By
painting the head of Ramana on stacked sheets of glass Wendell wanted to create
a portrait that floating from the vitreous medium as out of the dark knot
between the conscious and the inert, would seem solid. This is an image of the world for Ramana,
solid seeming, but a construct of successive slides of mind.
We jump from picture to picture and cannot
follow
The living curve that is breathlessly the
same.
Louis MacNeice.
How are you to cut the knot (granthi)
between the chit and the jada? Perhaps
it is to get too far ahead of ourselves to remark that it is a false dichotomy
to split the single reality of sat chit ananda into conscious and unconscious
or mind and matter, the body being regarded as base unconscious matter which is
inert. In general while using that
language which is common to the vast imprecision and generalities of the
pandits and the swamis of the 'all is one never mind how' school Ramana urges
instead of assertions without access of wisdom we begin with what he called
'Atma Vichara' or Self Inquiry.
Dialogue between Master and Disciple
(24.3.35)
Evans-Wentz: What is illusion?
M: To whom is the illusion? Find it out. Then illusion will vanish.
Generally people want to know about
illusion and do not examine to whom it is.
It is foolish. Illusion is
outside and unknown. But the seeker is considered
to be known and is inside. Find out
what is immediate, intimate, instead of trying to find out what is distant and
unknown."
Further down Evans-Wentz(Tibetan Book of
the Dead) asked him.
D: What is the practice?
M: Constant search for 'I', the source of
the ego. Find out 'Who am I'. The pure I is the reality, the Absolute
Existence-Consciousness-Bliss. When
that is forgotten, all miseries crop up; when that is held fast, the miseries
do not affect the person."
While Ramana did not mind speculation on
Religious Doctrine on occasion, he maintains in essence that all this is a
distraction from the business of realisation.
First find out who is born and who dies.
To digress for a moment what he has to say
about reincarnation is so picquantly different from the ordinary understanding
of it, that it is a clear demonstration of how when we push Doctrine we end up
with paradox. On page 215 of The Talks
the paradox is clearly stated. There
was the case of the boy who was seven years old. "He recalls his past births. Enquiries show that the previous body was given up 10 months
ago. The question now arises how the
matter stood for 6 years and 2 months previous to the death of the former
body. Did the soul occupy two bodies at
the same time?
Sri Bhagavan pointed out that the seven
years is according to the boy; 10 months is according to the observer. The difference is due to these two different
upadhis. The boy's experience extending
to seven years has been calculated by the observer to cover only 10 months of
his own time."
This is no doubt an original use of
relativity and the frustration of space/time continuum expectations due to the
fact that the body is no longer in the picture. A metaphysical view which is both personal and impersonal brings
Reincarnation in its train.
- Two birds bound to one another in
friendship, have made their homes in the same tree. One stares about him, one pecks at the sweet fruit.
The personal self, weary of pecking here
and there, sinks into dejection; but when he understands through meditation
that the other - the impersonal Self - is indeed Spirit, dejection disappears.:
Mundaka Upanisad from the trans.
of Shri Purhoit Swami and W.B.Yeats. In
your meeting with the Septa Rishi(The Seven Sages)- the mauvais quatr'huere of
the Hindu Post Mortem judgement- their bald verdict would be: 'you believe and
act by the ultimate identity of the person, ego or jiva, this is what you
identify yourself with and therefor that is the fate you will have.' But as our conceptual scheme is based upon
having a body at this point in space and time, what Ramana calls upadhis, then obviously
the overlap paradox from our point of view could obtain. These upadhis, a term from the logic system
used in Vedanta, are translated as 'limiting adjuncts' and have the power of
specification of an instance or object. e.g.. the green book, the green book on
the shelf, the green book on the shelf in the corner of the room.
Literary Note: Eliot uses the term in the Vedanta sense translating it as 'forms
of limitation'.
Desire itself is movement
Not in itself desirable;
Love is itself unmoving,
Only the cause and end of movement,
Timeless, and undesiring
Except in the aspect of time
Caught in the form of limitation
Between un-being and being.
Here not to digress too far from the prayer
hall of Arunachala it may be that Eliot, a student of Sanskrit and Eastern
Philosophy, was making the same distinction between Love and Desire as Shankara
made between the Self and Intellect - "the intellect has not consciousness
and the Self no action". The
nature of the Self is pure love, absolute unmoving in its fullness with nothing
more to achieve, it encompasses everything.
