Saturday, 22 August 2015
Upadēśa Undiyār  verse 30:
‘That alone is tapas’: the first teachings that Sri
Ramana gave to Kavyakantha Ganapati Sastri
In the comments on one of my recent
articles, Can we experience what we
actually are by following the path of
devotion (bhakti mārga)?, a friend argued
that self-investigation (ātma-vicāra) is a
two-stage process, and though I tried to
explain in my latest article, Trying to
distinguish ourself from our ego is what is
called self-investigation (ātma-vicāra),
that it is actually a single seamless
process with no distinct stages, various
friends have continued discussing this idea,
and at one point this discussion branched
off into a discussion about the reliability
of what is recorded in the ‘Talks’ section
of Sat-Darshana Bhashya, which
prompted me to explain (here, here  practising mantra-japa (repetition
and here) why I generally do not consider
anything written or recorded by
Kavyakantha Ganapati Sastri or Kapali
Sastri to be reliable.
Since discussion of these two separate
subjects continued side by side for a while,
in one comment a friend called
Wittgenstein suggested that it would be
useful to consider the first teaching that
Bhagavan gave to Kavyakantha in order to
see whether he gave any indication at that
time that ātma-vicāra is a two-stage
process. Wittgenstein concluded that there
was no such indication, but asked me to
correct him if he had drawn any wrong
conclusions from that teaching, so this
article is written in reply to him.
1. The two replies that Bhagavan gave
to Kavyakantha
2. The implication of Bhagavan’s first
reply
3. The practice of self-investigation
entails nothing but attentively
observing ourself
4. The implication of Bhagavan’s
second reply
5.
experiencing what remains when
the ego dissolves is  tapas
6. Guru Vācaka Kōvai verse 706: a
paraphrase of Bhagavan’s second
reply
7. Upadēśa Taṉippākkaḷ  verse 14:
Bhagavan’s condensation of verse
706 of  Guru Vācaka Kōvai
1. The two replies that Bhagavan gave to
Kavyakantha
Kavyakantha Ganapati Sastri had been
living in Tiruvannamalai on and off since
1903, so he had known about Bhagavan
since then, but he did not feel any
particular interest in him until one day in
1907. On that day, 18th November, he
was feeling dejected, because in spite of
of
sacred words) and other forms of tapas
(religious austerity or spiritual practice)
for many years he had not achieved any
of his ambitions, so he suddenly felt
inspired to approach Bhagavan and ask
him for guidance. Finding him sitting
alone outside Virupaksha cave, where he
was then living, Kavyakantha prostrated
to him and said something to the effect:
‘I have studied all the Vedas and
numerous other books; I have done
countless crores of mantra-japa; I have
fasted and eaten very little; yet what is
actually meant by ‘tapas’ is still not
clear to me. Graciously explain to me
what tapas really is’.
At first Bhagavan just kept quiet and
silently gazed as Kavyakantha, but after
about fifteen minutes Kavyakantha said:
‘I have read in books about such cakṣu-
dīkṣā [initiation by sight] but I cannot
grasp the truth that is taught thereby,
so graciously explain verbally’.
Bhagavan then said:
If one attentively observes that from
where what says ‘I, I’ goes out, there the
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mind will be dissolved; that alone
is tapas.
However Kavyakantha was bewildered by
the unfamiliarity of this teachings, so he
asked, ‘Is it not possible to attain that
state even by mantra-japa?’, to which
Bhagavan replied:
If one does japa of a mantra, if one
attentively observes from where that
mantra-sound goes out, there the mind is
dissolved; that itself is tapas.
Let us now consider the meaning and
implication of these two replies in more
detail.
2. The implication of Bhagavan’s first
reply
In the first of these two replies the
phrase (nāṉ nāṉ eṉbadu), which means
‘what says I I’, ‘what is said to be I I’ or
‘what is called I I’, denotes the ego,
because the ego is the only form of ‘I’
that rises or goes out. In this phrase the
repetition of (nāṉ), which means ‘I’,
refers to the fact that in both thought
and speech the ego repeatedly refers to
itself as ‘I’, as Kavyakantha had done
when saying ‘I have studied all the
Vedas […] I have done crores of mantra-
japa; I have fasted […]’.
