This is a collection of teachings on Jnana by Swami Ramdas (1884 – 1963) (affectionately known as Papa Ramdas) of Anandashram.
Right knowledge, destroying ignorance, dissolves the ego sense. True knowledge consists in your consciousness of oneness with the immortal Atman, seated in your heart, and pervading all life and form in the universe.
Forget not that you are the immortal and blissful Spirit. Identification with the Atman and surrender of all actions to Shakti grants the light of knowledge and dispels the darkness of ignorance.
Do not seek the bliss of the Atman outside.
External darshan however frequently you may have it, cannot quench your thirst. You ought to drink the nectar of immortality through close communion, and a feeling of oneness, with the eternal Atman who dwells in you.
You cannot eternally be demeaning yourself in the presence of saints. Receive the touch, and be the saint yourself.
Realise, realise, realise; and give up all preconceived notions, and thoughts, borrowed from the expressions and sayings of saints, who have given vent to them in their various moods of Self-realisation. See for yourself; understand for yourself; and assert and make manifest, your own divine nature.
Assert your divine nature. Be conscious of the presence of God within you. Don't allow the passing phases of life to throw a mantle over the revealed light of Truth within you.
Never lose your equilibrium under the stress of any external circumstances. They come and go, like the clouds in the breeze; stand firm on the rock of your unchanging and immortal existence.
Contemplation of the Truth leads us to the realization of it, i.e. we come to understand and experience the sublimity of it.
Know that you are not this restless mind, but that you are the immortal, all blissful, and changeless Spirit. Question yourself as to who you are, and an immediate response will come are only the fitting expressions, is deathless and changeless.
Sorrowing over the passing away of the body is pure folly; only what is perishable has resolved itself into its elements but the Truth is immortal, and we are, in our true essence, everlastingly one with it.
Guru kripa is always on you. Become aware of it, and you are free. Awareness comes through ceaseless remembrance of what you are in reality, namely, that you are the immortal Spirit filled with absolute peace and bliss.
Really, to stand apart from the mind and watch its activities, is a blissful exercise. The moment the disassociation becomes complete, that is to say, one's identification with the watcher or the witness becomes perfect, that very moment the mind dissolves, and you attain samadhi i.e. absolute peace and bliss.
The gurus heart is ever soft and, by constant meditation, the chela grows into the likeness of his Master and possesses the same purity and softness of heart as those of the guru. Forget not that the guru is within you — know that you are not different from Him.
Yoga denotes equilibrium — a condition of unalterable and unshakeable peace and joy.
Throw up the mask that enshrouds your real divine nature and reveal yourself in all your magnificence.
However you may play at being ignorant or wise, bound or free, happy or unhappy, you are ever and ever He.
Moksha is not dependent on any particular external situation or circumstance. Moksha is the realization of immortality by the removal of ignorance through the attainment of divine knowledge. It is primarily a change in our internal consciousness and vision. A man, who is placed in a certain situation in the days of his ignorance, may still continue to remain there, in the same situation, even after he has attained divine knowledge.
God is the one sole Reality; our physical body is only a transient and perishable manifestation of that great, undying, eternal Truth. Truly we are the immortal Atman, the changeless and deathless Spirit.
He dons bodies and He doffs them. He remains the same, and the same, forever and forever. Difference and diversity are only apparent. Names and forms are impermanent.
Realise that He, the infinite power within you, guides you, controls you and actuates you to do all things, at all times. Rise above conditioned conception of things that is to say, rise above the gunas and dwandwas.
"Seek within — know Thyself these secret and sublime hints come to us wafted on the breath of rishis through the dust of ages.
Let us know that all actions, irrespective of any denomination, are pure and divine; because the divine alone is at work in the entire universe. Our bodies are merely vehicles through which Shakti works to fulfil Her purpose. It is She who works in the saint as well as in the sinner. Saint and sinner are merely names. Ignorance makes us see the difference between the two.
No external darshan can give us eternal happiness; it can yield only transitory satisfaction and peace. We must seek fellowship of the imperishable Truth within us, so as to merge ourselves ultimately in Him and realise immortal bliss.
Believe that the Lord of the worlds, who is absolute peace, power and bliss, is always dwelling within you.
Let bodies come, let bodies go; we are eternally dwelling in Him and are eternally one with Him.
Why should you feel dissatisfied when you know that the satchidananda swarupa of God is within you? He is the goal, He is the path; and you are eternally He.
Life can be understood only by going to the very root of it. And the root is ever sweet and eternal.
At the inception of all phenomenal life and existence there are the ever-abiding calmness, peace and repose of the immortal and all-pervading Truth.
You are the Truth itself, you are the Ideal itself. Infinity and eternity are the qualities of your true existence, where duality and differentiation have no significance.
The conflict of apparently opposing forces in the play of the natural phenomena is viewed by a man of clear vision exactly as a drama on the stage is viewed by one in an audience witnessing it.
Dependence on the joy of a saint's darshan is not the whole thing; because such joy, we know, is only relative. We want a joy which is self-dependent, eternal and subject to no conditions.