Sri Nisargadatta
Maharaj
1897 – 1981
FROM HIS LIVING room in the slums of Bombay, this self-realized master became famous for brilliant, aphoristic, extemporized talks in which he taught an austere, minimalist Jnana Yoga based on his own experience. Many of these talks have been published in books. The earliest volume, I Am That, is widely regarded as a modern classic by practitioners of applied Advaita.
BIOGRAPHY
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj was born in Mumbai (Bombay) in March, 1897. His parents, who gave him the name Maruti, had a small farm at the village of Kandalgaon in Ratnagiri district in Mahrashtra. His father, Shivrampant, was a poor man who had been a servant in Bombay before turning to farming.
Maruti worked on the farm as a boy. Although he grew up with little or no formal education, he was exposed to religious ideas by his father's friend Visnu Haribhau Gore, a pious Brahman.
Nisargadatta's birthplace
Maruti's father died when the boy was eighteen, leaving behind his wife and six children. Maruti and his older brother left the farm to look for work in Mumbai. After a brief stint as a clerk, Maruti opened a shop selling children's clothes, tobacco, and leaf-rolled cigarettes, called beedies, which are popular in India. The shop was modestly successful and Maruti married in 1924. A son and three daughters soon followed.
When Maruti was 34, a friend of his, Yashwantrao Baagkar, introduced him to his guru, Sri Siddharameshwar Maharaj, the head of the Inchegeri branch of the Navanath Sampradaya. The guru gave a mantra and some instructions to Maruti and died soon after. Sri Nisargadatta later recalled:
Nisargadatta's guru, Sri Siddharameshwar Maharaj
My Guru ordered me to attend to the sense 'I am' and to give attention to nothing else. I just obeyed. I did not follow any particular course of breathing, or meditation, or study of scriptures. Whatever happened, I would turn away my attention from it and remain with the sense 'I am'. It may look too simple, even crude. My only reason for doing it was that my Guru told me so. Yet it worked!1
1. I Am That, Chapter 75, p. 375.
Within three years, Maruti realized himself and took the new name Nisargadatta. He became a saddhu and walked barefoot to the Himalayas, but eventually returned to Mumbai where he lived for the rest of his life, working as a cigarette vendor and giving religious instruction in his home.
The success of I Am That, first published in English translation in 1973, made him internationally famous and brought many Western devotees to the tenement apartment where he gave satsangs.
At the time of his death in 1981 he was his guru's successor as the head of the Inchegari branch of the Navanath Sampradaya. He was 84 years old.
Nisargadatta smoked and sold beedies, popular Indian cigarettes rolled in tendu leaves instead of paper.
HIS TEACHINGS
Sri Nisargadatta's teachings defy summarization, but he frequently recommended the practice that had led to his own realization in less than three years:
Just keep in mind the feeling "I am," merge in it, till your mind and feeling become one. By repeated attempts you will stumble on the right balance of attention and affection and your mind will be firmly established in the thought-feeling "I am."2
2. I Am That, Chapter 16, p. 48.
RELATED PAGES ON THIS SITE
This site includes excerpts from two books by Sri Nisargadatta, The Nectar of Immortality and The Ultimate Medicine.
We have reference pages on Advaita Vedanta, the philosophy associated with Sri Nisargadatta's teachings, and Jnana Yoga, the practical application of that philosophy. These pages contain articles, links, and book recommendations.
LINKS TO OTHER SITES
There are two transcripts of talks by Sri Nisargadatta on Rudra's page. For transcripts of talks by Sri Nisargadatta's teacher, Sri Siddharameshwar Maharaj, go to Sadguru.com. Hur Guler's site includes some wonderful things including this article by Cathy Boucher. There is a biography on Ananda's Site. There are lots of links to other sites on Prahlad.
RECOMMENDED BOOKS
I Am That
By Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
· · · · · · · · · · · ·
More than five hundred pages of transcribed conversations allow you to eavesdrop on Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, the most famous teacher of Advaita since Ramana Maharshi, as he sits in his living room and answers questions from visitors who have come to ask what they should do to become enlightened. Sri Nisargadatta described what it felt like to be in his state at considerable length, and he did so with a prodigiously intelligent, uncannily articulate modern vocabulary. The force of the language makes this is a unique and astonishing work. Sri Nisargadatta's talks were given in Marathi and translated into English by Maurice Frydman, who had been a devotee of Ramana Maharshi. An American book dealer who carries many books about meditation and Advaita has told us that this book is his number-one seller. Where to order it
In the U.S.:
Kalpataru
Blue Dove
Books Beyond Words
In Europe:
InnerQuest
· · · · · · · · · · · ·
I Am That:
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
By Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Translated by Maurice Frydman
Edited by Sudhakar S. Dikshit
· · · · · · · · · · · ·
Paperback.
550 pages.
Published by Acorn Press (1973).
ISBN 0893860220
The Nectar of Immortality
By Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
· · · · · · · · · · · ·
This book contains transcripts of 21 talks given by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj in 1980, shortly before his death. The talks include "Prior to Conception, What Was I?" and "To Know What One Is, One Must Know One's Beginning." This volume resembles another book by the same editor, The Ultimate Medicine, which was compiled from talks given six months later.
Where to order it
Amazon.
· · · · · · · · · · · ·
The Nectar of Immortality:
Sri Nisargadatta's Discourses on the Eternal
Edited by Robert Powell
· · · · · · · · · · · ·
Paperback.
187 pages.
Published by Blue Dove Press (1987).
ISBN 1884997139
The Ultimate Medicine
By Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Edited by Robert Powell
· · · · · · · · · · · ·
This book contains transcripts of conversations that Sri Nisargadatta held with visitors about a year before his death, when he was 83 years old and sick with cancer. Although it affords extraordinary glimpses into the mind of a man who had been self-realized for over half a century, the tone is occasionally impatient and even cranky. This is a good book to read after you've finished I Am That.
Where to order it
Amazon.
· · · · · · · · · · · ·
The Ultimate Medicine: As Prescribed by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Edited by Robert Powell
· · · · · · · · · · · ·
sexta-feira, 26 de novembro de 2010
Advaita Vedanta
An introduction to Hinduism's most influential philosophy, with recommendations for further reading and links.
ADVAITA VEDANTA is the most influential Hindu philosophy. Like all forms of Vedanta, it attempts to synthesize the teachings of the Upanishads into a single coherent doctrine. Unlike other forms of Vedanta, it teaches that there is only one real thing in the universe and that everything else is illusory.
Advaita Vedanta is closely associated with Jñana Yoga, the yoga of knowledge.
The concept of maya (literally "magic") distingushes Advaita Vedanta from other philosophies. Maya creates apparent multiplicity in a universe where only Brahman really exists.
People sometimes refer to Advaita Vedanta by other names including nondualism, nonduality, monism, Mayavada, or the Sankara School. People also sometimes abbreviate the name to "Advaita" or "Vedanta."
In this article, we'll call it Advaita .
The Main Ideas of Advaita Vedanta
According to Advaita, only the innermost part of you is aware or conscious. No other part of you can feel or see or know anything. The name in Sanskrit for this awareness is atman. It's the part of you that's really you, and it corresponds to the soul in Western philosophy.
Only the Atman is aware
Now here's where it gets interesting. According to Advaita, your atman (and mine and everybody's) is the same as the underlying absolute reality of the whole universe, which is called Brahman. Brahman corresponds to the Western idea of God, except that it isn't a a super-powerful person. It's impersonal; it's the source of everything; it's what the universe really is.
In short, your inner self — the true "me" — is God.
Brahman is what really is
This idea, which is the fundamental idea of the Upanishads on which Advaita is based, can be expressed in the form of an equation:
Atman = Brahman
Or, in Western terms:
Soul = God.
Atman = Brahman
What distinguishes Advaita from other interpretations of the Upanishads is this: Advaita asserts that since there is only one Brahman, there is only one Atman. There's only one "me" and we all share it. We're all one "thing" — Brahman.
There is only one awareness, Brahman
Moreover, only Brahman is real. The other things in the universe, like bicycles and umbrellas and our bodies, are maya. Maya is illusory because it seems to be different from Brahman but it's not. Since maya misleads us in this way, and because it's impermanent, Advaita says that maya is unreal.
The other things are maya, illusions
The most important way that maya fools us is with regard to our selves. We think we are our bodies, our thoughts, our desires, and so forth. But those things are maya. They seem to be "me" but this is an illusion. Actually, our awareness (the part that is really "me") is something else: Brahman.
This is an enormously strange and radical idea. It means that you aren't you; you aren't any kind of person, really. You are the supreme reality that underlies the entire universe. The person who seems to be in your head, the person you believe yourself to be, is merely a psychological illusion.
Maya tricks us with regard to our selves.
Why Does This Matter?
Advaita Vedanta is important because by understanding it, you may be able to come closer to self-realization. In fact, by making the effort to understand it, you are engaging in Jñana Yoga, the yoga of knowledge, one of the traditional methods of attaining enlightenment.
To see why this is so, you have to examine the idea that only the atman is aware. This idea is more subtle than it seems at first glance.
If you close your eyes for a moment and try to focus your attention on your inner self, it will seem easy at first. You will be immediately aware of feelings, hopes, thoughts, desires, fears, and a general sense of yourself. This is the inner you, right?
Well, no. According to Advaita, if you are aware of something, it isn't really you. The real you (the atman) is the part that's aware. It's not anything of which you are aware.
Examine those inner objects on which you focused a moment ago. You were aware of them, weren't you? Even that feeling of "me" is something of which you were aware. Well, then, according to Advaita , it can't be the real you. The real you is the part that is aware, not anything that you're aware of.
This kind of examination is called viveka (discrimination) in Sanskrit. It is a main component of the traditional method of Jñana Yoga. If you keep doing it, you will discover that everything you currently regard as yourself (including your ego and mind) is not aware. The awareness in you is different from those things.
You can take this still further. Here is an interesting fact: No matter how hard you try, you can't focus your attention on the part of you that is aware. If you could, it would become something of which you are aware.
Making a strenuous attempt to do this, even though it's impossible, is a main component of Ramana Maharshi's method of self-inquiry (vicara in Sanskrit). If you try long enough, eventually you will become convinced that your ordinary sense of yourself — your ego — is not really you. In fact, you will realize that it's an illusion. (By the way, don't make the mistake of thinking that this is all there is to Ramana's method. Seeing that "you" are an illusion is a wonderful insight, but it's not self-realization.)
RECOMMENDED READING
The best overviews of Advaita Vedanta that we've seen are contained in the following books: S. Radhakrishnan, Indian Philosophy, Volume II; and S. Dasgupta, A History of Indian Philosophy, Volumes I and II.
The Encyclopedia Britannica contains a good overview of Advaita Vedanta in the article called "Indian Philosophy" under the subheading "Vedanta." (The articles found directly under "Vedanta" and "Advaita" are not as good.)
If you want to read the original philosophical works that created the Advaitin tradition, you should probably begin with Sankara. His most important books are Brahma Sutra Bhasya and his commentaries on various Upanisads. These books are highly technical and difficult to read. Some easier books such as Viveka-Chudamani (on our site here) and Atmabodhi were also traditionally attributed to him, but modern scholars have questioned whether he really wrote them. Probably the best all-around choice, if you want to try a single book of his, is Upadesa Sahasri.
The Advaitan tradition recognizes three textual sources of special importance: the Upanishads (on our site here), Brahma Sutra (also known as the Vedanta Sutra), and Bhagavad Gita (on our site here).
In addition to technical works of philosophy, the Advaitan tradition has generated a large number of literary works that are beautiful, entertaining, and helpful for the practice of Jñana Yoga. These include Yoga-Vasistha, Ashtavakra Gita (on our site here), and Avadhut Gita. (Several other works in this category are listed below under "Related Pages on This Site.")
The Advaitan tradition has also produced a large number of books by gurus intended to help other people become self-realized. The two greatest authors in this category in recent times are Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj. Several of Ramana's books are on this website. To find them, as well as other book recommendations, click here. For other gurus, including modern Western ones, see the "Links" section of our page on H.L. Poonja.
An introduction to Hinduism's most influential philosophy, with recommendations for further reading and links.
ADVAITA VEDANTA is the most influential Hindu philosophy. Like all forms of Vedanta, it attempts to synthesize the teachings of the Upanishads into a single coherent doctrine. Unlike other forms of Vedanta, it teaches that there is only one real thing in the universe and that everything else is illusory.
Advaita Vedanta is closely associated with Jñana Yoga, the yoga of knowledge.
The concept of maya (literally "magic") distingushes Advaita Vedanta from other philosophies. Maya creates apparent multiplicity in a universe where only Brahman really exists.
People sometimes refer to Advaita Vedanta by other names including nondualism, nonduality, monism, Mayavada, or the Sankara School. People also sometimes abbreviate the name to "Advaita" or "Vedanta."
In this article, we'll call it Advaita .
The Main Ideas of Advaita Vedanta
According to Advaita, only the innermost part of you is aware or conscious. No other part of you can feel or see or know anything. The name in Sanskrit for this awareness is atman. It's the part of you that's really you, and it corresponds to the soul in Western philosophy.
Only the Atman is aware
Now here's where it gets interesting. According to Advaita, your atman (and mine and everybody's) is the same as the underlying absolute reality of the whole universe, which is called Brahman. Brahman corresponds to the Western idea of God, except that it isn't a a super-powerful person. It's impersonal; it's the source of everything; it's what the universe really is.
In short, your inner self — the true "me" — is God.
Brahman is what really is
This idea, which is the fundamental idea of the Upanishads on which Advaita is based, can be expressed in the form of an equation:
Atman = Brahman
Or, in Western terms:
Soul = God.
Atman = Brahman
What distinguishes Advaita from other interpretations of the Upanishads is this: Advaita asserts that since there is only one Brahman, there is only one Atman. There's only one "me" and we all share it. We're all one "thing" — Brahman.
There is only one awareness, Brahman
Moreover, only Brahman is real. The other things in the universe, like bicycles and umbrellas and our bodies, are maya. Maya is illusory because it seems to be different from Brahman but it's not. Since maya misleads us in this way, and because it's impermanent, Advaita says that maya is unreal.
The other things are maya, illusions
The most important way that maya fools us is with regard to our selves. We think we are our bodies, our thoughts, our desires, and so forth. But those things are maya. They seem to be "me" but this is an illusion. Actually, our awareness (the part that is really "me") is something else: Brahman.
This is an enormously strange and radical idea. It means that you aren't you; you aren't any kind of person, really. You are the supreme reality that underlies the entire universe. The person who seems to be in your head, the person you believe yourself to be, is merely a psychological illusion.
Maya tricks us with regard to our selves.
Why Does This Matter?
Advaita Vedanta is important because by understanding it, you may be able to come closer to self-realization. In fact, by making the effort to understand it, you are engaging in Jñana Yoga, the yoga of knowledge, one of the traditional methods of attaining enlightenment.
To see why this is so, you have to examine the idea that only the atman is aware. This idea is more subtle than it seems at first glance.
If you close your eyes for a moment and try to focus your attention on your inner self, it will seem easy at first. You will be immediately aware of feelings, hopes, thoughts, desires, fears, and a general sense of yourself. This is the inner you, right?
Well, no. According to Advaita, if you are aware of something, it isn't really you. The real you (the atman) is the part that's aware. It's not anything of which you are aware.
Examine those inner objects on which you focused a moment ago. You were aware of them, weren't you? Even that feeling of "me" is something of which you were aware. Well, then, according to Advaita , it can't be the real you. The real you is the part that is aware, not anything that you're aware of.
This kind of examination is called viveka (discrimination) in Sanskrit. It is a main component of the traditional method of Jñana Yoga. If you keep doing it, you will discover that everything you currently regard as yourself (including your ego and mind) is not aware. The awareness in you is different from those things.
You can take this still further. Here is an interesting fact: No matter how hard you try, you can't focus your attention on the part of you that is aware. If you could, it would become something of which you are aware.
Making a strenuous attempt to do this, even though it's impossible, is a main component of Ramana Maharshi's method of self-inquiry (vicara in Sanskrit). If you try long enough, eventually you will become convinced that your ordinary sense of yourself — your ego — is not really you. In fact, you will realize that it's an illusion. (By the way, don't make the mistake of thinking that this is all there is to Ramana's method. Seeing that "you" are an illusion is a wonderful insight, but it's not self-realization.)
RECOMMENDED READING
The best overviews of Advaita Vedanta that we've seen are contained in the following books: S. Radhakrishnan, Indian Philosophy, Volume II; and S. Dasgupta, A History of Indian Philosophy, Volumes I and II.
The Encyclopedia Britannica contains a good overview of Advaita Vedanta in the article called "Indian Philosophy" under the subheading "Vedanta." (The articles found directly under "Vedanta" and "Advaita" are not as good.)
If you want to read the original philosophical works that created the Advaitin tradition, you should probably begin with Sankara. His most important books are Brahma Sutra Bhasya and his commentaries on various Upanisads. These books are highly technical and difficult to read. Some easier books such as Viveka-Chudamani (on our site here) and Atmabodhi were also traditionally attributed to him, but modern scholars have questioned whether he really wrote them. Probably the best all-around choice, if you want to try a single book of his, is Upadesa Sahasri.
The Advaitan tradition recognizes three textual sources of special importance: the Upanishads (on our site here), Brahma Sutra (also known as the Vedanta Sutra), and Bhagavad Gita (on our site here).
In addition to technical works of philosophy, the Advaitan tradition has generated a large number of literary works that are beautiful, entertaining, and helpful for the practice of Jñana Yoga. These include Yoga-Vasistha, Ashtavakra Gita (on our site here), and Avadhut Gita. (Several other works in this category are listed below under "Related Pages on This Site.")
The Advaitan tradition has also produced a large number of books by gurus intended to help other people become self-realized. The two greatest authors in this category in recent times are Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj. Several of Ramana's books are on this website. To find them, as well as other book recommendations, click here. For other gurus, including modern Western ones, see the "Links" section of our page on H.L. Poonja.
QUESTION 23
Disciple: What is absolute retention of breath?
Master: It is making the vital air stay firmly in the heart even without exhalation and inhalation. This is achieved through meditation on the vital principle, etc.
QUESTION 24
Disciple: What is regulation of breath?
Master: It is making the vital air stay firmly in the heart through exhalation, inhalation, and retention, according to the instructions given in the yoga texts.
QUESTION 25
Disciple: How is breath-control the means for mind-control?
Master: There is no doubt that breath-control is the means for mind-control, because the mind, like breath, is a part of air, because the nature of mobility is common to both, because the place of origin is the same for both, and because when one of them is controlled the other gets controlled.
QUESTION 26
Disciple: Since breath-control leads only to quiescence of the mind (manolaya) and not to its destruction (manonasa), how can it be said that breath-control is the means for enquiry which aims at the destruction of mind?
Master: The scriptures teach the means for gaining Self-realization in two modes - as the yoga with eight limbs (ashtanga-yoga) and as knowledge with eight limbs (ashtanga-jnana). By regulation of breath (pranayama) or by absolute retention thereof (kevala-kumbhaka), which is one of the limbs of yoga, the mind gets controlled. Without leaving the mind at that, if one practises the further discipline such as withdrawal of the mind from external objects (pratyahara), then at the end, Self-realization which is the fruit of enquiry will surely be gained.
Disciple: What is absolute retention of breath?
Master: It is making the vital air stay firmly in the heart even without exhalation and inhalation. This is achieved through meditation on the vital principle, etc.
QUESTION 24
Disciple: What is regulation of breath?
Master: It is making the vital air stay firmly in the heart through exhalation, inhalation, and retention, according to the instructions given in the yoga texts.
QUESTION 25
Disciple: How is breath-control the means for mind-control?
Master: There is no doubt that breath-control is the means for mind-control, because the mind, like breath, is a part of air, because the nature of mobility is common to both, because the place of origin is the same for both, and because when one of them is controlled the other gets controlled.
QUESTION 26
Disciple: Since breath-control leads only to quiescence of the mind (manolaya) and not to its destruction (manonasa), how can it be said that breath-control is the means for enquiry which aims at the destruction of mind?
Master: The scriptures teach the means for gaining Self-realization in two modes - as the yoga with eight limbs (ashtanga-yoga) and as knowledge with eight limbs (ashtanga-jnana). By regulation of breath (pranayama) or by absolute retention thereof (kevala-kumbhaka), which is one of the limbs of yoga, the mind gets controlled. Without leaving the mind at that, if one practises the further discipline such as withdrawal of the mind from external objects (pratyahara), then at the end, Self-realization which is the fruit of enquiry will surely be gained.
QUESTION 19
Disciple: Although I have listened to the explanation of the characteristics of enquiry in such great detail, my mind has not gained even a little peace. What is the reason for this?
Master: The reason is the absence of strength or one-pointedness of the mind.
QUESTION 20
Disciple: What is the reason for the absence of mental strength?
Master: The means that make one qualified for enquiry are meditation, yoga, etc. One should gain proficiency in these through graded practice, and thus secure a stream of mental modes that is natural and helpful. When the mind that has in this manner become ripe, listens to the present enquiry, it will at once realize its true nature which is the Self, and remain in perfect peace, without deviating from that state. To a mind which has not become ripe, immediate realization and peace are hard to gain through listening to enquiry. Yet, if one practices the means for mind-control for some time, peace of mind can be obtained eventually.
QUESTION 21
Disciple: Of the means for mind-control, which is the most important?
Master: Breath-control is the means for mind-control.
QUESTION 22
Disciple: How is breath to be controlled?
Master: Breath can be controlled either by absolute retention of breath (kevala-kumbhaka) or by regulation of breath (pranayama).
Disciple: Although I have listened to the explanation of the characteristics of enquiry in such great detail, my mind has not gained even a little peace. What is the reason for this?
Master: The reason is the absence of strength or one-pointedness of the mind.
QUESTION 20
Disciple: What is the reason for the absence of mental strength?
