RAMANA MAHARSHI & THE OX-HERDING PICTURES.

A distinction must be made between an ascetic renunciation of the body/world in pursuit of a higher, nobler state of purified, sanctified, transcendent, dis-incarnate spirituality, and the natural outgrowing of the Self from its sense of being associated with, or being contained within any particular body. The former indicates a dualistic error in our understanding of the nature of our non-dual Reality, and is an ineffective means of attaining true, and complete liberation. The latter is a natural result of the maturation of our sense of personal identity, in which any sense of our being an individual, embodied entity is utterly shed and abandoned. The former is a kind of madness, whereas the latter is an ecstatic expansion, an immense breathing out and letting go. The ascetic believes in, feels there to be, or extrudes for himself two worlds, a lower and a higher. The lower world is experienced, or conceived of as a diabolical apparatus of persecution¹ in which the ascetic is caught up and subjected to suffering. This is the chaotic world of carnal and desirous flesh; the realm of the body, of transitory forms, desire, suffering, pleasure and death. Above, or beyond this entropic, decaying corpse world, or infernal meat machinery is a transcendent realm of rarefied spirit, eternal peace, infinite perfection, imperturbable joy, and boundless love. The ascetic is forever reaching towards, or yearning for this realm, a realm always just beyond his grasp; unsoiled by, unconcerned, and unentangled with the writhing, wriggling world of riotous flesh. ‘Evil is contained in the gaze that sees evil everywhere.’² The ascetic creates the evil world in which he is supposedly incarcerated/incarnated, and from which he struggles to become free. We must be suspicious of this contrived and artificial scene, wherein the ascetic reaches up from the filth towards the blemishless Face of God. He is stretching contentedly; beneath his pained grimace hides a strange, miserly covenant, and stale equilibrium. Ascetic self-persecution can only ever sustain our sense of being an individual self, or separate entity. We must awaken the true Self, oneSelf from this self-sustaining stasis.

The trap, or stalemate in which the ascetic is caught is that of viewing liberation from suffering, escape from the wheel of karmic rebirth, or complete union with God as the superhuman feat of a particular awakened, liberated, or enlightened entity. The glorious Sage, Buddha, Saint, or Jnani is believed to have overcome, or transcended the lower realm (the ordinary world), and to have taken up abode in the higher realm, perhaps returning in Bodhisattvic style to alleviate the suffering, and ignorance of lesser entities. The Jnani may also/alternatively be considered to have overcome the baser aspects of his own nature, and to have attained complete self-mastery, or perfect clarity of heart, and mind. In any case, liberation is seen as the achievement of a particular, spiritually accomplished, special self. The ascetic wants to have his cake and eat it; he wants to attain liberation (becoming an ‘enlightened’ self), without letting go of his sense of being an individual entity. He is thus stuck between two mutually exclusive possibilities. The ascetic might mistakenly believe liberation to be the result of a fantastic accumulation of positive karma across multiple successive lifetimes, or to be the culmination of some remarkable, disciplined devotion to a spiritual practice. To believe anything like this is to give credence to the existence of an entity who accumulates karma, or who practices. The stringent purification of the body/mind practised by the ascetic, by which he attempts to move towards his higher world (or higher self), and by which he thinks he will eventually attain the exalted status of ‘a liberated being,’ is the very thing that is preventing the awesome, self-obliterating encounter necessary for the attainment of true liberation. Even if the ascetic seeks (via his renunciative, self-denying practices) to diminish his feeling of being a personal, agentive self, or little-I (the separate I that must be overcome, or merged with/in the I of God), these practices can only ever sustain the self that is purportedly denied. One who attempts to suffocate his ego (his personal identity) via asceticism is trapped in a paradox resulting from the attempt to kill an illusion; either being exalted, or being castigated, the (illusory) ego is sustained in either case.³ Self-disavowal is simply the equal, and opposite inverse of self-aggrandisement; humility and pride are equal, and inverse mirror sins. In order to be free of the feeling of being an individual self, we must collapse self and world together into the heart; salving any felt distinction between oneSelf, and any ‘other.’ We should not accept unquestioningly that self-denial, and world-denial are practised in simple ignorance of their self-perpetuating futility. These practices keep the fatal encounter with the true, and terrible nature of oneSelf at bay. To collapse this entire, constipated, nihilistic, dual-world edifice (the secretion of the ascetic) into oneSelf, we have to turn and face the cataclysmic truth of our own real nature. What is this self-obliterating encounter that the ascetic would rather perpetually torment himself than confront?

How many of those who identify as Christian would truly wish to stand in the presence of God, gaze into his eyes, and have him also gaze into theirs? How many of those who claim to long for Heaven would really march directly into Hell, rather than look directly into the Eyes of God, and stand in utter nakedness before the tremendum of His unveiled Being? The mind-bending, hair-raising, awesome reality of such an experience would have a psychedelic potency. God would burn like the heart of a star; wherever He stood would be the very centre of creation, and any person in his presence would be crushed flat like a diamond in the centre of the Earth, beneath an enormous, psychedelic, gravitational pressure of pure momentousness. If one envisages what it would be like to encounter an extra-terrestrial in the flesh, or to observe a truly super-natural phenomenon, one gets a taste of the sense of horrendous, awesome, abyssal enormity that would permeate such an encounter. Meeting God would not be the safe, and cordial affair that a cardigan-clad church-goer might imagine it to be. One would experience the same gut-clenching, ecstatic, dreadful terror in encountering God as one sometimes experiences on psychedelic trips. It is easy to long idly to touch the Face of God, or to long idly for liberation, or divine union. But, when everything once sure and stable turns to liquid, and when the boundary separating self and other starts tangibly collapsing, it takes fortitude for us not to balk, and try and claw our way back to the feet of the devil we know.

