2024-07-03 Sandra & Michael part 2b: Michael answers questions
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.ค. 2024
- Following the book launch in August 2023 of Ramana Maharshi's Forty Verses on What Is, a compilation of the writings and talks of Michael James on Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu, Michael and Sandra have started a series of talks in which Michael explains the essential import of these verses and all of Ramana's teachings in 8 key points -- 8 talks (videos).
On 3rd July 2024, Michael talked about the 2nd key point "what we actually are is just pure existence-awareness (sat-cit), which is what always shines as our own being, our fundamental awareness ‘I am’, and which is the infinite fullness of perfect happiness (ānanda)". The video of this talk (part 2a) can be watched here: • 2024-07-03 Sandra & Mi...
In this video (part 2b) Michael answers (more) questions related to Ramana's teachings.
FREE SAMPLE OF THE BOOK:
You can find the 8 key points in the introduction that Michael wrote to this book (pp. xxxi-xxxii), which is also part of the 108-page free sample that you can download here: u.pcloud.link/publink/show?co...
A clearer audio copy of this video can be listened to on Sri Ramana Teachings podcast (ramanahou.podbean.com) or downloaded from ramanahou.podbean.com/e/2024-..., and a more compressed audio copy in Opus format (which can be listened on the VLC media player and some other apps) can be downloaded from mediafire.com/file/4ytsgwukx8...
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A clearer audio copy of this video can be listened to on Sri Ramana Teachings podcast (ramanahou.podbean.com) or downloaded from ramanahou.podbean.com/e/2024-07-03-michael-answers-questions, and a more compressed audio copy in Opus format (which can be listened on the VLC media player and some other apps) can be downloaded from mediafire.com/file/4ytsgwukx87f4ez
Thank You! 🙏
I had a burning question about dementia that I have asked other people about. My Mom has really lost much of her mental capacity and caring for her has been challenging until I was reminded by Michael that Bhagavan taught us (dementia) sickness is for the body/speech/mind. My Mom is pure awareness and that is how even in her most confused moments , I can relate to her heart center from my heart center , the pure awareness 'I AM'. Thank you again Michael and Sandra.
' God ' bless you and your mother in the midst of your challenge 🙏
Well, that would be exactly what Bhagavan says: It's your dream.
Short Q&A videos from this channel can be watched on youtube.com/@sriramanateachingsqa
Sri Arunachala Aksharamanamalai sung by Sri Sadhu Om, with English translation by Michael James, can be watched here: vimeo.com/ramanahou/am000 . For advertisement-free videos on teachings and songs related to Bhagavan Ramana, please visit vimeo.com/ramanahou and click 'showcases' on the bottom left. Each original work of Bhagavan Ramana has its own showcase with explanations of Michael James.
Many thanks as always.
Namo Ramanaya
🙏🙏🙏
Listening to this was like being caught in a deluge of advaita . Drenched to the core by sacred explanations falling heavily from skies full of Bhagavan's teachings. I find myself soaked in Advaita .🙏🕉️
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hi Michael, i have a questions regarding the experiencer is the experienced which is essentially the ego. Sometimes in your talks you mention that you have to have a direct experience into this awareness in order to know it. and for that its no longer a concept coz u have a direct experience on it. my question is How do we know if that was the experiencer/ego is talking it and therefore not true? or how did ramana maharshi have a direct experience of the divine/Brahman and its not the ego/experiencer experiencing it.? thanks. Peace
Hi, sorry for interrupting. My understanding what Michael said about Sri Ramana’s experience is not what you implied. This is the ego that creates the world and experiences it as a body-mind. Therefore, the the experience is the experienced. If the ego-mind disappears there is no world, there is only pure awareness, which is the only reality.
Bhagavan Ramana - 'Bhakti is the mother of Jnana' - 🙏 Does any one have any recommendations on talks or written material on Bhakti as the mother of Jnana ?
Towards the end of this talk 2024-07-03 above is appreciated.Thank you Michael James.
Please you may read for instance Michael's article of Thursday 10 March 2022
Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai: pāyiram, kāppu and verse 1.😊
If you are looking for Indian scriptures Srimad Bhagavatham starts with this concept...
@@josefbruckner7154 Thank you.
@@Sheesha8 Thank you.
I was very interested to hear about how to put atma vicara into practise throughout the day as I have been delving into this question for some weeks now. I was paricularly interested when Michael was saying about while working "who is working?......I am working or I am concentrating. But surely this is the person who is working or concentrating. Atma vicara will be much easier to do if this is true practise as it would be more like living in the moment. As a person who has very little to do each day I have little choice but to sit there and do it and get bombarded with thoughts or to fall asleep or to indulge in wasteful exploits such as watching youtube or listening to music. So would saying "I am watching a video " be Atma Vicara? My attention would surely go to myself and the result would be not paying attention to the video. So how to spend 14 hours a day??
No, saying or better thinking "I am watching a video" is not atma-vichara. Self-investigation is not a mental process. Why? Because it creates thoughts. Attending to "I am" diffuses thoughts, they have no chance to come up and if they do one has stopped attending to "I am".
For the beginner it is very difficult to practice atma-vichara during activities like manual labor or watching videos. It is better to just sit on a sofa or take a walk and practice then.
Let's say the body is watching a video what means your body sits somewhere and your head looks towards the screen. What is important here is where does the attention of mind go? Is it following the video and listening to the thoughts coming up referring to the video or, with atma-vichara, is it attending to "I am"? In that case one is not really following the movie the deeper one attends to "I am". If someone has deeply sunk to "I am" then one is not even aware of the video nor the screen or anything else but "I am". The head may still look towards the screen, the mind attends instead to "I am". It is not concerned about what the body does. The body functions *WITHOUT* the mind just fine.
