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Letter # 11 - Attention
To make sense of our personal and public world we require a specific
utensil. It is called attention. The power to focus is an attribute of
attention but it is much more than that. Attention is the ability to see
beyond the surface concatenation of happenings and realise the
beginning, middle and end of the chain. Attention catches the entire
sequence and realises the consequences of the string of events in
whatever form it may be. Attention is not so much an act but a state of
mind. It is free of content and unaffected by manifestations. Attention is
transformative. It is the key to liberation.
That is why Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi repeatedly emphasised the
importance of self-enquiry. By focusing on the primal question Who Am
I? we return to the source of our thoughts and automatically develop the
power of attention. By doing so, we fearlessly confront the wave after
wave of thoughts and feelings, which we did not originally pay attention
to when they first manifested and had created unbeknownst to us, an
influential furrow in our memory. These ruts would then influence us in
ways we cannot control or understand. It is as if there were more than
one person inside us, all competing for dominance. This explains why at
times we behave in ways that surprise us as much as they do others
who observe our, say inappropriate, behaviour or language. We can
make fools of ourselves without recognising why. We do not know who
we are.
Bhagavan Ramana would be compassionate when people complained
to him that when they began practising self-enquiry, their mind’s
confusion was worse than ever. This is normal, for all those pent-up,
unresolved issues are like a jumble of clothes thrown into a cupboard
because they do not seem to fit or are inappropriate. Nonetheless, they
pile up, distract us, and haunt us, until we deliberately inspect them and
throw out all that is divisive.
Thought is energy and it leaves a trace in our minds. The overriding
purpose of attention in the traditional Yoga schemata is essentially a
means to purify the aberrations and unwitting tendencies of those mental
tracks which disturb us. In later Letters, we can explore the eightfold
path of Yoga which is the royal highway common to all the various
techniques of Yoga that address the distinctive capacities of individuals.
The practice of Yoga in its most subtle form roots out the original causes
of suffering. It heals the distortions and redirects the patterns so that
they are in harmony. For example, a childhood trauma that may have
disturbed us for years and skewed our responses to a certain situation
or type of person is clinically revealed for what it is, without
embellishment or falsification. There is no one general panacea for all
the ills of everyone. There are however precise paths tailor-made for
each individual. Ultimately each creates their own yoga based on these
general principles. We are not clones of each other. Ramana Maharshi
never demanded that anyone be other than themselves. He did not
create an institution that moulds the individual to act and behave exactly
like everyone else. There was no dress code. There was no one
religious practice. Whether you are single or married or a renunciate, the
challenge in essence is all the same. Who Am I? The path delineated by
Ramana Maharshi is open to all whatever their background and their
development is unique.
When I first came to Arunachala it wasn’t possible to hold my attention
for more than a few seconds and then my mind would wander off
unknowingly or more often than not, wilfully veer wildly from one
emotional time bomb to another. Because of the unresolved force lying
hidden in the emotions, I could not but be aware of the roller coaster ride
but was powerless to stop it. After some weeks of slowly and
deliberately focusing attention, the act of asking Who Am I? had set off a
process over which I had no control. There would be times when I would
get up from meditation in the Old Hall shaken by the intense movie
which had unfolded. It was like being in a washing machine and spun
over and over till the last remnants of dirt were dissolved. It became
easier with repetition but the initial months were quite traumatic. I do not
know why I continued in the face of the intense pressure but then again
what was the alternative? Once we embark on the path there is no going
back. Why? Though it is hard and mostly unrewarding at first, there were
times of sweetness and sheer tranquillity which overrode all the
destructive tendencies which ran riot in the depths of the mind. Those
minute crystallisations were manna which fed and nourished me in the
darkest moments. I knew as all who follow the path of Sri Ramana do
that we had come upon that pearl without price and nothing could shake
the conviction that this is what we had yearned for all along.
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