One [] longs to be back in those beautiful times, a sweet yearning conducts one to the desired goal, to see Christ wandering in the promised land. One forgets the dread, the distress, the paradox. [] Was it not dreadful that this man who walks among the others - was it not dreadful that He was God? Was it not dreadful to sit at table with Him? Was it so easy a matter to become an Apostle? [] I do not feel the courage to wish to be contemporary with such events.⁴

The Christian may overestimate his desire to actually meet God in the flesh. What would be the equivalent to such naivety for the Yogi? The Yogic paths are not directed towards simply encountering God; Yoga is concerned with the attainment of divine union (an even more hair-raising affair). To encounter God in the flesh is one thing, but to realise that the Being I Am is quite literally, and directly the Being of God is quite another. To realise that the Being There Is, the inherently formless Reality continually manifesting itSelf as all the diverse forms of the world is the Being I Am, and the eternal, infinite, seamless, and indivisible Being of God is more shocking by half than shaking God by His glowing hand, or dipping our fingers into His wounded side. This is due to the fatal impact the aforementioned realisation has on our intimate sense of personal identity. To encounter God in the flesh would have an enormous impact on one, but no-one survives the realisation that all Reality is non-dual, undifferentiated Being; the luminous, and immutable Being of God, in whose infinite interior, or on whose dimensionless surface the world causelessly, timelessly, and effortlessly manifests. The personal self can only ever burn away in this realisation: I am not a particular being; I am Being itSelf. God is not a particular being (The Lord God); God is Being itSelf. The Being of God, the Being There Is, and the Being I Am are synonymous terms. Things do not possess their own being; there are no real things-in-themselves that could possess being as a property. The Being There Is masquerades as things; yet the world of things is not the mask of Being, but is Being itSelf directly. There are no separate, individual selves, entities, things, or events; there is only the infinite and eternal Self that is the Reality of apparent forms. This Self is the Self I am, the Self you are, and is the Being of all manifestation. All things are the rippling movement of this dimensionless, seamless, unreifiable, living Reality that is always, and ever I am.

Such a realisation will necessarily wrench, or dissolve our Self-identification away from any particular body. This realisation of the synonymity, or of the non-duality of the Being That Is, and the Being I Am is fatal to our sense of being an individual, personal self, associated with a particular, identifiable body. Asceticism is one of the last possible bastions of the embodied self by which this self preserves itself against its dissolution into the Self-Without-Centre that underlies, or substantiates it. The ascetic can never allow himself to actually find the peace for which he is supposedly striving, because in letting go of his suffering, he would be letting go of his personal self-hood. It is not some terrible wrath, or a reality-bending, incipient, vertiginous, and impossible power that would make the Gaze of God unbearable; it is rather the softness of this gaze, its love, and its complete and utter forgiveness that would make it so impossible to withstand. No self can bear to be truly, and utterly forgiven; or to be truly, and utterly set free. “Give me anything but that everything is alright!” To be utterly absolved, redeemed, liberated, or saved is to be washed away into oblivion. In other words, no individual self ever really finds absolution; to touch the absolute (to touch the Face of God) is to cease to be a particular entity at all. It is guilt, debt, lingering, rectifiable imperfection, and the sense of some unfinished business that sustains our sense of individual, personal self-hood. The little-I must always have its objective to pursue. The little-I is always active, looking outwards, because it is itself activity; in silence, and in stillness, the individual self is simply not there. This is the truth that the ascetic cannot face; he would rather run directly into the burning desert than be forgiven of the sin by which he castigates himself, or be liberated of the suffering that he supposedly seeks to overcome. The ascetic loves his prison; it is his constant striving to be free of it that keeps his personal identity intact. Without his striving, he would become No-Thing. This is the fate of all those who stare into the Eyes of God; to touch the Face of God is to become God (like the moth becomes the flame), and to cease to be able to believe that we are, or ever have been an independent entity. God is the fire of Being itSelf; to truly encounter God is to die in God, and to be unveiled as the Reality continually solidifying itSelf, dancing itSelf, configuring, or contorting itSelf into all the multitudinous forms of manifestation. The eighth Ox-Herding picture, and verse depict this utter collapse of self and other, subject and object, and all things and events into the divine, primordial fire constitutive of all manifest worlds.

Whip, rope, person, and bull – all merge in No-Thing.
This heaven is so vast no message can stain it.
How may a snowflake exist in a raging fire?
Here are the footprints of the patriarchs.

