Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi
Oct 20, 2017 15:08:06 GMT
Gregory Peters, Emmanuel, and 2 more like this
Post by N0T 2 on Oct 20, 2017 15:08:06 GMT
( I began a thread about Maharshi to put here shortly after getting the book referred to a few months ago, but at last minute, decided not to post at the time. This one is prompted by Michael's lovely post in this thread.)
It seems high time we had a section devoted to Maharshi here, as his gnosis is shared through Kenneth, and he has been mentioned by others elsewhere in this board.
Earlier this year I was lucky enough to get a copy of The Teachings of Ramana Maharshi by Arthur Osborne, from an extant esoteric bookshop. It is testimony to my flaws as a student, as well as to the bewildering scope, substance and depth of Grant's work, that it has taken me until this year to finally get around to studying Maharshi's own work. Yet one could say it is really a starting-point, as it's behind all of the rest.
Maharshi and his teachings are of course mentioned in Grant's work, most prominently in Outer Gateways. This is the tome that shifted my "assemblage point" as Castenada might have put it, in a non-intellectual, direct, uninvited way, forever, around 2004, with a realisation, or apprehension that the location of Self (i.e., my natural perspective, from which viewpoint all was suddenly perceived, as opposed to an idea of identity, or concept) as being naturally outside the universe we seem to inhabit, but aren't actually "inside" at all, in any real sense, any more than we "are inside" a dream whilst experiencing it. The interesting thing for me at the time, apart from the intrinsic drama of unwitting, unfamiliar liberation (the first six months was particularly unfamiliar, and felt like the universe was a single space-suit "I" was wearing, or experiencing life through, remotely), was the fact that I'd had no intention of being anything except entertained and teased by the book with the doomy title and spooky artwork when I bought it. I was absolutely awake, drug-free, and in a "fallow" period as far as occult practices or studies went, on an indulgent study/work/holiday period in Europe, and enjoying life. The experience was beyond bizzarre, had bizzarre epiphenomena, and basically made me sound nuts to anyone I tried to describe it to, apart from one associate, who told me I'd involuntarily done what Buddhists try to do, without knowing anything (apart from Crowley's trashing of it) about Buddhism whatsoever at the time. No, I didn't do anything. Kenneth just wrote a book, and I got in its way when the stars were right.
Upon starting The Teachings of Ramana Maharshi a few months ago, the obvious thing struck me, that my experience was of a similar kind to that described by Maharshi himself as occurring in a similarly unexpected way as a teenager, and is really the only thing he ever taught: self-enquiry, going upstream of any and all conceptual streams to find from whom/whence/where they issue. It sounds simple but is actually anything but, because you think about doing it way more than you actually do it. In fact it seems one almost can't "do" it, it has to happen to you. Although this had been stated again and again in Kenneth's book, it never quite is possible to put in words properly, and it wasn't those parts of the book that I was reading when my experience was triggered. It was just the sort of whole thing going "pop" when a phrase I read in one chapter resonated with a bit in another, got stuck in my mind, next thing I'm looking at myself as context, rather than content, of life, from a place that was not either. Clearly, seeds were planted by his mentioning of the ideas, but other phrases produced the critical mass, so to speak.
In studying Maharshi as an absolute novice, I love the clarity and directness, no-nonsense, pure spirituality, natural intelligence of his path. It is a dark, cool underside to the glittering snake Grant's work presents us with. It is a great shame Crowley was never able to connect with Maharshi. I'm still only halfway through The Teachings... , sipping it, but I have to say - this is the thing, the same thing, that I recognise from what Outer Gateways did to me, a truth informing The Wisdom of S'lba, the book of non-mobile becoming, Grant's own Received text, an unique interpenetration of advaita, thelema and all the rest - or perhaps simply, Reality as Kenneth could best expound it, translated through those idioms.
At some stage I'll post some choice quotes by Bhagavan, it's great stuff.
It seems high time we had a section devoted to Maharshi here, as his gnosis is shared through Kenneth, and he has been mentioned by others elsewhere in this board.
Earlier this year I was lucky enough to get a copy of The Teachings of Ramana Maharshi by Arthur Osborne, from an extant esoteric bookshop. It is testimony to my flaws as a student, as well as to the bewildering scope, substance and depth of Grant's work, that it has taken me until this year to finally get around to studying Maharshi's own work. Yet one could say it is really a starting-point, as it's behind all of the rest.
Maharshi and his teachings are of course mentioned in Grant's work, most prominently in Outer Gateways. This is the tome that shifted my "assemblage point" as Castenada might have put it, in a non-intellectual, direct, uninvited way, forever, around 2004, with a realisation, or apprehension that the location of Self (i.e., my natural perspective, from which viewpoint all was suddenly perceived, as opposed to an idea of identity, or concept) as being naturally outside the universe we seem to inhabit, but aren't actually "inside" at all, in any real sense, any more than we "are inside" a dream whilst experiencing it. The interesting thing for me at the time, apart from the intrinsic drama of unwitting, unfamiliar liberation (the first six months was particularly unfamiliar, and felt like the universe was a single space-suit "I" was wearing, or experiencing life through, remotely), was the fact that I'd had no intention of being anything except entertained and teased by the book with the doomy title and spooky artwork when I bought it. I was absolutely awake, drug-free, and in a "fallow" period as far as occult practices or studies went, on an indulgent study/work/holiday period in Europe, and enjoying life. The experience was beyond bizzarre, had bizzarre epiphenomena, and basically made me sound nuts to anyone I tried to describe it to, apart from one associate, who told me I'd involuntarily done what Buddhists try to do, without knowing anything (apart from Crowley's trashing of it) about Buddhism whatsoever at the time. No, I didn't do anything. Kenneth just wrote a book, and I got in its way when the stars were right.
Upon starting The Teachings of Ramana Maharshi a few months ago, the obvious thing struck me, that my experience was of a similar kind to that described by Maharshi himself as occurring in a similarly unexpected way as a teenager, and is really the only thing he ever taught: self-enquiry, going upstream of any and all conceptual streams to find from whom/whence/where they issue. It sounds simple but is actually anything but, because you think about doing it way more than you actually do it. In fact it seems one almost can't "do" it, it has to happen to you. Although this had been stated again and again in Kenneth's book, it never quite is possible to put in words properly, and it wasn't those parts of the book that I was reading when my experience was triggered. It was just the sort of whole thing going "pop" when a phrase I read in one chapter resonated with a bit in another, got stuck in my mind, next thing I'm looking at myself as context, rather than content, of life, from a place that was not either. Clearly, seeds were planted by his mentioning of the ideas, but other phrases produced the critical mass, so to speak.
In studying Maharshi as an absolute novice, I love the clarity and directness, no-nonsense, pure spirituality, natural intelligence of his path. It is a dark, cool underside to the glittering snake Grant's work presents us with. It is a great shame Crowley was never able to connect with Maharshi. I'm still only halfway through The Teachings... , sipping it, but I have to say - this is the thing, the same thing, that I recognise from what Outer Gateways did to me, a truth informing The Wisdom of S'lba, the book of non-mobile becoming, Grant's own Received text, an unique interpenetration of advaita, thelema and all the rest - or perhaps simply, Reality as Kenneth could best expound it, translated through those idioms.
At some stage I'll post some choice quotes by Bhagavan, it's great stuff.