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1. Why do people call me learned?
What is the mark
of real learning?
Learning that all garnered knowledge of things
is empty ignorance
and that true knowledge
is
the search for the Knower.
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2. Those who,
learning to forget completely all objective knowledge,
turn
inward firmly and see clearly the truth,
abide serene.
Those who try to recall forgotten things pine bewildered,
fretting
over false phenomena.
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3. When knowledge marred by doubt and error
disappears in true Awareness clear and
pure,
one thus established firmly in Self-Being,
free from falsehood,
has crossed over to the further shore of the
river of knowledge.
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4. Even the knowledge sense-perceived of the world without
has for its ground the
Self above.
To search for knowledge somewhere else apart from That
is but to grasp the shadow,
not the substance.
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5.
Whatever notion may arise,
never to let it live or grow,
but to turn it that very instant,
firm and stern,
back
to its source and merge it there,
this is robust, intense detachment.
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6. Many are the ills that flow
from mixing with mad folks
afflicted with turbid minds and rattling tongues.
Best friendship is with those good men
whose minds are dead
and who abide in the pure silence of awareness.
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7. Those who do not dive into the Heart
and
there confront the Self in the five sheaths hid
are only students answering out of books
clever questions raised by
books,
and not true seekers of the Self.
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The above Sri Ramana Maharshi quotes are from the book
The
Seven Steps to Awakening.
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True knowledge is the search for the knower.
All other knowledge is
empty ignorance.
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Set aside some time every day
when you have no other activities going on:
shut your eyes
and forget all other types of knowledge
and ignore everything except the knower
and turn within and see the knower clearly.
Continue
thus until all that remains is clear pure Awareness.
During your practice session every time thoughts arise
ignore the
thoughts,
do not encourage the thoughts or follow the thoughts
and turn your attention back to the knower.
The knower
is awareness.
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Being in the company of those who like to talk a lot
and have many discussions
and who have
noisy minds
has negative consequences.
That noise pretends to be true knowledge.
This applies to both written and
verbal discussions.
One of the negative consequences is
your mind becoming noisy like their mind.
Another negative
consequence is
you imagining such conceptual knowledge is real knowledge
just as they are imagining conceptual knowledge
is
real knowledge.
Another negative consequence is
the time wasted in the distraction of listening to discussions
could
have been spent turning within.
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Students answering out of books
clever questions raised by books
is what actually
happens
in most of what is called religion and spirituality.
Such students are not true seekers of the Self.
Those
who actually dive within and seek the Self
are true seekers of the Self
if such diving is the number one priority in
their life.
Self honesty is required to see if such diving
is really the number one priority in their life
or if
it is not the number one priority.
If there are any unnecessary activities
that they have not yet dropped
to make
more time for diving within
then seeking the Self
is not really the number one priority in their life.
For some people
earning a living is a necessary activity.
For people who have children,
spending some time every day taking care of
their children
is a necessary activity.
Taking a shower or bath every day is a necessary activity.
Please do take
a shower or bath every day.
We want those who seek the Self
to be known as the aware ones,
not the stinky ones.
However,
watching television is not a necessary activity.
Entertainment is not a necessary activity.
There are thousands of potential
unnecessary activities.
Drop all of your unnecessary activities
and use all of the free time thus created
to dive
within and seek the Self.
The Self is awareness.
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