definitely aid.
POST 9
Quote
How to give up this false idea that mind is real ?
Annamalai Swami Answers: the same way that you give up any wrong idea. you simply stop
believing in it. if this does not happen spontaneously when u hear the truth from a teacher,
keep telling yourself "i am not the mind, i am not the mind. There is no mind; there is no
mind. consciousness alone exists". if you have firm conviction that this is the truth, one day
this firm conviction will mature to the point where it becoems your direct experience.
POST 10:
Living by the Words of Bhagavan , pg 281

Quote
If you try to meditate without understanding that your real nature is Self, and Self alone,
your meditation practise will only lead you to more mental bondage.
Bhagavan once said, 'To keep the mind in the Self, all you have to do is remain still'
To realize the Self you dont actually have to do anything except be still. Just give up the
identifying with the mind and hold onto the Self. That is enough. Be still and cultivate the
awareness 'I am the Self;the Self is all'. What difficulties can arise from doing a simple
practise like this ?
POST 11:
Pg 282 of Living by the words of Bhagavan

Quote
Doing any sadhana without first understanding that the individual self is non-existent is self-
indulgence. Its a form of spiritual entertainment in which the illusory "I" plays games with
itself.
Saint Tayumanuvar once said,'Why all these maha yogas ? All these yogas are maya!'
When I say, 'Meditate on the Self' , I am asking you the be the Self, not think about it. Be
aware of what remains when thoughts stop. Be aware of the consciousness that is the origin
of all your thoughts. Be that consciousness. Feel that that is what you reall are. If you do
this you are meditating on the Self. But if you cannot stabilise in that consciousness
because your vasanas are too strong and too active , its beneficial to hold onto the thought
'I am Self, I am everything' If you meditate in this way you will not be cooperating with the
vasanas that are blocking the Self-awareness. If you do not cooperate with the vasanas,
sooner or later they are bound to leave you.
If this method does not appeal to you , then just watch the mind with full attention.
Whenever the mind wanders, become aware of it. See how thoughts connect with each
other and watch how this ghost called mind catches hold of your thoughts and says 'This is
my thought'. Watch the ways of mind without identifying with them in any way. If you give
your mind your full detached attention, you begin to understand the futility of all mental
activities. Watch the mind wandering here and there , seeking out useless or unnecessary
things or ideas which will ultimately create more misery for itself. Watching the mind gives
us the knowledge of the inner processes. It gives us an incentive to stay detached from all
our thoughts. Ultimately if we try hard enough, it gives us the ability to remain as
consciousness , unaffected by transient thoughts
POST 12
pg 274 , of living by the words of bhagavan

Quote
The best mantra is "i am the self, everything is my Self. Everything is one" If you keep this
in your mind all the time, Self will eventually reveal itself to you.
Dont be statisfied with rituals and other kindergarten techniques. If you are serious, head
directly for the self. Hold onto it as tenaciously as you can and dont let anything or anyone
loosen your grip.
POST 13:
Pg 260 of Living by the words of Bhagavan

Quote
You must generate the conviction, "I am the all-pervasive consciousness in which all bodes
and minds in the world are appearing and disappearing. I am that consciousness which
remains unchanged and unaffected by these appearances and disappearances ". Stabilise
yourself in that conviction. Thats all you need to do.
Post 14:
Living by the words of bhagavan , conversations

Quote
Q.: What is the easiest way to be free of the 'little self'?
Annamalai Swami: Stop identifying with it. If you can convince yourself, 'This little self is
not really me,' it will disappear.
Q.: But how to do that?

AS.: The little self is something that only appears to be real. If you understand that it has
no real existence it will disappear, leaving behind it the experience of the real and only Self.
Understand that it has no real existence and it will stop troubling you.
Consciousness is universal. There is no limitation or 'little self' in it. It is only when we
identify with and limit ourselves to the body and the mind that this false sense of self is
born. If, through enquiry, you go to the source of the 'little self', you find that it dissolves
into nothingness.
Q.: But I am very accustomed to feel 'I am this 'little self' '. I cannot break this habit merely
by thinking 'I am not this 'little self''.
AS.: This 'little self' will only give way to the real Self if you meditate constantly. You cannot
wish it away with a few stray thoughts. Try to remember the analogy of the rope which
looks like a snake in twilight. If you see the rope as snake the real nature of the rope is
hidden from you. If you only see the rope the snake is not there. Not only that - you know
that there never was a snake there. (Then) the question of how to kill the snake
disappears... If you can understand that this 'little self' never at any time had any existence
outside your imagination, you will not be concerned about ways and means of getting rid of
it.
Q.: It is all very clear but I feel I need some help. I am not sure that i can generate this
conviction by myself.
AS.: The desire for assistance is part of your problem. Don't make the mistake of imagining
that there is a goal to be reached or attained. If you think like this you will start looking for
methods to practice and people to help you. This just perpetuates the problem you are
trying to end. Instead, cultivate the strong awareness, 'I am the Self. I am That. I am
Brahman. I am everything.'.. The best way to (stop believing the wrong ideas about
yourself) is to replace them with ideas which more accurately reflect the real state of affairs.
...
The Self is always attained, it is always realized; it is not something that you have to seek,
reach or discover. Your vasanas and all the wrong ideas you have about yourself are
blocking and hiding the experience of the real Self. If you don't identify with these wrong
ideas, your Self-nature will not be hidden from you.
POST 15:
Q: You say that everything is the Self, even maya. If this is so, why cant I see the Self clearly ? If this is so,
why can't I see the Self clearly ?Why is it hidden from me ?
AS: Because you are looking in the wrong direction. You have the idea that the Self is something that you
see or experience . This is not so. The Self is the Awareness or consciousness in which the seeing and the
experiencing take place.
Even if you don't see the Self, the Self is still there. Bhagavan some times remarked humorously: "People
just open a newspaper and glance through it. Then they sau , ' I have seen the paper'. But really they
haven't seen the paper , they have only seen the letters without the paper, but people always forget the
paper while they are reading the words "
Bhagavan would then use this analogy to show that while people see the names and forms that appear
on the screen of consciousness, they ignore the screen itself. With this kind of partial vision its easy to
come to the conclusion that all forms are unconnected with each other and separate from the peron
who sees them. If people were to be aware of the consciousness instead of the forms that appear in it,
they would realize that all forms are just appearances which manifest within the one invisible
consciousness.
That consciousness is the Self that you are looking for. You can be that consciousness but you can never
see it because its not something that is separate from you.
Pg: 265-6 of Annamalai Swami 's living by the words of bhagavan.

