List of posts

• Atma and Paramatma Realization
• Wage-earning activity and just Be-ing
• Desire and Acceptance of Equanmity
• Attitude towards the world and the way to perform actions
• God and the Self
• Nature of the Reality
• Birth and Death
• Wisdom transcends Destiny and Free-will
• Birth and Death of (false) I
• Unenduring Peace and the nature of Self
• Are you in the house or is the house in you?
• How to get rid of fear?
• Where is God?
• Why are there good and evil?
• What are Gunas - Satva, Rajas and Tamas?
• How long is a Guru necessary for Self-Realisation?
• Does happiness depend on external causes and possessions?
• Why do religions speak of Gods, heaven, hell, etc.?
• Two kinds of Ignorance
• What is the best Japa?
• Jnani's and Ajnani's disposition towards the body
• What is Life?
• How to practice meditation and how to reconcile work with meditation?
• What is the best of different yogas?
• What is the practice?
• Is it not the "Quest for Self" selfish?
• Is it not the occult power marvelous?
• Silence is never-ending speech
• Sivananda Lahari
• Why does a man suffer misery?
• How can one be worshipful while engaged in daily work?
• What are Svadharma and Paradharma?
• Tyagaraja
• How to gain peace?
• No effort is necessary to stop thoughts whereas one is necessary for bringing about thoughts
• If ‘I’ also be an illusion, who then casts off the illusion?
• Different types of yoga methods and their aim
• There is no greater mystery than this - viz., ourselves being the Reality we seek to gain Reality
• What about the reference to duality in practice and unity at the end?
• How can the desires be rendered weaker?
• Evolution
• Christ, Cross, Crucification, Resurrection and Absolute
• Is the experience of the Highest State the same to all? Or is there any difference?
• With Sraddha Grace will manifest
• Temporary and Reality
• You are beyond will and fate
• Identification with the body & inadvertence of the ego is the cause of misery
• Practice is power
• The peace is your natural and permanent state
• Are you in the family or is the family in you?
• Are the gods Iswara or Vishnu and their sacred regions Kailasa or Vaikuntha real?
• Right and wrong are nothing but ideas and nothing more
• Guru is none other than the Self
• How to get Bliss?
• What need is there to think of heaven?
• Seer is not separate from the experience
• Ajapa (unspoken chant) eternally goes on
• 'I am this- I am not that' indicates limitations. Only ‘I am’ is the truth.
• Signs of aspirant's progress towards Self-Realisation
• Why are there so many methods?
• Self is here and now and eternal.  Wisdom seems to dawn, though it is natural and ever present.
• Renunciation means giving up the possessor
• What is mouna (Silence)?
• To be happy is natural; suffering is unnatural
• So long as you think that there are others different from you, you pray for them. Help yourself by complete surrender!
• Why do you say that you are a sinner?
• If you do not make Atma vichara, then loka (world) vichara creeps in
• Sri Ramana Maharshi’s preface to his translation of Sri Sankara’s Viveka Chudamani or “Crown-gem of Discrimination"
• What is illusion? OR Even the thought, “I do not realise” is a hindrance
• Is hatha yoga necessary?
• Is a man to engage in teaching his knowledge however imperfect?
• Is it not the Advaita doctrine to become one with God?
• How to conquer desire, anger, etc.?
• Give up the idea that samaskaras are infinite and all samskaras will disappear at once
• The Kingdom of Heaven is within you
• The ‘I-I’ is always there
• What is death?
• Even without any initial desires there are some strange experiences for us. Where from do they arise?
• Hold on to the doubter and the doubts will disappear
• Your repayment consists in not lapsing into ignorance over again but in continuing in the state of your real Self
• True love is shown by the certainty that the object of love is in the Self and that it can never become non-existent
• Credibility of Vedas related to creation and the nature of imperishable Atman
• Do not regret the tamas; but when satva comes into play, hold on to it fast and make the best of it
• Is there absolute necessity of a Guru for Self-Realisation?
• Is happiness inhering in the Atman or in the object, or in the contact between the subject and the object?
• Should we not contemplate the japa and repeat it orally also?
• By constantly keeping our aim on our source, our ego is dissolved in its source. like a doll of salt in the ocean
• What is the difference between meditation and enquiry into the Self?
• How to prevent the mind from being distracted?
• What is the cause of world suffering?
• How shall I overcome my passions?
• What is visishtadvaita?
• How will worldly transaction go on if one observes silence?
• Posture really means location and steadfastness in the Self. It is internal. The others refer to external positions.
• When you realise the Self on which these phenomena pass, will you love or hate them? That is the meaning of indifference.
• In fact, there is no difference between bhakti and vichara
• Latent impressions of previous births
• Do not make a grievance of what may not please you, when you have surrendered.
