What’s New

Since its launch in December 2006, the major changes and new additions to this website are, in reverse chronological order, as follows:

1. 31st March 2012: The following changes and additions were made:
   • The Happiness and the Art of Being page was updated with information about the new second print editions and Kindle edition of it, and the fourth PDF edition of it was added.
   • The Site Map was also updated accordingly.
   • On the Nāṉ Yār? (Who am I?) page the phrase ‘To the extent possible’ (which had previously been ommitted by mistake) was added to the translation of the third last sentence of the nineteenth paragraph.


2. 4th January 2012: On the Books page the contact details of Sri Arunachalaramana Book Trust were added to the section How to buy books by Sri Sadhu Om and Michael James, and on the Articles page a link to the recent article Manōnāśa – destruction of mind in my blog was added to the List of Articles.


3. 25th January 2011: On the Articles page, links to the following four new articles in my blog were added to the List of Articles:
   • Experiencing the pure ‘I’ here and now
   • Second and third person objects
   • How to avoid creating fresh karma (āgāmya)?
   • We should seek guru only within ourself


4. 1st February 2010: The following changes and additions were made:
   • On the Nāṉ Yār? page, the second sentence of the nineteenth paragraph, ‘The mind is only one’ (which was previously missing due to an oversight on my part), was incorporated, and a new section was added about the Spanish translation.
   • On the Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam page, a new section was added about the Spanish translation.
   • On the Sri Ramanopadesa Noonmalai page, a new section was added about the Spanish translation.
   • On the Guru Vachaka Kovai page, the links in the Spanish translation section were updated.
   • The Happiness and the Art of Being page was extensively updated, and the updates included new information about the American and Indian publications, revised links in the Spanish translation section, the addition of the Czech translation section, and new links in the French translation section.
   • Linked from these last three sections of the Happiness and the Art of Being page, the following three new and two revised PDF files were added: a bookmarked PDF copy of the Spanish translation, La Felicidad y el Arte de Ser: Introducción a la filosofía y la práctica de las enseñanzas espirituales de Bhagavan Sri Ramana; a PDF copy of the new Czech translation, Štěstí a Umění Být: Laický úvod do filozofie a praxe spirituálního učení Bhagavána Šrí Ramany; revised PDF copies of the first two instalments of the French translation, La Félicité et l’Art d’Etre – Introduction and La Félicité et l’Art d’Etre – Chapitre 1: Qu’est-ce que la Félicité?, and a new instalment of it, La Félicité et l’Art d’Etre – Chapitre 2: Qui suis-je?.
   • On the Home Page, in the last section, The contents of this website, several new links were added to some PDF files and to various translations in Spanish, Czech and French.
   • On the Books page, a new section was added about Transliteration, transcription and pronunciation, and it linked to a new PDF document, Transliteration, Transcription and Pronunciation, which gives a detailed explanation about the transliteration, transcription and pronunciation of Tamil and Sanskrit.
   • On the Translations page, several updates were made that I forgot to make in June 2009, when I added some new e-books and associated pages.
   • A new page, Contact Michael James, was added.
   The Site Map was updated to reflect all these changes, and on the Articles page, links to the following ten new articles in my blog were added to the List of Articles:
   • Sri Ramana’s mangalam verse to Vivekacudamani
   • Japa of ‘I am’ as an aid to self-attentiveness
   • ‘Holy indifference’ and the love to be self-attentive
   • Thinking, free will and self-attentiveness
   • Self-attentiveness is nirvikalpa – devoid of all differences or variation
   • ‘Tracing the ego back to its source’
   • ‘Just sitting’ (shikantaza) and ‘choiceless awareness’
   • Svarupa-dhyana and svarupa-darsana
   • Atma-vichara and metta bhavana (‘loving-kindness’ meditation)
   • Staying with ‘I am’


