CAUGHT IN THE TIGER’S MOUTH
Just as the prey which has fallen into the
jaws of the tiger has no escape,
so those who have come within the ambit
of the Guru’s gracious look
will be saved by the Guru and will not get
lost; yet one should by his own
effort pursue the path shown by God or Guru
and gain release. One can know
oneself only with one’s own eye of knowledge,
and not with somebody else’s.1
RAMANA MAHARSHI
THE DREAM OF RAMANA MAHARSHI
Eventually the spiritual ego’s quest for God or Truth “out there” turns inward and seems to become the Infinite’s quest for us. As the tables are turned, this often creates discomfort, as we are getting a foretaste that maybe our ego is not actually in charge. I knew I was no longer in charge (not that I ever had been) of my spiritual life, as teachers, teachings, and experiences I was not seeking seemed to come unbidden. One night I dreamed of a man named Ramana Maharshi. I knew nothing about this Indian guru except his name, but there he was in the dream, his eyes seeming to personify a divine radiance. The power of his gaze made me know that I had to find out something about him.
As I mentioned earlier, I never wanted a guru and felt sorry for those who sought one. Yet in beginning to read The Spiritual Teaching of Ramana Maharshi and a number of other books about him, I had the sense I was being exposed to the purest truth I had encountered to that point. Others read the same books and do not have the same experience. Some look into the eyes of Ramana’s photograph and see radiance, experiencing love and peace in themselves; others see a kindly looking Indian gentleman whose eyes do nothing for them.
THE EXPERIENCE OF SELF-INQUIRY
Ramana repeatedly advised mature seekers that Self-inquiry was the best means and most direct path for ending the search. My mind equated “direct” with “shortcut,” and so the idea of a direct path seemed most appealing. The reason for the ego’s interest in a shortcut is that any so-called spiritual path seems to be a way out of this moment and into a better one. This is the nature of the thinking mind. But Life is leading us wherever it is both in spite of ourselves and because of our Self.
Ramana Maharshi’s method, Self-inquiry, does not require the seeker to adopt a philosophy or to leave home, family, job, or any tradition, spiritual or otherwise. Instead of trying to renounce life, feeling, perception, or desire, you simply inquire who is living, who is feeling, who perceives. Egoic mind is never the agent of its own demise, but this method is a way of turning the mind on itself—searching for the Source of the “I.” At first, it seemed an intellectual exercise for me, but the more I did it, the more I felt the mind withdrawing into itself. It seemed that there was some knowledge already present, a knowing that the Source was within, and so every time Self-inquiry was made, there was a remembering of this knowing.
While the inquiry Who am I? is not a mantra meditation, in the beginning it seemed to be used in a similar way. It gave the mind something to do with itself instead of continually following its thoughts outward, spinning more and more. But the difference between a mantra meditation and Self-inquiry is that the latter directly refers the mind to its Source, which is a way of the mind moving in rather than going out. While there is no in or out in reality, in a body-mind organism that has taken itself to be the subject of its objective world, the experience is one of withdrawing into the Self, the actual subject rather than the imagined one. Instead of exploring only the manifestations of the Self, which include identification with the body-mind, Self-inquiry pulls attention back time and time again into the Heart of Awareness.
Self-inquiry is also a way of stopping thoughts in their tracks. The moment a thought appears, instead of following that thought, you ask the mind to find the Source of the thought. You are asking your mind to come home. In true Self-inquiry, the mind will find only what it is not. Thoughts quiet down, and the Source simply appears as itself. When the Self is, no questions remain. The mind is quiet.
In my experience of maintaining Self-inquiry, it was as if everything would become still, even in the midst of living. Often, this stillness seemed to precede energy moving up my spine. Self-inquiry seemed to take on its own life. I did not compulsively “do” it or even set aside any regular times in the day for such practice. It simply appeared from time to time, at any time or no particular time. “Who is sitting here with her client?” “Who is looking at her reflection in the store window?” “Who is feeling anxious?” But each time inquiry was made, something seemed to slide backward into more stillness. What was sliding backward were the bundles of thoughts that I had taken to be myself.
Self Inquiry begins as a method and ends as a mirror,
a mirror in which the timeless perceives its formless reflection.2
MOOJI
GLIMPSES OF THE INFINITE
Once during my early days of being exposed to Ramana Maharshi’s teachings, I was on a plane trip when we encountered some frightening turbulence. I decided to try to meditate as Ramana had taught. At first it seemed as if awareness and attention expanded to become bigger than my anxiety; then beyond, to encompass the plane; then more vast, to include the clouds, the sky, the entire universe. In that moment, there was a sense that if the plane should go down and we should all die, “I” would be no different than I was in that moment. Then the direction of attention reversed, and “I” became the smallest speck—a mere dust mote—and still “I” was what I was in the expanded state. Of course, at that time, I believed this experience happened because of my great abilities as a “meditator”! Spiritual ego claimed credit.
A year later, a friend showed me a flyer for a two-week meditation and yoga retreat with Jean Klein at Joshua Tree in the California desert. The inner knowing was immediate: Go. But my mind argued. I had never heard of Jean Klein, a European Advaita and yoga teacher, never even seen a photograph of him or read any of his books. Couldn’t I wait until he was in my area and maybe go for a weekend—not be stuck hundreds of miles from home for two weeks in the desert? Plus I was not a yogi, wasn’t sure I could even touch my toes, and could not begin to imagine going on a two-week yoga retreat. But the inner knowing was incredibly strong: Go.