This is called Recognition.
POST 16:pg 271-2, Living by the words of bhagavan
Continuous inhalation and exhalation are necessary for continuation of life. Continuous
meditation is necessary for all those who want to stay in the Self.
You divide your life up into different activities: "I am eating", "I am meditating", "I am
working", etc. If you have ideas like these you are still identifiying with the body. Get rid of
all these ideas and replace them with the single thought , "I am Self", Hold onto that idea
and dont let it go. Dont give these "I am the body" ideas any attention.
"I must eat now", "I will go to sleep now", "I will have a bath now", all thoughts like these are
I am the body thoughts. Learn to recognize them when they arise and learn to ignore them
or deny them. Stay firmly seated in the Self and dont allow the mind to identify with anything
that the body does.
POST 17
Here is a conversation between annamalai swami and Ramana , pg 234 of Living by the
words of bhagavan.
Quote
"Does Samadhi mean that one is unaware of everything ?" , I asked.
"No," said Bhagavan. "Mediation will go on without our effort. That is Samadhi"
"Then what is Sahaja Samadhi ?", I asked.
Bhagavan answered by saying , " In that state meditation will always be going on. In that
State the thought , 'I am meditating' or 'I am not meditating' will not occur".
I then asked Bhagavan about periods in meditation when I was only aware of an all-
pervasive blankness.
"Sometimes nothing is seen", I said. "Is this good?"
Bhagavan did not seem to approve of all these states, "In the beginning", he said, "It is good
if meditators meditate with Self Awareness".
The state of Sahaja Samadhi contined to intrigue me. A few weeks later I asked him
another question about it, "Can one practise sahaja samadhi right from the beginning?"
Bhagavan replied by saying that one could.
"But how to practise it ", I asked. "And how does one practise nirvikalpa samadhi ? How
many different kinds of samadhi are there ?"
"There is only one kind of Samadhi", Said Bhagavan , "not many kinds. To remain
temporarily subsided in the reality without any thought is nirvikalpa Samadhi. Permanently
abiding in the Self without forgetting it is Sahaja Samadhi. Both will give the same
happiness"
Post 18:
This is From living by the words of bhagavan :
Page 267, conversations with Annamalai Swami
Quote
Nothing can cause bondage for the Jnani because his mind is dead. In the absence of mind
he knows himself only as consciousness. Because the mind is dead, he is no longer able to
identify himself with the body. But even though he knows that he is not the body, its a fact
that the body is still alive. That body will continue to live, and the Jnani will continue to be
aware of it, until its own karma is exhausted. Because the jnani is aware of the body, he will
also be aware of the thoughts and vasanas that arise in that body. None of these vasanas
has the power to cause bondage for him because he never identifies with them, but they do
have the power to make the body behave in certain ways. The body of the jnani enjoys and
experiences thses vasanas although the jnani himself is not affected by them. that is why its
some times said that for the jnani there are bhoga vasanas but no bandha vasanas.
The bhoga vasanas differ from jnani to jnani. some jnanis may accumulate wealth, some
may sit in silence; some may study the sastras while others may remain illiterate; some may
get married and raise families but others may become celibate monks. it is the bhoga
vasanas which determine the kind of lifestyle a jnani will lead. The jnani is aware of the
consequences of these vasanas without identifying with them. Because of this he never falls
back into samsara again.
The vasanas arise because of habits and practices of previous life times. that is why they
differ from jnani to jnani. When vasanas rise in ordinary people who still identify with the
body and the mind, they cause likes and dislikes. some vasanas are embraced whole
heartedly while others are rejected as being undesirable. These likes and dislikes generate
desires and fears which in turn produce more karma. while you are still making judgements
about what is good and what is bad, you are identifying with the mind and making new
karmas for yourself. when new karma has been created like this, it means that you have to
take another birth to enjoy it.
The jnani's body carries out all the acts which are destined for it. But because the jnani
makes no judgements about what is good or bad, and because he has no likes and dislikes,
he is not creating any new karma for himself. because he knows that he is not the body, he
can witness all its activities without getting involved in them in any way. There will be no
rebirth for the jnani because once the mind has been destroyed, there is no possibility of
any new karma being created.
POST 19:
Annamalai Swami pg 24 of Final Talks

Quote
Everything we see in this waking state is a dream. These dreams are our thoughts made
manifest. Bad thoughts make bad dreams and good thoughts make good dreams, and if
you have no thoughts , you dont dream at all. But even if you do dream, you must
understand that your dream is also the Self. You dont have to supress thoughts or be
absolutely thoughtless to abide as the SElf. If you know that even your waking and sleeping
dreams are the Self, then the thoughts and the dreams they produce can do on. They will
not be a problem for you any more. Just be the Self at all times. In this state you will know
that everything that appears to you is just a dream.
in pg 25, he further explains:

Quote
The waking state which you take to be real, is just an unfolding of dream that has appeared
to you and minifested in front of you on account of some hidden desires or fears. Your
vasanas sprout and expand miraculously , creating a whole waking-dream world for you.
See it as a dream. Recognize that it is just an expansion of your thoughts. Dont lose sight of
the Self, the substratum on which this vast believable dream is projected. IF you hold onto
the knowledge "I am Self", you will know that the dreams are laso the Self, and you wont
get entangled in them.
POST 20:
When the mind appears every morning don't jump to the usual conclusion, "This is me;
these thoughts are mine." Instead, watch these thoughts come and go without identifying
with them in any way. If you can resist the impulse to claim each and every thought as your
own, you will come to a startling conclusion: you will discover that you are the
consciousness in which the thoughts appear and disappear. You are allowed to run free.
Like the snake which appears in the rope, you will discover that the mind is only an illusion
which appears through ignorance or misperception.
You want some experience which will convince you that what I am saying is true. You can
have that experience if you give up your life-long habit of inventing an 'I' which claims all
thoughts as 'mine'. Be conscious of yourself as consciousness alone, watch all the thoughts
come and go. Come to the conclusion, by direct experience, that you are really
consciousness itself, not its ephemeral contents.
Clouds come and go in the sky but the appearance and disappearance of the clouds
doesn't affect the sky. Your real nature is like the sky, like space. Just remain like the sky
and let thought-clouds come and go. If you cultivate this attitude of indifference towards the
mind, gradually you will cease to identify yourself with it
………………………………………….
Annamalai Swami- Speaks on Sexuality
Annamalai Swami is an Disciple of Raman Maharshi. When Annamalai Swami was staying at the Ashram
of Sri Raman Maharshi, he was given charge of constructing more buildings for the Ashram.
Annamalai Swami was some times troubled by sexual thoughts but some how he used to avoid the
thoughts.
Amongst the construction workers there were some very attractive females and occasionally, Annamalai
Swami were attracted to them. Once he expelled all the female workers so that he can avoid them. But
Raman Maharshi stressed him to employ them.
Once he told Ramana Maharshi that he doesn’t want Moksha but he wants to get rid of the desire for
women.
Raman Maharshi laughingly said “all saints are striving only for this”. From Raman Maharshi answer,
Annamalai Swami was assured that he was not alone in this suffering.
But one afternoon Annamalai Swami was sitting in his room, when he saw a beautiful woman going to
meet Raman Maharshi. After some time when that woman came out of room, Annamalai Swami was
totally captivated by her beauty and lust.
Suddenly Raman Maharshi came out and asked Annamalai Swami to stand on a particular rock and
Maharshi started conversing with him.
The sun was at its peak and Annamalai Swami was not wearing any sandals. So soon his feet starts
burning from heat but he could not change his feet as it was an order from Maharshi.
The pain in his feet started increasing and suddenly a thought arises in him that the pain he is
experiencing has replaced the sexual desire. As the thought entered his mind, Ramana Maharshi
abruptly ended conversation and left him.
After some days Annamalai Swami was again disturbed by sexual thoughts to the extent that he could
not eat or sleep properly for three days. At last he thought of taking Maharshi’s help.
Maharshi advised him “Why you pay attention to evil thought? Why don’t you meditate? To whom does
this thought came. The thought will leave you on its own accord. You are not the body nor the mind, you
are the Self, Meditate on your Self and all desires will leave you.”
…………………………………..
Annamalai Swami: Initially, abidance in the Self may not be
firm and irreversible. Vigilance may be needed to maintain it.
There is a verse in Kaivalya Navaneeta that Bhagavan often

quoted. It speaks of the need for vigilance even after the Self
has been experienced for the first time. In this verse the
disciple is speaking to his Guru:
'Lord, you are the reality remaining as my inmost Self, ruling

me during all my countless incarnations! Glory to you who have
put on an external form to instruct me. I do not see how I can
repay your grace for having liberated me. Glory! Glory to your
holy feet!'
The Guru replies:
'To stay fixed in the Self without the three kinds of obstacles
[ignorance, uncertainty and wrong knowledge] obstructing your
experience, is the highest return you can render me.'
The Guru knows that without vigilance, an initial experience of

the Self may slip away.
Q: Why is this experience not enough?
Annamalai Swami: If vasanas are still there, they will rise up

again and the experience will be lost. While they are there,
there is always the possibility that we may again take the
unreal to be real.
If we take the mirage to be real water, that is ignorance.

