Category: philosophical counseling
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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…
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Externalized Attention Vs. The Inward-facing Path
Attention Let’s say, for now, that attention can be either “externalized” or “internalized.” By “attention,” I mean awareness in the mode of witnessing. Then “externalized attention” will refer to witnessing objects while being engrossed by and therefore “lost in” them. By contrast, “internalized attention” will, in actuality, refer to the dissolution of witnessing as it…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 