• Silent initiation is the highest form of initiation
• What is Renunciation?
• Is there any moment when Self is not? It is not new.
• What is the relation between bhakti and jnana?
• What is the difference between meditation (dhyana) and investigation (vichara)?
• It might have been sages fate (prarabdha) to develop such powers (siddhis) side by side with their wisdom (jnana). Why should you aim at that which is not essential but apt to prove a hindrance to wisdom (jnana)?
• Repetition of the name of God is remembrance of what it signifies
• Heaven and hell - what are they?
• On foisting the bliss on to other things or happenings you are plunging into the Self, though unconsciously. If you do so consciously you call it Realisation.
• Mahatma's look has a purifying effect. The effect depends on the grades of men coming in contact with Mahatma.
• Neglecting the modes of mind, look for the light illumining them. The mind becomes still and the light remains self-shining.
• Grace is vouchsafed only to him who is a true devotee or a yogin, who has striven hard and ceaselessly on the path towards freedom.
• Brahma-akara-vritti must be cultivated until it becomes sahaja (natural)
• If there be a goal to be reached it cannot be permanent.
• Will-power should be understood to be the strength of mind which makes it capable for meeting success or failure with equanimity.
• So long as one is in contact with it (the body) one must bathe in the waters of the Self.
• Although the expression of realisation is impossible, still its existence is indicated
• The ‘I-thought’ is the ego and that is lost. The real ‘I’ is “I am That I Am.”
• Karma yoga is that yoga in which the person does not arrogate to himself the function of being the actor. The actions go on automatically.
• Give up thoughts. You need not give up anything else.
• Devotion is nothing more than knowing oneself
• How can one be worshipful while engaged in daily work?
• Yoga means union. I wonder union of which with which.
• They are nothing but manifestations of the Self so that one’s parents are not outside the Self. So there is no reason to mourn.
• I am ignorant
• Can there be Self-Realisation before the vasanas are entirely destroyed?
• Why then is samsara - creation and manifestation as finitised - so full of sorrow and evil?
• Why does not Sri Bhagavan go about and preach the Truth to the people at large?
• Hearer is more important than hearing (siddhis)
• Can we hasten our illumination for greater service? and how?
• Is not brahmacharya (celibacy) necessary for realisation of the Self?
• What is Jnana Marga?
• Meditation is with mind and how can it kill the mind in order to reveal the Self?
• Where does one whose jnana is weak fit in?
• The japa contains the word namah. It means that state in which the mind does not manifest apart from the Self.
• There is no such thing as ignorance. It never arises. Everyone is Knowledge itself. Only Knowledge does not shine easily.
• Are there heaven (swarga) and hell (naraka)?
• Trace the ego to its source to reach that undifferentiated happy state which is sleepless sleep
• Ishta Devata and Guru are aids - very powerful aids on this path. But an aid to be effective requires your effort also.
• One’s activities and circumstances cannot influence the contemplation. It is the sense of doership - kartrutva buddhi - that forms the impediment.
• Change of outlook is necessary to be a mukta
• Of what use is the fear of death which is common to all?
• The person who is holding the 'I-I' feeling tightly is not concerned with the right or wrong of his actions. His actions are God’s and therefore they must be right.
• Soul can be without the ego; but the ego cannot be without the soul. They are like bubble and the ocean
• What is the relation between my free-will and the overwhelming might of the Omnipotent?
• Let the man find out his undying Self and die and be immortal and happy
• The Self is ever there, there is nothing without it
• Be still and know that I am God
• I have my professional work and yet I want to be in perpetual dhyana. Will they conflict with each other?
• How to control lust, anger, etc.?
• Identification with the body is dvaita. Non-identification is advaita
• Work performed with attachment is a shackle, whereas work performed with detachment does not affect the doer.
• Delete the prefixes and hold on to the common factor in all of them. That is Aham-’I’, that is the gist of the whole matter.
• Should we not find out the ultimate reality of the world, individual and God?
• ‘I’ dissolves away, being only a bundle of circumstances
• Good tendencies (suvasana) are cultivated and they must also be finally destroyed by jnana.
• There is in fact no difference between bhakti and vichara
• Conversation extending to several years can be known in a trice in Silence, or in front of Silence - e.g., Dakshinamurti, and his four disciples
• The whole Vedanta is contained in the two Biblical statements:
• Be fixed in the Self and act according to nature without the thought of doership. Then the results of action will not affect you.
• Even without any initial desires there are some strange experiences for us. Where from do they arise?
• Why then do the dualists and non-dualists quarrel among themselves?
• The Self always remains actionless, whereas thoughts arise and subside.
• Begin liberating it (mind) from its restlessness; give it peace; make it free from distractions; train it to look inward; make this a habit.
