I found the following letter written by a person seeking after spirituality quite interesting. It caught my attention and I offer to our readers for reflection and further thought...Chandi.
ஐயா, DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME
I must have been barely fourteen years of age when my elder brother, who was in a distant land, introduced me to two ideas: 1) The Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahamsa Yogananda 2) Ramana Maharishi. The latter one, my brother opined, is worthy of devotion because Ramana is a Dravidian - A Tamil.
I was fascinated by both these ideas. Because these interpreted Christ more eloquently, vividly and moreover both Paramahamsa and Ramana made deep impressions in the formation of spiritual ideas in a tender mind. I began to perceive there and then that spirituality is much higher than just an intellectual ascent to certain texts.
Again, as part of my formation, my brother, from a long distance, put me in touch with an elderly sage named 'Pandithar ஐயா'. I travelled to Punngudutivu in order to sit at his side, and listen and learn. I found that adventurous.
I however, saw some ideas of Maharishi quite challenging. He was speaking in Christian terms - especially from the Hebrew texts - the Old Testament. I Am that I am: This is how, God introduces himself to Moses at the burning bush encounter. God has asked the reluctant Moses to go and ask Pharaoh to "Let My people go." Moses demands, quite rightly, so what is Your Name. Out of the bush on fire, God replies: I AM that I AM.
'Be still and know that I AM' is also from the ancient Jewish text.
I now refer to the following few words of Maharishi:
- ‘I am that I am’. ‘I am’ is God.. .not thinking, ‘I am God’. Realise ‘I am’ and do not think ‘I am’. ‘Know I am God’... it is said, and not ‘Think I am God’.
- Mere book-learning is not of any great use. After realisation all intellectual loads are useless burdens and are thrown overboard as jetsam. Jettisoning the ego is necessary and natural.
- Is not ‘I am’ also a thought?...The egoless ‘I AM’ is ‘not a thought. It is Realisation. The meaning or significance of ‘I’ is God. The experience of 'I am’ is to ‘BE STILL’.
- ‘Be still and know that I am God’. To be still is not to think.’ Know, and not think, is the word!
I remember from early readings that Maharishi is saying that 'to think is not the real nature'.
I hit a brick wall. Is he saying be still; and not think? I found that enormously difficult. The faculty of reasoning; the gift of thinking, thoughts and ideas and imaginations of human mind are essentially spiritual gifts of God. These are gifts not for selfish usage or for the puffing up of heads and egos.
To think not will be is to be not human. Not to think will make us automatons without the power of choice.
The moment a person stops thinking then that person literally looses one's autonomy and hence the concept of I AM. Alzheimer's is a clear example.
If "I Am" who demanded the liberation of the Hebrew slaves, then God - that great I AM was and is interested in the freedom of humankind in a very existential reality. Should God demand humans to loose one's autonomy by relinquishing one's thought - voluntarily or involuntarily - then religion becomes an opiate - it becomes a lamp post than an illuminating lamp.
Such an idea of humans becoming thoughtless blobs would extiquish the divinity of God, and hence God would cease to be God because with out the dynamism of thought that "I Am" would simply cease to be Logos - the logic of God.
In the beginning was the Word: In the beginning was the articulation of the eternal sound: AuM.
நன்றிமிக்க.
தேடும் மனிதன்