(eṅgēyirundu) means ‘from where’;
(puṟappaḍugiṟadō) means ‘goes out’ or
‘starts out’; (adai) is the accusative case
form of (adu), which means ‘that’ or ‘it’;
and (gavaṉittāl) is a conditional form of
(gavaṉi), which is a transitive verb that
means to observe or attend to, so
(gavaṉittāl) means ‘if one attentively
observes’. Thus (nāṉ nāṉ eṉbadu
eṅgēyirundu puṟappaḍugiṟadō adai-k
gavaṉittāl) is a conditional clause that
means: ‘if one attentively observes that
from where what says I I goes out’.
This conditional clause is followed by the
main clause, (maṉam aṅgē līṉam-āhum),
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which means ‘there the mind will be
dissolved’. (maṉam) means ‘mind’; (aṅgē)
is an intensified form of (aṅgu), which
means ‘there’, so it implies ‘in that very
place’ or ‘in the very source from which
the ego rises’; (līṉam-āhum) is a compound
of two words, (līṉam), which means
‘melted’, ‘dissolved’, ‘absorbed’ or
‘swallowed up’, and (āhum), which means
‘will be’, so (līṉam-āhum) means ‘will be
dissolved’.
Since that from which our ego rises or
goes out is only ourself, what Bhagavan
describes in the conditional clause of this
sentence is only the practice of self-
investigation (ātma-vicāra), which is
attentively observing ourself, the source
from which we rise as this ego, and what
he describes in the main clause is the
result of this practice, which is the
complete dissolution of our mind along
with its root, our ego, in its source,
which is ourself. Then in the concluding
sentence of this first reply he says (adu-
v-ē tapas), which means ‘that alone
is tapas’.
Though tapas literally means ‘scorching’ or
‘burning’ and is generally used to mean
any type of severe religious austerity or
spiritual practice, what any form
of tapas essentially entails is self-denial.
Therefore according to Bhagavan
real tapas is only the practice of ātma-
vicāra, because this is the only means by
which we can dissolve our ego, and
without the complete dissolution of our
ego we cannot really deny ourself. Any
other form of self-denial is only a denial
of what seems to be ‘mine’ but not a
denial of what now seems to be ‘I’,
namely our ego.
Thus in this simple reply Bhagavan
summarised the entire essence of his
teachings, indicating clearly that the
simple practice of being self-attentive or
attentively self-aware is the only means
by which we can dissolve our ego back
into ourself, the source from which it
arose, and thereby remain as we really
are.
3. The practice of self-investigation
entails nothing but attentively observing
ourself
As Wittgenstein wrote in his comment,
there is absolutely no suggestion in this
reply that ātma-vicāra entails more than
one stage. In fact in this reply Bhagavan
implies quite the opposite, namely that in
order to dissolve our ego in ourself we
need do nothing else but try to
attentively observe ourself.
Since we now experience ourself as this
ego, which is a mixture of ourself and
various adjuncts that we currently
mistake ourself to be, when we begin
trying to attentively observe ourself we
will be observing ourself as this ego.
However, so long as we understand that
what we actually are is only pure self-
awareness, which is the essence of this
ego, what we will try to observe
attentively is only our self-awareness and
not any of the adjuncts with which it is
now mixed, such as our body, and by
thus trying to observe only our essential
self-awareness we will gradually manage
to separate this self-awareness and
thereby experience it in complete
isolation (kaivalya) from all our adjuncts.
This separation and isolation of ourself by
keenly vigilant self-attentiveness is the
only means by which our ego and the rest
of our mind can be dissolved back into
ourself, because we seem to be this ego
or mind only so long as we experience
ourself mixed with any adjuncts.
Therefore simple self-attentiveness is all
that ātma-vicāra  entails from beginning
to end, so there is no stage in ātma-
vicāra other than trying to be attentively
self-aware as much as possible.
That is, by simply observing our ego
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attentively as much as we can we will
eventually succeed in dissolving it back
into ourself, its source. No effort other
than this is required, and indeed any
effort other than this will only distract
away us from attentively observing
ourself alone.