The intellect or down the next tier of the waterfall of consciousness as
it floods down into the personal - the mind - which works by forms of Limitation
conceives and plans and executes the action that will gain the possession of
the object of desire. It is only this
that keeps bringing us back.
************************************************
To return our attention once again to the
practice of atma vichara. In some yoga
texts the use of the witness as a device to still the mind is advocated. Ramana does not recommend it and moreover
his meditation is readily distinguished from the controlled reveries that
Western writers on meditation offer. This
is not unknown in Eastern practice either but jnana yoga attempts to cut the
knot, the chit-jada-granthi, not to play with it.
In jnana yoga the mind is always
self-luminously aware. There is no
split in it - a dualistic mental subject overseeing its mental objects. This closely argues philosophical position
will be fully elaborated in a later chapter on Shankaracarya's more formal
teaching. To repeat there is no need to
watch the mind being itself. The 'Who
am I' persued like a dogged Pascal avoids the natural tendency to wander and
keeps the focus. Remember it is the
question that nature is asking of itself in its progress towards
self-definition. That natural process
can divagate into dominance and vanity as false unexamined idols of the inner
theatre swell. The proper inherence
consciously in one's reality Ramana termed self-knowledge, self-realisation,
and moksha variously.
As he writes he gives us aphorisms which
cut straight to the heart of what meditation is without qualification.
From his Upadesa Saram(The Essence of Instruction)
18: The mind is merely thoughts. Of all thoughts, the thought 'I' is the
root. (Therefore) the mind is only the
thought 'I'.
23: As there is no second being to know that
which is, 'that which is' is conscious.
We are that.
Ramana made his way to these positions
which are in conformity with Vedanta in one giant step. Shankaracarya by valid reasoning arrived at
the same conclusions. What their identical
terminus shows is that everything is not got by reasoning, that there is a
dynamo that is charged just by being.
It is perhaps dreadful to consider that we might get there by doing
nothing at all. Because we are there. If we weren't already there we couldn't get
there.
Upadesa Saram
1: Action (karma) bears fruit (in action),
for so the Creator ordains. But is it
God? (It cannot be for) it is not
sentient. The intellect has no
consciousness - the self no action.
2: The results of action pass away, and yet
leave seeds that cast the agent into an ocean of action. Action(therefore) does not bring Liberation.
3: But acts performed without any
attachment, in the spirit of service to God, cleanse the mind and point the way
to Liberation.
Work will never bring Liberation as long as
there is false identification of the Self with the doer. The common fallacy about work is laid out by
Shankaracarya in his commentary on the Brhadaranayaka Upanisad. pg. 448.
- "And the Srutis and the Smrtis are
unanimous on the point that good work alone leads to all that man aspires
after. Now liberation is a cherished
object with man; so one may think that it too is attainable through work. Moreover as the work is better and better,
the result also is so; hence one presume that a high degree of excellence in
the work may lead to liberation. This idea has to be removed. The result of excellent work coupled with
meditations is this much only, for work and its results are confined to the
manifested universe of name and form.
Work has no access to that (liberation) which is not an effect, which is
eternal, unmanifested, beyond name and form, and devoid of the characteristics
of action with its factors and results.
And where it has access it is just the relative world."
In this universe even God has to work. Says Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, III.22
-"Arjuna, there is nothing in the three
worlds for me to do, nor is there anything worth attaining unattained by Me;
yet I continue to work".
How do you work, do your duty or Dharma and
still be free from entangling causality?
The key to that is the inner freedom of detachment. You act without desire for the fruits of
your action - the well known nishkama karma.
The easiest way to do that is through the devotional attitude of doing
your best and offering the result to God.
This is the Bhakti Marg (the Way of Devotion). The Jnana Marg(the Way of Wisdom) or the path of Self-Inquiry
asks 'Who am I?', who is it that acts?, and by that analysis achieves the same
inner freedom.
In our normal life what is at work mostly
is the set of learned responses to the situation dictated by one's
character. These, as it were, are
moving about the still centre, the unchanging self. What modifies and can make the responses creative and surprising
is the attitude to your associations and reactions as if they were loose bits
of paper held together by the charge of personality.
That almost dissociated view has the
paradoxical power of making one freer.
There is no strong glue of personality or belief in its ultimacy holding
your traits and powers together, just the temporary charge of the life force.
Literary Note: T.S.Eliot again, Four Quartets again.
