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Letter # 29 - Expectations
As human beings we all naturally have expectations. Just as fear is essential for
survival so too if we do not generate desires we stagnate. For seekers this is a
dilemma. On the one hand we are asked to engage in what J. Krishnamurti
called ‘choiceless awareness’ and on the other we are compelled to act to fulfil
desires if we wish to continue living. This quandary is not necessarily
contradictory. For example, if we want to visit Arunachala for its healing
properties, then we are required by this desire to engage in buying an air ticket
or book a car or a bus or train. We use desire for a positive purpose.
Expectations then are a necessary part of our spiritual voyage. We employ
them to lead us to that pivotal point, the intersection between the horizontal
linear development of what we call our everyday life and that vertical
transcendence which lifts us out of time and it seems, the inexorable logic of
cause and effect which dictates our earthly reality.
There is a verse, a shanti mantra that precedes the opening of the
Brhadaranyaka Upanishad. It invariably gives a jolt each time I read it.
“Om. That (Brahman) is infinite, and this (universe) is infinite. The
infinite proceeds from the infinite. (Then) taking the infinitude of the infinite
(universe), it remains as the infinite (Brahman) alone. Om Peace! Peace!
Peace!” 1
In other words, no matter how much you slice Brahman with
explanations, commentary, thoughts, to catch it in the confines of our minds, it
remains inviolably Brahman. It cannot be fragmented. Arthur Osborne, the
author and first editor of Sri Ramanasramam’s quarterly magazine The
Mountain Path wrote, that infinite minus x is impossible.
In an imperfect example, mercury has the quality to reunite and not show
any difference or demarcation. Each tiny globule has the quality of the whole.
At high school one day while cleaning the science laboratory, I played with a
droplet and no matter how the mercury was divided it had the ability to
effortlessly reabsorb its slivers. There was no trace of a fissure. It was
fascinating to see its unique properties. But an analogy can only be stretched so
far before it collapses. For in the instance of Brahman, we should not feel
despair for it never was and never will be divided. It is always ‘there’. How can
that be so? How can we be absorbed in it?
There is another relevant verse in the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad which
attempts to describe the indescribable.
“He [Yagnavalkya] said: O Gargi, the knowers of Brahman say, this
Immutable (Brahman) is that. It is neither gross nor minute, neither short nor
long, neither red colour nor oily, neither shadow nor darkness, neither air nor
ether, unattached, neither savour nor odour, without eyes or ears, without the
vocal organ or mind, non-luminous, without the vital force or mouth, not a
measure, and without interior or exterior. It does not eat anything, nor is It
eaten by anybody.” 2
The reason for these two quotes from a traditional source is that when Sri
Ramana Maharshi speaks of the Self or Atman in conjunction with the primal
question around which his whole philosophy of existence revolves, Who Am I?
we are confronted with an insoluble riddle. The question has always puzzled
me. I do not know who I am. There is the endless whirl of thoughts and
emotions. The catchment of memories; the vivid sparks that enliven our day
and the deadening, nightmarish dreams of unresolved issues. Which one is
truly me?
All of them, some of them or none of them?
Since we started with several quotes there is no reason to stop now for
there are a few lines in the famous Hsin Hsin-Ming (On Believing in Mind) by
the Third Zen Patriarch Seng T’san, which help clarify the conundrum we all
face in realising who we are:
“The Perfect Way knows no difficulties /Except that it refuses to make
preferences; /Only when freed from hate and love, /It reveals itself fully and
without disguise; /A tenth of an inch’s difference, /And heaven and earth are
set apart; /If you wish to see it before your own eyes, /Have no fixed thoughts
either for or against it.”3
When I ask the question ‘Who am I?’ there is a momentary pause because
there is no satisfactory answer. We can babble a bunch of concepts we may
cherish about ourselves but they invariably are all unsatisfactory. Really, if we
are truthful, we do not know. Those who spout smug ideas based on memory
describing our weight, height, land of birth, time, miss the point. What we are
searching for is a revolutionary thought that transforms us from our, at times
miserable existence, into one of genuine happiness and well-being. The
spiritual path begins with the shock that we are deluded and inadequate.