Master: The means that make one qualified for enquiry are meditation, yoga, etc. One should gain proficiency in these through graded practice, and thus secure a stream of mental modes that is natural and helpful. When the mind that has in this manner become ripe, listens to the present enquiry, it will at once realize its true nature which is the Self, and remain in perfect peace, without deviating from that state. To a mind which has not become ripe, immediate realization and peace are hard to gain through listening to enquiry. Yet, if one practices the means for mind-control for some time, peace of mind can be obtained eventually.
QUESTION 21
Disciple: Of the means for mind-control, which is the most important?
Master: Breath-control is the means for mind-control.
QUESTION 22
Disciple: How is breath to be controlled?
Master: Breath can be controlled either by absolute retention of breath (kevala-kumbhaka) or by regulation of breath (pranayama).
QUESTION 17
Disciple: How is one to know that in the heart the Self itself shines as Brahman?
Master: Just as the elemental ether within the flame of a lamp is known to fill without any difference and without any limit both the inside and the outside of the flame, so also the knowledge-ether that is within the Self-light in the heart, fills without any difference and without any limit both the inside and the outside of that Self-light. This is what is referred to as Brahman.
QUESTION 18
Disciple: How do the three states of experience, the three bodies, etc., which are imaginations, appear in the Self-light which is one, impartite and self-luminous? Even if they should appear, how is one to know that the Self alone remains ever unmoving?
Master:
The example The exemplified
1. The Lamp The Self
2. The door Sleep
3. The door-step Mahat-tattva
4. The inner wall Nescience or the causal body
5. The mirror The egoity
6. The windows The five cognitive sense-organs
7. The inner chamber Deep sleep in which the causal body is manifest
8. The middle chamber Dream in which the subtle body is manifest
9. The outer court Waking state in which the gross body is manifest
The Self which is the lamp (1) shines of its own accord in the inner chamber, i.e., the causal body (7) that is endowed with nescience as the inner wall (4) and sleep as the door (2); when by the vital principle as conditioned by time, karma, etc., the sleep-door is opened, there occurs a reflection of the Self in the egoity-mirror (5) that is placed next to the door-step-Mahat-tattva; the egoity-mirror thus illumines the middle chamber, i.e., the dream state (8), and, through the windows which are the five cognitive sense-organs (6), the outer court, i.e., the waking state. When, again, by the vital principle as conditioned by time, karma, etc., the sleep-door gets shut, the egoity ceases along with waking and dream, and the Self alone ever shines. The example just given explains how the Self is unmoving, how there is difference between the Self and the egoity, and how the three states of experience, the three bodies, etc., appear.
Disciple: How is one to know that in the heart the Self itself shines as Brahman?
Master: Just as the elemental ether within the flame of a lamp is known to fill without any difference and without any limit both the inside and the outside of the flame, so also the knowledge-ether that is within the Self-light in the heart, fills without any difference and without any limit both the inside and the outside of that Self-light. This is what is referred to as Brahman.
QUESTION 18
Disciple: How do the three states of experience, the three bodies, etc., which are imaginations, appear in the Self-light which is one, impartite and self-luminous? Even if they should appear, how is one to know that the Self alone remains ever unmoving?
Master:
The example The exemplified
1. The Lamp The Self
2. The door Sleep
3. The door-step Mahat-tattva
4. The inner wall Nescience or the causal body
5. The mirror The egoity
6. The windows The five cognitive sense-organs
7. The inner chamber Deep sleep in which the causal body is manifest
8. The middle chamber Dream in which the subtle body is manifest
9. The outer court Waking state in which the gross body is manifest
The Self which is the lamp (1) shines of its own accord in the inner chamber, i.e., the causal body (7) that is endowed with nescience as the inner wall (4) and sleep as the door (2); when by the vital principle as conditioned by time, karma, etc., the sleep-door is opened, there occurs a reflection of the Self in the egoity-mirror (5) that is placed next to the door-step-Mahat-tattva; the egoity-mirror thus illumines the middle chamber, i.e., the dream state (8), and, through the windows which are the five cognitive sense-organs (6), the outer court, i.e., the waking state. When, again, by the vital principle as conditioned by time, karma, etc., the sleep-door gets shut, the egoity ceases along with waking and dream, and the Self alone ever shines. The example just given explains how the Self is unmoving, how there is difference between the Self and the egoity, and how the three states of experience, the three bodies, etc., appear.
QUESTION 17
Disciple: How is one to know that in the heart the Self itself shines as Brahman?
Master: Just as the elemental ether within the flame of a lamp is known to fill without any difference and without any limit both the inside and the outside of the flame, so also the knowledge-ether that is within the Self-light in the heart, fills without any difference and without any limit both the inside and the outside of that Self-light. This is what is referred to as Brahman.
QUESTION 18
Disciple: How do the three states of experience, the three bodies, etc., which are imaginations, appear in the Self-light which is one, impartite and self-luminous? Even if they should appear, how is one to know that the Self alone remains ever unmoving?
Master:
The example The exemplified
1. The Lamp The Self
2. The door Sleep
3. The door-step Mahat-tattva
4. The inner wall Nescience or the causal body
5. The mirror The egoity
6. The windows The five cognitive sense-organs
7. The inner chamber Deep sleep in which the causal body is manifest
8. The middle chamber Dream in which the subtle body is manifest
9. The outer court Waking state in which the gross body is manifest
The Self which is the lamp (1) shines of its own accord in the inner chamber, i.e., the causal body (7) that is endowed with nescience as the inner wall (4) and sleep as the door (2); when by the vital principle as conditioned by time, karma, etc., the sleep-door is opened, there occurs a reflection of the Self in the egoity-mirror (5) that is placed next to the door-step-Mahat-tattva; the egoity-mirror thus illumines the middle chamber, i.e., the dream state (8), and, through the windows which are the five cognitive sense-organs (6), the outer court, i.e., the waking state. When, again, by the vital principle as conditioned by time, karma, etc., the sleep-door gets shut, the egoity ceases along with waking and dream, and the Self alone ever shines. The example just given explains how the Self is unmoving, how there is difference between the Self and the egoity, and how the three states of experience, the three bodies, etc., appear.
Disciple: How is one to know that in the heart the Self itself shines as Brahman?
Master: Just as the elemental ether within the flame of a lamp is known to fill without any difference and without any limit both the inside and the outside of the flame, so also the knowledge-ether that is within the Self-light in the heart, fills without any difference and without any limit both the inside and the outside of that Self-light. This is what is referred to as Brahman.
QUESTION 18
Disciple: How do the three states of experience, the three bodies, etc., which are imaginations, appear in the Self-light which is one, impartite and self-luminous? Even if they should appear, how is one to know that the Self alone remains ever unmoving?
Master:
The example The exemplified
1. The Lamp The Self
2. The door Sleep
3. The door-step Mahat-tattva
4. The inner wall Nescience or the causal body
5. The mirror The egoity
6. The windows The five cognitive sense-organs
7. The inner chamber Deep sleep in which the causal body is manifest
8. The middle chamber Dream in which the subtle body is manifest
9. The outer court Waking state in which the gross body is manifest
The Self which is the lamp (1) shines of its own accord in the inner chamber, i.e., the causal body (7) that is endowed with nescience as the inner wall (4) and sleep as the door (2); when by the vital principle as conditioned by time, karma, etc., the sleep-door is opened, there occurs a reflection of the Self in the egoity-mirror (5) that is placed next to the door-step-Mahat-tattva; the egoity-mirror thus illumines the middle chamber, i.e., the dream state (8), and, through the windows which are the five cognitive sense-organs (6), the outer court, i.e., the waking state. When, again, by the vital principle as conditioned by time, karma, etc., the sleep-door gets shut, the egoity ceases along with waking and dream, and the Self alone ever shines. The example just given explains how the Self is unmoving, how there is difference between the Self and the egoity, and how the three states of experience, the three bodies, etc., appear.
QUESTION 16
Disciple: How do egoity, soul, self, and Brahman come to be identified?
Master:
The example The exemplified
1. The iron ball Egoity
2. The heated iron ball The soul which appears as a superimposition on the Self
3. The fire that is in the heated iron ball The light of consciousness, i.e. the immutable Brahman, which shines in the soul in everybody
4. The flame of fire which remains as one The all-pervading Brahman which remains as one
From the examples given above, it will be clear how egoity, soul, witness, and All-witness come to be identified.
Just as in the wax-lump that is with the smith numerous and varied metal particles lie included and all of them appear to be one wax-lump, so also in deep sleep the gross and subtle bodies of all the individual souls are included in the cosmic maya which is nescience, of the nature of sheer darkness, and since the souls are resolved in the Self becoming one with it, they see everywhere darkness alone. From the darkness of sleep, the subtle body, viz. egoity, and from that (egoity) the gross body arise respectively. Even as the egoity arises, it appears superimposed on the nature of the Self, like the heated iron ball. Thus, without the soul (jiva) which is the mind or egoity that is conjoined with the Consciousness-light, there is no witness of the soul, viz. the Self, and without the Self there is no Brahman that is the All-witness. Just as when the iron ball is beaten into various shapes by the smith, the fire that is in it does not change thereby in any manner, even so the soul may be involved in ever so many experiences and undergo pleasures and pains, and yet the Self-light that is in it does not change in the least thereby, and like the ether it is the all-pervasive pure knowledge that is one, and it shines in the heart as Brahman.
Disciple: How do egoity, soul, self, and Brahman come to be identified?
Master:
The example The exemplified
1. The iron ball Egoity
2. The heated iron ball The soul which appears as a superimposition on the Self
3. The fire that is in the heated iron ball The light of consciousness, i.e. the immutable Brahman, which shines in the soul in everybody
4. The flame of fire which remains as one The all-pervading Brahman which remains as one
From the examples given above, it will be clear how egoity, soul, witness, and All-witness come to be identified.
Just as in the wax-lump that is with the smith numerous and varied metal particles lie included and all of them appear to be one wax-lump, so also in deep sleep the gross and subtle bodies of all the individual souls are included in the cosmic maya which is nescience, of the nature of sheer darkness, and since the souls are resolved in the Self becoming one with it, they see everywhere darkness alone. From the darkness of sleep, the subtle body, viz. egoity, and from that (egoity) the gross body arise respectively. Even as the egoity arises, it appears superimposed on the nature of the Self, like the heated iron ball. Thus, without the soul (jiva) which is the mind or egoity that is conjoined with the Consciousness-light, there is no witness of the soul, viz. the Self, and without the Self there is no Brahman that is the All-witness. Just as when the iron ball is beaten into various shapes by the smith, the fire that is in it does not change thereby in any manner, even so the soul may be involved in ever so many experiences and undergo pleasures and pains, and yet the Self-light that is in it does not change in the least thereby, and like the ether it is the all-pervasive pure knowledge that is one, and it shines in the heart as Brahman.
Self-Enquiry
By Ramana Maharshi
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QUESTION 15
Disciple: The mind, sense-organs, etc., have the ability to perceive; yet why are they regarded as perceived objects?
Master:
Drik (knower) Drisya (known object)
1. The seer Pot (i e. the seen object)
Further
2. The eye organ Body, pot, etc.
3. The sense of sight The eye organ
4. The mind The sense of sight
5. The individual soul The mind
6. Consciousness (the Self) The individual soul
As shown in the above scheme, since we, the consciousness, know all objects, we are said to be drik (knower). The categories ending with pot are the objects seen, since they are what are known. In the table of 'knowledge: ignorance (i.e. knower-known)' given above, among the knowers and objects of knowledge, it is seen that one is knower in relation to another; yet, since that one is object in relation to another, none of those categories is, in reality, the knower. Although we are said to be the 'knower' because we know all, and not the 'known' because we are not known by anything else, we are said to be the 'knower' only in relation to the known objects. In truth, however, what is called the 'known' is not apart from us. And so we are the Reality that transcends those two (the knower and the known). All the others fall within the knower-known categories.
By Ramana Maharshi
Contents
Previous Next
QUESTION 15
Disciple: The mind, sense-organs, etc., have the ability to perceive; yet why are they regarded as perceived objects?
Master:
Drik (knower) Drisya (known object)
1. The seer Pot (i e. the seen object)
Further
2. The eye organ Body, pot, etc.
3. The sense of sight The eye organ
4. The mind The sense of sight
5. The individual soul The mind
6. Consciousness (the Self) The individual soul
As shown in the above scheme, since we, the consciousness, know all objects, we are said to be drik (knower). The categories ending with pot are the objects seen, since they are what are known. In the table of 'knowledge: ignorance (i.e. knower-known)' given above, among the knowers and objects of knowledge, it is seen that one is knower in relation to another; yet, since that one is object in relation to another, none of those categories is, in reality, the knower. Although we are said to be the 'knower' because we know all, and not the 'known' because we are not known by anything else, we are said to be the 'knower' only in relation to the known objects. In truth, however, what is called the 'known' is not apart from us. And so we are the Reality that transcends those two (the knower and the known). All the others fall within the knower-known categories.
QUESTION 12
Disciple: Is the aforesaid Self-experience possible, even in the state of empirical existence, for the mind which has to perform functions in accordance with its prarabdha (the past karma which has begun to fructify)?
Master: A Brahmin may play various parts in a drama; yet the thought that he is a Brahmin does not leave his mind. Similarly, when one is engaged in various empirical acts there should be the firm conviction "I am the Self," without allowing the false idea "I am the body, etc." to rise. If the mind should stray away from its state, then immediately one should enquire, "Oh! Oh! We are not the body etc.! Who are we?" and thus one should reinstate the mind in that (pure) state. The enquiry "Who am I?" is the principal means to the removal of all misery and the attainment of the supreme bliss. When in this manner the mind becomes quiescent in its own state, Self-experience arises of its own accord, without any hindrance. Thereafter sensory pleasures and pains will not affect the mind. All (phenomena) will appear then, without attachment, like a dream. Never forgetting one's plenary Self-experience is real bhakti (devotion), yoga (mind-control), jnana (knowledge) and all other austerities. Thus say the sages.
QUESTION 13
Disciple: When there is activity in regard to works, we are neither the agents of those works nor their enjoyers. The activity is of the three instruments (i.e., the mind, speech, and body). Could we remain (unattached) thinking thus?
Master: After the mind has been made to stay in the Self which is its Deity, and has been rendered indifferent to empirical matters because it does not stray away from the Self, how can the mind think as mentioned above? Do not such thoughts constitute bondage? When such thoughts arise due to residual impressions (vasanas), one should restrain the mind from flowing that way, endeavour to retain it in the Self-state, and make it turn indifferent to empirical matters. One should not give room in the mind for such thoughts as: "Is this good? Or, is that good? Can this be done? Or, can that be done?" One should be vigilant even before such thoughts arise and make the mind stay in its native state. If any little room is given, such a (disturbed) mind will do harm to us while posing as our friend; like the foe appearing to be a friend, it will topple us down. Is it not because one forgets one's Self that such thoughts arise and cause more and more evil? While it is true that to think through discrimination, "I do not do anything; all actions are performed by the instruments," is a means to prevent the mind from flowing along thought vasanas, does it not also follow that only if the mind flows along thought vasanas that it must be restrained through discrimination as stated before? Can the mind that remains in the Self-state think as 'I' and as 'I behave empirically thus and thus'? In all manner of ways possible one should endeavour gradually not to forget one's (true) Self that is God. If that is accomplished, all will be accomplished. The mind should not be directed to any other matter. Even though one may perform, like a mad person, the actions that are the result of prarabdha-karma, one should retain the mind in the Self-state without letting the thought 'I do' arise. Have not countless bhaktas (devotees) performed their numerous empirical functions with an attitude of indifference?
QUESTION 14
Disciple: What is the real purpose of sannyasa (renunciation)?
Master: Sannyasa is only the renunciation of the 'I' thought, and not the rejection of the external objects. He who has renounced (the "I" thought) thus remains the same whether he is alone or in the midst of the extensive samsara (empirical world). Just as when the mind is concentrated on some object, it does not observe other things even though they may be proximate, so also, although the sage may perform any number of empirical acts, in reality he performs nothing, because he makes the mind rest in the Self without letting the 'I' thought arise. Even as in a dream one appears to fall head downwards, while in reality one is unmoving, so also the ignorant person, i.e., the person for whom the 'I' thought has not ceased, although he remains alone in constant meditation, is in fact one who performs all empirical actions.* Thus the wise ones have said.
*Like those who listen to a story with their attention fixed elsewhere, the mind whose residual impressions have worn away does not really function even if it appears to do so. The mind that is not free from residual impressions really functions even if it does not appear to do so; this is like those who while remaining stationary imagine in their dreams that they climb up a hill and fall therefrom.
Disciple: Is the aforesaid Self-experience possible, even in the state of empirical existence, for the mind which has to perform functions in accordance with its prarabdha (the past karma which has begun to fructify)?
Master: A Brahmin may play various parts in a drama; yet the thought that he is a Brahmin does not leave his mind. Similarly, when one is engaged in various empirical acts there should be the firm conviction "I am the Self," without allowing the false idea "I am the body, etc." to rise. If the mind should stray away from its state, then immediately one should enquire, "Oh! Oh! We are not the body etc.! Who are we?" and thus one should reinstate the mind in that (pure) state. The enquiry "Who am I?" is the principal means to the removal of all misery and the attainment of the supreme bliss. When in this manner the mind becomes quiescent in its own state, Self-experience arises of its own accord, without any hindrance. Thereafter sensory pleasures and pains will not affect the mind. All (phenomena) will appear then, without attachment, like a dream. Never forgetting one's plenary Self-experience is real bhakti (devotion), yoga (mind-control), jnana (knowledge) and all other austerities. Thus say the sages.
QUESTION 13
Disciple: When there is activity in regard to works, we are neither the agents of those works nor their enjoyers. The activity is of the three instruments (i.e., the mind, speech, and body). Could we remain (unattached) thinking thus?
Master: After the mind has been made to stay in the Self which is its Deity, and has been rendered indifferent to empirical matters because it does not stray away from the Self, how can the mind think as mentioned above? Do not such thoughts constitute bondage? When such thoughts arise due to residual impressions (vasanas), one should restrain the mind from flowing that way, endeavour to retain it in the Self-state, and make it turn indifferent to empirical matters. One should not give room in the mind for such thoughts as: "Is this good? Or, is that good? Can this be done? Or, can that be done?" One should be vigilant even before such thoughts arise and make the mind stay in its native state. If any little room is given, such a (disturbed) mind will do harm to us while posing as our friend; like the foe appearing to be a friend, it will topple us down. Is it not because one forgets one's Self that such thoughts arise and cause more and more evil? While it is true that to think through discrimination, "I do not do anything; all actions are performed by the instruments," is a means to prevent the mind from flowing along thought vasanas, does it not also follow that only if the mind flows along thought vasanas that it must be restrained through discrimination as stated before? Can the mind that remains in the Self-state think as 'I' and as 'I behave empirically thus and thus'? In all manner of ways possible one should endeavour gradually not to forget one's (true) Self that is God. If that is accomplished, all will be accomplished. The mind should not be directed to any other matter. Even though one may perform, like a mad person, the actions that are the result of prarabdha-karma, one should retain the mind in the Self-state without letting the thought 'I do' arise. Have not countless bhaktas (devotees) performed their numerous empirical functions with an attitude of indifference?
QUESTION 14
Disciple: What is the real purpose of sannyasa (renunciation)?
Master: Sannyasa is only the renunciation of the 'I' thought, and not the rejection of the external objects. He who has renounced (the "I" thought) thus remains the same whether he is alone or in the midst of the extensive samsara (empirical world). Just as when the mind is concentrated on some object, it does not observe other things even though they may be proximate, so also, although the sage may perform any number of empirical acts, in reality he performs nothing, because he makes the mind rest in the Self without letting the 'I' thought arise. Even as in a dream one appears to fall head downwards, while in reality one is unmoving, so also the ignorant person, i.e., the person for whom the 'I' thought has not ceased, although he remains alone in constant meditation, is in fact one who performs all empirical actions.* Thus the wise ones have said.
*Like those who listen to a story with their attention fixed elsewhere, the mind whose residual impressions have worn away does not really function even if it appears to do so. The mind that is not free from residual impressions really functions even if it does not appear to do so; this is like those who while remaining stationary imagine in their dreams that they climb up a hill and fall therefrom.
Disciple: If the entire universe is of the form of mind, then does it not follow that the universe is an illusion? If that be the case, why is the creation of the universe mentioned in the Veda?
Master: There is no doubt whatsoever that the universe is the merest illusion. The principal purport of the Veda is to make known the true Brahman, after showing the apparent universe to be false. It is for this purpose that the Vedas admit the creation of the world and not for any other reason. Moreover, for the less qualified persons creation is taught, that is the phased evolution of prakriti (primal nature), mahat-tattva (the great intellect), tanmatras (the subtle essences), bhutas (the gross elements), the world, the body, etc., from Brahman: while for the more qualified simultaneous creation is taught, that is, that this world arose like a dream on account of one's own thoughts induced by the defect of not knowing oneself as the Self. Thus, from the fact that the creation of the world has been described in different ways it is clear that the purport of the Vedas rests only in teaching the true nature of Brahman after showing somehow or other the illusory nature of the universe. That the world is illusory, every one can directly know in the state of realization which is in the form of experience of one's bliss-nature.
QUESTION 11
Disciple: Is Self-experience possible for the mind, whose nature is constant change?