4. The implication of Bhagavan’s second
reply
What Bhagavan taught Kavyakantha in his
second reply is essentially exactly the
same as what he taught him in his first
reply, because just as we ourself are the
source from which we rise as this illusory
‘I’ called ego or mind, we are also the
source from which everything else arises,
including the sound of any mantra that
we might be repeating, so attentively
observing the source from which
a mantra-sound goes out is the same as
attentively observing the source from
which we go out as this ego. Both entail
only being vigilantly self-attentive.
In the second reply there are two
conditional clauses, of which the first is a
condition for the second, and the second is
a condition for the result expressed in the
main clause (which is the same as the
result expressed in the main clause of the
first reply). The first conditional clause is
(oru mantirattai japam paṇṇiṉāl), which
means ‘if one does japa of a mantra’,
except that (mantirattai) is the accusative
case form of (mantiram), which is a Tamil
form of the Sanskrit word (mantra), so it is
the direct object of the conditional verb
phrase (japam paṇṇiṉāl), which means ‘if
one does japa’ or ‘if one does repetition’.
However in English the verb phrase ‘do
repetition’ cannot take a direct object, so
we have to add the preposition ‘of’.
Therefore we either have to translate this
clause as ‘if one does japa of a mantra’, or
in order to make ‘mantra’ a direct object,
as it is in Tamil, we have to paraphrase the
meaning of this clause simply as ‘if one
repeats a mantra’.

The second conditional clause is (anda
mantira-dhvaṉi eṅgēyirundu
puṟappaḍugiṟadu eṉḏṟu gavaṉittāl), which
means ‘if one attentively observes from
where that mantra-sound goes out’. In
this context the term (mantira-dhvaṉi) or
‘mantra-sound’ does not literally mean a
physical sound, because such a literal
meaning would apply only in the case
of japa done aloud and not in the case
of japa done mentally, so we should take
it figuratively to mean the ‘mental
sound’ or thought of a mantra. That is, if
we repeat a mantra in our mind we are
mentally enunciating [Say or pronounce
clearly] the sound of that mantra, so that
mentally enunciated sound arises only in
our mind, and the source from which it
arises is the same source from which our
ego and everything else arises, namely
ourself.
Therefore what Bhagavan implies in this
clause is ‘if one attentively observes
oneself, the source from which that
mantra-sound goes out’. If we try to do
this in practice, what will happen sooner
or later is that our mental japa will
cease, because we can do such japa only
by attending to the thought of whatever
mantra we are mentally repeating, so if
we try to focus our entire attention on
ourself, the source of that thought, the
thought itself will thereby be prevented
from rising.
However, this cessation of our japa does
not matter, because if we are following
Bhagavan’s instruction correctly, what is
important is only that we attentively
observe ourself. So long as we allow
ourself to be attached to attending to
the mantra, we will not be able to
attentively observe its source steadily,
because our attention will then be
divided between the mantra  and
ourself, fluctuating back and forth
between one and the other, so at best
our self-attentiveness will only be
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partial. Therefore if we want to go deep
into this practice of attentively observing
from where the mantra-sound goes out,
we have to be ready to let go of
the mantra-sound in order to focus our
entire attention on ourself, its source.
What will happen if we thus attentively
observe from where the mantra-sound goes
out is expressed by Bhagavan in the main
clause of this sentence, (maṉam aṅgē
līṉam-āgiṟadu), which means, ‘there the
mind is dissolved’. This is further
evidence that he did not mean that we
should continue clinging to the  mantra 
or mantra-sound itself, because so long
as we allow our mind to cling to anything
other than ourself we will be preventing
it from dissolving. It is only by our
attending to ourself and ourself alone
that our mind will dissolve back into
ourself, its source.
As in the case of his first reply, in this
reply after saying that our mind will
dissolve in ourself if we attend to ourself
he ends by saying, (adu-dāṉ tapas), which
means, ‘that itself is tapas’ or ‘that alone
is tapas’. Thus what he implies in both of
these replies is that real tapas is only the
dissolution of our mind, which can be
effected only by our attentively
observing ourself, the source from which
our ego and all its thoughts arise.
