Still a very good article. Read it many years ago, and still try to practice it from time to time. But I must say, the older I get, the more difficult it is for me to empty the mind
Thanks Jan. The main thing that made this easy for me was to stop trying to do anything about thoughts and instead just simply make an effort to be aware of consciousness. I mean consciousness itself, the sense "Knowing is existing", not any mental phenomenon. It's a transfer of attention. I think the germ of the idea is probably present in this old article although probably not spelled out. This might be hard at the beginning because a new way of paying attention has to be learned or discovered.
I hardly ever did that but I did read their books and listen to their videos so I'll answer that way. I stopped reading/listening late last year, I think it was. I hadn't noticed until I saw this question from you just now. How about you?
P.S. Maybe I should add for readers who came here from my blog that I haven't lost interest in Self-realization or how to get it. Quite the contrary. Since that time all my writing has been here about science/philosophy instead of "stuff for seekers" on the blog, which could reinforce that misimpression.
Yeah, the same for me. I have read massive amounts of books on spirituality, and followed and visited many teachers. But not anymore for quite some time now. I can't even read a book anymore on this subject. My mind simply shuts down. Now I am just following my own path, hoping that God has mercy on me and helps me to unite with Him.
Same here. I lost interest last year. Either teachers and books say things I already know or things that nobody needs to know. Teachers and quotes still pop up frequently in my Facebook feed and my automatic reaction now is often amusement, especially at the serious faces of the teachers repeating the same nonsense for the hundredth time. I think the fraction of useful information in spiritual literature is around 0.001% if not lower. (But that tiny fraction is extremely useful.) Seekers just don't want to believe that real enlightenment has nothing to do with mental activity. Well, most of the traditions don't even say that, but people also refuse to believe that the traditions don't all say the same thing.
Yes, I think the state of 'not having any thoughts' not necessarily will lead to self-realization. At least in my experience, when I still had very good concentration and the ability to stay very, very quiet for long periods of time. I have experimented a lot with 'awareness watching awareness' and 'to be as you are' which i think is similar as what you describe, but I am still not sure if i practice it correctly. It's small nuances in perspectives and concepts, I fear.
(1) The main idea of this article was to notice an empirical event. That empirical event is not an observation of consciousness itself but it reveals (gives a taste or hint) of what consciousness is. (2) To really transfer the attention from mental activity to consciousness (what Ramana calls the source) takes a very radical change in how we use attention. (3) I think the instruction "awareness watching awareness" can be interpreted as referring to many different states and experiences, so it's not useful. In retrospect, after the source is found, that instruction may be seen to be "correct" but before that happens, it's not helpful in finding the source. I'm putting "correct" in quotation marks because all these verbal formulas are approximations. They never match the reality they describe exactly. So what we should ask is not "is this verbal formula true" but rather "is it helpful." (4) "Thought" is a mistranslation of Indian words like vritti that mean "mental activity of every kind." People believe their mental activity has stopped when it hasn't really. However for purposes of self-realization, whether mental activity has stopped makes no difference. The goal is to transfer attention to knowing itself (consciousness).
P.S. (5) It's one thing to temporarily fully transfer attention to consciousness (knowing itself). It's something else for that transfer to become effortless, permanent, irrevocable. In order for the latter to happen, part of the mental machinery must be destroyed (manonasa). I follow Ramana in using the term Self-realization only for the latter (permanent) event. Even if the instruction "awareness of awareness" helps somebody do the first thing, it doesn't necessarily help bring about the second thing.
Hi Freddie, it was great talking to you today! After reading so many of these spiritual books, I realized I had developed this habit of labeling thought as "bad" and there should be no thoughts. Now I'm noticing that thoughts by themselves aren't a problem.
In fact, we need thinking to operate and behave sanely on this planet, make money and take care of our physical needs and family. The problem occurs when we attribute thought a reality it doesn't have at all and "believe" whatever it says not noticing that its merely a tool at our disposal for handling practical wants and needs.
Thought does become a huge "problem" when we attribute to it a lot of importance and make up a lot of stories that stir up our emotions and then get stuck in it deeply! Once stuck, thought goes on automatic and runs by itself in a loop and we then suffer as a result unable to extricate our attention from this loop.
The Aware state is a great way to pull our attention out of thinking and experience the thoughtless state. As we spend more time just being Aware, we begin to see that we don't need to think so much afterall, and learn to use it only when necessary.
Thanks for describing this very very important distinction betweeen the aware state and LIT state. This article clarified so much of confusion and brought so much clarity.
It was great talking to you, Rama. I don't have time to write very much so I'll just say one thing. Thoughts have nothing to do with Self-realization except that when we pay attention to them we are not aware of ourself.