Similarly, if we take the unreal body to be the Self, that is also
ignorance. As soon as ignorance comes, you must question it.
'To whom does this ignorance come?' A strong determination to
pursue enquiry in this way will dissolve all doubts. By
questioning 'Who am I?' and by constantly meditating, one
comes to the clarity of being.
As long as vasanas continue to exist they will rise and cover

the reality, obscuring awareness of it. As often as you become
aware of them, question, 'To whom do they come?' This
continuous enquiry will establish you in your own Self and you
will have no further problems. When you know that the snake
of the mind never existed, when you know that the rope of
reality is all that exists, doubts and fears will not trouble you
again.
~ Annamalai Swami, Final Talks, edited by David Godman

………………………….
Annamalai Swami recorded conversations with Bhagavan in the late
1930s.
The following questions were asked by an aristocratic- looking American

lady. Bhagavan's answers are a succinct summery of his practical
teachings.
Q.: What is the truth that I have to attain? Please explain it and show it to
me.
Bhagavan: What we have to attain and what is desired by everyone is

endless happiness. Although we seek to attain it in various ways, it is not
something to be sought or attained as a new experience. Our real nature
is the 'I' feeling which is always experienced by everyone. It is within us
and nowhere else. Although we are always experiencing it, our minds are
wandering, always seeking it, thinking in ignorance it is something apart
from us. This is like a person saying with his own tongue that he has no
tongue.
Q.: If that is so, why did so many sadhanas come to be created?
Bhagavan: The sadhanas came to be formed only to get rid of the

thought that the Self is something to be newly attained. The root of the
illusion is the thought which ignores the Self and thinks instead, 'I am
this body'. After this thought rises it expands in a moment into several
thousand thoughts and conceals the Self. The reality of the Self will only
shine if all these thoughts are removed. Afterwards, what remains is only
Brahmananda, the bliss of Brahman.
Q.: I am now sitting peacefully without the thought 'I am this body'. Is
this the state of reality?
Bhagavan: This state must remain as it is without any change. If it

changes after a while you will know that other thoughts have not gone.
Q.: What is the way to get rid of other thoughts?
Bhagavan: They can only be removed through the powerful effect of the
enquiry, 'To whom have these thoughts come'
……………….
An Interview with Annamalai Swami