• How can we deny the world and the people therein?
• Be as you are. See who you are and remain as the Self, free from birth, going, coming and returning.
• The doubts arise because of the absence of surrender.
• Does Bhagavan give diksha (initiation)?
• How does the desire arise?
• If the eye becomes the Self, the Self being infinite, the eye is infinite. There is nothing else to see different from the Self.
• Which method (Path of Yoga) is the best?
• Is no particular time necessary for meditation?
• External and Internal Samadhi
• You must think of the one who repeats the mantra.
• What is the significance of Guru’s Grace in the attainment of liberation?
• The consciousness within, purged of the mind, is felt as God
• Meditation is your true nature now. You call it meditation, because there are other thoughts distracting you.
• Pure Knowledge seems different from what It really is; the same is seen as ‘I’ and the ‘world’ which are full of desire, attachment, hatred, etc.
• Is not invisibility evidence of advanced Wisdom (jnana)?
• What happens to the man after death?
• Real is Knowledge, but different from knowledge and ignorance
• To identify oneself with the body and yet to seek happiness is like attempting to cross a river on the back of an alligator.
• How is the mind to be kept in the right way?
• How shall I overcome my passions?
• First realise the Self and then see what lies further.
• If one is active with such remembrance (held the feeling 'I-I' tight), will the actions be always right?
• There are several asanas mentioned. Which of them is the best?
• From where do these objects arise?
• How to find the Atman?
• Is there any particular upasana which is more efficacious than others?
• What is Self-surrender?
• Silence is eternal eloquence
• Self-reform automatically brings about social reform.
• There is no need to so imagine oneself as witness of the thoughts. It is best to remain as one’s Self.
• Turn inward to the Self; and then know that the world is not apart from the Self.
• The egoless ‘I am’ is not thought. The experience of ‘I am’ is to Be Still.
• The oral japa becomes mental and the mental japa finally reveals itself as being eternal.
• The desire for happiness is a proof of the ever existing happiness of the Self.
• Guru creates conditions to drive you inward and prepares the interior to drag you to the center.
• Is the Universal Soul (Paramatma) always different from us?
• If peace is permanent it is called Realisation
• Thoughts are not real: the only reality is the Self
• One must always try to hold on to the Self
• The mind knows that the body entity persists and reappears after sleep. Whereas the mind is not sure of reappearance after the so-called death and dreads it.
• That which rises and sets is the ego; that which remains changeless is the Self.
• If one asks how to realise the Self it looks absurd. You are the Self. Remain as the Self. That is all.
• Peace is your very nature
• I have my professional work and yet I want to be in perpetual dhyana. Will they conflict with each other?
• What becomes of the man who has not practised breath-control?
• The Self is not a seer. But here he is said to see the world. So he is differentiated as the Jiva.
• How does dream differ from waking?
• Just as a big banyan tree sprouts from a tiny seed, so the wide universe with names and forms sprouts forth from the heart.
• Do not delude yourself by imagining such source to be some God outside you. One’s source is within yourself.
• Silence is the loudest form of prayer.
• Peace is always present. Get rid of the disturbances to Peace. This Peace is the Self.
• What is the best way of living?
• The object of all these is to rid the man of concepts and to make him inhere as the pure Self...Why not go straight to it?
• In the interval between the knowledge of the identity and annihilation of vasanas, there will be illusion.
• If atma-vichara (self-investigation), ceases, loka vichara (world investigation) takes its place.
• The world is said to be nothing more than a cinema-show.
• God never forsakes one who has surrendered
• Silence is the most potent form of work.
• If all renounce will there be a practical world? Who will plough? Who will harvest?
• All are jnanis, jivanmuktas. Only they are not aware of the fact.
• You are the witness of jagrat (waking), svapna (dream) and sushupti (sleep) - rather, they pass before you.
• Parvati asked Siva why Rama, the Perfect Being, was grieving at the loss of Sita.
• Japa means clinging to one thought to the exclusion of all other thoughts. It leads to dhyana which ends in Self-Realisation.
• Happiness is not to be sought in solitude or in busy centres. It is in the Self.
• Does not the Guru take a concrete form?
• Worship (puja) really is - the losing of one’s individuality in that which is worshipped.
• The bondage seems to have persisted even after Self-Realisation. How can it be so?
• What about the purity of mind - chitta suddhi?
• Has man any Free-Will or is everything in his life predestined and preordained?
• Are intellect and emotion, like the physical body, growths which come with the birth of man; and do they dissolve or survive after death?
• The ‘I’ is always there. There is obstruction to its knowledge and it is called ignorance. Remove the ignorance and knowledge shines forth.
• The ultimate Truth is so simple
• Mourning is not the index of true love. It betrays love of the object, of its shape only. That is not love. True love is shown by the certainty that the object of love is in the Self and that it can never become non-existent.
