What Remains After Thoughts Disappear is Pure Consciousness

Sri Ramana Maharshi

Someone remarked: It is said that they get mukti unasked who live or die within a radius of 30 miles round Arunachala. It is also admitted that only by jnana is liberation obtained. The purana also remarks that Vedanta Vijnana is difficult to get. So mukti is difficult. But life or death round about the Hill bestows mukti so easily. How can it be?

M.: Siva says, “By My command.” Those who live here need no initiation, diksha, etc., but get mukti.. Such is the command of Siva.

D.: The purana also says that those who are born here are Siva’s group of followers, such as ghosts, spirits, disembodied beings, etc.

M.: So it is said of other kshetras as well, e.g., Tiruvarur, Chidambaram.

D.: How does mere life or death here confer mukti? It is difficult to understand.

M.: Darsanad Abhrasadasi jananat Kamalalaye, Kasyantu maranam muktih smaranad Arunachale.

“To see Chidambaram, to be born in Tiruvarur, to die in Benares, or merely to think of Arunachala, is to be assured of Liberation.”

Jananat Kamalalaye means “by being born in Kamalalaya”. What is it? It is the Heart. Similarly, Abhrasadasi - Seat of Consciousness. Again, Kasi is the Light of Realisation. Remembering Arunachala completes the verse. It must also be understood in the same sense.

D.: So bhakti is necessary.

M.: Everything depends on the outlook. One sees that all born in Tiruvarur, or visiting Chidambaram, or dying in Banares, or contemplating Arunachala, are muktas.

D.: I think of Arunachala, but still I am not a mukta.

M.: Change of outlook is all that is necessary. See what such a change did for Arjuna. He had the vision, of the Cosmic Self. Sri Krishna says: “Gods and saints are eager to see my Cosmic Form. I have not fulfilled their desire. Yet I endow divine sight by which you can see that Form.” Well, having said so, does He show what He is? No. He asks Arjuna to see in Him all that he desires to see. If that were His real form it must be changeless and known for what it is worth. Instead, Arjuna is commanded to see whatever he desires. So where is the Cosmic Form? It must be in Arjuna. Furthermore, Arjuna finds Gods and saints in that form and they are praising the Lord. If the form be withheld from the Gods and saints as said by Krishna, who are they of Arjuna’s vision?

D.: They must be in his imagination.

M.: They are there because of Arjuna’s outlook.

D.: Then the outlook must be changed by God’s Grace.

M.: Yes. That happens to bhaktas.

D.: A man dreams of a tiger, takes fright and wakes up. The dreamtiger appears to the dream ego who is also frightened. When he wakes up how is it that that ego disappears, and the man wakes up as the waking ego?

M.: That establishes that the ego is the same. Dream, wakefulness and sleep are passing phases for the same ego.

D.: It is so difficult to spot the mind. The same difficulty is shared by all.

M.: You can never find the mind through mind. Pass beyond it in order to find it non-existent.

D.: Then one must directly go to seek the ego. Is it so?

M.: That’s it.

Mind, ego, intellect are all different names for one single inner organ (antahkarana). The mind is only the aggregate of thoughts. Thoughts cannot exist but for the ego. So all thoughts are pervaded

by ego (aham). Seek wherefrom the ‘I’ rises and the other thoughts will disappear.

D.: What remains over cannot be ‘I’, but Pure Consciousness.

M.: Quite so. You start seeking happiness. On analysis you find that misery is caused by thoughts. They are called the mind. While trying to control the mind you seek the ‘I’ and get fixed in Being-Knowledge-Bliss.

Another devotee: What then is the mind?

M.: Mind is consciousness which has put on limitations. You are originally unlimited and perfect. Later you take on limitations and become the mind.

D.: It is avarana (veiling) then. How does this happen?

M.: To whom is the avarana? It is the same as avidya (ignorance), ego or the mind.

D.: Avarana means obscuration. Who is obscured? How does it arise?

M.: The limitation is itself obscuration. No questions will arise if limitations are transcended.