[Advaita-l] Commentary on Ramana's Forty Verses

[Ven Balakrishnan]

RAMANAMAHARISHI

Ramanamaharishi never said anyone must do anything.  It is evident that the more intense a person’s vairagya, disidentification with body-mind, the more naturally the actions and possessions will fall away. This is not a volitional giving up, but an inevitable giving up as a result of seeing the world as unreal, illusory.  To tell all and sundry that visited him, and who were not advanced on their path, to become monks would have been preposterous - so he gave them advice at their own level.

In response to your question, here is Ramana in GVK:

829. Since it is impossible to know beforehand the last moment of one’s life, it is best for one who has a firm determination [to put an end to birth and death] to renounce at the very moment he gets disgust for the body and world.

Sri Muruganar: Since vairagya, the firm determination to put an end to birth and death, is the correct sign of maturity, one should take to renunciation [sannyasa] as soon as a disgust arises in one for the body and world, no matter to which of the four ashramas [modes of life] one may belong at that time. The ascending order of ashramas is applicable only to ordinary seekers and not to those mature aspirants who have intense vairagya.

830. Just as a fruit falls from the tree when ripe, so an aspirant will certainly renounce his family life like saltless gruel as soon as he becomes fully mature, unless his prarabdha interferes as an obstacle.

831. Those who have understood that the multiple objects, which appear in and from oneself like a dream [but which are seen as if an external universe] are mere mental conceptions [projections of one’s vasanas within] and who have therefore renounced them, alone can destroy maya the deceptive defect. Others do not know how to destroy this defect.

Sadhu Om: Until this world-appearance is understood to be one’s own mental projection or conception, like a dream, the sense of reality [satya-buddhi] towards it will remain in one, and hence one will not be able to achieve perfect renunciation. The fact that the world is merely an unreal mental delusion is also stressed in the next verse.

832. Perfect Jnanis, who have experienced Self, the non- dual real knowledge, will not be bewildered by this dual sight [the world-appearance]. They will renounce it as an empty, tricky delusion [maya]. 

833. Buddha renounced unlimited wealth because he had understood the transitoriness [of this world]. Therefore, for one who has known the transitoriness of the world visible to the senses, it is impossible to be laukika [a worldly-minded person].

[Note Muruganar gave up married life to be a sannyasin with Bhagavan (which he did not discourage); Sadhu Om was also a sannyasin]


BHAGAVAD GITA

In BG, Krishna is teaching Arjuna the path of karma yoga, because he recognises that Arjuna is not yet mature enough for renunciation - which is what Arjuna wanted to do, but this was a volitional renunciation based on his egoistic will of not wishing to fight his family; not a ’natural’ renunciation that comes from understanding.

Hence Krishna teaches Arjuna desireless action - naiskama karma.  Krishna’s 'seeing action in inaction' is this very point - simple physical renunciation, but with all the desires and thoughts running in one’s mind is not true renunciation.  True renunciation is total loss of one’s sense of identification with a particular body-mind, but when that happens, Sankara asks what actions can there be left.

In BG 14.21 Arjuna asks Krishna what is the behaviour of one who has transcended the three gunas.  In Sankara’s bhasya to Krishna’s reply in 14.25 he writes:

"'’who has renounced all enterprise’ i.e. WHO IS APT TO GIVE UP ALL UNDERTAKINGS, WHO HAS GIVEN UP ALL ACTIONS OTHER THAN THOSE NEEDED MERELY FOR THE MAINTENANCE OF THE BODY; he is said to have gone beyond the qualities. The disciplines leading to the state of transcendence of the qualities [gunas], which have been stated (in the verses) beginning from ‘he who, sitting like one indifferent,’ and ending with ‘he is said to have gone beyond the qualities’ have to be practised by a monk, a seeker of Liberation, so long as they are to be achieved through effort”


SANKARA ON RENUNCIATION AND INCOMPATIBILITY OF HOUSEHOLDER LIFE

Sankara throughout his bhasyas explains that renunciation is an inevitable corollary of knowledge that one is not the body-mind, and of unity of all.  He often asks if one knows one’s unity with all, what desires can there be, and in the absence of desires what action can there be.  The only exception to action that he makes is for ’the good of the world’ - like a Janaka - such action is obviously free from personal desire.

