Reality is One and Unaffected

Sri Ramana Maharshi

• There is no difference between the mind and the Self. The mind turned inwards is the Self; turned outwards, it becomes the world and all the world. The cotton made into various clothes, we call by various names. But all the clothes are cotton. The one is real, the many are mere names and forms. But the mind does not exist apart from the Self. It has no independent existence. The Self exists without the mind, never the mind without the Self.
• A figure on the screen in the cinema show appears to watch the whole world. What is the reality behind the subject and the object in the same show? An illusory being watches an illusory world. You and the world are as real as the cinema figures and the cinema world.
• Illusion is itself illusory. Illusion must be seen by one beyond it. Can such a seer be subject to illusion? Can he then speak of degrees of illusion? There are scenes floating on the screen in a cinema show. Fire appears to burn buildings to ashes. Water seems to wreck vessels. But the screen on which the pictures were projected remains unscorched and dry. Why? Because the pictures were unreal and the screen is real. Again reflections pass through a mirror; but the mirror is not in anyway affected by the quality or quantity of the reflections on it. So the world is a phenomenon in the single Reality which is not affected in any manner. Reality is one.

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From 'Thus Spake Ramana'