The Way

“If one is able to see oneself with the inner eye as not the body, all desires will vanish and one will experience perfect peace.” Devikalottara

“This knowledge of the Truth makes an eloquent, wise and active person mute, inert and inactive. Hence it is shunned by those who want to enjoy the world.”
“The mind of the liberated one is neither troubled nor pleased; it is inactive, motionless, desireless and free from doubts.”Ashtavakra Gita

Be still. 

Be quiet.

Merge with the dust in utter humility.

The path to immortality is through the narrow gateway of heart-felt surrender.

Let the mind sink like a stone into the depths of Self

And dissolve like salt in that ocean of blissful peace.

That

“That which is the support, the soul, the Source, the purpose and the power of all this world, the sole reality behind all this appearance, That indeed exists. Let That, the Truth, abide in your Heart.” Yoga Vasishta,8, v.12

Blissful and peaceful, ever One, who can describe the mystery of That?

That is infinite, formless, tranquil and perfect.
Stainless as space, free from attachment and desire, ever real, That is the limitless ocean on which the universe is but a wave, appearing briefly and disappearing.

Beyond all opposites, shining as pure intelligent awareness, That is the source of all grace and beauty and love.

That is the vast infinity of Being-consciousness-joy, eternal and omnipotent.

Why do you fear and tremble before the mirage of this world of suffering and misery and death?

Drop all your fears and rejoice!

That is who you really are!

Be Still

"Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." Psalm 46. The Holy Bible

“Stillness and tranquillity set things in order in the Universe.” Tao Te Ching

Be still.

Drop all the words. 

The word “God” cannot give you salvation, just as the word “food” cannot satisfy your hunger and the word “water” cannot quench your thirst.
Your intellectual knowledge is but a mirage, a reflection in a mirror: catch hold of the original!

All that is real is beyond the mind.
You cannot find the truth or know the truth.
You can only BE the truth.
Its all a matter of attention- stop looking outwards, turn inwards and focus your entire attention on the very source of Being.

This is the only way.

Grace is ever-present, ever-perfect, inevitable: it will act in the right way and at the right time.When you dive deep into your own being, Grace will embrace you, devour you, dissolve your mind in the silent bliss of pure existence.

Stay rooted forever in that silence.

Eternal Flame

“What is Gayatri? It really means ‘Let me concentrate on That which illumines all. “ Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi. 

Upon an altar in the cave of the Heart, a lamp-less flame burns eternally.
In this temple of the Divine, fuelled by the ever-flowing oil of heart-melting devotion, the light of Love reveals infinity.

Stillness and silence are the steps that lead to this mystic radiance, this ineffable perfection of Self.
Om reverberates here and the fragrance of sat-chit-ananda fills all space.

This is the real, the true, the One.

This is the source and the substance of all that exists.

This is the illumination of ultimate wisdom.

This is the jewel in the lotus, the secret gateway to transcendent immortality.

Sweet Lord of Grace!
Let me stay surrendered at this altar
until I am consumed like a moth in that flame. 

Searching for the Beloved

“Self-enquiry is really possible only through intense introversion of the mind. What is finally realised as a result of such enquiry into the source of aham vritti,
is verily the Heart as the undifferentiated light of Pure Consciousness, into which the reflected light of the mind is completely absorbed.”

Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharishi, Maharishi’s Gospel

In a waking dream, I fell into an abyss of profound and magical beauty, so perfect and so breath-taking as to be inconceivable by the human mind.
It was as if I drowned in an ocean of incandescent, ecstatic bliss.
Alas! My moment of ripeness was not yet upon me and so I was hurled forth, like a shell spat out by a whirlpool, back into samsara.

Now I wander the worlds, like a lover endlessly seeking for his Beloved, like an addict desperately searching for his drug; my life is nothing but a constant search within myself for the way back to that ocean.

I am not as other men, struggling to acquire the treasures of this world.
I am a fool for Love, weeping a river of tears, crying out for my Beloved:
I am driven by the haunting memory, the sweet, intoxicating echo, the unforgettable, lingering fragrance of the Divine.

