Give up regarding unreal as real!

Sri Ramana Maharshi

19-10-1945 Morning

A barrister from Bombay asked Bhagavan, "I have read the works of Bhagavan and others and though I can understand them intellectually I have not been able to realize anything in experience. I have tried Bhagavan's method for about six years and yet I have not made any progress. When I meditate, other thoughts come. For people like me, living in cities and doing our work and coming here only occasionally, what sadhana would Bhagavan advise so that we may succeed better than I have so far been able to do?"

M: Your real nature is always there, you meditation etc. come only temporarily. Reality being your Self, there is nothing for you to realize. All that is required is that you should give up regarding unreal as real, which is what all are doing. The object of all meditation, dhyana or japa is only that, to give up all thoughts regarding the not-self, to give up many thoughts and to keep to the one thought.

As for the sadhana, there are many methods. You may do vichara, asking yourself 'Who am I?' or if that does not appeal to you, you may do dhyana 'I am brahman' or otherwise, or you may concentrate on a mantra or name in japa. The object is to make the mind one-pointed, to concentrate it on one thought and thus exclude our many thoughts, and if we do this, eventually the one thought will go and the mind will get extinguished in its source.

Q. In actual practice I find I am not able to succeed in my efforts. Unless Bhagavan's grace descends on me I cannot succeed. 

M. Guru's grace is always there. You imagine it is something, somewhere high up in the sky, far away, and has to descend. It is really inside you, in your heart, and the moment you effect subsidence or merger of the mind into its source, the grace rushes forth, spouting as from a spring, from within you.