5. Upadēśa Undiyār verse 30:
experiencing what remains when the ego
dissolves is tapas
This idea is also expressed by him in
verse 30 of Upadēśa Undiyār:
English translation: ‘What [state of
egolessness is experienced] if one knows
what remains after ‘I’ has ceased to
exist, that alone is good tapas’: thus said
Lord Ramana, who is ourself.
In this verse the phrase (yāṉ aṯṟu
iyalvadu), which literally means ‘I ceasing
what remains’ or ‘I having ceased what
remains’, and which therefore implies
‘what remains after I has ceased to
exist’, denotes ourself (what we actually
are), because we alone will remain when
our ego has dissolved and thereby ceased
to exist. (tēriṉ) means ‘if one knows’, and
since knowing ourself, who alone will
remain after our ego has ceased, is the
state of true self-knowledge or pure self-
awareness, what is denoted by both the
pronouns (edu, which means ‘what’) and
(adu, which means ‘that’) is that pure
self-awareness.
The suffix (dāṉ) that is appended to (adu)
is an intensifier, so (adu-dāṉ) means ‘that
itself’ or ‘that alone’, which refers to the
egoless self-awareness implied by the
previous clause, (yāṉ aṯṟu iyalvadu tēriṉ),
‘if one knows what remains after I has
ceased to exist’. (ṉaṯṟavam) or (nal tavam)
literally means ‘good tapas’, but since
‘good’ is an understatement in this
context, what is implied by (nal) or ‘good’
is excellent, genuine or real. Therefore
what is implied by the main clause, (adu-
dāṉ nal tavam) or ‘that alone is
good tapas’, is that real tapas is only the
egoless self-awareness that alone will
remain and be experienced after the
annihilation of our ego.
Thus the definition of tapas that
Bhagavan gives in this verse closely
parallels the definitions of it that he gave
in his two replies to Kavyakantha,
because in all these three cases he
clearly implies that real tapas is only the
state in which our ego or mind has been
completely dissolved and eradicated.
Like Kavyakantha, the so-called ‘rishis’
(ṛṣis) in the Daruka forest, to whom the
teachings in Upadēśa Undiyār were
addressed, were doing tapas for the
fulfilment of their personal ambitions, so
after weaning them away from their kāmya
karmas (desire-motivated actions) by
telling them that such actions cannot give
5
liberation, then explaining to them the
relative efficacy of a broad range of other
practices, and then teaching them that the
best of all practices is only self-
investigation (ātma-vicāra), because it
alone is the direct path to liberation,
Bhagavan finally tells them that
real tapas is only the egoless state of
pure self-awareness that will alone
remain as a result of the annihilation of
the ego by means of ātma-vicāra.
However whereas this was the final
teaching (upadēśa) that he as Lord Siva
gave in ancient times to the ṛṣis in the
Daruka forest, it was the first teaching that
he gave to Kavyakantha Ganapati Sastri,
thereby indicating to us that in his
manifestation as Sadguru Ramana he
would not beat around the bush but
would from the very outset guide his
devotees onto the direct path of ātma-
vicāra.
Though both the ṛṣis in the Daruka forest
and Kavyakantha had been doing tapas for
the fulfilment of their personal ambitions,
we should not think that they are very
different to us, because like them we each
have our own desires and trivial aspirations
that we hope to fulfil. So long as we
experience ourself as this ego, we cannot
completely avoid having desires, because
desire and attachment to things other
than ourself is the very nature of the
ego. If we aspire to experience ourself as
we really are, we obviously need to try
to minimise our other desires and
aspirations as much as possible, but we
cannot root them out entirely by any
means other than persistent self-
attentiveness.
That is, the root of all our desires and
ambitions is only our ego, so even if we
manage to curb or reduce the intensity of
some of our desires, other desires
(perhaps more subtle or seemingly
altruistic [Showing a disinterested and
selfless concern for the well-being of
others; unselfish] ones) will keep on
sprouting as long as this ego survives.
Therefore the only effective way to curb
all desires, both long-established ones
and newly sprouting ones, is to curb the
rising of our ego, which we can do only
by attentively observing it as much as
possible. So long as we allow ourself to
be aware of anything other than ourself,
we are giving our ego freedom to rise, so
we can restrict its freedom only by trying
to be aware of ourself alone as much as
we can.
