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"There is no virtue higher than forbearance." Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi
Wisdom Bytes of Bhagavan Ramana
This website section is dedicated with respectful thanksgiving to Arthur Osborne, who in his life of discipleship to Sri Ramana Maharshi sought to bring understanding for those 'of little dust'.
It is related (and the story is no less significant whether historically true or not) that after attaining Enlightenment the Buddha's first impulse was to abide in the effulgence of Bliss without turning back to convey the incommunicable to mankind.
Then he reflected,
“Some there are who are clear sighted and do not need my
teachings, and some whose eyes are clouded with dust who
will not heed it though given, but between these two there are
also some with but little dust in their eyes, who can be helped
to see; And for the sake of these I will go back among mankind and teach.”
For Those with Little Dust, Selected Writings of Arthur Osborne, p. 85.
Mental japa is very good. That helps meditation.
Mind gets identified with the repetition
and then you get to know what worship (puja) really is
- the losing of one’s individuality in that which is worshipped.
Talk #31 p. 38
‘By practice does Bhagavan mean meditation?’
22nd March, 1937. Talk #377. p.356
A middle-aged Andhra visitor: A man is said to be divine. Why then does he have regrets? M.: Divinity refers to the essential nature. The regrets are of Prakriti.
D.: How is one to overcome regrets?
M.: By realizing the Divinity in him.
D.: How?
M.: By practice.
D.: What kind of practice?
M.: Meditation.
D.: Mind is not steady while meditating.
M.: It will be all right by practice.
D.: How is the mind to be steadied?
M.: By strengthening it.
D.: How to strengthen it?
M.: It grows strong by satsanga (the company of the wise). D.: Shall we add prayers, etc.?
M.: Yes.
No matter how many times Sri Ramana Maharshi stressed the need for meditation, there will always be those who declare that he never told people to meditate. But these same people are not to be condemned; for they suffer from the same contagious dilemma we all suffer from - human nature. May I site two scriptural sources for this seemingly outrageous statement? First is from the Bhagavatam, in the Udhaav Parva, where one of the mind-born sons of Brahma declares that death is pramada, literally defined as “the willful indifference to the consequences of ignoring God.” Thus, Bhagavan urges for the Divine to be realized within, and the means he stressed in the above quote was meditation (universally said to be the best way not only to avoid ignoring God, but to be acutely aware of His Presence). The second, and possibly more to the point, is Terry Pratchett’s fourth Discworld Novel Mort. Here Mort inquires of Death why people don’t see Him. Death, with a definably wistful air of sadness responds, “Though they all know that I am part of the arrangement, they refuse to accept what they don’t want to see.”
By Divine Grace, Sri Ramana Maharshi and so many Saints and Sages, are also parts of the arrangement. But they are not afflicted by the contagion of humanity’s wants and dislikes. Bhagavan especially did not preach, nor did he seem to express sadness over the “human
condition”. Nonetheless, he wept for his Lord Arunachala, he wept over personal human tragedy, he wept to the point of exhaustion while reading about the dedicated practice and sacrifice of the Saints. And having assumed our human form, he definitely did urge ‘those who had ears to hear’ to find and merge with the source of peace and love and the Divine “small still voice within”. He taught the ‘way that makes us perfect’ within the tradition to which he took birth. Those who have ‘ears to hear’ understand his guidance when he says and that is:
‘Practice makes us perfect.’
