Jnani Cannot Escape The Self

Sri Ramana Maharshi

5-3-1946 Evening

When I entered the hall, Bhagavan was talking to Lakshmi, our Venkattoo’s child, of whom I am very fond. I told Bhagavan, “There was a proposal some time back that Lakshmi should be left with her mother’s sister at Erukoor. They seem to have thought the girl would be better off there, where they require a girl badly for petting and rearing, instead of here where she would be only one of several children. But I did not like the idea at all. When children born somewhere in Poland and other countries come here and grow up in the atmosphere of our Asramam, I could not reconcile myself to the idea of our Lakshmi born here being brought up elsewhere.”

Bhagavan said, “The Thatha (the grandfather viz., Pichu Aiyar) went to Erukoor; and do you think she would stay there after seeing her Thatha? If Thatha is there, then alone she would stay there.” On this Balaram quoted from Sakuntala passages in which Sakuntala takes leave of the hermitage and Kanva Maharshi addresses the flowers and says, ‘She who used to water you first before taking her food herself, she who would not pluck you however dearly she loved flowers and liked to wear them, she is now leaving you for her husband’s house. Bless her.’

Balaram also quoted from some other book a passage which says, ‘We, people of the world, have to make great efforts to draw the mind from the objects of sense or from the world and to fix it in the heart, on God. But you, Radha, in whose heart God is fully caught, you have to make effort to get away from God.’ On this Bhagavan remarked, “That is the stage of the jnani. He can’t escape the Self or go away from it. Where else to go, as all that he knows is the Self which he himself is?”