The great Sanskrit scholar Kavyakanta Ganapathy
sastry approached Ramana Maharishi with the plea “All that has to be
read I have read; even Vedanta sastra I have fully understood; I have
done japa to my heart’s content; yet I have not up to this time
understood what tapas is. Therefore I have sought refuge at your feet.
Pray enlighten me as to the nature of tapas.” Ganapathy Sastry has made a number of ‘I
statements’ in his query and Maharishi’s simple reply was “If one watches
whence the notion ‘I’ arises, the mind gets absorbed there; that is tapas.”
In
his work 'Upadesa Undhiyar', Maharishi
says in verse 19:
In the last verse of this work, he states:
“The destruction of Ahamkara leading to the realization
of Athma Jnanam is indeed the greatest tapas.”
Putting these
together we can say that Maharishi considered the enquiry into the source of
‘I’ notion resulting in destruction of Ahamkara as the greatest tapas.
One usually refers to one’s body, mind or
intellect by the first person pronoun “I”. When one says ‘I am not well’, ‘I’ refers to
the body. When one says ‘I am happy or
sad’, ‘I’ stands for the mind. When one
says ‘I find the problem tricky’, ‘I’ refers to intellect. But one also says,
my body, my mind, my intellect implying that they are one’s possessions and not
the real Self which is beyond all the three. By enquiring "Who am I", one is enquiring into the notion of ‘I’. This is enquiry about the nature of
one’s real Self and is called
Self-enquiry. Maharishi’s prescription
for this exercise is to turn one’s attention inward and enquire wherefrom the
‘I’ thought arises. By asking continuously in a focused way “Who am I” the mind
can be made to look inward, towards the source of ‘I’ thought, the Self, which
is pure Consciousness.
This pure Consciousness is none other than Supreme
universal power, which is one without a second, eternal, infinite, and
indivisible and which is also called Brahman at cosmic level and Athma at the
level of individual. It pervades all beings living and non-living
in the universe and is the same in all; only the upadhi in each case is
different. Kena Upanishad in Mantra 2
calls it “The Eye of the eye, the Ear of the ear, the Prana of prana, the Mind
of mind, Tongue of the tongue”. It also
further states in this mantra that the wise man knows the Source, the Athma, separate
from these faculties. The process of
separation and transcending the identification with senses, prana, mind and
intellect is achieved through Self-enquiry and leads to Self-Realization i.e. realizing
Athma only is one’s Real Self. This knowledge that only Athma, which is same as
Brahman is one’s Real Self is Athma Jnanam.
Maharishi calls this Athma, which is the source of ‘I’ thought, also as
the heart, not the physical heart which is a muscular organ on the left side
pumping blood all through the body but the spiritual heart on the right side,
two digits to the right from the median, which is the core of one’s being. It is the place where one, young or old, involuntarily
points his finger when he says ‘I did this or I did that” or makes some such
similar statement. Maharshi said “Call it by any name, God, Self, the heart or seat of
Consciousness it is all the same…. It is by coming down to the level of ordinary
understanding that a place is assigned to the heart in the physical body".
All our thoughts arise and resolve in the mind
and if we analyze the mind, we find it is nothing but the flow of
thoughts. When the thoughts are arrested
as in Nirvikalpa Samadhi there is a stillness of mind and direct communion with
one’s real Self is achieved. This state
of stillness of mind is called the state of Manonasa. The philosophical meaning of Manonasa
is the vision that everything other than Athma, including the mind and the
perceived universe, is all mithya.
Anathma can be experienced and anathma has utility; but it is only
apparently real and not absolutely Real. Further all our thoughts revolve around the ego
‘I’ thought. So when one enquires into the source of this ego ‘I’ thought under
the guidance of a competent Guru, one realizes the Athma as one’s true Self. On this realization, deahabhimana drops
off, Manonasa occurs and one feels totally fulfilled, enjoying the pure
bliss of one’s divine Self.
This idea Maharishi conveys in verse 20 of
Upadesa Undiyar:
When this ‘I’ notion drops i.e. the ego is destroyed,
the Real ‘I’ reveals itself as
eternal, whole, self-evident shining
Pure Existence. This is the self evident eternal whole Self, the Athma.
(20)
Maharishi always lived in this state of Manonasa. Whether he was talking to disciples, or was alone; whether he was doing work in the
ashram or walking around the mountain, he was always conscious of his identity
as the eternal, infinite Chaitanyam and was fully aware that all his
experiences involving the world at large
and the various people were only relatively real. It is as though his mind was
blissfully singing ever, in the midst of activities or no activities-
नाहम देहम्! (Naaham deham), I am not the body
कोहं? सोऽहम्॥ (Koham? Soham) Who am I? I am He only
For this internal enquiry, he did
not prescribe any path. As he once told
a questioner, “Guru, who is God or Self incarnate, works from within and helps
the man to see the error of his ways, and guides him in the right path until he
realizes the Self within …….. The Master is both ‘within’ and ‘without’, so He
creates conditions to drive you inward and at the same time prepares the
‘interior’ to drag you to the Centre”. So the external Guru turns your
attention inward and the internal Guru draws you to Himself and makes you realize
that as Athma, you were never bound nor were you ever in samsara. So in this
tapas of Self-enquiry that is started seeking something that one considers as outside oneself, he ends
up with the discovery that what he sought externally was all along with him
only, with its mind-boggling corollaries, waiting to be discovered. So this indeed is the greatest tapas that one
can undertake.
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