TOWARDS BEING FULLY ALIVE AND FREE

Who does not like to be more happy and more free and fully alive? Of our inalienable rights, none is more precious than our right to life and right to freedom.

The fully alive person is internally directed. He is happy with himself and is in love with himself. He is self disciplined. He does not blame and does not complain. Nor does he ascribe responsibility to others, for what he is. There is an air of striking independence about him. He displays a high energy level. He is a doer and has ability to find humor in virtually all situations. His values are not local. He refuses to be confined to his race/religion/culture/country; he would not prescribe or demand. He gives himself the freedom to be his own self and grow unfettered by cultural/national/racial/religious constraints. He does not, therefore, fit in neatly and there is a happy lack of enculturation about the fully alive person. Vigorous and practical; he nevertheless keeps his head high and never gets lose or confused. He likes everything. He is without guilt – without any effort. The fully alive person is not immobilized by the past events nor is he unduly concerned with the future. He is content to do his part without much ado. He does not know how to worry.

The fully alive person is a very much the child of the moment. He can not only tolerate and accept ambiguity in the environment and in life, he positively loves it. He is very private person, selective about love, and deeply and sensitively loving. At the same time he does not need to be loved. (This does not mean that he does not value others love/affection).

The fully alive person does not seek approval of others and can in fact function without applause/approval of others. He also reuses to be depended upon. Being free of the opinion of others, he remains uncaring of whether someone likes him or not. He does nor engage in small talk, nor in useless fighting. He does not pretend or lie about anything. He is never defensive nor does not play games. At the same time, he is not evasive about his responses. He is blunt in his honesty. He does not manipulate others and refuses to be manipulated by others.

The profile of the fully alive person may appear to contain at times contradictory elements. Human nature does contain contradictions and opposites characteristics. We sometimes are at variance with ourselves – our deeper selves. We also experiment in new behavior, while flowing from our “present” selves. The signal quality of fully alive person is that he is totally involved in what ever he does at a given moment; all his faculties, all his personality are available and fully geared to the activity on hand. He is never half involved; he does not talk on one subject, while thinking of some other. The ability to bring in his full resources and consciousness characterizes the fully alive person. This also explains his high energy level while being at ease with himself and his environment. Since he is focused and present moment oriented, there is little dissipation or waste in the activities of this exceptional but very human person.

A Talk With Ramana Maharshi

Three ladies are on a short visit here, Mrs. Hearst from New Zealand, Mrs. Craig and Mrs. llison from London.

One asked: What is the best way to work for world peace?
M.: What is world? What is peace, and who is the worker? The world is not in your sleep and forms a projection of your mind in your jagrat. It is therefore an idea and nothing else. Peace is absence of disturbance. The disturbance is due to the arising of thoughts in the individual, who is only the ego rising up from Pure Consciousness. To bring about peace means to be free from thoughts and to abide as Pure Consciousness. If one remains at peace oneself, there is only peace all about.
D.: If it is a question of doing something one considers wrong, and hereby saving someone else from a great wrong, should one do it or refrain?
M.: What is right and wrong? There is no standard by which to judge something to be right and another to be wrong. Opinions differ according to the nature of the individual and according to
the surroundings. They are again ideas and nothing more. Do not worry about them. But get rid of thoughts. If you always remain in the right, then right will prevail in the world.
D.: What should one think of when meditating?
M.: What is meditation? It is expulsion of thoughts. You are perturbed by thoughts which rush one after another. Hold on to one thought so that others are expelled. Continuous practice gives the necessary strength of mind to engage in meditation. Meditation differs according to the degree of advancement of the seeker. If one is fit for it one might directly hold the thinker; and
the thinker will automatically sink into his source, namely Pure Consciousness. If one cannot directly hold the thinker one must meditate on God; and in due course the same individual will have become sufficiently pure to hold the thinker and sink into absolute Being.

