Who Am I?

"As regards the technique of meditation, different teachers and trainers give different forms of advice. But I shall give you now the most universal and the most effective form. This is the very first step in spiritual discipline. At first, set a few minutes every day for meditation, and extend the time as you feel the bliss that you get. "Let it be in the hours before dawn. This is preferable because the body is refreshed after sleep, and the dealings of daytime will not yet have impinged on you. Have a lamp or a candle before you with an open, steady, and straight flame. Sit in front of the candle in the lotus posture or any other comfortable sitting position. Look on the flame steadily for some time, and closing your eyes try to feel the flame inside you between your eyebrows. Let it slide down into the lotus of your heart, illuminating the path. When it enters the heart, imagine that the petals of the lotus open out by one, bathing every thought, feeling, and emotion in t...

Modern Education is breeding selfishness. It is for acquiring goods and services for one's own comfort. These are worldly pleasures. The qualities of desire, anger, greed, delusion, pride and envy drive one's efforts in pursuit of worldly pleasures. No doubt worldly education helps to provide comfort and joy in the objective world, but it does not at all contribute to inner bliss. Only the five human values of truth, peace, love, non-violence and righteousness can confer inner bliss. A person who cultivates these five human values will always be happy. The five senses of action provide external pleasure whereas the five human values confer inner bliss. Baba's Divine Discourse, 22nd Nov 2009.

On my visit to Perth to see the Fraser family (and my godson Sean) who very sadly lost their dear mother Gopika in March, I was booked to catch the 12.20 flight back to Singapore and London. But although I had stayed the night with the family, I hadn't had any time alone with my godson and wanted to spend time with him. Preparing for the morning flight, Iain Fraser (who was also flying out) said 'Hey, there's no 12.20 flight; you must be on the 15.30.' I didn't both to check and instead spent the morning with my godson (who drove me to Freemantle where we had a coffee) before getting a taxi to the airport in good time for the 15.30. On checking in, they looked puzzled and said that they had been expecting me for the 12.20, but would try and put me anyway onto the 15.30 - which was a shorter connection in Singapore to the London flight - but it was full. I waited without concern and was duly handed the boarding pass shortly before take-off. When I got home, I foun...

Dr Jack Hawley has produced on of the most accessible translations of the Bhavagad Gita available . In addition to the written version, there is also spoken (by Jack Hawley) version and once one gets used to his accent, it's a fine way to listen to the teachings, either in the car or on an iPhone. An interview with Jack Hawley can be seen here

A scientist named Dr. Baranowski, Professor of Physics at the University of Arizona and a specialist in Kirlian photography, once came to see Sai Baba. ( Kirlian photography , or ‘biomagnetic field radiation photography’, is done with a special camera which photographs the energy bands around living beings; different colors in the biomagnetic field correspond to different emotional qualities. To quote Baranowski, “When a person is full of love the aura around him is blue and when the love is pronounced, it becomes pink.”) Baranowski had scientifically trained himself to see auras, and with this trained vision was investigating the various holy men of India. Some years ago he gave a talk at the Prashanti Nilayam ashram on his experiences with Sai Baba. Some excerpts: “I have met over a hundred holy men in India. Too many of these holy men are involved in their own personal egos. Their auras show mostly concern for themselves and their institutions. So [their auras] are only a f...

Remind yourself constantly of all the physicians, now dead, who used to knit their brows over their ailing patients; all the astrologers who so solemnly predicted their clients' doom; the philosophers who expiated so endlessly on death or immortality; the great commanders who slew their thousands; the despots who wielded powers of life and death with such terrible arrogance as if themselves were gods who could never die; the whole cities which have perished completely, Helice, Pompeii, Herculaneum and others without number. After that recall, one by one each of your own acquaintances, how one buried another, only to be laid low himself, and be buried in turn by a third, and all in so brief a space of time. Observe, in short, how transient and trivial is all mortal life; yesterday a drop of semen, tomorrow a handful of spice or ashes. Spend therefore these fleeting moments on earth as Nature would have you spend them, and then go to your rest with a good grace,as an olive falls ...

The Eternal Parent [the great Matrix], wrapped in her ever-invisible Robes, had slumbered once again for seven eternities. Time was not, for it lay asleep in the infinite bosom of duration. Universal Mind was not, for there were no Ah-Hi [the serpents of limitation] to contain it. The seven ways to bliss were not. The great causes of misery were not, for there was no one to produce or get ensnared in them. Darkness alone filled the boundless all, for Father, Mother and Son were once more one, and the Son had not yet awakened for the new wheel and his pilgrimage theron. The seven sublime Lords [levels of consciousness] and the seven Truths [the structure of the universe] had ceased to be, and the universe, the son of Necessity, was immersed in Paranish-panna [the highest truth], to be outbreathed by that which is and yet is not. Naught was. The causes of existence had been done away with, and the invisible that was, and the invisible that is rested in eternal non-being - th...

