You Are The Screen

Sri Ramana Maharshi

6-3-1946

Balaram was reading a collection of Upanishads and, coming across a passage dealing with sahaja samadhi or sahaja sthiti, asked me, "Did you not say that Mr. K S Ramaswami Sastri once told you that he did not believe in sahaja state and that sahaja state is not mentioned in the earlier books, but is a later innovation? I find it mentioned here in the Varaha upanishads themselves." 

I said, "Yes. He thought so. He argued with me, 'How can one be in two planes at the same time? Either he sees the absolute and nothing else or sees the world and then does not see the absolute.' And he said that the sahaja sthiti is not mentioned in the earlier works, but is found only in later works." 

Balaram said, "Where are these two planes for the jnani? He is only in one plane and so there is no point in Mr. Sastri's argument that one can't be in two planes at the same time." 

I said, "How can we say the jnani is not in two planes? He moves about with us like us in the world and sees the various objects we see. It is not as if he does not see them. For instance he walks along. He sees the path he is treading. Suppose there is a chair or table placed across that path. He sees it, avoids it and goes around. So, have we not to admit he sees the world and the objects there while of course he sees the Self?" 

Bhagavan thereupon said, "You say the jnani sees the path, treads it, comes across obstacles, avoids them etc. In whose eyesight is all this, in the jnani's or yours? He sees only the Self and all in the Self." 

I asked, "Are there not illustrations given in our books to explain this sahaja state clearly to us?"

Bhagavan: Why not? There are. For instance you see a reflection in the mirror and the mirror. You know the mirror to be the reality and the picture in it a mere reflection. Is it necessary that to see the mirror we should cease to see the reflection in it? Or again take the screen illustration. There is a screen. On that screen first a figure appears. Before that figure on the same screen other pictures appear and the first figure goes on watching the other pictures. If you are the screen and know yourself to be the screen, is it necessary not to see the first figure and the subsequent pictures? When you don't know the screen you think the figure and pictures to be real. But when you know the screen and realize it is the only reality on which as substratum the shadows of the figure and pictures have been cast, you know these to be mere shadows. You see the shadows, knowing them to be such and knowing yourself to be the screen which is the basis for them all.