True Master Is Within

Sri Ramana Maharshi

The Master is within. Meditation is meant to remove the ignorant idea that He is only outside. If He be a stranger whom you await, He is bound to disappear also. Where is the use for a transient being like that? But as long as you think you are separate or that you are the body, so long is the Master 'without' also necessary, and He will appear as if with a body. When the wrong identification of oneself with the body ceases, the Master will be found as none other than the Self.

Will the Guru help us to know the Self through initiation etc.?

Does the Guru hold you by the hand and whisper in the ear? You may imagine him to be what you are yourself. Because you think you are with a body, you think He also has a body to do something tangible for you. His work lies within, in the spiritual realm.

How is the Guru found?

God, who is immanent, in His grace takes pity on the loving devotee and manifests Himself according to the devotee's development. The devotee thinks that He is a man and expects a relationship as between two physical bodies. But the Guru, who is God or the Self incarnate, works from within, helps the man to see the error of his ways and guides him in the right path until he realizes the Self within.

What should the devotee do then?

He has only to act up to the words of the Master and work within. The Mater is both within and without, so He creates conditions to drive you inward and at the same time prepares the interior to drag you to the centre. Thus He gives a push from without and exerts a pull from within, so that you may be fixed at the centre. You think that the world can be conquered by your own efforts. When you are frustrated externally and are driven inwards, you feel, 'Oh!there is a Power higher than man!" The ego is like a very powerful elephant which cannot be brought under control by any less powerful than a lion, which, in this instance, is no other than the Guru, whose very look makes the elephant-like ego tremble and die.

You will know in due course that your glory lies where you cease to exist. In order to gain that state, you should surrender yourself. Then the Master sees that you are in a fit state to receive guidance, and He guides you.