The following is transcribed from a November 1989 videotaped interview with Annamalai
Swami. J.Jayaraman was the interviewer and James Hartel the videographer. Some of this
interview is featured in the Guru Ramana, His Living Presence video production.
Coming to Bhagavan
I came from Tondanguruchi where I had a stall to distribute water to the needy. One day
somebody showed me the book Nan Yar (Who Am I?). I saw Bhagavan's picture and was
instantly captivated.
I hastened to Tiruvannamalai the very same day, which happened to be a full moon day.
When I arrived at Tiruvannamalai, I chanced to meet Seshadri Swami near the Rettai
Pillaiyar Koil, close to the big temple, and received his blessings. I then went to Sri
Bhagavan.
When I came to the Ashram there was just a shed over the Mother's shrine and Bhagavan
was seated there. I also saw Gopal Rao, who was building the Old Hall.
[Before coming to Tiruvannamalai] I had had a dream in which Bhagavan was coming
down the Hill. I went up to him and washed his feet with water. On drinking that water, I
felt speechless and senseless. When I came here, Bhagavan was coming from the Hill, but
nothing else happened like in the dream.
I had read a little before coming here. However, it is true that Bhagavan literally taught me
how to read and write. When I asked Bhagavan what bondage and liberation meant,
Muruganar was astonished that I did not even know the fundamentals of Advaitic
teachings. Bhagavan only laughed in reply. In the course of my work, I once overheard
Muruganar sing a line from a Tamil verse, which means, "Even fools have become
extremely wise by coming to Bhagavan." I am sure that Muruganar was referring to me
when he sang this song.
Major Chadwick
When Chadwick arrived in Tiruvannamalai he mistook me for Bhagavan and prostrated
before me. I then took him to Bhagavan. Also, I was asked to vacate the room I had been
occupying at that time, in favor of Chadwick. Chadwick did not like this and said that if I
vacated he would not stay at the Ashram. It was then agreed that the two of us would
share the room.
This is how I became very friendly with Chadwick. He appreciated my hard work and
sincerity. I even used to learn a little bit of English from Chadwick.
Chadwick gave me an umbrella, shaded eyeglasses and sandals to use when I was
supervising or working in the hot sun. Once, when Bhagavan came by, I tried to remove all
three. Then Bhagavan came near me and chided me, saying, "If you behave like this on
seeing me, I will never come near you." The irony is that some others in the Ashram used
to scoff at me for wearing these in Bhagavan's presence. I was in a dilemma because it was
Bhagavan who insisted that I behave normally, or He would not come near me.
If you got up from your seat when Bhagavan passed by, He wouldn't be happy and would
say, "So you are showing off your bhakti. Why not behave normally even when I come."
Construction Work
I knew nothing about masonry work before coming here. Although my father was proficient
in masonry, sculpture, astrology and other fine arts, I knew none of these when I came to
Bhagavan. Bhagavan taught me everything.
One day, Thenamma Paati asked Bhagavan how I could apply my mind to supervise all the
construction work that was going on and still be devoted to Bhagavan. Bhagavan laughed
and remarked that I should have been an engineer in my previous birth.
It was in very subtle ways that Bhagavan extracted work from the devotees. During my
early days with Bhagavan, he once told me, "Go and see what the mason is doing." So I
went there, asked him what he was doing and conveyed the reply to Bhagavan. After
sometime, Bhagavan again asked me to go and see what the mason was doing. I complied.
The mason was a little annoyed, but made the same reply. When Bhagavan asked me to go
and see what the mason was doing for the third time, the mason thought that Bhagavan
was mad as he was just asking him the same question again and again. I now asked
Bhagavan why he kept repeating the same question. That is when he came out with his
intentions and said, .Someone can attend to the work here. You go and supervise that
work." I reflected that Bhagavan could have told me this in the first instance itself, or just
ordered me to go and do it. But that wasn't Bhagavan's way. He was very subtle, shy, and
very gentle. Bhagavan would indicate with only a few words or signs.
Bhagavan used to say, "This whole place is going to be very active with many buildings."
Some of His comments were hard to believe because no indication of such things was
found then.
When the storeroom was being built, Bhagavan wanted me to make an image of
Arunachala in cement. I honestly felt that I was overworked, not getting enough rest. Also,
I was feeling a little dejected. A little later, Bhagavan came back and said, "I thought I
could make that request, but if that's difficult for you, don't bother with it." I felt badly
about the thoughts I had entertained and resolved that in the future I would definitely
undertake and fulfill any of Bhagavan's requests, even if that should mean sacrificing my
body. It was a solemn pledge I made to myself.
Bhagavan was very particular about doing things meticulously and perfectly. On all
cupboards and other furniture, the name "Sri Ramanasramam, Tiruvannamalai" had to be
written very neatly, just like printed letters.
Bhagavan insisted that I should draw the image of Arunachala on the wall of the Ashram
Store. When it did not come out properly, Bhagavan came and instructed me. However, it
did not come out the second time as well. Bhagavan once again gave me a few hints and I
managed to get it right the third time, and it can be seen at the store entrance even today.
The three dimensional aspect is also visible on account of the cement being plastered
accordingly. The same thing happened with the arch of the Ashram entrance. Bhagavan
would encourage me to take up such work, and whenever I had difficulty, Bhagavan would
come, give hints, and encourage me to do it perfectly.
One day I was feeling tired and was reclining against a wall. Bhagavan came up to me and
said, "I'm afraid to even look at you." I asked Him why that should be so. He said, "If I
would just look in one direction, you would construct a structure there." This was of course
in jest but it also meant that I could understand Bhagavan's subtle instructions and follow
them meticulously. This was great appreciation showered upon me by Sri Bhagavan.
Once I was about to construct some steps when Bhagavan came and hit me three times. I
had been asked to repair some dilapidated steps behind the Dining Hall. In those days
money and materials were scarce. I asked Ramaswami Pillai to get three or four measures
of cement. Now, in Tamil, the word 'padi' stands for both 'measure' as well as for 'steps'.
Bhagavan asked me, "How many padis?" meaning how many steps I was constructing. I
thought he wanted to know how many measures of cement I was ordering. Bhagavan gave
me a playful slap and said, "I'm asking about one padi, and you are answering about
another."
On another occasion, I was building some steps near the water tap. Bhagavan was
standing there and giving me instructions. As I got up, I banged my head hard against the
tap. Bhagavan asked Madhavaswami to bring zambak (medicinal ointment), and personally
massaged my head for a long time. Though I had pain in my head, I kept reminding myself
of Bhagavan's teaching, which was to give up the 'I am-the-body' idea. I also thanked the
tap for giving me this opportunity to receive a massage from the golden this opportunity to
receive a massage from the golden hands of Sri Bhagavan.
In the earlier days, Madhavaswami, Rangaswami and I used to massage the soles of
Bhagavan's feet with oil, and put our heads against His feet to receive His grace after
completing the massage. Bhagavan used to pretend to be asleep when we did this.
However, when large crowds started coming to the Ashram regularly, we had to stop this
practice of ours.
When the Dining Hall was being built, Bhagavan used to dig the earth with a huge
gaddapare (crowbar) and Santhamma used to mix mortar with water. I was entrusted with
the mason's work. While we worked on the construction Thenamma and Subbu-
lakshmiamma used to do the cooking nearby. As I was not a brahmin, the women used a
large white cloth as a partition between them and us. Bhagavan told them, "Why are you
doing this? It's only our Annamalai. Why should you segregate him like this?" Chinnaswami,
on hearing this said, "Bhagavan says 'our Annamalai', so he has become an ichcha
brahmin", i.e., a brahmin by the wish of Sri Bhagavan.
Disturbing Ants
One day after lunch we noticed lots of ants in the Old Hall disturbing the devotees.
Bhagavan asked me to inspect the area and do the needful. When I went and lifted a
stone, millions of ants rushed out. I was jumping all over in order to avoid crushing them.
When Bhagavan asked me what I was doing, I explained that it would be jivahimsa to kill
hundreds and thousands of ants by stepping upon them or by closing the opening through
which they came out. He said, "You are not doing it for yourself, it is for the sake of
others." He then quoted from Chapter thirteen of Bhagavad Gita where Krishna says that
even killing is permitted if it is for the benefit of the world. Upon hearing this, I cleared the
area of ants, sealed the entrance and cemented it.
In the days when I still used to live in the Ashram, I once told Bhagavan that I didn't even
desire moksha, but just wanted to be saved from the attractions of women. I was
wondering what reply Bhagavan would give. He said that it was freedom from this desire
that all great people had sought and suffered for.
Fleeing to Polur
Bhagavan always taught jnanamarga, yet when we went out, no one ever talked about
jnanamarga or even bhaktimarga. And since at that time I felt that whatever bhakti I had,
had evaporated, I was feeling that Bhagavan did not want me to stay there.
I walked without any food for two days, and was weak and exhausted by the time I
reached Polur. I begged at Nair Mangalam's place and many other places with no luck.
None wished to give me alms. In fact one person wondered why I had to leave a holy place
like Tiruvannamalai and wander elsewhere. All these events discouraged me. I had heard
that if one stood chest deep in water, it would aid in withstanding hunger. I did that in a
tank just outside Polur for a while before leaving for the samadhi of Vithoba in Polur. In the
afternoon on the third day, a lady took pity at my plight and offered me two glasses full of
thin gruel. This helped me regain some of my strength.
I then plucked a little flower in order to toss it up to divine if I should go back to the
Ashram or leave Bhagavan permanently and go out as a wandering mendicant. The flower
toss-up indicated that I should go back to Bhagavan and I began walking back promptly.
That's when the owner of a small roadside hotel invited me in and fed me sumptuously with
great reverence. Besides, he also gave me two rupees for my travel expenses. I took this as
a good omen and a vindication of my decision to return to Bhagavan.
I boarded the train to Tiruvannamalai without a ticket. However, while the ticket examiner
checked all other passengers, he totally ignored me. Similarly, when I got down at
Tiruvannamalai, the stationmaster, who usually checks all the tickets, let me through saying
that he had already checked my ticket. I went straight to Bhagavan and narrated all that
had happened. Bhagavan graciously said, "How could you go away? You have so much
work to do here, and unless that is finished, how could you go?"
I was standing near Bhagavan and He gave me a steady look of Grace. I felt that Bhagavan
was quoting the song from the supplement to the forty verses which means "When you
have the association of great men, where is the need for following the usual injunctions
expected of a seeker, like going on a yatra, remaining? in mouna, etc." This song came to
my mind, though Bhagavan had not uttered a word. That gave me great confidence and I
declared in the presence of Bhagavan that I would stay put and do whatever Bhagavan
asked of me. Bhagavan smiled at me, and gave me another look of Grace.
There are many instances when Bhagavan showered grace by his look. On seeing this
Sivalinga tied to my left arm, Bhagavan repeatedly said, "You have the Lord tied to your
hand. What more do you want?"
It was my father who had this Linga tied to my arm. The Tamil religious calendar says that,
upon rising every morning one should look at the sun in one's right hand, and at a Linga in
the left. As I was interested in following this injunction, it was suggested that I could have
a Linga tattooed on my hand. But my father preferred a Linga itself to be tied to my left
hand. Bhagavan used to repeatedly tell me, "God is in your own hands. What shortcomings
can you face in your life?"
Animals
Bhagavan was extraordinarily kind towards birds, squirrels, cows, dogs and peacocks. In
fact, He showed visible partiality towards animals over humans.
Once a big dove fell down on being attacked by a vulture. Bhagavan personally attended to
the bird and treated it with zambak and other oils. He massaged its head, and kept the
dove for the whole day. The next day when He asked me to bring the dove to Him, the bird
had by then recovered so much that it flew off.
I was present when the crow, towards which Bhagavan showed extraordinary kindness,
died in His hands; so also Jacki the dog, and Valli the deer. When the samadhi was being
built for Valli, I was very thin and could easily go inside the tiny dome to do the plastering
work. Bhagavan used to stand outside and hand me chuna and other material, and helped
me complete the samadhi.
The crow was very fortunate to die in His hands. Bhagavan was particularly interested in
rituals for the samadhis of the birds and animals and wanted special pujas to be done for
such samadhis with offerings of milk, etc. Many people used to witness this with awe and
wonder.
Once, as Bhagavan was descending the steps near the Valli deer's samadhi, he saw a dog
chasing a squirrel. Bhagavan tried to prevent the dog from harming the squirrel by
interposing his stick in between them. In the process, He stumbled and fell down the steps,
suffering bruises all over his body. Tincture was applied all over, which causes a burning
sensation. Plaster was applied on all the wounds, and there are even photographs of
Bhagavan with plaster all over His body. Bhagavan underwent such suffering even for
animals. We all have witnessed these phases in Bhagavan's life.
Moving to Palakottu
I moved to Palakottu during the time when the Dining Hall was being built under my
supervision. One day Yogi Ramaya was accompanying Bhagavan and told him that I had
become very weak from so much hard work, and that I should be released from this strain.
Bhagavan also said, "Yes, yes, he should be given freedom."
Resolving to put an end to the tension and mental suffering, I went up the hill to meet
Bhagavan and requested permission to stay in Palakottu. Bhagavan said, "Yes, Yes, that's
good for you," and he repeated it thrice.
A little later I went into the bathroom when Bhagavan was being given an oil bath.
Madhavaswami, His attendant, remarked that many sadhus are known to take ganja
(hemp) and asked him how one would feel on consuming ganja. Bhagavan then suddenly
got up and holding me by the shoulder, said, "It will only be like this." I felt such a great
joy when he held me that I handed over the keys of my room to Bhagavan immediately
and left for Palakottu.
When I left the Ashram, I had no thoughts about where I would stay, or what I would do
for food. Munagala Venkatramaiah gave me shelter at Palakottu and I cooked my own food.
Bhagavan used to occasionally inquire about my cooking and made encouraging comments.
For instance, if I told him that I made just one sambhar, he would say, "Oho! one sambhar!
That's very good." Once when I had more than one eatable to offer Bhagavan, he
remarked, "Just like Annamalai, Annanamalayar has Mandavapadi." Bhagavan was
comparing his receiving food at the Ashram, as well as at other places, to the idol of
Annamalai in the Arunachaleswara Temple, which stops at each Mandap and is offered
food. Bhagavan had come to this place and even had some food cooked by me.

