Go The Way You Came

Sri Ramana Maharshi

25-12-1946

This night, a gentleman quoting a few stanzas from Tamil works like Thiruppugazh, and those of Thayumanavar and Manikkavachakar, wanted to know, whether, as he had been told by a certain teacher of his in interpreting these passages, the proper way to attain salvation was to see to it that the body did not die, drop off from the  life and get destroyed, but that it gradually became less and less and finally vanished merging into the Supreme. The gentleman prefaced his remarks with the submission that he was without eye, i.e., understanding (i.e., like a bull roaming about without eyes) and that he prayed for enlightenment. 

Bhagavan asked him, “Have you not got eyes?” 

He replied, “I want the eye which would enable me to see what is the body and what is the soul.” 

Bhagavan: You say this. You have a body and you say ‘my body’, etc. How do you see all this? 

Visitor: With the fleshy eye (oonakkan). I lead the life of egoism. 

Bhagavan: Exactly. So, to see wherefrom this ahamkara rises and to go back to its source is the only way. You wanted the way. This is the only way, to go back by the same way by which you came. You said the way which the great ones of old trod. They all used only this way. Because you asked ‘Which way?’, I replied ‘The way by which you came’.