Thus do I bow before the Absolute in beseeching prayer,
in abject humility,
in total and unconditional surrender.

“Even the blackest of crows,
when it alights upon beautiful golden Mount Meru,
is transformed into the form of pure gold. 

In just the same way, even those jivas 

who are entirely without distinction will, 

upon joining the presence of one’s own reality, Divine Consciousness,
attain, by its glorious majesty, the sublime form of the Self and shine. “
 Ramana Puranam.

Your Own Truth

“It is no true measure of one’s health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” J. Krishnamurti

“An indescribable state is attained by the sage whose mind has melted away and who is free from mind-display, delusion, dream or dullness.” Ashtavakra Gita.

Sometimes a man can meet his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.
Sometimes the hardest thing in life is to know which bridge to cross and which to burn.

To live the best possible life, you must discover and experience your own unshakable truth.You have to do your own inner work: no one else can do it for you.It takes as long as it’s supposed to take: there are no shortcuts to ripeness.

The Buddha saw that life is marked by four qualities: impermanence, suffering, selflessness, peace. Accepting the impermanence and ultimate selflessness of our existence, we will stop suffering and realize peace.

You have to die before the body dies: this is the secret of immortality.
In your journey to the source, you must burn all your sheaths, your forms, your concepts: everything that changes must be offered to the sacrificial flame.

Anchor yourself deeply and permanently in the “I am “, pure Being: stay connected there in waking or dreaming or sleep. This is the eternal center, the unshakable, the true. All else will flow naturally and perfectly from this root.

The deeper you dive, the less there is that you can say about what you discover. Once you become that Silence, there is nothing to say.

Any attempt to describe it with words brings back the mind-world, the very illusion that you struggled so hard to destroy.

Just turn within- Self is Shiva, the transcendental experience of Self is Devi, they are ONE!
In this sweet Silence where the Guru shines in the heart, Being is all there is.
Here in this vast and perfect space of consciousness,there is no body, no mind, no person, no world, no God;
there is only blissful, ecstatic and infinite peace.

“The radiance of consciousness-bliss in the form of one awareness shining equally within and without is the supreme and blissful primal reality whose form is Silence and which is declared by Jnanis to be the final and un-obstructable state of true knowledge.” Ramana Maharishi

Return to the Source

“The Source is a point without any dimensions. It expands as the cosmos on the one hand and as Infinite bliss on the other. That point is the pivot. From it a single vasana starts and expands as the experiencer (‘I’), the experience and the experienced (the world).”

Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi speaking of the Heart, Gems from Bhagawan.

(Pic of Black Hole, courtesy NASA)

Astrophysicists tell us that this vast, ever-expanding Universe began at a single point, a singularity of infinite mass and zero dimensions.
The sage reveals an even more astounding truth: this singularity is the innermost core of every living being!
This is the Source, the Heart, the wondrous treasure we all own.

When the attention turns outwards, worlds without end are created in psychic, physical and temporal dimensions.
When the attention is focused inwards, one’s entire existence is compressed to a single point of pure Being. Like the black hole that is the core of the universe, the inexorable gravity of Divine Grace sucks you in, dissolves you, turns your existence inside out into an infinite expansion of blissful peace.

No more bubbles, waves, froth: only still, oceanic depths.
No more deaths and births.
No more time and space, no more duality, no more you: only the immortal Self, the radiant sahaja state of the jivan- mukta.

No more universe: only loving perfection shining like a thousand suns.

Return to this Source.

Speaking In Tongues

At the end of all knowing, is there only an unsolvable riddle, a paradox, an answerless koan?

All the volumes of Holy Scriptures, what do they really say?

Who can describe that cold fire ever-burning in the centre, its mystical radiance, its soul-melting flame?

How can I speak of this immaculate ecstasy, this aching, infinite joy that dissolves everything ?

There is no one left to tell the tale, all that I was has disappeared into the echoes of your Name.

So let the thunder of your silence break through the cobwebs of mind and reveal the unsayable:

Like the sun burning off the early morning mists, sweep this illusion away.

Stop this game of hide-and-seek, stand still and show your Self!

