Mangalam Verse 1

Sep 6, 2026 · Spirituality/Ramana Maharshi/Translations/Ulladu Narpadu · 19 min read

Translated Verse

Other than that which exists, could awareness of being exist? Since the reality of being exists in the Heart without thought, how can it be thought of? Being in the heart as it is - this alone is contemplation of it. Know this.

Let's try to understand the above translation in smaller chunks to get the bigger picture of what Sri Ramana is conveying

1. Other than that which exists, could awareness of being exist?: Supporting Article

Let us consider our own experience: When we wake from sleep, awareness of the body, thoughts and world appears, but underlying all of these is the more fundamental fact that "I AM", "I Exist". Supporting Article
1. By "I AM", what is meant here is not the thought "I am this body", "I am awake," or any other description that we attach to ourselves. It is the simple, non-verbal awareness of our existence before any qualification is added to it. It is the basic certainty that we are.
2. Before we can know "I am lying on a bed", "Where am I?", "I see a room" or "the world exists", there must already be this more fundamental self-awareness that we ourselves exist.
3. This does not mean that we first experience "I AM" and then, a moment later, experience everything else.
4. Rather, it means that every other experience is possible only because we already are and we are aware of being.
5. Unless we are, and unless our being is in some way self-evident to us, no experience, thought, perception, memory or knowledge could appear to us at all.
6. Hence, Sri Ramana is bringing to our notice that our fundamental being and our awareness of being are not two separate things. Supporting Article
Check this from your own experience. Could you be aware of anything whatsoever without yourself existing? No. Supporting Article
1. The very presence of awareness already implies its existence as being present, because an awareness that is present necessarily exists.
2. Likewise, according to Sri Ramana, our actual being cannot be separated from awareness of being. Our being is inherently self-aware. Supporting Article
3. Even when awareness of thoughts, the body and the world disappears, as in deep sleep, our fundamental being does not become non-existent. Supporting Article 1 Supporting Article 2
4. What disappears is only awareness of objects. In deep sleep, awareness of all objects disappears, but our being does not disappear.
5. On waking, we know that we slept and that during sleep, we were aware of none of the objects that appear in waking or dream.
6. Sri Ramana therefore distinguishes the absence of objective awareness from the absence of awareness itself.
Sri Ramana is therefore not presenting existence and awareness as two separate things that merely depend upon each other. Rather, he is asking us to examine whether, at the level of of our fundamental being, they can really be separated at all.
1. If there is awareness, that awareness must itself exist. Something completely non-existent cannot constitute a present awareness.
2. But this alone does not logically mean that every thing that appears to exist must individually be self-aware. Sri Ramana is speaking specifically about the fundamental reality of our being.
3. In the case of our being, we do not know our existence through some second awareness standing apart from us and informing us that we exist. Our existence is immediately self-evident as "I AM".
4. Therefore, the awareness by which we know "I AM" is not experienced as something separate from the being that it knows.
5. Sri Ramana is pointing instead to a reality in which the fundamental being and awareness are one and the same. Supporting Article
6. The awareness "I AM" is therefore not something added on top of our existence, as though we first exist and then acquire awareness of that existence.
7. Our very being is naturally self-aware. In other words, we do not need another thought or another act of knowing in order to know that we are. The simple fact of being is itself self-evident as "I AM".
In other words, could there be awareness that "I AM" if there were no being or existence in the first place? No.
1. Unless we actually are, there could be no awareness that we are.
2. But, Sri Ramana's point goes further than merely saying that awareness depends upon existence. The being that exists and the awareness by which that being knows itself are not two separate realities.
3. Our fundamental being is itself self-aware.
Hence Being = Awareness, or more precisely, the fundamental reality that actually exists is purely self-aware, it is pure self-awareness.