T he Prayer of Surrender posted outside the Western Canteen at Puttaparthy.  Why get agitated? Let me take care of all your business.  I shall be the one who will think about them.  I am waiting for nothing else but your surrender to Me, and then you do not have to worry any more about anything.  Say farewell to all fears and discouragement. You demonstrate that you do not trust Me. On the contrary, you must rely blindly on me. To surrender means to turn your thoughts away from troubles; to turn them away from difficulties you encounter and from all your problems. Leave everything into me hands saying “Lord, Thy will be done. Thou think of it”.  That is to say ‘Lord, thanks you for You have taken everything into Your hands, and You will resolve this for my highest good.’ Remember that thinking of the consequences of a thing is contrary to surrender. That is to say that when you worry that a situation has not had the desired outcome, you thus demonstrate ...

Dear Ramesh Balsekar the great advaita teacher died on 27th Sept 2009. Wayne Liquorman's letter is here Dear Friends, It is with the heaviest of hearts I write to tell you of the passing of our beloved Ramesh this morning at 9AM in his home in Bombay. His death was quick and peaceful. Ramesh was truly an extraordinary being. His life as a successful banker, author and spiritual teacher directly enriched the lives of tens of thousands of people. Having met Ramesh was one of the defining moments of my life, as I am certain it was for many of you reading this note. His generous spirit, open, loving presence and spiritual Understanding combined to make him one of the truly great Sages of the 20th century. We are truly blessed to have known him...be it "in person" or through his Teaching. Ramesh lives on. Though his body will this evening return to the elements, his spirit lives on in his books and in the hearts of all of us who have known him and loved him.. Twenty-two yea...

Ramesh signing one of his books for us as he always did One of his inscriptions is here: "The wild geese do not intend to cast their reflection; the water has no mind to receive their image" "Conciousness is all there is" See here for an excerpt from 'Pointers' by Ramesh, on the teachings of his guru, Nisargadatta Maharaj "All effort at controlling thoughts, appetites and desires cannot but strengthen them along with the ego" "The seeing is the only doing necessary." "What you are trying to find is what you already are" "If you but cease from useless conceptualizing, you will be what you are and what you have always been." "What constitutes bondage or hindrance to Realization is not activity or even effort but the sense of personal doership" As the Buddha said, "events happen; deeds are done, but there is no individual doer thereof" "The final truth, as Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Mahara...

One day in 1990 I was staying at Puttaparthy and went out at 4am to walk round the mandir. The sky was black, and it began to rain heavily, but of course it was warm. As it was raining, few came out that morning and those who did stood in the embrasures of the wall facing the mandir and waited for the rain to stop. At once Baba came out of his rooms on to the platform of the mandir and looked across at us sheltering in the embrasures, and smiled. He then raised his arms to the sky and two bolts of lightning appeared from the clouds, shot down his arms and down his body to the platform and formed a ball of lightning at his feet. He then played with the ball, sending it spinning across the platform with a wave of his arm, and calling it back with another wave. When it came back to his feet, he motioned it back up his body and, raising his arms again sent it back into the sky - where it disappeared in to the dark clouds. He then turned to us again, smiled and went back into his rooms. ...

One day at Puttaparthy, when staying at C1 Sai Vadan through the kindness of Jagdish Bhavani, I was doing seva in the fields, helping to pick up a dried crop and put it in carts to be taken for storage. I had the key to the apartment's padlock in my pocket, and there were no others. Imagine my concern when at the end of the day I arrived back at the apartment and found I no longer had the key. I was wondering what on earth to do, but before I could become seriously worried, a man came running up the stairs and gave me the key. It had been found, he said, at the bottom of one of the carts. Considering I had been in the field all day and many loads had been taken in, and no one knew that I had lost the key, it was astonishing that the key had been found and that someone knew that it was been mine - and where to find me. I never saw the man again, and I believe that he might well have been sent by Baba. A real Baba lila! Puttaparthy Thunderstorm Hong Kong The Perth-London fl...

