IN THE LAST COLUMN I SPOKE about how I came to find my feet on Atmananda’s Direct Path. I took a large leap, however, in assuming that my readers know of him. A year ago I’d never paid any attention to him myself. I remember seeing his photo from time to time, and I'd heard the name, but I'd never looked into him. Now, in one of the strange twists that Nonduality often takes, I find that he, or at least his teaching, is the star around which I orbit. Let’s take a look at him now.
SRI ATMANANDA IS THE BEST KEPT open secret in spirituality. He was born in southern India in 1883, just
four years after the birth of Sri Ramana Maharshi. The two of them, along with Sri Nisargadatta
Maharaj, would become the holy trinity of Twentieth Century Advaita Vedanta. Their impact is not only carrying over to
this century, it is growing almost exponentially. Much of today’s interest in Advaita and
Nonduality as a whole is the result of what these three men left us. "Men" seems too small of a word. Regardless, given that I had been studying different
streams of the Nondual river for a long, long time, and was well versed in the other two legs of the stool, why had I never looked into Atmananda?
THE ANSWER IS BOOKS, or the lack thereof. In contrast to Ramana and Nisargadatta, whose
teachings are a cottage industry in publishing, Shri Atmananda’s books are either
all out of print, or very difficult to acquire, and thus effectively out
of print. This is not from a lack of
interest. His books fetch high prices in
the used and antiquarian book trade. I’m a bookseller; I know. I’m a consumer, however, not a seller of
these titles, and all I can say is ouch!
What I’m told, by an expert, is that essentially the folks with the
copyrights don’t feel that the books can be truly understood without the physical
presence of either Atmananda or his eldest son, Shri
Adwayananda. Since both of them are dead
(1959, 2001), it’s rather difficult to sign up with them. And thus we are denied direct access to the Direct Path. Ironic, is it not?
A THREE-VOLUME SERIES, Notes
of Spiritual Discourses of Shri Atmananda, Taken by Nitya Tripta, are now
made available by the combined efforts of Nonduality Press and the Stillness
Speaks website (which is temporarily down).
It’s a wonderful resource and it’s inexpensive. Here’s a link to a free PDF of it, on Dennis
Waite’s website, http://tinyurl.com/8ybgwvy. Another link of interest is the
Amazon page where the first of these books can be bought. My review is also there if you’d like to read
it. http://tinyurl.com/7ql8ert. One more link is to a page that'll allow you to save a PDF of a selection from his most famous books. They not the complete books, but they're nonetheless helpful. You want to right click on the link and then "Save link as".
http://tinyurl.com/88unyug
THE PRIME FOCUS OF ATMANANDA’S TEACHING, the reason it’s called the Direct Path, is that we start from the I-principle, from the
position of our already being Awareness. One doesn’t need to set out to discover
yourself if you’re always already here.
To bring this home, Atmananda has us rigorously investigate everything. From numii.net:
According
to Sri Atmananda, it is absolutely necessary to know what you are and what your
standpoint is, if you want to arrive at the right knowing, or to put it another
way, to see the right perspective. It is not enough to only investigate the
waking state for that purpose, because your experience extends also into the
dream and into deep (dreamless) sleep states. Let us then initiate an
investigation into these three states. You will discover that the I-principle
(the true unchanging Self) is continuously present in each of the three states.
The body, the senses and the mind are present in one state, but they are not
there in the others. From that it follows that the I-principle is unjustly
coupled with the body, the senses and the mind and that in reality it is
independent of these three. That can be seen in the deep (dreamless) sleep, where
it shines in all its bliss. You can see there that the pure Consciousness is a
deep Peace. When you awaken out of the deep sleep you then say that you were
happy (that you slept deeply and peacefully).
ONE OF THE REALLY SALIENT POINTS about Atmananda is that he spoke English,
which is now very nearly a global language. It is impossible to downplay the significance
of this direct connection. Neither Ramana
nor Nisargadatta spoke English. How
important is this? If you have read
different translations of, say, the Tao Te Ching, the Dhammapada, or the
Bhagavad Gita, you understand the inherent imperfections within the art of
translation. We get the gist of what was said and
meant, and it may be "enough", but by the same token, in spiritual teachings, a
miss can be a mile. You don’t need to be a Sanskrit scholar to get the full
benefit of Krishna Menon, nor dependent on the understanding and translation talents of another; you can simply read his own words, straight
from his mouth to your mind. Beyond this
invaluable difference, the method of the Direct Path, because it begins
at the end and works backward, so to speak, can be effective where nothing else
has been.
SOME OF THE CURRENT TEACHERS who are true
authorities on the Direct Path teachings are Greg Goode, Francis Lucille,
and Rupert Spira. There are others whom I'm not familiar with. All of them are excellent writers and convey the message extremely well. The Direct Path might be worth your looking into. Namaste.
Housekeeping Notes:
We
welcome Slovenia as the 57th
country to visit Awakening Clarity. This is truly a global community now.