⁵

I am tempted to replace the word ‘are’ with the word ‘end’ in the final line of this verse, as here is displayed the utter culmination, or destination of the journey towards liberation. Myself and not-myself are revealed as the same Being-Seamlessly-One. I see now that there are not a multiplicity of individual, separate selves; there is only oneSelf (mySelf); the seamless, ageless, dimensionless, infinite Being-Without-An-Other that ever is, always was, and always will be now. Thus, no-one (no entity) can ever attain, arrive at, or experience this state of complete liberation. To say that liberated beings are rare, or that we could count the number of fully realised beings on our fingers (Ramana Maharshi, the Buddha, Nisargadatta, Bodhidharma, etc.) betrays ignorance as to the nature of liberation. I do not achieve liberation; it is from the illusion of my being a particular entity that I, Being unbound from any body, am freed. Thus, who would attain this state of supreme enlightenment? Absent the illusory sense of being a particular entity, I am no longer able to identify mySelf with any particular body. There is no possibility of claiming liberation as ‘my own.’ One does not transcend personhood, but is revealed as being already only impersonal Reality itSelf. It simply becomes clear that the self-individuating thoughts and habits by which the body I called ‘my own’ distinguished itself from not-itself were so much nonsensical blather. All that remains now is to abide as Reality itSelf (my Real Self, the substance of all bodies). I do not look down dispassionately, and nihilistically on the transitory world; there is no longer any separation between mySelf, and the world. There is no real world. All forms dissolve, or resolve into the Being I Am.

He [Ramana Maharshi] took up his abode in the thousand-pillared hall, a raised stone platform, open on all sides, the roof supported by a forest of slender, sculptured pillars, and there sat immersed in the Bliss of Being. Day after day, day and night, he sat unmoving. He no longer needed the world; its shadow existence had no interest for him as he sat absorbed in the Real. For some weeks he continued so, scarcely moving, never speaking. So began the second phase of his life after Self-realization. During the first, the glory had been concealed and he had accepted the same conditions of life as previously, with the same obedience to teachers and elders; during the second he was turned inwards, completely ignoring the outer world; and this, as will be shown, merged gradually into the third, lasting for half a century, during which his radiance shone like the midday sun on all who approached him. However, these phases applied only to the outer manifestation of his state: he declared explicitly and a number of times that there was absolutely no change or development in his state of consciousness or spiritual experience.⁶

The question “Who am I?”⁷ that precipitated Ramanas’ Self-realisation directs us back towards the primordial fire that is our real Self. What Ramana Maharshi realised so forcefully, upstairs at his fathers house in Madurai, is that he was not, and never had been a particular, embodied entity, staring out from behind a particular set of eyes. He experienced directly that the Being I Am is the only Being There Is, the Being of all entities whatsoever, and the Reality of all manifest forms. What makes the case of Ramana Maharshi so remarkable is that his body was not drained of separate subjectivity, or the sense of being an individual self over an extended span of time (as is normally the case), but was emptied almost completely of any sense of individual, personal self-hood almost instantaneously. The speed by which this process of liberation unfolded resulted in the occurrence of various eccentricities in the behaviour of his body. For instance, after arriving at Arunachala, he spent multiple years dwelling motionless, and silent in various temples around the mountain. During his weeks dwelling alone in the Patala Lingam vault, insects, and vermin covered him in bites, and his legs festered with maggots; yet he sat motionless, oblivious to the torment. In a normal case of de-subjectification, eccentric behaviour such as this would likely be obscured, or prevented. For instance, in a Zen monastery, the students adhere to a strict daily schedule that soon becomes automatic; this regimen grounds them in practical life such that any insane behaviour by a body liberated of individual personhood is guarded against in advance. Even outside the monastery setting, any eccentricities apparent in the behaviour of the Yogi would be masked by the remnants of ordinary subjectivity that would linger on in his body, during the usually gradual process of it slowly being emptied of the sense of separate self-hood, and associated, concomitant bodily habits. It is necessary to bear in mind that Ramanas’ behaviour does not indicate an ascetic rejection, or denial of the body (or world). Ramana simply realised that there was absolutely no real distinction, or difference between what was himself, and what was not-himself.

In typical experience, there is an intimate feeling of me-ness that is associated with, or accompanies certain forms. The body is me, and the chair is not; the thought is me, and the music is not. But if I deeply realise that the Being I Am is not localised to any particular body; my intimate sense of Being mySelf spreads out indefinitely. Ramana realised that the world was his body, and thus for him to treat any particular body as if it was his own, as if it was closer to him than any other, was blatant idolatry. I do not pick up a stick from the ground, wash it, varnish it, garland it with flowers, and call it ‘my body.’ Thus, why should I take any particular body as ‘my own?’ The stick is as close to me, as associated with me, and as essential to my continued existence as any particular human body is. Both the stick, and the body that I call ‘my own’ are merely appearances; both forms are made of the Being I Am, and are thus part of the manifest world, or body of Reality itSelf; however the coming and going, or the condition of either form has no real bearing on me.