Still a very good article. Read it many years ago, and still try to practice it from time to time. But I must say, the older I get, the more difficult it is for me to empty the mind
Thanks Jan. The main thing that made this easy for me was to stop trying to do anything about thoughts and instead just simply make an effort to be aware of consciousness. I mean consciousness itself, the sense "Knowing is existing", not any mental phenomenon. It's a transfer of attention. I think the germ of the idea is probably present in this old article although probably not spelled out. This might be hard at the beginning because a new way of paying attention has to be learned or discovered.
Are you still going to any teachers or gurus?
I hardly ever did that but I did read their books and listen to their videos so I'll answer that way. I stopped reading/listening late last year, I think it was. I hadn't noticed until I saw this question from you just now. How about you?
P.S. Maybe I should add for readers who came here from my blog that I haven't lost interest in Self-realization or how to get it. Quite the contrary. Since that time all my writing has been here about science/philosophy instead of "stuff for seekers" on the blog, which could reinforce that misimpression.
Yeah, the same for me. I have read massive amounts of books on spirituality, and followed and visited many teachers. But not anymore for quite some time now. I can't even read a book anymore on this subject. My mind simply shuts down. Now I am just following my own path, hoping that God has mercy on me and helps me to unite with Him.
Same here. I lost interest last year. Either teachers and books say things I already know or things that nobody needs to know. Teachers and quotes still pop up frequently in my Facebook feed and my automatic reaction now is often amusement, especially at the serious faces of the teachers repeating the same nonsense for the hundredth time. I think the fraction of useful information in spiritual literature is around 0.001% if not lower. (But that tiny fraction is extremely useful.) Seekers just don't want to believe that real enlightenment has nothing to do with mental activity. Well, most of the traditions don't even say that, but people also refuse to believe that the traditions don't all say the same thing.
Yes, I think the state of 'not having any thoughts' not necessarily will lead to self-realization. At least in my experience, when I still had very good concentration and the ability to stay very, very quiet for long periods of time. I have experimented a lot with 'awareness watching awareness' and 'to be as you are' which i think is similar as what you describe, but I am still not sure if i practice it correctly. It's small nuances in perspectives and concepts, I fear.
(1) The main idea of this article was to notice an empirical event. That empirical event is not an observation of consciousness itself but it reveals (gives a taste or hint) of what consciousness is. (2) To really transfer the attention from mental activity to consciousness (what Ramana calls the source) takes a very radical change in how we use attention. (3) I think the instruction "awareness watching awareness" can be interpreted as referring to many different states and experiences, so it's not useful. In retrospect, after the source is found, that instruction may be seen to be "correct" but before that happens, it's not helpful in finding the source. I'm putting "correct" in quotation marks because all these verbal formulas are approximations. They never match the reality they describe exactly. So what we should ask is not "is this verbal formula true" but rather "is it helpful." (4) "Thought" is a mistranslation of Indian words like vritti that mean "mental activity of every kind." People believe their mental activity has stopped when it hasn't really. However for purposes of self-realization, whether mental activity has stopped makes no difference. The goal is to transfer attention to knowing itself (consciousness).
I will have to think about this!
P.S. (5) It's one thing to temporarily fully transfer attention to consciousness (knowing itself). It's something else for that transfer to become effortless, permanent, irrevocable. In order for the latter to happen, part of the mental machinery must be destroyed (manonasa). I follow Ramana in using the term Self-realization only for the latter (permanent) event. Even if the instruction "awareness of awareness" helps somebody do the first thing, it doesn't necessarily help bring about the second thing.
Hi Freddie, it was great talking to you today! After reading so many of these spiritual books, I realized I had developed this habit of labeling thought as "bad" and there should be no thoughts. Now I'm noticing that thoughts by themselves aren't a problem.
In fact, we need thinking to operate and behave sanely on this planet, make money and take care of our physical needs and family. The problem occurs when we attribute thought a reality it doesn't have at all and "believe" whatever it says not noticing that its merely a tool at our disposal for handling practical wants and needs.
Thought does become a huge "problem" when we attribute to it a lot of importance and make up a lot of stories that stir up our emotions and then get stuck in it deeply! Once stuck, thought goes on automatic and runs by itself in a loop and we then suffer as a result unable to extricate our attention from this loop.
The Aware state is a great way to pull our attention out of thinking and experience the thoughtless state. As we spend more time just being Aware, we begin to see that we don't need to think so much afterall, and learn to use it only when necessary.
Thanks for describing this very very important distinction betweeen the aware state and LIT state. This article clarified so much of confusion and brought so much clarity.
It was great talking to you, Rama. I don't have time to write very much so I'll just say one thing. Thoughts have nothing to do with Self-realization except that when we pay attention to them we are not aware of ourself.