Thus Spake Ramana

Thus Spake Ramana

By Swami Rajeswarananda

These are Great Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi offered in a concise manner. I have typed up these for the benefit of everyone. Bhagavan said “Only those whose minds are less muddy, or are pure, can relish small and purposeful works.” Each one here is a gem, and should be contemplated upon by every earnest Seeker of Happiness in Life and Self-Realization. 

Invocatory

THAT in which all these worlds are fixed, of which they are, from which they all arise, for which they all exist, because of which they all come into being, and which they verily are – THAT alone is the Real, the Truth. May we adore THAT at Heart!

1.

The One Self, the Sole Reality, alone exists eternally. When even the Ancient Teacher, Dakshinamurti, revealed It through speechless Eloquence, who else could have conveyed It by speech?

2.

Reality is at once Being and Consciousness. To know That is to That in the Heart, transcending thought. Absolute surrender to the Supreme Lord, whereby the ‘I’ and ‘mine’ are destroyed, is th one means to realize Immortality. The Supreme Being, the one ultimate Cause of the universe, manifests Himself as many which do not exist apart from Him. To destroy the ego and BE as the Self, is the Supreme method of attainment.

3.

To him who is one with the formless Self, everything is formless. Existence of the world is merely relative. The world is really synonymous with the mind. Since it is knowledge that illumines the wrold, the former is ulterior to the latter. That Knowledge alone is real which ever remains changeless. Worship under name and form is only a means to realize one’s absolute identity with the Nameless and Formless.

4.

Self-Knowledge in which both relative knowledge and phenomena fall off, is alone True Knowledge, because the Self is the Source of all. To know all else except the Knower is but ignorance. The Self being Absolute Kowledge, it is neither knowing nor not knowing. It can never be nescience. The Self being one and universal, knowledge of diversity is but ignorance which too is not apart from the Self.

5.

Since past and future have never been without the present, to know the eternal Now is to know the Truth. The changeless, infinite Self transcends time and space, which are relative to the body and the mind. The Sage who has realized the Self transcends both free-will and destiny, with which only the ingnorant, are concerned. To the ingnorant, the ‘I’ is the Self limited to the body; to the Wise, the ‘I’ is the Infinite Self.

6.

The ego is really a ghost with no form of its own but feeding on any form it holds, which when sought for, takes to flight. Since with the rise of the ego all else rises, and with its subsidence all else subsides, to destroy the ego through Self-Enquiry is alone true renunciation. The Self-conscious Being of ‘I’-lessness is the “That” which is one’s true State, realized by destroying the ego through Self-Enquiry.

7.

A man should surrender the personal selfishnesss which binds him to the world. Giving up the false self is renunciation. Setting apart time for meditation is only for the merest spiritual novices. A man who is advancing will begin to enjoy the deeper beatitude, whether he is at work or not. While his hands are in society, he keeps his head cool in solitude.

8.

You have to ask yourself the question, ‘Who am I?’. This investigation will lead in the end to the discovery of something within you which is behind the mind. Solve that great problem, and you will solve all other problems thereby. Man’s real nature is happiness. Happiness is inborn in the Self. His search for happiness is an unconscious search for his true Self. The true Self is imperishable; therefore, when a man finds it, he finds a happiness which does not come to an end.

9.

For one who has realized that State of Perfect Being which is really the inherent undescribable Bliss of the Absolute Self, nothing else remains yet to accomplish. The Self is one; and Self-knowledge is unique in that the knowing Self is itself the known Self. It can never become a known or unknown object.

10.

You say that this is the ‘age of reason’ and that the teaching must be in accordance with reason. I ask : Whose is the intellect? You must answer ‘My intellect’. So the intellect is your tool. You use it for measuring variety. It is not yourself, not is it something independent of yourself. You are the abiding reality, while the intellect is just a phenomenon. You must find and get hold of yourself. There is no intellect in dreamless sleep. There is none in a child. The intellect develops with age. But how could there be any development or manifestation of the intellect without the seed of it in sleep or childhood? Why go to history to discover this fundamental fact? The degree of truth in the history is the same as the degree of truth in the historian.

11.

Of what use are disputes about the world, saying that it is real, that it is an illusory appearance, that it is conscious, that it is insentient, that it is happy, that it is miserable? All men alike love the Egoless State, which is won by turning away from the world and knowing the untainted real Self which transcends the assertion that It is one and that it is manifold.

Note : Swami Rajeswarananda was in contact with Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi for about 44 years.