Ramana did not subsequently, silently watch the activity of the empty body from which he had dis-incarnated, him now ensconced at a transcendent vantage point. From which body had he dis-incarnated? If he answered “that one,” this would demonstrate the survival of his ego, because he would still be identifying himself (one particular entity, or self) with one, particular human body. Ramana simply felt himSelf to be Reality itSelf (what he always, really was). In the absence of experiential boundaries delimiting the extent of my body, or mySelf, I can only feel all bodies to be the same seamless fabric, or plenum of Reality itSelf; the infinite, and eternal Being I Am. My real Self is the Real itSelf. To be ‘absorbed in the Real’ is not to leave the world behind. Nirvana (the absolute) and Samsara (appearances) are the same Reality seen from two different perspectives. Nirvana is the screen, and Samsara is the image; Nirvana is the dreamer, and Samsara is the dream. Ever-changing forms are eternal Being itSelf. The Jnani is not lost on a transcendent, otherworldly trip (he is not elsewhere), like a spiritual smackhead sourcing junk from the inside, instead of the outside.⁸ The Jnani has become the fire that has consumed him, the fire that is the dissolution of all entities/identities into the Real. ‘Jnani’ does not really designate a person, but rather the psychedelic black-hole at the centre of the extension-less Being I Am, into which the true seeker plunges, world in tow, never to return. We must remember that ‘Ramana Maharshi’ is a title designating an obliterating singularity at which the empty body of the man himself ceaselessly pointed. One who practises self-enquiry, seeks Darshan of the Master, or dwells in the silence that radiates from his empty body ‘does not know that already he is in the land of the immortals.’⁹ Ramana beckons from beyond an event horizon. Yet, beyond the state of utter liberation lying beyond this horizon (according the Ox-Herding pictures) are two further stages; ‘Reaching the Source,’ and ‘The Return to Society.’ These depict an autonomous, post-liberation process that unfolds choicelessly in the body of the liberated Jnani. In other words, there is a development that occurs in the behaviour of any-body that remains, emptied of individual subjectivity, beyond the expansion, liberation, or divine union of the sense of Self of the ascendant Jnani. We may use the example of the later life of Ramana Maharshi to illuminate the mature relationship No-Thingness, or Reality itSelf develops with any particular body, and how the conduct of a body freed from the delusion of an internal, embodied, little-I pilot is fully capable of conducting business in a fashion appropriate to circumstances, without being controlled, or commanded by an individual agent, or separate self that is typically thought to have residence within it (the thinker of thoughts, and the do-er of deeds).

Jnana is a black-hole, and the body of the Jnani is like the body of one who has fallen into a black-hole, forever falling in a kind of after-image of the event that has already obliterated him. The Jnani is already gone, and his body is like a signpost, or a siren call that points towards the No-Thingness that he has vanished into, or that he has become. However, there is a problem here; everything is already pointing directly towards No-Thingness, or towards Reality itSelf by virtue of being only Reality itSelf. So, what has the Jnani achieved? There is a vicious circularity here, and the exposition thereof will elucidate the significance of the final two stages of spiritual Ox-Herding.

To return to the Origin, to be back at the Source-- already a false step this!
Far better it is to stay home, blind and deaf, straight-away, and without much ado. Sitting within the hut he takes no cognisance of things outside,
Behold the water flowing on-- whither nobody knows; and those flowers red and fresh-- for whom are they?

Bare-chested and bare-footed, he comes out into the marketplace;
Daubed with mud and ashes, how broadly he smiles!
There is no need for the miraculous powers of the Gods,
For he touches, and Lo! The dead trees come into full bloom.

¹⁰

What makes the Jnani, or rather the body of the Jnani special is that it is not special at all. The clouds of Heaven part, the divine trumpets call… and there stands the little old man in his kitchen, grumbling about his back, and pouring coffee. He steps out into the spring air. It has a bite in it. The sun is breaking over the tenement row. He sits down in his garden shed, picks up his tools, and gets to work on the chess-pieces that he’s been carving out. For flocks of birds to drop flower garlands around the shoulders of this man, or for the Buddha himself to plant his lips upon those wrinkly feet would not make any sense. Any compliment given to this man regarding his ‘spiritual attainment’ would only be a honey-trap, because the instant it was given we would be stowing ‘him’ back into a particular body. To say that he is a Jnani is to attribute him with separate selfhood, and thus cram him back into a prison from which he is already free. Is he already free because he is a liberated Sage, or because there was never truly an individual, separate, embodied self in the first place? The wrinkled hands whittle, the mug steams, the leaves rustle, the clock ticks, and the drainpipe drips. Where is the individual self who is a Jnani, and where is the individual self who is not a Jnani? Any, and all particular bodies are as empty as fallen tree trunks, or dry, autumn leaves. All bodies are the body of the Jnani, because the Jnani is himself Jnana; the Jnani is the realisation that I am not associated with any particular body. The Jnani does not point toward No-Thingness because he is a special, liberated Sage; he points toward No-Thingness because he is No-Thingness, delocalised from any particular body, and can no more hide this than a happy man can hide his joy, or the bereaved, his misery. Is this man a supreme, liberated Sage, or just a cantankerous, ignorant old fool? (The same question as before; “Who am I?”) Who is qualified to pass judgement? Anyone who raises his hand is immediately revealing himself as being in ignorance, because in order to be able to ascertain whether another being is, or is not a Jnani, one must give credence to the notion that there are a multiplicity of beings, or selves, at a range of different levels of spiritual attainment. This is a blatant admission of duality. The true Jnani is the oneSelf that cannot find a distinction, or boundary between itSelf, and any other. Thus, the true Jnani never teaches an other, even if he gives explicit instructions to a student. The true Jnani never encounters an other, even if he meets an old friend. Do not treat others as if they were yourself: know that they truly are! To help mySelf is to help others, to edify mySelf is to edify others, and to abide mySelf in peace is to salve the suffering of others, because there is only oneSelf: the Self I am is the oneSelf that is the Self of all selves.

