Be, or Not to Be? What did Ramana say about sadhana (“path”); that is, “practice” such as meditation? “People seem to think that by practicing some elaborate sadhana, the Self would one day descend upon them…. Sadhana implies an object to be gained, and the means of gaining it…. I had no rules of meditation or contemplation. Meditation is possible only if the ego be kept up.” In other words, the aspirants’ idea is that “if I do some procedure, process or ritual correctly, and if I do it long enough, I will come in contact with ultimate Reality”: it will someday “descend upon them.” The irony is that the presence of ultimate Reality—everpresent everywhere at all times—not only surrounds the meditator (whether or not meditating), and in fact imbues— is the very essence of—every meditator or non-meditator. There is nowhere you can go, and nothing you can do, that can ever bring you “closer” to That (or Self) than you are in any moment. This is precisely why the teachings say “there is nothing to get; you are what you are seeking!” The seeker supposes herself to be some thing other than That, and That to be the object which one will encounter. This is what in Buddhism, is called a “gaining idea”: I, subject, will somehow gain (or come into possession of) It (or knowledge of It: “enlightenment”), the object of my pursuit in time. The subject, supposing that she’s separate from the Self she seeks, is still regarding herself as an “individual,” an independent entity. This person-al identification is what Ramana is referring to as the ego. Only as long as this
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