We may consider our desires to be
altruistic, as Kavyakantha no doubt did,
but no matter how altruistic they may
be, desires are desires, and they bind us
to our ego and all its adjuncts. Therefore
if we are intent on rooting out our ego,
we have no option but to try to curb all
our desires, even our seemingly most
altruistic ones, by persevering in our
effort to attentively observe ourself, the
source from which our ego arises along
with all its desires. Thus at each moment
of our life we are faced with a choice:
whether to allow ourself to be drawn
away by the outward-going flow of our
desires, or to cling firmly to self-
attentiveness. The extent to which we
choose the latter option indicates the
extent to which we have genuine love to
experience ourself as we really are.
I can only speak for myself when I say that
I know my own love to experience myself
as I really am is woefully inadequate, so I
am constantly carried away by the flow of
my desires to experience things other than
myself alone, but I suspect that most of us
feel more or less the same. However, we
should not despair, because however
little effort we may make to be self-
attentive, every attempt we make is a
small step in the right direction, and
Bhagavan has assured us (in the twelfth
paragraph of Nāṉ Yār? and elsewhere)
that if we persevere as much as we can
we will certainly succeed sooner or later.
He has given us the golden remedy, so if
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we yield ourself to him by trying to avail of
it as much as possible, we can be sure that
our small efforts to do so will unfailingly
lead us to our destination. Therefore let
us each continue trying to do our own
little bit of tapas by attentively
observing ourself, the source from which
we have risen as this devilish and self-
deceptive ego.
6. Guru Vācaka Kōvai verse 706: a
paraphrase of Bhagavan’s second reply
In many biographies of Bhagavan, such
as Self-Realisation (which was first
published in 1931 and which being the
earliest detailed biography became the
basis for most subsequent ones), the
reason why he gave his second reply to
Kavyakantha is not clearly indicated, so
he was often asked by devotees why he
had done so, and he would then explain
that he did so because after hearing his
first reply Kavyakantha had asked him
whether it is not possible to achieve the
same state by doing mantra-japa. On one
such occasion he elaborated on the inner
meaning and implication of his second
reply, and what he said then was
summarised by Sri Muruganar in verse
706 of Guru Vācaka Kōvai:
English translation: [For] those who are
not able to submerge within
[investigating] by silence, which is their
sharp [acute, refined or subtle]
awareness, what the place is from which
it [the ego] rises as ‘I’, during japa done
by mind investigating from
where parāvāk [the supreme word or
sound] arises is good.
The grammatical structure of this verse
and the relationship between the two
halves of it is almost impossible to convey
accurately in English, because it is a single
sentence in which the verbal noun (āydal),
which means ‘investigating’, together all
that precedes it is the subject of the main
clause, so the entire verse except the final
word, (nalam), which means ‘good’, is a
single noun phrase with (āydal) as its head.
Within this noun phrase, the entire portion
up to and including (uḷ mūṙka māṭṭādar),
which means ‘those who are not able to
submerge within’, is another noun phrase
and is the subject of the verbal noun
(āydal), so the basic structure of this
sentence is equivalent to saying in English
‘their investigating is good’, where ‘their’
represents the noun phrase ending with
(māṭṭādar), ‘those who are not able’, and
‘investigating’ represents the rest of the
main noun phrase ending with (āydal).
Therefore though the basic structure is
quite simple, all the other words that form
both the main noun phrase and the noun
phrase within it make it too complex to
translate accurately into English, so to
make sense of it in an English sentence I
had to add the word ‘for’ in square
brackets before the first noun phrase,
namely ‘those who are not able to
submerge within [investigating] by silence,
which is their sharp awareness, what the
place is from which it rises as I’.
There are several useful ideas in this verse
that were not explicit in the second reply
that Bhagavan gave to Kavyakantha. Firstly
the first noun phrase ‘those who are not
able to submerge within [investigating] by
silence, which is their sharp awareness,
what the place is from which it rises as I’,
indicates that what Bhagavan suggested in
his second reply is an option that needs to
be offered only to those who feel they are
unable to silently merge within by
investigating what the source is from which
the ego rises.
