2024-04-14 Sri Ramana Aradhana: What is real ‘seeing’ or ‘knowing’ God?

During the international celebration of Bhagavan Ramana’s 74th Aradhana (anniversary of the day he left his body) organised by Arunachala Ashrama, New York, on 14th April 2024 Michael James discusses what the real 'seeing' or 'knowing' of God is.
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/what-... and a more compressed audio copy in Opus format (which can be listened to in the VLC media player and some other apps) can be downloaded from mediafire.com/file/psy3l2253h...

[@christianandersson2217]

Thank You! 🙏

[@Leenyazbek]

I love the mirror analogy

[@rviswanathan]

🙏

[@nothinghere1996]

God I s a machine. it's apparatus has been seen.

[@svarupa]

[@johnmcdonald260]

One can find all kind of bizarre seekers on a spiritual blog, one category is the “atma-vichara zealot”. They lecture anybody to practice atma-vichara instead to comment. They go even so far to tell Michael to turn within instead to give all these lectures. Makes sense, at least for ego.
Now that of course is ego's usual projection job, it sees its own deficiencies in others and, like a monkey seeing itself in the reflection of a pond, attacks it.
Now we all dislike practicing atma-vichara, ego hates it because it knows it will kill it, so to speak. Also we have to be realistic, we spend most of the time during the day NOT practicing atma-vichara, anybody claiming the opposite belongs to the same category of nut-cases who like to imply to have “awakened”. Also it depends on our prarabdha karma, some tend to be more talkative, others rarely comment, however there is no qualitative difference in that. And I am talking about commenting and not practicing atma-vichara, that does not depend on karma since self-attention transcends all karma.
That's why Michael is giving lectures and studies Bhagavan's work, it's the next best thing to sinking deeply within. Same for us, when we make proper comments about Bhagavan's teaching we keep our mind focused on that and it leads us to go back to turn within.
Let's be clear about something here, we are all mere beginners and I include Michael and everybody else who gives spiritual lectures, since according to Bhagavan someone who is really 'advanced' has lost all interest in the world including his teachings, there is not the least desire to make comments on blogs nor give lectures of any kind or write books etc.
*We will never hear or notice of the true sadhakas in this world since they certainly do not frequent any social media or seeking any limelight, why would they?*

[@sundar7684]

You have truly understood the learning. Real siddhis will hardly socialise and not speak as well

[@AHnonprofit]

Michael is absolutely a true Sadaka, and I am very grateful that he does these talks. I listen every day for at least 2 to 3 hours and listening to him helps to turn the attention within. When I was in Tiruvannamalai a few months ago I was telling everyone I met about Michael and its surprising how many people don't know about him. I was trying not to be judgmental of others who have heard of Michael but don't listen to his talks or read his blogs because I felt that most do not understand Bhagavan's teachings if they don't hear what Michael says.
But it is easy to make assumptions about others and much harder to keep turning within to abide as one's being. Commenting or not commenting on TH-cam is not that important, it's really just the cultivation of our sat-vasana that matters. At Ramana Ashram I found it easier to stay totally focused on self investigation. With Bhagavan's grace I will return there again soon and get away from all the work activities that prabadha has brought.
Be well John, some of your comments are very sweet and sincere. it's the ones where you go after others and argue and preach and act like a bully that have been a good mirror for my own vasanas.
Be well, Rafael

[@johnmcdonald260]

@@AHnonprofit My pleasure to have given you insights about your propensity to bullying and arguing and going after others! That's a nice tool Bhagavan has given us since otherwise we would not be able to see our own blind-spots. Alas most who get annoyed by others cannot (or do not want to) see that they have exactly the same habit slumbering in their subconscious. They prefer to just blame others, ego's favorite pastime.
To find it easier to stay focused on self-investigation at specific locations is a vasana too and that idea needs to be discarded. Actually to seek out accommodating environments is detrimental to the path since with that another like is strengthened, certainly to be avoided. Location should not matter, in order to be ready to advance one needs to be able to investigate self equally in the Old Hall, at Piccadilly Circus or at a pond infested with mosquitoes which are biting us.
Namo Ramanaya 🙏🙏🙏

[@AHnonprofit]

​@@johnmcdonald260I happily accept the Vasana of wanting to be at Arunachala over other places. May Bhagavan make it so if HE pleases to draw me there to Arunachala into HIS Heart or to remove that Vasana!
Namo Ramanaya 🙏

[@johnmcdonald260]

@@AHnonprofit It looks like ego is cleverly trying to skirt the issue of having preferences of locations for practicing self-investigation. Instead to accept what I've said (actually something Bhagavan emphasized) you make it sound as something to ignore. Ego resists what it does not like to accept.
And yes, if Bhagavan wants you at a certain place, i.e. at Arunachala, that will happen. What will *NOT* happen is that he makes you practice self-investigation - that is up to you and he also won't remove that vasana unless you have practiced self-investigation *everywhere* equally - how could he as long as you believe that certain spots are better than others? He is not acting against your will.
Frankly, nobody should be disappointed or feel disadvantaged if their prarabdha will never lead them to Arunachala since Bhagavan IS in the very core of our own Hearts. The belief that he is more "present" at certain locations than others is an imagination of mind and an impediment for liberation.

