Become Nothing

Sri Annamalai Swami

On many occasions Bhagavan (Ramana Maharshi) told me, 'Become envious of anyone lower than you. You must become very small. In fact you must become nothing. Only a person who is nobody can abide in the Self.'

Bhagavan often spoke to us about the necessity of humility. On another occasion he told me, 'No one should be our inferior. One who has learned to be the inferior will become superior to all.'

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In 1938, when I was once again troubled by sexual desires, he reacted in a completely different way. For three days my mind had been filled with sexual thoughts so much so that I began to think, 'How will I ever attain salvation if thoughts like these constantly come?'

I was so disturbed by these thoughts that throughout these three days I was unable to eat or sleep properly. Finally, I decided that B was the only person who could help me. That evening I followed B when he went out for his walk and explained my problem to him.

'Since this desire for women came to me the other day, I have not slept or taken food for the last three days. As these thoughts occur quite often, what will eventually happen to me?'

B, after remaining silent for a couple of minutes, replied, 'Why should you always be thinking that an evil thought occurred at such and such a time in the past? If you instead meditate, 'To whom does this thought come?' it will fly away of its own accord. You are not the body or the mind, you are the Self. Meditate on this and all your desires will leave you.'

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Chinnaswami, who felt that he was ultimately responsible for all the ashram's finances, tended to worry a lot when B embarked on schemes which had no proper financial foundation. On such occasions I often heard B remark, 'I am here, it is not necessary for him to worry.'

Whenever B spoke like this I would convey the message to Chinnaswami. Such messages used to cheer him up temporarily, but his newly-found confidence would usually dissipate whenever the next big bill arrived.