There are no liberated beings; there is only Being itSelf, and this Being is itSelf liberation. No true Jnani describes himSelf as a Jnani; any self-declared Jnani is, in elevating himself above the world, creating the world of suffering from which he is uniquely free, and populating this world with ignorant, ‘other’ beings in need of liberation. The false Jnani (the ‘ascendant,’ ascetic self), due to his self-identification with a particular body, imagines other bodies to themselves contain individual selves; these selves are saddled with imaginary ignorance, and suffering that the false Jnani has the ability, and the magnanimity to heroically alleviate. (A knock on the old man’s door: “Do you know your Lord, and Saviour?”) But, what entity lies underneath these heavy burdens of suffering, ignorance, and incarnation? No-Thing at all! True Jnana is the absence of duality; so who would be the ignorant peon, who would be the wise teacher, and what teaching would be transmitted, or handed down from the Master? ‘In the dense mist, what is being shouted between hill and boat?’¹¹ The true Jnani admits that he not attained anything, because he has only moved in a complete circle (or rather, he has not moved at all). He was already only utterly dis-embodied No-Thingness from the start. The ultimate, supreme Buddha is completely indistinguishable from an ordinary person; not because the Buddha is a master of disguise, and adopts normalcy as an artificial affectation, but because the entity that I wrongly identified mySelf with was just a particular human body, on a particular planet, orbiting around a particular star… I was never any particular, individual body/mind entity, and thus who exactly would become a Buddha? Even the most ignorant fool we can imagine is already in the ultimate, supreme, enlightened state of mind of Aswara, or the Jnani, because his foolish thoughts and actions arise in, or are the activity of the same non-dual field of Being that all thoughts and actions whatsoever arise in (or are the activity of). He is already in complete union with God by simple virtue of being God himSelf. Our illusory feeling of being an individual self is itself the activity, or form of the oneSelf that is Reality itSelf.

Complete absorption in the Self with resultant oblivion to the manifested world is termed nirvikalpa samadhi. [] The highest state, complete and final, is [termed] sahaja samadhi[.] This is pure uninterrupted Consciousness, transcending the mental and physical plane and yet with full awareness of the manifested world and full use of the mental and physical faculties[.] This is absolute freedom, pure consciousness, pure I-am-ness no longer limited to the body or the individuality. Sri Bhagavan [Ramana Maharshi] was already in this supreme state[.] The return to outer activity that came later was only apparent and involved no real change. As he explained[:] “In the case of the Jnani (Enlightened) the rise or existence of the ego is only apparent and he enjoys his unbroken transcendental experience in spite of such apparent rise or existence of the ego, keeping his attention always on the Source. This ego is harmless; it is like the skeleton of a burnt rope — though it has a form it is no use to tie anything with.”¹²

The statement that ‘Ramana Maharshi was already in this supreme state’ has a double meaning. The Jnani does not become one with God, but realises that there was only ever the Being of God from the start. Thus, this supreme state (we come full circle) is simply Reality itSelf, the ordinary life of the world itself. The Jnani does not go anywhere; he does not transcend ordinary life, and nor does he return to it; he realises that there is no difference between the ordinary life of the world, and himSelf. There is no ascendant Jnani who possesses an ‘unreal’ ego, and a multiplicity of ignorant beings who possess ‘real’ egos. The rise of the ego is in every case only apparent. I am the only one there is; I am Reality itSelf, the Real Self of all entities, and thus every ego that arises is my own ego. To believe that the Jnani is an individual, separate, spiritually enlightened entity in whom the ego is merely an illusion demonstrates ignorance, as one is still picking out a particular body, and attributing this ‘entity’ with either Buddha-hood, or ignorance. The ego is always, and in every case an illusory sense of self that appears when Reality itSelf (that of which all bodies are made) identifies itSelf exclusively with any particular body. There is no ignorant entity; there is only oneSelf that could ever be in ignorance. Supreme, complete Jnana is like getting so lost in playing a game of football that I no longer know which of the bodies on the pitch is supposed to be ‘my own.’ What an unbelievable state of disembodied liberation! But, which player has attained this miraculous state of supreme enlightenment? Which body is now moving around autonomously, spontaneously, choicelessly free of the sense of separate self-hood, and without any interior life? Around whose shoulders should we hang the flower garland that signifies supreme spiritual attainment? The instant I identify any particular body as ‘my own,’ and set off to begin my spiritual ministry, I reveal myself as again suffering from the delusion that I am a particular, individual self, associated with a particular body. All that remains is to strew the flower garland on the ground where it belongs, and get on with the game at hand. At this point; any, and all particular objects have been utterly disinvested of both divinity, and the sense that they could contain, or be associated with individual selves. Holiness, sanctity, and mySelf-hood have been loosed across the entire plenum of the non-dual Being I Am. Raging fire primordial! Yet, nothing has changed. Like a psychonaut who, after a completely lurid few hours in hyperspace playing Baccarat with the Djinn, peers out of his window in surprise to see the glum postman plodding up his driveway as if it were just plain old Tuesday noon, we must reconcile with the fact that there is no difference between the absolute, non-dual Being of God, and the everyday life of the world.

So, why are there two subsequent stages of spiritual attainment in the Ox-Herding pictures, beyond the stage that depicts complete, and utter liberation? OneSelf at the eighth stage is like an overzealous student who spots his philosophy teacher in the pub, and eagerly elbows his way through to sit by his side at the table. The teacher was trying to enjoy a quiet pint, and trade winks with the handsome barmaid; but she isn’t coming anywhere near him now he has this overly sincere prat wedged to his flank like a limpet, blathering on about how the Being I Am, the Being There Is, and the Being of God are completely synonymous terms, and about how in this realisation our sense of Self expands out from being identified with any particular body… As the Dude puts it in The Big Lebowski; “No, you’re not wrong, Walter; you’re just a fucking asshole!” The highest stage of spiritual mastery is to realise that the ultimate truth of life, the universe, and everything isn’t really some big, and important secret like one might think, and that one can thus almost forget it. “Yes, yes, yes; there is only oneSelf; infinite, and eternal… Now, do you see that girl across the room? I saw her making the eyes at you…” The Jnani does not simply attain, and abide in the ultimate truth; he abandons it entirely like yesterdays’ news. ‘He does not linger where the Buddha is, and where there is no Buddha he passes right on.’¹³ One cannot ever actually achieve union with God, because there was only ever the Being of God already. Everything is already pointing directly towards Reality itSelf by virtue of being Reality itSelf. To unveil, and understand the absolute, and ultimate truth; just listen to the birds singing, water running, snorting laughter, clinking glasses, blowing noses, howling wind, fireside stories… Could it be said any better, or made any clearer than that?