[@johnmcdonald260]

I find it contradictory that people celebrate Bhagavan's "Aradhana" since it implies something Bhagavan did not teach. What exactly has left "his" body? Did that body really exist?
Was that what left his body confined in that body? If not, did that then really leave a "body"?
If people enjoy it then by all means do it, alas it will create confusion since it implies that Bhagavan was really that body and that he died from cancer. He did not die and that cancer is a projection/creation of ego.

[@josefbruckner7154]

I refer to "Was that what left his body confined in that body? If not, did that then really leave a "body"? ".
When that (Bhagavan's) body breathed his last, Bhagavan's essence was rid from the heavy burden of that cancer-weakened body.
So Bhagavan's real substance did not die.
In which way Bhagavan as our sat-guru is helping and teaching us even now everybody must review in one's subjective experience.
I personally do not take offence when people of Sri Ramanasramam continue bowing to the statues of Bhagavan's body and worship even the pictures.
In this way these people seem to show their deep love for and surrender to Bhagavan - just in their own way.

[@johnmcdonald260]

@@josefbruckner7154 Hello again. You've said that Bhagavan's essence got rid of the burden of the body. That can be only a figure of speech since atma-swarupa is never aware of a body and therefore it cannot be a “burden”. It can only be a burden if one is aware of the body as an object. The last time when Bhagavan was aware of a body was in 1896 when he had that “death” experience.
When you read accounts by Lakshmana Swamy David Godman has posted on his website you'll see that he talked about that, after his supposedly self-realization, he temporarily experienced his body and that he had phases where he went into self and came out of it and how he would prefer to stay there and have no more a “body awareness”.
Accounts like this by impostors like Lakshmana Swamy and irresponsibly posted by David is one of the reason that people get confused and misunderstand Bhagavan. There is no going in and out of self after self-realization and there is never a “body awareness”. That is nonsense. Pure awareness is only aware of pure awareness, nothing else! There are also no “experiences of self” as impostors like Lakshmana Swamy stated and David likes to mention frequently. To talk about “experiences of self” is crudely distorting Bhagavan's teaching.
I agree with the rest of your comment, if people get a benefit from that kind of worship by all means, I pray to Bhagavan (the “person”) in desperate times since that is easier for me than to pray to atma-swarupa.

[@josefbruckner7154]

@@johnmcdonald260, hello, yes I agree, at least in our view it was a burden.
As you imply “experiences of self” is at best a metaphorical figure of speech. Experiences are merely objective, dual. According Bhagavan: Our real nature is "seen" in the heart only by being or having become god or merging in atma-svarupa, our own essential self.

[@ryanwhite6859]

Thank You.

[@AHnonprofit]

​@josefbruckner7154 I like your comment. I sometimes felt like I could not resonate with all the bowing and worshipping I saw in tiru but other times I felt that same sentiment.
I like the story Michael James sometimes tells about the devotee who threw herself at Bhagavan Ramana's feet and he said, what are you doing, these feet are perishable, it is the feet in your own self in your heart you ought to cling to...
I paraphrase from memory of hearing Michael narrate it in several videos.
Namo Ramanaya 🙏

[@user-pt4qd8fs8k]

In a sense, the fact that all seemingly 'separate' sentient beings (be it a 'human being' or a 'honeybee') are, by default, consciously adverse to or repulsed by the activity of self-attention is all you' need to know..
This is no 'coincidence', being that sustained self-attention (i.e. 'meditation'; 'Non-destructive implosive charge-compression') dispels the psychosomatic illusion of 'subject-object split' ('duality') as it at once compresses, then illuminates, and thus negates the concept of 'linear-time' ('past'-future') and with it the façade and impetus for biological 'evolution' - which is really an 'evolution' of insentient ideas, of lifeless thought (''the collective unconscious'')
In this unbridled way of absolute and uncompromising clarity we can distinguish the phenomenal; that 'is' the unqualified 'objective' inference (or 'dreaming') or projection of 'space-time' i.e. 'collective unconscious' (i.e. what you're not) from timeless and spaceless Awareness; (non-binary, non-linear, & non-computational) being the noumenon - what alone exists, what You' already and forever are; pure and indivisible Being (verb) or Awareness ('that' which already is, without name, form, or colour)
#indivisibleBeing
#alreadyboundless