How does saying "I am watching ....." lead one's attention "surly to yourself"??? No, your attention goes to the thoughts, "I am watching ...." and not to yourself. You have replaced one phenomena with another but still not attending to "I am"!
"I am" is the simple sense of being/existence *WITHOUT* any thoughts! If one uses the aid of thinking "Who am I" then thinking these words are not attending to "I am" but at the exact instance *after* that question when the mind has moved to the [seeming] source where those thoughts appearing from, that is "I am".
very well articulated! @@johnmcdonald260
@@A.H.Nonprofit Thank you, I'd be lying if I'd pretend to not enjoy a sincere compliment.
I'd like to add to my reply to Nicholas: When I started practicing atma-vichara I did it incorrect for awhile, what I did is that I tried to pay attention to any thoughts coming up throughout the day and as soon as I noticed them I interrupted these thoughts by suppressing them. That felt like atma-vichara since I stopped getting lost in these train of thoughts we all have throughout the day. However suppressing thoughts is not atma-vichara since I was not attending to "I am". I had an instinctive idea what "I am" is but since it seems very elusive for the mind (since it is beyond mind) I was unsure for quite awhile and only repeatedly attending to that "elusiveness" increased the clarity of that "I am".
As I said before to you, a huge clue is that "I am" does not change, it is *always the same* . That is the reason why it is also called the "natural state". Many on this path do not get that. We do not practice to attain that elusiveness, that "I am" or our self, we are it at all times! We practice not in order to attain but in order to lose or get rid of that what is not permanent and that is ego. Every experience, anything which changes, which comes and goes, is ego. That includes peace, bliss, "expansive silence or emptiness" since if these things are not experienced *AT ALL TIMES* , i.e. in *deep sleep* - then they cannot be real! Of course that includes also "others", loved ones, this world, the universe, anything one perceives - they are all not real.
We do not want to attend to anything which is not real, worst is to attend to bliss, all extremely pleasant experiences, or siddhis etc. since they will overpower ego and the will to attend to "I am" instead will go down to zero.
*The only thing which is experienced at all times is "I am"!* . And that experience is truly not an experience but simple being/existence.
Since we all live and perceive and act with mind/ego, that what always changes, it takes some time to get familiar with the unchanging "I am". Now with increasing familiarity with that "I am" there is a certain resilience, a subtle "comfort", one can rest with the never changing peace of "I am".
If we attend to "I am" and with doing that simultaneously our attention is withdrawn from phenomena, that simple being will, just by being which is non-volitional and no action, reduce and finally annihilate all thoughts, vrittis and with that mind/ego and all phenomena, that is called manonasa.
@@johnmcdonald260 I agree so why was Michael saying I am working or concentrating. If it was to remind one to turn within okay but it doesn't come across as that to me. On the subject of the question "who am I?" you wrote at the end, I have always found that question took me to that place of just being.It was what attracted me to Ramana initially. So when I started listening to Michael saying that Ramana never said ask the question "who am I?" I stopped doing it and have struggled ever since.
@@nicholaskemp4500 The mental question "Who am I?" can be used as an aid *in the beginning* when it seems difficult to attend to "I am". Aid means *occasional use* and not to use it continuously because that would defeat the purpose since one keeps asking mentally constantly and the attention will go more to the question and not to the intended purpose of the question, the seeming origin of the thought "I".
And yes, when Bhagavan said "ask yourself 'who am I?' " he was not suggesting to actually mentally ask that question but was pointing to that where seemingly the thought "I" is coming from.
When we mentally ask "Who am I?" that question leads the mind to the seeming origin of "I". *That* thoughtless "state" immediately after the question is where Bhagavan is pointing to and proper atma-vichara is attending to that *without* any mental questions or activity. The attention simply shifts from phenomena to "I am".
Occasionally, in the beginning, when I felt too distracted I asked mentally "Who am I?" and that helped me, in this instance, to get back to "I am". However, if one tends to use that aid continuously it will defeat the purpose since then asking "Who am I?" will become a habit and that defeats its purpose as an aid.
Again, it is only an occasional aid in the very beginning and not needed after one has become more familiar with "I am". It must be discarded and actually, if one does things correctly, the need for this aid will drop by itself since it has lost its usefulness.
When Michael says "concentrating" he does not mean that in the usual way a mind concentrates since it can only concentrate on an object it is aware of. The mind can *never* be aware of "I am" since it is not an object, one cannot concentrate on "I am", one can only BE it. It is difficult to describe the non-dual state of "I am" with language which can only be dual, thus the confusion with terms like concentrating and doing and practice.
Proper atma-vichara does *not* involve any concentration, focusing, "doing", action, and with that it is not really a practice as understood in the common sense. Because concentrating, focusing, action, practice are all transpiring within duality, that what transpires in duality can *never* reach the non-dual state of "I am" or self.
The only seeming doing is when mind is shifting its attention from phenomena to "I am". After that shift there is no doing since being "I am" is not an action and is non-volitional. If it is not non-volitional one does not practice atma-vichara. Many beginners will get an headache because the mind is straining to "hold" 'I am', that is false, being "I am" takes no energy and must be free of all strain or effort, it is or must be effortless. The effort is *only* when the attention to "I am" has faltered and mind needs to re-direct its attention to "I am". That seems to need an effort. Eventually even that will be effortless in the so-called nivritti state, a highly advanced state Bhagavan has described.
When I give dream analogy to someone to explain Bhagwan's teachings, they say that dream analogy is not valid since there are differences in waking and dream such as
The waking world has physical rules and dream is weird.
The dream is sometimes lucid.
yes, but it doesn't seem weird while dreaming. when it's lucid they can't wake in sleep state. follow 1 rule of fight club
awake is just a denser more controlled version of dream.
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A talking beard