5. 27th June 2009: The following four new e-books and associated pages were added:
   • an e-book copy of the English translation by Sri Sadhu Om and Michael James of Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam, together with a new page introducing it;
   • an e-book copy of the English translation by Sri Sadhu Om and Michael James of Sri Ramanopadesa Noonmalai, together with a new page introducing it;
   • an e-book copy of Sadhanai Saram by Sri Sadhu Om, together with a new page introducing it;
   • and an e-book copy of Part Two of The Path of Sri Ramana by Sri Sadhu Om.
   The following pages were updated accordingly:
   • the Home Page;
   • the Books page;
   • the page introducing The Path of Sri Ramana;
   • the Other Books page;
   • the Site Map.
   A PDF copy of La Félicité et l'Art d'Etre – Chapitre 1, ‘Qu’est-ce que la Félicité?’ (a French translation of the first chapter of Happiness and the Art of Being), was also added, and the French translation section of the Happiness and the Art of Being page was updated accordingly. And on the Articles page, links to the following twenty new articles in my blog were added to the List of Articles:
   • Sri Arunachala Stuti Panchakam – an overview
   • The truth of Arunachala and of ‘seeing the light’ (deepa-darsana)
   • Upadesa Undiyar – an explanatory paraphrase
   • Ulladu Narpadu – an explanatory paraphrase
   • Ulladu Narpadu Anubandham – an explanatory paraphrase
   • Ekatma Panchakam – an explanatory paraphrase
   • Ekatma Vivekam – the kalivenba version of Ekatma Panchakam
   • Appala Pattu – an explanatory paraphrase
   • Anma-Viddai (Atma-Vidya) – an explanatory paraphrase
   • Upadesa Tanippakkal – an explanatory paraphrase
   • Sadhanai Saram – The Essence of Spiritual Practice (sadhana)
   • What is self-attentiveness?
   • Self-attentiveness, intensity and continuity
   • Self-attentiveness and time
   • How to start practising atma-vichara?
   • Making effort to pay attention to our mind is being attentive only to our essential self
   • Our basic thought ‘I’ is the portal through which we can know our real ‘I’
   • Self-enquiry, self-attention and self-awareness
   • Atma-vichara – the practice of ‘looking at’ or ‘seeking’ ourself
   • Why to write about self?


6. 1st December 2008: A revised version of La Félicité et l'Art d'Etre – Introduction, the French translation of the introduction to Happiness and the Art of Being, was added in place of the earlier version, and on the Articles page, links to the following new articles in my blog were added to the List of Articles:
   • Guru Vachaka Kovai verse 579 and Anubhuti Venba verse 610
   • Advaita sadhana – non-dualistic spiritual practice
   • Atma-vichara and the 'practice' of neti neti
   • Self-attentiveness, effort and grace


7. 13th November 2008: On the Happiness and the Art of Being page, the Spanish Translation section was updated with information about the printed book and a link to the webpage where it can be purchased (La Felicidad y el Arte de Ser – printed book), and a new section was added about the French Translation with a link to a PDF copy of the introduction (La Félicité et l'Art d'Etre – Introduction). The Site Map was also updated with links to the Spanish printed book and e-book and the French introduction. On the Articles page, links to the following new articles in my blog were added to the List of Articles:
   • God as purna – the one infinite whole
   • God as paramarthika satya – the absolute reality
   • Guru Vachaka Kovai – a new translation by TV Venkatasubramanian, Robert Butler and David Godman


8. 3rd July 2008: A new section, How to buy books by Sri Sadhu Om and Michael James, was added to the Books page, and the relevant sections of the following pages were updated accordingly: Guru Vachaka Kovai, The Path of Sri Ramana and Other books by Sri Sadhu Om and Michael James. Links to the following new articles in my blog were added to the List of Articles on the Articles page:
   • Cultivating uninterrupted self-attentiveness
   • Self-enquiry: the underlying philosophy can be clearly understood only by putting it into practice
   • The true nature of consciousness can be known only by self-enquiry
   • Self-enquiry, personal experiences and daily routine
   • The world is a creation of our imagination
   • Experiencing our natural state of true immortality
   • God as both nirguna brahman and saguna brahman
   • Experiencing God as he really is
   • Where to find and how to reach the real presence of our guru?
   • Which sat-sanga will free us from our ego?
   • Introduction to The Truth of Otherness
   The other significant change that I made today was to remove the 'Notify Me' form from the left-hand margin of each page. The main reason why I decided to do so was because in May my old PC died a natural death (and repairing it would have cost as much as a new PC), and I had much difficulty in recovering my data from it. I eventually managed to recover my e-mail address book, in which I had stored the list of addresses of those who had requested me to notify them of additions and changes to this website, but to recover all the related e-mails would have consumed too much of my limited time. Therefore I decided not to continue this notification system. However, to make it easier for anyone to keep track of the additions and changes that I will be making to this website in future, in the left-hand margin I have added a note below the What’s New link indicating the date on which it was last updated.


