Evolution of love

Path of Self-enquiry

Ajaan Maha Boowa and Bhagavan’s Path of Self-enquiry

"Don’t speculate or theorize about meditation practice. And don’t mistakenly appropriate the knowledge you gain from reading this exposition, assuming that in doing so you understand the true nature of body and mind. Only clear and direct insight guided by mindfulness, investigated with wisdom, and pursued with diligence
will penetrate that truth."
“…. I drove a stake firmly into the ground and held tightly to it no matter what happened…”

"The body is very important to consider. Most of our desires are bound up with it. Looking around us, we can see a world that is in the grips of sexual craving and frantic in its adoration of the human form. As meditators, we must face up to the challenges posed by our own sexuality, which stems from a deep-seated craving for sensual gratification. During meditation, this defilement is the most significant obstacle to our progress."

"But this knowing presence, which is so bright and so amazing: what exactly is it? As mindfulness and wisdom pin their concentration on it, the citta becomes the focal point of a full-scale investigation. It is turned into a battlefield for supreme-mindfulness and supreme-wisdom. Before long, they are able to destroy the avijja-citta that, from avijja’s perspective, appears so magnificent and majestic. They now totally obliterate it; so that not even the smallest trace remains within the citta. When investigated with sharp, incisive wisdom until its nature is clearly understood, this phenomenon will disintegrate and dissolve away in an entirely unexpected manner. That moment of awakening could be called “Enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree” or “The total destruction of samsara’s cemeteries.”

– Ajaan Maha Boowa

To realize the subject of the experience by starting from the objective pole has been taught by Bhagavan right from the beginning in ‘Who am I?’ :

“As each thought arises, one should inquire with diligence, ‘To whom has this thought arisen?’ The answer that would emerge would be, ‘To me.’…”

From our own readings of Bhagavan’s writings and talks we know(?) that he equated the ego with the identification with the body and true liberation with the vanquishing of the body-idea:

“What is natural to the state of Self-Realisation forms the disciplinary course in the other state. “I-am-the-body” idea will become extinct only on Self-Realisation. With its extinction the vasanas become extinct and all virtues will remain ever.”

- Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi