In The End, Ocean Alone Remains

Sri Annamalai Swami

Bhagavan (Ramana Maharshi) spoke about turning inwards to face the Self. That is all that is needed. If we look outwards, we become entangled with objects and we lose awareness of the Self shining within us. But when, by repeated practice, we gain the strength to keep our focus on the Self within, we become one with it and the darkness of Self-ignorance vanishes. Then, even though we continue to live in this false and unreal body, we abide in an ocean of bliss that never fades or diminishes.

This is not going to happen in a moment because lifetimes of wrong and ignorant thinking have made it impossible for most of us to focus intently and regularly on the Self within. If you leave you house and start walking away from it, and if you continue this habit over many lives, you will probably be a long, long way from home when you finally decide that you have had enough and that you want to go back to the place from where you started. Don't be discouraged by the length of the journey, and don't slacken in your efforts to get home. Turn 180 degrees to face the source of your outward journey, and keep moving back to where you started. Ignore the pain, the discomfort, and the frustration of seeming not to get anywhere. Keep moving back to your source, and don't let anything distract you on the way. Be like the river on its journey back to the sea. It doesn't stop, take diversions, or decide to flow uphill for a while. It doesn't become distracted. It just moves slowly and steadily back to the place from where its water originated. And when the river dissolves in the ocean, river is no more. Only ocean remains.

Jiva came from Shiva and has to go back to Shiva again. If there is a big charcoal fire, and one burning ember jumps out, the fire in the ember will soon go out. To reignite it, you have to put it back into the fire, back into its burning source.

There is no happiness in separation. The jiva has no happiness, contentment or peace so long as it remains a separate being. The separate being comes from the Self. It has to go back there and end there. Only then will there be eternal peace.

The energy of the mind comes from the Self. In the waking state the mind functions as a separate entity. In the sleep state it goes back to the source. Again and again it comes out and goes back. It does this because it doesn't know the truth of what it really is. It is Self and Self alone, but its ignorance of this fact makes it miserable. It is this feeling of separateness that gives rise to desires, suffering and unhappiness. Keep the mind in the Self. If you can do this, you can live in peace both while you are awake and also while you are asleep. In deep sleep all differences are dropped. If you keep the mind in the Self during the waking state, there will also be no differences, no distinctions. You will see everything as your own Self.