• The functions of the waking state are those of the ego which is synonymous with the ‘I’. Find out who this ‘I’ is. On doing so and abiding as ‘I’, all these doubts will be cleared up.
• Dvaita and advaita are relative terms
• Are there not modulations in contemplation according to circumstances?
• Why are there so many methods mentioned for salvation?
• How is meditation to be practised?
• How does the name help Realisation?
• What is mantra?
• 'There is no happiness’ is only a thought. The Self is bliss, pure and simple. You are the Self.
• There is no difference between God, Guru and Self.
• Is the ‘I-thought’ your nature or is anything else of your nature?
• Samadhi is eternal, if not how can it be real?
• That which rises and sets is the ego; that which remains changeless is the Self.
• One’s course of conduct in this life is determined by one’s prarabdha.
• Reality and myth are both the same
• The Supreme Spirit is subtler than the subtlest and larger than the largest.
• That which is born must die; that which is acquired must be lost. Were you born? You are ever existent.
• See to whom the doubts arise. Go to their source and abide in it. Then they cease to arise.
• How can there be life in stone? It is unconscious.
• The enquirer is the answer and no other answer can come.
• What is the purpose of life?
• Dhyana comes only step by step with the gradual weakening of the vasanas by the Grace of the Master.
• Different deities are said to reside in different chakras. Does one see them in course of sadhana?
• There is no inside or outside for the Self
• If you consider yourself as the body the world appears to be external. If you are the Self the world appears as Brahman.
• When the goal is reached it remains alone, and all the rest becomes useless.
• Whatever may be the experiences, the experiencer is one and the same. ‘I’ is purna - perfection
• But the best means of realisation is the enquiry “Who am I?”
• By his non-action the sage governs all
• So long as you are formful why should you not worship the formless God as being formful?
• By continued experience it becomes common and the man is no longer excited.
• What is the ego-self?
• Knowledge implies subject and object. But experience is non-terminal, eternal.
• Bhakti is being as the Self (Swarupa).
• That which was originally rejected as being unreal is found to be a part of the unity. Being absorbed in the Reality, the world also is Real
• How are we to conceive of Supreme Consciousness (Chaitanya Brahman)?
• How to realise the Heart?
• Your nature is now different from meditation.
• Seeing and knowing are the functions of the mind. In nirvana there is nothing but the blissful pure consciousness “I am.”
• Everything is within. There is nothing without.
• God-vision is only vision of the Self objectified as the God of one’s own faith. Know the Self.
• The sattvic mind resolves itself into the Life-current.
• There is only one consciousness, which subsists in the waking, dream and sleep states.
• The purpose of one’s birth will be fulfilled whether you will it or not. Let the purpose fulfill itself.
• In all actions there is the sat as the underlying principle. “Remember it and act.”
• Now what is your real nature? Is it writing, walking, or being? The one unalterable reality is Being.
• Do you say that they (objects) exist, or do they come and announce their existence to you?
• “How is it that Atma vidya is said to be the easiest?”
• Turn your vision inward and then the whole world will be full of Supreme Spirit.
• How is one to meditate?
• Difference between external and internal samadhi
• The Saguna (worship of the personal God) merges into the nirguna (devotion to the impersonal) in the long run.
• Be the Self; there will be no second thing to cause you fear.
• To think or wish it is itself a thought. If the thinker is sought, the thoughts will disappear.
• Is there an Absolute Being? What is its relation to the relative existence?
• See the common factor (sama) in all the objects.
• Because your nature is happiness itself and it is natural that you come into your own.
• The object of enquiry is to find the true nature of the Self as Awareness
• What is the root-cause of maya?
• Only after thoughts arise the world comes into being; what can it be but thought?
• There is only one ‘I’ all along, but what arises up from time to time is the mistaken ‘I-thought’
• Just as the waking, dream and sleep states are phenomena, so also birth, growth and death are phenomena in the Self. which continues to be unbroken and unaffected.
• The fact is that God is all. There is nothing apart from Him.
• If the man feels himself to be the screen on which the subject and object are projected there can be no confusion
• Only when the thinker is not held do objects appear outside or doubts arise in the mind.
• Once we admit our existence, how is it that we do not know our Self?
• If there is nothing but Sri Krishna, how can the world be said to be like “beads on a string?”
• The present difficulty is that the man thinks that he is the doer.
• He does not understand that he himself is the Centre of all and thus forms the basis for all.
• See the Self and realise that there has been no creation.
• Find out where from this ‘I’ arises. Then this ‘I’ will disappear and the infinite Self will remain. This ‘I’ is only the knot between the sentient and the insentient.
• Help yourself so that you may become strong. That is done by complete surrender.