To make an ascetic schism between Heaven and Earth, and believe that Nirvana is to be found only in temples balanced on mountaintops is to make a serious mistake. Again we have two worlds; the lower, and the higher (the mountain temples being the highest point of the lower world). One does not need to reject ordinary life in order to achieve liberation. If Heaven and Earth were not completely intermingled, whence would everything receive life? The ascetic who sterilises his life in pursuit of an inhuman truth sterilises all life (the Being I Am = Being itSelf), and is thus a kind of nihilistic, spiritual terrorist, or fanatic who kills the bodacious, rip-roaring, uncontrollable, unlikely, and unbelievable life of the world in (a purely speculative) trade for a kind of supreme, blemish-less morphine trip in which there is nothing but ecstatic static, or sterile bliss. How sad, and lifeless… We should retain a healthy suspicion of holy people, as they are often the bedfellows of death. The ascetic who purifies himself, and purifies others in pursuit of spiritual excellence is like one who soaps himself too vigorously in the shower and walks around squeaking. The difference between sweet perfume, and ghastly stink is often a matter of taste, and one often transforms into the other… What is the holy man hiding underneath his stench of divine sanctity? If The Lord God was to appear in front of the Jnani, the Jnani would not be impressed; and if the Buddha himself was to appear, and designate the Jnani as his only true successor, and as a fully realised being, the Jnani would shrug, and be unmoved. Holiness to which birds bring flowers is a disgrace. Everything is already the dimensionless Being of God; to elevate one body above others, and say that this is the body of the Jnani is to deny non-duality by separating one thing (one body) from another. The ultimate Buddha is indistinguishable from an ordinary person because he understands utterly, and totally that there is no ‘him’ to be holy. He is not a particular person. It is the world itself that is holy as Being mySelf, the infinite Being of God. Thus, all he looks upon becomes liberation, because all he looks upon is already Being itSelf, the Being that is itSelf liberation. There is no possibility of his illuminating other beings, because there are no other beings, and no world that could be saved.

Shame! Up till now I wanted to save the whole world; 
Now, surprise! There is no world to be saved!
Strange! Without ancestors or successors,
Who can inherit, who pass on this truth?

¹⁴

Ultimate spiritual mastery can never belong to a particular entity. The instant one touches liberation; one sees that one never was any particular being, or body, but rather Being itSelf; beyond, and subsuming all bodies whatsoever. Thus, the divinity, or Jnani-hood that is attributed to Ramana Maharshi as if he were a particular, spiritually enlightened entity is problematic, and Ramana himSelf would agree. Ramana Maharshi was not a Jnani, because Ramana Maharshi was not an individual, little-I entity, that existed for a particular, finite span of time, and could be branded with the label of ‘being a Jnani,’ or of ‘being Ramana Maharshi.’ Upon the shoulders of what individual thing/entity will we hang these prestigious labels? Although Ramana Maharshi is often held up as the ultimate spiritual exemplar; there are multiple instances in his speech and conduct that are blatantly dualistic, and demonstrative of ignorance. For instance, in multiple cases Ramana makes reference to the Jnani as if the Jnani is an individual being. Usually, such instances are explained away by apologists as being concessions to the ignorance of a given interlocutor: “He had to meet people where they were at, and use the terminologies, and concepts with which they were already familiar; even if by doing so he made some contradictions, and some references to extant dualities…” However, in one instance, Ramana observed two birds fly into his ashram hall, and perch in the rafters. Ramana declared, unprovoked by any question from those around him, that these birds were Siddhas in disguise,¹⁵ and that they had come to visit him, because beings of all kinds will venture from far and wide for Darshan of the ascended Jnani. Even if these birds actually were foreign entities; this statement is a blatant display of ignorance, as it implies that Ramana is himself an individual entity worthy of special visitation, and that across the room are another two individual entities that have come to visit. To provide another example; Ramana Maharshi recognised two entities over the course of his life as having fully realised the Self; his mother, Alagammal, and the cow, Lakshmi.¹⁶ These are obviously two unusual candidates for ordination, and it is not hard to imagine that there may have been exigent, practical reasons for exalting these two as having attained the highest imaginable level of spiritual realisation. In Hindu society at the time, it was not considered possible for a woman to attain complete liberation.¹⁷ It is quite possible that Ramana made these (notably posthumous) ordinations in some part as a double lesson in humility for some of the more haughty, and chauvinistic of his followers. This is no expression of disrespect towards Alagammal, or Lakshmi. Even if these two achieved perfect insight into the true nature of the Self, it would still be an expression of ignorance to designate ‘them’ as possessing enlightenment. In another case Ramana declared, when the administration of Ramanasramam were debating whether to cease feeding the beggars who would come to the ashram gates, that amongst these beggars were various ascendant Jnani in disguise, that had come to visit him.¹⁸ It is not hard to imagine that Ramana saw fit in certain instances to use his divine status in order to beneficently manipulate practical circumstances. Nevertheless, regardless of what practical exigency these various ordinations may have had; to declare any being as liberated is a declaration of ignorance, as it is an admission that there are a multiplicity of entities; some of whom are enlightened, and others of whom are not. Who is the one who could claim spiritual attainment as his, her, or their own?

