Sri Ramana Maharshi
A learned Telugu visitor, who had composed a song in praise of Sri Bhagavan, read it out, placed it at His feet and saluted. After a time he asked for upadesa.
D.: But oral and personal instruction is valuable.
M.: If there be anything new and hitherto unknown upadesa will be appropriate. Here it happens to be stilling the mind and remaining free from thoughts.
D.: It looks impossible.
M.: But it is precisely the pristine and eternal state of all.
D.: It is not perceived in our everyday active life.
M.: Everyday life is not divorced from the Eternal State. So long as the daily life is imagined to be different from the spiritual life these difficulties arise. If the spiritual life is rightly understood, the active life will be found to be not different from it. Can the mind be got at by the mind on looking for it as an object? The source of the mental functions must be sought and gained. That is the Reality. One does not know the Self owing to the interference of thoughts. The Self is realised when thoughts subside.
D.: “Only one in a million pursues sadhanas to completion.” (Bh. Gita, VII, 3).
M.: “Whenever the turbulent mind wavers, then and there pull it and bring it under control.” (Bh. Gita, VI, 26.) “Seeing the mind with the mind” (manasa mana alokya), so proclaim the Upanishads.
D.: Is the mind an upadhi (limiting adjunct)?
M.: Yes.
D.: Is the seen (drisya) world real (satya)?
M.: It is true in the same degree as the seer (drashta), subject, object and perception form the triad (triputi). There is a reality beyond these three. These appear and disappear, whereas the truth is eternal.
D.: These triputi sambhava are only temporal.
M.: Yes, if one recognizes the Self even in temporal matters these will be found to be non-existent, rather inseparate from the Self; and they will be going on at the same time.
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