I was reading it for the first time at the
age of 19 in the great circular reading room of Manchester Library. I didn't understand it but the meaning was
there at the tip of my mind. Borne up
by it and in such a state of excitement and wonder I couldn't face back into
the second half of a split shift as a conductor with the North Western Bus
Company in Stockport. Though I now have
some acquaintance with his sources and the puzzle of -
"Shall I say it again? In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where
you are not,
You must go by a way wherein there is no
ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is a way of
ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are
not.
And what you do not know is the only thing
you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And what you are is what you are not".
-is no longer bewildering but deep. It might be true now to say that I have the
meaning but miss the experience.
Going by commonly perceived reality,
remember Freud's objective was the creation of a strong central ego, this
abnegation of selfhood is plainly mad.
But running alongside that at a slight angle away from the smoke and
mirrors and the patter of ego, so solid seeming, there is the fixed unchanging
reality to be found in every moment.
The major difference between Eastern and
Western ascesis is that in the one the denial of ego is a useful attitude, in
the other no more than reality.
For Ramana and the Vedic sages freedom can
be achieved by the individual through metaphysical analysis without the
background of ritual observance and religious rites. All these are only karma and they bring their reward in whatever
Loka (realm) you go to after death. But
Liberation is go through knowledge alone.
Love and knowledge are convertible.
Even to discuss knowledge and rites
together was regarded as improper as if the mystery of liberation and the
factual almost mechanical nature of ceremonies might be confused through an
unseemly contiguity.
In the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad (ca.700 - 500
BC) it is related: Shankara's Commentary
-"Sometime in the past there had been a
talk between Janaka and Yajnavalkya (the sage) on the subject of the Agnihotra
(daily offerings of oblations in the sacred fire). On that occasion Yajnavalkya, pleased with Janaka's knowledge on
the subject, had offered him a boon.
Janaka (the King) therefore had begged the liberty of asking any
questions he liked; and Yajnavalkya had granted him the boon.....That Janaka
had not put his question on the previous occasion ie. when the boon was first
granted, was due to the fact that the knowledge of Brahman is contradictory to
rituals (hence the topic would be out of place), and is independent: It is not
the effect of anything, and serves the highest end of man independently of any
auxiliary factors". (from
Br.Up.pg.596)
When Janaka goes on to question the sage he
proceeds like Ramana but in a much more discursive way. In a series of questions he moves towards
the same goal.
- Yajnavalkya, what serves as the light for
a man?
- The light of the sun, O Emperor, said
Yajnavalkya; it is through the light of the sun that he sits, goes out, works
and returns.
- It is just so, Yajnavalkya.
- When the sun has set, Yajnavalkya, what
exactly serves as the light for a man?
- The moon serves as his light; it is
through the light of the moon.......etc.
- When the sun and the moon have both set,
Yajnavalkya, what exactly serves as the light for a man?
- The serves as his light. It is through the fire etc.
- The fire serves as his light. It is through the fire &c.
- When the sun and the moon have both set
and the fire has gone out, Yajnavalkya, what exactly serves as the light for a
man?
- Speech serves as his light. It is through the light of speech etc.
- When the sun and the moon have both set,
the fire has gone out, and speech has stopped, Yajnavalkya, what exactly serves
as the light for a man?
- The self serves as his light. It is through the light of the self that he
sits, goes out, works and returns.
- It is just so Yajnavalkya.
All the lights that are mentioned are those
that serve to reveal the 'external' world.
*I use external under licence without admitting to an external/internal
dichotomy. When all those lights are
extinguished does consciousness perish from inanition? No, for there still is the dream state and
deep sleep.
In dream there is a certain liberation from
the constraints of the external world yet all the matter that is presented
within the dream has had its genesis in the waking state.
In the Advaitic school of Vedanta the Self
is 'seperate'*(under licence) from the intellect, mind, body and senses. The intellect is what is 'nearest' to the
Self so it is easily takes on the consciousness and intelligence of the
Self. Light is used as an analogy for
the Self. Light illumines that on which
it falls, it, as it were, takes that shape.
It assumes the shape or 'likeness' of the intellect.
"The Self seems to become whatever the
intellect which it resembles becomes.
Therefore when the intellect turns into dream, the Self also assumes
that form; when the Intellect wants to wake up, it too does
that".Br.Up.page616
Again let me stress that in this chapter I
am curtailing the philosophical argument and giving the overall view using the
classic analogies as a way of fixing the articulation of the metaphysical
skeleton in the mind.
