To feel God’s Grace means you have to Surrender completely, have humility. You have to have the attitude, “ ‘I’ know nothing! YOU are everything”. This kind of attitude will set you Free.

Sri Ramana Maharshi Teachings. श्री रमण महर्षि के उपदेश withPrasanna B Joshi.

10 hrs · 

*** The Jnani that was a Snake ***

There was once a young girl who was brought up in a house of prostitution. This was her destiny at the time. She could not get away from it. But she used to pray to Ramana Maharshi,

“Oh Lord, if I must go this route, be with me. I am not praying to change my life, if this is my destiny. But, am praying that your strength and your love will always be with me.”

Now, across the street was a so called Jnani. And he used to stand in front of the market place telling everybody that they are Consciousness, Absolute Reality, preaching, screaming. This went on for years. Finally, the time came when they both died and they went before God.

God told the girl, “You have to go back to the Earth,
and you have to be a Jnani.”

And told the so called aspiring Jnani,
“You have to go back to the Earth as a snake.”

God said, “You Have No Heart.
This Girl Gave Me Her Heart. She Surrendered.”

The man said, “How come, Lord? I extolled your virtues to everyone. I told all the people they were Consciousness and they were Absolute Reality, and you send me back as a snake. What did I do? “

And God said, “You have no Heart. You came from the talking school. All you did with your life was to talk, talk, talk, talk. But, this girl gave me her heart. She surrendered to Me. She
did not bemoan her fate. She just wanted me to be with her during her trials and tribulations. And I gave her the strength to carry on, so no she is Free. But, you still have a lot to learn. So you have to go back as a snake.”

This makes us think. What are we really doing with our lives? We
read lots of books, see lots of teachers, have a lot of head knowledge, but, how many of us have given our hearts to God? How to Contact God: “I Know Nothing. You are Everything.” And
God is not far away. God is really The SELF. But, in order to contact that SELF, you have to have a lot of humility. To feel God’s Grace means you have to Surrender completely, have humility.

You have to have the attitude, “ ‘I’ know nothing! YOU are everything”. This kind of attitude will set you Free. And yet, how many of us have an attitude like this? Many of us think to become a Jnani, to become Self Realized, we become proud, and you actually become more egotistical than you ever were before!

There Really is No Difference
Between Heart Devotion/Bhakti and Jnani.

We have a ‘holier than thou’ attitude. This will never do it. There really is no difference between a Bhakti and a Jnani. One Surrenders to God, and they have no other life. They realize that
whatever they do, it is God doing it. Therefore, It is Good. They never complain. They never think of their problems. They think of others, and their problems, rather than their own. And the
other one realizes that the I is responsible for all of their problems, and for their existence. So, they trace the I back to it’s Source, to the Heart, and they become Free. At that stage there is a merging of both Bhakti and Jnana.

So a Bhakta is a Jnani, and a Jnani is a Bhakti.

Therefore, if you see a teacher who thinks they are better than anybody else, and they seem egotistical, be careful. Most Jnanis never take on a teaching role at all, and they have very little to
say, after all what is there to talk about?

The Words Have Value- Open You Heart so the Grace may enter. Just being is enough. Not being this, not being that, just being. Being at ‘satsang’. And whether I talk about ice cream or jelly beans it makes no difference. The words themselves have
value, because the sound of the words are the Grace that you fee. But, the meaning of the words are only interpreted in your mind. That is why, whatever I say is taken differently by each one of you. For it filters through your mind. And your Consciousness and your Being-ness mix with the words, and the words come out according to your way of life.

But, if you listen with no mind, then you get the true meaning. In other words, do not put too much value on everything I say.
But open your Heart so the Grace portion of it may enter, and you may pick it up and lift yourself upward.

How do you do this? Just by becoming still, by stopping the mental activity. And you may stop the mental activity by any method you know. If you like to do pranayama breathing, do
that. If you like to practice vipassana meditation, do that. You wish to observe your breath, do that. If you wish to practice Self Inquiry, do that. In other words, do whatever you have to do to
stop your mind from thinking.

The empty mind is not realization Vichara, Self Inquiry, is only to keep your mind from thinking. That is all it is. All the practices
of yoga lead to the place where you stop thinking. All of the higher religions are to make your thoughts one pointed. And when your mind stops, you become your SELF. You are Free. There are no rituals you have to go through really. You don’t have to chastise yourself and try to get rid of your guilt feelings, samskaras, or anything else. Identifying with an empty mind will do the job for you. But, the empty mind is not Realization. It is the step before Realization.