9. 16th May 2008: The The original writings of Sri Ramana section in the List of Articles on the Articles page was updated with a link to the new article, Sri Ramanopadesa Nunmalai – English translation by Sri Sadhu Om and Michael James.


10. 14th May 2008: On the page Happiness and the Art of Being, the section about the Spanish translation was updated with information about the newly completed translation, which is now available on the AtivarnAshram website as a PDF e-book, La Felicidad y el Arte de Ser.


11. 24th December 2007: A print-friendly PDF copy of my introduction to and translation of Nāṉ Yār? (Who am I?) and a similar print-friendly PDF copy of my introduction to and synopsis of The Path of Sri Ramana were both added.


12. 5th December 2007: The page Happiness and the Art of Being was updated with information about the availability of this book on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, Amazon.fr, Amazon.de and other online book retailer sites. The page The Path of Sri Ramana was also updated with information about the availability of The Path of Sri Ramana - Part One on Amazon.com.


13. 22nd November 2007: A new page introducing The Path of Sri Ramana by Sri Sadhu Om was added, together with an e-book copy of The Path of Sri Ramana – Part One, and several other pages were updated accordingly, including the Home Page, the Site Map, Books, Other Books, Nāṉ Yār? and About Michael James. In the Bibliography and on some other pages the titles of Sri Ramana's poems and other Tamil texts were added in Tamil script.


14. 8th November 2007: The page Happiness and the Art of Being was updated with the addition of images of the front covers of both the Canadian publication and the Indian publication, and with information about the further progress of the Spanish translation.


15. 1st November 2007: The Printed Versions section of the page Happiness and the Art of Being was updated to announce the release of the Canadian publication of this book, and to give details about the availability of both the Canadian and the Indian publications.


16. 17th October 2007: The Printed Versions section of the page Happiness and the Art of Being was updated to announce the release of the Indian edition of this book and the expected release of the Canadian editon.


17. 28th September 2007: A list of articles was added to the Articles page.


18. 27th September 2007: The page Happiness and the Art of Being was expanded, and the announcement about the forthcoming printed edition of this book was updated to reflect its expected release in the third week of October 2007. The title of the home page was also changed from 'Happiness is Our Essential Being' to 'The Teachings of Sri Ramana'.


19. 4th September 2007: An e-book copy of the English translation by Sri Sadhu Om and Michael James of Guru Vachaka Kovai was added.


20. 1st September 2007: An English translation of Nāṉ Yār? (Who am I?) was added, and the entire website was restructured. The Resources page was replaced by five new pages, Translations, Books, Articles, What's New and Bibliography, and its contents were divided among these new pages.


21. 24th August 2007: A note about the Spanish Translation of Happiness and the Art of Being was added.


22. 23rd August 2007: The third e-book edition of Happiness and the Art of Being was added.


23. 26th July 2007: An announcement about the forthcoming printed edition of Happiness and the Art of Being was added.


24. 20th March 2007: The second e-book edition of Happiness and the Art of Being was added.


25. 26th December 2006: As an extention to this main website, I started a blog, Happiness of Being – Teachings of Sri Ramana, which is now a growing archive of articles that I have written from time to time about the philosophy, science and art of true self-knowledge as taught by Sri Ramana.


26. 15th December 2006: This website was launched, and at that time its principal content was the first e-book edition of Happiness and the Art of Being.