Writings on Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj by Jean Dunn

 

Below in PDF file are the journals of Jean Dunn from 1977 to 1981, in which she writes in detail of her time with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, and includes dialogues that she and others had with Maharaj that have rarely been made public. Copies of these journals have been informally and freely circulating for decades, under the title "Jean's Journals" among those who are students and practitioners of Advaita Vedanta, and particularly of those who have been inspired by and connected to Nisargadatta Maharaj and other sages.

Jean Dunn was the editor of three books of dialogues with Nisargadatta Maharaj that are regarded as classics, titled "Seeds of Consciousness", "Prior to Consciousness", and "Consciousness and the Absolute". After Maharaj's passing, and on his authorization, Jean would meet with those who would come to her seeking guidance.  This edition of Jean's Journals is complete, unedited, and unaltered.  Nothing is left out from the original manuscript that has been circulating, and it includes an article that Jean Dunn wrote on Nisargadatta Maharaj that was published in the Mountain Path journal in the October 1978 issue—it also includes an interview with Jean Dunn done by Malcolm Tillis which was published in his book "Turning East".

Sri Ramana Wants Us To Keep It Simple

 

I recently uploaded a section on Self Enquiry onto my website. You can view it at this link

https://www.arunachalasamudra.org/selfenquiry.html

I realise and accept that we have to keep repeating the message over and over for it to overwhelm all those stubborn vasanas.

When you go to the Ashram bookstore it is packed with all and sundry discussing Ramana's self enquiry. But it was Ramana that admonished us "don't make it complicated, its very simple." Below is a short quote from the book Bhagavan's Grace which is an example of the perfect simplicity of his representation of Self Enquiry. Its very nice.

Bhagavan's Grace

Q:  What are the hindrances to the realization of the true self?

Bhagavan:  Memory, chiefly habits of thoughts, accumulated tendencies.

Q:  How does one get rid of these hindrances?

Bhagavan:  Seek for the self through meditation by tracing every thought back to its origin, which is only mind. Never allow thought to run on. If you do it will be unending. Take it back to the starting place, the mind; again and again, and the thought and the mind both die of inaction.

The mind only exists by reason of thought. Stop that and there is no mind. As each doubt and depression arises, ask yourself, "Who is it that doubts?" Tear everything away until there is nothing but the source of all that remains.

Live always in the present, there is no past or future, except in the mind.