Master: Since sattva-guna (the constituent of prakriti which makes for purity, intelligence, etc.) is the nature of mind, and since the mind is pure and undefiled like ether, what is called mind is, in truth, of the nature of knowledge. When it stays in that natural (i.e. pure) state, it has not even the name 'mind'. It is only the erroneous knowledge which mistakes one for another that is called mind. What was (originally) the pure sattva mind, of the nature of pure knowledge, forgets its knowledge-nature on account of nescience, gets transformed into the world under the influence of tamo-guna (i.e. the constituent of prakriti which makes for dullness, inertness, etc.), being under the influence of rajo-guna (i.e. the constituent of prakriti which makes for activity, passions, etc.), imagines "I am the body, etc.; the world is real," it acquires the consequent merit and demerit through attachment, aversion, etc., and, through the residual impressions (vasanas) thereof, attains birth and death. But the mind, which has got rid of its defilement (sin) through action without attachment performed in many past lives, listens to the teaching of scripture from a true guru, reflects on its meaning, and meditates in order to gain the natural state of the mental mode of the form of the Self, i.e. of the form 'I am Brahman' which is the result of the continued contemplation of Brahman. Thus will be removed the mind's transformation into the world in the aspect of tamo-guna, and its roving therein in the aspect of rajo-guna. When this removal takes place the mind becomes subtle and unmoving. It is only by the mind that is impure and is under the influence of rajas and tamas that Reality (i.e. the Self) which is very subtle and unchanging cannot be experienced; just as a piece of fine silk cloth cannot be stitched with a heavy crowbar, or as the details of subtle objects cannot be distinguished by the light of a lamp flame that flickers in the wind. But in the pure mind that has been rendered subtle and unmoving by the meditation described above, the Self-bliss (i.e. Brahman) will become manifest. As without mind there cannot be experience, it is possible for the purified mind endowed with the extremely subtle mode (vritti) to experience the Self-bliss, by remaining in that form (i.e. in the form of Brahman). Then, that one's self is of the nature of Brahman will be clearly experienced.
Master: There is no doubt whatsoever that the universe is the merest illusion. The principal purport of the Veda is to make known the true Brahman, after showing the apparent universe to be false. It is for this purpose that the Vedas admit the creation of the world and not for any other reason. Moreover, for the less qualified persons creation is taught, that is the phased evolution of prakriti (primal nature), mahat-tattva (the great intellect), tanmatras (the subtle essences), bhutas (the gross elements), the world, the body, etc., from Brahman: while for the more qualified simultaneous creation is taught, that is, that this world arose like a dream on account of one's own thoughts induced by the defect of not knowing oneself as the Self. Thus, from the fact that the creation of the world has been described in different ways it is clear that the purport of the Vedas rests only in teaching the true nature of Brahman after showing somehow or other the illusory nature of the universe. That the world is illusory, every one can directly know in the state of realization which is in the form of experience of one's bliss-nature.
QUESTION 11
Disciple: Is Self-experience possible for the mind, whose nature is constant change?
Master: Since sattva-guna (the constituent of prakriti which makes for purity, intelligence, etc.) is the nature of mind, and since the mind is pure and undefiled like ether, what is called mind is, in truth, of the nature of knowledge. When it stays in that natural (i.e. pure) state, it has not even the name 'mind'. It is only the erroneous knowledge which mistakes one for another that is called mind. What was (originally) the pure sattva mind, of the nature of pure knowledge, forgets its knowledge-nature on account of nescience, gets transformed into the world under the influence of tamo-guna (i.e. the constituent of prakriti which makes for dullness, inertness, etc.), being under the influence of rajo-guna (i.e. the constituent of prakriti which makes for activity, passions, etc.), imagines "I am the body, etc.; the world is real," it acquires the consequent merit and demerit through attachment, aversion, etc., and, through the residual impressions (vasanas) thereof, attains birth and death. But the mind, which has got rid of its defilement (sin) through action without attachment performed in many past lives, listens to the teaching of scripture from a true guru, reflects on its meaning, and meditates in order to gain the natural state of the mental mode of the form of the Self, i.e. of the form 'I am Brahman' which is the result of the continued contemplation of Brahman. Thus will be removed the mind's transformation into the world in the aspect of tamo-guna, and its roving therein in the aspect of rajo-guna. When this removal takes place the mind becomes subtle and unmoving. It is only by the mind that is impure and is under the influence of rajas and tamas that Reality (i.e. the Self) which is very subtle and unchanging cannot be experienced; just as a piece of fine silk cloth cannot be stitched with a heavy crowbar, or as the details of subtle objects cannot be distinguished by the light of a lamp flame that flickers in the wind. But in the pure mind that has been rendered subtle and unmoving by the meditation described above, the Self-bliss (i.e. Brahman) will become manifest. As without mind there cannot be experience, it is possible for the purified mind endowed with the extremely subtle mode (vritti) to experience the Self-bliss, by remaining in that form (i.e. in the form of Brahman). Then, that one's self is of the nature of Brahman will be clearly experienced.
QUESTION 7
Disciple: If these four -- mind, intellect, memory, and egoity -- are one and the same, why are separate locations mentioned for them?
Master: It is true that the throat is stated to be the location of the mind, the face or the heart of the intellect, the navel of the memory, and the heart or sarvanga of the egoity; though differently stated thus yet, for the aggregate of these, that is the mind or internal organ, the location is the heart alone. This is conclusively declared in the Scriptures.
QUESTION 8
Disciple: Why is it said that only the mind which is the internal organ, shines as the form of all, that is of soul, God and world?
Master: As instruments for knowing the objects the sense organs are outside, and so they are called outer senses; and the mind is called the inner sense because it is inside. But the distinction between inner and outer is only with reference to the body; in truth, there is neither inner or outer. The mind's nature is to remain pure like ether. What is referred to as the heart or the mind is the collocation of the elements (of phenomenal existence) that appear as inner and outer. So there is no doubt that all phenomena consisting of names and forms are of the nature of mind alone. All that appear outside are in reality inside and not outside; it is in order to teach this that in the Vedas also all have been described as of the nature of the heart. What is called the heart is no other than Brahman.
QUESTION 9
Disciple: How can it be said that the heart is no other than Brahman?
Master: Although the self enjoys its experiences in the states of waking, dream, and deep sleep, residing respectively in the eyes, throat and heart, in reality, however, it never leaves its principal seat, the heart. In the heart-lotus which is of the nature of all, in other words in the mind-ether, the light of that self in the form 'I' shines. As it shines thus in everybody, this very self is referred to as the witness (sakshi) and the transcendent (turiya, literally "the fourth"). The 'I'-less supreme Brahman which shines in all bodies as interior to the light in the form 'I' is the Self-ether (or knowledge-ether): that alone is the absolute Reality. This is the super-transcendent (turiyatita). Therefore, it is stated that what is called the heart s no other than Brahman. Moreover, for the reason that Brahman shines in the hearts of all souls as the Self, the name 'Heart' is given to Brahman.* The meaning of the word hridayam, when split thus hrit-ayam, is in fact Brahman. The adequate evidence for the fact that Brahman, which shines as the Self, resides in the hearts of all, is that all people indicate themselves by pointing to the chest when saying 'I'.
*"In the hearts of all individual souls that which shines is Brahman and hence is called the Heart" --Brahma-gita.
Disciple: If these four -- mind, intellect, memory, and egoity -- are one and the same, why are separate locations mentioned for them?
Master: It is true that the throat is stated to be the location of the mind, the face or the heart of the intellect, the navel of the memory, and the heart or sarvanga of the egoity; though differently stated thus yet, for the aggregate of these, that is the mind or internal organ, the location is the heart alone. This is conclusively declared in the Scriptures.
QUESTION 8
Disciple: Why is it said that only the mind which is the internal organ, shines as the form of all, that is of soul, God and world?
Master: As instruments for knowing the objects the sense organs are outside, and so they are called outer senses; and the mind is called the inner sense because it is inside. But the distinction between inner and outer is only with reference to the body; in truth, there is neither inner or outer. The mind's nature is to remain pure like ether. What is referred to as the heart or the mind is the collocation of the elements (of phenomenal existence) that appear as inner and outer. So there is no doubt that all phenomena consisting of names and forms are of the nature of mind alone. All that appear outside are in reality inside and not outside; it is in order to teach this that in the Vedas also all have been described as of the nature of the heart. What is called the heart is no other than Brahman.
QUESTION 9
Disciple: How can it be said that the heart is no other than Brahman?
Master: Although the self enjoys its experiences in the states of waking, dream, and deep sleep, residing respectively in the eyes, throat and heart, in reality, however, it never leaves its principal seat, the heart. In the heart-lotus which is of the nature of all, in other words in the mind-ether, the light of that self in the form 'I' shines. As it shines thus in everybody, this very self is referred to as the witness (sakshi) and the transcendent (turiya, literally "the fourth"). The 'I'-less supreme Brahman which shines in all bodies as interior to the light in the form 'I' is the Self-ether (or knowledge-ether): that alone is the absolute Reality. This is the super-transcendent (turiyatita). Therefore, it is stated that what is called the heart s no other than Brahman. Moreover, for the reason that Brahman shines in the hearts of all souls as the Self, the name 'Heart' is given to Brahman.* The meaning of the word hridayam, when split thus hrit-ayam, is in fact Brahman. The adequate evidence for the fact that Brahman, which shines as the Self, resides in the hearts of all, is that all people indicate themselves by pointing to the chest when saying 'I'.
*"In the hearts of all individual souls that which shines is Brahman and hence is called the Heart" --Brahma-gita.
Self-Enquiry
By Ramana Maharshi
Contents
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QUESTION 5
Disciple: Is enquiry only the means for removal of the false belief of selfhood in the gross body, or is it also the means for removal of the false belief of selfhood in the subtle and causal bodies?
Master: It is on the gross body that the other bodies subsist. In the false belief of the form "I am the body" are included all the three bodies consisting of the five sheaths. And destruction of the false belief of selfhood in the gross body is itself the destruction of the false belief of selfhood in the other bodies. So inquiry is the means to removal of the false belief of selfhood in all the three bodies. For more about the five sheaths (kosas), see the Taittiriya Upanishad.
QUESTION 6
Disciple: While there are different modifications of the internal organ, viz. manas (reflection), buddhi (intellect), chitta (memory) and ahankara (egoity), how can it be said that the destruction of the mind alone is release?
Master: In the books explaining the nature of the mind, it is thus stated: "The mind is formed by the concretion of the subtle portion of the food we eat; it grows with the passions such as attachment and aversion, desire and anger; being the aggregate of mind, intellect, memory and egoity, it receives the collective singular name 'mind', the characteristics that it bears are thinking, determining, etc.; since it is an object of consciousness (the self), it is what is seen, inert; even though inert, it appears as if conscious because of association with consciousness (like a red-hot iron ball); it is limited, non-eternal, partite, and changing like wax, gold, candle, etc.; it is of the nature of all elements (of phenomenal existence); its locus is the heart-lotus even as the loci of the sense of sight, etc., are the eyes, etc.; it is the adjunct of the individual soul thinking of an object, it transforms itself into a mode, and along with the knowledge that is in the brain, it flows through the five sense-channels, gets joined to objects by the brain (that is associated with knowledge), and thus knows and experiences objects and gains satisfaction. That substance is the mind." Even as one and the same person is called by different names according to the different functions he performs, so also one and the same mind is called by the different names: mind, intellect, memory, and egoity, on account of the difference in the modes -- and not because of any real difference. The mind itself is of the form of all, i.e. of soul, God and world; when it becomes of the form of the Self through knowledge there is release, which is of the nature of Brahman: this is the teaching.
By Ramana Maharshi
Contents
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QUESTION 5
Disciple: Is enquiry only the means for removal of the false belief of selfhood in the gross body, or is it also the means for removal of the false belief of selfhood in the subtle and causal bodies?
Master: It is on the gross body that the other bodies subsist. In the false belief of the form "I am the body" are included all the three bodies consisting of the five sheaths. And destruction of the false belief of selfhood in the gross body is itself the destruction of the false belief of selfhood in the other bodies. So inquiry is the means to removal of the false belief of selfhood in all the three bodies. For more about the five sheaths (kosas), see the Taittiriya Upanishad.
QUESTION 6
Disciple: While there are different modifications of the internal organ, viz. manas (reflection), buddhi (intellect), chitta (memory) and ahankara (egoity), how can it be said that the destruction of the mind alone is release?
Master: In the books explaining the nature of the mind, it is thus stated: "The mind is formed by the concretion of the subtle portion of the food we eat; it grows with the passions such as attachment and aversion, desire and anger; being the aggregate of mind, intellect, memory and egoity, it receives the collective singular name 'mind', the characteristics that it bears are thinking, determining, etc.; since it is an object of consciousness (the self), it is what is seen, inert; even though inert, it appears as if conscious because of association with consciousness (like a red-hot iron ball); it is limited, non-eternal, partite, and changing like wax, gold, candle, etc.; it is of the nature of all elements (of phenomenal existence); its locus is the heart-lotus even as the loci of the sense of sight, etc., are the eyes, etc.; it is the adjunct of the individual soul thinking of an object, it transforms itself into a mode, and along with the knowledge that is in the brain, it flows through the five sense-channels, gets joined to objects by the brain (that is associated with knowledge), and thus knows and experiences objects and gains satisfaction. That substance is the mind." Even as one and the same person is called by different names according to the different functions he performs, so also one and the same mind is called by the different names: mind, intellect, memory, and egoity, on account of the difference in the modes -- and not because of any real difference. The mind itself is of the form of all, i.e. of soul, God and world; when it becomes of the form of the Self through knowledge there is release, which is of the nature of Brahman: this is the teaching.
QUESTION 4
Disciple: When one enquires into the root of 'self conceit' which is of the form 'I', all sorts of different thoughts without number seem to rise; and not any separate 'I' thought.
Master: Whether the nominative case, which is the first case, appears or not, the sentences in which the other cases appear have as their basis the first case; similarly, all the thoughts that appear in the heart have as their basis the egoity which is the first mental mode 'I', the cognition of the form 'I am the body'; thus, it is the rise of egoity that is the cause and source of the rise of all other thoughts; therefore, if the self-conceit of the form of egoity which is the root of the illusory tree of samsara (bondage consisting of transmigration) is destroyed, all other thoughts will perish completely like an uprooted tree. Whatever thoughts arise as obstacles to one's sadhana (spiritual discipline), the mind should not be allowed to go in their direction, but should be made to rest in one's self which is the Atman; one should remain as witness to whatever happens, adopting the attitude 'Let whatever strange things happen, happen; let us see!' This should be one's practice. In other words, one should not identify oneself with appearances; one should never relinquish one's self. This is the proper means for destruction of the mind (manonasa) which is of the nature of seeing the body as self, and which is the cause of all the aforesaid obstacles. This method which easily destroys egoity deserves to be called devotion (bhakti), meditation (dhyana), concentration (yoga), and knowledge (jnana). Because God remains of the nature of the Self, shining as 'I' in the heart, because the scriptures declare that thought itself is bondage, the best discipline is to stay quiescent without ever forgetting Him (God, the Self), after resolving in Him the mind which is of the form of the 'I'-thought, no matter by what means. This is the conclusive teaching of the Scriptures.
Disciple: When one enquires into the root of 'self conceit' which is of the form 'I', all sorts of different thoughts without number seem to rise; and not any separate 'I' thought.
Master: Whether the nominative case, which is the first case, appears or not, the sentences in which the other cases appear have as their basis the first case; similarly, all the thoughts that appear in the heart have as their basis the egoity which is the first mental mode 'I', the cognition of the form 'I am the body'; thus, it is the rise of egoity that is the cause and source of the rise of all other thoughts; therefore, if the self-conceit of the form of egoity which is the root of the illusory tree of samsara (bondage consisting of transmigration) is destroyed, all other thoughts will perish completely like an uprooted tree. Whatever thoughts arise as obstacles to one's sadhana (spiritual discipline), the mind should not be allowed to go in their direction, but should be made to rest in one's self which is the Atman; one should remain as witness to whatever happens, adopting the attitude 'Let whatever strange things happen, happen; let us see!' This should be one's practice. In other words, one should not identify oneself with appearances; one should never relinquish one's self. This is the proper means for destruction of the mind (manonasa) which is of the nature of seeing the body as self, and which is the cause of all the aforesaid obstacles. This method which easily destroys egoity deserves to be called devotion (bhakti), meditation (dhyana), concentration (yoga), and knowledge (jnana). Because God remains of the nature of the Self, shining as 'I' in the heart, because the scriptures declare that thought itself is bondage, the best discipline is to stay quiescent without ever forgetting Him (God, the Self), after resolving in Him the mind which is of the form of the 'I'-thought, no matter by what means. This is the conclusive teaching of the Scriptures.
INVOCATION
Is there any way of adoring the Supreme which is all, except by abiding firmly as that!
QUESTION 1
Disciple: Master! What is the means to gain the state of eternal bliss, ever devoid of misery?
Master: Apart from the statement in the Veda that wherever there is body there is misery, this is also the direct experience of all people; therefore, one should enquire into one's true nature which is ever bodiless, and one should remain as such. This is the means to gaining that state.
QUESTION 2
Disciple: What is meant by saying that one should enquire into one's true nature and understand it?
Master: Experiences such as "I went; I came; I was; I did" come naturally to everyone. From these experiences, does it not appear that the consciousness "I" is the subject of those various acts? Enquiry into the true nature of that consciousness, and remaining as oneself is the way to understand, through enquiry, one's true nature.
QUESTION 3
Disciple: How is one to enquire: "Who am I?"
Master: Actions such as 'going' and 'coming' belong only to the body. And so, when one says "I went, I came", it amounts to saying that the body is "I". But, can the body be said to be the consciousness "I," since the body was not before it was born, is made up of the five elements, is non-existent in the state of deep sleep, and becomes a corpse when dead? Can this body which is inert like a log of wood be said to shine as "I" "I"? Therefore, the "I" consciousness which at first arises in respect of the body is referred to variously as self-conceit (tarbodham), egoity (ahankara), nescience (avidya), maya, impurity (mala), and individual soul (jiva). Can we remain without enquiring into this? Is it not for our redemption through enquiry that all the scriptures declare that the destruction of "self-conceit" is release (mukti)? Therefore, making the corpse-body remain as a corpse, and not even uttering the word "I," one should enquire keenly thus: "Now, what is it that rises as 'I'?" Then, there would shine in the Heart a kind of wordless illumination of the form 'I' 'I'. That is, there would shine of its own accord the pure consciousness which is unlimited and one, the limited and the many thoughts having disappeared. If one remains quiescent without abandoning that (experience), the egoity, the individual sense, of the form 'I am the body' will be totally destroyed, and at the end the final thought, viz. the 'I'-form, also will be quenched like the fire that burns camphor.* The great sages and scriptures declare that this alone is release.
*I.e., without leaving any sediment.
Is there any way of adoring the Supreme which is all, except by abiding firmly as that!
QUESTION 1
Disciple: Master! What is the means to gain the state of eternal bliss, ever devoid of misery?
Master: Apart from the statement in the Veda that wherever there is body there is misery, this is also the direct experience of all people; therefore, one should enquire into one's true nature which is ever bodiless, and one should remain as such. This is the means to gaining that state.
QUESTION 2
Disciple: What is meant by saying that one should enquire into one's true nature and understand it?
Master: Experiences such as "I went; I came; I was; I did" come naturally to everyone. From these experiences, does it not appear that the consciousness "I" is the subject of those various acts? Enquiry into the true nature of that consciousness, and remaining as oneself is the way to understand, through enquiry, one's true nature.
QUESTION 3
Disciple: How is one to enquire: "Who am I?"
Master: Actions such as 'going' and 'coming' belong only to the body. And so, when one says "I went, I came", it amounts to saying that the body is "I". But, can the body be said to be the consciousness "I," since the body was not before it was born, is made up of the five elements, is non-existent in the state of deep sleep, and becomes a corpse when dead? Can this body which is inert like a log of wood be said to shine as "I" "I"? Therefore, the "I" consciousness which at first arises in respect of the body is referred to variously as self-conceit (tarbodham), egoity (ahankara), nescience (avidya), maya, impurity (mala), and individual soul (jiva). Can we remain without enquiring into this? Is it not for our redemption through enquiry that all the scriptures declare that the destruction of "self-conceit" is release (mukti)? Therefore, making the corpse-body remain as a corpse, and not even uttering the word "I," one should enquire keenly thus: "Now, what is it that rises as 'I'?" Then, there would shine in the Heart a kind of wordless illumination of the form 'I' 'I'. That is, there would shine of its own accord the pure consciousness which is unlimited and one, the limited and the many thoughts having disappeared. If one remains quiescent without abandoning that (experience), the egoity, the individual sense, of the form 'I am the body' will be totally destroyed, and at the end the final thought, viz. the 'I'-form, also will be quenched like the fire that burns camphor.* The great sages and scriptures declare that this alone is release.
*I.e., without leaving any sediment.
Self-Inquiry
(Atma-vicara)
SELF-INQUIRY IS a meditation technique for attaining enlightenment which is associated with Sri Ramana Maharshi.
The Sanskrit name for it, atma-vicara, really means self-investigation, self-examination, self-reflection, or looking within, but self-inquiry has become the standard translation. As we'll show below, this can be misleading. Self-enquiry is the British spelling; self-inquiry is American.
History of Self-Inquiry
Self-inquiry is an ancient technique that dates back at least to the Upanisads. For example, the Katha Upanisad says:
Sri Ramana Maharshi wrote his famous booklet Self-Enquiry when he was in his early twenties.
The primeval one who is hard to perceive,
wrapped in mystery, hidden in the cave,
residing within the impenetrable depth—
Regarding him as god, an insight
gained by inner contemplation,
both sorrow and joy the wise abandon.1 1. Katha Upanisad, 2.12. From Patrick Olivelle, tr., The Early Upanisads (Oxford University Press: New York, 1998), 385.
This is a pretty good summary of Ramana Maharshi's method, although it's written in veiled language. The "primeval one" in this verse is Brahman (the Self) and the "cave" is the heart center, so the meaning is: concentrate inwardly (on the feeling of me) until the innermost self is discerned in the heart and recognized as God. A similar reference occurs in the Maitri Upanisad 6.34.
Ramana Maharshi was aware of the method's long history, for he himself pointed out that self-inquiry is described in book six of the Bhagavad Gita:2
2. He is quoted to this effect in Sri Sadhu Om, The Path of Sri Ramana Vol. 1 (Sri Ramana Kshetra: Tiruvannamalai,1997), 77.
Little by little, he should come to rest,
With the intellect firmly held.
His mind having been established in the Self,
He should not think of anything.