Another important point in this complex
phrase is the simpler instrumental phrase
‘by silence, which is their sharp [acute,
refined or subtle] awareness’ and which
therefore implies that the instrument by
which we can investigate our source is
silent and keenly focussed self-awareness
or self-attentiveness.
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In his second reply to Kavyakantha
Bhagavan advised him to attentively
observe from where the mantra-dhvaṉi or
sound of the mantra arises, but in this
verse he expresses the same idea in a
slightly different way by saying
‘investigating from where parāvāk arises’.
(parāvākku) literally means ‘supreme
word’ or ‘supreme sound’, and in verse 715
of Guru Vācaka Kōvai he indicates that
what he means by this term is ‘I’ or ‘I am
I’, which is obviously not the same as
the mantra-dhvaṉi, but since the source
from which the mantra-dhvaṉi arises is the
same as the source from which ‘I’ arises,
namely ourself, Bhagavan’s instruction in
both cases amounts to saying that we
should attentively observe ourself even
while doing mantra-japa. Therefore his use
of this term (parāvākku) in this verse is
further evidence that what he meant by
attentively observing from where
the mantra-dhvaṉi arises is only attentively
observing ourself.
Obviously to attentively observe ourself
we do not need to do any japa, but if like
Kavyakantha we are so habituated to
doing japa that we are unwilling to give it
up, Bhagavan suggested that even while
doing japa we should attentively observe
ourself, from whom the mantra-sound
arises, and from whom the parāvāk or
supreme word ‘I’ also arises. Therefore
the essential import of the two replies
that Bhagavan gave to Kavyakantha is
that whether we do japa or not, what we
should try to attend to is only ourself and
not anything else.
Another useful idea in this verse is
expressed by the words ‘in [or
during] japa done by mind’. In his second
reply Bhagavan said ‘if one does japa of
a mantra’, without specifying whether he
was referring to oral japa or mental japa,
but in this verse he indicates that it is
preferable to interpret what he replied to
Kavyakantha as referring to mental japa 
rather than oral japa. Of course we can
also apply what he suggested in that reply
to doing oral japa, but since he said
in verse 6 of Upadēśa Undiyār that mental  range of meanings including to be, exist,
japa is more beneficial than oral japa, we
can infer that what he replied to
Kavyakantha can be more effectively
applied while doing mental japa.
7. Upadēśa Taṉippākkaḷ verse 14:
Bhagavan’s condensation of verse 706
of Guru Vācaka Kōvai
After composing the above verse of Guru
Vācaka Kōvai Muruganar showed it to
Bhagavan, as he always did whenever he
composed any verse, particularly a verse
of Guru Vācaka Kōvai, and rather than
suggesting any correction or
improvement, as he sometimes did,
Bhagavan composed another verse in
which he expressed the same idea in a
more succinct manner. His verse is now
included in Guru Vācaka Kōvai as verse
B12 and in Upadēśa Taṉippākkaḷ as verse
14:
English translation: [For] those who in
[the practice of] jñāna cannot abide as
[intimately experience or reach] the
place where ‘I’ pervades, in [the practice
of] japa investigating the place where
vāk-parai pervades is appropriate.
The grammatical structure of this verse is
basically the same as that of the verse
of Guru Vācaka Kōvai that Bhagavan
summarised in it, so the noun phrase
‘those who in jñāna cannot abide as
[intimately experience or reach] the place
where ‘I’ pervades’, is the subject of the
noun phrase ending with the verbal noun
‘investigating’ or ‘knowing’ and which is in
turn the subject of the main clause. Since
in an English sentence we cannot express a
complex noun phrase as the subject of a
verbal noun, I had to modify the
grammatical structure of this sentence in
English by adding the word ‘for’ in square
brackets before the first noun phrase.
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(uṟār) is a personal noun formed from the
negative of the verb (uṟu), which has a rich
happen, occur, dwell, reside, be
permanent, be stable, be attached to, be
devoted to, love, join, associate with,
touch, contact, move towards, approach,
gain access to, reach, attain, perceive by
touch, experience, suffer, think and
resemble. The meaning of (uṟu) or (uṟār) is
therefore determined in each case by the
context in which either of them is used. In
this context (uṟār) means those who do
not, will not or cannot steadily be, abide
as, intimately experience, move towards,
approach, gain access to, reach or attain,
so (ñāṉattuḷ nāṉ ārum thāṉam uṟār) means
‘those who in jñāna cannot steadily be
[abide as, intimately experience,
approach, reach or attain] the place where
‘I’ pervades’.
