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

[Ven Balakrishnan]

It is a source of amusement to see so-many self-proclaimed jnanis passionately emphasise that renunciation, utter desirelessness is not a concomitant of jnana.  I wonder why that could be?

And the verbal acrobatics to justify this position, arguing a phrase here is figurative, whereas a phrase there should be taken literally.

Bhagavan in the recorded Talks was talking at the level of the seekers that asked him questions.  After all, in the BG, Krishna said only very few would ever achieve jnana.  And there can be some question over whether the recorder of the talks was accurate in his note-taking and interpretation.  So his written works like Ulladu Narpadu and GVK have to be the best authority for his teaching.  

I suggest you find something in his written work (incl GVK) that would support the contention that utter desirelessness / disassociation with body-mind is not what is meant by jnana.  If he said it "many times”, then surely he or Muruganar must have written it down as well.  Whereas I can find you quite a few written quotes, like your own in this second verse, that makes exactly that point; let alone the guidance he gave to some of his closest disciples who lived lives of renunciation and austerity around him - Muruganar, Annamalai Swami, Chadwick, Sadhu Natananda, Sadhu Om, to name but a few.  Find a realised disciple in Ramana’s constellation who lived the life of a householder.

The argument that Gaudapada / Sankara / the Upanishads were aimed at monks is a novel one, as opposed to elucidating what they believed was the highest truth to all.  Again, it is case of taking some teaching as gospel, and others as figurative or a product of their cultural times.  Convenient, no?

Ramana’s actionlessness and renunciation from the outset - without having read any sruti - exemplifies exactly what  Sankara described as the life of a jivanmukta.  As Sw Chinmayananda said of him, ‘he is the cream of the upanishads’.





> On 16 Jun 2021, at 21:11, Akilesh Ayyar <ayyar at akilesh.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, Jun 16, 2021 at 3:09 PM Ven Balakrishnan <ventzu at yahoo.co.uk <mailto: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 <mailto: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 <mailto: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 <mailto: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 <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 <https://www.siftingtothetruth.com/blog/tag/Forty%20Verses%20Commentary>
> >>> .
> >>> Akilesh Ayyar
> >>> Spiritual guidance - http://www.siftingtothetruth.com/ <http://www.siftingtothetruth.com/>
> >>> ᐧ
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