[Advaita-l] Commentary on Ramana's Forty Verses

[Akilesh Ayyar]

On Wed, Jun 16, 2021 at 3:09 PM Ven Balakrishnan <ventzu at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> Four responses:
>
> 1) I’m just replaying your quote.  Do you believe Ramana was exaggerating
> for effect?  What was his intention in writing such a strongly worded
> phrase - surely not to mislead?
>

Not at all to mislead. It has to be understood, as I put it in my
commentary: "By dying to what is changing — to what one thought one was,
but in fact is not — one  realizes oneself to actually be the unchanging."

The unchanging has no truck with either doing or not-doing. Those
categories do not apply.


>
>
> 2) Recall that Bhagavan when he arrived at Tiruvannamallai, sat
> indifferent to his body and the insects biting him, let alone requirements
> for food, for days on end.  He had to be force fed.
>

Yes, yes, and Bhagavan has said many times that his path is not for
everyone and not required for jnana.


>
>
> 3) Lakshmana Sarma - who received personal instruction on Ulladu Narpadu
> from Bhagavan - wrote this in HIS commentary on this verse:
>
> “The knowledge born out of personal experience that worldly life is
> riddled with sorrow turns one through dispassion towards nivritti marga,
> the path of withdrawal from activity or of renunciation.
>

Nivritti marga agani has to be understood. True renunciation is the
renunciation of the ego, not of gross physical activity, as both Ramana and
the Bhagavad Gita have said repeatedly.


>
>
> 4) Then there is Gaudapada, MK 2.37:
>
> “He should have this body and the Atman as his support and depend upon
> chances, ie he should be satisfied with those things for his physical
> wants, that chance brings him”
>
> Sankara underscores this in his bhasya to this verse
> “He entirely depends on circumstances, that is to say, he maintains his
> body with whatever food or strips of cloth, etc are brought to him by mere
> chance”
>

Yes, we understand that these are the monastic traditions they worked in.
But that's because these Upanishads were geared towards monks. This is not
the requirement for jnana for everyone.


>
>
> Hope that clarifies what ‘dead to themselves and their possessions’ means.
>
>
> > On 16 Jun 2021, at 16:44, Akilesh Ayyar via Advaita-l <
> advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
> >
> > If so, why would they eat?
> >
> > On Wed, Jun 16, 2021 at 4:07 AM Ven Balakrishnan <ventzu at yahoo.co.uk>
> wrote:
> >
> >> “DEAD TO THEMSELVES AND THEIR POSSESSIONS”
> >>
> >> Ramanamaharishi is entirely consistent with Sankara saying a jnani will
> >> inevitably take up the life of a paramahamsa ascetic, since s/he has no
> >> desires, no fear, no attachments, not even to body-mind - like a snake
> that
> >> has shed its skin.
> >>
> >>
> >> Sent from my iPad
> >>
> >>> On 15 Jun 2021, at 17:26, Akilesh Ayyar via Advaita-l <
> >> advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Namaste,
> >>>
> >>> This is the commentary on the next verse.
> >>>
> >>> From
> >>>
> >>
> https://www.siftingtothetruth.com/blog/2021/6/15/commentary-on-ramanas-forty-verses-invocatory-part-two-of-two
> >>> :
> >>>
> >>> II. THOSE WHO KNOW INTENSE FEAR OF DEATH SEEK REFUGE ONLY AT THE FEET
> OF
> >>> THE LORD WHO HAS NEITHER DEATH NOR BIRTH. DEAD TO THEMSELVES AND THEIR
> >>> POSSESSIONS, CAN THE THOUGHT OF DEATH OCCUR TO THEM AGAIN? DEATHLESS
> ARE
> >>> THEY.
> >>>
> >>> *Commentary:* All fear is rooted in the fear of death. But death can
> only
> >>> afflict what is born, that is, what is changing: that is, what is
> >> thought.
> >>> We have just seen that what is Real is unchanging, and that what is
> Real
> >> is
> >>> us.
> >>>
> >>> The Lord who has neither birth nor death is none other than this very
> >>> Reality, the Heart. This Lord may go by many other names — Shiva or
> >> Vishnu
> >>> or God or the Goddess, for example. But ultimately they all refer to
> this
> >>> unchanging Reality.
> >>>
> >>> In order to take refuge at the feet of this Lord, all else must be
> given
> >>> up. This giving up is a kind of death. By dying to what is changing —
> to
> >>> what one thought one was, but in fact is not — one realizes oneself to
> >>> actually be the unchanging. What seems mortal has in fact never been
> born
> >>> to begin with, and what is immortal cannot die. And the thought of
> death
> >>> cannot occur to the immortals, which are those who have given up their
> >>> stake in everything changing.
> >>>
> >>> At any time, see all the forty verses posts that I have published so
> far
> >>> here
> >>> <
> https://www.siftingtothetruth.com/blog/tag/Forty%20Verses%20Commentary
> >>> .
> >>> Akilesh Ayyar
> >>> Spiritual guidance - http://www.siftingtothetruth.com/
> >>> ᐧ
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