(ār) is a verb that means to become full,
spread over, pervade, be satisfied, abide,
stay, experience or obtain, and (ārum) is a
relative participle form of it, so (nāṉ ārum
thāṉam) means the place where (or in
which) ‘I’ pervades, abides or is
experienced. (thānam) is a Tamil form of
the Sanskrit word (sthāna), which literally
means a place (particularly a holy place) or
a state of being fixed and stationary (being
cognate with English words such as stand,
state and static), but which is used here in
a metaphorical sense to refer to ourself,
the abode or static state that is filled only
by ‘I’.
Likewise, (vāk-parai ār thāṉam) means the
place where vāk-parai pervades, abides or
is experienced, because (ār) is used here
to represent its relative participle, (ārum).
(vāk-parai) is an alternative form of the
term (parāvākku), which Muruganar used in
his verse, so it literally means the ‘word
supreme’ or ‘supreme word’, and as we
saw in the previous section, this is a term
that Bhagavan used to describe ‘I’, the
natural name of ourself, the supreme and
only reality. Therefore, since (vāk-parai)
means (nāṉ) or ‘I’, and since in practice
investigating ‘I’ entails just experiencing
and abiding as ‘I’ without rising to attend
to anything else, ‘investigating [or
knowing] the place where vāk-parai  self-attentiveness that he taught him in
pervades [abides or is experienced]’ means
exactly the same as (nāṉ ārum thāṉam
uṟudal) or ‘abiding as [or intimately
experiencing] the place where ‘I’ pervades
[abides or is experienced]’.
Therefore the only difference between the
practice that Bhagavan describes in each of
these two noun phrases lies in the two
words (ñāṉattuḷ) and (japattil). (ñāṉattuḷ)
literally means ‘within jñāna’ or
‘inside jñāna’, but in this context implies
while practising self-investigation (ātma-
vicāra), which alone is the path of jñāna,
as taught by Bhagavan in verse 29 of Uḷḷadu
Nāṟpadu, in which he says ‘investigating by
an inward sinking mind where it rises as I
alone is the path of jñāna’. (japattil)
likewise means ‘in japa’, which in this
context implies while practising japa, so
what Bhagavan implies in this verse is
simply that for those who think they
cannot practise self-investigation on its
own, it is appropriate to practise self-
investigation while doing japa.
That is, for those who are accustomed to
doing some action (karma) such as japa in
the name of spiritual practice, just being
silently and attentively self-aware may
seem to be too abstract and may therefore
not seem to be a spiritual practice at all,
so for such people it can be helpful to
continue doing japa (or whatever other
such action they are used to doing) but at
the same time trying to attentively observe
themselves, the source from which japa or
other such actions arise. By continuing to
do whatever they are used to doing, they
will maintain their impression that they are
doing a spiritual practice, while at the
same time by trying to be attentively self-
aware they will be beginning to do a
spiritual practice that is actually far more
beneficial and efficacious than any action
could ever be.
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Thus in this verse Bhagavan clearly
indicates that the practice he taught
Kavyakantha in his second reply is
essentially exactly the same practice of
his first reply. The only reason he
worded his second reply as he did was
because Kavyakantha had asked him
whether he could not attain the same
state by doing mantra-japa, so what
Bhagavan implied in his second reply is
that he could do so provided he tried to
be self-attentive while doing his japa.
In other words, though both in his second
reply and in this verse Bhagavan
mentions doing japa as an optional extra,
he makes it clear that whether or not we
do japa, what is essential is only that we
should try as much as possible to be self-
attentive. To illustrate how we can apply
this in practice without being distracted
away from our main aim, which is only to
be self-attentive, I will end by relating it
to my own experience.