In Brhadaranyaka Up Bhasya 4.4.22, Sankara unequivocally states:

"Therefore, should a person desire that world of the Self, for him the chief and direct means of that would be the withdrawal from all activities . . . so for one who has known about Brahman and desires to realise the world of the Self, the  life of a monk consisting in the cessation of all desires is undoubtedly enjoined . . . Therefore, desiring the world of the Self monks renounce their homes, i.e. should renounce. Thus it is an injunction.”


In his bhasya to Aitreya Up 1.1 he makes the logically coherent statement:

"Action is inconceivable in one who has the knowledge of Brahman as his Self as comprised in the realisation, “I am the supreme Brahman in which all desires are fulfilled and which is above all the worldly shortcomings”, and who has no idea of results because he feels no need for anything to be got for himself from actions done or to be done (by him)."

He then answers an objection of why a jnani can’t continue life as a householder:

"Objection: Then it comes to this that renunciation follows as a matter of course and is not fit to be enjoined. Therefore, if the supreme knowledge of Brahman dawns in domestic life, the passive man may continue in that state, and there need be no moving away from it

Answer: No, since domestic life is a product of desire . . . And so the inactive man of realisation cannot continue in the domestic life itself . . .

Against this argument, some householders, shy of begging alms and afraid of ridicule, advance the following rejoinder, thereby making a show of their intellectual acumen: Inasmuch as a mendicant, desirous merely of maintaining his body, is seen to subject himself to regulations about begging, there may be continuance in the domestic life even for a householder who has become freed from both kinds of desires with regard to ends and means, but who has to depend on mere food and raiment for the maintenance of the body.

Answer: Not so, for this has already been refuted by saying that the constant habit of resorting to any particular house of one’s own is prompted by desire. When there is no clinging to any particular house of one’s own, there follows begging alone, as a matter of course, in the case of one who has no special inclination for turning to his own and who seeks for food and raiment under the impulsion of maintaining the body.”



CONCLUSION

Quotes taken in isolation (e.g. "action in inaction”), can be misleading.  When taken holistically, they seem to contradict each other.  So one has to understand what the implication is of that contradiction, and think through the actual import of sruti and bhasya. 

Physical renunciation is pointless without mental renunciation.  However, physical renunciation is inevitable, spontaneous, with mental renunciation (utter body-mind disidentification).  But only a few will achieve this state of jnana.  For the rest of us, we have to strive in karma yoga, until the natural renunciation becomes inevitable - Ramana: ‘just as a fruit falls from the tree when ripe’.

Advaita is a path of truth, of utter desirelessness and austerity.  There is a movement to make it more palatable to a larger (Western) 'market', by diluting Sankara’s oft-repeated words, saying they are an outcome of their times, and focusing on the knowledge aspect rather that the concomitant desirelessness aspect.  That is simply picking and choosing bits of sruti that appear more congenial.  Moreover Ramanamaharishi’s life in the 20th century exemplified Sankara’s description of a jnani / jivanmukta - so invalidating the argument that Sankara was just talking in the cultural milieu of life a 1000 plus years ago.




