Shri Atmananda (Krishna Menon) AS REPORTED BY A SADHAKA DISCIPLE CONTENTS 1. Universal and individual 2 1a. Different paths 4. In the preface to Atma Darshan (page 2). May be downloaded as a pdf file from either of the following sites.

Note that the following commentary is provided by Ananda Wood, a disciple of the sage Atmananda Krishna Menon (1883 – 1959). The material is not copyrighted and may be freely used by any true seeker. It is extracted from a discussion, led by Ananda, on the during Nov – Dec 2003. Ananda has provided an updated version of these essays Nov. 2006 and this may be as a PDF file (267k), fully indexed and linked. Prakriya 1 – Universal and Individual In the preface to Atma darshan (page 2), Shri Atmananda points out that he takes an approach which brings ‘the universal under the individual’. This is what he called the ‘direct’ approach; and he distinguished it from another approach that he called ‘cosmological’.

In the ‘cosmological’ approach, an ‘individual person’ or ‘ jIva‘ is considered as an incomplete part of an encompassing universe. Hence that approach is described as one ‘of bringing the individual under the universal’. It requires an expansion of consideration to a universal functioning — which is ruled by an all-powerful ‘God’ called ‘Ishvara’, or which expresses an all-comprehensive reality called ‘ brahman‘. Literally, ‘ brahman‘ means ‘expanded’ or ‘great’. When what is considered gets expanded, beyond all limitations of our physical and mental seeing, then brahman is realized.

Such expansion may be approached through various exercises that have been prescribed, to purify a sAdhaka‘s character from ego’s partialities. In particular, there are ethical practices that weaken egocentricism; there are devotional practices that cultivate surrender to a worshipped deity; and there are meditative practices that throw the mind into special samAdhi states where usual limitations are dissolved into an intensely comprehensive absorption. Through such prescribed practices, a sAdhaka may get to be far more impartial, and thus get a far broader and more comprehensive understanding of the world. A teacher may accordingly prepare a sAdhaka, through a greatly broadened understanding of the world, before directing an enquiry that reflects back into non-dual truth.

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That cosmological path involves a characteristic attitude of faith and obedience, towards the tradition which has prescribed its mind-expanding and character-purifying practices. Accordingly, that path has been given public prominence, in traditional societies which have been organized on the basis of obedient faith. In the ‘direct’ approach, a teacher straightaway directs a reflective enquiry, from a disciple’s current view of world and personality. On the disciple’s part, the enquiry depends upon a genuine interest in truth, sufficient to go through with a deeply skeptical and unsettling questioning of habitual beliefs on which the disciple’s sense of self and view of world depends. This calls for an independent attitude — not taking things on trust, but rather asking questions and finding things out for oneself. For traditional societies, such an independent attitude has been publicly discouraged, for fear of destabilizing the obedient faith that has been needed to maintain their social order.

Accordingly, there has been a tendency to keep the direct approach somewhat hidden, away from ordinary public notice. As for example, the skeptical questioning of the upaniShad-s was kept somewhat hidden until its publication in the last century or two. In the modern world, we have developed a different kind of society — where education is far more widespread, and independent questioning is encouraged from a much earlier stage of education. So it is only natural that the ‘direct path’ or the ‘ vichAra mArga‘ should have been made more public, most famously through Ramana Maharshi.

In Shri Atmananda’s teachings, there is a continuation of this trend towards independent questioning, by the individual sAdhaka. Here, each ‘individual person’ or ‘ jIva‘ is considered as a misleading appearance that confuses self and personality. The questioning is turned directly in, reflecting back from physical and mental appendages to inmost truth of self or ‘ Atman‘. The questions turn upon their own assumed beliefs, which take for granted mind and body’s mediation showing us an outside world. Reflecting back from mind and body’s outward mediation, the questioning returns to direct self-knowledge at the inmost centre of experience, from where the enquiry has come. As the enquiry turns in, all observation and interpretation of the universe is brought back in as well, to an inmost centre that is truly individual.