No Confusion For Self

Sri Ramana Maharshi

• Realizing the truth of Self within your heart and ever abiding as the Supreme, act according to the human role which you have taken in this world, as if you taste its pleasures and pains.
• It is not right for the Wise One to behave improperly, even though He has known all that is to be known and attained all that is to be attained. Therefore, observe the code of conduct which is befitting to your outward mode of life.
• All that is perceived by the mind was already within the heart. Know that all perceptions are a reproduction of past tendencies now being projected outside [through the five senses].
• Self Itself is seen [due to Maya] appearing as the many names and forms of this universe, but It does not act as the cause or the doer, creating, sustaining and destroying this universe.
• Do not ask, “Why does Self, as if confused, not know the Truth that It is Itself which is seen as the world?” If instead you enquire, “To whom does this confusion occur?”, it will be discovered that no such confusion ever existed for Self!
• Self appearing as the world is just like a rope seeing itself as a snake; just as the snake is, on scrutiny, found to be ever non-existent, so is the world found to be ever non-existent, even as an appearance.
• In fact, is it not a single deluded thought that creates the snake – which, though appearing to be separate, is truly not other than that thought itself – in a rope; and that then sustains this snake as the cause of its own misery; and that will finally destroy this snake [by obtaining a clear knowledge of its own true nature]?

From Collection of Guru's Sayings (Guru Vachaka Kovai) by Muruganar