> On 17 Jun 2021, at 03:04, Akilesh Ayyar <ayyar at akilesh.com> wrote:
> 
> Show me where in his written works it is said that one MUST take to monkhood and give up the householder life. Not once does he say that. 
> 
> His talks, as you well know, all contradict that idea, and so do the spirit of his words. 
> 
> The burden is on you to show why he didn’t say it was a must if it is so important. Why didn’t he say, as Sankara clearly does in his texts to his Brahmin disciples, “you MUST give up the householder life”? 
> 
> If we are taking Ramana’s words “LITERALLY,” and jnanis are “literally” dead to the world, then, again, why do jnanis eat? 
> 
> Again, verbal gymnastics will not save you from an inadequate understanding. Literalness yields nonsense in nonduality. 
> 
> In the BG Krishna clearly says over and over again that non-action is not the same as the way of monkhood. Arjuna and Janaka are just two examples of non-monk jnanis. 
> 
> On Wed, Jun 16, 2021 at 6:25 PM Ven Balakrishnan <ventzu at yahoo.co.uk <mailto:ventzu at yahoo.co.uk>> wrote:
> It is a source of amusement to see so-many self-proclaimed jnanis passionately emphasise that renunciation, utter desirelessness is not a concomitant of jnana.  I wonder why that could be?
> 
> And the verbal acrobatics to justify this position, arguing a phrase here is figurative, whereas a phrase there should be taken literally.
> 
> Bhagavan in the recorded Talks was talking at the level of the seekers that asked him questions.  After all, in the BG, Krishna said only very few would ever achieve jnana.  And there can be some question over whether the recorder of the talks was accurate in his note-taking and interpretation.  So his written works like Ulladu Narpadu and GVK have to be the best authority for his teaching.  
> 
> I suggest you find something in his written work (incl GVK) that would support the contention that utter desirelessness / disassociation with body-mind is not what is meant by jnana.  If he said it "many times”, then surely he or Muruganar must have written it down as well.  Whereas I can find you quite a few written quotes, like your own in this second verse, that makes exactly that point; let alone the guidance he gave to some of his closest disciples who lived lives of renunciation and austerity around him - Muruganar, Annamalai Swami, Chadwick, Sadhu Natananda, Sadhu Om, to name but a few.  Find a realised disciple in Ramana’s constellation who lived the life of a householder.
> 
> The argument that Gaudapada / Sankara / the Upanishads were aimed at monks is a novel one, as opposed to elucidating what they believed was the highest truth to all.  Again, it is case of taking some teaching as gospel, and others as figurative or a product of their cultural times.  Convenient, no?
> 
> Ramana’s actionlessness and renunciation from the outset - without having read any sruti - exemplifies exactly what  Sankara described as the life of a jivanmukta.  As Sw Chinmayananda said of him, ‘he is the cream of the upanishads’.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> On 16 Jun 2021, at 21:11, Akilesh Ayyar <ayyar at akilesh.com <mailto:ayyar at akilesh.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Wed, Jun 16, 2021 at 3:09 PM Ven Balakrishnan <ventzu at yahoo.co.uk <mailto:ventzu at yahoo.co.uk>> wrote:
>> Four responses:
>> 
>> 1) I’m just replaying your quote.  Do you believe Ramana was exaggerating for effect?  What was his intention in writing such a strongly worded phrase - surely not to mislead?
>> 
>> Not at all to mislead. It has to be understood, as I put it in my commentary: "By dying to what is changing — to what one thought one was, but in fact is not — one  realizes oneself to actually be the unchanging." 
>> 
>> The unchanging has no truck with either doing or not-doing. Those categories do not apply. 
>>  
>> 
>> 
>> 2) Recall that Bhagavan when he arrived at Tiruvannamallai, sat indifferent to his body and the insects biting him, let alone requirements for food, for days on end.  He had to be force fed.
>> 
>> Yes, yes, and Bhagavan has said many times that his path is not for everyone and not required for jnana.
>>  
>> 
>> 
