Sri Ramana Maharshi
A European gentleman asked: How do you answer the question, “Who are you?”
M.: Ask yourself the question, “Who am I?”
D.: Please tell me how you have found it. I shall not be able to find it myself. (The ‘I’ is the result of biological forces. It results in silence. I want to know how the Master finds it.)
M.: Is it found only by logic? The scientific analysis is due to intellect.
D.: According to J. C. Bose, nature does not make any difference between a worm and a man.
M.: What is Nature?
D.: It is that which exists.
M.: How do you know the existence?
D.: By my senses.
M.: ‘My’ implies your existence. But you are speaking of another’s existence. You must exist to speak of “my senses”. There cannot be ‘my’ without ‘I’.
D.: I am a poor creature. I come to ask you, Great Master that you are, what this existence is. There is no special significance in the word existence. He exists, I exist and others exist. What of that?
M.: The existence of anyone posited, shows your own existence. “Existence is your nature.”
D.: There is nothing strange in anything existing.
M.: How do you know its existence - rather than your own existence?
D.: What is new in the existence of anything? I take up your book and read there that the one question one should ask oneself is “Who am I”? I want to know “Who are you?” I have my own answer. If another says the same, and so too, millions of others, there is the probability of the Self. I want a positive answer for the question and no playing with words.
M.: In this way you are in the region of probabilities at the best.
D.: Yes. There are no certainties. Even God cannot be proved to be absolute certainty.
M.: Leave God alone for the time being. What of yourself?
D.: I want confirmation of the Self.
M.: You seek the confirmation from others. Each one though addressed as ‘you’, styles himself ‘I’. The confirmation is only from ‘I’. There is no ‘you’ at all. All are comprised in ‘I’. The other can be known only when the Self is posited. The others do not exist without the subject.
D.: Again, this is nothing new. When I was with Sir C. V. Raman he told me that the theory of smell could be explained from his theory of light. Smell need no longer be explained in terms of chemistry. Now, there is something new; it is progress. That is what I mean, when I say that there is nothing new in all the statements I hear now.
M.: ‘I’ is never new. It is eternally the same.
D.: Do you mean to say that there is no progress?
M.: Progress is perceived by the outgoing mind. Everything is still when the mind is introverted and the Self is sought.
D.: The Sciences - what becomes of them?
M.: They all end in the Self. The Self is their finality.
(It was 5 p.m. Sri Bhagavan left the hall and the gentleman left for the station).
M.: Ask yourself the question, “Who am I?”
D.: Please tell me how you have found it. I shall not be able to find it myself. (The ‘I’ is the result of biological forces. It results in silence. I want to know how the Master finds it.)
M.: Is it found only by logic? The scientific analysis is due to intellect.
D.: According to J. C. Bose, nature does not make any difference between a worm and a man.
M.: What is Nature?
D.: It is that which exists.
M.: How do you know the existence?
D.: By my senses.
M.: ‘My’ implies your existence. But you are speaking of another’s existence. You must exist to speak of “my senses”. There cannot be ‘my’ without ‘I’.
D.: I am a poor creature. I come to ask you, Great Master that you are, what this existence is. There is no special significance in the word existence. He exists, I exist and others exist. What of that?
M.: The existence of anyone posited, shows your own existence. “Existence is your nature.”
D.: There is nothing strange in anything existing.
M.: How do you know its existence - rather than your own existence?
D.: What is new in the existence of anything? I take up your book and read there that the one question one should ask oneself is “Who am I”? I want to know “Who are you?” I have my own answer. If another says the same, and so too, millions of others, there is the probability of the Self. I want a positive answer for the question and no playing with words.
M.: In this way you are in the region of probabilities at the best.
D.: Yes. There are no certainties. Even God cannot be proved to be absolute certainty.
M.: Leave God alone for the time being. What of yourself?
D.: I want confirmation of the Self.
M.: You seek the confirmation from others. Each one though addressed as ‘you’, styles himself ‘I’. The confirmation is only from ‘I’. There is no ‘you’ at all. All are comprised in ‘I’. The other can be known only when the Self is posited. The others do not exist without the subject.
D.: Again, this is nothing new. When I was with Sir C. V. Raman he told me that the theory of smell could be explained from his theory of light. Smell need no longer be explained in terms of chemistry. Now, there is something new; it is progress. That is what I mean, when I say that there is nothing new in all the statements I hear now.
M.: ‘I’ is never new. It is eternally the same.
D.: Do you mean to say that there is no progress?
M.: Progress is perceived by the outgoing mind. Everything is still when the mind is introverted and the Self is sought.
D.: The Sciences - what becomes of them?
M.: They all end in the Self. The Self is their finality.
(It was 5 p.m. Sri Bhagavan left the hall and the gentleman left for the station).
No comments:
Post a Comment