2. Since the reality of being exists in the Heart without thought, how can it be thought of?

Here, Heart doesn't mean the physical heart, but instead means the inner core of our being, our real nature. Supporting Article
1. Sri Ramana is pointing out that reality of our being is devoid of thoughts.
2. It needs no thoughts to establish its existence. We do not need to think "I exist" in order to exist, nor do we need that thought for our existence to be fundamentally self-evident to us.
3. It exists irrespective of the presence or absence of thoughts. Thoughts appear or disappear, whereas our fundamental being remains.
4. Hence thought is something that appears in our being, rather than something that produces, creates or sustains our being. Supporting Article
5. Our real nature, the Heart, is not an object that can be grasped as something other than us, because it is the innermost reality of our being from which the ego, thoughts and all objective experience arise. Strictly speaking, it is the ego or mind that knows objects, thoughts and experiences, whereas the Heart, our real nature, is pure self-awareness, aware only of itself.
6. In other words, the Heart here refers to our real nature, the fundamental self-aware being "I AM", and not to any physical location within the body.
7. Sri Ramana did speak sometimes about a point on the right side of the chest in other contexts, but that is not what "Heart" means in this verse. Here, Heart means the reality of our own being itself.
8. Therefore, when Sri Ramana says that the reality of being "exists in the Heart", he is not saying that one thing called reality is located inside another thing called the Heart. The reality of being itself is what he calls the Heart.
That inner reality which is not an object of experience standing apart from us. Rather it is the self-aware and self-existent reality from which the ego, mind and all objective experience arise. The ego is what subsequently experiences thoughts and objects as something other than itself. How could that fundamental reality, which exists prior to this subject-object division, be revealed as it actually is through the limited nature of thought?
1. Every ordinary thought has some content. We think about a person, place, memory, feeling, body, world, or even about ourselves as a person.
2. Therefore, thought normally works by creating a distinction between the one who thinks and whatever is being thought about: "I am thinking about that".
3. Even when we form a thought such as "I AM", the words and mental idea "I AM" are themselves only thoughts. They are not the actual non-verbal awareness of being to which those words point.
4. Thoughts arise, remain for some time and disappear. One thought replaces another thought. When thought represents something, it does so through distinctions such as what it is, where it is, when it is, what characteristics it has and how it differes from something else.
5. The reality of being, named here as Heart is not something that arises when a thought arises and disappears when that thought disappears.
6. Therefore, no thought can contain or represent that reality exactly as it is. Any thought about the reality is only a concept or mental representation of it.
7. This is particularly important because the reality we are trying to know is not something standing outside us. It is what we ourselves actually are.
8. So, the problem is not merely that thought is too week or limited to understand the Heart. The deeper problem is that the thought can operate only within the subject-object structure created by the ego. It attempts to make into an object that which is actually prior to both the ego-subject and the objects known by it. The Heart is not another subject standing behind the ego and observing thoughts. It is the fundamental self-aware reality from which the ego, thoughts and all objective experience arise
9. This can be examined from our own experience:
  1. While awake, we are aware of our own being amidst the varied transactional experiences of life. Body, world, perceptions, feelings, and thoughts are constantly changing, but throughout them there is the underlying awareness that "I AM". We assume a role as a person with whom the world transacts.
  2. While dreaming, the waking body and waking world disappear and another body and another world appear. Yet even there, the basic awareness "I AM" is present. We assume a role within the dream with whom the other dream characters and events transact.
  3. In deep sleep, even this awareness of a body, world, thoughts, perceptions, feelings, and other objects disappear. There is not even the thought "I AM" or "I exist".
  4. Nevertheless, according to Sri Ramana, what is absent in deep sleep is awareness of objects, not our fundamental being-awareness itself. We do not cease to be when thoughts cease.
  5. On waking, we naturally recognize that we slept and that during that state none of the objects experienced in waking or dream were present to us. Sri Ramana uses deep sleep to help us distinguish fundamental self-awareness from awareness of thoughts, body and the world.
  6. Therefore waking, dream and deep sleep differ radically in what appears to us, but the fundamental reality of our being does not come and go along with those appearances.
  7. Thoughts belong to the changing contents of experience. Our fundamental being is that which remains whether those contents appear or disappear.
  8. Therefore the existence of our real being cannot depend upon thought, because thought itself appears only intermittently.
10. Hence, how can that which exists without thought be revealed as it actually is by thought?
  1. A thought can only give us an idea about the reality of being. The idea is not the reality itself.
  2. For example, thinking repeatedly "I am pure awareness" is still a thought. The statement may correctly describe the teaching, but the thought itself is not the pure awareness that it describes.
  3. Likewise, creating a mental image of the Heart, locating it somewhere in the body, or intellectually defining it cannot reveal it as it actually is, because all of these are objects appearing within awareness.
  4. According to Sri Ramana, the thinker itself is the ego, whose fundamental form is the identification "I am this body". Therefore, the instrument trying to grasp the Heart through thought is itself something that arisen from the Heart. Supporting Article
  5. So, Sri Ramana is directing us back from thoughts towards that from which thoughts arise and in which they appear.
  6. The Heart does not need to be produced, imagined, intellectually constructed or discovered somewhere. It is already present as our own fundamental being-awareness.
  7. Therefore, the question "How can it be thought of?" prepares us for the answer in the final part of the verse: it cannot truly be known by making it an object of thought. It can be known only by being as it is.
  8. Sri Ramana is helping us see that beyond thoughts and beyond every attempt to grasp reality as an object, the true reality already exists as the the innermost core of our being, which he calls the Heart.