Whenever the unsteady mind,
Moving to and fro, wanders away,
He should restrain it
And control it in the Self. 3
3. Bhagavad Gita 6.25–26. From Winthrop Sargeant, tr., The Bhagavad Gita (State University of New York Press: New York, 1994) 296–97.
How to Do It
The best description we've seen of self-inquiry was written by David Godman. It appears in two of his books, both of which we recommend highly. Here is what David wrote:
It was Sri Ramana's basic thesis that the individual self is nothing more than a thought or an idea. He said that this thought, which he called 'I'-thought, originates from a place called the Heart-centre, which he located on the right side of the chest in the human body. From there the 'I'-thought rises up to the brain and identifies itself with the body: 'I am this body.' It then creates the illusion that there is a mind or an individual self which inhabits the body and which controls all its thoughts and actions. The 'I'-thought accomplishes this by identifying itself with all the thoughts and perceptions that go on in the body. For example, 'I' (that is the 'I'-thought) am doing this, 'I' am thinking this, 'I' am feeling happy, etc. Thus, the idea that one is an individual person is generated and sustained by the 'I'-thought and by its habit of constantly attaching itself to all the thoughts that arise. Sri Ramana maintained that one could reverse this process by depriving the 'I'-thought of all the thoughts and perceptions that it normally identifies with. Sri Ramana taught that this 'I'-thought is actually an unreal entity, and that it only appears to exist when it identifies itself with other thoughts. He said that if one can break the connection between the 'I'-thought and the thoughts it identifies with, then the 'I'-thought itself will subside and finally disappear. Sri Ramana suggested that this could be done by holding onto the 'I'-thought, that is, the inner feeling of 'I' or 'I am' and excluding all other thoughts. As an aid to keeping one's attention on this inner feeling of 'I', he recommended that one should constantly question oneself 'Who am I?' or 'Where does this "I" come from?' He said that if one can keep one's attention on this inner feeling of 'I', and if one can exclude all other thoughts, then the 'I'-thought will start to subside into the Heart-centre.
This, according to Sri Ramana, is as much as the devotee can do by himself. When the devotee has freed his mind of all thoughts except the 'I'-thought, the power of the Self pulls the 'I'-thought back into the Heart-centre and eventually destroys it so completely that it never rises again. This is the moment of Self-realization. When this happens, the mind and the indvidual self (both of which Sri Ramama equated with the 'I'-thought) are destroyed forever. Only the Atman or the Self then remains.4
4. David Godman, Living By the Words of Bhagavan, (Sri Annamali Swami Ashram Trust: Tiruvannamalai, 1995), 24-25. The same text appears in another book by the same author, No Mind—I Am the Self.
A Common Misunderstanding
The key sentence in David Godman's description, quoted in the previous section, is this one:
"He [Ramana Maharshi] said that if one can keep one's attention on this inner feeling of 'I', and if one can exclude all other thoughts, then the 'I'-thought will start to subside into the Heart-centre."
As this sentence suggests, self-inquiry is basically about keeping the attention fixed on the I-thought — that is, on the feeling of me.
The word inquiry leads many people to think, wrongly, that the technique has more to do with asking questions than with focusing attention. Since the technique does involve questions, the misunderstanding is natural.
One of these questions, "Who Am I?", is the name of Ramana Maharshi's first written work. He meant to suggest that self-inquiry reveals the answer to this question, not that a seeker should ask the question over and over.
Self-inquiry also involves a second question, "To whom does this thought arise?" Ramana Maharshi advised meditators to ask this question whenever their concentration is interrupted by a thought, because the answer causes the attention to return to the feeling of me where it belongs.
Ramana Maharshi summed up his technique as follows:
What is essential in any sadhana [practice] is to try to bring back the running mind and fix it on one thing only. Why then should it not be brought back and fixed in Self-attention? That alone is Self-enquiry (atma-vicara). That is all that is to be done!5 5. Sri Sadhu Om, The Path of Sri Ramana Vol. 1 (Sri Ramana Kshetra: Tiruvannamalai,1997), 77.
Contrast with Yoga
Ramana Maharshi often said that yoga and self-enquiry are two methods of controlling the mind, which he compared to an agitated bull. Yoga attempts to drive the bull with a stick, while self-enquiry coaxes it with green grass. See, for example, Self-Enquiry, Question 36.
Technical Vocabulary
Two important technical terms are used with self-inquiry: I-thought and heart center. Neither is wholly original with Ramana Maharshi.
The term I-thought is the false notion that the mind (rather than the Self) is the seer or doer. (We refer to it in this article as the feeling of me because, well, that's what it feels like.) The term goes back at least as far as Sankara, the founder of Advaita Vedanta. He used several Sanskrit expressions for this idea: ahamdhi, ahampratyaya, ahamkriya, and ahamkara.6
6. See Segaku Mayeda, tr., A Thousand Teachings: The Upadesasahasri of Sankara, State University of New York Press: New York, 1992), 40.
According to Sankara, "awareness of one's own Atman [i.e., the Self] is established at the time of the cessation of the 'I'-notion."7 This awareness and cessation are exactly what self-inquiry is designed to accomplish.
7. Ibid., verse 200, p. 193.
The second technical term, heart center, is a translation of the Sanskrit hridayam. According to Ramana Maharshi, this is where the Self is located. The I-thought rises from this location and, at the end of the process of self-inquiry, sinks back into it, causing self-realization. This idea goes back to the earliest Upanisads, where Brahman is found in the "cave of the heart".
Ramana Maharshi sometimes described the heart center as an actual object located in the right side of the chest, but at other times he said this was an oversimplification for people who couldn't understand the truth. According to H.W.L Poonja, Ramana Maharshi told him:
When I speak of the 'I' rising from the right side of the body, from a location on the right side of the chest, the information is for those people who still think that they are the body. To these people I say that the Heart is located there. But it is really not quite correct to say that the 'I' rises from and merges in the Heart on the right side of the chest. The Heart is another name for the Reality and it is neither inside nor outside the body; there can be no in or out for it, since it alone is. I do not mean by 'Heart' any physiological organ or any plexus or anything like that…8 8. David Godman, Nothing Ever Happened Vol. 1 (Avadhuta Foundation: Boulder, 1998), 143.
A Quotation About Self-Inquiry
"Devotee: If I go on rejecting thoughts can I call it Vichara?
"Maharshi: It may be a stepping stone. But really Vichara begins when you cling to your Self and are already off the mental movement, the thought-waves."9
9. K, Sat-Darshana Bashya and Talks With Maharshi (Sri Ramanasramam: Tiruvannamalai, 1993), ix.
Further Reading on the Web
Sri Ramana Maharshi wrote several booklets and poems to describe the method of self-inquiry. These include Who Am I?, Self-Enquiry, and Forty Verses on Reality.
Our main reference page on Ramana Maharshi is here. A second prominent teacher of self-inquiry in modern times was H.W.L. Poonja. A third famous guru, Nisargadatta Maharaj, became self-realized through self-inquiry although he did not ordinarily refer to it by that name in his teaching.
The most important source of information about self-inquiry on the Internet is the website of the Sri Ramana Ashram.
(Atma-vicara)
SELF-INQUIRY IS a meditation technique for attaining enlightenment which is associated with Sri Ramana Maharshi.
The Sanskrit name for it, atma-vicara, really means self-investigation, self-examination, self-reflection, or looking within, but self-inquiry has become the standard translation. As we'll show below, this can be misleading. Self-enquiry is the British spelling; self-inquiry is American.
History of Self-Inquiry
Self-inquiry is an ancient technique that dates back at least to the Upanisads. For example, the Katha Upanisad says:
Sri Ramana Maharshi wrote his famous booklet Self-Enquiry when he was in his early twenties.
The primeval one who is hard to perceive,
wrapped in mystery, hidden in the cave,
residing within the impenetrable depth—
Regarding him as god, an insight
gained by inner contemplation,
both sorrow and joy the wise abandon.1 1. Katha Upanisad, 2.12. From Patrick Olivelle, tr., The Early Upanisads (Oxford University Press: New York, 1998), 385.
This is a pretty good summary of Ramana Maharshi's method, although it's written in veiled language. The "primeval one" in this verse is Brahman (the Self) and the "cave" is the heart center, so the meaning is: concentrate inwardly (on the feeling of me) until the innermost self is discerned in the heart and recognized as God. A similar reference occurs in the Maitri Upanisad 6.34.
Ramana Maharshi was aware of the method's long history, for he himself pointed out that self-inquiry is described in book six of the Bhagavad Gita:2
2. He is quoted to this effect in Sri Sadhu Om, The Path of Sri Ramana Vol. 1 (Sri Ramana Kshetra: Tiruvannamalai,1997), 77.
Little by little, he should come to rest,
With the intellect firmly held.
His mind having been established in the Self,
He should not think of anything.
Whenever the unsteady mind,
Moving to and fro, wanders away,
He should restrain it
And control it in the Self. 3
3. Bhagavad Gita 6.25–26. From Winthrop Sargeant, tr., The Bhagavad Gita (State University of New York Press: New York, 1994) 296–97.
How to Do It
The best description we've seen of self-inquiry was written by David Godman. It appears in two of his books, both of which we recommend highly. Here is what David wrote:
It was Sri Ramana's basic thesis that the individual self is nothing more than a thought or an idea. He said that this thought, which he called 'I'-thought, originates from a place called the Heart-centre, which he located on the right side of the chest in the human body. From there the 'I'-thought rises up to the brain and identifies itself with the body: 'I am this body.' It then creates the illusion that there is a mind or an individual self which inhabits the body and which controls all its thoughts and actions. The 'I'-thought accomplishes this by identifying itself with all the thoughts and perceptions that go on in the body. For example, 'I' (that is the 'I'-thought) am doing this, 'I' am thinking this, 'I' am feeling happy, etc. Thus, the idea that one is an individual person is generated and sustained by the 'I'-thought and by its habit of constantly attaching itself to all the thoughts that arise. Sri Ramana maintained that one could reverse this process by depriving the 'I'-thought of all the thoughts and perceptions that it normally identifies with. Sri Ramana taught that this 'I'-thought is actually an unreal entity, and that it only appears to exist when it identifies itself with other thoughts. He said that if one can break the connection between the 'I'-thought and the thoughts it identifies with, then the 'I'-thought itself will subside and finally disappear. Sri Ramana suggested that this could be done by holding onto the 'I'-thought, that is, the inner feeling of 'I' or 'I am' and excluding all other thoughts. As an aid to keeping one's attention on this inner feeling of 'I', he recommended that one should constantly question oneself 'Who am I?' or 'Where does this "I" come from?' He said that if one can keep one's attention on this inner feeling of 'I', and if one can exclude all other thoughts, then the 'I'-thought will start to subside into the Heart-centre.
This, according to Sri Ramana, is as much as the devotee can do by himself. When the devotee has freed his mind of all thoughts except the 'I'-thought, the power of the Self pulls the 'I'-thought back into the Heart-centre and eventually destroys it so completely that it never rises again. This is the moment of Self-realization. When this happens, the mind and the indvidual self (both of which Sri Ramama equated with the 'I'-thought) are destroyed forever. Only the Atman or the Self then remains.4
4. David Godman, Living By the Words of Bhagavan, (Sri Annamali Swami Ashram Trust: Tiruvannamalai, 1995), 24-25. The same text appears in another book by the same author, No Mind—I Am the Self.
A Common Misunderstanding
The key sentence in David Godman's description, quoted in the previous section, is this one:
"He [Ramana Maharshi] said that if one can keep one's attention on this inner feeling of 'I', and if one can exclude all other thoughts, then the 'I'-thought will start to subside into the Heart-centre."
As this sentence suggests, self-inquiry is basically about keeping the attention fixed on the I-thought — that is, on the feeling of me.
The word inquiry leads many people to think, wrongly, that the technique has more to do with asking questions than with focusing attention. Since the technique does involve questions, the misunderstanding is natural.
One of these questions, "Who Am I?", is the name of Ramana Maharshi's first written work. He meant to suggest that self-inquiry reveals the answer to this question, not that a seeker should ask the question over and over.
Self-inquiry also involves a second question, "To whom does this thought arise?" Ramana Maharshi advised meditators to ask this question whenever their concentration is interrupted by a thought, because the answer causes the attention to return to the feeling of me where it belongs.
Ramana Maharshi summed up his technique as follows:
What is essential in any sadhana [practice] is to try to bring back the running mind and fix it on one thing only. Why then should it not be brought back and fixed in Self-attention? That alone is Self-enquiry (atma-vicara). That is all that is to be done!5 5. Sri Sadhu Om, The Path of Sri Ramana Vol. 1 (Sri Ramana Kshetra: Tiruvannamalai,1997), 77.
Contrast with Yoga
Ramana Maharshi often said that yoga and self-enquiry are two methods of controlling the mind, which he compared to an agitated bull. Yoga attempts to drive the bull with a stick, while self-enquiry coaxes it with green grass. See, for example, Self-Enquiry, Question 36.
Technical Vocabulary
Two important technical terms are used with self-inquiry: I-thought and heart center. Neither is wholly original with Ramana Maharshi.
The term I-thought is the false notion that the mind (rather than the Self) is the seer or doer. (We refer to it in this article as the feeling of me because, well, that's what it feels like.) The term goes back at least as far as Sankara, the founder of Advaita Vedanta. He used several Sanskrit expressions for this idea: ahamdhi, ahampratyaya, ahamkriya, and ahamkara.6
6. See Segaku Mayeda, tr., A Thousand Teachings: The Upadesasahasri of Sankara, State University of New York Press: New York, 1992), 40.
According to Sankara, "awareness of one's own Atman [i.e., the Self] is established at the time of the cessation of the 'I'-notion."7 This awareness and cessation are exactly what self-inquiry is designed to accomplish.
7. Ibid., verse 200, p. 193.
The second technical term, heart center, is a translation of the Sanskrit hridayam. According to Ramana Maharshi, this is where the Self is located. The I-thought rises from this location and, at the end of the process of self-inquiry, sinks back into it, causing self-realization. This idea goes back to the earliest Upanisads, where Brahman is found in the "cave of the heart".
Ramana Maharshi sometimes described the heart center as an actual object located in the right side of the chest, but at other times he said this was an oversimplification for people who couldn't understand the truth. According to H.W.L Poonja, Ramana Maharshi told him:
When I speak of the 'I' rising from the right side of the body, from a location on the right side of the chest, the information is for those people who still think that they are the body. To these people I say that the Heart is located there. But it is really not quite correct to say that the 'I' rises from and merges in the Heart on the right side of the chest. The Heart is another name for the Reality and it is neither inside nor outside the body; there can be no in or out for it, since it alone is. I do not mean by 'Heart' any physiological organ or any plexus or anything like that…8 8. David Godman, Nothing Ever Happened Vol. 1 (Avadhuta Foundation: Boulder, 1998), 143.
A Quotation About Self-Inquiry
"Devotee: If I go on rejecting thoughts can I call it Vichara?
"Maharshi: It may be a stepping stone. But really Vichara begins when you cling to your Self and are already off the mental movement, the thought-waves."9
9. K, Sat-Darshana Bashya and Talks With Maharshi (Sri Ramanasramam: Tiruvannamalai, 1993), ix.
Further Reading on the Web
Sri Ramana Maharshi wrote several booklets and poems to describe the method of self-inquiry. These include Who Am I?, Self-Enquiry, and Forty Verses on Reality.
Our main reference page on Ramana Maharshi is here. A second prominent teacher of self-inquiry in modern times was H.W.L. Poonja. A third famous guru, Nisargadatta Maharaj, became self-realized through self-inquiry although he did not ordinarily refer to it by that name in his teaching.
The most important source of information about self-inquiry on the Internet is the website of the Sri Ramana Ashram.
“It was in 1896, about 6 weeks before I left Madurai for good (to go to Tiruvannamalai – Arunachala) that this great change in my life took place. I was sitting alone in a room on the first floor of my uncle’s house. I seldom had any sickness and on that day there was nothing wrong with my health, but a sudden violent fear of death overtook me.
There was nothing in my state of health to account for it nor was there any urge in me to find out whether there was any account for the fear. I just felt I was going to die and began thinking what to do about it. It did not occur to me to consult a doctor or any elders or friends. I felt I had to solve the problem myself then and there.
The shock of the fear of death drove my mind inwards and I said to myself mentally, without actually framing the words: ‘Now death has come; what does it mean? What is it that is dying? This body dies.’ And at once I dramatised the occurrence of death.
I lay with my limbs stretched out still as though rigor mortis has set in, and imitated a corpse so as to give greater reality to the enquiry. I held my breath and kept my lips tightly closed so that no sound could escape, and that neither the word ‘I’ nor any word could be uttered.
‘Well then,’ I said to myself, ‘this body is dead. It will be carried stiff to the burning ground and there burn and reduced to ashes. But with the death of the body, am I dead? Is the body I? It is silent and inert, but I feel the full force of my personality and even the voice of I within me, apart from it. So I am the Spirit transcending the body.
The body dies but the spirit transcending it cannot be touched by death. That means I am the deathless Spirit.’ All this was not dull thought; it flashed through me vividly as living truths which I perceived directly almost without thought process. I was something real, the only real thing about my present state, and all the conscious activity connected with the body was centered on that I.
From that moment onwards, the “I” or Self focused attention on itself by a powerful fascination. Fear of death vanished once and for all. The ego was lost in the flood of Self-awareness. Absorption in the Self continued unbroken from that time. Other thought might come and go like the various notes of music, but the I continued like the fundamental sruti note ["that which is heard" i.e. the Vedas and Upanishads] a note which underlies and blends with all other notes.” – Sri Ramana Maharshi
1. The mind is nothing but the thought “I.”
2. Thoughts arise because of the thinker.
3. The thinker is the ego, which if sought will automatically vanish.
4. Without consciousness, time and space do not exist; they appear within Consciousness but have no reality of their own.
5. It is like a screen on which all this is cast as pictures and move as in a cinema show.
6. The Absolute Consciousness alone is our real nature.
7. Grace is within you; Grace is the Self.
8. Grace is not something to be acquired from others. If it is external, it is useless. All that is necessary is to know its existence in you.
9. You are never out of its operation.
10. The mind cannot seek the mind.
11. You ignore what is real and hold on to that which is unreal, then try to find what it is. You think you are the mind and, therefore, ask how it is to be controlled.
12. If the mind exists, it can be controlled, but it does not. Understand this by inquiry.
13. Seek the real, the Self.
14. The Eternal is not born nor does it die.
15. We confound appearance with Reality. Appearance carries its end in itself.
16. What is it that appears anew?
17. If you cannot find it, surrender unreservedly to the substratum of appearances; then Reality will be what remains.
18. Reality is simply loss of the ego.
19. Destroy the ego by seeking its identity.
20. Because the ego has no real existence, it will automatically vanish, and Reality will shine forth by itself in all its glory. This is the direct method.
21. All other methods retain the ego. In those paths so many doubts arise, and the eternal question remains to be tackled. But in this method the final question is the only one and is raised from the very beginning.
22. No practices (sadhanas) are even necessary for this quest.
23. Your duty is to Be, and not to be this or that.
24. “I am That I Am” sums up the whole truth; the method is summarized in “Be Still.”
25. The state we call Realization is simply being one’s self, not knowing anything or becoming anything.
26. If one has realized, one is that which alone is and which alone has always been. One cannot describe that state, but only be That. Of course, we loosely talk of Self-realization for want of a better term.
27. There is no help in changing your environment.
28. The obstacle is the mind, which must be overcome, whether at home or in the forest. If you can do it in the forest, why not in the home? Therefore, why change the environment?
29. The cause of misery is not in life without; it is within you as the ego.
30. You impose limitations upon yourself and then make a vain struggle to transcend them.
31. Why attribute to the happenings in life the cause of misery, which really lies within you? What happiness can you get from anything extraneous to yourself? When you get it, how long will it last?
32. The body itself is a thought.
33. Be as you really are.
34. There are no stages in Realization or degrees in Liberation.
35. There are no levels of Reality; there are only levels of experience for the individual.
36. If anything can be gained that was not present before, it can also be lost, whereas the Absolute is eternal, here and now.
37. It is not a matter of becoming but of Being.
38. Remain aware of yourself and all else will be known.
39. One comes into existence for a certain purpose.
40. That purpose will be accomplished whether one considers oneself the actor or not.
41. Everything is predetermined.
42. But one is always free not to identify oneself with the body and not to be affected by the pleasure and pain associated with its activities.
43. Engage yourself in the living present. The future will take care of itself.
44. Find out who is subject to free will or predestination and abide in that state.
45. Then both are transcended. That is the only purpose in discussing these questions. To whom do such questions present themselves?
46. Discover that and be at peace.
47. Your true nature is that of infinite spirit.
48. The feeling of limitation is the work of the mind.
49. When the mind unceasingly investigates its own nature, it transpires that there is no such thing as mind.
50. This is the direct path for all.
51. If one inquires as to where in the body the thought “I” first rises, one would discover that it rises in the heart; that is the place of the mind’s origin.
52. Grace is always present.
53. You imagine it is something somewhere high in the sky, far away, and has to descend. It is really inside you, in your Heart, and the moment you effect subsidence or merger of the mind into its Source, grace rushes forth, sprouting as from a spring within you.
54. You speak as if you are here, and the Self is somewhere else and you had to go and reach it…
55. …But in fact the Self is here and now, and you are always It.
56. It is like being here and asking people the way to the ashram, then complaining that each one shows a different path and asking which to follow.
57. The realized person weeps with the weeping, laughs with the laughing, plays with the playful, sings with those who sing, keeping time to the song.
58. What does he lose?
59. His presence is like a pure, transparent mirror. It reflects our image exactly as we are. It is we who play the several parts in life and reap the fruits of our actions. How is the mirror or the stand on which it is mounted affected? Nothing affects them, as they are mere supports.
60. The Consciousness of “I” is the subject of all of our actions.
61. Inquiring into the true nature of that Consciousness and remaining as oneself is the way to understand one’s true nature.
