Astarenya's Vichara Tip

I may have had more rollockings than hot dinners from Astarenya, but his tips and suggestions have always been spot on.
Here's one he gave some time ago. It seems a bit tricky, but it's a good idea to keep practising:

"If you can remember to do it, try to catch that short moment when you feel sleep coming on. Before sleep intervenes, remember to invoke the Vichara.
Ask To Whom does this Thought Occur?
The time for doing this will be very short.
Never mind.
Be Quick!"

So You Think You Know the Will of Ramana!

The relationship with the guide, the mentor, is hardly a smooth massage. The student often feels knocked and a little wounded; indeed he may often creep to the corner to lick those very wounds. On a memorable occasion, maybe some years ago, I had a sequence of medical mishaps, and on one occasion the local doctor called, asking me to come in for some tests and adding: “You should bring a night bag, as you may need to be admitted to hospital”. I was due to speak to Astarenya that afternoon, and so I called him to cancel the chat. In a rather contrite and fearful condition, I mentioned that I had to go in, and I awaited the pat on the back, the comforting words delivered to one who is in distress, the soothing voice which told me that everything was all right, and there was no need to worry. Body or no body, I was due to receive Grace and Enlightenment: It was just a matter of things falling into place. That was what I wanted to hear.

On making the call I briefly summed up the situation, adding that the only thing I regretted was leaving some Ramana work in mid-preparation, and I doubtless insinuated that I wanted Bhagavan to make me better so that I could complete the work which was in mid-progress.

I needed to hold the hand-set an inch or two further away from my ear, when the stentorian voice barked through:

“You do it... Sammy* does it, Maggie does it, Alec does it: You're all doing it! You all get on the hobby-horse of your little projects and then you go round telling everybody that you're “Carrying out Ramana's Will." Well, I don't ever want to hear you claiming that again, because there is no-one, but no-one, who can ever know what His Will is? Is that clear?”

I shrank and withered within myself until I fancied I was a few mere microns high. I quietly finished the call, and scuttled to the doctor's. I lived. I'm still here.

I tell this story, in moments of stress, to a few friends. It rattles round the Ramana circuit, from time to time, in a muted way popping up in unexpected places. It quietens people when I relate it. They lose their words, and they go red in the face.

* The names have been changed for æsthetic reasons. The names know full well who they are.

Acknowledgment to artbywicks.com for the painting

Meet Astarenya

I love my Ramana sadhana and I shouldn't assess it, but I do. I see myself as a playful puppy gambolling along the roadside and into the lanes and fields. I never liked being told what to do and, ignoring the advice from my elders I would find other puppies to play with. It was great fun! We could do whatever we wanted, and we did so in a big way. The trouble was that when we got into scrapes the others couldn't help, for they had gotten into scrapes too. So we'd end up whimpering and wailing and much to our great good fortune, one of the 'nasty' grownups would dig us out of the ditch, take us home, clean us and then put a good meal into our hungry bellies. At some point along the way indeed, it dawned that perhaps they might not be so nasty after all.

Most puppies grow out of all this malarky within a year or two, but some of them take longer, and it's in the quiet moments of the night I feel, that one of them is me. But fortunately I have a trainer who knows the all ropes of puppydom and puppyhood; he gives me quite a drubbing from time to time and it's more than once that I have limped, whimpering to a quiet corner to reflect on my lesson. He hits me hard at times, but I must hasten to say that his beatings are never physical, nor are they psychologically engineered for his personal gain. Indeed a times I think my trainer is so strange that I begin to wonder whether he is really a person at all!

Anyway my trainer's name is Astarenya. I'm sure the name must mean something very important, and when I become properly trained I think that one day I might start digging in my favourite field, going down deep to find out who he really is.

Anyway, that's my introduction. The next time I come to my screen I'll relate one of the deepest and most painful—joyful lessons I have ever had.

Will Humans Ever Have Budgie Sense?

After the sad loss of my much-loved budgie Osi, last month, I took the plunge on Thursday and went out to buy another one. The breeder, a nice chap, said we should keep him in his cage for the first two or three weeks. So we did that yesterday, but the new arrival, called Mackie, showed signs of great impatience. So today we let him out. He spent some time flapping about by the window, but after an hour he came to play on the table, jumped onto my hand and then went quietly back into his cage where he tucked with relish into his seed hopper.
His second full day away from the nest, first time out of the cage and after an hour or two he'd made it abundantly clear that he had had enough!

So he returned to his cage.

He knew the way home.

When, I wonder, will the shoppers in the spiritual supermarket, their trolleys overflowing with knick-knacks and gewgaws, and their wallets drained, acquire the germ of common-sense that we see in this wee bird?

Spiritual Talk is Nonsense

All this talk is nonsense. All this is spiritual talk, and 'spiritual talk' is nonsense.

When we talk about Veda Vedanta we talk about the 'five elements', the three gunas, the food body, all this talk is nonsense... That is exactly what it is... “Spiritual Talk”. All this is Spiritual Talk and spiritual talk gets you nowhere. Spiritual talk is for novices, for

• people who are still 'debating',
• trying to win points,
• trying to come up with 'answers'.

All this is nonsense.

So the wise person keeps silent. In the silence, there will come a time when 'you' become That. We are not talking about 'Absolute Reality'. These are religious words. 'Pure Awareness'... It's more words! We are talking about That.

'That' may happen.

If you come here all filled up with so-called 'knowledge', ideas, concepts from all your 'spiritual training', you're never going to get it. The way to come in here is with an open heart, with no question of whether 'you-know-something' or 'you-don't-know-something'... They're both impostors, and they keep you tied in to maya. If you think you know something... You're tied to maya, and if you think you're 'empty' and you don't know anything... —you're still tied in to maya. You want to get beyond this.

Even when you say to yourself 'I want to experience nothing', that too is maya.

Absolutely nothing exists. And even that 'nothing' doesn't exist! Karma and reincarnation... they do not mean a thing. They have no significance whatsoever... we are talking about the ineffable.