Annamalai Swami Quotes and Sayings on Meditation

Annamalai Swami Quotes and Sayings

1. Meditation must be continuous. The current of meditation must be present in all your activities. With practice, meditation and work can go on simultaneously.
   
2. Go deeply into this feeling of 'I'. Be aware of it so strongly and so intensely that no other thoughts have the energy to arise and distract you. If you hold this feeling of 'I' long enough and strongly enough, the false 'I' wll vanish leaving only the unbroken awareness of the real, immanent 'I', consciousness itself..
   
3. In every moment you only have one real choice: to be aware of the Self or to identify with the body and the mind.
   
4. Self-inquiry must be done continuously. It doesn't work if you regard it as a part-time activity.
   
5. Continuous attentiveness will only come with long practice. If you are truly watchful, each thought will dissolve at the moment that it appears. But to reach this level of disassociation you must have no attachments at all. If you have the slightest interest in any particular thought, it will evade your attentiveness, connect with other thoughts, and take over your mind for a few seconds. This will happen more easily if you are accustomed to reacting emotionally to a particular thought.

Annamalai Swami: If vasanas are still there, they will rise up again

Annamalai Swami: If vasanas are still there, they will rise up again and the experience will be lost. While they are there, there is always the possibility that we may again take the unreal to be real.If we take the mirage to be real water, that is ignorance. Similarly, if we take the unreal body to be the Self, that is also ignorance. As soon as ignorance comes, you must question it. 'To whom does this ignorance come?'

A strong determination to pursue enquiry in this way will dissolve all doubts. By questioning 'Who am I?' and by constantly meditating, one comes to the clarity of being.As long as vasanas continue to exist they will rise and cover the reality, obscuring awareness of it. As often as you become aware of them, question, 'To whom do they come?' This continuous enquiry will establish you in your own Self and you will have no further problems. When you know that the snake of the mind never existed, when you know that the rope of reality is all that exists, doubts and fears will not trouble you again.

Source: Annamalai Swami, Final Talks, edited by David Godman