D.: What should one think of when meditating?

B.: What is meditation?
It is the suspension of thoughts.
You are perturbed by thoughts which rush one after another.

Hold on to one thought so that others are expelled.

Continuous practice gives the necessary strength of mind to engage in meditation.

Meditation differs according to the degree of advancement of the seeker.
If one is fit for it one can hold directly to the thinker;
and the thinker will automatically sink into his source, which is Pure Consciousness.

If one cannot directly hold on to the thinker,
one must meditate on God;
and in due course the same individual
will have become sufficiently pure to hold on to the thinker and
sink into the absolute Being.

~ The Teachings of Bhagavan
Sri Ramana Maharshi in His Own Words
Edited by: ARTHUR OSBORNE

A devotee of Ramana Maharshi, who had been with him about twenty-five years, had a son that died, and he was grief-stricken. So he begged to have an audience with Ramana. Now Ramana rests from twelve to two. He agreed to see his devotee. When the devotee entered the hall, Ramana was reclining on his couch with his eyes closed, and he started to cry and tell him all his troubles, how much he loved his son. And then he asked Ramana, “What is God?” Ramana didn’t answer. He kept still for about fifteen minutes. Then he opened his eyes and he said very softly, “What is, is God.”

What is, is God. It’s like when someone asks the question, “Is the world real?” The world, by itself, is an illusion, but God, as the world, is real. As we progress we find there never was a God, so there never was a world. But for the sake of talking, because God is, the universe is. Everything, from the lowliest microbe to the fullest galaxy, is God in expression. Everything is God. Every leaf, every piece of clay, every star, every planet has no basis for its existence, by itself. Because God is, everything else is.

That’s what Ramana meant when he answered, “What is, is God.” He was trying to explain to the devotee, “Your son dying, that is God. Your son living, that is God. There’s no real difference. Only in your mind.”

Robert Adams
Transcript 3
My Confession
16th August, 1990

Five Verses on the Self
“Katma Panchakam”
Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi

1.) He who is forgetful of the Self, mistaking the physical body for it, and goes through innumerable births, is like one who wanders all over the world in a dream. Thus realizing the Self would only be like waking up from the dream-wanderings.
2.) One who asks, “Who am I?” and “Where am I?” is like a drunken man who enquires about his own identity and whereabouts.
3.) While in fact the body is in the Self, he who thinks the Self is within the insentient body is like one who considers the cloth of the screen which supports a cinema picture to be contained within the picture.
4.) Does an ornament exist apart from the gold of which it is made? Where is the body apart from the Self? He who considers his body to be himself is an ignorant man. He who regards himself as the Self is the Enlightened One who has realized the Self.
5.) The One Self, the Sole Reality, alone exists eternally. When even the Ancient Teacher, Dakshinamurti, revealed It through speechless eloquence, who else could convey it by speech?

Ramana Maharshi
The Collected Works
edited by Arthur Osborne