The Obstacle To Bliss: Wrong Identity

Sri Ramana Maharshi

Continued from here

Q: There is no positive pleasure in sleep. Sleep is courted only to be rid of physical fatigue.

Well, that is right. 'To be free from fatigue.' There is one who is free from fatigue.

Q: Yes.

So you were in sleep and you are now too. You were happy in sleep without feeling, thinking etc. The same one continuing now, why are you not happy?

Q: How can it be said that there is happiness?

Everyone says 'sukhamahamasvapsam' (I slept happily or was blissfully asleep).

Q: I do not think that they are right. There is no sukha (bliss). It is only absence of sorrow.

Your very being is bliss. Therefore everyone says I was blissfully asleep. That means that one remains in the primal uncontaminated state in sleep. As for sorrow, there is no sorrow. Where is it in order that you might speak if its absence in sleep? The present wrong identification of the Self with the body has given rise to all mistakes.

Q: What I want is realization. I do not feel my inherent happy nature.

Because the Self is now identified with the non-Self. The non-Self too is not apart from the Self. However, there is the wrong notion that the body is apart and the Self is confounded with the body. This wrong identity must be ended for happiness to manifest.

Q: I am unable to help myself.

(The devotee suggested surrender to the Master.)

Agreed.

Your nature is happiness. You say that is not apparent. See what obstructs you from your true being. It is pointed out to you that the obstruction is the wrong identity. Eliminate the error. The patient must himself take the medicine prescribed by the doctor in order that he may be cured of his illness.

Q: The patient is too weak to help himself and places himself unconditionally in the hands of the doctor.

The doctor must be given a free hand and the patient must only remain quiet without saying anything. Similarly keep quiet. That is effortlessness.

Q: That is the most effective medicine too.

The other questions which he wrote down were:

Q: Convince me of the existence of God.

Realization of the Self amounts to such conviction.

Q: How is prarabdha (past karma) related to purushakara (one's own effort here)?

Prarabdha is karma (action). There must be a karta (doer) for it. See who the karta is. Purushakara is effort. See who exerts. There is identity established. The one who seeks to know their relation is himself the link.

Q: What is karma and rebirth?

See the karta (doer) and then the karma (action) becomes obvious. If you are born now, rebirth may follow. See if you are born now.

Q: Help me to have jyotidarshana (vision of light).

Darshana (sight) implies drashta (seer). Find him and darshana (sight) is included in him.