SELF-IMPOSED LIMITATIONS

Truly there is no cause for you
to be miserable and unhappy.

You yourself impose limitations on your true nature of
Infinite Being, and then weep that you are 
but a finite creature.

Then you take up this or that sadhana to transcend the non-existent limitations.

But if your sadhana itself assumes the existence of such limitations ,
how can it help you to transcend them?

Hence i say, know that you ARE really infinite, pure BEING -the Self absolute.

The only way to get rid of your grief is to know and be the Self.

How can this be unattainable?

- Maharshi's Gospel

WHO IS RAMANA?

Someone wrote,"Ramana was an ordinary human being. Why not take him at his word? He was a mountain of common sense in a sea of superstition...."

I answered: To call him equal is a judgement also. How do we know? Better than all conclusions is to look at facts. An ordinary human being is usually unable to radiate such a power of peace that was felt by animals and human beings alike so that they forgot their former state of mind and felt at home.

Monkeys came and were tame, asking him to arbitrate their conflicts. Human beings came and some received enlightenment, also a spark that average, ordinary beings don't radiate. So we must be careful not to put our conclusions and make him according to our likings.

Any image of God or guru is self-fabricated. Some belittle the great ones to express their desire to be equal to them. Others put them on an imagined high pedestal to feel great with the idea to have a great guru. Best is to follow Bhagavan's teachings to go to the root of mind and realize TRUTH. That was the only thing he asked us to do. The Old Testament says, 'Don't create an image of God'. That is advaitic teaching. All images, big or small are only ego images. That is why Africans venerate black gods.

On the other hand: images have their place. The can be a door to the formless. Who are we to judge others?

A devotee named Amritanatha Yati wrote on a paper a Malayalam verse imploring Bhagavan to say whether he was Hari (Vishnu) or Sivaguru (Subrahmanya) or Yativara (Siva) or Vararuchi. Bhagavan wrote his reply in the same Malayalam metre on the same paper. A translation of it is given below.

In the recesses of the lotus-shaped Hearts of all, beginning with Vishnu, there shines as pure intellect (Absolute Consciousness) the Paramatman, who is the same as Arunachala Ramana. When the mind melts with love of Him, and reaches the inmost recess of the Heart wherein He dwells as the beloved, the subtle eye of pure intellect opens and He reveals Himself as Pure Consciousness.

ONE THING

There is One Thing - It existed before the earth and skies came into being, and it will exist long after they all have disappeared. The heavens and earth could appear a thousand times and be destroyed ten thousand times, but this One Thing would not change at all.

This One Thing is incomprehensibly huge. The entire universe is 
just a spray of water in comparison to this ocean.

This One Thing is incomparably brighter than a trillion billion suns and moons, and it constantly lights up everything. This absolute Great Light is beyond light and dark, and yet it lights everything that exists.

This One Thing is beyond description, beyond discrimination, and
it is absolute. But even the term "absolute" is entirely inadequate to describe it. To call it "One Thing" is to lie, because "One Thing" is only a name, and a terribly inadequate name. All Buddhas of the universe could spend eternity describing it, but such an effort would be insignificant. If you were to become enlightened, then you yourself would know;
but you would never be able to explain it to anyone.

This One Thing is called "Buddha" by those who have become enlightened. It is beyond the agony of life and death, and those who know it become free-flowing for the rest of eternity. But those who have not become enlightened to this One Thing continue to struggle and suffer in the sea of life and death, in the everlasting cycle of the four forms of birth and the six realms of sentient existence.

Even the tiniest form of life includes this One Thing. Both an enlightened Buddha and an unenlightened ant possess it. The only difference between them is that one knows it and the other doesn't.

It is so brilliant and astounding that even the Buddha and Bodhidharma cannot look at it when they raise their eyes. They can open their mouths, but cannot describe it. They and all our other Zen patriarchs become merely blind and mute in the face of it.

All one can do is to become enlightened to it, and then become totally free-flowing in it.

Tong Songchol (1912~1993), one of the great Zen masters in the last century was also called the Living Buddha of Korea.