‘I’ is a Door
The essence of Advaita as taught by
Ramana Maharshi,
Atmananda (Krishna Menon) and
Nisargadatta Maharaj
Philip Renard
‘I’ is a Door
Copyright © 2017 Philip Renard
First Edition: August 2017
Original Dutch title ‘Ik’ is een deur
Original text © 2008 Philip Renard
Translated by Johan Veldman (chapters) and
Wybe van der Kemp (introduction and biographies)
Edited by Philip Renard and Wybe van der Kemp
Graphic of tablet on page 54 by Evert Teijen †
The four chapters of this book have been published
before as articles in (The) Mountain Path,
Sri Ramanasramam, Tiruvannamalai, India, 2004,
2006 and 2007. In French translation these articles
have appeared as ‘Je’ est une porte in the magazine
Revue 3e millénaire, in 2004 and 2005.
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Contents
Introduction
1. Ramana Maharshi
‘Enquiry’ is looking if something really exists
‘I’ is uninterruptedly the case
The ‘I’ doesn’t need to be replaced by some other ‘I’
Attention to Subject first
2. Atmananda (Krishna Menon)
‘I’ as such
The ‘I’-Principle is the only ultimate Reality
Think of your Guru only in the dualistic sphere
All activities are acts of worship to Me
You are always in your Real Nature
3. Nisargadatta Maharaj
‘I am’ is the greatest foe and the greatest friend
The touch of ‘I am’ is the first vibration
Worship this touch of ‘I am’
Knowingness and surrender
The dynamic aspect of Consciousness
The marriage of two qualities (sattva and rajas)
‘I’ is term for all levels
4. The Medicine (‘I am’ is a door)
The root of the mistake is the medicine
The pure, unmixed Beingness quality (Shuddha Sattva)
The knowing quality is what liberates
The ‘causal body’
Experience is the last Object
Short Biographies
1. Ramana Maharshi
2. Atmananda (Krishna Menon)
3. Nisargadatta Maharaj
Notes
Bibliography
I would like to express my thanks to
Johan Veldman
and
Wybe van der Kemp,
for their translating and editing work.
INTRODUCTION
One of the expressions often heard on the path of Self-realisation is ‘letting go of the ego’. What is actually meant by this?
It is of course not about the commonplace form of ego which everybody recognizes as egoism or selfishness, because it is clear that selfishness is in fact rejected by everybody, being on a way of liberation or not. Letting go of this ‘gross’ kind of ego is not enough if you really want liberation.
The ego as mentioned by teachers of the Vedantic and Buddhist ways of liberation as being the primary obstacle, is a thinking activity, in which you identify yourself with an external figure which consequently can be seen and judged. A figure which could be imagined as being ‘higher’ or ‘lower’ than other figures.
This ego in fact consists of acts of comparison. It could also be called ‘self-consciousness’, with all its implied inhibition of spontaneity or aliveness. It refers to the built-in split, a habitual groove in which one looks at another part of the same ego from a critical point of view, and bombards it with conflicting opinions. A principal characteristic of the ego is the attachment to the opinions about oneself. That is to say, a self-image has been built that does not want to dissolve and would rather continue as it is. This is what we call the ‘person’; it is the maintenance of a self-image. When it comes to the ‘person’, each conscious activity of the body-mind involves the supposition that there is an ‘I’ doing something, and that this ‘I’ is a continuous, enduring entity.
I prefer to call this ‘the I’, rather than ‘ego’, because this is easier to recognize as being something more subtle than the ‘gross ego’ mentioned earlier, even though the two flow into one another. The main difference, one could say, in the case of the ‘gross’ ego it is others that bother you and are bothered by you, whereas in the case of this subtle ‘I’ it is you being bothered by yourself.
Both Buddhists and Vedantists agree that this subtle ‘I’ should be given up if you want liberation, but disagree about the terminology and how belief in this ‘I’ can be annihilated. Buddhists say: ‘There is no entity at all, no ‘self’ or ‘I’, just a sequence of causatively conditioned psychic and physical processes.’ For the rest they do not talk about an ‘I’. They even disapprove of talking in terms of ‘I’, for instance in a statement like “When we regard the nature of this knowing as being ‘me’ or ‘I’, and hold onto that concept – this is a small view, and it is confused, mistaken.”1
Nevertheless in Dzogchen, the radical non-dualistic core of Tibetan Buddhism from which the last quote originated, a number of texts have been produced in the past in which the term ‘I’ is used, even with emphasis, to point out the highest principle, as being the ‘majestic creativity of the universe’. In one of the root texts of Dzogchen, the Kunjed Gyalpo, it is stated:
“I, the creativity of the universe, pure and total presence, am the real heart of all spiritual pursuits”; and
“Because all phenomena are none other than me, I, the all-creating one, am the decisive experience of everything.”2
From texts like these it becomes apparent how comparative the term ‘I’ actually is. The same term that deserves to be disapproved as signifying a mistake, is apparently also used to denote the highest principle.
