Work and Self

Sri Ramana Maharshi

Is it good to devote all my time to the search for the Self? If that is impossible, should I merely keep quiet?

If you can keep quiet, without engaging in any other pursuit, it is very good. If that cannot be done, where is the use of being quiet so far as realization is concerned? So long as a person is obliged to be active, let him not give up attempts to realize the Self.

Do not one's actions affect one in after-births?

Are you born now? Why do you think of other births? The fact is, there is neither birth nor death. Let him who is born think of death and the palliative thereof.

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The Self is all. Are you apart from the Self? Or can the work go on without the Self? The Self is universal: so all actions will go on whether you strain yourself to be engaged in them or not. The work will go on of itself. Thus Krishna told Arjuna that he need not trouble to kill the kauravas; they were already slain by God. It was not for him to resolve to work and worry himself about it, but to allow his own nature to carry out the will of the higher power.