That is, I find it is useful occasionally to
apply what he suggests in this verse in
the following way: sometimes when my
mind is engrossed in other thoughts and
seems to have no interest or liking even
to try to be self-attentive, to restore my
interest I start to mentally repeat his
name, ‘Ramana, Ramana, Ramana,
Ramana’ (often in one of the tunes in
which Sadhu Om used to sing it, which
involves lengthening the final ‘a’ to make
it vocative case, a prayerful call to him,
just as he himself lengthened the final ‘a’
in ‘Arunachala’ at the end of each verse
and the refrain of  Akṣaramaṇamālai),
and while doing so I try to be self-
attentive. Using his name (or that of
Arunachala) for this purpose is
particularly appropriate and effective,
because he taught us that he is in fact
our own self and therefore shines
eternally within us as ‘I’, so his name not
only rekindles our devotion to him but
also draws our attention back within to
experience him as he really is. When I
succeed in restoring my interest in being
self-attentive by this means, the
repetition of his name naturally subsides,
because the more strongly our attention
is drawn to ourself the less we need to or
are able to pay any attention to
doing japa.
COMMENTS
Paravak: Oh Lord Siva in your
manifestation as Sadguru Arunachala-
Ramana,
sorry to disturb you.
May I address my prayers to you:
I am sorry about that I am a wretched and
sorry figure.
My life is not ‚good‘ real tapas but I am the
allower.
I allow my mind to cling to anything other
than myself.
I prevent my mind from dissolving back
into myself.
I do not attend to myself alone.
I do not attentively observe myself, the
source from which my ego and all its
thoughts arise.
My ego has not dissolved - it has not ceased
to exist.
My mind has not been completely
eradicated.
I do not know who/what remains after I has
ceased to exist.
So I am not in the state of true self-
knowledge or pure self-awareness.
I did not experience the state of egoless
self-awareness.
I am not weaned away from kamya karmas
(desire-motivated actions).
I am still cultivating my personal
ambitions, own desires and trivial
aspirations.
My desires bind me to my ego and all its
adjuncts.
I am constantly carried away by the flow of
my desires to experience things other than
myself alone.
I have risen as this devilish and self-
deceptive ego.
I am still not intent to root out my ego.
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Oh Arunachala – Ramana you have given us
the golden remedy.
Please support every little effort to be
self-attentive.
Instead of yield to despair please accept
my devotion(yielding myself) to your loving
treatment.- 24 August 2015 at 01:58
Michael James: Paravak, I join you in your
prayer, which speaks so eloquently for my
sorry situation.- 24 August 2015 at 09:07
Michael James: Anonymous, regarding your
question about whether the practice is to
be aware of what is aware, the answer is
quite simply yes, though this perhaps needs
some further clarification.
What is aware is only ourself, and we are
always aware of ourself, so there is never a
time when we are not aware of what is
aware. Therefore though the practice is
essentially just to be aware of what is
aware, it is obviously not just being aware
of what is aware in the normal sense that
we are aware of what is aware.
Though we are always aware of ourself,
we are not always attentively aware of
ourself, because we are generally more
interested in being aware of other things
than in being aware of ourself alone.
Therefore the practice is not just being
aware of what is aware, but is being
attentively aware of what is aware. Or in
other words, it is trying to be aware of
nothing other than what is aware, namely
ourself.
So long as we are aware not only of
ourself but of ourself plus other things,
we are not experiencing ourself as the
infinite and otherless awareness that we
really are, but only as this finite
awareness called ego, which is what we
now seem to be. Therefore we need to
try to be aware of ourself alone.
However, even when we are fast sleep
we are aware of ourself and nothing else,
so being aware of ourself alone is not
quite sufficient. Therefore rather than
saying that the practice is to try just to
be aware of ourself alone, it would be
more accurate and less ambiguous to say
that it is to try just to be  attentively 
aware of ourself alone.
Words are always an inadequate vehicle to
convey what exactly we are trying to
experience when we investigate ourself,
but I think the closest we can come to
expressing it adequately in words is to say
we must try to be attentively aware of
ourself alone (or in your terms, to be
attentively aware only of what is aware).
I hope this clarification helps, but if not
please do not hesitate to ask for any
further clarification (though I am not sure
that I can clarify it more than this).- 31
August 2015 at 20:08

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