62. All that is required to realize the Self is to Be Still.
63. What can be easier than that?
64. If one gains the Peace of the Self, it will spread without any effort on the part of the individual.
65. When one is not peaceful, oneself, how can one spread peace in the world?
66. Unless one is happy, one cannot bestow happiness on others.
67. Happiness is born of Peace and can reign only when there is no disturbance. Disturbance is due to thoughts, which arise in the mind. When the mind is absent there will be perfect Peace.
68. Reality lies beyond the mind.
69. So long as the mind functions, there is duality. Once it is transcended, Reality shines forth.
70. Self-effulgence is the Self.
71. Satsang means association (sanga) with Being (Sat), which is the Self.
72. For whom is association?
73. The ultimate truth is so simple; it is nothing more than being in one’s natural, original state.
74. It is a great wonder that to teach such a simple truth a number of religions should be necessary, and so many disputes should go on between them as to which is the God-ordained teaching. What a pity!
75. Just be the Self, that is all.
76. Because people want something elaborate and mysterious, so many religions have come into existence. Only those who are mature can understand the matter in its naked simplicity.
77. There is neither past nor future; there is only the present.
78. Yesterday was the present when you experienced it; tomorrow will also be the present when you experience it.
79. Therefore, experience takes place only in the present, and beyond and apart from experience nothing exists.
80. Even the present is mere imagination, for the sense of time is purely mental.
81. Because people love mystery and not the truth, religions cater to them, eventually bringing them around to the Self.
82. Whatever be the means adopted, you must at last return to the Self; so why not abide in the Self here and now?
83. There is no greater mystery than this: Being Reality ourselves, we seek to gain Reality.
84. We think that there is something hiding Reality and that it must be destroyed before the truth is gained. This is clearly ridiculous.
85. A day will dawn when you will laugh at your past efforts. What you realize on the day you laugh is also here and now.
86. If we look upon the Self as the ego, we become the ego, if as the mind we become the mind, if as the body we become the body.
87. It is thought that builds up layers in so many ways.
88. Take no notice of the ego and its activities but see only the light behind it.
89. The ego is the “I”-thought.
90. The true “I” is the Self.
91. The world does not exist in sleep and forms a projection of your mind in the waking state. It is therefore an idea and nothing else.
92. It is false to speak of Realization; what is there to realize?
93. The real is ever as it is.
94. All that is required is to cease regarding as real that which is unreal. That is all we need to attain wisdom (jnana).
95. The universe is only an object created by the mind and has its being in the mind. It cannot be measured as an external entity.
96. The world phenomena, within or without, are only fleeting and are not independent of our Self.
97. Only the habit of looking at them as real and located outside ourselves is responsible for hiding our pure Being.
98. When the ever-present sole Reality, the Self, is found, all other unreal things will disappear, leaving behind the knowledge that they are not other than the Self.
99. Either surrender because you realize your inability and need a higher power to help you, or investigate the cause of misery.
100. The Divine never forsakes one who has surrendered.
There was nothing in my state of health to account for it nor was there any urge in me to find out whether there was any account for the fear. I just felt I was going to die and began thinking what to do about it. It did not occur to me to consult a doctor or any elders or friends. I felt I had to solve the problem myself then and there.
The shock of the fear of death drove my mind inwards and I said to myself mentally, without actually framing the words: ‘Now death has come; what does it mean? What is it that is dying? This body dies.’ And at once I dramatised the occurrence of death.
I lay with my limbs stretched out still as though rigor mortis has set in, and imitated a corpse so as to give greater reality to the enquiry. I held my breath and kept my lips tightly closed so that no sound could escape, and that neither the word ‘I’ nor any word could be uttered.
‘Well then,’ I said to myself, ‘this body is dead. It will be carried stiff to the burning ground and there burn and reduced to ashes. But with the death of the body, am I dead? Is the body I? It is silent and inert, but I feel the full force of my personality and even the voice of I within me, apart from it. So I am the Spirit transcending the body.
The body dies but the spirit transcending it cannot be touched by death. That means I am the deathless Spirit.’ All this was not dull thought; it flashed through me vividly as living truths which I perceived directly almost without thought process. I was something real, the only real thing about my present state, and all the conscious activity connected with the body was centered on that I.
From that moment onwards, the “I” or Self focused attention on itself by a powerful fascination. Fear of death vanished once and for all. The ego was lost in the flood of Self-awareness. Absorption in the Self continued unbroken from that time. Other thought might come and go like the various notes of music, but the I continued like the fundamental sruti note ["that which is heard" i.e. the Vedas and Upanishads] a note which underlies and blends with all other notes.” – Sri Ramana Maharshi
1. The mind is nothing but the thought “I.”
2. Thoughts arise because of the thinker.
3. The thinker is the ego, which if sought will automatically vanish.
4. Without consciousness, time and space do not exist; they appear within Consciousness but have no reality of their own.
5. It is like a screen on which all this is cast as pictures and move as in a cinema show.
6. The Absolute Consciousness alone is our real nature.
7. Grace is within you; Grace is the Self.
8. Grace is not something to be acquired from others. If it is external, it is useless. All that is necessary is to know its existence in you.
9. You are never out of its operation.
10. The mind cannot seek the mind.
11. You ignore what is real and hold on to that which is unreal, then try to find what it is. You think you are the mind and, therefore, ask how it is to be controlled.
12. If the mind exists, it can be controlled, but it does not. Understand this by inquiry.
13. Seek the real, the Self.
14. The Eternal is not born nor does it die.
15. We confound appearance with Reality. Appearance carries its end in itself.
16. What is it that appears anew?
17. If you cannot find it, surrender unreservedly to the substratum of appearances; then Reality will be what remains.
18. Reality is simply loss of the ego.
19. Destroy the ego by seeking its identity.
20. Because the ego has no real existence, it will automatically vanish, and Reality will shine forth by itself in all its glory. This is the direct method.
21. All other methods retain the ego. In those paths so many doubts arise, and the eternal question remains to be tackled. But in this method the final question is the only one and is raised from the very beginning.
22. No practices (sadhanas) are even necessary for this quest.
23. Your duty is to Be, and not to be this or that.
24. “I am That I Am” sums up the whole truth; the method is summarized in “Be Still.”
25. The state we call Realization is simply being one’s self, not knowing anything or becoming anything.
26. If one has realized, one is that which alone is and which alone has always been. One cannot describe that state, but only be That. Of course, we loosely talk of Self-realization for want of a better term.
27. There is no help in changing your environment.
28. The obstacle is the mind, which must be overcome, whether at home or in the forest. If you can do it in the forest, why not in the home? Therefore, why change the environment?
29. The cause of misery is not in life without; it is within you as the ego.
30. You impose limitations upon yourself and then make a vain struggle to transcend them.
31. Why attribute to the happenings in life the cause of misery, which really lies within you? What happiness can you get from anything extraneous to yourself? When you get it, how long will it last?
32. The body itself is a thought.
33. Be as you really are.
34. There are no stages in Realization or degrees in Liberation.
35. There are no levels of Reality; there are only levels of experience for the individual.
36. If anything can be gained that was not present before, it can also be lost, whereas the Absolute is eternal, here and now.
37. It is not a matter of becoming but of Being.
38. Remain aware of yourself and all else will be known.
39. One comes into existence for a certain purpose.
40. That purpose will be accomplished whether one considers oneself the actor or not.
41. Everything is predetermined.
42. But one is always free not to identify oneself with the body and not to be affected by the pleasure and pain associated with its activities.
43. Engage yourself in the living present. The future will take care of itself.
44. Find out who is subject to free will or predestination and abide in that state.
45. Then both are transcended. That is the only purpose in discussing these questions. To whom do such questions present themselves?
46. Discover that and be at peace.
47. Your true nature is that of infinite spirit.
48. The feeling of limitation is the work of the mind.
49. When the mind unceasingly investigates its own nature, it transpires that there is no such thing as mind.
50. This is the direct path for all.
51. If one inquires as to where in the body the thought “I” first rises, one would discover that it rises in the heart; that is the place of the mind’s origin.
52. Grace is always present.
53. You imagine it is something somewhere high in the sky, far away, and has to descend. It is really inside you, in your Heart, and the moment you effect subsidence or merger of the mind into its Source, grace rushes forth, sprouting as from a spring within you.
54. You speak as if you are here, and the Self is somewhere else and you had to go and reach it…
55. …But in fact the Self is here and now, and you are always It.
56. It is like being here and asking people the way to the ashram, then complaining that each one shows a different path and asking which to follow.
57. The realized person weeps with the weeping, laughs with the laughing, plays with the playful, sings with those who sing, keeping time to the song.
58. What does he lose?
59. His presence is like a pure, transparent mirror. It reflects our image exactly as we are. It is we who play the several parts in life and reap the fruits of our actions. How is the mirror or the stand on which it is mounted affected? Nothing affects them, as they are mere supports.
60. The Consciousness of “I” is the subject of all of our actions.
61. Inquiring into the true nature of that Consciousness and remaining as oneself is the way to understand one’s true nature.
62. All that is required to realize the Self is to Be Still.
63. What can be easier than that?
64. If one gains the Peace of the Self, it will spread without any effort on the part of the individual.
65. When one is not peaceful, oneself, how can one spread peace in the world?
66. Unless one is happy, one cannot bestow happiness on others.
67. Happiness is born of Peace and can reign only when there is no disturbance. Disturbance is due to thoughts, which arise in the mind. When the mind is absent there will be perfect Peace.
68. Reality lies beyond the mind.
69. So long as the mind functions, there is duality. Once it is transcended, Reality shines forth.
70. Self-effulgence is the Self.
71. Satsang means association (sanga) with Being (Sat), which is the Self.
72. For whom is association?
73. The ultimate truth is so simple; it is nothing more than being in one’s natural, original state.
74. It is a great wonder that to teach such a simple truth a number of religions should be necessary, and so many disputes should go on between them as to which is the God-ordained teaching. What a pity!
75. Just be the Self, that is all.
76. Because people want something elaborate and mysterious, so many religions have come into existence. Only those who are mature can understand the matter in its naked simplicity.
77. There is neither past nor future; there is only the present.
78. Yesterday was the present when you experienced it; tomorrow will also be the present when you experience it.
79. Therefore, experience takes place only in the present, and beyond and apart from experience nothing exists.
80. Even the present is mere imagination, for the sense of time is purely mental.
81. Because people love mystery and not the truth, religions cater to them, eventually bringing them around to the Self.
82. Whatever be the means adopted, you must at last return to the Self; so why not abide in the Self here and now?
83. There is no greater mystery than this: Being Reality ourselves, we seek to gain Reality.
84. We think that there is something hiding Reality and that it must be destroyed before the truth is gained. This is clearly ridiculous.
85. A day will dawn when you will laugh at your past efforts. What you realize on the day you laugh is also here and now.
86. If we look upon the Self as the ego, we become the ego, if as the mind we become the mind, if as the body we become the body.
87. It is thought that builds up layers in so many ways.
88. Take no notice of the ego and its activities but see only the light behind it.
89. The ego is the “I”-thought.
90. The true “I” is the Self.
91. The world does not exist in sleep and forms a projection of your mind in the waking state. It is therefore an idea and nothing else.
92. It is false to speak of Realization; what is there to realize?
93. The real is ever as it is.
94. All that is required is to cease regarding as real that which is unreal. That is all we need to attain wisdom (jnana).
95. The universe is only an object created by the mind and has its being in the mind. It cannot be measured as an external entity.
96. The world phenomena, within or without, are only fleeting and are not independent of our Self.
97. Only the habit of looking at them as real and located outside ourselves is responsible for hiding our pure Being.
98. When the ever-present sole Reality, the Self, is found, all other unreal things will disappear, leaving behind the knowledge that they are not other than the Self.
99. Either surrender because you realize your inability and need a higher power to help you, or investigate the cause of misery.
100. The Divine never forsakes one who has surrendered.
Ramana Maharshi
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Ramana Maharshi (1878-1950), mestre de Advaita Vedanta e homem santo do sul da Índia.Bhagavan Sri Râmana Mahârshi (30 de dezembro de 1878 — 14 de abril de 1950), mestre de Advaita Vedanta e homem santo do sul da Índia. Considerado um dos maiores sábios de todos os tempos, tornou-se conhecido no Ocidente especialmente através do livro "A Índia Secreta", do jornalista e escritor inglês Paul Brunton, que retratou os ensinamentos de Ramana, transmitidos, na maioria das vezes, em silêncio absoluto aos seus discípulos. Outro autor famoso que deu destaque à Ramana Maharshi foi Paramahansa Yogananda, na Autobiografia de um Iogue, ao visitá-lo durante seu regresso à India em 1935. Outro famoso espiritualista que foi ao ashrama receber o darshan de Ramana foi Mahatma Ghandi, em busca de apoio para seu movimento de libertação da Índia.
Shri Ramana Maharshi foi o grande representante da sabedoria milenar da Índia no século XX. Isso não significa que ele foi um acadêmico que sabia de cor e salteado os textos sagrados da religião, mas sim que viveu e mesmo personificou à perfeição tal sabedoria. Na verdade, ele não escreveu nenhum livro. Ensinava o jnâna, ‘via do conhecimento espiritual’ mais puro. Ao mesmo tempo, ressaltava que as outras duas outras grandes vias espirituais, a do karma (das ações) e da bhakti (devoção) estavam contidas no jnâna.
Na Índia, buscar a companhia de sábios e santos é algo muito importante, para aprender com os preceitos e exemplos concretos, e para obter suas bênçãos. Tal atividade se chama satsanga (literalmente, ‘associação com a verdade’). Outro conceito importante é o de darshan, que é a bênção conferida pela mera visão de um santo, como explica William Stoddart na sua excelente introdução ao tema, “O Hinduísmo” (Ibrasa, 2005), o melhor livro sobre o assunto publicado em português até o momento.
Índice [esconder]
1 Vida
2 Obras (De e sobre Ramana Maharshi) (***Recomendadas por Sri Ramana)
3 Ver também
4 Ligações externas
[editar] Vida
Sri Râmana Maharshi nasceu na região do Tamil Nadu, sul da Índia. Aos 16 anos, após a morte do pai, passou por uma vívida experiência relacionada à morte e, por seu intermédio, despertou para o estado que transcende, origina, constitui e engloba os campos físico, emocional e intelectual, passando a viver permanentemente nesse estado, por alguns denominado realização espiritual. Depois de algum tempo, abandonou sua casa e família e partiu como sadhu (peregrino ou eremita) para a cidade de Tiruvannamalai (190 km ao sul de Madras), onde passou o restante da vida na montanha de Arunachala, considerada por ele como uma montanha sagrada. A princípio, viveu no grande templo de Arunachaleswara, permanecendo absorto em meditação, no saguão conhecido como o de "mil pilares", de onde teve de se mudar, em razão das pedras que lhe eram atiradas por um bando de meninos que o viam imóvel no local. Passou então a viver em um escuro vão no sub-solo do templo, mas os moleques cedo o descobriram, e continuaram a atirar-lhe pedras. Teve de se mudar muitas vezes e passou a residir em vários outros santuários e locais adjacentes ao templo, como jardins, bosques e pomares. Pouco a pouco foi subindo a montanha de Arunachala, onde viveu em diferentes cavernas e passou a ser conhecido como o “Maharshi” (grande sábio ou vidente), e "Bhagavan", o Senhor. Lenta e gradualmente, discípulos foram se reunindo à sua volta. Vinte e sete anos após a sua chegada a Tiruvannamalai, um "ashram" ou comunidade espiritual foi construído ao redor do túmulo de sua mãe, aos pés da Montanha Sagrada de Arunachala, onde residiu até o fim de seus dias. Essa comunidade, chamada "Ramanashram", tornou-se um local mundialmente conhecido, para onde se dirigiam ( e ainda se dirigem, em número crescente) buscadores espirituais de diversas origens religiosas.
Seus ensinamentos, magistralmente simples, profundos e lúcidos, estão registrados em grande número de livros. Diversos autores escreveram sobre ele; entre outros, Arthur Osborne, em "Ramana Maharshi e o Caminho do Autoconhecimento", Mouni Sadhu em "Dias de Grande Paz", Carl Jung, a pedido de Heinrich Zimmer, Somerset Maugham, em "O Fio da Navalha", William Stoddart, em "O Hinduísmo", Mateus Soares de Azevedo em "Ye shall know the truth: Christianity and the Perennial Philosophy" (EUA, 2005), David Godman, Sadhu Om, H.l Poonja, Maha Krishna Swami. Em 25 de dezembro de 2007, quando da comemoração do seu nascimento (data móvel, dependente da posição das estrelas), uma nova biografia em língua inglesa, com 4.135 páginas distribuídas em oito volumes, contendo 400 fotografias, foi lançada.
Sua presença, que irradiava uma grande paz, tornando fácil e natural a convivência na comunidade, inclusive com os animais selvagens que habitavam a montanha, atraiu milhares de pessoas a Arunachala. A essência dos seus ensinamentos é o "Vichara"(self-enquiry), ou investigação direta, interior, por meio dos questionamentos: "Quem sou eu?" e "De onde surge o pensamento 'eu'?", para a descoberta da "Verdade, Paz ou Bem-Aventurança, a nossa real natureza". "Descoberta" no sentido literal de "retirar o que cobre", os conceitos. Em vários momentos, Ramana nos alerta que não se trata de mero questionamento verbal, mecânico, mas de trazer sempre ao foco da atenção, por meio desse questionamento, a sensação do "eu sou", que é a única coisa real, visto que todas as outras coisas mudam e passam, são transitórias, enquanto esta consciência do eu permanece. Tal questionamento faz com que a atenção se volte para o estado natural que ultrapassa o conhecimento, levando à percepção da inevitável limitação de todos os conceitos, o que faz com que, gradualmente, definhem e percam sua tirania sobre a mente, deixando de se sobrepor "àquilo que verdadeiramente é". Para o ocidente, tal sobreposição é o verdadeiro conhecimento ("episteme", epi (sobre) + histanai (por, colocar): sobrepor). Para a Vedanta, tanto a opinião quanto a "episteme" impedem o descobrimento "daquilo que é". A alegoria da caverna, baseada no estudo hindu da "maya" (literalmente "medir", "avaliar"), se refere a essa limitação: a idéia é diferente daquilo que verdadeiramente "é". É preciso sair da caverna, é preciso ultrapassar a limitação dos conceitos, das idéias, das imagens, das representações. Sair da prisão da ignorância, representada pela caverna, para o espaço infinito da bem-aventurança. A própria alegoria não é bem compreendida no suposto "mundo ocidental". Tomar o resultado da avaliação como verdade é tomar as sombras pela coisa em si, e, por conseguinte, viver na ilusão. A ignorância basilar é a que existe com relação ao "eu". Julgo conhecer-me por meio de uma representação. Desconhecendo quem é o conhecedor, busco conhecer o universo, os seres vivos, os objetos. Deles também construo representações. A representação que construo a respeito de mim mesmo, que é sempre incompleta, e com a qual me identifico, busca, em vão, completar-se por meio de conhecimentos, sensações, posses, prestígio. Nessa busca, ela tem continuidade, com a inseparável sensação de incompletude e, portanto, de sofrimento. Quem sou eu? Uma vez que a representação que crio a respeito de mim mesmo não sou eu - quem sou eu? Quem está fazendo essa pergunta? A resposta não pode ser mental, intelectual, pois constituir-se-ia em uma outra representação. Para a Vedanta pois - sem a negação da óbvia necessidade, em seu campo próprio, do conhecimento relativo - o verdadeiro conhecimento implica a não interferência dos conceitos, seja a respeito do mundo e das coisas, seja a respeito de si mesmo, do estado que ultrapassa o pensamento. Havendo a necessidade e a urgência da descoberta, o próprio exame e compreensão de todo o quadro, a investigação sobre o "eu" e a origem do "eu", levam à não-interferência dos conceitos - porque se compreende sua limitação, o que provoca o seu definhar - e à quietude mental. "Aquieta-te e sabe que Eu Sou Deus". "Eu Sou esse Eu Sou". Nesse estado de silêncio vivo, desperto, o conhecedor, o conhecimento e o objeto do conhecimento, qualquer que seja ele, são um só. Só há separação no mundo das representações, das construções mentais, no mundo "daquilo que não é". Nesse sentido, conhecer a verdade acerca de si mesmo é conhecer a verdade acerca de todos os seres e de todas as coisas. Conhecer a verdade acerca de si mesmo é ser essa verdade, já que não somos dois, um para conhecer o outro. Cada um é a própria Verdade absoluta; ou Deus, para usar uma outra palavra.
Afirma-se que, no momento em que Sri Ramana faleceu, um magnífico astro, majestosa e lentamente, cruzou os céus da Índia, sendo visto em grande parte do país por inúmeras pessoas, que espontaneamente compreenderam o evento que ele anunciava.
[editar] Obras (De e sobre Ramana Maharshi) (***Recomendadas por Sri Ramana)
Ramana Meu Mestre
Ensinamentos Espirituais
A Imortalidade Consciente
Ramana Maharshi e o Caminho do Autoconhecimento
Dias de Grande Paz
Arunachala Siva
A Sadhu's Reminiscences
At the Feet of Bhagavan
Be Still - It Is The Wind That Sings
Essence of Ribhu Gita
Five Hymns to Arunachala
Glory of Arunachala
Hunting the I
Maha Yoga
Self-Enquiry
Spiritual Instruction
Surpassing Love and Grace
The 108 Names of Sri Bhagavan
The Collected Works
The Golden Jubilee Souvenir
The Silent Power
The Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi in His Own Words
Who Am I?