<1-- mp3.2 -->

No Desires, No Sorrow
He who has no desires has no sorrow,

But where there is desire
There will be ever-increasing sorrows.
When desire, sorrow's sorrow, dies away,
Undying bliss prevails, even here on earth.
It is the nature of desire never to be fulfilled,
But he who utterly gives it up realizes
Eternal Fulfillment at that very moment.
Whenever I was engaged in construction work at the Ashram or at Palakottu, Bhagavan
would inspect my work and instruct me. Once Bhagavan visited me when I was removing
the scaffolding from my house, as I could not complete the construction for want of money.
When I told Bhagavan the reason, he said, "Oho! So you have to remove this scaffolding
for the sake of money?" and went away. That same evening, a lady came from
Ramaswami, stayed here for a month, and donated Rs.100. This house was completed with
that money, along with help from Vaikuntavasagar.
I shall tell you the story of how this house was designed. My friend Arumugham and I were
planning to build a small thatched shed for me to live in. Bhagavan heard our discussions
from afar and inquired about our plans from Arumugham. He then asked many leading
questions related to the design of the house. "Will you use mortar, lime, bricks, etc.?" he
asked. "Will the house have an upper floor? Will there be a mortared top?" etc. Thus,
without saying so explicitly, Bhagavan conveyed to Arumugham the design he had in mind
for my house. Arumugham settled for that very plan and bought 4000 bricks the next day,
along with lime-making equipment for a small lime factory. This look of Bhagavan made
Arumugham a big contractor years later.
Do Not Move Out
One day He told me very clearly and sternly. "Don't move out anywhere. Stay put here and
don't move to the next house or even the next room."
After moving to Palakottu I used to come to Bhagavan every day at around eight at night,
after dinner, which was served at 7:30, and stay till about 9:00 o'clock.
One night I saw Bhagavan completely enclosed in a piece of cloth, except for the nose. I
used to converse freely with Bhagavan, like a son with his father. I asked him, "Does this
mean that you do not like to meet me here, or is it that you don't want me to come to the
Ashram at all?" Bhagavan remained silent. At about 9 o'clock I left the Hall. I was nearing
the garden thinking about Bhagavan's directive to me to stay put at Palakottu when I heard
Him call me. He beckoned me to him and said in a very strong and stern voice, "He who,
despite the right spiritual maturity, thinks that he is different from the Lord will reach the
same lower state as does a non-believer."
I felt that Bhagavan was telling me not to move out of Palakottu, not even to visit the
Ashram. I have never left Palakottu since.
Shadow Bhagavan
Once, there were films being shown at the Ashram, including one on Bhagavan. I wanted
to see the film. When I arrived and prostrated before Bhagavan, He said in a stern voice.
"So you have come to see the shadow of Bhagavan. This means that you no longer have
the real Bhagavan in you and have hence come to see this shadow-Bhagavan." This
touched me very deeply.
One day, after this incident, I went up the hill wanting to meet Bhagavan when he returned
from his walk. He again looked at me sternly and said, "Why have you come to see me?
You have happiness, you have happiness." I couldn't understand his words then, but after a
lot of reflection I realized that when one is away from society, one has peace, and that
Bhagavan wanted me to avoid the entire society. This is how I interpreted His words.
Bhagavan also said, "Ananda is not what you get from somewhere else. If you follow
somebody else's path, it will only lead you to destruction. You have to follow your own self.
Go within. That alone will lead you to Ananda." So I interpreted it to mean that I should be
alone.
………………………
Annamalai Swami. On the Self
Question: You say that everything is the Self, even maya. If this is so, why can’t I see the Self
clearly? Why is it hidden from me?
Annamalai Swami: Because you are looking in the wrong direction. You have the idea that the
Self is something that you see or experience. This is not so. The Self is the awareness or the
consciousness in which the seeing and the experiencing take place.
Even if you don’t see the Self, the Self is still there. Bhagavan sometimes remarked humorously:
“People just open a newspaper and glance through it. Then they say, “I have seen the paper”. But
really they haven’t seen the paper, they have only seen the letters and pictures that are on it.
There can be no words or pictures without the paper, but people always forget the paper while
they are reading the words.”
Bhagavan would then use this analogy to show that while people see the names and forms that
appear on the screen of consciousness, they ignore the screen itself. With this kind of partial
vision it is easy to come to the conclusion that all forms are unconnected with each other and
separate from the person who sees them. If people were to be aware of the consciousness instead
of the forms that appear in it, they would realise that all forms are just appearances which
manifest within the one indivisible consciousness.
That consciousness is the Self that you are looking for. You can be that consciousness but you
can never see it because it is not something that is separate from you.
………………
Sat Sangha Salon

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Only One Real Choice – Annamalai Swami