The Br.Up. is full of poetic imagery, which
not as a means of impressing its vision on the reader any more that the
incantations were used to focus the mind by stunning it with musical
repetition. They do this but what they
arise out of is not rhetorical intent.
This language comes from the boundary where wonder and pure inspiration
uses whatever is in the rapt mind. At
that stage myth and poetry had not become sundered from the fabric of
thought. For the sage, dream had its
interest in that it displays consciousness in a mode in which the general
nature of consciousness becomes clearer.
It is like an experiment made on consciousness by itself.
The incantatory poetry of W.B.Yeats and
Shri Purhoit Swami reads well though it's not as solicitous of delivering the
philosophic burden as Swami Gambhirananda's version.
"Having enjoyed his wakefulness, gone
hither and thither, known good and evil, he hastens back again to his dreams.
As a large fish moves from one bank of a
river to the other, Self moves between waking and dreaming.
But as a falcon or eagle, flying in the sky,
wearies, folds its wings, falls into its nest, Self hastens that sleep, his
last resort, where he desires nothing, creates no dream.
In this body, there are those veins like numberless small hairs called Hita, full of white, blue, yellow, green, red. It is because of these that he sees himself killed, sees himself beaten down, sees himself chased by elephants, sees himself falling into a well; in all these dreams, he creates, through ignorance, dangers known when awake, or he draws upon imagination, thinking himself a king or a god or the world.
But his true nature is free from desire,
free from evil, free from fear. As a
man in the embrace of his beloved wife forgets everything that is without,
everything that is within; so a man in the embrace or the knowing Self, for
there all desires are satisfied, Self his sole desire, that is no desire; man
goes beyond sorrow.
Would it be too fanciful to see in the
account of 'those nerves called Hita 'which are as fine as a hair split into a
thousand parts' an embryonic account of brain activity that infused with
consciousness becomes dream.
*Infused,
permeated all imply an external laying on of awareness. The fully explicated theory has it that
consciousness (Self) body, mind and senses are non-different.
The three modes of awareness; waking, dream
and deep sleep show gradations of ignorance.
From duality we go to seeming duality and then in Deep Dreamless Sleep
to seeming blank nescience.
When the Swamis say it is a dream - of
mundane reality; they mean of course it is like a dream. The duality in dream is imaginary and a
function of neurones firing off, engrammatic traffic or the clamour of Hita. In the waking state the duality is also
seeming but has a metaphysical base in superimposition (q.v.). Swami knows the difference between waking
and dream.
But there are Swamis who ape the
realisation which is sometimes expressed in strongly illusionistic terms. They speak of the world as mere dream and
pure illusion - maya in its root meaning as play or theatrical illusion.
Dream then is an analogy for the apparent
separateness of the Self and the world.
Superimposition is the mechanism which provides an analogy for how this comes
about. It is illustrated by the
rope/snake story. Going along a path in
the evening in poor light we take a coiled rope before us to be a snake. The reality of the one is superimposed upon
the other. The 'reality' that we
experience has its basis in the rope only and has no reality if by that we mean
an independent subsistent reality.
From dream we go on to the next stage of
deep dreamless sleep in which we are rapt in the bliss of the Self. The commentary pg. 662 Br.Up. states the
obvious objection to this. "If the
Self remains intact in its own form in the state of profound sleep, why does it
not know itself as 'I am this', or know all those things that are outside, as
it does in the waking and dream states"?
[1]Unity
is the answer that is given to this objection.
There is awareness 'for the vision of the witness can never be
lost'. The state of the mind is like
that state of blissful absorption right out to the limits of felicity that can
be enjoyed. Consciousness is super
saturated by that condition. We are
rapt up in it not knowing anything outside that. In deep sleep there is no other to know and because our normal awareness is awareness of something, which
is what registers as potential memory, then not having that sort of memory we
imagine that we are completely blank in the state of deep sleep - a sort of
death in life. There is not that primal
bifurcation into subject and object that is the primary condition for
experience that we can remember. We
have moved the condition for memory to become established in the waking state
to the state of deep sleep and made it compulsory.
However we know this bare fact - I was
asleep and did not dream. To
demonstrate that this is an immediate awareness that we have upon
waking and is not the result of any inference from known facts must be covered
in a dedicated chapter. For now I
summarise by stating that we are conscious in deep sleep for we can say - 'I
was conscious of nothing'. To throw
this idea aside as a species of trifling sophistry is a temptation given that
we are so much under the sway of the contents of consciousness picture of
awareness - no contents, no awareness.
