Wherever you may be, you cannot leave ME (March 10, 1938)

You do not go anywhere away from the Presence as you imagine. The Presence is everywhere. The body moves from place to place; yet it does not leave the one Presence. So no one can be out of sight of the Supreme Presence. Since you identify one body with Sri Bhagavan and another body with yourself, you find two separate entities and speak of going away from here.

Wherever you may be, you cannot leave ME.


To illustrate it: The pictures move on the screen in a cinema show; but does the screen itself move? No. The Presence is the screen: you, I, and others are the pictures. The individuals may move but not the Self.

Tags:RamanaMaharshi | acalayoga
See also: this blog entry

I Am Thou (Jan 10, 1939)

A certain lady was singing a devotional song. It said among other things:

“You are my father and my mother,
You are my friend and companion,
You are knowledge and wealth
You are everything, You are God,” and so on.

Sri Bhagavan remarked with a smile, “Yes, Yes, You are this, that and everything except ‘I’. Why not say ‘I am You’ and finish it?”

Tags:RamanaMaharshi |
acalayoga

The Guru is within (August 17, 1938)

The Master is not outside you as you seem to imagine. He is within you, is in fact the Self. Recognize this truth. Seek within you and find Him there. Then you will have constant communion with Him. The message is always there; it is never silent; it can never forsake you; nor can you ever move away from the Master.

Your mind is outgoing. Because of this tendency it sees objects as being outside and the Master among them. But the truth is different. The Master is the Self. Turn the mind within and you will find the objects within. You will also realize that it is the Master who is your very Self and there is nothing but Him.

Because you identify yourself with the body, you have accepted objects as being outside you. But are you the body? You are not. You are the Self. _There_ are all the objects and the whole universe. Nothing can escape the Self. How then can you move away from your Master who is your very Self? Similarly you can never be without the Master.
...
Is there any moment when you have not realized the Self? Can you ever be apart from the Self? You are always That.

August 17, 1938 (p 504)

Give up 'I am the body-mind'

The Self alone exists and it can be directly and consciously experienced merely by ceasing to pay attention to the wrong ideas we have about ourselves.

The principal misperception is the 'I am the body-mind' idea. As soon as one stops imagining oneself as an individual, attached to a body, the whole superstructure of wrong ideas collapses and is replaced by a conscious and permanent awareness of the real Self.

The false identification must go.

Realization is nothing to be gained afresh; it is already there. All that is necessary is to get rid of the thought 'I have not realized'.
Tags: RamanaMaharshi |
acalayoga

What is self-realization

The state of Self-realization as we call it, is not attaining something new or reaching some goal which is far away, but simply being that which you always are and which you always have been.

All that is needed is that you give up your realization of the not-true as true. All of us are regarding as real that which is not real. We have only to give up this practice on our part. Then we shall realize the Self as the Self, in other words, 'Be the Self'.

The Self is Reality

That in which all these worlds seems to exist steadily,
that of which all these worlds are a possession,
that from which all these worlds rise,
that for which all these exist,
that by which all these worlds come into existence,
and that which is indeed all these --
that alone is the existing reality.

Let us cherish that Self, which is reality, in the Heart.

Introduction

This blog will contain some salient teachings and quotations of Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi.

Tags: RamanaMaharshi | God | Acalayoga

Feb 10, 2005