• If he has surrendered himself to God or to Guru the Power to which he had surrendered will take him on the right course
• Atman is the aim. What else can there be? All other aims are for those who are incapable of atmalakshya (having the Self for the aim).
• If one is fit for it (Meditation) one might directly hold the thinker; and the thinker will automatically sink into his source, namely Pure Consciousness.
• Samadhi means sleep in waking state (jagrat sushupti). Bliss is overpowering and the experience is very clear, whereas it is different in sleep.
• If God be apart from the Self He must be a Self-less God, which is absurd
• Knowledge can remain unshaken only after all the vasanas are rooted out.
• Avidya is only our ignorance and nothing more. It is ignorance or forgetfulness of the Self.
• That which exists cannot be observed. It is unobservable....That which exists, exists for ever; that which newly appears is later lost.
• The Self makes the universe what it is by His Sakti, and yet He does not Himself act.
• The karma which takes place without effort, i.e., involuntary action, is not binding.
• Are you in the world, or is the world within you?
• Relating the effect to a cause makes the man think. He is finally driven to consider who he is himself.
• How can anyone be a mukta so long as there is misery by his side?
• Can fasting help realisation?
• How is dhyana (Meditation) practised - with eyes open or closed?
• You have already got what you seek elsewhere.
• All are seeing God always. But they do not know it.
• Mind is to be introverted and made to merge into the Self
• How shall I gain practical realisation of the Self?”
• Spirit is not disembodied. The bodies differ after death
• How to know the ‘Real I’ as distinct from the ‘false I’?
• Bliss and misery are only modes of mind; but the weak mode is not easily interchangeable with the strong mode.
• Bring sleep into the waking state (jagrat sushupti) and you will be all right.
• All that is immaterial to one’s spiritual uplift. First realise the Self and then see what lies further.
• How do we know that action is ours or not?
• What does samyamana mean in Patanjali Yoga Sutra?
• After the substratum is held what does it matter if the world appears or disappears?
• The Self is free from all qualities. Qualities pertain to the mind only.
• We have forgotten the Self and imagine that the body or the mind is the Self. It is that wrong identity that gives rise to misery
• Whenever thoughts arise remember they are all modes of Perumal and they cannot be otherwise, this is enough; this is the surrender of the mind.
• If you are the body there is the gross world also. If you are spirit all is spirit alone.
• The ever-present Self needs no efforts to be realised, Realisation is already there. Illusion alone is to be removed.
• How meditation could become steady?
• So long as one does not think of samsara, he is not a samsari
• The Master is not outside you as you seem to imagine. He is within, is in fact the Self.
• The circuit round the temple of Arunachala is equally good; and selfcircuit (i.e., turning round and round) is as good as the last.
• See for whom the blankness appears.
• Leave the thought-free state to itself.
• Experience is non-terminal, eternal
• One should go beyond such relative knowledge and abide in the Self.
• If one remains desireless anything will be forthcoming.
• The Being-consciousness is always there, eternal and pure.
• Why Brahman is said to be sacchidananda, but not God?
• Take off the upadhi (limiting adjunct); the ‘I’ (Aham) is pure and single.
• This consciousness is pure Knowledge in which both knowledge and ignorance shine.
• How does it (object) affect the subject whether the objects are seen or not?
• I do not want intellectual answers. I want them to be practical.
• Shall I meditate on “I am Brahman” (Aham Brahmasmi)?
• After finding the source of that ‘I’, merge your individuality in that Oneness - which is Self-existent and devoid of all duality.
• Sleep implies forgetfulness of all differences
• Find that on which all the rest are superimposed and you then remain as the pure Self.
• Everything is within one’s Self
• Take care to see that mind (who prays to Master to pardon his sins) did not trouble him
• Though the ‘I’ is always experienced, yet one’s attention has to be drawn to it. Only then does knowledge dawn.
• How to get rid of the mind?
• Find wherefrom thoughts emerge. Then you will abide in the ever-present inmost Self and be free from the idea of birth or the fear of death.
• The present difficulty is that the man thinks that he is the doer. But it is a mistake.
• If actions were to take place without attachment there would be no expectation of fruit.
• Is work an obstruction to Self-realisation?
• The discrimination between right and wrong is the origin of the sin
• Creation is thus found to be only your thoughts.
• Is there no way of escape from the miseries of the world?
• It (World) is unreal if viewed as apart from the Self and real if viewed as the Self.
• If the world is only a dream, how should it be harmonised with the Eternal Reality?
• There is no period of time when realisation is not.
• If one is to withdraw oneself, why is there the world?
• What is the best way to work for world peace?
• How shall we able to get over these differences and comprehend the One Essence of all things?
• The mind has its substratum in the Self which is self-evident, i.e. its existence and self-luminosity are obvious.