One of the ladies was not satisfied with this answer and asked for further elucidation.
Sri Bhagavan then pointed out that to see wrong in another is one’s own wrong. The discrimination between right and wrong is the origin of the sin. One’s own sin is reflected outside and the individual in ignorance superimposes it on another. The best course for one is to reach the state in which such discrimination does not arise. Do you see wrong or right in your sleep? Did you not exist in sleep? Be asleep even in the wakeful state. Abide as the Self and remain uncontaminated by what goes on around. Moreover, however much you might advise them, your hearers may not rectify themselves. Be in the right yourself and remain silent. Your silence will have more effect than your words or deeds. That is the development of will-power. Then the world becomes the Kingdom of Heaven, which is within you.
D.: If one is to withdraw oneself, why is there the world?
M.: Where is the world and where does one go withdrawing oneself? Does one fly in an aeroplane beyond space? Is it withdrawal? The fact is this: the world is only an idea. What do you say: Are
you within the world or is the world within you?
D.: I am in the world. I am part of it.
M.: That is the mistake. If the world were to exist apart from you, does it come and tell you that it exists? No, you see it exists. You see it when you are awake and not when asleep. If it exists apart from you, it must tell you so and you must be aware of it even in your sleep.
D.: I became aware of it in my jagrat.
M.: Do you become aware of yourself and then of the world? Or do you become aware of the world and then of yourself? Or do you become aware of both simultaneously?
D.: I must say simultaneously.
M.: Were you or were you not, before becoming aware of yourself? Do you admit your continued existence before and when you become aware of the world?
D.: Yes.
M.: If always existing yourself, why are you not aware of the world in sleep if it exists apart from the Self?
D.: I become aware of myself and of the world also.
M.: So you become aware of yourself. Who becomes aware of whom?
Are there two selves?
D.: No.
M.: So you see that it is wrong to suppose that awareness has passing phases. The Self is always aware. When the Self identifies itself as the seer it sees objects. The creation of the subject and the object is the creation of the world. Subjects and objects are creations in Pure Consciousness. You see pictures moving on the screen in a cinema show. When you are intent on the pictures you are not aware of the screen. But the pictures cannot be seen without the screen behind.
The world stands for the pictures and Consciousness stands for the screen. The Consciousness is pure. It is the same as the Self which is eternal and unchanging. Get rid of the subject and object
and Pure Consciousness will alone remain.
D.: But why did Pure Brahman become Isvara and manifest the universe if He did not mean it?
M.: Did Brahman or Isvara tell you so? You say that Brahman became Isvara, and so on. This too you did not say in your sleep. Only in your jagrat state you speak of Brahman, Isvara and universe. The jagrat state is a duality of subject and object - owing to the rise of thoughts. So they are your thought creations.
D.: But the world exists in my sleep even though I am not aware.
M.: What is the proof of its existence?
D.: Others are aware of it.
M.: Do they say so to you when you are in sleep or do you become aware of others who see the world in your sleep?
D.: No, but God is always aware.
M.: Leave God alone. Speak for yourself. You do not know God. He is only what you think of Him. Is he apart from you? He is that Pure Consciousness in which all ideas are formed. You are that Consciousness.

You are the Truth !

The following is extracted from a dialogue with Ramana Maharshi(Day by Day with Bhagavan). When I had read it few years back, it was just a statement for me, but now I feel that what he say is truth. We forget that its we who give Life & Truth to the world & by foolishness we say "I Am" a part of thee world. May the following words enlighten the reader.

Self is the one reality that always exists and it is by its light all other things are seen. We forget it and concentrate on the appearances. The light in the hall burns, both when persons are present there and when they are absent, both when persons are enacting something as in a theatre and when nothing is being enacted. It is the light which enabled us to see the hall, the persons and the acting. We are so engrossed with the objects or appearances revealed by the light that we pay no attention to the light. In the waking state or dream state, in which things appear, and in the sleep state, in which we see nothing, there is always the light of consciousness or Self, like the hall-lamp always burning. The thing to do is to concentrate on the seer and not on the seen, not on the objects, but on the Light which reveals them.

Ramana Maharshi's Death Experience at Age of 16 in His Own Words

Venketraman, till the age of 16 was an ordinary guy like any other person. He never showed any special interest in any spiritual matters as such. Only thing that one could say extra ordinary in him was that he would sleep a lot, we should say dead asleep. Once his parents had to break open the door to wake Bagwan up, when they returned after a trip.

The particular incident narrated below made Venketraman to Ramana Maharshi.

"It was in 1896, about 6 weeks before I left Madurai for good (to go to Tiruvannamalai - Arunachala) that this great change in my life took place.