Non-duality is as much a practice as an ontology; one does not simply adopt non-duality as a conceptual, philosophical position, but practices day by day to transform the way one thinks, feels, and acts in the world. The non-dual practitioner is constantly undermining his sense of individual personhood by all the means at his disposal. The conceptual aspect of this practice is concerned with taking all lines of thought that rely on any notion/feeling of being a separate self, and redirecting, or suplexing these directly, and mercilessly into the No-Thingness that is their source (like the criticisms in the prior paragraph: ‘who are Alagammal, and Lakshmi?’). The most direct non-dual line of thought is the “Who am I?” question; in the echoing reverberation of this question, who dares to speak? This question is like a primordial nuke. The eighth Ox-Herding verse could be condensed to this question alone; a question once asked with such unbelievable force that it killed Venkataraman Iyer as surely as a bullet from a gun. No-Thing remained in the aftermath of the psychic implosion precipitated by this question, and thus no further line of non-dual inquiry was required. That is to say; Ramana Maharshi did not continue to ask himSelf: “Who am I?” “Who am I?” “Who am I?” The job had already been done; he was already abiding permanently in the Source, and needed no line of inquiry to conduct him back to where he already stood. Thus, the utility of non-duality as a philosophical practice is purely medicinal. Once the dis-ease is cured; we stop taking the medicine. This is the problem, or the limitation that exists concerning the pure, and blemish-less fire of the eighth stage of Ox-Herding. The criticisms of Ramana Maharshi made above are intended to be taken with a grain of salt; the primordial fire is too pure, too fanatical, and admits nothing other than itSelf to exist. No-Thing can grow from it. It is necessary to unleash primordial fire to destroy the ego, but what then? Do we subsequently, whenever someone speaks dualistically in our presence, blast them with the full force of our non-dual Kung-Fu? “Ah, your Father died… don’t you know everything is really oneSelf?” “Ah, she isn’t returning your affections… don’t you know everything is oneSelf?” The maturation of the Jnani beyond liberation is like the maturation of a compost pile. No-Thing can grow from absolute shit; it is too pure. I need time to develop mySelf into rich, and fertile soil. All language is inherently dualistic, and I thus plunge single-mindedly into silence. But, Lo! This silence itSelf now begins to speak (or write).

The air in the stone temple interior is cool, quiet, and unstirred by movement. Ramana sits alone; stony silent, motionless like a corpse, and wreathed in primordial fire. This body is not like a corpse, it is a corpse; his disembodiment is complete, and total, like the disembodiment that occurs upon physical death. Yet… the heart beats, the breath slowly falls, and rises… The sun outside moves slowly across the heavens. The hairs on his arm prickle, and stir. An insect crawls a slow, and meandering path across the dusty floor. Where is the special self, the ascended Master who has achieved liberation once and for all? The room is empty: there is no-one here. The Jnani is not a person; he has become Jnana, the raging fire primordial that is Reality itSelf; he is that which is the dissolving, and resolving of itSelf into all manifestation. He is no longer, or no longer has the feeling of being an entity in the world; he has become the ordinary life of the world itself. Ramana did not choose to end his silence, or his seclusion; no more than the rain chooses to fall, the grass chooses to grow, the heart chooses to beat, the man chooses his next thought, or the child chooses to laugh, and run after her yapping dog. After his early years in silence, Ramana slowly became more, and more animate, and spent the latter half of his life living fully, and actively in the world. He spoke, moved, ate, slept, and laughed like everybody else. Yet, if we asked others who was moving their limbs, thinking their thoughts, and living their life, they would point to their chest and answer “I am!” They feel themselves to dwell within, and animate a particular body. How would Ramana reply? He does not move his limbs: his limbs simply move. He does not speak: the words simply flow. He did not choose to sit motionless, and silent in the thousand-pillared hall, and he is not now choosing to shell peas, engage in conversation, or read the newspaper. Ramana is not actually different from others; our egoic ownership of particular forms, and occurrences (“I move the hand.” “This is my body.” “I will die someday.”) is based on an illusory sense of personal, individual self-hood. Like all illusions; if this unreal self is seen to be false, how could it not disappear? All that would remain is Reality itSelf; the living Being of everything (including the body, thoughts, and feelings that I wrongly identified as ‘my own’).

Thus, one does not have to withdraw, and turn inwards to discover, or abide in the Self, because the world itself is made only of this Being itSelf, this living fire I am. There is no difference between the Self, and the world; there is no difference between the dreamer, and the dream; or the ocean, and the waves. The ultimate level of spiritual attainment to remain completely disembodied No-Thingness, even when the particular body I once called ‘mine’ is buying seeds in the market, watching films with friends, fighting capitalist degeneracy, etc. This is no challenge; in fact, oneSelf has been doing this for eternity, without any effort, as it has always been the real, and only substance of all manifest forms; the real do-er of all deeds, thinker of all thoughts, feeler of all feelings, Being of all bodies, etc. All of our previously self-individuating thoughts, and feelings were themselves only the activity of this non-dual, seamless field of Being itSelf. To touch liberation is to unleash the intimate feeling of Being mySelf from any particular body, and thus commit complete psychic suicide. But, once the dust settles nothing has really changed. I now simply abide knowingly, instead of unknowingly as Reality itSelf; the eternal, infinite, and non-dual Being of God. We must completely de-sanctify all individual, divine, ascendant entities, and unleash their holiness across the entire plenum of Being itSelf. This is the one, and only Being I Am, Being You Are, Being There is, and oneSelf of all.