3. Being in the heart as it is - this alone is contemplation of it. Know this.

Any thinking, description, definition or pointing about the reality can only point towards the reality. The description itself can never be the reality that it is trying to describe.
1. For example, the words "I AM" can point towards our being, but those words themselves are only a thought. Our actual awareness that we are exists without mentally repeating the words "I AM". Supporting Article
2. Hence, whatever we think or say about our reality is necessarily only a representation or pointer towards it, and not the reality itself.
The nature of thought, when it tries to know, define, describe something, is to distinguish that thing from something else.
1. In simpler terms, thought gives an identity to something by placing certain boundaries or distinguishing characteristics around it such as where it is, when it is, what it is, what characteristics it has and how it differs from something else. And, then, these distinctions are then used as the defining representation of that object.
2. For example, when we think this is a tree, thought identifies it as something located here rather than there, existing now rather than at some other time, and having certain unique features that distinguish it from a rock, person or something else. Thought therefore knows the tree through these boundaries, characteristics and distinctions. It forms a representation of the tree by distinguishing "this" from "that".
3. But, can our inner reality be known in the same way? Can any such boundary actually be given to our fundamental reality? Is there a point in space where our awareness begins and another where it ends? Is there a particular thought, sensation or experience that completely defines what we are? Have we ever directly experienced our own non-existence? Can our fundamental reality ever stand before us as another object of experience in the same way that a tree, body, thought or sensation does?
4. Hence, thoughts work well in objective experience because objects can be distinguished, described and represented through their characteristics. But when we turn thought towards the subject itself, thought again tries to apply the same mechanism. It attempts to give the subject a definition, quality, boundary or representation. In doing so, it ends up degrading the subject to another object. What it produces is no longer the actual subject, but another object appearing to the subject.
5. Hence, how can the subject be known by thought? Thought is an extremely useful instrument for knowing and dealing with the objects of the world, but it is the wrong instrument for knowing our real nature as it actually is. The very nature of thought is to objectify, to turn something into "this" or "that" and distinguish it from something else. But even the distinction between a subject that knows and an object that is known belongs to the ego and mind. Our real nature is prior to this entire subject-object distinction. If thought attempts to know it,what thought knows can therefore only be an idea of representation of it, not the reality itself.
This brings us to the apparent paradox in Sri Ramana's statement. Sri Ramana first says that the reality of being exists without thought and asks, "How can it be thought of?" Yet immediately afterwards, Sri Ramana says that being in the Heart as it is alone is contemplation of it.
1. Sri Ramana is not saying that ordinary thinking and Being are the same thing.
2. Rather, Sri Ramana is showing that when the reality to be contemplated is our own being, ordinary contemplation through thought cannot reach it, because thought would immediately make it into an object.
3. Therefore, in this special case, true contemplation cannot consist in forming a thought about the reality.
4. Since we ourselves are the reality that is to be known, true contemplation of it must ultimately mean being it rather than thinking about it.
5. This is why the word "alone" is important. Being in the Heart as it actually is alone is true contemplation because every other attempt thinking about it, defining it, imagining it, visualizing it or representing it, still leaves a distinction between the one contemplating and what is contemplated.
6. Sri Ramana therefore chose a word that can mean thinking, meditating or contemplating and turns it back towards its source: this highest contemplation of Being is simply Being.
Hence, the deeper understanding of how to know our reality is to simply Be.
1. This does not mean that we must create a new state called "Being". Being is already what we are.
2. In its final sense, this simple abiding as our Being is not another mental act or activity, but a non-action or non movement of attention towards the objects. Supporting Article