Words of Grace
Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi
Day by Day with Bhagavan
Arunachala's Ramana - Boundless Ocean of Grace
***Ellam Ondre (All is One)
***Advaita Bodha Deepika
***Yoga Vasishta Sara
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Ramana Maharshi (1878-1950), mestre de Advaita Vedanta e homem santo do sul da Índia.Bhagavan Sri Râmana Mahârshi (30 de dezembro de 1878 — 14 de abril de 1950), mestre de Advaita Vedanta e homem santo do sul da Índia. Considerado um dos maiores sábios de todos os tempos, tornou-se conhecido no Ocidente especialmente através do livro "A Índia Secreta", do jornalista e escritor inglês Paul Brunton, que retratou os ensinamentos de Ramana, transmitidos, na maioria das vezes, em silêncio absoluto aos seus discípulos. Outro autor famoso que deu destaque à Ramana Maharshi foi Paramahansa Yogananda, na Autobiografia de um Iogue, ao visitá-lo durante seu regresso à India em 1935. Outro famoso espiritualista que foi ao ashrama receber o darshan de Ramana foi Mahatma Ghandi, em busca de apoio para seu movimento de libertação da Índia.
Shri Ramana Maharshi foi o grande representante da sabedoria milenar da Índia no século XX. Isso não significa que ele foi um acadêmico que sabia de cor e salteado os textos sagrados da religião, mas sim que viveu e mesmo personificou à perfeição tal sabedoria. Na verdade, ele não escreveu nenhum livro. Ensinava o jnâna, ‘via do conhecimento espiritual’ mais puro. Ao mesmo tempo, ressaltava que as outras duas outras grandes vias espirituais, a do karma (das ações) e da bhakti (devoção) estavam contidas no jnâna.
Na Índia, buscar a companhia de sábios e santos é algo muito importante, para aprender com os preceitos e exemplos concretos, e para obter suas bênçãos. Tal atividade se chama satsanga (literalmente, ‘associação com a verdade’). Outro conceito importante é o de darshan, que é a bênção conferida pela mera visão de um santo, como explica William Stoddart na sua excelente introdução ao tema, “O Hinduísmo” (Ibrasa, 2005), o melhor livro sobre o assunto publicado em português até o momento.
Índice [esconder]
1 Vida
2 Obras (De e sobre Ramana Maharshi) (***Recomendadas por Sri Ramana)
3 Ver também
4 Ligações externas
[editar] Vida
Sri Râmana Maharshi nasceu na região do Tamil Nadu, sul da Índia. Aos 16 anos, após a morte do pai, passou por uma vívida experiência relacionada à morte e, por seu intermédio, despertou para o estado que transcende, origina, constitui e engloba os campos físico, emocional e intelectual, passando a viver permanentemente nesse estado, por alguns denominado realização espiritual. Depois de algum tempo, abandonou sua casa e família e partiu como sadhu (peregrino ou eremita) para a cidade de Tiruvannamalai (190 km ao sul de Madras), onde passou o restante da vida na montanha de Arunachala, considerada por ele como uma montanha sagrada. A princípio, viveu no grande templo de Arunachaleswara, permanecendo absorto em meditação, no saguão conhecido como o de "mil pilares", de onde teve de se mudar, em razão das pedras que lhe eram atiradas por um bando de meninos que o viam imóvel no local. Passou então a viver em um escuro vão no sub-solo do templo, mas os moleques cedo o descobriram, e continuaram a atirar-lhe pedras. Teve de se mudar muitas vezes e passou a residir em vários outros santuários e locais adjacentes ao templo, como jardins, bosques e pomares. Pouco a pouco foi subindo a montanha de Arunachala, onde viveu em diferentes cavernas e passou a ser conhecido como o “Maharshi” (grande sábio ou vidente), e "Bhagavan", o Senhor. Lenta e gradualmente, discípulos foram se reunindo à sua volta. Vinte e sete anos após a sua chegada a Tiruvannamalai, um "ashram" ou comunidade espiritual foi construído ao redor do túmulo de sua mãe, aos pés da Montanha Sagrada de Arunachala, onde residiu até o fim de seus dias. Essa comunidade, chamada "Ramanashram", tornou-se um local mundialmente conhecido, para onde se dirigiam ( e ainda se dirigem, em número crescente) buscadores espirituais de diversas origens religiosas.
Seus ensinamentos, magistralmente simples, profundos e lúcidos, estão registrados em grande número de livros. Diversos autores escreveram sobre ele; entre outros, Arthur Osborne, em "Ramana Maharshi e o Caminho do Autoconhecimento", Mouni Sadhu em "Dias de Grande Paz", Carl Jung, a pedido de Heinrich Zimmer, Somerset Maugham, em "O Fio da Navalha", William Stoddart, em "O Hinduísmo", Mateus Soares de Azevedo em "Ye shall know the truth: Christianity and the Perennial Philosophy" (EUA, 2005), David Godman, Sadhu Om, H.l Poonja, Maha Krishna Swami. Em 25 de dezembro de 2007, quando da comemoração do seu nascimento (data móvel, dependente da posição das estrelas), uma nova biografia em língua inglesa, com 4.135 páginas distribuídas em oito volumes, contendo 400 fotografias, foi lançada.
Sua presença, que irradiava uma grande paz, tornando fácil e natural a convivência na comunidade, inclusive com os animais selvagens que habitavam a montanha, atraiu milhares de pessoas a Arunachala. A essência dos seus ensinamentos é o "Vichara"(self-enquiry), ou investigação direta, interior, por meio dos questionamentos: "Quem sou eu?" e "De onde surge o pensamento 'eu'?", para a descoberta da "Verdade, Paz ou Bem-Aventurança, a nossa real natureza". "Descoberta" no sentido literal de "retirar o que cobre", os conceitos. Em vários momentos, Ramana nos alerta que não se trata de mero questionamento verbal, mecânico, mas de trazer sempre ao foco da atenção, por meio desse questionamento, a sensação do "eu sou", que é a única coisa real, visto que todas as outras coisas mudam e passam, são transitórias, enquanto esta consciência do eu permanece. Tal questionamento faz com que a atenção se volte para o estado natural que ultrapassa o conhecimento, levando à percepção da inevitável limitação de todos os conceitos, o que faz com que, gradualmente, definhem e percam sua tirania sobre a mente, deixando de se sobrepor "àquilo que verdadeiramente é". Para o ocidente, tal sobreposição é o verdadeiro conhecimento ("episteme", epi (sobre) + histanai (por, colocar): sobrepor). Para a Vedanta, tanto a opinião quanto a "episteme" impedem o descobrimento "daquilo que é". A alegoria da caverna, baseada no estudo hindu da "maya" (literalmente "medir", "avaliar"), se refere a essa limitação: a idéia é diferente daquilo que verdadeiramente "é". É preciso sair da caverna, é preciso ultrapassar a limitação dos conceitos, das idéias, das imagens, das representações. Sair da prisão da ignorância, representada pela caverna, para o espaço infinito da bem-aventurança. A própria alegoria não é bem compreendida no suposto "mundo ocidental". Tomar o resultado da avaliação como verdade é tomar as sombras pela coisa em si, e, por conseguinte, viver na ilusão. A ignorância basilar é a que existe com relação ao "eu". Julgo conhecer-me por meio de uma representação. Desconhecendo quem é o conhecedor, busco conhecer o universo, os seres vivos, os objetos. Deles também construo representações. A representação que construo a respeito de mim mesmo, que é sempre incompleta, e com a qual me identifico, busca, em vão, completar-se por meio de conhecimentos, sensações, posses, prestígio. Nessa busca, ela tem continuidade, com a inseparável sensação de incompletude e, portanto, de sofrimento. Quem sou eu? Uma vez que a representação que crio a respeito de mim mesmo não sou eu - quem sou eu? Quem está fazendo essa pergunta? A resposta não pode ser mental, intelectual, pois constituir-se-ia em uma outra representação. Para a Vedanta pois - sem a negação da óbvia necessidade, em seu campo próprio, do conhecimento relativo - o verdadeiro conhecimento implica a não interferência dos conceitos, seja a respeito do mundo e das coisas, seja a respeito de si mesmo, do estado que ultrapassa o pensamento. Havendo a necessidade e a urgência da descoberta, o próprio exame e compreensão de todo o quadro, a investigação sobre o "eu" e a origem do "eu", levam à não-interferência dos conceitos - porque se compreende sua limitação, o que provoca o seu definhar - e à quietude mental. "Aquieta-te e sabe que Eu Sou Deus". "Eu Sou esse Eu Sou". Nesse estado de silêncio vivo, desperto, o conhecedor, o conhecimento e o objeto do conhecimento, qualquer que seja ele, são um só. Só há separação no mundo das representações, das construções mentais, no mundo "daquilo que não é". Nesse sentido, conhecer a verdade acerca de si mesmo é conhecer a verdade acerca de todos os seres e de todas as coisas. Conhecer a verdade acerca de si mesmo é ser essa verdade, já que não somos dois, um para conhecer o outro. Cada um é a própria Verdade absoluta; ou Deus, para usar uma outra palavra.
Afirma-se que, no momento em que Sri Ramana faleceu, um magnífico astro, majestosa e lentamente, cruzou os céus da Índia, sendo visto em grande parte do país por inúmeras pessoas, que espontaneamente compreenderam o evento que ele anunciava.
[editar] Obras (De e sobre Ramana Maharshi) (***Recomendadas por Sri Ramana)
Ramana Meu Mestre
Ensinamentos Espirituais
A Imortalidade Consciente
Ramana Maharshi e o Caminho do Autoconhecimento
Dias de Grande Paz
Arunachala Siva
A Sadhu's Reminiscences
At the Feet of Bhagavan
Be Still - It Is The Wind That Sings
Essence of Ribhu Gita
Five Hymns to Arunachala
Glory of Arunachala
Hunting the I
Maha Yoga
Self-Enquiry
Spiritual Instruction
Surpassing Love and Grace
The 108 Names of Sri Bhagavan
The Collected Works
The Golden Jubilee Souvenir
The Silent Power
The Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi in His Own Words
Who Am I?
Words of Grace
Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi
Day by Day with Bhagavan
Arunachala's Ramana - Boundless Ocean of Grace
***Ellam Ondre (All is One)
***Advaita Bodha Deepika
***Yoga Vasishta Sara
Quem é você? Quando você pergunta isso para si mesmo, começa a perceber o quão abstrato é este questionamento. Você é um corpo físico? Um conjunto de experiências e memórias? Um parceiro para relacionamentos? Em cada momento você avalia aspectos pessoais e percebe que há muito mais do que foi dito no início. Neste livro, o professor espiritual Michael Singer desvenda o mistério de quem somos e chega à conclusão de que nossa identidade deve ser encontrada dentro da consciência, envolvendo o aspecto de observarmos a nós interiormente e o mundo que nos cerca. Abordando o tema com uso de meditações tradicionais e conscientização, Singer mostra como o desenvolvimento da consciência pode nos permitir viver o presente e se livrar de pensamentos negativos e memórias que nos impedem de conquistar a felicidade e a realização pessoal. Dividido em cinco partes, o livro traz uma sincera e agradável discussão sobre a consciência e como a desenvolvemos. Na parte um, ele examina a percepção do eu e o diálogo interior que todos nós convivemos. Na parte dois ele examina a experiência com a energia e como a mesma flui em nossos corpos mostrando aos leitores como abrir os corações para a experiência energética que permeia suas vidas. Na parte três o autor mostra como superar as tendências de se fechar para o mundo exterior. Na parte quatro ele mostra o esclarecimento e a conquista da consciência universal. E por último, na parte cinco, Singer volta para o dia-a-dia na busca pela "felicidade incondicional". Na maior parte do livro, a leitura segue uma linha leve e motivadora, livre de dogmas densos e referências religiosas. No livro há exercícios práticos em cada capítulo para auxiliar os leitores a compreender e consolidar as idéias apresentadas por Singer.
sábado, 20 de novembro de 2010
Stroop Interference following Mood Induction:
Emotionality, Mood Congruence, and Concern Relevance
Eva Gilboa-Schechtman,1 William Revelle,2 and Ian H. Gotlib3
Research using the emotion Stroop task has established that individuals with various
emotional disorders exhibit increased interference for stimuli specifically related to
their disorder due to the concern relevance and negativity of these stimuli.
Our
study expands this research to normal populations. We examined the influence of
emotionality, mood congruence, and concern relevance following experimental mood-
induction procedures (MIPs) on emotion Stroop performance of college students.
Participants completed a computerized emotion Stroop task following positive and
negative MIPs. Results supported the mood congruence and concern relevance but
not the emotionality hypotheses.
The implication of these findings for theories of
emotional breakdown and the importance of studying the idiographic aspects of
affective experience are discussed.
A robust finding based on the emotion Stroop effect is that individuals suffering
from an emotional disorder exhibit selective processing of stimuli that are idiosyn-
cratic to their disorder (for reviews, see Logan & Goetsch, 1993; Mathews & MacLeod
1994; Williams, Mathews, & MacLeod, 1996).
This selective processing could be at-
tributed to three distinct factors: emotionality (i.e., the ‘‘emotional impact’’ of the
stimulus, regardless of its valence), concern relevance (i.e., the association between
the stimulus and the participant’s current concerns), and mood congruence (i.e., the
concordance between a person’s affective state and the valence of the stimulus).
For
certain stimuli, all three factors coincide. For example, social phobics are likely to
perceive such stimulus words as humiliation or rejection as extremely emotional, con-
gruent with their dysphoric affect, and highly related to their current concerns.
In
contrast, other stimuli may differentiate among these factors. For instance, the words
cancer or accident, although high in emotionality and negativity, are not related to
social phobics’ concerns. Similarly, words such as acceptance, although possibly high
in emotionality and in concern relevance, are not negative.
On the basis of an extensive review of the literature on emotional Stroop and
psychopathology, Williams et al. (1996) conclude that individuals with emotional
disturbance show disproportionate color-naming interference for negative stimuli
and for stimuli related to personally relevant themes.
It seems likely that the
interference of negative materials in clinical populations (which is over and above
the interference due to these materials’ concern relevance) is due to mood-congru-
ence effects. Stroop interference in highly anxious participants is influenced by
positive as well as negative mood (Richards, French, Johnson, Naparstek, &
Williams, 1992, Experiment 2).
Combined, these findings suggest that emotion
Stroop interference in clinical and subclinical participants is mediated by mood
congruence and concern relevance, but not by emotionality.
The extent to which each of the three factors—emotionality, mood congruence,
and concern relevance—affects Stroop interference in normal populations is not
yet clear.
Williams et al. (1996) hypothesize that concern relevance but not other
factors may characterize selective processing of nonclinical populations.
Indeed,
Stroop interference with concern relevant stimuli has been found in nonclinical
populations (e.g., Giles & Cairns, 1989; Riemann & McNally, 1995). In contrast,
there are mixed findings regarding the effects of mood congruence on selective
attention to valenced stimuli in nonclinical and subclinical populations.
Whereas
some researchers observed mood-congruent effects on Stroop interference following
an experimental mood induction (e.g., Mogg, Mathews, Bird, & Macgregor-Morris,
1990, Experiment 1; Richards et al., 1992, Experiment 2), others have not (e.g.,
Gotlib & McCann, 1984, Experiment 2; Riemann & McNally, 1995).
Most of these
studies did not attempt to separate the effects of mood congruence and concern
relevance. Finally, the effect of emotionality has received little attention in the
nonclinical literature.
The goal of our study is to investigate the effects of emotionality, mood congru-
ence, and concern relevance in a nonclinical population within a unified framework.
Specifically, consistent with the findings of Richards et al. (1993), we postulated that
individuals exhibit greater Stroop interference with mood-congruent stimuli in both
negative and positive mood states than with either neutral or mood-incongruent
words.
Second, we hypothesized that words highly related to individuals’ concerns
would elicit more interference than would words with low concern relevance.
No
specific predictions were made with respect to the effects of word emotionality. Differ-
entiating among the contributions of these three factors is essential to the understand-
ing of the general mechanisms underlying the emotion Stroop effect. Furthermore,
such an investigation is also crucial to the understanding of the similarities and differ-
ences in selective attention between clinical and nonclinical individuals, and thus may
potentially elucidate cognitive processes that are specific to emotional disorders.
Gilboa-Schechtman, Revelle, and Gotlib
METHOD
Participants
Eighty-four (84) college students participated in the experiment as part of a
course requirement. Participants were run in groups of 1 to 4. The experimental
Stroop Following Mood Induction
session lasted about 50 min. Data from three participants were lost due to equip-
ment failure.
Materials
There were six types of stimuli: experimenter-provided neutral words, experi-
menter-provided positive words, experimenter-provided negative words, partici-
pant-generated words involving neutral experiences, participant-generated words
involving positive experiences, and participant-generated words involving negative
experiences. Experimenter-provided neutral words were global, metric, tangible,
verbal, genetic, and temporal. Experimenter-provided negative words were hurt,
upset, lonely, depressed, helpless, and miserable. Experimenter-provided positive
words were excited, friendly, cheerful, joyful, tender, and carefree. The positive and
negative emotion words were equated for frequency, length, and emotionality based
on John’s (1988) ratings. Participant-generated words included personal ‘‘codes’’
related to a particular neutral, positive, or negative experience. For example, a
participant might provide the words message, physics, professor, and Tuesday as
his or her ‘‘codes’’ for a neutral experience.
Procedure
Participants were told that the experiment was designed to test the effects of
mood on simple cognitive processing. The stimuli and the instructions were pre-
sented on an Apple Macintosh IIci computer with a color monitor. The controlling
software handled the mood-induction procedure (MIP) and stimuli presentation.
It also recorded participants’ mood ratings and their reaction times (RTs) to
Stroop stimuli.
Introductory Phase
Participants were asked to recall a neutral, positive, and negative experiences
and provide four ‘‘key words’’ for these experiences. The order of recall of positive
and negative experiences was counterbalanced across participants. Next, partici-
pants practiced the Stroop task by identifying the color of a single stimulus (the
word practice) by pressing an appropriately labeled key. After reaching a criterion
performance level on this task,4 participants proceeded to the first mood-induction
phase: negative mood induction in the NP condition and positive mood induction
in the PN condition.
4
Criterion performance was defined as a sequence of 10 consecutive error-free trials, with the difference
between the mean time to respond to the preceding 10 trials and the mean of 10 final trials being no
more than 10%. The minimum number of trials (regardless of performance) was 40, and the maximum
number of trials was 100.
5
Other data-reduction strategies (such as eliminating response latencies 2 SD above each participant’s
mean) produced essentially identical results.
6
Analyses using the overall mood ratings are presented for the sake of simplicity. For both experiments,
analyses using individual mood scales produced essentially identical results.
494
Gilboa-Schechtman, Revelle, and Gotlib
Experimental Phase
The experimental phases consisted of three steps: mood induction, mood rating,
and the Stroop task. During the mood-induction procedure, participants were first
instructed to reexperience sad/happy events using ‘‘relive’’ instructions adapted
from Salovey (1992). Next, participants concentrated on their feelings while listening
to music. An excerpt from Beethoven’s string quartet op. 131 was played for the
negative MIP. An excerpt from Vivaldi’s ‘‘Spring’’ concerto of the ‘‘Four Seasons,’’
op. 12, was played for the positive MIP. The concentration step lasted about 1 min.
Finally, before proceeding to the Stroop task, participants rated their current mood
on six unipolar (sad, frustrated, anxious, happy, content, and optimistic) and one
bipolar (overall) visual analog scales. The unipolar scales were anchored with not
at all (coded as intensity rating of 0) and extremely (coded as intensity rating of
100). The overall scale was anchored with very positive (coded as intensity rating
50) and very negative (coded as intensity rating of 50).
During the Stroop task, participants were presented with 150 stimuli. The
intertrial interval was 2 sec.
The stimuli for this task were six words from each of
the experimenter-provided categories and four words from each of the participant-
generated categories. Participants saw five presentations of each word from this
30-word stimulus list, resulting in a total of 150 presentations. The order of presenta-
tion and the color of stimuli were randomly determined for each participant subject
to the constraint that no two consecutive words were displayed in the same color.
Following the completion of the Stroop task, participants rated their moods.
Between the two experimental phases, participants completed a 5-min long
filler task evaluating the computer program they were using.
This filler task was
intended to ensure that the effects of the first MIP would dissipate before the
beginning of the second MIP. After the completion of the filler task, participants
proceeded to the next experimental phase. Apart from the valence of the mood
induced (positive in the NP condition, negative in the PN condition), the structure
of the second experimental phase was identical to that of the first. Specifically, after
completing an MIP, participants rated their mood and performed the Stroop task.
Neutralizing Phase
In order to stabilize participants’ mood before the end of the experiment,
participants were asked to relive the previously recalled neutral experience. Their
mood ratings after the completion of the neutral MIP were taken to represent their
baseline mood. Finally, the participants were debriefed and thanked for their partici-
pation.
RESULTS
Data Analysis
Trials involving incorrect key pressing or extreme scores [i.e., response time
(RT) longer than 2500 ms or shorter than 333 ms] were eliminated from further
Stroop Following Mood Induction
analyses. Excluded responses occurred on 5% of the trials, and their number did
not differ as a function of word type.
Efficacy of MIPs
To determine the efficacy of the positive and negative MIPs, participants’
overall mood rating were analyzed using two separate two-way ANOVAs. We
computed mood change scores as the differences between participants’ overall
mood ratings after an induction and their mood ratings at baseline (i.e., after the
neutral MIP). Mean negative and positive change scores were 12.3 (SD 18.1)
and 22.5 (SD 19.4), respectively. Absolute change scores were analyzed using a
three-way ANOVA, with order of recall (NP vs. PN) and order of MIP (NP vs.
PN) as between-subjects factors and valence of MIP as a within-subject factor. No
effects or interactions involving either order of recall or order of MIP were found.
Test of simple effects indicated that both negative and positive change scores
38.4, p
.001, and F(1,79)
102.7,
differed significantly from zero (F(1,79)
p .001, respectively). The positive MIP produced greater changes in self-ratings
than did the negative MIP, F(1,79) 8.9, p .05. To ensure that the PN and the
NP groups did not differ in the baseline mood scores, we examined overall baseline
mood scores. Mean baseline scores of the PN and NP groups were 5.7 (SD
14.7) and 4.6 (SD 11.3), respectively. A one-way ANOVA on baseline overall
mood ratings was conducted. No differences between the groups’ baseline moods
was revealed, F(1,79) 1.
