(from 'Annamalai Swami - Final Talks'):
Annamalai Swami: I once asked Bhagavan: ‘You are at the top of the hill. You have reached the summit of spiritual life, whereas I am still at the bottom of the hill. Please help me to reach the summit.'
Bhagavan answered, ‘It will be enough if you give up the thought, "I am at the bottom of the hill". If you can do this, there will be no difference between us. It is just your thoughts that are convincing you that I am at the top and you are at the bottom. If you can give up this difference, you will be fine.'
Don't adopt attitudes such as these that automatically assume that you are limited or inferior in any way.
On another occasion, I asked Bhagavan: 'Nowadays, many people are crossing big oceans by plane in very short periods of time. I would like Bhagavan to find us a good device, a jnana airplane that can speedily transport us all to moksha.'
This time Bhagavan replied, 'We are both traveling in a jnana airplane, but you don't understand this.'
In his answers to me, Bhagavan would never let me fall into the false belief that I was separate or different from him or that I was a person with a mind and a body who needed to do something to reach some exalted spiritual state. Whenever I asked him questions that were based on assumptions such as these, he would show me the error that was implicit in the question and gently point me back to the truth, the Self.
He would never allow me to entertain wrong ideas.
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Vira Chandra: Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi often spoke from the highest standpoint of nonduality, where no effort is needed, no path exists, and the Self is ever-present. At the same time, he also acknowledged that seekers vary in their spiritual maturity and that for most, intense sadhana is necessary. This duality in his instruction has led to widespread misinterpretation, especially among those who extract his absolute statements without considering their context.
One of the most striking instances of this arises in the above conversation with Annamalai Swami. When Annamalai Swami asked Bhagavan for help in reaching the summit of spiritual life, Bhagavan replied, “It will be enough if you give up the thought, ‘I am at the bottom of the hill.’ If you can do this, there will be no difference between us.” From the perspective of absolute truth (paramarthika), this is a flawless response—there is no real bondage, no real progress, and no separation between guru and disciple. The sense of distance, of striving toward a future realization, is itself an illusion arising from the ego’s identification with the body and mind.
However, this statement does not negate the fact that Annamalai Swami did require sadhana. Bhagavan himself later instructed him to renounce all duties in the ashram and to devote himself entirely to self-inquiry in solitude. If Bhagavan truly meant that no effort was needed, why would he remove Annamalai Swami’s responsibilities to facilitate uninterrupted practice? This is where we see the two-tiered nature of his teaching—while he often pointed directly to the ever-present Self, he did not deny the necessity of purifying the mind through sadhana.
This dual approach is best illustrated by the analogy Bhagavan himself used to describe different levels of seekers. In The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi in His Own Words, he compared them to gunpowder, charcoal, and coal. Gunpowder ignites instantly upon contact with fire, just as a ripe seeker (paripakvi) attains immediate realization upon coming into contact with a Mahatma’s presence. Charcoal takes some time to catch fire, representing those who require some effort before realization dawns. Coal takes the longest to burn, symbolizing those who need prolonged purification before they can sustain the flame of knowledge.
Thus, Bhagavan’s statement to Annamalai Swami was not a dismissal of effort but rather an attempt to break the psychological illusion that realization is a distant goal. If one holds the belief that spiritual attainment is far away, the mind remains trapped in dualistic thinking, reinforcing the very ignorance that sadhana is meant to dispel. However, Bhagavan was fully aware that, in practical reality (vyavaharika), most seekers are like charcoal or coal and must engage in sadhana until their minds are sufficiently purified to effortlessly abide in the Self.
Annamalai Swami’s own life is the perfect demonstration of this principle. Even after years in Bhagavan’s presence, his mind was not yet fully matured. He later spent decades in intense solitude, practicing self-inquiry and stabilizing his realization. His ultimate attainment was not the result of merely “accepting” that he was already the Self, but of persistent and unwavering effort in self-abidance until all residual tendencies (vasanas) were extinguished.
This subtlety is what neo-Advaita misinterprets. Many modern teachers extract Bhagavan’s absolute statements and conclude that sadhana is unnecessary, that no purification of mind is needed, and that one must simply recognize their ever-present Self. While this may be true for a fully ripe aspirant, for the vast majority, such a belief becomes an obstacle rather than a liberation. It leads to an intellectual acceptance of nonduality while leaving the ego and its tendencies untouched.
Bhagavan never encouraged such an approach. His own life was one of unwavering abidance in the Self, and he prescribed sadhana based on the maturity of each seeker. For beginners, effort was essential; for the advanced, effort became spontaneous and effortless; and for the fully ripened, no effort was required because they were established in sahaja samadhi. He tailored his teaching to the level of the aspirant, never allowing them to settle into a false complacency.
This is why his instructions appear contradictory—he spoke from both the highest truth and the practical necessity of effort. To someone deeply engaged in practice, he might stress the importance of perseverance, renunciation, and one-pointed inquiry. But to a seeker who was caught in the illusion of striving for a future attainment, he would point out that the Self is already present and that there is no “hill” to climb. Both perspectives are true, depending on the seeker’s maturity.
Thus, the resolution of this paradox lies in understanding the interplay between realization and effort. Bhagavan was not dismissing sadhana but refining the way it should be approached. Effort is required until the effort itself dissolves into effortless being. The ultimate purpose of sadhana is to remove the notion that one is a seeker at all—but until that notion disappears entirely, practice remains indispensable.
In Annamalai Swami’s case, Bhagavan’s words were both an inspiration and a challenge—a reminder that realization was not distant, yet also an invitation to live in accordance with that truth, fully and intensely. This is the correct way to interpret Bhagavan’s teaching: not as a justification for inaction, but as a call to direct, uncompromising abidance in the Self, with whatever effort is required to stabilize it.
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