How is God to be seen
A Maharani Saheba spoke in a gentle and low voice, but quite audibly:
D.: How is God to be seen?
M.: Within. If the mind is turned inward God manifests as inner consciousness.
D.: God is in all – in all the objects we see around us. They say we should see God in all of them.
M.: God is in all and in the seer. Where else can God be seen? He cannot be found outside. He should be felt within. To see the objects, mind is necessary. To conceive God in them is a mental operation. But that is not real. The consciousness within, purged of the mind, is felt as God.
D.: There are, say, beautiful colours. It is a pleasure to watch them. We can see God in them.
M.: They are all mental conceptions.
D.: There are more than colours. I mentioned colours only as an example.
M.: They are also similarly mental.
D.: There is the body also – the senses and the mind. The soul makes use of all these for knowing things.
M.: The objects or feelings or thoughts are all mental conceptions. The mind rises after the rise of the I-thought or the ego. Wherefrom does the ego rise? From the abstract consciousness or Pure intelligence.
D.: Is it the soul?
M.: Soul, mind or ego are mere words. There are no entities of the kind. Consciousness is the only truth.
D.: Then that consciousness cannot give any pleasure.
M.: Its nature is Bliss. Bliss alone is. There is no enjoyer to enjoy pleasure. Enjoyer and joy – both merge in it.
D.: There are pleasure and pain in ordinary life. Should we not remain with only pleasure?
M.: Pleasure consists in turning and keeping the mind within; pain in sending it outward. There is only pleasure. Absence of pleasure is called pain. One’s nature is pleasure – Bliss (Ananda).
D.: Is it the soul?
M.: Soul and God are only mental conceptions.
D.: Is God only a mental conception?
M.: Yes. Do you think of God in sleep?
D.: But sleep is a state of dullness.
M.: If God be real He must remain always. You remain in sleep and in wakefulness – just the same. If God be as true as your Self, God must be in sleep as well as the Self. This thought of God arises only in the wakeful state. Who thinks now?
D.: I think.
M.: Who is this ‘I’? Who says it? Is it the body?
D.: The body speaks.
M.: The body does not speak. If so, did it speak in sleep? Who is this I?
D.: I within the body.
M.: Are you within the body or without?
D.: I am certainly within the body.
M.: Do you know it to be so in your sleep?
D.: I remain in my body in sleep also.
M.: Are you aware of being within the body in sleep?
D.: Sleep is a state of dullness.
M.: The fact is, you are neither within nor without. Sleep is the natural state of being.
D.: Then sleep must be a better state than this.
M.: There is no superior or inferior state. In sleep, in dream and in the wakeful state you are just the same. Sleep is a state of happiness; there is no misery. The sense of want, of pain, etc., arises only in the wakeful state. What is the change that has taken place? You are the same in both, but there is difference in happiness. Why? Because the mind has risen now. This mind rises after the ‘I-thought’. The thought arises from consciousness. If one abides in it, one is always happy.
D.: The sleep state is the state when the mind is quiet. I consider it a worse state.
M.: If that were so, why do all desire sleep?
D.: It is the body when tired that goes to sleep.
M.: Does the body sleep?
D.: Yes. It is the condition in which the wear and tear of the body is repaired.
M.: Let it be so. But does the body itself sleep or wake up? You yourself said shortly before that the mind is quiet in sleep. The three states are of the mind.
D.: Are they not states of the soul functioning through the senses, etc.?
M.: They are not of the soul or of the body. The soul remains always uncontaminated. It is the substratum running through all these three states. Wakefulness passes off, I am; the dream state passes off, I am; the sleep state passes off, I am. They repeat themselves, and yet I am. They are like pictures moving on the screen in a cinema show. They do not affect the screen. Similarly also, I remain unaffected although these states pass off. If it is of the body, are you aware of the body in sleep?
D.: No.
M.: Without knowing the body to be there how can the body be said to be in sleep?
D.: Because it is still found after waking up.
M.: The sense of body is a thought; the thought is of the mind, the mind rises after the ‘I-thought’, the ‘I-thought’ is the root thought. If that is held, the other thoughts will disappear. There will then be no body, no mind, not even the ego.
D.: What will remain then?
M.: The Self in its purity.
Talks With Ramana Maharshi
Talk 244.
Even Partial Surrender can Undo Destiny
