Ramana Maharshi said, “One must be ready to sacrifice everything for the Truth. Complete renunciation is the index of fitness.” (Talk 320)
O Maharshi, you who have been hailed by Osho as “One of the Greatest Buddhas ever to be born on this earth,” look at how this loving pupil of yours wants to disagree with you on what you said above. Pardon me for that. I do know in what sense you have said that, but I feel it needs to be unpacked a bit lest what you said be misunderstood.
You see, Maharshi, when you say “sacrifice”, does it not somehow make people feel the burden of doing that even if it be for the sake of Truth. I know that if that statement taken in isolation it does not obviously do justice to the whole gamut of your philosophy.
At the same time, I am not trying to be nitpicking here.
What I am trying to point out here is that, why this search for truth or reaching for the truth needs to be made to look like it is some harsh thing we have to do in our lives? Moreover, how can one “renounce” anything and still get at the Truth when the Truth includes everything?
Of course, you point out in another place, thus (Talk 326):
Suppose a cow plays rogue and strays into neighbours’ fields to graze. She is not easily weaned from her stealthy habit. Think how she can be kept in the stall. If forcibly tethered in the stall she simply bides her time to play the rogue. If she is tempted with fine grass in the stall she takes one mouthful on the first day and again waits for the opportunity to run away. The next day she takes two mouthfuls; so she takes more and more on each succeeding day, until finally she is weaned from her wicked tendencies. When entirely free from bad habits she might be safely left free and she would not stray into neighbours’ pasture land. Even when beaten in the stall, she does not afterwards leave the place. Similarly with the mind. It is accustomed to stray outward by the force of the latent vasanas manifesting as thoughts. So long as there are vasanas contained within they must come out and exhaust themselves. The thoughts comprise the mind. Searching what the mind is, the thoughts will recoil and the seeker will know that they arise from the Self. It is the aggregate of these thoughts that we call ‘mind’. If one realises that the thoughts arise from the Self and abide in their source, the mind will disappear. After the mind ceases to exist and bliss of peace has been realised, one will find it then as difficult to bring out a thought, as he now finds it difficult to keep out all thoughts. Here the mind is the cow playing the rogue; the thoughts are the neighbours’ pasture; one’s own primal being free from thoughts is the stall.
The bliss of peace is too good to be disturbed. A man fast asleep hates to be awakened and ordered to mind his business. The bliss of sleep is too enthralling to be sacrificed to the work born of thoughts. The thought-free state is one’s primal state and full of bliss. Is it not miserable to leave such a state for the thought-ridden and unhappy one?
In a way, you are saying what the Bhagavad Gita says (Chapter 6, Verse 35):
śrī-bhagavān uvāca
asaṁśayaṁ mahā-bāho mano durnigrahaṁ calam
abhyāsena tu kaunteya vairāgyeṇa ca gṛhyate
Lord Krishna said: “O mighty-armed son of Kunti, undoubtedly the restless mind is very difficult to curb, but it can be controlled by abhyāsa (practice) and vairāgya (detachment).”
Whatever be the merits of the above method and technique, I much prefer the method of understanding that “happiness lies within”, which of course you, too, have pointed out, and which is how J. Krishnamurti says one comes to the truth, that is, through understanding — as he puts it, “it is the truth that sets you free and not your effort to be free”.
And even regarding your advocacy above of arriving at the “stillness” of mind, J. Krishnamurti says something to this effect:
Do not ask “how” make the mind still. There can be no method. The mind will become still when it “understands” that the truth can be understood ONLY when it is silent.
Now, having written that, I realize that you, too, may have said that (“All that is required to realize the Self is to “Be Still”), but more importantly, J. Krishnamurti’s path was almost exclusively the path of jnana yoga, but your teaching, like the Bhagavad Gita, makes room for all paths so that “no one is left behind”.
So, Maharshi, I guess I do not “disagree” with you after all. How can I? You are verily Brahman.
