D.: Why is the world so wrapped up in ignorance?
M.: Take care of yourself. Let the world take care of itself.
See your Self.
If you are the body there is the gross world also. If you are spirit all is spirit alone.

D.: It will hold good for the individual, but what of the rest?
M.: Do it first and then see if the question arises afterwards.

D.: Is there avidya? [ignorance as cause of suffering through desire, evil.
M.: For whom is it?

D.: For the ego-self.
M.: Yes, for the ego.
Remove the ego; avidya is gone.
Look for it, the ego vanishes.
The real Self alone remains.
The ego professing avidya is not to be seen. There is no avidya in reality. All sastras are meant to disprove the existence of avidya.

D.: How did the ego arise?
M.: Ego is not.
Otherwise do you admit of two selves?
How can there be avidya in the absence of the ego?
If you begin to enquire, the avidya which is already non-existent, will be found not to be or you will say it has fled away.
Ignorance pertains to the ego.
Why do you think of the ego and also
suffer?
What is ignorance again?
It is that which is non-existent.
However the worldly life requires the hypothesis of avidya.
Avidya is only our ignorance and nothing more. It is ignorance or forgetfulness of the Self.

Can there be darkness before the Sun?
Similarly, can there be ignorance before the Self-evident and Self-luminous Self?
If you know the Self there will be no darkness, no ignorance and no misery.
It is the mind which feels the trouble, misery, etc.
Darkness never comes nor goes.
See the Sun and there is no darkness. Similarly,
see the Self and avidya will be found not to exist.

~ Talk 363
Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi

Is it necessary for one who longs for
release to enquire into the nature
of categories [‘tattvas’]?

“Just as one who wants to throw away
garbage has no need to analyse it and
see what it is, so one who wants to know
the Self has no need to count the number
of categories or enquire into their
characteristics; what he has to do is
to reject altogether the categories
that hide the Self. The world
should be considered
like a dream.”

Shri Ramana Maharshi

PEACE AND HAPPINESS

D: How can I get peace? I do not seem to obtain it through vichara.

M: Peace is your natural state. It is the mind that obstructs the natural state. Your vichara has been made only in the mind.
Investigate what the mind is, and it will disappear. There is no such thing as
mind apart from thought. Nevertheless, because of the emergence of thought, you surmise something from which it starts and term that the mind. When you probe to see what it is, you find there is really no such thing as mind. When the mind has thus
vanished, you realise eternal peace.

D: Through poetry, music, japa, bhajana, the sight of beautiful landscapes, reading the lines of spiritual verses etc., one experiences sometimes a true sense of all-unity.
Is that feeling of deep blissful quiet
(wherein the personal self has no place) the same as the entering into the heart of which Bhagavan speaks?
Will practice thereof lead to a deeper samadhi and so ultimately to a full vision of the Real?

M: There is happiness when agreeable things are presented to the mind. It is the happiness inherent to the Self, and there is no other happiness. And it is not alien and afar. You are diving into the Self on those occasions which you consider pleasurable; that diving results in self-existent bliss. But the association of ideas is responsible for foisting that bliss on other things or occurrences while, in fact, that bliss is
within you. On these occasions you are plunging into the Self, though unconsciously. If you do so consciously, with the conviction that comes of the
experience that you are identical with the happiness which is verily the Self, the one Reality, you call it Realization. I want you to dive consciously into the Self, i.e., into the heart.

🕉 Maharshi’s Gospel
Being Answers of
BHAGAVAN SRI RAMANA MAHARSHI
to Questions put to Him by Devotees

Your nature is Peace and Happiness. Thoughts are the obstacles to realisation.
One’s meditation or concentration is meant to get rid of obstacles and not to gain the Self. Does anyone remain apart from the Self? No!
The true nature of the Self is declared to be Peace.
If the same peace is not found, the non-finding is only a thought which is alien to the Self.
One practises meditation only to get rid of these alien fancies. So, then, a thought must be quelled as soon as it rises.

Whenever a thought arises, do not be carried away by it.
You become aware of the body when you forget the Self.
But can you forget the Self? Being the Self how can you forget it?
There must be two selves for one to forget the other. It is absurd.
So the Self is not depressed; it is not imperfect: it is ever happy.
The contrary feeling is a mere thought which has actually no stamina in it.
Be rid of thoughts.
Why should one attempt meditation?
Being the Self one remains always realised, only be free from thoughts.
~Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, 462

1. A student who is preparing his thesis for the Ph.D. degree asked:
   S. God is said to be immanent, how do you justify your confining Him to the heart?