Mood Congruence, Concern Relevance, and Emotionality Effects
Table I presents the means and standard deviations of RTs to different stimulus
types in the positive and negative experimental conditions.
Preliminary analyses of reaction times were conducted with order of emotional
experience recall (PN vs. NP) as a between-subjects variable and word frequencies
and word length as covariates. No main effects or interactions involving any of
these variables were detected in these analyses, nor did they qualitatively modify
any other main effect or interaction. Therefore, these variables were omitted from
the final analyses.
A potential problem in using participant-generated vs. experimenter-provided
Table I. Means and Standard Deviations of Response Latencies for Stimulus Identification
Condition
Negative
Positive
Note: N
80. Standard deviations (in milliseconds) are shown in parentheses.
Experimenter
Neutral
Negative
772
(127)
747
(105)
Positive
806
(142)
748
(108)
Stimulus origin
Neutral
786
(135)
763
(110)
796
(130)
759
(119)
Participant
Negative
812
(150)
756
(122)
496
materials is that these two sets of stimuli might differ on several lexical dimensions,
such as word length, word frequency, and so on. To assess whether these differences
in lexical properties influenced RT, we conducted several regression analyses. For
each valence category (i.e., positive, negative, and neutral), we regressed the mean
RT to participant-generated words (predicted variable) on three predictors: the RT
to experimenter-generated words, the mean frequency ratings of this participant-gen-
erated category (computed using Francis & Kucera, 1982, norms), and the mean word
length measures of this participant-generated category. For example, the RT to neu-
tral participant-generated words was regressed on the RT to neutral experimenter-
provided words, mean frequency ratings of the neutral key words provided by this
participant, and mean word length of these neutral key words. None of the partial
correlations between RT to participant-generated words and word frequency ratings
or word length measures approached significance (all ps 0.3). These analyses sug-
gest that differences in lexical properties between stimulus sets did not exert signifi-
cant influences on reaction time. It is important to note that this conclusion is in line
with the results of all past investigations regarding the effects of lexical properties on
emotion Stroop RTs: neither word length nor word frequency accounted for Stroop
interference effect with personally relevant words (e.g., Riemann, Amir, & Luoro,
1994; Riemann & McNally, 1995; Williams et al., 1996).
To examine concern relevance, emotionality, and mood-congruence hypothe-
ses, mean RTs were analyzed using a four-way ANOVA, with order of MIP (PN
vs. NP) as a between-subjects variable, and mood-induction valence (negative vs.
positive), word origin (participant vs. experimenter), and word valence (neutral,
mood congruent, or mood incongruent) as within-subject variables. There was no
main effect of order, F(1,79)
1.18, n.s. As expected, there was a time effect as
indicated in this analysis by a significant MIP Order interaction, F(1,79) 20.8,
p .001. This effect indicated that participants’ RTs were longer in the first mood-
induction condition than they were in the second mood-induction condition (mean
RTs for the first and second MIPs were 800.1 and 751.2, respectively). No other
significant interactions involving Order emerged from these analyses (all ps 0.1).
A significant effect of MIP was revealed, such that participants’ RTs in the
negative condition were significantly longer than were their RTs in the positive
condition (mean RTs in the negative condition
793.9 and positive condi-
tion
759.2, F(1,79)
9.6, p
.01).
A main effect of Origin indicated that participant-generated words elicited
significantly more interference than did words provided by the experimenter,
F(1,79)
19.9, p
.001. There was a significant effect of word Valence,
F(2,158)
3.14, p
.05. Two planned comparisons were conducted to clarify
this effect. The first indicated that mood-incongruent words did not elicit more
interference than did neutral words, F 1. The second planned comparison indi-
cated that mood-congruent words elicited more interference than did neutral words,
F(1,79)
11.0, p
.001. There was a significant MIP
Valence interaction,
F(2,158)
8.4, p
.001. A planned comparison indicated that, in the negative
MIP, participants’ RTs to negative words were longer than they were to positive
words, whereas this pattern was reversed in the positive MIP, F(1,79)
12.1,
p .01. There were no other significant interactions.
Gilboa-Schechtman, Revelle, and Gotlib
Stroop Following Mood Induction
To examine whether the main effects of Valence and Origin were significant
in the negative and positive mood-induction conditions, we conducted separate
three-way ANOVAs for each of these conditions. In each ANOVA, order of MIP
(PN vs. NP) was a between-subjects variable, and word origin (participant vs.
experimenter) and word valence (neutral, mood congruent, or mood incongruent)
were within-subject variables.
In the analysis of RTs in the negative condition no main effect of Order was
identified, F
1. There were no other interactions involving Order (all ps
.2).
There was a significant effect of word Valence, F(2,158)
7.7, p
.05. Planned
comparisons indicated that negative words elicited more interference than did
neutral or positive words among experimenter-provided words (t(79)
3.9; p
.01; t(79)
2.8, p
.05, respectively). Identical pattern was observed among
participant-generated words (t(79) 2.1, p .05; p(80) 1.95; p .05, respectively).
A main effect of Origin F(1,79)
15.6, p
.05 as found. RTs to participant
generated words were longer than to experimenter provided words. This effect was
modified by a significant Origin
Valence interaction, F(2,158)
4.7, p
.05.
Post-hoc comparisons indicated that the effect of word origin was greater for the
neutral words than for negative or positive words (F(1,79)
4.75, p
.05; and
F(1,79) 9.4, respectively).
In the analysis of RTs in the positive condition a main effect of Order was
identified, F(1,79) 9.8, p .001. RTs in the NP condition were faster than RTs
in the PN condition. There were no other interactions involving Order (all ps
.2). A main effect of Origin F(1,79) 8.5, p .05 was found. RTs to participant-
generated words were longer than to experimenter-provided words. There was a
significant effect of word Valence, F(2,158)
3.5, p
.05. Planned comparisons
indicated that positive words elicited more interference than neutral or negative
words among experimenter-provided words (t(79) 2.8; p .05; t(79) 2.0, p
.05, respectively). No such differences were observed among participant-generated
words (all ps .2). There was no significant Origin Valence interaction, F 1.
DISCUSSION
We investigated the effects of mood congruence, concern relevance, and emo-
tionality on Stroop interference following experimentally induced positive and nega-
tive moods in a nonclinical population. Our results support the mood-congruence
and the concern-relevance hypotheses, but not the emotionality hypothesis. First,
consistent with the mood-congruence hypothesis, we found that interference effects
in the negative condition were specific to negative-emotion words, and that interfer-
ence effects in the positive condition were specific to the positive-emotion words.
Our results are consistent with those reported by Richards et al. (1992) in demonstra-
ting that both positive and negative affective states increase the selective processing
of mood-congruent materials. Second, words generated by the participants elicited
more interference than did experimenter-provided materials, supporting the con-
cern-relevance hypothesis. It is important to note that this effect was not due to
lexical differences between the two stimulus sets. We concur, therefore, with
498
Mathews and Klug (1993), who state that judgments of personal emotional relevance
are stronger predictors of interference than are judgments of emotionality per se.
Finally, inconsistent with the emotionality hypothesis, mood-incongruent words,
although as ‘‘emotional’’ as mood-congruent ones, did not elicit interference com-
pared to neutral words. In contrast, mood-congruent words elicited significantly
more interference than did neutral words. It is possible that previous research that
identified emotionality effects (e.g., Martin, Williams, & Clark, 1991) confounded
the effects of emotionality with the effects of concern relevance.
Nonclinical individuals’ pattern of selective attention seems to parallel that of
high-trait anxious, clinically anxious, and clinically depressed individuals (Williams
et al., 1996). Combined, these data suggest that, for all populations, concern rele-
vance and mood congruence contribute independently to Stroop interference,
whereas emotionality does not. If so, what distinguishes clinical from nonclinical
processing of valenced stimuli? One possibility is that the difference is merely
quantitative. Indeed, the effect sizes in studies with clinical participants are greater
than the effect sizes in our study (see Williams et al., 1996). Alternatively, it is
possible that the differences between clinical and nonclinical individuals manifest
themselves in the strategies they use to cope with their cognitive interference
rather than in the interference itself. Individuals with clinically significant emotional
problems may not be able to inhibit such interference, whereas nonclinical individu-
als may be able to override it (Gotlib, Roberts, & Gilboa, 1996).
Our findings suggest several explanations for the inconsistent pattern of results
regarding the mood-congruence hypothesis using the emotional Stroop task. First,
the specifics of the mood-induction procedures might affect the strength of Stroop
interference. Bower (1987) suggests that the induction of ‘‘weak, temporary and
nonspecific moods of happiness and sadness in the laboratory have not primed
perceptual processing of the general class of positive and negative words, respec-
tively’’ (p. 448), and argues further that to obtain a mood-congruence effect, the
priming may have to point to a more specific set of words and emotional themes.
Consistent with Bower’s hypothesis, ‘‘focused’’ affective states (e.g., those induced
by autobiographic MIPs) may be more likely to be associated with Stroop interfer-
ence than ‘‘diffused’’ inductions (e.g., Velten MIP). Indeed, Niedenthal, Haberstadt,
and Setterlund (1997) found that focused emotional states affect lexical decisions
and word-naming latencies of emotion-congruent words.
Mood congruence is a well-recognized phenomenon with respect to memory and
judgment processes. Researchers have consistently found enhanced memory for
mood-congruent materials in nonclinical individuals (Blaney, 1986; Matt, Vazquez, &
Campbell, 1992). Similarly, research on judgment processes suggests that experimen-
tally induced moods affect participants’ judgments of a variety of real and hypothetical
events (for a review, see Gotlib, Gilboa, & Sommerfield, in press). However, mood
congruence is less well established with respect to attention. Thus far, the association
between attention and mood has been limited to negative affective states, especially
anxiety (e.g., Mathews & MacLeod, 1994). Moreover, studies attempting to obtain
mood-congruence effects in attentional tasks with a wider range of affective states
(typically sadness and happiness) yield an inconsistent pattern of findings (e.g., Chal-
lis & Krane, 1988; Clark, Teasdale, Broadbent, & Martin, 1983).
Gilboa-Schechtman, Revelle, and Gotlib
Stroop Following Mood Induction
Our findings using the emotion Stroop task suggest that mood congruence may
extend to attentional processes as well. However, it is frequently argued that this
task is not a pure measure of attention (e.g., MacLeod & Mathews, 1988; Mathews &
MacLeod, 1985). In particular, a Stroop task in which the stimuli are presented in
a ‘‘blocked’’ format (i.e., the stimuli are grouped by word type, such that, for
example, all negative words are presented in succession) may not provide a ‘‘pure’’
measure of attention because the post-attentional rumination about a negatively
valenced word might delay the color naming of the next word (e.g., McNally,
Riemann, & Kim, 1990). It is important to note that our Stroop task involved a
random rather than a blocked presentation of the Stroop stimuli, making the Stroop
interference index less likely to be contaminated by post-attentional processing.
Thus, our results, combined with those of Richards et al. (1992) and Niedenthal et
al. (1997), suggest that mood affects attentional processes in negative (e.g., anxious
and sad) as well as positive affective states (see also Williams et al., 1996). Therefore,
consistent with Beck’s (1976) and Bower’s (1981) theories of the relation between
affect and cognition, the effects of mood on cognitive processes extend beyond
memory and judgment to attentional processes.
LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS
The present research examined parameters affecting selective processing of
valenced information, using laboratory-induced positive and negative affective
states. Obviously, experimental mood induction enlists participants’ cooperation in
modifying their affective states and therefore creates demand characteristics. Might
the participants be consciously attending to critical words in order to please the
experimenter, rather than responding ‘‘naturally’’? We think this is unlikely for
two reasons. First, both musical MIPs and autobiographic MIPs were found to be
effective in influencing objective (e.g., reaction time) as well as subjective (e.g.,
mood rating) measures (e.g., Niedenthal et al., 1997; Salovey, 1992). In addition,
reviews of the mood-induction literature suggest that MIPs affect a variety of
cognitive, physiological, and psychomotor measures (e.g., Larsen & Sinnett, 1991;
Gerrards-Hesse, Spies, & Hesse, 1994). For example, Neidenthal et al. (1997, Experi-
ment 3) found that emotional state influenced attentional processes using lexical
decision and word-naming tasks. Second, although demand characteristics for clini-
cal subjects with their disorder-relevant words should be no less obvious than the
demand characteristics after MIPs, studies using subliminal Stroop found that the
pattern of interference with subliminally presented words resembled the pattern
of interference with superliminal stimuli (MacLeod & Rutherford, 1992; Williams
et al., 1996). Therefore, it seems unlikely that emotional Stroop interference in
our study depends on participants’ conscious decisions to attend more to mood-
congruent stimuli. However, it will be important to replicate these findings using
techniques in which the demand characteristics are less salient (e.g., film clips,
as in Gross & Levenson, 1995; or naturally occurring affective states) and other
cognitive measures.
In our discussion, we emphasize the effects of mood on the selective processing
500
of valenced information. Yet it is also possible that the observed selective processing
can be partially accounted for by the effects of cognitive priming independent of
mood. According to the cognitive-priming hypothesis, mood congruence is associ-
ated with the cognitive activation of affective concepts, rather than with the effect
of mood per se (e.g., Rholes, Riskind, & Lane, 1987). Although in our experiment
cognitive priming does contribute to selective processing of emotion-related materi-
als, affect-free cognition is unlikely to be the sole cause of this selectivity. First,
we found that participants selectively processed mood-congruent experimenter-
provided words, which were not part of the participants’ recollected events. Experi-
menter-provided words, not being part of the autobiographic memories retrieved
by the participants, are related to these memories primarily through affective associ-
ations. Second, the effects of cognitive priming typically dissipate within seconds
(e.g., Fischler & Goodman, 1978), whereas the selective-processing effects observed
in our studies persisted for minutes. These arguments notwithstanding, our results
are unlikely to resolve the debate about cognitive vs. affective priming, partly
because emotional effects and cognitive priming of emotion-relevant materials are
not easily separable. To fully disentangle the effects of cognitive and emotional
priming, future research might attempt to examine the effects of recollection per
se (without the emotional reexperience) on selective processing.
In interpreting our findings, we assumed that interference with participant-
generated stimuli is due to the relevance of these stimuli to participants’ personal
concerns. However, the process of generating these materials, rather than their
concern-relevant content, may have made those stimuli more salient to the partici-
pants. Indeed, words that are generated by participants tend to be better remem-
bered than words that are provided by the experimenter (e.g., Gardiner & Hampton,
1985). Although it is possible that the process of stimulus generation facilitates
selective attention, we believe it is unlikely that our effect is due solely to this
process rather than to the content of these stimuli. First, we have found differentially
selective processing of self-generated stimuli in positive and negative mood-
induction conditions. If only the process of generating these materials, rather than
their content, affected selective attention, such differences would not be found.
Second, the repeated activation of memory traces, which results in generation effects
in memory tasks, need not necessarily result in corresponding effects in attentional
processing. Future research, employing other procedures to elicit idiographic materi-
als, might examine whether our results regarding Stroop interference depend on
the self-generation effect. Enhanced salience of idiographic materials is not unique
to the self-generation procedure. For example, rating of materials for the degree
of ‘‘disturbance’’ before performing the Stroop task is also likely to increase the
salience of those materials (e.g., McNally et al., 1994). However, replicating our
results with other elicitation procedures (e.g., rating) will reinforce the present
findings.
Finally, future research should explore mood congruence in clinical and subclin-
ical populations. So far, research has concentrated on examining clinical individuals
in their natural (i.e., anxious or dysphoric) mood. This research established that
naturally occurring negative states are associated with selective processing of nega-
tive materials. However, a comprehensive test of the mood-congruence hypothesis
Gilboa-Schechtman, Revelle, and Gotlib
Stroop Following Mood Induction
also requires a demonstration that selective attention to positive emotional material
occurs in positive affective states. Unfortunately, positive mood inductions with
clinical populations have not been conducted. Such studies would enable us to
further explore the similarities and differences between clinical and nonclinical
populations and, ultimately, to understand the nature of emotional breakdown.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research has been supported in part by grant IRI-8812699 awarded to
Andrew Ortony by the National Science Foundation, in part by Anderson Con-
sulting through Northwestern University’s Institute for the Learning Sciences, and
in part by contracts MDA903-90-C-0108 and MDA903-93-K-0008 from the U.S.
Army Research Institute awarded to William Revelle and Kristen Anderson.
We are indebted to Andrew Ortony, Susan Mineka, and Colin MacLeod for
many thoughtful comments and suggestions that greatly influenced this work.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Eva Gilboa-
Schechtman, Department of Psychology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, 52900,
Israel. E-mail: gilboae@mail.biu.ac.il.
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Gilboa-Schechtman, Revelle, and Gotlib
Emotionality, Mood Congruence, and Concern Relevance
Eva Gilboa-Schechtman,1 William Revelle,2 and Ian H. Gotlib3
Research using the emotion Stroop task has established that individuals with various
emotional disorders exhibit increased interference for stimuli specifically related to
their disorder due to the concern relevance and negativity of these stimuli.
Our
study expands this research to normal populations. We examined the influence of
emotionality, mood congruence, and concern relevance following experimental mood-
induction procedures (MIPs) on emotion Stroop performance of college students.
Participants completed a computerized emotion Stroop task following positive and
negative MIPs. Results supported the mood congruence and concern relevance but
not the emotionality hypotheses.
The implication of these findings for theories of
emotional breakdown and the importance of studying the idiographic aspects of
affective experience are discussed.
A robust finding based on the emotion Stroop effect is that individuals suffering
from an emotional disorder exhibit selective processing of stimuli that are idiosyn-
cratic to their disorder (for reviews, see Logan & Goetsch, 1993; Mathews & MacLeod
1994; Williams, Mathews, & MacLeod, 1996).
This selective processing could be at-
tributed to three distinct factors: emotionality (i.e., the ‘‘emotional impact’’ of the
stimulus, regardless of its valence), concern relevance (i.e., the association between
the stimulus and the participant’s current concerns), and mood congruence (i.e., the
concordance between a person’s affective state and the valence of the stimulus).
For
certain stimuli, all three factors coincide. For example, social phobics are likely to
perceive such stimulus words as humiliation or rejection as extremely emotional, con-
gruent with their dysphoric affect, and highly related to their current concerns.
In
contrast, other stimuli may differentiate among these factors. For instance, the words
cancer or accident, although high in emotionality and negativity, are not related to
social phobics’ concerns. Similarly, words such as acceptance, although possibly high
in emotionality and in concern relevance, are not negative.
On the basis of an extensive review of the literature on emotional Stroop and
psychopathology, Williams et al. (1996) conclude that individuals with emotional
disturbance show disproportionate color-naming interference for negative stimuli
and for stimuli related to personally relevant themes.
It seems likely that the
interference of negative materials in clinical populations (which is over and above
the interference due to these materials’ concern relevance) is due to mood-congru-
ence effects. Stroop interference in highly anxious participants is influenced by
positive as well as negative mood (Richards, French, Johnson, Naparstek, &
Williams, 1992, Experiment 2).
Combined, these findings suggest that emotion
Stroop interference in clinical and subclinical participants is mediated by mood
congruence and concern relevance, but not by emotionality.
The extent to which each of the three factors—emotionality, mood congruence,
and concern relevance—affects Stroop interference in normal populations is not
yet clear.
Williams et al. (1996) hypothesize that concern relevance but not other
factors may characterize selective processing of nonclinical populations.
Indeed,
Stroop interference with concern relevant stimuli has been found in nonclinical
populations (e.g., Giles & Cairns, 1989; Riemann & McNally, 1995). In contrast,
there are mixed findings regarding the effects of mood congruence on selective
attention to valenced stimuli in nonclinical and subclinical populations.
Whereas
some researchers observed mood-congruent effects on Stroop interference following
an experimental mood induction (e.g., Mogg, Mathews, Bird, & Macgregor-Morris,
1990, Experiment 1; Richards et al., 1992, Experiment 2), others have not (e.g.,
Gotlib & McCann, 1984, Experiment 2; Riemann & McNally, 1995).
Most of these
studies did not attempt to separate the effects of mood congruence and concern
relevance. Finally, the effect of emotionality has received little attention in the
nonclinical literature.
The goal of our study is to investigate the effects of emotionality, mood congru-
ence, and concern relevance in a nonclinical population within a unified framework.
Specifically, consistent with the findings of Richards et al. (1993), we postulated that
individuals exhibit greater Stroop interference with mood-congruent stimuli in both
negative and positive mood states than with either neutral or mood-incongruent
words.
Second, we hypothesized that words highly related to individuals’ concerns
would elicit more interference than would words with low concern relevance.
No
specific predictions were made with respect to the effects of word emotionality. Differ-
entiating among the contributions of these three factors is essential to the understand-
ing of the general mechanisms underlying the emotion Stroop effect. Furthermore,
such an investigation is also crucial to the understanding of the similarities and differ-
ences in selective attention between clinical and nonclinical individuals, and thus may
potentially elucidate cognitive processes that are specific to emotional disorders.
Gilboa-Schechtman, Revelle, and Gotlib
METHOD
Participants
Eighty-four (84) college students participated in the experiment as part of a
course requirement. Participants were run in groups of 1 to 4. The experimental
Stroop Following Mood Induction
session lasted about 50 min. Data from three participants were lost due to equip-
ment failure.
Materials
There were six types of stimuli: experimenter-provided neutral words, experi-
menter-provided positive words, experimenter-provided negative words, partici-
pant-generated words involving neutral experiences, participant-generated words
involving positive experiences, and participant-generated words involving negative
experiences. Experimenter-provided neutral words were global, metric, tangible,
verbal, genetic, and temporal. Experimenter-provided negative words were hurt,
upset, lonely, depressed, helpless, and miserable. Experimenter-provided positive
words were excited, friendly, cheerful, joyful, tender, and carefree. The positive and
negative emotion words were equated for frequency, length, and emotionality based
on John’s (1988) ratings. Participant-generated words included personal ‘‘codes’’
related to a particular neutral, positive, or negative experience. For example, a
participant might provide the words message, physics, professor, and Tuesday as
his or her ‘‘codes’’ for a neutral experience.