3. However, so long as our attention habitually moves towards thoughts and objects, there appears to be an effort involved in turning it back towards ourselves. Therefore, at the level of practice, self-attention may involve effort. What is not produced by that effort is the Being towards which attention turns. Supporting Article
4. The abidance can therefore be understood as a kind of non-grasping attention: instead of grasping one object after another, attention turns back towards and rests at the source.
5. This is about the attention naturally resting in its source without being swayed by anything that is not the subject.
  1. So long as our attention habitually moves towards objects, there appears to be an effort involved in turning it back towards ourselves. But the reality towards which attention turns is not something newly produced by that effort. It is the ever-present being-awareness that we already are.
  2. Therefore, this can be understood as attention ceasing to move away from its source towards things known by it and resting in its own source, the fundamental awareness "I AM".
Thoughts, in comparison gain strength, continuity and seeming reality when attention grasps them. Supporting Article
1. They arise as waves, one thought after another. One thought arises, our attention follows it, another arises, and attention follows that.
2. By repeatedly attending to thoughts, we nourish and sustain our involvement with them.
3. When attention instead remains with our own being, thoughts are deprived of the attention by which they are sustained consequently subside.
4. Therefore, the practice is not to fight, suppress or forcibly destroy individual thoughts, but to cease feeding them by repeatedly turning attention back towards the one to whom they appear.
Likewise, our experience of the world consists of attention continually going towards sights, sounds, feelings, sensations and all the other objects presented through the 5 senses and mind.
But to whom are all these thoughts and experiences appearing? Who knows, "I am thinking", "I am seeing", "I am experiencing"?
Instead of continuously following what is known, Sri Ramana turns our attention towards the one to whom all of it is known.
1. Firstly, when a thought or experience appears, instead of becoming completely absorbed in it, attention is turned towards the "I" to whom it appears.
2. Secondly, instead of then forming another thought about this "I", attention remains with the immediate self-awareness "I AM".
3. When attention no longer runs outward after thoughts and objects but remains with its own source, what remains increasingly clear is the simple self-awareness "I AM".
Even here, the source should not ultimately be imagined as one thing and attention as another thing travelling towards it.
1. Such language is useful only for explaining the practice because, while we experience ourselves as ego, there appears to be an attention that can either move towards objects or turn towards itself.
2. But when attention rests completely in its source, there is no separation between the one attending, the act of attending and the reality being attended to. There is simply Being.
Sri Ramana therefore says, "Being in the Heart as it is - this alone is contemplation of it".
1. The highest form of contemplating this reality is not forming a thought about it, but being as that thought-free self-aware reality itself.
2. "Being in the Heart" means remaining within oneself without rising outward as the ego towards thoughts and objects. Supporting Article
3. "As it is" means remaining as the pure awareness of being without adding qualifications such as "I am this body", "I am so and so" etc.
4. "Alone" excludes every attempt to know the reality by making it into something other than ourselves. If it is what we actually are, being it is ultimately the only way of knowing it as it actually is.
5. "Contemplation of it" therefore does not mean simply dwelling about the Self. At the level of practice, it means inwardly attending to our own being. At its culmination, even the apparent distinction between attention, the one attending and the Being attended to disappears.
This should not be confused with deliberately creating a blank mind or forcibly suppressing thoughts. Supporting Article
1. A blank state would itself be another state that appears and disappears.
2. The aim is therefore not merely absence of thoughts, but clear self- attentiveness to that which is present whether thoughts appear or disappear.
3. Thoughts subside as a consequence of attention remaining with its source. Their absence is not itself the final objective.
That contemplation means inwardly attending to our being until there is no distinction between the one attending and the being attended to.
Hence, Being in the Heart as it is also implies not rising outward as the Ego towards thoughts and objects. The points related to ego will be explained much more explicitly in later verses.