Bh. God is said to reside in the Heart in the same way as you are said to reside in your body. Yet Heart is not a place.
Some place must be named as the dwelling of God for those who take their bodies for themselves and who comprehend only relative knowledge. The fact is neither
God nor we occupy any space. We are bodiless and spaceless in deep sleep, yet in the waking state we appear to be the opposite.

Atman or Paramatman is that from which the body is born, in which it lives, and into which it finally resolves.

🕉 GURU RAMANA
MEMORIES AND NOTES
By S. S. COHEN
Chapter: XIV. HEART, LIBERATION

Is not everything the work of God?

“Without desire, resolve, or effort,
the sun rises; and in its mere presence,
the sun-stone emits fire, the lotus blooms,
water evaporates; people perform their
various functions and then rest. Just as
in the presence of the magnet the needle
moves, it is by virtue of the mere presence
of God that the souls governed by the three

[cosmic]

functions or the four-fold divine
activity perform their actions and then rest,
in accordance with their respective karmas.
God has no resolve; no karma attaches
itself to Him. That is like worldly actions
not affecting the sun, or like the merits and
demerits of the other four elements not
affecting all-pervading space.”

Shri Ramana Maharshi

Once born you reach something. If you
reach it you return also. Therefore leave
off all this verbiage. Be as you are. See
who you are and remain as the Self,
free from birth, going, coming
and returning.

Shri Ramana Maharshi

What is the nature of the Self?

“What exists in truth is the Self alone.
The world, the individual soul, and God
are appearances in it. Like silver in mother-
of-pearl, these three appear at the same
time, and disappear at the same time. The
Self is that where there is absolutely no “I”
thought. That is called “Silence”. The Self
itself is the world; the Self itself is “I”; the
Self itself is God; all is Shiva, the Self.

Shri Ramana Maharshi

Grant Me Salvation, Swami

One afternoon a lady from Kumbhakonam sat near Bhagavan and exclaimed: “How glad I am that I have met you, Swami. I have craved to see you for a long time, Swami. Not that I want anything, Swami. Only please be kind and grant me salvation, Swami.” With that she got up and went away. Bhagavan had a hearty laugh.
“Look at her – all she wants is salvation. Give her salvation, she wants nothing else.”
I said: “Is it not what we all want?”

He replied: “Is salvation something to be handed over on request? Do I keep bundles of salvation concealed about me, that people should ask me for salvation? She said ‘I do not want anything.’ If it is sincere, that itself is salvation. What is there I can give and what is there they can take?”

Somebody brought a bell to be rung at the arati ceremony and it was put into Bhagavan’s hands. He tried its sound in various ways and laughed: “God wants us to make a fire of our past evil deeds and burn our karma in it. But these people burn a copper worth of camphor and hope to please the Almighty. Do they really believe that they can get something for nothing? They do not want to bend to God, they want God to bend to them. In their greed they would swallow God, but they would not let him swallow them. Some boast of their offerings. What have they got to offer ? The idol of Vinayaka (Ganesha) is made of jaggery. They break off a piece of it and offer it to Him. The only offering worthy of the Lord is to clear the mind of thoughts and remain steady in the peace of Self.”

✅ As I Saw Him – No.5. My Life, My Light
by Varanasi Subbalakshmi.
Source: THE MAHARSHI.
Nov / Dec 1991. Vol.1 No.5

The wrong ‘I’ is the obstruction.
It has to be removed in order that
the true ‘I’ may not be hidden. The
feeling that I have not realised is
the obstruction to realisation.
In fact, it is already realised
and there is nothing more
to be realised. Otherwise,
the realisation will be new.

Shri Ramana Maharshi

Should I give up my business and take
to reading books on Vedanta?

“If the objects have an independent
existence, i.e., if they exist anywhere apart
from you, then it may be possible for you
to go away from them. But they don’t exist
apart from you; they owe their existence
to you, your thought. So, where can you
go, to escape them? As for reading books
on Vedanta, you may go on reading any
number of them. They can only tell you,
‘Realise the Self within you’. The Self
cannot be found in books. You have
to find it out for yourself, in yourself.

The world or objects or thoughts of
them are like the shadow of a man,
which the man cannot flee from.
They will be with you always,
till you realise the Self.”

Shri Ramana Maharshi