The significance of the bare fact as
explained through an analogy struck me in the way that analogies often
will. We feel their explanatory power
more than we understand them in that they baffle the system of thought that we
are at the moment using. It works like
a wisdom virus unmaking our ignorance.
Tripura Rahasya or he Wisdom beyond the
Trinity was where I encountered it.
Though famous in Sanskrit; Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi regarded it as one
of the greatest works expounding the Advaitic philosophy, it was not available
in English, a fact which he regretted.
A devotee translated it and the ashram have since taken over the
copyright. It is a most peculiar work.
Allegory is mixed with legend and deep reflection on the nature of reality and
the sorts of samadhi. Scholars
distinguish it from Advaita Vedanta and ally it to the system called the Tantri
or the Sakta. However in both systems
the favourite example of the world being an image reflected in consciousness as
images in a mirror is used.
-"Distinguish between the changeless
truth and the changeful untruth and scrutinise the world comprised of these two
factors, changeful phenomena and changeless subjective consciousness, like the
unchanging light of the mirror and the changing images in it". pg. 86
Tr.Ra.
*Literary Note: Mirror upon mirror mirrored
Is all the show. W.B.Yeats
Memories of the words of women,
All those things whereof
Man makes a superhuman
Mirror resembling dream (The Tower by W.B.Y.)
Further down page 124/5 in Tr.Ra. the
mirror analogy is carried on into the state of Deep Sleep. It is given in the form of a dialogue
between the sage King Janaka and a Brahmin interlocutor.
-"O King, if it is as you say that the
mind made passive by elimination of thoughts is quite pure and capable of
manifesting Supreme Consciousness, then sleep will do it by itself, since it
satisfies your condition and there is no need for any kind of effort".
Thus questioned by the Brahmin youth, the
King replied,
-"I will satisfy you on this
point. Listen carefully. The mind is truly abstracted in sleep. But then its light is screened by darkness,
so how can it manifest its true nature?
A mirror covered with tar does not reflect images but can it reflect
space either? Is it enough, in that
case, that images are eliminated in order to reveal the space reflected in the
mirror? In the same manner, the mind is
veiled by the darkness of sleep and rendered unfit for illumining
thoughts. Would such eclipse of the
mind reveal the glimmer of consciousness?
Would a chip of wood held in front of a single
object to the exclusion of all others reflect the object simply because all
others are excluded? Reflection can
only be on a reflecting surface and not on all surfaces. Similarly also, realisation of the Self can
only be with an alert mind and not with a stupefied one. New-born babes have no realisation of the
Self for want of alertness.
Moreover persue the analogy of the tarred
mirror. The tar may prevent the images
from being seen, but the quality of the mirror is not affected, for the outer
coating of tar must be reflected in the interior of the mirror. So also the mind, though diverted from
dreams and wakefulness, is still in the grip of dark sleep and not free from
qualities. This is evident by the
recollection of the dark ignorance of sleep when one wakes".
The image of the tarred mirror was the
crystallising one. It brought together
all the teaching about consciousness and our identity as experienced by
ourselves, what philosophers call self-identity.
The point about the chip is unnecessarily
obscured by the use of the word 'exclusion'.
The chip is held over the object on the surface of the mirror and over
that object alone. Thus that object is
not reflected because its place is taken by a non-reflecting surface. If consciousness of the Self is blocked by
the occlusion of awareness brought about by deep sleep then self-realisation is
impossible. This is the object you
might have seen had it not been blocked.
To refer back to the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad
and to the same point.
"That it does not know in that state is
because though knowing then, it does not know; for the knowers's function of
knowing can never be lost,[2]
because it is imperishable. But there
is not that second thing separate from it which it can know". Br.Up. IV.iii.30
Though the Self never ceases to be during
waking consciousness, the limiting adjuncts of the senses cause it to know
itself as a seeing, feeling, touching, tasting, hearing subject. The crystal is clear and assumes the colours
of the objects it is placed against (its limiting adjuncts). Likewise the pure clarity of the Self
juxtaposed next to the senses is limited by those forms of awareness. In the deep sleep state those powers are in
abeyance and though self-awareness continues to be it does not present itself
in the form of a sensing subject.
"When there is something else, as it were,
then one can see something, one can smell something, one can taste something,
one can speak something, one can her something, one can think something, one
can touch something or one can know something". Br.Up III.iii.31
How then are we so sure that we have been
in a state of deep sleep?[3] Because we have this knowledge immediately
on waking. The power of the 'mirror' to
reflect can never be lost even when it is 'tarred' over. Nunc videmus per speculum enigmata, quite!