One day while being driven back from a lunch in Quarry Bay, Hong Kong in 2005, I was musing about reality and said to Baba "Baba, I know that what we see and sense is only a relative reality, but would you give me a sign to show me that this is really the case? If what I am seeing is only an illusion, will you make that man walking alongside my taxi turn and look at me?" In an instant the man - an ordinary Chinese labourer - turned and stared - really stared - through the taxi's window directly into my eyes. It was a completely deliberate act, not in anyway coincidental, and after a few seconds he turned back and continued walking. I never saw him before or since. A lovely Baba lila! Puttaparthy Thunderstorm Puttaparthy Seva The Perth-London flight Baba in the Smoke

Fishing on the River Itchen. Photo by Derek Hampshire Today - at about 2pm on Friday 21st August 2009 - I finished writing out my step-grandfather's monograph on dry fly fishing. It's here . A few minutes later I wrote on Facebook 'Herry Lawford is learning about fishing - and wished he'd taken it up years ago.....'. About two hours later a friend, (who isn't on Facebook and has no connection with it), wrote in an e-mail 'By the way are you into flyfishing – I have a beat on the Test on 21 September if you would like to join me??' It is the only invitation to a day's fishing that i have ever received. For those unversed in the lore of fishing, the Test in Hampshire is the holy of holies and generally regarded at the finest dry fly river in England. Another Baba lila...... Baba in the Smoke

The highest truth can be found in the teachings of Nisargadatta Maharaj, a barely-educated tobacco-kiosk owner who died in Bombay in 1981. The classic book of his teachings is 'I Am That' transcribed and translated from his native Marathi by Maurice Frydman. There are also fine books on his teaching such as 'Pointers' by Ramesh Balsekar and those of Jean Dunn and Robert Powell . 'The dialogue, one evening, was started by a young Canadian, wearing a lunghi and a thin kurtha. He said that he was twenty-three, but looked barely out of his teens. He wore around his neck an elegant little silver cross on a dainty chain. He said that he had come across the book I Am That in a bookshop in Bombay a couple of days ago. A cursory glance at a few pages impelled in him a desire to meet Maharaj personally. He had already gone through the book reading almost continuously, through the afternoon, evening and night, and had finished both volumes only a few hours ago. Mah...

I see what you too could see, here and now, but for the wrong focus of your attention. You give no attention to your self. Your mind is all with things, people and ideas, never with your self. Bring your self into focus, become aware of your own existence. See how you function, watch the motives and the results of your actions. Study the prison you have built around yourself by inadvertence. By knowing what you are not, you come to know your self. The way back to your self is through refusal and rejection. One thing is certain: the real is not imaginary, it is not a product of the mind. Even the sense ‘I am’ is not continuous, though it is a useful pointer; it shows where to seek, but not what to seek. Just have a good look at it. Once you are convinced that you cannot say truthfully about your self anything except ‘I am’, and that nothing that can be pointed at, can be your self, the need for the ‘I am’ is over -- you are no longer intent on verbalising what you are. All you need is t...

The mind creates the abyss; the heart crosses it The highest truth can be found in the teachings of Nisagardatta Maharaj, a barely-educated tobacco-kiosk owner who died in Bombay in 1981. The classic book of his teachings is 'I Am That' transcribed and translated from his native Marathi by Maurice Frydman, as well as books about his teaching such as 'Pointers' by Ramesh Balsekar . The dialogue, one evening, was started by a young Canadian, wearing a lunghi and a thin kurtha. He said that he was twenty-three, but looked barely out of his teens. He wore around his neck an elegant little silver cross on a dainty chain. He said that he had come across the book I Am That in a bookshop in Bombay a couple of days ago. A cursory glance at a few pages impelled in him a desire to meet Maharaj personally. He had already gone through the book reading almost continuously, through the afternoon, evening and night, and had finished both volumes only a few hours ago. Maharaj: You ...

You are not made up of earth, water, fire, air or space. You are not the body. You are not a particular name or form. You are not a member of a particular family or tribe. You are not connected with any nation or culture. You are not in any way related to the things of this world. You are not perceivable by the gross or the subtle senses. You are the witness of these. You are the immortal self, the universal consciousness. Concepts of right or wrong, vice or virtue, doing or enjoying, pleasure or pain are all of the mind. They are not of you. The root of all misery is duality. There is no other remedy for this disease except the realisation that all objects of experience are unreal and all that there is is the one, pure consciousness. The rising of the wind in the mind produces the multifarious waves of the world. With the calming dawn of knowledge they again vanish without a trace. In me, the boundless ocean, the waves of individual selves with countless names and forms arise, strike ...

