[Advaita-l] Karma yoga: the kinder, softer preparation for self-inquiry and surrender

[Ven Balakrishnan]

Dear H S Chandramouli

I think we are in agreement?

Ramanamaharishi taught that by being constantly aware of thoughts as they arise, they attenuate - thereby leaving the ‘I’-thought, which, with nothing to cling to, subsides.

Isn’t that in essence what Sankaracharya’s commentary to Brhad Up 3.5.1 means:

"Since scholarship regarding the Self cannot come without the elimination of desires, therefore the renunciation of these is automatically enjoined by the knowledge of the Self . . . It is only the fool with- out the strength of knowledge, who is attracted by his organs to desires concerning objects, visible or invisible. Strength is the total elimination of the vision of objects by Self-knowledge; hence the knower of Brahman should try to live upon that strength.”

Similarly his commentary on Gaudapada’s Mandukya Karika 3.40:

"Sarvayoginam, for all Yogis; abhayam, fearlessness; is manasah nigraha yattam, contingent on the control of the mind; and so also is dulukhaksayah, the removal of misery. For there can be no extinction of sorrow for the non-discriminating people so long as the mind, brought into association with the Self, continues to be disturbed.”

And in his commentary to Brhad 4.5.15 Sankaracharya concludes:
“Since in spite of the truth being presented in a hundred ways, the Self is the last word of it all, arrived at by the process of neti neti, and nothing else is perceived either through reasoning or scriptural statement; therefore the knowledge of this Self, by the process of neti, neti and the renunciation of everything are the only means of attaining immortality.”

Best wishes.