In his dialogues with his devotees Ramana
replicates a scene that might be a forest clearing before a sage's hut 2000
years ago. Because he addresses himself
to an individual inquiry the answers tend to be full, more comprehensive and
less gnomic than the headlines of Upadesa Saram which were got by heart and by
the pressure of meditation kept there till their juice was pressed out.
The 'awareness' in deep sleep is often
referred to by Ramana. In a reply to a
Mr. Greenlees, 2nd. Jan.'37
M: Sleep is not ignorance; it is your pure
state. Wakefulness is not knowledge; it
is ignorance. There is full awareness
in sleep; there is total ignorance in waking.
Your real nature covers both, and extends beyond. The self is beyond knowledge and
ignorance".
This can be taken as a gloss on the
otherwise mysterious passage in the Bhagavad Gita:
"When it is night for all creatures,
the man who restrains himself is awake; when creatures are awake it is night
for the perceptive seer". Bg.II.69 Trans.Johnson.
On the 16th. Dec. '36 Mr. Naterval Parekh a
Gujerati gentleman is brought over the same set of jumps as the Disciple was by
Shankaracarya 1,200 years earlier. q.v.Upadesa Sahasri.
D: I do not want intellectual answers. I want them to be practical.
M: Yes.
Direct knowledge does not require intellectual discourses. Since the Self is directly experienced by
everyone, they are not at all necessary.
Everyone says "I am".
Is there anything more to realise?
D: It is not clear to me.
M: You exist. You say 'I am'. That
means existence.
D: But I am not sure of it, i.e. my
existence.
M:Oh!
Who then is speaking now?
D: I, surely. But whether I exist or not, I am not sure. Moreover, admitting my existence leads me
nowhere.
M: There must be one even to deny the
existence. If you do exist, there is no
questioner, and no question can arise.
D: Let us take it that I exist.
M: How do you know that you exist:
D: Because I think, I feel, I see, etc.
M: So you think that your existence is
inferred from these. Furthermore, there
is no feeling, thinking, etc., in sleep and yet there is the being.
D: But no.
I cannot say that I was in deep sleep.
M: Do you deny your existence in sleep?
D: I may or may not be in sleep. God knows.
M: When you wake up from sleep, you remember
what you did before falling asleep.
D: I can say I was before and after sleep,
but I cannot say if I was in sleep.
M: Do you now say that were asleep?
D: Yes.
M: How do you know unless you remember the
state of sleep?
D: It does not follow that I existed in
sleep. Admission of such existence
leads nowhere.
M: Do you mean to say that a man dies every
time that sleep overtakes him and that he resuscitates while waking?
D: Maybe.
God alone knows.
M: Let God come and find the solution for
these riddles, then. If one were to die
in sleep, one will be afraid of sleep, just as one fears death. On the other hand no one courts sleep. Why should sleep be courted unless there is
pleasure in it?
From The Talks pgs. 257/8/9/
I fear the emphasis on sleep may have the
effect of wearying you much as he investigation of pain language by Ludwig
Wittgenstein was known as the 'toothache class'. My excuse must be that this particular aspect of awareness is
entirely overlooked in Western Philosophy.
Moreover I end this chapter with an account that the reporter of the
talks gives of the greatest teaching of
the Masters - silence. He relates how
Somerset Maugham came to visit in 1938.
While in the room of Major Chadwick OBE (later Sadhu Arunachala) he fell
unconscious. Bhagavan Ramana was sent
for. He took a seat and gazed at
Maugham who regained his senses and saluted Ramana.
"They remained silent and sat facing
each other for nearly an hour. The
author attempted to ask questions but did not speak. Maj.Chadwick encouraged him to ask. Sri Bhagavan said, "All finished. Heart talk is all talk.
All talk must end in silence only". They smiled and Sri Bhagavan left the room.
In homage to him he has Larry the American
seeker (The Razor's Edge) say:
"Shri Ganesh used to say that silence
also is conversation.
[1] Here the thinking of Steven Rose
may bring the mental and the physical together. Chemical traces laid down in the brain during D.S. to be 'noted'
on waking. The puzzle occurs only to
the dualist.
[2] But however the chemical trace in
the brain left there by the condition of deep sleep is still there to be 'read'
when we wake up.The puzzle occurs only to the dualist