When I met my Guru, he told me: "You are not what you take yourself to be. Find out what you are. Watch the sense 'I am', find your real Self." I obeyed him, because I trusted him. I did as he told me. All my spare time I would spend looking at myself in silence. And what a difference it made, and how soon! My teacher told me to hold on to the sense 'I am' tenaciously and not to swerve from it even for a moment. I did my best to follow his advice and in a comparatively short time I realized within myself the truth of his teaching. All I did was to remember his teaching, his face, his words constantly. This brought an end to the mind; in the stillness of the mind I saw myself as I am -- unbound. I simply followed (my teacher's) instruction which was to focus the mind on pure being 'I am', and stay in it. I used to sit for hours together, with nothing but the 'I am' in my mind and soon peace and joy and a deep all-embracing love became my nor...

Questioner: My own feeling is that my spiritual development is not in my hands. Making one's own plans and carrying them out leads nowhere. I just run in circles round myself. When God considers the fruit to be ripe, He will pluck it and eat it. Whichever fruit seems green to Him will remain on the world's tree for another day. Maharaj: You think God knows you? Even the world He does not know. Q: Yours is a different God. Mine is different. Mine is merciful. He suffers along with us. M: You pray to save one, while thousands die. And if all stop dying, there will be no space on earth. Q: I am not afraid of death. My concern is with sorrow and suffering. My God is a simple God and rather helpless. He has no power to compel us to be wise. He can only stand and wait. M: If you and your God are both helpless, does it not imply that the world is accidental? And if it is, the only thing you can do is to go beyond it. Questioner: Without God's power nothing can be done. Even you wo...

Q: Why did this consciousness arise? M: You are both the question and the answer. All your questions come from your identification with the body. How can any question relating to that which was prior to the body and consciousness be answered? There are yogis who have sat in meditation for many, many years seeking answers to this question, but even they haven't understood it. And yet you are complaining. Q: It is a great mystery. M: It's a mystery only to the ignorant. To the one not identified with the body, it is no longer a mystery. Q: Maharaj cannot convey it to us? M: I keep telling you but you don't listen. Q: Does Maharaj see us as individuals? M: There are no individuals; there are only food bodies with the knowledge `I am'. There is no difference between an ant, a human being, and Isvara; they are of the same quality. The body of an ant is small, an elephant's is large. The strength is different, because of size, but the life-force is the same. For knowledge...

Maharaj: For meditation you should sit with identification with the knowledge "I am" only and have confirmed to yourself that you are not the body. You must dwell only in that knowledge "I am"--not merely the words "I am." The design of your body does not signify your identification. And also, the name which is given to you or to the body is not your correct identity. The name which is imposed on you, or the name which you have heard about you- you have accepted that name as yourself. Similarly, since you have seen your body, you think you are the body. So you have to give up both these identities. And the indwelling knowledge that you are, without words, that itself you are. In that identity, you must stabilize yourself. And then, whatever doubts you have, will be cleared by that very knowledge, and everything will be opened up in you... Visitor: My question is, is there a useful way for arriving at moksha and are there particular signs for...

People talk of world peace. But how can you ensure peace in the world? Here is the formula for it. “If there is righteousness in the heart, there will be beauty in the character. If there is beauty in the character, there will be harmony in the home. If there is harmony in the home, there will be order in the nation. If there is order in the nation, there will be peace in the world.” It may thus be seen that the first link in the chain leading to world peace is righteousness or dharma. Dharma is only another name for right action. But the prerequisite for right action is right thought. In other words, peace should start with the individual and gradually spread wider and wider right along the line - from the home or family to the village to the nation, etc., till finally, it encompasses the entire world. Sri Sathya Sai Baba

Om Namo Bhagavathe Sri Ramanaya Who Am I? - (Nan Yar?) As all living beings desire to be happy always, without misery, as in the case of everyone there is observed supreme love for one's self, and as happiness alone is the cause for love, in order to gain that happiness which is one's nature and which is experienced in the state of deep sleep where there is no mind, one should know one's self. For that, the path of knowledge, the inquiry of the form "Who am I?", is the principal means. 1 . Who am I ? The gross body which is composed of the seven humours (dhatus), I am not; the five cognitive sense organs, viz. the senses of hearing, touch, sight, taste, and smell, which apprehend their respective objects, viz. sound, touch, colour, taste, and odour, I am not; the five cognitive sense-organs, viz. the organs of speech, locomotion, grasping, excretion, and procreation, which have as their respective functions speaking, moving, grasping, excreting, and enjoyi...