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A Sadhu's Reminiscences of Ramana Maharshi
them he sat on the banks of the Ganges dressed in the silk cloth with his gold ring conspicuously on his hand and smoking the hookah. Then he told himself, “Now I am dressed in a silk cloth, look at my gold ring, yes, and I am smoking a hookah.” He continued for some time enjoying these. After a while he got up, threw his ring into the river, tore off the silk cloth, stamped and spat on it and broke the hookah. He had now fulfilled his desire and he no longer had any wish to do these things again.
Yet even supposing one has got rid of most of one's Vasanas, how does attainment actually occur? On this question of attaining Self-realization Bhagavan told me that in the early stages a person who was regularly meditating would usually at first go into a trance which would probably last for some thirty minutes, and if he continued with his Tapas properly such Samadhi would become more frequent. So carried away by it would he be that he would be able to think of nothing but slipping away to some quiet corner to meditate undisturbed. He would lose all interest in everything else until that time when he became established in the Self and no more meditation was necessary.
He had then attained Sahaja Samadhi or his natural state. But there were no fixed rules. Some might attain this state quietly and unrecognised, without even the necessity of the process of meditation. However, Bhagavan explained, although there were no actual stages in Selfrealization, there was a deepening of one's Sadhana as explained above.
