Swami Atmananda Udasin is a teacher of Advaita (Non-duality) and the Spiritual Head of Ajatananda Ashram, Rishikesh, India. This video is an extract from a retreat given at the ashram on November 14, 2022

Swami Atmananda Udasin is a teacher of Advaita (Non-duality) and the Spiritual Head of Ajatananda Ashram, Rishikesh, India. This video is an extract from a retreat given at the ashram on November 16, 2022.

Swami Atmananda Udasin is a teacher of Advaita (Non-duality) and the Spiritual Head of Ajatananda Ashram, Rishikesh, India. This video is an extract from a retreat given at the ashram on November 15, 2022.

‘Nididhyāsana’ is a central concept in Vedantic meditation. It is about contemplating our True Nature – the Self or Brahman – and making this contemplation uninterrupted. The object of meditation is the Infinite. But how can the Infinite be an object? For this, we use a concept – a thought or ‘vritti’ – of a form of Brahman. It is only a technique. This ‘vritti’ has to be contemplated to the exclusion of all other thoughts. By uninterrupted practice, you create a new vāsanā so to speak, the vāsanā of Brahman. It removes your sense of being an “individual being” and enables you to go beyond the thought process. It brings you to the threshold of direct Knowledge, of Awakening. And when Awakening occurs, this vritti also dissolves. In this process, you literally disappear. You go into infinity. It is not that you “become” free. You actually realize your eternal Freedom, the total absence of bondage.

Swami Atmananda Udasin is a teacher of Advaita (Non-duality) and the Spiritual Head of Ajatananda Ashram, Rishikesh, India. This video is an extract from a retreat given at the ashram on November 14, 2022.

Swami Atmananda Udasin is a teacher of Advaita (Non-duality) and Spiritual Head of Ajatananda Ashram, Rishikesh, India.

You don’t need the complete manonāśa – the dissolution (nāśa) of the mind – for awakening, that would be an impossible task. Moreover, through the first Awakening, most of your vāsanā-s will get eliminated because they cannot stand in the light of the Awakening. It is a process. For those for whom there is no gap of time between Awakening and Realization, it is because their mind was almost empty and pure, as in the case of Sri Ramana Maharshi. For some jñānī-s there is a short gap, and for others, it takes even several lives. Once there is Awakening, you don’t bother so much about coming back in the saṃsāra, because you feel that your life is completely taken care of, it is guided, protected. And again the saṃsāra is seen now as the very form of the Beloved, it is not seen as an adverse form.

Swami Atmananda Udasin is a teacher of Advaita (Non-duality) and the Spiritual Head of Ajatananda Ashram, Rishikesh, India. This video is an extract from an open satsang given in Rishikesh, India, on March 6, 2022.

The right practice is not about stopping the mind. You may enjoy that ‘zero-mind’ for some time, but then it will start again after. We speak about something much deeper in the subconscious and unconscious mind. It is the destruction of the binding vasanas – those tendencies which are responsible for the identification. You have to withdraw your attention and association from thoughts, and watch them in a completely neutral way. So if the practice is done properly under the guidance of a qualified teacher, the practice will finish the practitioner. That is the purpose of all practices.

In this third video of the satsang recorded on 5th February 2020, Swami Atmananda Udasin answers some questions after commenting on the verses 26 & 27 of Upadesha Saram, a sanskrit poem composed by Sri Ramana Maharshi. Swami Ji offered a commentary on the 30 verses at the open satsangs he shared from 27 January to 6 February 2020 in Tiruvannamalai, India.

“Being the Self is knowing the Self, because there is only one Self, and not two. This Being and knowing the Self is abiding in the Reality.” (Sri Ramana Maharshi).

Consciousness is free from this duality of knowledge or ignorance. The Knowledge of Self can never be the knowledge of someone about the Self. The Self can never be known by anything else, anything other than Itself, as Consciousness is all there is. This Knowledge is totally beyond what we understand by ‘knowledge’ and the ‘absence of knowledge’. No one realizes Atman! Consciousness is totally beyond these categories of the mind…

In this second video of the satsang recorded on 5th February 2020, Swami Atmananda Udasin comments on verses 26 & 27 of Upadesha Saram. This Sanskrit poem composed by Sri Ramana Maharshi in 1927, is based on Upadesha Undiyar, his original Tamil poem. Swami Ji offered a commentary on the 30 verses at the open satsangs he shared from 27 January to 6 February 2020 in Tiruvannamalai, India.

The seeker and the ‘seeking’ are concepts of our imagination. This is the last obstacle. Freedom is already here, it is our True Nature! It can only be realized by surrender. But complete surrender is pure Grace. On this threshold, you can only be patient and abandon yourself totally to That which is inconceivable. Do not entertain anything from the past. Be in that empty room and trust totally the unfoldment. It will surely happen – but it is not a ‘happening’!

Swami Atmananda Udasin is a teacher of Advaita (Non-duality) and the Spiritual Head of Ajatananda Ashram, Rishikesh, India. This video is an extract from an open satsang given in Tiruvannamalai, India, on February 5, 2020.

In this video, Swami Atmananda Udasin comments on verse 16 of Upadesha Saram, a Sanskrit poem composed by Sri Ramana Maharshi in 1927, based on Upadesha Undiyar, his original Tamil poem. Swami Ji offered a commentary on the 30 verses at the open satsangs he shared from 27 January to 6 February 2020 in Tiruvannamalai, India.

“If one’s attention is turned away from external objects of sense and focused on the light of the Self, that is the true vision of Reality” (Upadesa Saram, v.16)

Your body is a reality that is perceived. So, there must be a “perceiver” that is prior to the body. The same applies to the mind. You can perceive thoughts, emotions, memories… Yet, the real seer is prior to both the body and mind. There is a perceiver that sees the mind, the body and the so-called “world” as objects. Then, what is “that” which perceives? What is the ultimate observer? Awareness! It can never be an object. Everything that appears in it is the ‘seen’.
Is ‘I’ the seer or the seen? This ‘I’ is in fact also seen in your Awareness. If you remove all the attributes from this ‘I’, you come to recognize a deeper ‘I’, which has no attributes… This pure ‘I’ is prior to your individual ‘I’. Sri Ramana Maharshi calls it the ‘I-I’. It is the pure Awareness shining within you, the Self! The recognition of the Self is the true vision of the Ultimate Reality!