Realization is not an empty mind. Realization cannot be explained. Suffice it to say that Realization is beyond everything and anything you can ever imagine. But, if you achieve empty
mind, then you are on the way to Realization. At that stage the Guru within your SELF will pull you inwardly, and you will awaken to your SELF.

Number One: Humility, Loving Kindness:
Two: Help Others

So, number One: You have to develop Humility. You have to open your Heart to Loving- Kindness.

Number Two: You have to forget about yourself and your problems as if they never existed and help others. Give of yourself to others, because there is only One SELF and I AM as
THAT.

Number Three: You have to stop quoting teachers, and telling yourself that I am Brahman, I am no mind-I am Consciousness, for that really inflates your ego.

You have to stop comparing yourself with anybody or anything. In other words, you have to become no-thing, and that hurts some of you. Because you say, after all, I have gone to school for
50 years, I’ve got a profession, I am doing this and I am doing that. And now you tell me I have to become no-thing. Well, Consciousness is nothing, IT is no-thing. What you call God is no-thing.

So if nothing is good enough for God, it should be good enough for you too. Can’t you see now that when you say to yourself, “Well, I will never be nothing, I’m somebody. I’ve studied for
years, I am somebody important,” can’t you see now that this is what holds you back? Every Sage has come to the point where they have thrown away the Scriptures, thrown away the books,
thrown away their body, thrown away their knowledge, and thrown away themselves with a small ‘s’. When you get rid of all that stuff, then you become your SELF.

Surrender is Mentally Done-Have Perfect Faith.

Can you see now why it takes so long for some people? Because they are holding on to something. They say, “I can let go of this, but I can never let go of that.” I don’t mean you get to
the point where you don’t care. I do not mean you quit your job or leave you family, or go anywhere. You have to do all this mentally.

You do all this in your mind. You use your mind to do all these things. And then, the mind turns within and disappears into the Heart. So, take a look at your life and see what is holding
you back. What are you attached to? What do you think is important in this world? You cannot have both. You cannot mentally be attached to person, place and thing, and awaken at the same time. If you want liberation, you have to pay the price. And the price is letting go, giving it all up, surrendering. Having perfect faith that All is Well.

Not trying to interpret what ‘All is Well’ means. Just realize that everything is in its right place, just the way it is. Don’t interpret it. There are no mistakes. As you begin to dwell on this, as you begin to dwell on these things, automatically you will come to the place where you will realize the last thing you need to go is
the ‘I’. Everything has been attached to the I. But, you see how long it takes to get there? You have to do everything else first.

Egotistical People Become Greater Egoists
So You Have to Have Humility First

This is why it is dangerous for some people to just teach ‘Jnana Marga’ path by itself. For egotistical people become greater egotists. It builds up your ego.

You have to have humility first, and go through all these things we discussed. If you really want to do this, you will. You will not do this by taking action, but by sitting in the Silence and
Surrendering your mind and your body to your SELF. I AM will take care of itself.

You see, I AM is your Real Nature. Therefore you do not have to try to bring it about. All you have got to do is to realize that this stuff that is holding you back, has to be given up. Everything has to go, your whole belief system. What are you holding on to? Think, what is in your mind that is so strong?

Fear, a job? All of these things are meaningless if you want to awaken. You will still have your job. You will still do whatever you came here to do. I have to emphasize this, because we always
believe, and the question that I get from most of you is that, “How will I function if I do what you say?” I keep telling you, “Have no fear, you will function.”

You will function much better than you can ever imagine. It is hard right now working with your ego, to think, “How can I function without a mind?” But you will. Here is something that cannot be explained in words. When you get to the Ultimate State, you become human like everybody else. That is why it is difficult to know what a Sage is, because a true Sage appears no
different than you and I.

The Ultimate State is functioning like everybody else, except there is something inside, there is something that makes you understand that you are like the mirror, and your body, your affairs, and everything else in the Universe is a reflection. You become both. It appears that you act out your human-hood, but you are not human. And this is the most difficult
state to explain. For it is beyond words. It is beyond thoughts. It is beyond reasoning.

You cannot be reasonable to become liberated. It is beyond every human faculty. That is why you cannot think about it, and you cannot try to explain it. And you cannot even discuss it. All
you can do, is to do whatever you have to do to get rid of all your stuff. That is all.

And everything else will take care of itself.

~ Robert Adams
From Silence of the Heart book