Doership - The Hindrance

Sri Ramana Maharshi

21-11-1945 Night

Following Bhagavan's (B) quotation from the Gita, Rishikeshananda referred to a verse from Mandukya Upanishad in which the words adi and anta occur. B took it out and explained the text, which says: "That which was not in the beginning and which won't be at the end, but which is only in the middle, can't be real. Only that can be real which is not only in the middle, but also at the beginning and the end."

Dr. Srinivasa Rao asked B, "When we enquire within 'who am I?' what is that?"

B: It is the ego. It is only that which makes the vichara also. The Self has no vichara. That which makes the enquiry is the ego. The "I" about which the enquiry is made is also the ego. As the result of the enquiry the ego ceases to exist and only the Self is found to exist.

I asked B, "It seems this morning Rishikeshananda quoted some text which says wherever the mind goes, that is samadhi. How can that be? Our mind goes after whatever it likes. Can that be samadhi?"

B: That passage refers to jnanis. Whatever they may be doing, there is no break in their samadhi state. Their bodies may be engaged in whatever activities they were intended by prarabdha to go through. But they are always in the Self. We associate or identify ourselves with the body; whatever it does, we say we do. The Gita says, 'The wise man will think the senses move among the sense objects and be unattached to the activities of the sense organs.' I would go farther and say that  the jnani does not even think that. He is the Self and sees nothing apart from himself. What the Gita says in the above passage is for the abhyasi or the practiser. There is no harm engaging in whatever activities naturally come to one. The hindrance or bondage is in imagining that we are the doers and attaching ourselves to the fruits of such activities.

(To be continued)