What is non-attachment?
As thoughts arise,
destroying them utterly without any residue in the very place of their origin is
non-attachment.
Just as the pearl-diver ties a stone to his waist, sinks to the bottom of the sea and
there takes the pearls,
so each one of us should be endowed with non-attachment, dive within
oneself and obtain the Self-Pearl.
~ Who Am I? (Nan Yar?)
The Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi
D.: What is to be done by us for ameliorating the condition of the world?
M.: If you remain free from pain, there will be no pain anywhere. The trouble now is due to your seeing the world externally and also thinking that there is pain there. But both the world and the pain are within you. If you look within there will be no pain.
D.: God is perfect. Why did He create the world imperfect? The work shares the nature of the author. But here it is not so.
M.: Who is it that raises the question?
D.: I – the individual.
M.: Are you apart from God that you ask this question?
So long as you consider yourself the body you see the world as external. The imperfections appear to you. God is perfection. His work also is perfection. But you see it as imperfection because of your wrong identification.
D.: Why did the Self manifest as this miserable world?
M.: In order that you might seek it. Your eyes cannot see themselves. Place a mirror before them and they see themselves. Similarly with the creation. “See yourself first and then see the whole world as the Self.”
D.: So it amounts to this – that I should always look within.
M.: Yes.
D.: Should I not see the world at all?
M.: You are not instructed to shut your eyes from the world. You are only to “see yourself first and then see the whole world as the Self”. If you consider yourself as the body the world appears to be external. If you are the Self the world appears as Brahman.
Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, 272.
Harindranath Chattopadhyaya, poet and artiste was younger brother of Sarojini Naidu, the Nightingale of India.
The entry in Devaraja Mudaliar’s Day by Day with Bhagavan dated June 5, 1945 refers to a remark by Prof. Subbaramayya (no.41) in the hall that he came across a copy of Chattopadhyaya’s verses at Sri Aurobindo Ashram, with Sri Aurobindo’s notes at the margin highly commending some verses. There upon,
Chattopadhyaya told Bhagavan that while at Sri Aurobindo Ashram for two years he composed about 4,000 sonnets and a poem of 5,000 lines. He gave a recitation of two of his poems before Bhagavan and acted a piece from his play in which a dock-labourer groaning under his work bursts out into a complaint. These were greatly appreciated.
Extracts from his poems:
The Thrice Marvellous Master – Sri Ramana
Eternity has worn a human face,
Contracted to a little human span,
Lo, the Immortal has become a man,
Upon a narrow couch you see him sit,
Vision of tenderness and grace and calm;
Upon the finite compass of His Palm
Thrice marvellous pure Master on the height,
Towards whom we dumbly yearn, each one apart,
Striving to hold Thy image in the heart,
O cleave our darkness with your searching light !