• ‘I’ is never new. It is eternally the same
• Only those whose minds are less muddy, or are pure, can relish small and purposeful works.
• Are the stones, etc. destined to be always so?
• Are there two ‘I’s in the same person?
• The intellect delights in investigating the past and the future but does not look to the present.
• Leaving out what is intimate and immediate, why should one seek the rest?
• By what means to know the knower?
• What is mind after all?
• Engaged in other pursuits, can the mental activities be checked and the query “Who am I?” pursued?
• Everyone is the Self, indeed infinite.
• How to permeate the separate objects?
• What is moksha (liberation)?
• The objects exist because of the seer cognising them.
• How is the mind to be stilled?
• How is that (self-enquiry) to be done?
• How do you know the existence?
• The Master is within.
• Self Realisation sounds so easy, but yet is so difficult in practice.
• If the mind is distracted, ask the question promptly, “To whom do these distracting thoughts arise?”
• Surrender to be complete must be unquestioning
• Is there a difference between prapatti (self-surrender) and the Path of Yoga of the Seers?
• The world cannot remain apart from the Self
• There were breaks in her awareness and desired to know how the awareness might be made continuous.
• Sanyasa consists in renunciation not of material objects but of attachment to them.
• How does mere life or death here confer mukti? It is difficult to understand.
• Upasana and dhyana are possible so long as there is the mind and they must cease with the cessation of the mind.
• In the practice of meditation are there any signs of the nature of subjective experience or otherwise, which will indicate the aspirant’s progress towards Self-Realisation
• Is it not better to say ‘I am the Supreme Being’ than ask ‘Who am I?’
• That which is enduring must alone be the real nature.
• How can one become jitasangadoshah (free from the stain of association)?
• Learning leading to search for Truth and humility is good.
• Contemplation is possible only with control of mind and control can be accomplished only by contemplation. Is it not a vicious circle?
• How is annihilation of predispositions to be accomplished?
• Do you hold a mirror before you to know your own being?
• The mind begins to elude him and the man is not aware of the mischief until after some time.
• Fixity in the Supreme Spirit (Brahma nishta) alone can make us know and realise it.
• Everyone is the Self by his own experience.
• To think is not your real nature.
• Realization is always and everywhere here and now too.
• Are there two selves?
• Be yourself and nothing more!
• Is there any necessity to obey physical laws, i.e., dieting?
• Please tell me the method of reaching the eternal Truth.
• It is with the ajnani who superimposes his illusive ideas on others.
• Is a Jnani capable or likely to commit sins?
• What are the fundamental tests for discovering men of great spirituality, since some are reported to behave like insane people?
• Guru is only one. He is not physical.
• If you are firm in your belief in the guidance of God, stick to it, and do not concern yourself with what happens around you.
• How shall I pray to God?
• Is there any benefit accruing by dying in Benares?
• Why are there so many Gods mentioned?
• It is not easy to remain without thinking.
• The essential point is that the mind must always remain in its source.
• Never mind the mind
• The universe is only an object created by the mind and has its being in the mind.
• You are originally unlimited and perfect. Later you take on limitations and become the mind.
• How is the mind to dive into the Heart?
• When the nature to give away is developed it results in jnana.
• What is my tattva (truth)?
• What is Atma sakshatkara (Self-Realisation)?
• Can I have realisation even in the absence of sat sanga as necessitated by my circumstances?
• Love postulates duality. How can the Self be the object of love?
• Is it possible to gain that consciousness which is beyond thoughts?
• You can never find the mind through mind. Pass beyond it in order to find it non-existent.
• How to get peace?
• How to check the mind?
• How can the rebellious mind be brought under control?
• How can the world be an imagination or a thought?
• When you see them (objects) as Brahman they are real, deriving their reality from their substratum, Brahman.
• What is contemplation? It is merging into the source consciously.
• There is the wrong notion that the body is apart and the Self is confounded with the body.
• How to attain the Self?
• The Self does not move. The world moves in it.
• How shall I reach the Self?
• How shall I gain practical realisation of the Self?”
• Abandon the wrong identification of the Self with the non-self.
• What is reality?
• Wisdom seems to dawn, though it is natural and ever present.
• What is the exact difference between worldly activity and dhyana (meditation)?
• Dana, dharma, nishkama Karma are all tyaga only
• (Perform action) Like an actor playing his part in a drama - free from love or hatred.
• (With practice), engagement in work or no engagement, the current (peace of unity) remains unaffected and uninterrupted.
• The essential point is the atma-vichara - enquiry into the Self.
• You are now thinking that you are the mind or the body which are both changing and transient. But you are unchanging and eternal.
• Your body, the society, the forest and the ways are all in you; you are not in them.