The term ‘I’ is often put in the mouth of the Ultimate, or the Supreme Being, in the scriptures of the different monotheistic religions; it appears that in origin ‘I’ even belongs to his name. On his question to be allowed to hear the name of God, Moses (who has been acknowledged as a religious leader and prophet by Jews as well as Christians and Muslims) received the answer: “I am that I am (Eyeh Asher Eyeh).”3 This well may be the name of names. The heart of the matter that ‘addresses’ itself. Shri Ramana Maharshi, one of the teachers highlighted in this book, said about this name that no definition of God was as well formulated as this one.4 He addressed this statement repeatedly. Once he expounded:
“It is said: ‘I am that I am’. That means a person must abide as ‘I’. He is always the ‘I’ alone. He is nothing else.”5
Such a way of expressing is not very customary in a monotheistic religion. The shift from the Supreme Being, via an identical name, to me, a mortal being, is not customary. Usually, a distance, a gap is maintained. The Ultimate is immense and
I am small. That’s why speaking about the Ultimate in first person grammar, literally ‘I’, is in general not customary in religion. No, it is common to speak in third person, usually ‘He’; which means a speaking about Him. If texts are put in the second person, phrasing a dialogue, for instance the book of Job, they are already conspicuous. The language is somewhat more direct.6 The reader may feel more involved.
Still, it is a different thing when you indicate yourself and the Ultimate with the same word, i.e. first person, thus bridging the deepest gap. Ramana Maharshi was quite impressive in giving credibility to bridging this gap. Time after time, he showed that Reality is that what counts in religion, a Reality that is non-dualistic – meaning that contradictory opinions about the Ultimate are not real, because Reality precedes them. An example of a controversial subject is the question whether God is personal or impersonal. But to Ramana there was no contradistinction. To the question whether God is personal or not he replied:
“Yes, He is always the first person, ‘I’, ever standing before you. Because you give precedence to worldly things, God appears to have receded to the background. If you give up all else and seek Him alone, He alone will remain as ‘I’, the Self.”7
This is an invitation to see that ‘worldly matters’ (i.e. everything that is object to us) only exist thanks to the knowing of them, and that God is never an object to be known. Then it is apparent that That which is not an object cannot be different from That which is knowing now – ‘knowingness’ or seeing itself. This knowingness or seeing is uninterrupted ‘I’. It is the most immediate there is. Even ‘standing before you’, like in Ramana’s quote, is in comparison far away, being just a figure of speech.
“In the beginning this (world) was only the self (atma), in the shape of a person (purusha)”, was stated in the oldest Upanishad, as early as the eighth century before Christ. “Looking around he saw nothing else than the self. He first said: ‘I am’. Therefore arose the name of ‘I’ (aham). Therefore, even to this day when one is addressed he says first ‘This is I’ and then speaks whatever other name he may have.”8
Ramana added to this, speaking about the word aham (‘I’):
“That is the original name of the Reality.”… “Aham is the first name of God. The first letter in Sanskrit is A, and the last letter Ha – and Aha thus includes everything from beginning to end.”9*
In Advaita Vedanta, one of the traditions that emerged from the Upanishads, the term ‘I’ (aham) is repeatedly being used – usually to denote the ego, the separate entity, but frequently also to show by means of this familiar term the entrance to recognize oneself as the Ultimate Principle.
The text fragments in which the Great Statement “I am the Absolute (Aham Brahma asmi)” is emphasized and commented on by Shankara and his students and followers, are famous.10 This statement was made in the Upanishad from which was cited above, actually in line with that text fragment. It says: “Brahman, indeed, was this [whole universe] in the beginning. It knew itself only as ‘I am Brahman’.”11
Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj, the teacher who is discussed in chapter 3, entitled his book that appeared in the English language I am That. In the Advaita tradition the term ‘That’ signifies the Absolute. In a way, one could say that by this statement Nisargadatta joined the Advaita tradition, but that is only partially true. He pointed to the essence of Advaita, indeed, but at the same time he very often rejected all kinds of tradition, not only the advaitic – he actually also rejected everything that was ever written down, even the Upanishads. Seeing that you are ‘That’, Absolute Awareness, was the only thing that mattered to him. He considered the rest as being needless philosophy.
Nisargadatta touched a crucial point here, that should be acknowledged, in my opinion. The point is that no matter how great a certain tradition may have been in its core, it may not have succeeded in staying free of rigidity. Whether this has been caused by too much emphasis on philosophical argumentation, or a holding on to rituals or ascetic commitments and prohibitions – rigidity can often be identified, also in Shankara’s school of Advaita Vedanta.