Question: Bhagavan (Ramana Maharshi) once remarked that free will is non-existent, that all our
activities are predetermined and that our only real choice is either to identify with the body that is
performing the actions or with the underlying Self in which the body appears.
Someone once said to him: ‘If I drop this fan, will that be an act that has always been destined to
happen in this moment?’
And Bhagavan replied, ‘It will be a predestined act’.
I assume that these predestined acts are all ordained by God, and that as a consequence, nothing
happens that is not God’s will, because we, as individuals, have no power to deviate from God’s
ordained script.
A question arises out of this. If I remember the Self, is this God’s will? And if I forget to remember at
a certain moment, is this also God’s will?
Or, taking my own case, if I make an effort to listen to the sound ‘I-I, is this God’s will, or is it
individual effort?
Annamalai Swami: Forgetfulness of the Self happens because of non-enquiry. So I say, ‘Remove the
forgetfulness through enquiry’. Forgetfulness or non-forgetfulness is not a part of your destiny. It is
something you can choose from moment to moment. That is what Bhagavan said. He said that you
have the freedom either to identify with the body and its activities, and in doing so forget the Self, or
you can identify with the Self and have the understanding that the body is performing its predestined
activities, animated and sustained by the power of the Self.
If you have an oil lamp and you forget to put oil in it, the light goes out. It was your forgetfulness and
your lack of vigilance that caused the light to go out. Your thoughts were elsewhere. They were not on
tending the lamp.
In every moment you only have one real choice: to be aware of the Self or to identify with the body
and the mind. If you choose the latter course, don’t blame God or God’s will, or predestination. God
did not make you forget the Self. You yourself are making that choice every second of your life.
-Annamalai Swami
Discrimination – Annamalai Swami
Question: ‘All is one’ may be the truth, but one can’t treat everything in the world equally. In daily
life one still has to discriminate and make distinctions.
Annamalai Swami: I once went for a walk near the housing board buildings [government flats that
were built in the 1970s about 300 metres from Annamalai Swami’s ashram]. There was a sewage
trench on one side of the building. I could smell the stench of the sewage even though I was a long
way away. I stayed away from it because I didn’t want to be nauseated by the bad smell.
In circumstances such as these you don’t say, ‘All is one. Everything is the Self,’ and paddle through
the sewage. The knowledge ‘everything is the Self’ may be there, but that doesn’t mean that you have
to put yourself in dangerous or health-threatening places.
When you have become one with the Self, a great power takes you over and runs your life for you. It
looks after your body; it puts you in the right place at the right time; it makes you say the right things
to the people you meet. This power takes you over so completely, you no longer have any ability to
decide or discriminate. The ego that thinks, ‘I must do this,’ or ‘I should not do that,’ is no longer
there. The Self simply animates you and makes you do all the things that need to be done.
If you are not in this state, then use your discrimination wisely. You can choose to sit in a flower
garden and enjoy the scent of the blooms, or you can go down to that trench I told you about and
make yourself sick by inhaling the fumes there.
So, while you still have an ego, and the power of discrimination that goes with it, use it to inhale the
fragrance that you find in the presence of an enlightened being. If you spend time in the proximity of
a jnani, his peace will sink into you to such an extent that you will find yourself in a state of peace. If,
instead, you choose to spend all your time with people whose minds are always full of bad thoughts,
their mental energy and vibrations will start to seep into you.
I tell you regularly, ‘You are the Self. Everything is the Self.’ If this is not your experience, pretending
that ‘all is one’ may get you into trouble. Advaita may be the ultimate experience, but it is not
something that mind that still sees distinctions can practice.
Electricity is a useful form of energy, but it is also potentially harmful. Use it wisely. Don’t put your
finger in the socket, thinking ‘all is one’. You need a body that is in good working order in order to
realise the Self. Realising the Self is the only useful and worthy activity in this life, so keep the body
in good repair till that goal is achieved. Afterwards, the Self will take care of everything and you won’t
have to worry about anything anymore. In fact, you won’t be able to because the mind that previously
did the worrying, the choosing and the discriminating will no longer be there. In that state you won’t
need it and you won’t miss it.
-Annamalai Swami
Ramana Maharshi Devotee Annamalai Swami
(Extracted from ‘Face to Face with Sri Ramana Maharshi’)
Annamalai Swami (1906-1995) since his childhood had a natural inclination towards
spirituality. He came to Sri Ramana in 1928 and got a job with the Ashram. After
being closely involved in many construction projects for ten years under direct
supervision of Sri Ramana, he shifted to Palakottu near the Ashram to live alone
and meditate.
In 1928, a wandering sadhu gave me a copy of Upadesa Undiyar by Sri Ramana. It

contained a photo of the Maharshi. As soon as I saw the photo I had the feeling
that this was my Guru. Simultaneously, an intense desire arose within me to go and
see him.
That night I had a dream in which I saw the Maharshi walking from the lower slopes
of the hill towards the Ashram. Next morning I decided to go and have his
darshan . Having arrived at about 1 p.m., when I approached the hall, a part of the
dream I had
repeated itself in real life. I saw Bhagavan walk down the hill as I had seen in the
dream. When I sat down and Bhagavan gazed at me in silence for about 10-15
minutes, I had a great feeling of physical relief and relaxation. It was like
immersing myself in a cool pool after being in the hot sun. I asked for permission to
stay, which was granted and I got a job as Bhagavan's attendant. At that time
Madhava Swami was doing the job by himself.
About ten days after my arrival I asked Bhagavan how I could attain Self-
realisation? He replied, "If you give up identifying with the body and meditate on
the Self,you can attain Self-realisation." As I was pondering over these remarks,
Bhagavan surprised me by saying,"I was waiting for you. I was wondering when
you would come." As a new comer I was too afraid to ask him how he knew, or how
long he had been waiting. But I was delighted to hear him speak like this because it
seemed to indicate that it was my destiny to stay with him.
A few days later I asked, "Scientists have invented and produced the aircraft which
can travel at great speeds in the sky. Why do you not give us a spiritual aircraft in
which we can quickly and easily cross over the sea of samsara?'' Bhagavan replied,
"The path of self-enquiry is the aircraft you need. It is direct, fast,and easy to use.
You are already travelling very quickly towards realisation. It is only because of
your mind that it seems that there is no movement." In the years that followed, I
had many spiritual talks with Bhagavan but his basic message never changed. It
was always: "Do self-enquiry, stop identifying with the body and try to be aware of
the Self, which is your real nature."
When I first came to the Ashram there were still some leopards in the area. They
rarely came into the Ashram but at night they frequented the place where
Bhagavan used to urinate. Once when a leopard appeared he was not in the least
afraid. He just looked at the leopard and said, ‘Poda’ [Go away!] and the leopard
walked away.
Soon after I came I was given a new name by Bhagavan. My original name was
Sellaperumal. One day Bhagavan mentioned that I reminded him of Annamalai
Swami, who had been his attendant at the Skandasram. And within a few days my
new identity got established.
When I had been an attendant for about two weeks,the Collector of Vellore, who
came for Bhagavan's darshan , brought a large plate of sweets, which I was to
distribute to everyone in the Ashram. While I was distributing the sweets outside
the hall I went to a place where no one could see me and secretly helped myself to
about double the quantity that I was serving to others. When I went back to the
hall and kept the empty plate under Bhagavan's sofa, he looked at me and said,
"Did you take twice as much as everyone else?" I was shocked because I was sure
that no one had seen me do it. This incident made me realise that it was impossible
to hide anything from Bhagavan.
After serving as an attendant for a month, Bhagavan asked me to supervise