• You are as you are and yet you speak of a forest and ways.
• The ego, the world and the individuals are all due to the person’s vasanas.
• Is it necessary to take to sanyasa for Self-Realisation?
• It(Dream) is due to the samskaras (impressions) of the jagrat (waking) state.
• Maya is only Isvara-Sakti or the activity of Reality.
• Kill the jiva and there is no pain or pleasure but the mental bliss persists forever.
• You are only in your natural state whether you make abhyasa or not.
• The Self is only one.
• Visions are not external. They appear only internally.
• ‘No want’ is the greatest bliss. It can be realised only by experience
• The background of the mode is the ‘I’ in which the mind modes arise and sink.
• The enquiry into the Self is inclusive of all, faith, devotion, jnana, yoga and all.
• The objects can be differentiated by means of their names and forms, whereas each one’s name is only one and that is ‘I’
• To know that the Self remains happy in its perfection is Self-Realisation
• The goal must be eternal and within. Find it within yourself
• Can the world be apart from you?
• The space, the magnitudes and the paradox are all in the mind only.
• How do you infer your existence?
• Distractions result from inherited tendencies. Can they be cast off too?
• Are there any aids to (1) concentration and (2) casting off distractions?
• What is the interrelation between regulation of thought and regulation of breath?
• Impurities of limitation, ignorance and desire place obstacles in the way of meditation. How to conquer them?
• How to gain Divine Grace?
• It is necessary to experience the Reality now in life in order that it may be experienced at death.
• Can anything be more immediate and intimate than the Self?
• Find the ‘I’ and see later what further knowledge is required.
• Is there anyone who denies his own existence?
• The direct method of attack is not to depend on invisible hypotheses but to ask “Whose Karma is it? Or whose body?”
• Be yourself. That is all.
• Bliss consists in not forgetting your being.
• The Self always remains actionless, whereas thoughts arise and subside.
• Be free from thoughts. Do not hold on to anything. They do not hold you. Be yourself.
• Mind is tangible to you. Hold the mind and it will do.
• One’s meditation or concentration is meant to get rid of obstacles and not to gain the Self.
• Do you remain apart from Self that you speak of yourself as Its modification?
• Are you ever divorced from the Self?
• All are comprised in ‘I’.
• Is there a sixth sense to feel “I AM”?
• Illiteracy is ignorance: education is learned ignorance. Both of them are ignorant of their true aim
• Agitation of mind is the cause of desire, the sense of doership and personality. If that is stopped there is quiet.
• Removal of ignorance is the aim of practice, and not acquisition of Realisation.
• The variety must go before unity reveals itself - its reality.
• What is not, is always lost; what is, is ever present, here and now.
• The mind goes out owing to the habit of looking for happiness outside oneself; but the knowledge that the external objects are not the cause of happiness will keep it in check.
• Can the thoughts exist without you?
• Thoughts, good or bad, take you farther and not nearer, because the Self is more intimate than thoughts.
• The body has its birth subsequent to ‘I-thought’. So its birth is secondary. Get rid of the primary cause and the secondary one will disappear by itself.
• Who is the substratum of the subject and the object? Find it and all problems are solved.
• Will the work, realised to be not separate from the Self, obstruct the uninterrupted Awareness of the Self?
• When I try to meditate, I am unable to do so because my mind wanders. What should I do?
• That which is real must be real for ever.
• The Self is changeless. It is the ego that has come between.
• Seeking it (the seer within) there all other thoughts centred round the ego will disappear along with it.
• You are Self, whereas the thoughts are alien to the Self.
• Vritti jnana (subjective modification of the mind) alone can destroy ‘ajnana’ (ignorance)
• It (Jnanam) is being aware of That which always is.
• How is the mind to be steadily kept right?
• Why the mind cannot be turned inward in spite of repeated attempts?
• How do you meditate?
• The mind is only a bundle of thoughts. The thoughts arise because there is the thinker.
• What is jnana-marga?
• The other methods also will ultimately lead everyone to this method of the investigation of the Self.
• All thoughts are from the unreal ‘I’. i.e., the ‘I’- thought.
• Dhyana is to keep the mind active in its own pursuit without taking in external impressions or thinking of other matters.
• Happiness is born of Peace. Peace can reign only when there is no disturbance.
• The one who has given up the idea of being the doer cannot repeat, “This is my prarabdha”
• With right knowledge, the ego is nowhere and only you remain as the SELF.”
• Prajnana (Absolute Knowledge) is always shining even in sleep
• How is an avatar different from a Jnani; or how can there be an avatar as distinct from the universe?
• Their purpose is to know the Truth. The purpose having been gained, there is no use engaging in studies.