Having said my piece; I fall silent, and wait for Ramanas’ response. He nods his head amicably, reclining placidly on his couch. No reply is forthcoming. We wait together… The ashram hall is open to the outside, and drifting across the warm air comes the sound of chirping birds, and the distant shouts of men unloading bags of rice from a cart. Perhaps there is a ceiling fan; it whirls around, and around in ever-spinning circles. I look again into the silent eyes of the Bhagavan. Perhaps he makes some comment about the weather. I open my mouth to speak. The ashram air is warm, and close; cooler here than in the sun outside. A beam of light shines through the open entrance. Ramana is now talking to an attendant. His words are dualistic; he is making reference to this thing, and that; or this event, and that. Yet, the words themselves, made only of Being itSelf, cannot help but point backwards towards the primordial fire that is their Being, and their source. It dawns on me, or comes back to me like something I had long forgotten that these spoken words, the hall in which we are sitting, the hands resting upon my lap, the whirling fan, my personal thoughts, and the whole world of manifest forms is directly, and without translation the luminous, indivisible, and eternal Being of God. I laugh aloud! There is nothing left to be said.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Burroughs, William, Naked Lunch: The Restored Text, ed. James Grauerholz, and Barry Miles (London: Harper Perennial, 2005)

Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, tr. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983)

Godman, David ‘Talks on Sri Ramana Maharshi: Recognising Enlightenment.’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBflwS3IzjM

Kierkegaard, Soren, Fear and Trembling & The Book of Adler, tr. Walter Lowrie (London: Everyman’s Library, 1994)

Osborne, Arthur, Ramana Maharshi and the Path of Self-Knowledge (Tiruvannamalai: Sri Ramanasramam, 2002)

Sasaki, Ruth, and Isshu Miura, Zen Dust: The History of the Koan, and Koan Study in Rinzai (Lin-Chi) Zen (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1966)

Shiyuan, Kuoan, quoted in Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings, tr. Senzaki Nyogen, and Paul Reps (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1997) https://terebess.hu/english/bulls.html

Shiyuan, Kuoan, quoted in Essays in Zen Buddhism: First Series, tr. D. T. Suzuki (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1949) https://terebess.hu/english/Kuoan2.html

Watts, Alan, The Way of Zen (New York: Vintage Books, 1989)

Xiyi, Shigu, quoted in Gentling the Bull: The Ten Bull Pictures, A Spiritual Journey, tr. Myokyo-ni (Vermont, and Tokyo: C. E. Tuttle Co., Inc., and The Zen Centre, 1996) https://terebess.hu/english/oxherd4.html

Žižek, Slavoj, ‘The Fall That Makes Us Like God, Part II,’ The Philosophical Salon, https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/the-fall-that-makes-us-like-god-part-ii/

‘The Sage of Arunachala’ (New York: Arunachala Ashrama, 2019) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkcYAFGjkVU

1. Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, tr. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983) p. 9.

2. Slavoj Žižek, ‘The Fall That Makes Us Like God, Part II,’ The Philosophical Salon, https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/the-fall-that-makes-us-like-god-part-ii/ accessed 29/08/22.

3. Similarly, the atheist has not truly renounced The Lord God until he forgets about Him, and can go a significant span of time without thinking about Him. The vocal atheist is simply the inverse of the priest; one sustains his Lord out of love, and the other out of hatred. ‘Audiences love to hate…’ The opposite of love is apathy.

4. Soren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling & The Book of Adler, tr. Walter Lowrie (London: Everyman’s Library, 1994) p. 56.

5. Kuoan Shiyuan, tr. Senzaki Nyogen, and Paul Reps https://terebess.hu/english/bulls.html accessed 30/08/22.

6. Arthur Osborne, Ramana Maharshi and the Path of Self-Knowledge (Tiruvannamalai: Sri Ramanasramam, 2002) p. 26.

7. Ramana Maharshi and the Path of Self-Knowledge…, p. 10.

8. William Burroughs, Naked Lunch, ed. James Grauerholz, and Barry Miles (London: Harper Perennial, 2005) p. 30.

9. Ruth Sasaki, and Isshu Miura, Zen Dust: The History of the Koan (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1966) p. 103.

10. Kuoan Shiyuan, tr. Daisetsu T. Suzuki https://terebess.hu/english/Kuoan2.html accessed 12/09/22.

11. Alan Watts, (quoting Basho) The Way of Zen (New York: Vintage Books, 1989) p. 187.

12. Ramana Maharshi and the Path of Self-Knowledge…, p. 43-44.

13. Alan Watts, (quoting Shih Niu T’u) The Way of Zen (New York: Vintage Books, 1989) p. 152.

14. Shigu Xiyi, tr. Myokyo-ni https://terebess.hu/english/oxherd4.html accessed 30/08/22.

15. David Godman ‘Recognising Enlightenment.’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBflwS3IzjM accessed 16/09/22. 15:21

16. ‘Recognising Enlightenment.’ 19:43

17. ‘The Sage of Arunachala’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkcYAFGjkVU 44:45

18. ‘Recognising Enlightenment.’ 6:01