Let the long night of ignorance end forever

in the shining splendour of your eternal day.

P.S. : Listen! I know who you really are, your secret’s safe with me: I turned myself inside out like a sock and fell into your net.

Like a hungry spider you devoured me in one swoop.

And lo! I am become you and you are me!

There is nothing I would rather be.

The Choice

“The silent life in which the mind is dead, alone is the life fit for a man to live; the life of a man whose mind is wandering is no better than the life of birds and beasts.” 

Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi, Guru Vachaka Kovai

“In the end, only three things matter: How much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.”

The Buddha

What a wonder is this human being!

A living bridge between earth and heaven, beast and God, matter and spirit, embodying the entire tapestry of evolution. 

Woven of the opposites, masculine and feminine, good and evil, demon and god, its inner state can range from discordant chaos to sublime harmony. 

As long as the mind is turned outwards, one moves away from the divine and loses oneself in the mesmerising thickets of desire and fear.

This outward mind creates worlds without cease, dreams and nightmares, heavens and hells, pain and pleasure in endless cycles.

Sooner or later, growing tired of this fickle, impermanent and torturous world, every human craves for true and lasting happiness and peace.

Fortunately, the Divine, in its infinite wisdom, dwells always as the innermost heart of every being.

This compassionate grace within grants a taste of its restful, healing peace every night in the form of deep, dreamless sleep that rejuvenates and refreshes the tired soul.

Why is this sleep so restful? 

Because all activity of body and mind ceases: only pure being, one’s true nature, remains unchanged. This pure being is just unalloyed consciousness, peace and bliss.

Every human being, by birth-right, has the choice and the opportunity to discover its true divine nature.

This is why a human birth is so precious!

All one has to do is choose to turn the mind inwards – to seek out its source, the nest into which it disappears each night in sleep and from which it emerges again every morning on waking.

As one’s attention is focussed deeper and deeper within to find this source, mental activity decreases, falls silent, still.

With practice, this inner seeking grows easier and easier….and suddenly one day, when the fruit is ripe, the miracle of Grace happens: divine energy stirs, throbs and takes charge.

All effort ceases.

The mind, which was ever but a passing bundle of thoughts, is sucked inexorably into the spiritual heart that is the core of being.

Like a river merging permanently with the ocean, the mind dissolves forever in the infinite, eternal, divine Self.

What then remains is the Buddha, the awakened one……the noblest and most compassionate form of human existence.

Are you tired of the drama? Would you like to know true and lasting peace and joy?

Do you want the human race to evolve into its highest and noblest form?

Would you live out the rest of your life as a brute or as God?

You choose.

Living and Dying

“To live fully is to be always in no-man’s-land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. So to live is  to be willing to die over and over again.” Pema Chodron

“You are not a sinner. You are not an evil person. Your past is dead, forget it.
 You're born again, now, and all is glory and joy. This is what it means to be born again, to realize that you exist now, in this moment.
 Not a moment ago, and never mind what's going to happen a moment from now, but you exist in this moment as pure intelligence, unqualified love, absolute reality, unconditioned oneness, that's you.
 You live in that reality. And again, that sets you free.”

Robert Adams

Do you want to know about living and dying?

First seek out the one who wants to know.

Be still, be silent.

Deep in the cave of Being,

When the ray of Grace sets the lamp of wisdom afire,

The hidden bud blossoms, the secret channel opens, the immortal nectar flows;

Truth is revealed with all the glory of a risen sun!

There is no witness left to describe the wonder of it all:

Only ecstatic bliss and a deep, unshakable peace!

Turiyatita: beyond the beyond

“The Seer who knows his nature as pure and true awareness, vast as the sky and bright as the sun, has no fear.” Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi

Like a swimmer caught in a powerful current, straining every muscle, yet not moving an inch, one struggles in vain to overcome the illusion.
Fatigue brings surrender and the sweet relief of letting it all go.
Stop fighting- let the current carry you away.

As long as there is effort, it’s not over: when there is no doer, it becomes effortless.
Complete surrender is the miracle: Grace takes over, like a mother rocking her babe to sleep.
In Her arms, at last there is rest.

