Sri Ramana Maharshi
2-1-1946 afternoon
Q: Is renunciation necessary for Self-realization?
Renunciation and realization are the same. They are different aspects of the same state. Giving up the non-Self is renunciation. Inhering in the Self is jnana or Self-Realization. One is the negative and the other the positive aspect of the same, single truth. Bhakti, jnana, yoga - are different names for Self-realization or mukti which is our real nature. These appear as the means first. They eventually are the goal. So long as there is conscious effort required on our part to keep up bhakti, yoga, dhyana etc., they are the means. When they go on without any effort on our part, we have attained the goal. There is no realization to be achieved. The real is ever as it is. What we have done is, we have realized the unreal, i.e., taken for real the unreal. We have to give up that. That is all that is wanted.
Q: How has the unreal come? Can the unreal spring from the real?
See if it has sprung. There is no such thing as the unreal, from another standpoint. The Self alone exists. When you try to trace the ego, based on which alone the world and all exist, you find the ego does not exist at all and so also all this creation.
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