Author: Andrew Taggart
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To Know Yourself, Attend To Yourself Alone
“When we want to know a thing,” writes Sri Sadhu Om, one of the most highly regarded disciples of Sri Ramana Maharshi, “we attend [only] to that thing [i.e., not to some other thing]. So, accordingly, if we want to know ourself, we should attend only to ourself” (The Path of Sri Ramana [rev. ed.…
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The Mystery Of The Sense Of Being Myself
Let’s consider “Verse 23” from Sri Ramana Maharshi’s seminal Ulladu Narpadu or “Verses on What Is” (trans. Michael James): This body does not say ‘I’. No one says ‘In sleep I do not exist’. After one thing, ‘I’, rises, everything rises. Contemplate by a subtle mind where this ‘I’ rises. Undeniably, you have a sense…
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The True And Only I Is Formless Indeed
In “Verse 5” of Sri Ramana Maharshi’s Ulladu Narpadu (trans. Michael James), we read: The body is a form of five sheaths. Therefore all five are included in the term ‘body’. Without a body, is there a world? Leaving the body, is there anyone who has seen a world? Say. My purpose, in this post,…
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What Is An I-thought In Ramana Maharshi’s Teaching?
The I-thought (aham vritti) is not at all easy to understand experientially–until you get it. To come to this experiential understanding, let’s move in a stepwise fashion: 1.) To begin with, a thought appears. That thought, which is indeed an arising, could be: “I am sitting here” or “I don’t like John” or “What a fine…
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Pramada: The Forgetfulness Of The Self
Question It’s said that the Self is all that truly exists. It’s then said that “I am the Self.” A common question is: “Though I hear these teaching statements, I do not directly realize them. Why is that?” The answer, roughly, is that one is still taking one’s stand as the finite mind, not as…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 