All the drama ceases.
Now begins the perfection of turiya, the state of waking sleep.
Here and now, no thought, no fear;
Only blazing wisdom like a thousand suns.

Even this disappears – in the void of turiyatita, nothing remains.
This nothing is everything: drink deep of it!
No words can describe the taste of that infinite peace.

Sat-Chit-Ananda

“Unsurpassed and perpetually abiding good fortune exists only in that deep peace wherein one remains as the Self and in no other state of being whatsoever.” Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi

What is that mysterious lifeforce that animates you?

What is that spirit that words cannot describe and mind cannot reach?

When the mind subsides in stillness,

And attention sinks down into the depths of Being,

At last the truth is revealed, the radiant Self,

Shining like a jewel in the Heart.

Here the persona dissolves in ecstatic bliss,

Becomes boundless space,

Merges at last with the divine love that is the source and the substance of everything.

This is the Self, eternal, immortal, infinite and unchanging Being-Consciousness-Bliss.

This is the unsayable, the indescribable knowing beyond all knowing, the wondrous perfection, the peace beyond all understanding.

This is Brahman, the treasure that is your rightful inheritance.

Find this treasure.

Hold it fast and never let go.

The Mystery

“Spiritual happiness, even the tiniest particle of it, is more lasting than a lifetime of transient experiences and when one realizes the deepest essence of things and finds the Self, this is the supreme happiness. When it is found, nothing else remains to be found; then the sense of want will not stir in you, and the heart's torment will be stilled forever. Do not be satisfied with only the fragmentary happiness of the world, which is invariably interrupted by shocks and blows of fate; but becoming complete, and having realized that supreme perfection, be the Self. “ Anandmayi Maa.


Whatever it was
that fashioned flowers and stars, mountains and trees, birds and beasts and bees,
That sacred, intangible perfection that created everything from itself
and hid in open sight, woven into its own art;

Whoever it was
that exploded endlessly in waves of bliss through infinite intergalactic seas,
While remaining smaller than the smallest within the atom’s deepest heart;

That divine essence that is subtler than the subtlest, greater than the greatest, revered by all the Gods,
That secret source from whence all wisdom flows, all love and life begins;

To that mystery, I bow
in devout worship and absolute surrender.

A Prayer

Paradox is thy form, O Secret One; who then can ever perceive thee?

Just as a mighty banyan tree grows from a tiny seed, everything grows out of nothing.

Effortlessly, without intention or bias, you weave threads of Absolute and Relative, warp and weft, into the shimmering fabric of creation.

In the very depths of being, you make your home in a lotus bud smaller than an atom, yet vast enough to contain all the scattered galaxies and the infinite space that holds them!

This Heart is the secret cave where you as In-dweller shine eternal-
what eye can see the wonder of this overflowing emptiness, what ear can hear the hidden mantra of this silence?

I was lost in the burning desert of samsara, driven by the winds of fear and desire, desperately grasping at a mirage to slake my unquenchable thirst.
With infinite tenderness, you led me into the cool oasis of your Grace, into the Heart where the wish-fulfilling tree flowers over the fountain of immortality: one drop of this nectar slakes all thirsts, sates every hunger, satisfies all desires.

Intoxicated by the taste of such ecstatic bliss, who would ever seek any lesser joy?

In this your kingdom, how sweet the songs of devotion and praise, how wondrous the blessings of your love, how restful the fragrance of your perfect peace!

Sweet Lord, I am so weary of leaving and longing:
pray let me dwell forever here at your feet.

My Father's House

“In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” Lord Jesus Christ, Holy Bible

My father’s house is a hill wreathed in clouds that is older than Time.

My father’s house is an old hall filled with radiance, a gnarled old tree, a cowshed, a grove full of peacocks and monkeys, tombs, temples and Gods in black stone. It is a dream echoing with the sound of sacred songs, of bells ringing and cymbals clashing, of timeless chants sung by a chorus of fire-waving priests and little Brahmin boys.

