Ignorance is Unreal

Sri Ramana Maharshi

• Even the statement, that duality is real so long as one is striving to win the goal, but that in the goal there is no duality is not at all correct. Who else but the tenth man was the one in the parable, both when he himself was anxiously seeking the tenth man as one that was missing, and when he had found himself (to be the missing tenth man)!
• You say dreamless sleep is empty of all consciousness after waking from sleep. You do not say so in sleep itself. That in you which now says that sleep is unconsciousness is your mind. But it was not present in your sleep, it is natural for the mind to be ignorant of the consciousness that is in sleep. Not having experienced sleep, it is unable to remember what it was like, and makes mistakes about it. The state of deep sleep is beyond the mind.
• The Self who is Consciousness is alone real, and nothing else. All so-called knowledge, which is manifold is only ignorance. This ignorance is unreal, since it has no existence of its own, apart from the Consciousness which is the Self, just as the jewels made of gold have no existence apart from the real gold.

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From "Thus Spake Ramana"