Procedure
Participants were told that the experiment was designed to test the effects of
mood on simple cognitive processing. The stimuli and the instructions were pre-
sented on an Apple Macintosh IIci computer with a color monitor. The controlling
software handled the mood-induction procedure (MIP) and stimuli presentation.
It also recorded participants’ mood ratings and their reaction times (RTs) to
Stroop stimuli.
Introductory Phase
Participants were asked to recall a neutral, positive, and negative experiences
and provide four ‘‘key words’’ for these experiences. The order of recall of positive
and negative experiences was counterbalanced across participants. Next, partici-
pants practiced the Stroop task by identifying the color of a single stimulus (the
word practice) by pressing an appropriately labeled key. After reaching a criterion
performance level on this task,4 participants proceeded to the first mood-induction
phase: negative mood induction in the NP condition and positive mood induction
in the PN condition.
4
Criterion performance was defined as a sequence of 10 consecutive error-free trials, with the difference
between the mean time to respond to the preceding 10 trials and the mean of 10 final trials being no
more than 10%. The minimum number of trials (regardless of performance) was 40, and the maximum
number of trials was 100.
5
Other data-reduction strategies (such as eliminating response latencies 2 SD above each participant’s
mean) produced essentially identical results.
6
Analyses using the overall mood ratings are presented for the sake of simplicity. For both experiments,
analyses using individual mood scales produced essentially identical results.
494
Gilboa-Schechtman, Revelle, and Gotlib
Experimental Phase
The experimental phases consisted of three steps: mood induction, mood rating,
and the Stroop task. During the mood-induction procedure, participants were first
instructed to reexperience sad/happy events using ‘‘relive’’ instructions adapted
from Salovey (1992). Next, participants concentrated on their feelings while listening
to music. An excerpt from Beethoven’s string quartet op. 131 was played for the
negative MIP. An excerpt from Vivaldi’s ‘‘Spring’’ concerto of the ‘‘Four Seasons,’’
op. 12, was played for the positive MIP. The concentration step lasted about 1 min.
Finally, before proceeding to the Stroop task, participants rated their current mood
on six unipolar (sad, frustrated, anxious, happy, content, and optimistic) and one
bipolar (overall) visual analog scales. The unipolar scales were anchored with not
at all (coded as intensity rating of 0) and extremely (coded as intensity rating of
100). The overall scale was anchored with very positive (coded as intensity rating
50) and very negative (coded as intensity rating of 50).
During the Stroop task, participants were presented with 150 stimuli. The
intertrial interval was 2 sec.
The stimuli for this task were six words from each of
the experimenter-provided categories and four words from each of the participant-
generated categories. Participants saw five presentations of each word from this
30-word stimulus list, resulting in a total of 150 presentations. The order of presenta-
tion and the color of stimuli were randomly determined for each participant subject
to the constraint that no two consecutive words were displayed in the same color.
Following the completion of the Stroop task, participants rated their moods.
Between the two experimental phases, participants completed a 5-min long
filler task evaluating the computer program they were using.
This filler task was
intended to ensure that the effects of the first MIP would dissipate before the
beginning of the second MIP. After the completion of the filler task, participants
proceeded to the next experimental phase. Apart from the valence of the mood
induced (positive in the NP condition, negative in the PN condition), the structure
of the second experimental phase was identical to that of the first. Specifically, after
completing an MIP, participants rated their mood and performed the Stroop task.
Neutralizing Phase
In order to stabilize participants’ mood before the end of the experiment,
participants were asked to relive the previously recalled neutral experience. Their
mood ratings after the completion of the neutral MIP were taken to represent their
baseline mood. Finally, the participants were debriefed and thanked for their partici-
pation.
RESULTS
Data Analysis
Trials involving incorrect key pressing or extreme scores [i.e., response time
(RT) longer than 2500 ms or shorter than 333 ms] were eliminated from further
Stroop Following Mood Induction
analyses. Excluded responses occurred on 5% of the trials, and their number did
not differ as a function of word type.
Efficacy of MIPs
To determine the efficacy of the positive and negative MIPs, participants’
overall mood rating were analyzed using two separate two-way ANOVAs. We
computed mood change scores as the differences between participants’ overall
mood ratings after an induction and their mood ratings at baseline (i.e., after the
neutral MIP). Mean negative and positive change scores were 12.3 (SD 18.1)
and 22.5 (SD 19.4), respectively. Absolute change scores were analyzed using a
three-way ANOVA, with order of recall (NP vs. PN) and order of MIP (NP vs.
PN) as between-subjects factors and valence of MIP as a within-subject factor. No
effects or interactions involving either order of recall or order of MIP were found.
Test of simple effects indicated that both negative and positive change scores
38.4, p
.001, and F(1,79)
102.7,
differed significantly from zero (F(1,79)
p .001, respectively). The positive MIP produced greater changes in self-ratings
than did the negative MIP, F(1,79) 8.9, p .05. To ensure that the PN and the
NP groups did not differ in the baseline mood scores, we examined overall baseline
mood scores. Mean baseline scores of the PN and NP groups were 5.7 (SD
14.7) and 4.6 (SD 11.3), respectively. A one-way ANOVA on baseline overall
mood ratings was conducted. No differences between the groups’ baseline moods
was revealed, F(1,79) 1.
Mood Congruence, Concern Relevance, and Emotionality Effects
Table I presents the means and standard deviations of RTs to different stimulus
types in the positive and negative experimental conditions.
Preliminary analyses of reaction times were conducted with order of emotional
experience recall (PN vs. NP) as a between-subjects variable and word frequencies
and word length as covariates. No main effects or interactions involving any of
these variables were detected in these analyses, nor did they qualitatively modify
any other main effect or interaction. Therefore, these variables were omitted from
the final analyses.
A potential problem in using participant-generated vs. experimenter-provided
Table I. Means and Standard Deviations of Response Latencies for Stimulus Identification
Condition
Negative
Positive
Note: N
80. Standard deviations (in milliseconds) are shown in parentheses.
Experimenter
Neutral
Negative
772
(127)
747
(105)
Positive
806
(142)
748
(108)
Stimulus origin
Neutral
786
(135)
763
(110)
796
(130)
759
(119)
Participant
Negative
812
(150)
756
(122)
496
materials is that these two sets of stimuli might differ on several lexical dimensions,
such as word length, word frequency, and so on. To assess whether these differences
in lexical properties influenced RT, we conducted several regression analyses. For
each valence category (i.e., positive, negative, and neutral), we regressed the mean
RT to participant-generated words (predicted variable) on three predictors: the RT
to experimenter-generated words, the mean frequency ratings of this participant-gen-
erated category (computed using Francis & Kucera, 1982, norms), and the mean word
length measures of this participant-generated category. For example, the RT to neu-
tral participant-generated words was regressed on the RT to neutral experimenter-
provided words, mean frequency ratings of the neutral key words provided by this
participant, and mean word length of these neutral key words. None of the partial
correlations between RT to participant-generated words and word frequency ratings
or word length measures approached significance (all ps 0.3). These analyses sug-
gest that differences in lexical properties between stimulus sets did not exert signifi-
cant influences on reaction time. It is important to note that this conclusion is in line
with the results of all past investigations regarding the effects of lexical properties on
emotion Stroop RTs: neither word length nor word frequency accounted for Stroop
interference effect with personally relevant words (e.g., Riemann, Amir, & Luoro,
1994; Riemann & McNally, 1995; Williams et al., 1996).
To examine concern relevance, emotionality, and mood-congruence hypothe-
ses, mean RTs were analyzed using a four-way ANOVA, with order of MIP (PN
vs. NP) as a between-subjects variable, and mood-induction valence (negative vs.
positive), word origin (participant vs. experimenter), and word valence (neutral,
mood congruent, or mood incongruent) as within-subject variables. There was no
main effect of order, F(1,79)
1.18, n.s. As expected, there was a time effect as
indicated in this analysis by a significant MIP Order interaction, F(1,79) 20.8,
p .001. This effect indicated that participants’ RTs were longer in the first mood-
induction condition than they were in the second mood-induction condition (mean
RTs for the first and second MIPs were 800.1 and 751.2, respectively). No other
significant interactions involving Order emerged from these analyses (all ps 0.1).
A significant effect of MIP was revealed, such that participants’ RTs in the
negative condition were significantly longer than were their RTs in the positive
condition (mean RTs in the negative condition
793.9 and positive condi-
tion
759.2, F(1,79)
9.6, p
.01).
A main effect of Origin indicated that participant-generated words elicited
significantly more interference than did words provided by the experimenter,
F(1,79)
19.9, p
.001. There was a significant effect of word Valence,
F(2,158)
3.14, p
.05. Two planned comparisons were conducted to clarify
this effect. The first indicated that mood-incongruent words did not elicit more
interference than did neutral words, F 1. The second planned comparison indi-
cated that mood-congruent words elicited more interference than did neutral words,
F(1,79)
11.0, p
.001. There was a significant MIP
Valence interaction,
F(2,158)
8.4, p
.001. A planned comparison indicated that, in the negative
MIP, participants’ RTs to negative words were longer than they were to positive
words, whereas this pattern was reversed in the positive MIP, F(1,79)
12.1,
p .01. There were no other significant interactions.
Gilboa-Schechtman, Revelle, and Gotlib
Stroop Following Mood Induction
To examine whether the main effects of Valence and Origin were significant
in the negative and positive mood-induction conditions, we conducted separate
three-way ANOVAs for each of these conditions. In each ANOVA, order of MIP
(PN vs. NP) was a between-subjects variable, and word origin (participant vs.
experimenter) and word valence (neutral, mood congruent, or mood incongruent)
were within-subject variables.
In the analysis of RTs in the negative condition no main effect of Order was
identified, F
1. There were no other interactions involving Order (all ps
.2).
There was a significant effect of word Valence, F(2,158)
7.7, p
.05. Planned
comparisons indicated that negative words elicited more interference than did
neutral or positive words among experimenter-provided words (t(79)
3.9; p
.01; t(79)
2.8, p
.05, respectively). Identical pattern was observed among
participant-generated words (t(79) 2.1, p .05; p(80) 1.95; p .05, respectively).
A main effect of Origin F(1,79)
15.6, p
.05 as found. RTs to participant
generated words were longer than to experimenter provided words. This effect was
modified by a significant Origin
Valence interaction, F(2,158)
4.7, p
.05.
Post-hoc comparisons indicated that the effect of word origin was greater for the
neutral words than for negative or positive words (F(1,79)
4.75, p
.05; and
F(1,79) 9.4, respectively).
In the analysis of RTs in the positive condition a main effect of Order was
identified, F(1,79) 9.8, p .001. RTs in the NP condition were faster than RTs
in the PN condition. There were no other interactions involving Order (all ps
.2). A main effect of Origin F(1,79) 8.5, p .05 was found. RTs to participant-
generated words were longer than to experimenter-provided words. There was a
significant effect of word Valence, F(2,158)
3.5, p
.05. Planned comparisons
indicated that positive words elicited more interference than neutral or negative
words among experimenter-provided words (t(79) 2.8; p .05; t(79) 2.0, p
.05, respectively). No such differences were observed among participant-generated
words (all ps .2). There was no significant Origin Valence interaction, F 1.
DISCUSSION
We investigated the effects of mood congruence, concern relevance, and emo-
tionality on Stroop interference following experimentally induced positive and nega-
tive moods in a nonclinical population. Our results support the mood-congruence
and the concern-relevance hypotheses, but not the emotionality hypothesis. First,
consistent with the mood-congruence hypothesis, we found that interference effects
in the negative condition were specific to negative-emotion words, and that interfer-
ence effects in the positive condition were specific to the positive-emotion words.
Our results are consistent with those reported by Richards et al. (1992) in demonstra-
ting that both positive and negative affective states increase the selective processing
of mood-congruent materials. Second, words generated by the participants elicited
more interference than did experimenter-provided materials, supporting the con-
cern-relevance hypothesis. It is important to note that this effect was not due to
lexical differences between the two stimulus sets. We concur, therefore, with
498
Mathews and Klug (1993), who state that judgments of personal emotional relevance
are stronger predictors of interference than are judgments of emotionality per se.
Finally, inconsistent with the emotionality hypothesis, mood-incongruent words,
although as ‘‘emotional’’ as mood-congruent ones, did not elicit interference com-
pared to neutral words. In contrast, mood-congruent words elicited significantly
more interference than did neutral words. It is possible that previous research that
identified emotionality effects (e.g., Martin, Williams, & Clark, 1991) confounded
the effects of emotionality with the effects of concern relevance.
Nonclinical individuals’ pattern of selective attention seems to parallel that of
high-trait anxious, clinically anxious, and clinically depressed individuals (Williams
et al., 1996). Combined, these data suggest that, for all populations, concern rele-
vance and mood congruence contribute independently to Stroop interference,
whereas emotionality does not. If so, what distinguishes clinical from nonclinical
processing of valenced stimuli? One possibility is that the difference is merely
quantitative. Indeed, the effect sizes in studies with clinical participants are greater
than the effect sizes in our study (see Williams et al., 1996). Alternatively, it is
possible that the differences between clinical and nonclinical individuals manifest
themselves in the strategies they use to cope with their cognitive interference
rather than in the interference itself. Individuals with clinically significant emotional
problems may not be able to inhibit such interference, whereas nonclinical individu-
als may be able to override it (Gotlib, Roberts, & Gilboa, 1996).
Our findings suggest several explanations for the inconsistent pattern of results
regarding the mood-congruence hypothesis using the emotional Stroop task. First,
the specifics of the mood-induction procedures might affect the strength of Stroop
interference. Bower (1987) suggests that the induction of ‘‘weak, temporary and
nonspecific moods of happiness and sadness in the laboratory have not primed
perceptual processing of the general class of positive and negative words, respec-
tively’’ (p. 448), and argues further that to obtain a mood-congruence effect, the
priming may have to point to a more specific set of words and emotional themes.
Consistent with Bower’s hypothesis, ‘‘focused’’ affective states (e.g., those induced
by autobiographic MIPs) may be more likely to be associated with Stroop interfer-
ence than ‘‘diffused’’ inductions (e.g., Velten MIP). Indeed, Niedenthal, Haberstadt,
and Setterlund (1997) found that focused emotional states affect lexical decisions
and word-naming latencies of emotion-congruent words.
Mood congruence is a well-recognized phenomenon with respect to memory and
judgment processes. Researchers have consistently found enhanced memory for
mood-congruent materials in nonclinical individuals (Blaney, 1986; Matt, Vazquez, &
Campbell, 1992). Similarly, research on judgment processes suggests that experimen-
tally induced moods affect participants’ judgments of a variety of real and hypothetical
events (for a review, see Gotlib, Gilboa, & Sommerfield, in press). However, mood
congruence is less well established with respect to attention. Thus far, the association
between attention and mood has been limited to negative affective states, especially
anxiety (e.g., Mathews & MacLeod, 1994). Moreover, studies attempting to obtain
mood-congruence effects in attentional tasks with a wider range of affective states
(typically sadness and happiness) yield an inconsistent pattern of findings (e.g., Chal-
lis & Krane, 1988; Clark, Teasdale, Broadbent, & Martin, 1983).
Gilboa-Schechtman, Revelle, and Gotlib
Stroop Following Mood Induction
Our findings using the emotion Stroop task suggest that mood congruence may
extend to attentional processes as well. However, it is frequently argued that this
task is not a pure measure of attention (e.g., MacLeod & Mathews, 1988; Mathews &
MacLeod, 1985). In particular, a Stroop task in which the stimuli are presented in
a ‘‘blocked’’ format (i.e., the stimuli are grouped by word type, such that, for
example, all negative words are presented in succession) may not provide a ‘‘pure’’
measure of attention because the post-attentional rumination about a negatively
valenced word might delay the color naming of the next word (e.g., McNally,
Riemann, & Kim, 1990). It is important to note that our Stroop task involved a
random rather than a blocked presentation of the Stroop stimuli, making the Stroop
interference index less likely to be contaminated by post-attentional processing.
Thus, our results, combined with those of Richards et al. (1992) and Niedenthal et
al. (1997), suggest that mood affects attentional processes in negative (e.g., anxious
and sad) as well as positive affective states (see also Williams et al., 1996). Therefore,
consistent with Beck’s (1976) and Bower’s (1981) theories of the relation between
affect and cognition, the effects of mood on cognitive processes extend beyond
memory and judgment to attentional processes.
LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS
The present research examined parameters affecting selective processing of
valenced information, using laboratory-induced positive and negative affective
states. Obviously, experimental mood induction enlists participants’ cooperation in
modifying their affective states and therefore creates demand characteristics. Might
the participants be consciously attending to critical words in order to please the
experimenter, rather than responding ‘‘naturally’’? We think this is unlikely for
two reasons. First, both musical MIPs and autobiographic MIPs were found to be
effective in influencing objective (e.g., reaction time) as well as subjective (e.g.,
mood rating) measures (e.g., Niedenthal et al., 1997; Salovey, 1992). In addition,
reviews of the mood-induction literature suggest that MIPs affect a variety of
cognitive, physiological, and psychomotor measures (e.g., Larsen & Sinnett, 1991;
Gerrards-Hesse, Spies, & Hesse, 1994). For example, Neidenthal et al. (1997, Experi-
ment 3) found that emotional state influenced attentional processes using lexical
decision and word-naming tasks. Second, although demand characteristics for clini-
cal subjects with their disorder-relevant words should be no less obvious than the
demand characteristics after MIPs, studies using subliminal Stroop found that the
pattern of interference with subliminally presented words resembled the pattern
of interference with superliminal stimuli (MacLeod & Rutherford, 1992; Williams
et al., 1996). Therefore, it seems unlikely that emotional Stroop interference in
our study depends on participants’ conscious decisions to attend more to mood-
congruent stimuli. However, it will be important to replicate these findings using
techniques in which the demand characteristics are less salient (e.g., film clips,
as in Gross & Levenson, 1995; or naturally occurring affective states) and other
cognitive measures.
In our discussion, we emphasize the effects of mood on the selective processing
500
of valenced information. Yet it is also possible that the observed selective processing
can be partially accounted for by the effects of cognitive priming independent of
mood. According to the cognitive-priming hypothesis, mood congruence is associ-
ated with the cognitive activation of affective concepts, rather than with the effect
of mood per se (e.g., Rholes, Riskind, & Lane, 1987). Although in our experiment
cognitive priming does contribute to selective processing of emotion-related materi-
als, affect-free cognition is unlikely to be the sole cause of this selectivity. First,
we found that participants selectively processed mood-congruent experimenter-
provided words, which were not part of the participants’ recollected events. Experi-
menter-provided words, not being part of the autobiographic memories retrieved
by the participants, are related to these memories primarily through affective associ-
ations. Second, the effects of cognitive priming typically dissipate within seconds
(e.g., Fischler & Goodman, 1978), whereas the selective-processing effects observed
in our studies persisted for minutes. These arguments notwithstanding, our results
are unlikely to resolve the debate about cognitive vs. affective priming, partly
because emotional effects and cognitive priming of emotion-relevant materials are
not easily separable. To fully disentangle the effects of cognitive and emotional
priming, future research might attempt to examine the effects of recollection per
se (without the emotional reexperience) on selective processing.
In interpreting our findings, we assumed that interference with participant-
generated stimuli is due to the relevance of these stimuli to participants’ personal
concerns. However, the process of generating these materials, rather than their
concern-relevant content, may have made those stimuli more salient to the partici-
pants. Indeed, words that are generated by participants tend to be better remem-
bered than words that are provided by the experimenter (e.g., Gardiner & Hampton,
1985). Although it is possible that the process of stimulus generation facilitates
selective attention, we believe it is unlikely that our effect is due solely to this
process rather than to the content of these stimuli. First, we have found differentially
selective processing of self-generated stimuli in positive and negative mood-
induction conditions. If only the process of generating these materials, rather than
their content, affected selective attention, such differences would not be found.
Second, the repeated activation of memory traces, which results in generation effects
in memory tasks, need not necessarily result in corresponding effects in attentional
processing. Future research, employing other procedures to elicit idiographic materi-
als, might examine whether our results regarding Stroop interference depend on
the self-generation effect. Enhanced salience of idiographic materials is not unique
to the self-generation procedure. For example, rating of materials for the degree
of ‘‘disturbance’’ before performing the Stroop task is also likely to increase the
salience of those materials (e.g., McNally et al., 1994). However, replicating our
results with other elicitation procedures (e.g., rating) will reinforce the present
findings.
Finally, future research should explore mood congruence in clinical and subclin-
ical populations. So far, research has concentrated on examining clinical individuals
in their natural (i.e., anxious or dysphoric) mood. This research established that
naturally occurring negative states are associated with selective processing of nega-
tive materials. However, a comprehensive test of the mood-congruence hypothesis
Gilboa-Schechtman, Revelle, and Gotlib
Stroop Following Mood Induction
also requires a demonstration that selective attention to positive emotional material
occurs in positive affective states. Unfortunately, positive mood inductions with
clinical populations have not been conducted. Such studies would enable us to
further explore the similarities and differences between clinical and nonclinical
populations and, ultimately, to understand the nature of emotional breakdown.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research has been supported in part by grant IRI-8812699 awarded to
Andrew Ortony by the National Science Foundation, in part by Anderson Con-
sulting through Northwestern University’s Institute for the Learning Sciences, and
in part by contracts MDA903-90-C-0108 and MDA903-93-K-0008 from the U.S.
Army Research Institute awarded to William Revelle and Kristen Anderson.
We are indebted to Andrew Ortony, Susan Mineka, and Colin MacLeod for
many thoughtful comments and suggestions that greatly influenced this work.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Eva Gilboa-
Schechtman, Department of Psychology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, 52900,
Israel. E-mail: gilboae@mail.biu.ac.il.
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