Garlanded by shops and shrines, by traffic and commerce and noise, it shines still, tranquil and pristine in the midst of chaos like a jewel set in gold, resting on the mountain’s breast.

Every space in my father’s house is filled with his benevolent and blessed presence.

My father’s house is vaster than the cosmos, welcoming all that seek for peace: no doors are ever shut, no one is ever turned away; here all living beings are recognised as being equally divine.

My father’s house is like the mighty Ganges river: how much water you can carry away depends only on the size of your vessel and your own strength.

In my father’s house, bellies and hearts and souls are all fed freely as a matter of course.

In my father’s house, the welcome is always unconditionally loving and forgiving, always a benediction of benevolent,perfect Grace!

Businessmen and pilgrims, beggars and housewives, sadhus and tourists, the rich and the poor, the young and the old and the in-between- all are embraced in this healing place!

I go to my father's house to rest and recuperate.

In my father’s house, I am at peace: here I discover that my father and I are One.

Here I can drop all my cares, my masks, my pain, my tears, my fantasies of loss and gain: here, at last, I can just rest quietly and gratefully, like an old dog snoozing in a patch of winter sunshine.

How good it feels to be home!

Are You Ready?

“Bhakti is the mother of jnana.” Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharishi





"It is said that, in the Kaliyuga, if a man can weep for God one day and one night, he  will see Him. The most important thing is faith.

As is a man's meditation, so is his feeling of love;

As is a man's feeling of love, so is his gain;

And faith is the root of all.

If one has faith one has nothing to fear."

Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa.

Do you know what it’s like to love like God does? To BE love?  No words can begin to describe it:

To give totally and universally, like the sun, with no conditions, no restraint and no demand,

Just a never-ending outpouring of life-giving energy and radiance.

To love like the rain loves the earth, like the wind loves the sky, like the moon loves the sea!

To love with the primordial power and heaven-shaking grandeur of a tropical storm, the vast totality of infinite space, the blissful, bone-melting ecstasy of absolute surrender, the deep and perfect peace of immortal union!

You can never know it or acquire it…you have to melt in it like the candle thrown into the sun, dissolve in it like a salt doll that dives into the sea.

Only when you disappear thus do you become this Love, this infinite, wondrous, joyous delight that is the source and substance of all things.

How great is your desire to find Truth?

Do you thirst for the Divine like the traveller lost in the desert thirsts for water?

Is your heart filled with love and longing for Him?

Fortunate is the one who’s faith is unshakable as a rock, for faith is the one element of transformation that cannot be denied!

Beyond knowledge and ignorance, beyond form and formless, beyond all duality, what is that perfect Void that is always full to overflowing?

Can mind begin to understand that which is beyond the mind?

Can all the sacred books teach you anything about God?

Can you expand your heart to embrace all creation?

Can you gladly and joyfully perish in the embrace of the Beloved like the moth in the flame?

O child of Grace, are you ready, at last, to go home?

It Takes A Hero

...in praise of all the unsung heroes and heroines who face their demons so bravely every day!

It takes a hero

To stand firm, alone, in the fiercest of storms, anchored only by Truth,

To face the world with courage and oneself with honesty,

To look pain straight in the eye and still be able to fashion a glorious destiny from the shards of shattered dreams,

To hold to one’s faith unshaken despite all odds and obstacles,

To love totally and unconditionally, giving all from one’s heart, yet asking nothing in return,

To live each day with childlike wonder and serve gladly, without needing to rule or control;

To find the divine treasure that only the pure of heart can find.

It takes a hero to be humble,

To let go of everything in total surrender and be nothing,

To let oneself sink deep into the Silence in the Heart,

To rest in the Self - unmoving, unchanging,

To know the joy of stillness and the bliss of unity,

To willingly dissolve, without a trace left behind,

in the infinite ocean of the Unknowable.

It takes a hero

To be.

All that I see

Walking through crowded city streets, amidst the hubbub and the noise,

Monsoon winds caress me, clouds sail across grey skies.

Despite the sound of traffic, I can hear trees rustle and sigh and birds calling;

The scent of jasmine and diesel smoke commingle with great equanimity.

