Thus Spake Ramana

Thus Spake Ramana

By Swami Rajeswarananda

These are Great Teachings ofBhagavan 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, nor 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.

12.

This world, which you try to prove to be real, is all the time mocking at you for seeking to know it, without first knowing yourself. How can the knowledge of objects arising in relative existence to one who does not know the truth of himself, the knower, be true knowledge? If one rightly knows the truth of him named ‘I’, in whom both knowledge and its opposite subsist, then along with ignorance relative knowledge also will cease. 

13.

The world and the mind arise and set together as one. But of the two, the world owes its appearance to the mind alone. That alone is real in which this (inseparable) pair, the world and the mind, has risings and settings. That Reality is the one infinite Consciousness, having neither rising nor setting.

14.

The world is not other than the body; the body is not other than the mind; the mind is not other than the Primal Consciousness; the Primal Consciousnes is not other than the Reality; That exists in Peace.

15.

The world is nothing but the five sensations, namely, sound and the rest of its kind. Thus the world consists of the objects of the five sense-organs, and the one mind becomes aware of these five sensations through the five senses. That being the case, how can the world be other than the mind?

16.

Where are time and space apart from the sense of ‘I’? If we were the same as bodies, then it could be said that we are in time and space. But are we bodies? We are the same at all times and in all places; hence we are that Reality which transcends time and space.

17.

When the sense of ‘I am the body’ arises, then the notions of ‘you’ and ‘he’ also arise. But when, by the Quest of the Truth underlying the ‘I’, the ‘I’ sense is put an end to, then the notions of ‘you’ and ‘he’ also cease. That which then shines as the Sole Remainder is the true Self.

18.

If the Self were with form, then the world and God would be so too. But if the Self be formless, then how and by whom are forms to be seen? Is the spectacle ever otherwise than as the seeing eye is? The real Eye is just the real Self. It is infinite Consciousness, formless, and worldless.

19.

If the eye that sees be the eye of flesh, then gross forms are seen. If that eye be assisted by lenses, then even invisible things are seen to have form. If the mind be the eye, then subtle forms are seen. Thus the seeing eye and the objects seen are of the same nature; that is, if the eye be itself a form, it sees nothing but forms. But neither the physical eye nor the mind has any power of vision of its own. The real Eye is the Self. As the Self is formless, being the pure and infinite Consciousness, the Reality, the Self does not see forms.

20.

The mind is nothing but the stream of thoughts, that passes over Consciousness. Of all these thoughts, the first one is the thought ‘I am this body’. This is a false thought; but because it is taken as true, it is possible for other thoughts to arise. So the mind is just an outgrowth of the primary ignorance, and is therefore unreal.

21.

If I am eternal and perfect, why am I ignorant? Answer : Who is ignorant? The real Self does not complain of ignorance. It is the ego in you that so complains. It is that which also asks questions. The Self does not ask any question. And this ego is neither the body, nor the real Self, but something arising between the two. In sleep there no ego, and you had no sense of imperfection or ignorance then. Thus the ego is itself imperfection and ignorance. If you seek the truth of the ego , and thus find the real Self, you will find that there is no ignorance.

22.

The difficulty is that man thinks that he is the doer. But it is a mistake. It is the Higher Power that does everything and he is the tool. If he accepts that position, he is free from troubles. Otherwise he courts them. Take fo rinstance the figure at the base of the Gopuram, the temple tower, which is made to appear as bearing the burden of the tower on its shoulders. Its look and attitude, picture great strain while bearing the very heavy burden. But think. The tower is built on earth and it rests on its foundations. The figure is part of the tower. Is it not funny? So is the man who takes on himself the sense of doing.

23.

If the inquiry is made whether mind exists, it will be found that mind does not exist. That is control of mind. Otherwise, if the mind is taken to exist, and one seeks to control it, it amounts to the mind controlling the mind, just like a thief turning out as a policeman to catch the thief, that is himself.

24.

This insentient body does not say ‘I’. No one ever says ‘I did not exist in sleep’. But all this comes into being (only) after the rising of the ego. Therefore, seek the Source from where the ego rises, by concentrating the mind on the Quest.

25.

The sastras become useless when their essence is realized. The scriptures are useful to indicate the existence of the Higher Power (the Self) and the way to gain it. That is all. When the essence is assimilated, the rest is useless. As one rises in the scale, he finds the positions he has transcended to be steps to the higher stage and so on. When the goal is reached, it alone remains, and all the rest becomes useless to him. That is the  stage when the sastras become useless.

26.

Ten ingnorant men forded a stream, and on reaching the other shore counted themselves, and found only nine. They grew anxious and grieved at the loss of the tenth unknown man. A wayfarer, ascertaining the cause of their grief, found that each had left himself out in the count. So he gave each a blow and asked them to count again. They now counted ten and were satisfied. The tenth man was not got anew. He was all along there, and only ignorance had caused their grief. Similarly also with a man and the Self. There is nothing to be gained anew. The Self is ever here and now. Because the limitations have been wrongly assumed, there is the need to transcend them. Moreover, it it were anything to be gained anew, it would imply its previous absence. What was absent once, may vanish again also, in which case there would be no permanence in salvation.

27.

Who is it that says that “I” is not perceptible? Is there an ignorant “I” and an elusive “I”? Are there two “I”s in the same person? It is the mind that says that “I” is not perceptible. Where did that mind come from? Know the mind. You will find it a myth.

28.

You dream in your sleep, while lying in bed in Tiruvannamalai, and you find yourself in another town. The same is real to you. Your body is here and you are on your bed in a room. Can a town enter your room, or could you have left this place and gone elsewhere leaving the body here? Both are impossible. Therefore, your being here and seeing another town are both unreal. They appear real to the mind. The “I” of the dream has vanished. Another “I” speaks of the dream. This “I” was not in the dream. Both the “I”s are unreal. There is the substratum of the mind which continues all along, giving rise to so many scenes. With every thought rises the “I” and with its disappearance, that “I” disapppears too. So the “I”s are born, and die every moment. The subsisting mind is the real trouble. That is the thief according to Janaka.

29.

Even the statement that duality is real so long as one is striving to win the goal, but that in the goal there is no duality, is not at all correct. Who else but the tenth man was the one in the parable, both when he himself was anxiously seeking the tenth man as one that was missing, and when he had found himself to be the missing tenth man?

* Click here for the story about the tenth man.

30.

You say dreamless sleep is empty of all consciousness after waking from sleep. You do not say so in sleep itself. “That” in you which now says that sleep is unconsciousness is your mind. But it was not present in your sleep, and it is natural for the mind to be ignorant of the consciousness that is in sleep. Not having experienced sleep, it is unable to remember what it was like, and makes mistakes about it. The state of deep sleep is beyond the mind.

 

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