"The very first step in understanding what this is all about is giving up the concept of an active, volitional 'I' as a separate entity and accepting the passive role of perceiving and functioning as a process." - Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Saturday, October 26, 2013

First Experience of Self

Sri Ramana Maharshi
22-11-1945 Morning

Later in the morning, at Rishikesananda's request B recounted his first experience of the Self in his upstairs room at Madurai. 

"When I lay down with limbs outstretched and mentally enacted the death scene and realized that the body would be taken and cremated and yet I would live, some force, call it atmic power or anything else, rose within me and took possession of me. With that, I was reborn and I became a new man. I became indifferent to everything afterwards, having neither likes nor dislikes." Dr. Srinivasa Rao asked B how he first came to have bhakti. B replied, "The first thing that evoked bhakti in me was the book periya puranam, which I came across in my house, which belonged to a neighbour and which I read through. It was however only after the experience described above that I used to go daily to the temple and pray that I should become devoted like one of the 63 saints (nayanmar) of periya puranam."

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सर्वभूताधिवासं यद्भूतेषु च वसत्यपि।
सर्वानुग्राहकत्वेन तद्स्म्यहं वासुदेवः॥

That in whom reside all beings and who resides in all beings,
who is the giver of grace to all, the Supreme Soul of the universe, the limitless being:
I AM THAT. -- Amritabindu Upanishad