The Meditative Way Of Life-Part II

Ramana Maharshi

-Staff

By Staff

Monday, October 20, 2008, 11:45

The solution offered by Ramana is at various levels. The first one is to dedicate the action to Iswara, and to perform it as a given assignment without any desire for personal benefit from it. Here one might note that Ramana does not recommend this as a solution but only as an alternative to our usual kind of action. According to him this type of action purifies the mind and enables one to search rightly, to be engaged in enquiry, which will free one from the binding nature of the present action.

Digressing, one might go back to the very first verse of 'Upadesa Saram' in which Ramana points out that the results of one's actions are dependent on the Ordainer's laws and have no necessary correlation to the effort done with the pleasure motivation. Recognition of this fact might make it easier for one to regard work as an offering to God and derive the benefits from such actions in the spiritual ripening of the mind.

Another point stressed by Ramana is a truth, which is outside our present experience namely that happiness is inherent. We have always assumed that what we need is outside of ourselves, in relationships, in ideas, in the various roles, which one is called upon to play in life. If happiness is really within and inherent, and is one's own nature, the search for it outside may be not better than the search of the musk deer seeking its scent all over the place ignoring the fact that the scent is emanating from its own navel.

The question would naturally arise, how does one search for happiness? How does one perform action which is self-fulfilling, in which there is no carry forward of the momentum of action? Here Ramana throws such light that only the blind cannot see the validity of each and every step, which constitutes the Ramana path. Let us follow the path, step by step, understanding the significance of each step.

The only instrument we have is our mind. Therefore Ramana emphasizes that understanding the mind holds the key to natural happiness. What is this called the mind? Have your ever gone into this question? Perhaps not. Is it a concrete entity like our body? Ramana remarks that because they are thoughts we infer that they must be emanating from the mind.

If one enquires one will find the mind to be a rapidly changing thought flow of numerous, varied, complimentary and contradictory thoughts with breaks which are also as rapid as the thought movement itself. Unnoticed but always present is the linking thought, the 'I' thought. All thoughts are for the thinker but we are so much caught up in the movement itself that the existence of this core thought goes unnoticed.

Another fact which can be observed if you are on the job of understanding the mind is that it is the individual's attention which causes a thought to surface and when such attention switches to another focus of interest, a new set of thoughts surface and the previous one subsides. From this a clear conclusion follows. It is that the individual, the thinker, alone matters for the whole thought world is centered on his attention. The numerical strength of thoughts has to be negated by a proper weapon in order to face the 'I'. In this 'Face to Face' with 'I' lies the key to the understanding of the mind.

To Be Continued