>> 3) Lakshmana Sarma - who received personal instruction on Ulladu Narpadu from Bhagavan - wrote this in HIS commentary on this verse: 
>> 
>> “The knowledge born out of personal experience that worldly life is riddled with sorrow turns one through dispassion towards nivritti marga, the path of withdrawal from activity or of renunciation.
>> 
>> Nivritti marga agani has to be understood. True renunciation is the renunciation of the ego, not of gross physical activity, as both Ramana and the Bhagavad Gita have said repeatedly.
>>  
>> 
>> 
>> 4) Then there is Gaudapada, MK 2.37:
>> 
>> “He should have this body and the Atman as his support and depend upon chances, ie he should be satisfied with those things for his physical wants, that chance brings him”
>> 
>> Sankara underscores this in his bhasya to this verse
>> “He entirely depends on circumstances, that is to say, he maintains his body with whatever food or strips of cloth, etc are brought to him by mere chance”
>> 
>> Yes, we understand that these are the monastic traditions they worked in. But that's because these Upanishads were geared towards monks. This is not the requirement for jnana for everyone.
>>  
>> 
>> 
>> Hope that clarifies what ‘dead to themselves and their possessions’ means.
>> 
>> 
>> > On 16 Jun 2021, at 16:44, Akilesh Ayyar via Advaita-l <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org <mailto:advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>> wrote:
>> > 
>> > If so, why would they eat?
>> > 
>> > On Wed, Jun 16, 2021 at 4:07 AM Ven Balakrishnan <ventzu at yahoo.co.uk <mailto:ventzu at yahoo.co.uk>> wrote:
>> > 
>> >> “DEAD TO THEMSELVES AND THEIR POSSESSIONS”
>> >> 
>> >> Ramanamaharishi is entirely consistent with Sankara saying a jnani will
>> >> inevitably take up the life of a paramahamsa ascetic, since s/he has no
>> >> desires, no fear, no attachments, not even to body-mind - like a snake that
>> >> has shed its skin.
>> >> 
>> >> 
>> >> Sent from my iPad
>> >> 
>> >>> On 15 Jun 2021, at 17:26, Akilesh Ayyar via Advaita-l <
>> >> advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org <mailto:advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>> wrote:
>> >>> 
>> >>> Namaste,
>> >>> 
>> >>> This is the commentary on the next verse.
>> >>> 
>> >>> From
>> >>> 
>> >> https://www.siftingtothetruth.com/blog/2021/6/15/commentary-on-ramanas-forty-verses-invocatory-part-two-of-two <https://www.siftingtothetruth.com/blog/2021/6/15/commentary-on-ramanas-forty-verses-invocatory-part-two-of-two>
>> >>> :
>> >>> 
>> >>> II. THOSE WHO KNOW INTENSE FEAR OF DEATH SEEK REFUGE ONLY AT THE FEET OF
>> >>> THE LORD WHO HAS NEITHER DEATH NOR BIRTH. DEAD TO THEMSELVES AND THEIR
>> >>> POSSESSIONS, CAN THE THOUGHT OF DEATH OCCUR TO THEM AGAIN? DEATHLESS ARE
>> >>> THEY.
>> >>> 
>> >>> *Commentary:* All fear is rooted in the fear of death. But death can only
>> >>> afflict what is born, that is, what is changing: that is, what is
>> >> thought.
>> >>> We have just seen that what is Real is unchanging, and that what is Real
>> >> is
>> >>> us.
>> >>> 
>> >>> The Lord who has neither birth nor death is none other than this very
>> >>> Reality, the Heart. This Lord may go by many other names — Shiva or
>> >> Vishnu
>> >>> or God or the Goddess, for example. But ultimately they all refer to this
>> >>> unchanging Reality.
>> >>> 
>> >>> In order to take refuge at the feet of this Lord, all else must be given
>> >>> up. This giving up is a kind of death. By dying to what is changing — to
>> >>> what one thought one was, but in fact is not — one realizes oneself to
>> >>> actually be the unchanging. What seems mortal has in fact never been born
>> >>> to begin with, and what is immortal cannot die. And the thought of death
>> >>> cannot occur to the immortals, which are those who have given up their
>> >>> stake in everything changing.
>> >>> 
>> >>> At any time, see all the forty verses posts that I have published so far
>> >>> here
>> >>> <https://www.siftingtothetruth.com/blog/tag/Forty%20Verses%20Commentary <https://www.siftingtothetruth.com/blog/tag/Forty%20Verses%20Commentary>
>> >>> .
>> >>> Akilesh Ayyar
>> >>> Spiritual guidance - http://www.siftingtothetruth.com/ <http://www.siftingtothetruth.com/>
>> >>> ᐧ
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