Papaji's meetings with Sri Ramana

His first meeting with the Maharshi: http://www.satsangbhavan.net/papaji_meeting_ramana_maharshi.htm

and his second meeting: http://www.satsangbhavan.net/papaji_with_maharshi_again.htm

Both these are from http://www.satsangbhavan.net

Jai Papaji

Jai Sadguru Ramana

Light

from a Shloka on Lord Vinayaka -Vakratunda mahAkAya sUryakoTi samaprabha… means O lord Vinayaka with a curved trunk and a massive body, your form equals the Light of a Crore Suns!!!
from nAma rAmayaNa - …tEjOmaya nija rUpaka rAm means O rAma your real form is full of Light
from aruNAchala pancharatnam -

…kabalitha ghana vishvarUpakiraNAvalya… means O aruNAchala you’ve swallowed the world with your light

and …dIdhitimaruNAchalatvaimahIyanthe means (… means when one dives within) you’ll be seen as Light extending till the end of the world

what all these mean to say is that the truth is just Light!!!

sarvam ramaNArpaNamastu.

Jai Sadguru Ramana.

...guru ramana...

I was singing a song from the album Saranagathi by Malgudi Subhaa, which goes “…guru ramana siva guru ramana siva guru ramana siva guru ramana…ramana nin arulukku alavae illai…” and suddenly this thing struck me. i saw that if we sing it as “…guru ramana sivaguru ramana sivaguru ramana sivaguru ramana…”.

Do you see what i see? No? ok! Sivaguru was Adi Shankara’s father. Now? So, Sivaguru Shankara is Sivaguru Ramana. Beautiful, right?

“ramana nin arulukku alavae illai” means “there is no limit to ramana’s grace”.
sruthi smruthi purANAnAm Alayam karuNAlayam |
namAmi bhagavatpAdha shankaram lOka shankaram ||

Jai Sadguru Ramana.

What can the mind do?

The only useful, productive thing the mind can do is to disappear - says David Godman in his interview with Maalok ( http://davidgodman.org/interviews/al1.shtml ).

After the readings that I've been doing, the one thing that has struck is that using the mind for anything apart from the self enquiry is of no use. In Maharshi's gospel, Bhagavan says - The very purpose of Self-enquiry is to focus the mind at its source.

An amazing article written by Professor K.Swaminathan titled - Unity of Surrender and Self-enquiry really opened my eyes so to say! It is a very beautiful article.

Jai Sadguru Ramana, Jai Sadguru Papaji.

2 falls into Pitfalls

This has already happened twice. The ego has asserted itself as a proud one because of treading the *spiritual path*. Each time, a reminder has come.
First time:
I started to speak about the various things I used to read, specially with my family and friends. I would always think - they know nothing of all this and I, the one who has been reading all the books know a lot. I understood this when I spoke a lot with Girija Aththai.
The reminder came.
Second time:
My friend Radha Krishna said - "My mom was saying that extremes in anything is bad. Moderation in whatever one does is the best."
I argued against it saying something that showed my ego asserting itself. The reminder came again. I understood what Radha said was perfect.

Now the reminder.
There is a small extract from the book "Hunting the 'I'" by Lucy Cornelssen in the book_extracts.pdf from http://ramana-maharshi.org, which is titled "Obstacles and Pitfalls" ---
The one which soon will betray itself as a great deposit of obstacles is the so-called mind, with its main qualities, restlessness and dullness. Don’t try to attain something! Sadhana is meant to remove only. Deny reality to everything, including yourself. It is not you who realises the Self; the Self reveals only itself. To whom? To Itself only. Don’t fight against your ‘I’! Every resistance is strengthening the ‘I’ because the motive-power behind resistance is ‘Will’! Don’t suppress either! Because a suppressed thought, feeling or intention is bound to rebound! The mark by which this pitfall is recognised is ‘I’ have realised.... This ‘I’ can only be a ‘wrong I’, because it is not the ‘I’ that realises.

With this idea he gives his ‘personal I’ a strong chance to develop into a ‘spiritual I’, which is much worse than his original quite ordinary ‘I’, strengthened by all his previous spiritual effort. The result is a spiritual pride, the worse the more advanced the sadhaka has become, because his attainments, serve only to confirm his ‘right’ to be proud of his success.

His is a journey like that in fairy-tales, when the hero has to go through many adventures, to fight against many enemies and even demons, to win the princess at the end. The further he proceeds, the mightier the obstacles. The new and definitive disguise of his ego .... I is ‘the Guru’, and this last and most powerful pitfall never releases him, because he never recognises that he is its victim. There are nowadays many whose Guru-pitfall caught them even much earlier on their path.

Also, I was reading David Godman's interview by Maalok (http://davidgodman.org/interviews/al1.shtml), where David says - Moderation is the key. David also talks of Humility and what Sri Ramana has said about Humility.

I am writing this just so that this is a reminder for me when I fall again!!!
Om Sri Ramanarpanamastu, Jai Papaji.