• Ajnani thinks dehaiva Atma (only the body is myself), whereas the Jnani knows all is of the Self (Atmamayam sarvam),
• Contemplation is a forced mental process, whereas samadhi lies beyond effort.
• Sri Ramakrishna prepared Vivekananda. What is the power behind?
• There is no difference in their wisdom (jnana) of liberated souls
• Incidents interest a child only so long as they last......So it is with a Sage.
• Japa means clinging to one thought to the exclusion of all other thoughts; it leads to dhyana which ends in Self-Realisation.
• The Highest Form of Grace is Silence (mowna). It is also the highest upadesa.
• Are there two ‘I’s
• God, Guru and Self are only different forms of the same.
• The best is heart to heart speech and heart to heart hearing. That is the best upadesa.
• What are the aids for realisation?
• Visions of God have their place below the plane of Self-Realisation.
• There are many process of creation. Which of them is true?
• Some people are attracted to one place of pilgrimage and others to another. Is it according to their temperaments?
• The self-evident ‘I’, ignoring the Self, goes about seeking to know the non-Self. How absurd!
• I have faith in murti dhyana (worship of form). Will it not help me to gain jnana?
• The fact is that God is all. There is nothing apart from Him.
• Vichara (self-enquiry) is the ultimate route
• Long for it intensely so that the mind melts in devotion
• The Be-ing is in all cases real.
• Is the Universal Soul (Paramatma) always different from us?
• Is it not possible to get a vision of God?
• To whom is svapna? or the knot? You are always saying “I ask.” Who is that ‘I’?
• All that is required of you is not to confound yourself with the extrovert mind but to abide as the Self. That is prasad.
• Sat and Chit are only one and the same.
• The individuals may move but not the Self.
• See for whom these doubts exist. Who is the doubter? Who is the thinker?
• The truth is that the world appears as a passing shadow in a flood of light.
• Be the Self and that is Bliss
• Action without desire - is superior to knowledge with practice
• Let action complete itself. So long as there is the doer he must reap the fruits of his action.
• The karma which takes place without effort, i.e., involuntary action, is not binding.
• Do you go out of the Self? What is meant by giving up?
• Desire arises only after the rise of the ego; and this ego owes its origin to a Higher Power on which its existence depends
• Take care of the present, the future will take care of itself
• What prevents you from being your own Self?
• See for whom these doubts exist. Who is the doubter? Who is the thinker?
• Renunciation is non-identification of the Self with the non-self.
• Make no effort either to work or to renounce work......You cannot renounce or hold as you choose.
• Can the atyasramis (most revered of all the ashramas) own property?
• Attending to the Self includes attending to the work.
• Self is the screen on which the pictures, namely activities, are going on.
• Imagine the actor (man) in the picture asking if he could enact a scene without the screen (Self).
• Sleep, dream and waking are only modes passing before the Self. They proceed whether you are aware or not.
• Do not superimpose suffering on yourself
• The agent, remaining unaffected by the actions, gets more purified until he realises the Self.
• Self is not concerned with actions and the question (of how the action will go on) does not arise.
• Give up this thought also and remain as your true Self.
• After realisation there will be no Karma, no world.
• The more you rectify your Karma (action), the more it accumulates. Find the root of Karma and cut it off.
• How can I do my duties without attachment?
• The Self is always there in vyavahara (activity) or in shanti (peace).
• Whether you recognise the Power or not the scheme of things does not alter.

• One should act in such a manner that the bondage is not strengthened but gets weakened.
• Realise your existence and then enquire of your duties.
• He who instructs an ardent seeker to do this or that is not a true master
• A thing remains to be attained if it is not already attained. But here one’s very being is That.
• You are neither That nor This. The truth is ‘I am’. “I AM that I AM”
• For a realised man, the one who remains ever in the Self, the loss of one or several or all lives either in this world or in all the three worlds makes no difference
• Still over and over let his regain control, and poise it back in Self.
• See yourself, who sees these, and the problem is solved.
• May we perform japa?
• The saints Sri Chaitanya and Sri Ramakrishna wept before God and achieved success. Is that not the path to follow?
• What is it that exists now and troubles you? It is ‘I’. Get rid of it and be happy.
• The Jnani is not aware of anything besides the Self. He has no doubts of the kind.
• Since the experience is through the mind only it appears first as a blaze of light. The mental predispositions are not yet destroyed
• The pure mind is itself Brahman; therefore it follows that Brahman is not other than the mind of the sage.
• Were you aware of limitations in your sleep?
• The world may appear or disappear - that is to say, one may be awake or asleep - the awareness is unaffected.
• Jnana and ajnana are of the same degree of truth for the ignorant
• Remain as the meditator. There is no need to meditate.
• Gradually the obstacles are all overcome and your current becomes stronger
• You are neck-deep in water and yet cry for water.