Thoughts have the power to transform. They are not inert pieces of stuff,
much like jigsaw puzzle pieces that we think once put together will make a
picture, and consequently, ‘enlighten’ us. It is not like that for every picture we
make is limited. Thoughts are like mercury, slippery. Where does one thought
end and another begin? What we are seeking is living immortality, a
perpetuation of the most powerful so-called thought we ‘possess’ which is the
sense of ‘I’, which is undivided, whole, independent of all manifestations.
How do we go about it? It is here we are in ignorance. We have got the
argument from the wrong end of the argument. Let us inverse it and believe in
our heart what Sri Ramana Maharshi tells us that we already are ‘That’ is right.
That ‘I’ is the beginning, the middle and the end. Then it appears we need do
nothing but wallow in our specialness. This is an erroneous understanding.
While we are stuck in a dualistic world of right and wrong, light and dark,
right and left, we are unaware of a greater all-encompassing reality, the
wholeness which is referred to early in this Letter as Brahman. And if we
recognise that we are blind, the next step is to work, to struggle, to walk the
path and break free of the clutches of fate. This is a paradox and no amount of
logic can square the circle.
What then is the purpose of all this struggle? Very simple, it is to learn
how to be still. To stop identifying with thoughts and emotions. To stop
thinking that the answer is around the next corner. The question ‘Who Am I?’
is to make one stop and be still. Sri Ramana Maharshi quite often told seekers:
Summa Iru!
Be Still! Or often enough, Iru! Be! The power of that word directly uttered by
him was enough to transform radically the lives of many.
Sri Ramana Maharshi states that we do not have free will, that everything
is predetermined. 4 The one aspect that is our choice is whether to identify with
our body-mind complex. When Bhagavan Ramana was alive in this world,
‘Who am I?’ was jokingly called the Brahmastra by devotees, the ultimate
weapon before which no opposition could stand. When they wanted to
question him about anything in general that aroused their curiosity, they would
ask him first not to employ his definitive weapon, which they knew would
stop everything in its tracks.
Are we prepared to use that Brahmastra?
D: What is meant by saying that one should enquire into one’s true nature
and understand it?
M: Experiences such as ‘I went; I came; I was; I did’ come naturally to
everyone. From these experiences, does it not appear that the consciousness ‘I’
is the subject of those various acts? Enquiry into the true nature of that
consciousness, and remaining as oneself is the way to understand, through
enquiry, one’s true nature. 5
It is easy enough to talk about enquiring into one’s true nature but that is
insufficient however sincere our wish, for our powers of attention are limited.
However, once we taste, if only momentarily, that infinitude of Brahman, that
glimpse into a reality beyond our ordinary grasp, there arises an enthusiasm, an
expectation that it is possible and that we should develop the ability to remain
focused. A notion has been created in us that becomes radioactive and with
time and protracted effort it will break through the veil of forgetfulness
(pramada) 6 that keeps us bound to ignorance of our true nature, unalloyed
awareness. The question is, are we ready to do it? The answer is yes.
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1 Brhadaranyaka Upanishad translated by Swami Madhavananda. p.xxiii. 1950.
2 Ibid, 3.8.8, p.517.
3 Manual of Zen Buddhism by D.T. Suzuki. Because of sentimental reasons I chose Suzuki’s version though there are many inspiring versions available. In 1974, his Essays in Zen Buddhism gave me the intellectual ammunition to break free of the strictures of Catholicism and see that there was another valid world which described with startling compactness and authority the search for meaning.
4 Karma [action] giving fruit [is] by the ordainment of God [the karta or ordainer]. Can karma be God, since karma is jada [devoid of consciousness]? Upadesa Saram v.1.
5 Self-Enquiry (Vicharasangraham). Section 2.
6 In Vedanta, it also means sloppiness or inattention, which is a prime cause of suffering.
Devotee: Can Advaita be realized by japa of holy names; say Rama, Krishna, etc.?
Sri Ramana Maharshi: Yes.
D.: Is it not a means of an inferior order?
M.: Have you been told to make japa or to discuss its order in the scheme of things?