construction work within the Ashram. My big assignment was supervising the
construction of the cowshed. The problem was of funds, which came almost under
miraculous circumstances.
The editor of The Sunday Times, Madras, published a long complimentary article
about Bhagavan after he had his darshan . This article came to the attention of a
prince in North India, who was much impressed by Bhagavan. Sometime later, the
prince went for a tiger hunt. He managed to track down the tiger but when he
raised his rifle to shoot, he felt paralysed by a wave of fear. Suddenly he
remembered about Bhagavan and prayed saying, "If successful, I will not only send
you Rs.1000, but also donate the head and skin of the tiger." The paralysis left him
and he killed the tiger and saved his own life in the process, as the tiger was within
attacking distance.
Two days after all the quarrels about the size of the cowshed, the postman
appeared with Rs. 1,000. Our finances were always in a precarious position but we
never experienced any real financial crisis. While the work was going on, enough
donations would come to cover all costs.
Bhagavan took a keen interest in the construction work, guiding me at all stages of
the work. In the evening, when I went to him with my daily report, he would tell
me the work to be done the following day. For any difficult jobs he would even
explain how to go about it.
In the 1930s Bhagavan alone decided when and where the buildings should be
built, on what scale and what material be used. He drew up the plans for Ashram
buildings, and told me what to do. If instructions were complicated he would
sometimes sketch a few lines on a piece of paper to clarify or illustrate what he was
saying. When he gave me plans he would always say that it was only a suggestion.
He never presumed to give me orders.
Bhagavan himself wrote in Tamil ‘Pakasalai’ in big letters on a piece of paper. These
along with the year ‘1938’ and ‘Sri Ramanasramam’ in devanagari script, appear
today on the top of the eastern wall of the dining hall.
Bhagavan would frequently come out to see what we were doing. He bombarded us
with advice and instructions and would occasionally join in the work himself. But he
would say, "I am not connected with any of the activities here. I just witness all
that
happens”. We would start projects when no money was available to pay, happily
ignoring all predictions of imminent financial doom made by the sarvadhikari.
Bhagavan never asked anyone for money and he forbade the sarvadhikari from
asking
for donations. Yet somehow enough donations came to complete every building.
Once when Bhagavan was very sick, Maurice Frydman gave Rs. 1,000 to the
sarvadhikari for buying fruits for Bhagavan. Knowing that Bhagavan would not eat
fruits unless everyone else was given an equal share, he avoided use of the money
for the purpose. Some months later, Frydman complained to Bhagavan that his
donation had not been properly spent. Bhagavan said rather angrily, "When you
give something you should regard the matter as closed. Why use this gift to further
your ego?"
Annamalai Swami moved to Palakottu (a colony abutting the Ashram) in 1938. Till
the end of his life in 1995, he lived peacefully and silently in his little ashram. He
also provided spiritual guidance to seekers who wanted his help and guidance.
Annamalai Swami
There are so many thoughts in the mind. Thought after thought after thought. But there is one
thought that is continuous, though it is mostly sub-conscious: ‘I am the body’. This is the string on
which all other thoughts are threaded. Once we identify ourselves with the body by thinking this
thought, maya follows. It also follows that if we cease to identify with the body, maya will not affect
us anymore.
— Annamalai Swami – Final Talks – p. 14
“ ALL IS ONE ” – No.1 by V Ganesan
This posting is from a series of ‘sharings’ given by V Ganesan in the winter of 2008/2009 in
Tiruvannamalai.
====================================================================
How to give up the “me” ? Even to contemplate on its being given up, poses us with an enormous
hurdle. No theoretical methods, postulated throughout the past centuries seem to have helped us, at
all. The only solution to this Herculean problem, perhaps, lies on a practical, experiential approach to it.
Who will guide us with a direct and simple, yet natural experience-oriented practical solution to the
dissolution of the “me” ? Most assuredly, Bhagavan Ramana has already solved the insoluble
conundrum !
ANNAMALAI SWAMI had elicited it from the Great Guru, Bhagavan Ramana ; and, years later, he shared
it with fellow-seekers. Annamalai Swami came to Sri Bhagavan in 1928 and was made an attendant to
the Master. Noticing the potentiality in him as a hard worker, he was entrusted with the supervision of
all important construction projects of the then growing up ‘Sri Ramanasramam’ . He did it with an
exemplary zeal, under the direct stewardship of Sri Bhagavan, for ten years — from 1928 to 1938.
In 1938, he had a great spiritual awakening through an embrace of him by Sri Bhagavan.** That totally
changed him. Then on, he wanted to dedicate his whole time in meditation and contemplation. He
sought the guidance of the Master. He approved of his living alone outside the Ashram. Sri Bhagavan
encouraged him to construct a dwelling at the adjacent ‘Palakottu’, helping him with practical advices
during the construction. Bhagavan gave a few personal advices, as well; for instance, not to move out
towards the southern side of his tenement, but should wander about only towards the north, at the foot
of the Hill. Annamalai Swami studiously put that instruction into daily practice to its very letter – he had
not stepped into the road, which lay on the southern side, the rest of his life ! He had not also moved
out of Arunachala, even for a single day !
In Annamalai Swami’s own words : “I went to Bhagavan’s bathroom to help him with his morning bath.
Madhava Swami and I gave him the usual oil bath and massage. When the bath was over, Madhava
Swami asked a question : ‘ Bhagavan ! The people who take Ganja Lehiyam [ an Ayurvedic medicine
whose principal ingredient is cannabis ] experience some kind of Ananda [ bliss ] . What is the nature of
this Ananda ? Is it the same Ananda the scriptures speak of ? Bhagavan replied: “Eating this Ganja is a
very bad habit”. Then, laughing loudly, he came over to me, hugged me and called out : Ananda !
Ananda ! This is how these Ganja-taking people behave ! It was not a brief hug. After the first few
seconds I completely lost all awareness of my body and the world. Initially, there was a feeling of bliss
and happiness, but this soon gave way to a state in which there were no feelings and no experiences. I
did not lose consciousness, I just ceased to be aware of anything that was going on around me…..This
experience completely changed my life. As soon as I regained normal consciousness I knew that my
working life at the Ashram had come to an end.”
Sri Bhagavan told him to lead a quiet, reclusive life and to meditate continuously on the Self. After many
years of arduous and unremitting effort, he was able to stabilize himself in Self-Awareness,
uninterruptedly and with effortless ease. Annamalai Swami pleaded with the Maharshi as how to give
up the ‘me’ . He used the term ‘the little self’ instead of the ‘me’ . The Master not only gave him an
answer but also totally eradicated the ‘me’ in him. This is well brought out through a dialogue a
Westerner had had with Annamalai Swami, long after the Master had dropped the body.
Question : What is the easiest way to be free of ‘the little self ’ ?
Annamalai Swami : Stop identifying with it. If you can convince yourself, ‘This little self is not really me ’ ,
it will just disappear.
Q : But, how to do this ?
AS : The ‘little self’ is something which only appears to be real. If you understand that it has no real
existence it will disappear, leaving behind it the experience of the real and only Self. Understand that it
has no real existence and it will stop troubling you.
Consciousness is universal. There is no limitation or ‘little self’ in it. It is only when we identify ourselves
with and limit ourselves to the body and the mind that this false self is born. If, through enquiry, you go
to the Source of this ‘little self’ , you find that it dissolves into nothingness.
Q : But, I am very accustomed to feel ‘ I am this little self ’ . I cannot break this habit merely by thinking ‘
I am not this little self ’ .
AS : This ‘little self’ will give way to the real Self only when you meditate constantly. You cannot wish it
away with a few stray thoughts. Try to remember the analogy of the rope which looks like a snake in
twilight. If you see the rope as a snake, the real nature of the rope is hidden from you. If you see only
the rope, the snake is not there. Not only that, you know that there never was a snake there. When you
have that clear and correct perception that the snake never at any time existed, the question of how to
kill the snake disappears. Apply this analogy to the ‘little self’ that you are worrying about. If you can
understand that this ‘little self’ never at any time had any existence outside your imagination, you will
not be concerned about ways and means of getting rid of it.
*******
Bhagavan Ramana clearly points out that there is only one way not to be affected by the miseries caused
by the ‘me’ :
Talks No.532 :
Devotee : Is there no way of escape from the miseries of the world ?
Maharshi : There is only one way and that consists in not losing sight of one’s Self, under any
circumstances.
To enquire “Who Am I ?” is the only remedy for all the ills of the world. It is also perfect Bliss.
**************************
Why has Sri Bhagavan been consistent in insisting on one experiencing the Self ?
Talks No.536 :
“The person soaked in the “I-am-the-body” idea is the greatest sinner and he is a suicide. The experience
of “I-am-the-Self” is the highest virtue. Even a moment’s dhyana to that effect is enough to destroy all
the stored up age-old tendencies [ sanchita karma ] . It works like the Sun before whom darkness is
dispelled. If one remains always in dhyana , can any sin, however heinous it be, survive his dhyana ? ”
*************************************
Bhagavan Ramana not only explained why one should do dhyana but also insisted that one should
constantly be in touch with one’s Self.
Talks No.540 :
Once Annamalai Swami asked : There is more pleasure in dhyana than in sensual enjoyments. Yet, the
mind runs after the latter and does not seek the former. Why is it so ?
M : Pleasure or pain are aspects of the mind only. Our essential nature is happiness. But we have
forgotten the Self and imagine that the body or the mind is the Self. It is that wrong identity that gives
rise to misery. What is to be done ? This vasana [tendencies] is very ancient and has continued for
innumerable past births. Hence it has grown strong. That must go before the essential nature, viz.,
happiness, asserts itself.
***************************
Talks No.541 :
A certain visitor asked Sri Bhagavan : There is so much misery in the world because wicked men abound
in the world. How can one find happiness here ?
M : All are gurus to us. The wicked say by their evil deeds, ‘ Do not come near me ’ . The good are always
good. So then, all persons are like gurus to us.
****************************
Should one not run away to solitude to obtain peace ?
Talks No.542 :
Annamalai Swami asked : I often desire to live in solitude where I can find all I want with ease, so that I
may devote all my time to meditation only. Is such a desire good or bad ?
M : Such thoughts will bestow a janma (another birth) for their fulfillment. What does it matter where
and how you are placed ? The essential point is that the mind must always remain in its source. There is
nothing external which is not also internal. The mind is all. If the mind is active, even solitude becomes
like a market place. There is no use closing your eyes. Close the mental eye and all will be right. The
world is not external to you. The good persons will not care to make plans previous to their actions. Why
so ? For, God who has sent us into the world has His own plan that will certainly work itself out.
******************
In the day-to-day working, one generally experiences that doing good to others one suffers. On the
other hand, one doing wicked deeds enjoys happy environments and success. How is it ? This is a
common doubt, to all !
Talks No.546 :
Annamalai Swami asked : A person does something good but he sometimes suffers pain even in his right
activities. Another does something wicked but is also happy. Why should it be so ?
Maharshi : Pain or pleasure is the result of past karma (past actions) and not of the present karma. Pain
and pleasure alternate with each other. One must suffer or enjoy them patiently without being carried
away by them. One must try to hold on to the Self. When one is active one should not care for the
results and must not be swayed by the pain or pleasure met with occasionally. He who is indifferent to
pain or pleasure can alone be happy.
******************************
Why did Sri Bhagavan repeatedly emphasize the efficacy of “Self-enquiry” ?
Talks No.551 :
A man asked Sri Bhagavan : “How is it that Atma Vidya is said to be the easiest ?”
M : Any other vidya (learning) requires a knower, knowledge and the object to be known; whereas this
does not require any of them. It is the Self. Can anything be so obvious as that ? Hence it is the easiest.
All that you need do is to enquire, “Who Am I ?”.
A man’s true name is Mukti (Liberation) .
******************
The topic chosen for this session’s “Sharing” is entitled : “All Is One” . What is the significance ? “All Is
One” is an old Tamil publication commended by Sri Bhagavan. This tiny book incorporates ideas of
immense use to spiritual aspirants, at every level and of any faith. Sri Bhagavan himself had gone
through it and given chapter headings for the benefit of seekers. He told Annamalai Swami to read it “if
he desired Moksha (Emancipation) ” .
In our next session, we will further deal with it, perhaps, bringing out the worth and greatness of the
work.
———————————————————————————————————————