When the information arrived about what to bring and it said no books, I was not happy. I believed my spiritual books were a great boon to my “progress,” and surely bringing a few books would not distract me from my path. By then, however, I was used to sitting in front of the photograph of Ramana Maharshi, my projection of my inner guru. So I asked the question What should I bring on the retreat? I was shocked when an “answer” immediately came from the inner voice that I attributed to Ramana: Take nothing; own nothing; desire nothing; be nothing!
I thought I was asking about what clothes to take, whether I should go ahead and bring a few books, and out of the blue these words appeared quite emphatically. Once again the ego mind began arguing, something to the effect of, “Well, that is easy for you to say. You just wore a loincloth; I wear clothes!” I rather brushed off the profound depth of the invitation I had heard and packed my bag, including a few books. However, when I arrived at the airport near the retreat center, the airline had lost my luggage. I literally arrived at the retreat with nothing. What was being revealed was this: the “I” I imagined I was was no longer in control.
“I WILL DISMEMBER YOU AND DROWN YOU IN AN OCEAN OF LOVE”
Jean Klein demonstrated the incredible Presence that arises when the ego’s sense of separation is absent. In the Presence I associated with Jean, the expansive sense of peace I had learned was possible on the airplane a year before appeared again. And during one meditation on that retreat, Ramana appeared in my awareness, saying, “I will dismember you and drown you in an Ocean of Love.” Now, the Ocean of Love part sounded great, but the dismembering and drowning part created some moments of anxiety.
Ego believes that awakening will add a great boon to its separate life; it does not know that the whole process is one of subtraction, not addition. But we may begin to receive inklings of the depths to which our Self may take us as the Infinite moves in completely. Of course, the Divine is never absent and is not moving in and out as we may imagine, but our mind does not know what lies ahead when it is being carried by the deeper dimension of our Being. We may begin to realize that the seeker has become the sought, that the ego—once the hunter—has become the prey.
RAMESH BALSEKAR: “WHO WANTS TO KNOW?”
I continued to take egoic ownership of experiences that were actually simply happening. When a member of a group I am part of brought in a copy of Ramesh Balsekar’s Consciousness Speaks, there was an immediate inner knowing that I needed to read that book. Now, many people bring in books, or speak about books, or encourage the rest of us to go hear one teacher or another, but for me, only one directive was obvious at that time, and that was to read Consciousness Speaks. It was just the action of the moment.
Ramesh Balsekar’s “appearance” via this book helped me to see that I was still expecting something that a separate “me” could enjoy—this thing called “enlightenment” that I had been praying, meditating, chanting, and burning candles for over the course of so many years. I had never before written to an author of any book, but I was compelled to write to Ramesh about my spiritual experiences and my questions. So began a correspondence with a man living in Bombay (Mumbai today), a disciple of Nisargadatta Maharaj. At first I was conflicted about whether my writing to another teacher was somehow being disloyal to my idea of Ramana as guru. In talking with the inner guru about this, what came was: Who do you think sent him?
In the early days of corresponding with Ramesh, whom I never met face-to-face, there was a desire to tell him every detail of my spiritual longings, questions, and accomplishments. After all, ego does take all the happenings to be about a separate self! I wrote unbelievably long letters to Ramesh; he wrote unbelievably short letters to me, only a few letters a year, a few words each, and yet each one seemed to strike deep in the heart of my knowing. He never gave answers, but he repeatedly asked one question and one question alone: “Who wants to know?” Once, he simply advised, “Forget the questions.”
I was writing these letters to my Self, of course, but I needed a projection of that Self, and so one appeared. The mind will never be able to explain the grace that is present in the relationship between teacher and seeker. The reason is that it is, in truth, not a relationship. The apparent relationship appears in order to teach one thing: there is only the Self, only Reality, only God. A teacher and seeker are not two.
In a nutshell, Ramesh’s teaching was this: All there is is Consciousness (Divine Mystery, God). Of your own self, you can do nothing. There is not one single thing anyone can do to “achieve” enlightenment. If, in the functioning of Totality, such understanding is to occur, it will occur. However, achieving something is the very idea that stands in the way of our knowing. The seeker is the sought.
Knowing that my idea of myself as some separate “I” could do nothing to make anything happen, I began to let go more and more of whom I thought I was. Over many months, I began to have periods in which life simply happened effortlessly, sometimes without any sense of a separate “me” living it. Life, breath, words, cooking, driving, working were simply happening. But still the ego would sweep in to claim the experience. There would be some kind of excitement that “I am really getting somewhere now!”
I was beginning to intuit that there might be only one Awareness, but billions of beings who were experiencing it as “their” consciousness—a single seeing, but many viewing points. Still some doubt remained. However, the many tastes of a different, deeper, and wider perspective showed me that when the separate “me” was not imagining she was in control, there was just what is, occurring without choice. My prayers seemed intense when directed to the Mystery that seemed outside of me. Self-inquiry was intense when the mind was searching inward for its Source. Self-inquiry and devotion appeared to be merging, as the Infinite seemed to be calling “me” to know my Self. The longing was so intense that I felt I was willing to die to know the Truth.
This was no suicidal ideation. I loved my husband, my children, the life I was blessed to live, and yet the desire for Truth was so deep, so overwhelming at this point, that I felt I was willing to surrender my life in order to know. Where does such a desire come from? What moves us? What moves your own search?
I do not believe the jaws of the tiger necessarily have to be an outer guru. Actually, in reality there is no “outer” separate from “inner.” We eventually discover, as Ramana taught, that “God, Guru, and Self are one.” Therefore, however Truth is calling you, in whatever ways you are being surrendered to the Divine, the true guru is your Self. The inner teacher calls forth the outer one when one is needed. But at some point, we will no doubt have to face our fears of disappearing. Since the ego cannot know what “die before you die” actually means or how it could be lived, our mind will conjure up whatever fantasy it has and may scare itself with its own imagination.