Although both the other teachers in this book apparently spoke, somewhat more than Nisargadatta did, the language of the scholastic Advaita, they too can be considered as restorers of the primal core of Advaita – or put differently, the core of true non-dualism, that does not acknowledge religious or ethnical restrictions. All three of them showed that non-dualism is truly universal and not a branch of Hinduism. Ramana Maharshi, who usually adopted the terminology of Advaita Vedanta, could be very critical about Advaita, as if he had no part in it. In particular he could not appreciate its endless philosophizing and classifying.12
Shri Atmananda, also known as Shri Krishna Menon, the teacher that is highlighted in chapter 2, was seemingly more established in the tradition of Shankara’s Vedanta. At least he very often spoke in words of praise about it. He said for instance:
“Vedanta is, strictly speaking, the fulfilment of all religions”; and “Vedanta is really a spiritual atom bomb, and it is no wonder that intellectuals tremble to approach it.”13
But despite his enthusiastic talk, he is not a member of the scholastic (and conditional) form that Shankara’s tradition adopted.
All three teachers who will be discussed in this book, are free from whatever religious scheme, therefore making them in particular suitable as a source of teaching for Westerners. I consider these three, Ramana Maharshi, Atmananda and Nisargadatta Maharaj, as the ‘Big Three’ of the twentieth century Advaita Vedanta. To me, they are the ones that reduced Advaita to the heart of the matter: direct recognition of your true nature. All three of them used the word ‘I’ in a constituent term to point to the Ultimate Principle: the first two spoke in terms of ‘I-I’ and ‘I’-Principle respectively, and Nisargadatta offered his two step approach ‘I am’-principle and ‘I, the Absolute’. With this they showed that the way is a direct way in the first place, a way that cannot be found anywhere else than with you, with the direct experience of ‘I’. I don’t know of any teacher or writer, from East or West, who has investigated the truth of what ‘I’ really is, so thoroughly as these three. I don’t know any teacher either who has shown in a comparable way how ‘I’ is really the entrance for the most immediate there is. These three teachers have shown clearly that true Advaita, true nondualism, is not a path of knowledge or philosophy, but a path without methods, a ‘pathless’ path of liberation, an invitation to go nowhere.
This booklet ‘I’ is a Door is dedicated to this theme. It gives a view on the essence of Advaita Vedanta, the core of which is the present realisation of freedom. It offers a short overview of the phenomenon that in the Advaita of the ‘Big Three’ the term ‘I’ is retained, even to designate the highest level of Reality, the level that is prior to and beyond the person. Retaining this term is an aid because it points out that the sense of ‘I’, that seems to belong to a person so obviously, is in fact deeper than this temporary person, and that this sense of ‘I’ is uninterruptedly present, even right now. So it is not necessary to eliminate or exclude something in order to be in contact with the Reality that you are. ‘I’ signifies That which is limitless Light and sheer Freedom.
‘I’ is what everybody says. ‘I’ is the closest there is to anyone. Everyone recognizes it as utmost familiar, completely ‘oneself’, already now. It is all about self-realisation: you have to see the Truth yourself and realize it. ‘I’ is that which is always present, which turns out to be the entrance to Truth. The entrance will never be anywhere else, it doesn’t need to be searched. You don’t have to go anywhere to experience ‘I’. Wherever you go, you are already there. ‘I’ is already there. ‘I’ is a door, and it is always open.
* This way of speaking is akin to the one used in the Bible book The Revelation to John: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” (Rev. 22:13; alpha and omega being the first and last letter in the Greek alphabet).
ONE
Ramana Maharshi
Let us first listen to the most senior of the three, Bhagavan Shri Ramana Maharshi. He has had the strongest influence, and not for nothing Ananda Mayi Ma called him ‘the Sun’.1 He has been recognized as the authentic voice of Advaita and its message of the possibility of being liberated in this lifetime.
Everything in his teaching dealt with the true meaning of ‘I’. He invited the visitor or devotee who requested guidance to ask themselves the question ‘Who am I?’ He considered this the true form of self-enquiry (vichara). He revealed the powerful nature of the question that when properly asked, it causes the dissolving of thoughts and identifications. Bhagavan let the effect of the question be experienced directly by the devotee who asked for guidance.
Yet he also understood that for most people the experience in itself required also the right foundation of understanding. The right interpretation of the experience is as important. Therefore he repeatedly explained in great detail the relation between ‘the I’ and that which is really ‘I’, the ultimate ‘Self’.
He indicated that ‘the I’ (aham-kara), or the ‘I-thought’ (aham-vritti) as he often called it, has to be killed, destroyed. I have always thought this is a very tricky linguistic usage, because it seems to invite conflict. Generally people are already engaged with struggles within themselves and I think this aggressive terminology requires an explanation. If ultimately the goal is peace, then the escalation of the inner conflict cannot be the intention.
Ramana Maharshi himself also spoke differently. If someone asked how this ‘I’ should be eliminated, he said for instance:
“You need not eliminate the wrong ‘I’. How can ‘I’ eliminate itself? All that you need to do is to find out its origin and abide there.”2
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