I was sitting alone in a room on the first floor of my uncle's house. I seldom had any sickness and on that day there was nothing wrong with my health, but a sudden violent fear of death overtook me. There was nothing in my state of health to account for it nor was there any urge in me to find out whether there was any account for the fear. I just felt I was going to die and began thinking what to do about it. It did not occur to me to consult a doctor or any elders or friends. I felt I had to solve the problem myself then and there. The shock of the fear of death drove my mind inwards and I said to myself mentally, without actually framing the words: 'Now death has come; what does it mean? What is it that is dying? This body dies.' And at once I dramatised the occurrence of death. I lay with my limbs stretched out still as though rigor mortis has set in, and imitated a corpse so as to give greater reality to the enquiry. I held my breath and kept my lips tightly closed so that no sound could escape, and that neither the word 'I' nor any word could be uttered. 'Well then,' I said to myself, 'this body is dead. It will be carried stiff to the burning ground and there burn and reduced to ashes. But with the death of the body, am I dead? Is the body I? It is silent and inert, but I feel the full force of my personality and even the voice of I within me, apart from it. So I am the Spirit transcending the body. The body dies but the spirit transcending it cannot be touched by death. That means I am the deathless Spirit.' All this was not dull thought; it flashed through me vividly as living truths which I perceived directly almost without thought process. I was something real, the only real thing about my present state, and all the conscious activity connected with the body was centered on that I. From that moment onwards, the I or Self focused attention on itself by a powerful fascination. Fear of death vanished once and for all. The ego was lost in the flood of Self-awareness. Absorption in the Self continued unbroken from that time. Other thought might come and go like the various notes of music, but the I continued like the fundamental sruti [that which is heard] note which underlies and blends with all other notes."

A Talk With Bagwan Ramana Maharshi

All his words are golden. Each & every talk can be contemplated for hours together till it explodes within & settles in the absolute consciousness. This is one such Talk(Talks with Ramana Maharshi). Let thesewords help the reader to dive deeper into the self & get established in the truth.

Talk 451.
4th February, 1938

Mr. S. S. Suryanarayana Sastri, Reader in Philosophy, Madras University, arrived this night. He had a doubt which he said had been cleared on reading Sarma’s commentary on “Knowledge of Self”. The doubt was:
How can the world be an imagination or a thought? Thought is a function of the mind. The mind is located in the brain. The brain is within the skull of a human being, who is only an infinitesimal part of the universe. How then can the universe be contained in the cells of the brain?

Sri Bhagavan answered saying: So long as the mind is considered to be an entity of the kind described, the doubt will persist. But what is mind? Let us consider. The world is seen when the man wakes up from sleep. It comes after the ‘I-thought’. The head rises up. So the mind has become active. What is the world? It is objects spread out in space. Who comprehends it? The mind. Is not the mind, which comprehends space, itself space (akasa)? The space is physical
ether (bhootakasa). The mind is mental ether (manakasa) which is contained in transcendental ether (chidakasa). The mind is thus the ether principle, akasa tattva. Being the principle of knowledge (jnana sattva), it is identified with ether (akasa) by metaphysics. Considering it to be ether (akasa), there will be no difficulty in reconciling the apparent contradiction in the question. Pure mind (suddha manas) is ether (akasa). The dynamic and dull (rajas and tamas) aspects operate as gross objects, etc. Thus the whole universe is only mental.
Again, consider a man who dreams. He goes to sleep in a room with
doors closed so that nothing can intrude on him while asleep. He closes his eyes when sleeping so that he does not see any object. Yet when he dreams he sees a whole region in which people live and move about with himself among them. Did this panorama get in through the doors? It was simply unfolded to him by his brain. Is it the sleeper’s brain or in the brain of the dream individual? It is in the sleeper’s brain. How does it hold this vast country in its tiny cells? This must
explain the oft-repeated statement that the whole universe is a mere thought or a series of thoughts.

A Swami asked: I feel toothache. Is it only a thought?
M.: Yes.
D.: Why can I not think that there is no toothache and thus cure
myself?
M.: When engrossed in other thoughts one does not feel the toothache.
When one sleeps toothache is not felt.
D.: But toothache remains all the same.
M.: Such is the firm conviction of the reality of the world that it is not easily shaken off. The world does not become, for that reason, any more real than the individual himself.
D.: Now there is the Sino-Japanese war. If it is only in imagination, can or will Sri Bhagavan imagine the contrary and put an end to the war?
M.: The Bhagavan of the questioner is as much a thought as the Sino - Japanese war. (Laughter.)

Swami Vivekananda @ Chicago

Ramana Mahrshi - The Sage Of Arunachala

What ever is destined to happen will happen. Try as you may. Whatever is not destined to happen will never happen. Try as you may. So the best course, is to remain SILENT. Chumma Iru!! - Bagawan Ramana Maharshi