Annamalai Swami

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Annamalai Swami

HOW THE ASHRAM LOOKED WHEN ANNAMALAI ARRIVED IN

QUESTION : What is the easiest way to be free of the 'little self'?

Annamalai Swami: Yes.

Quotes from Annamalai Swami

— quoted in David Godman, Living by the Words of Bhagavan, page 263

Bhagavan's famous instruction 'summa iru' [be still] is often misunderstood.

— quoted in David Godman, Living by the Words of Bhagavan, page 267

Meditation must be continuous. The current of meditation must be present

— quoted in David Godman, Living by the Words of Bhagavan, page 274

— quoted in David Godman, Living by the Words of Bhagavan, page 282

Go deeply into this feeling of 'I'. Be aware of it so strongly and so intensely

— quoted in David Godman, Living by the Words of Bhagavan, page 299

The Self is always alert. That is its nature.

— quoted in David Godman, Living by the Words of Bhagavan, page 327

— quoted in David Godman, Living by the Words of Bhagavan, pages

Self-inquiry must be done continuously. It doesn't work if you regard it as a

— Annamalai Swami: Final Talks, page 30

— Annamalai Swami: Final Talks, page 39

— Annamalai Swami: Final Talks, page 59

Your ultimate need is to get established in the changeless peace of the

— Annamalai Swami: Final Talks, page 63

Tayumanuvar, a Tamil saint whom Bhagavan often quoted, wrote in one of

Page 86: Final Talks

Page 82 of final talks

Page 82, Final Talks

Page 86 : Final Talks

Page 292: living by the words of Bhagavan

Page 293-294 living by the words of bhagavan

Living by the Words of Bhagavan , pg 281

Pg 282 of Living by the words of Bhagavan

pg 274 , of living by the words of bhagavan

Pg 260 of Living by the words of Bhagavan

Living by the words of bhagavan , conversations

Q.: But how to do that?

Pg: 265-6 of Annamalai Swami 's living by the words of bhagavan.

POST 16:pg 271-2, Living by the words of bhagavan

Page 267, conversations with Annamalai Swami

Annamalai Swami pg 24 of Final Talks

in pg 25, he further explains:

There is a verse in Kaivalya Navaneeta that Bhagavan often

'Lord, you are the reality remaining as my inmost Self, ruling

The Guru replies:

The Guru knows that without vigilance, an initial experience of

Q: Why is this experience not enough?

Annamalai Swami: If vasanas are still there, they will rise up

If we take the mirage to be real water, that is ignorance.

As long as vasanas continue to exist they will rise and cover

~ Annamalai Swami, Final Talks, edited by David Godman

The following questions were asked by an aristocratic- looking American

Bhagavan: What we have to attain and what is desired by everyone is

Bhagavan: The sadhanas came to be formed only to get rid of the

Bhagavan: This state must remain as it is without any change. If it

Q.: What is the way to get rid of other thoughts?

<1-- mp3.2 -->

He who has no desires has no sorrow,

Sat Sangha Salon

JUNE 10, 2013 · 2:37 PM

Only One Real Choice – Annamalai Swami

In 1928, a wandering sadhu gave me a copy of Upadesa Undiyar by Sri Ramana. It

After serving as an attendant for a month, Bhagavan asked me to supervise

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