People pass me in a never-ending stream:

Young and old, rich and poor, sad and happy, whole and crippled,

So many different faces, but everyone so human, so being!

Each a unique mystery, a special, particular story, a hero on a quest:

Thus am I shown the thousand faces of God!

Everywhere the Divine reveals itself, in sound and sight and smell,

Like a shy maiden who lets her veil drop briefly

To reveal a glimpse of pure, incandescent beauty.

I bow with great reverence in my heart

Awestruck before the magic of the formless One

Dancing in and out of reality in so many different ways,

Weaving this wondrous, complex tapestry of life from a single invisible thread!

In such Light,

when my eye is single and devout,

All that I see is sacred!

Who?

Who speaks with my tongue, who sees through my eyes,

Who weeps with my sorrow, who is born, who dies?

Who wakes every morning and acts out my life,

Who worries, who ponders, in my struggles and strife?

Who celebrates my triumphs, who is sad and alone,

Who lives in this body of flesh, blood and bone?

Who rests when I slumber, who dreams all my dreams,

Who knows what I know, is this world what it seems?

Who feels through my heart, who thinks with my mind,

Who is this me that I am supposed to find?

Who understands the twinship of pleasure and pain?

Who knows how much bliss this human heart can contain?

Who is the Sun  that dispels all the mists?

Who sees the Divine permeating all that exists?

Who understands this mystery of the All in the One?

Who does nothing at all, yet leaves nothing undone?

Who is formless and timeless, yet the very source of being,

Who is nothing and everything, betwixt and between?

Who shines in my heart and grants me joyous release,

Who fills me with comfort and this deep, ecstatic peace?

Who swallows me whole, who dissolves me in joy,

Who is this “I “ who am I?

The McMamama Clan

A giant banyan tree grows from a tiny seed. So too, from the seed of one amazing life, a diverse, global, affectionate clan was born. Bonded by blood and love and memories, sharing with and caring for each other, living fully and joyously, this ever-growing family is the McMamama Clan.

Born in 1910, Ramani Mallya, a woman of the Gowd Saraswat Brahmin community, was married at the age of 15 and lived in Mangalore, India, where she had ten children: five boys and five girls. In the eighty nine years of her life, this beautiful, small-built, slender woman proved to be an indomitable but compassionate matriarch who did her very best to take good care of her family. Her ten children in turn had children of their own, so she was grandmother to a large brood of rambunctious grandchildren, who called her Mamama or Bappamma.

Today, her grand children have children, and grandchildren, of their own, and, like shoots of the ever-spreading banyan tree, her descendants have spread all over the globe. This giant family tree, now over a hundred members strong, is a close-knit, loving group of individuals who continue to bond together over four generations. The oldest clan member is over 90 years old and the youngest are barely a few months old while the rest of the clan span the ages in between. Representing diverse cultures, races and nationalities, the current-day Clan is truly a multi-cultural global entity and a shining example of the essential oneness of the human race. From USA to Dubai to Indonesia and Australia and, of course, India, the tendrils of affection and connection form an invisible but strong network as beautiful and interdependent as the canopy of a dense tropical forest.

Family is more than just blood-relations or shared DNA. It is a complex, organic, mysterious field that is constantly developing, growing, interacting, changing and evolving. Ramani Mallya was just one individual, but she also was a node in the flow of evolution, a crucial vortex in the flux of ancestors to descendants, an important key-note in the unfolding harmony of the Clan.

Every one of her children and grandchildren were consciously and unconsciously influenced by her and are transmitters of her unique message, her soul vibration of faith and devotion, love and sympathy, simple joy and compassion.

 Like unnoticed daylight and fresh air in an inner courtyard, the essence of Ramani Mallya  lives on; in the children and grandchildren of her grandchildren, her gentle being achieves a kind of immortality, which is shared with every member of the ever-growing clan..

Delighting in life, enjoying good food and drink, good conversation and company, providing affection and support to each other, feeling part of a greater whole, the members of the McMamama clan naturally carry on the tradition of Ramani Mallya : to be good human beings.

There is no better way to honour her.