For Whom is Birth?

Sri Ramana Maharshi

3-7-1946

Visitor: Whence comes birth? 

Bhagavan: For whom is birth? 

Visitor: The Upanishads say “He who knows Brahman becomes Brahman.”

Bhagavan: It is not a matter of becoming but being. 

Visitor: Are the siddhis mentioned in Patanjali’s sutras true or only his dream? 

Bhagavan: He who is Brahman or the Self will not value those siddhis. Patanjali himself says that they are all exercised with the mind and that they impede Self-realisation. 

Visitor: What about the powers of supermen? 

Bhagavan: Whether powers are high or low, whether of the mind or super-mind, they exist only with reference to him who has the powers; find out who that is. 

Visitor: When one attains Self-realisation, what is the guarantee that one has really attained it and is not under an illusion like the lunatic who thinks he is Napoleon or some such thing? 

Bhagavan: In a sense, speaking of Self-realisation is a delusion. It is only because people have been under the delusion that the non-Self is the Self and the unreal the Real that they have to be weaned out of it by the other delusion called Self-realisation; because actually the Self always is the Self and there is no such thing as realising it. Who is to realise what, and how, when all that exists is the Self and nothing but the Self? 

Visitor: Sri Aurobindo says the world is real and you and the Vedantins say it is unreal. How can the world be unreal? 

Bhagavan: The Vedantins do not say the world is unreal. That is a misunderstanding. If they did, what would be the meaning of the Vedantic text: “All this is Brahman”? They only mean that the world is unreal as world, but it is real as Self. If you regard the world as not-Self it is not real. Everything, whether you call it world or maya or lila or sakti, must be within the Self and not apart from it. There can be no sakti apart from the sakta.

Visitor: Different teachers have set up different schools and proclaimed different truths and so confused people. Why? 

Bhagavan: They have all taught the same truth but from different standpoints. Such differences were necessary to meet the needs of different minds differently constituted, but they all reveal the same Truth. 

Visitor: Since they have recommended different paths which is one to follow? 

Bhagavan: You speak of paths as if you were somewhere and the Self somewhere else and you had to go and reach it. But in fact the Self is here and now and you are that always. It is like you being here and asking people the way to Ramanasramam and complaining that each one shows a different path and asking which to follow.