The Path of Sri Ramana

No one can understand the scriptures’ true spirit merely by his command over language or by his keenness and superiority of intellect.

practise japa and meditation in the same manner. In place of the former thought, ‘I am a man or jīva’, aspirants now have a different notion, ‘I am brahman’, which is nothing but replacing one thought with another!

If we give up all thoughts and observe what is mind, we will find that there is no such thing as mind.

Thinking is a vṛtti (mentation); being is not a vṛtti!...

All the gross forms – the body, blood circulation and respiration – which the mind cognises through the five senses constitute the gross body.

Admitting the mistaken perception of ordinary people, ‘I am this body; I have a separate existence’, as the base, the scriptures teach the four yōgas, namely karma yōga, bhakti yōga, rāja yōga and jñāna yōga:

negate the five sheaths, which are other than oneself. Hence in Upadēśa Undiyār Bhagavan has amended the path of knowledge (jñāna mārga) by rearranging the back-to-front process described in ancient scriptures into a new and practical order – that is, he points out that the practice of nēti nēti is actually the end result.

Thus the meditations like ‘I am he’, ‘I am brahman’ and ‘it [brahman] you are’ (sōham, ahaṁ brahmāsmi and tat tvam asi) are nothing but activities of the mind (pravṛtti).

In truth, however, since what is known is not other than ourself, we are not even the knower, so we are the reality that transcends both the knower and the known.