Incidents from Bhagavan's Life

Sri Ramana Maharshi

From Annamalai Swami's Diary Extracts

One evening, while we were all sitting on the hill, Bhagavan told us about two incidents which had happened at Virupaksha Cave. 

'In my early years here I was once sitting on a rock on the hill when a boy came up to see me. He was about 8 years old. 

Seeing me he said with great pity, 'Swami, why did you come away like this to live alone without any clothes?' 

I gave him an answer which would satisfy his mind. 'The elders in my house became angry with me. So I left and came here.' 

The boy asked, 'Swami, what do you do for food?' 

I replied, 'If somebody gives me some, I take it. Otherwise I don't eat.' The boy was shocked that I had to live such an arduous life.

 'Aiyo' he exclaimed. 'You come with me. I will talk to my boss and get you a job. If you work just for food for a few days, he will give you a salary later.' 

I responded to his offer by remaining silent. 

On another day, as I was sitting on a bench at Virupaksha Cave, a small boy came up to me and stared at me for a long time. Then he cried and sobbed violently. 

Palaniswami, who was inside the cave, came out and asked him, 'Why are you crying?' 

'I feel a great pity when I look at him.', said the boy. And then he carried on sobbing. 

Sri Bhagavan, as he often did when he told stories, enlivened his narrative by acting out the parts of the people in the story. In this particular case he gave a good imitation of the boy's words and sobs.

Fruit of Life

Sri Ramana Maharshi

From Annamalai Swami's Diary Extracts

Q: Swami, as soon as I heard your name I had a great desire to see you. I have now come. How did this great desire come to me?

M: In just the same way your body came to you.

Q: What is the fruit of one's life?

M: If a person thinks that he must conduct himself according to the true principles of life, that itself is the fruit of the great tapas done in his previous life. Those who do not think in this way are wasting their time. 

Without a Mind, All will be well

Sri Ramana Maharshi

31-12-1946

A visitor asked Bhagavan, “What is the right conception of life?” 

Bhagavan: If you know who wants to have this cleared, i.e., who puts this question, then all will be solved. What is meant by life, by right conception, and who are you? 

Visitor: I am a man. I want to know what is the right conception of life so that I may live accordingly. 

Bhagavan: Life of man is what is. That which is, is. All the trouble arises by having a conception of it. Mind comes in. It has a conception. All trouble follows. If you are as you are, without a mind and its conceptions about various things, all will be well with you. If you seek the source of the mind, then alone all questions will be solved. 

Another visitor asked Bhagavan, “Will not right conduct be enough to secure salvation?” 

Bhagavan: Salvation for whom? Who wants salvation? And what is right conduct? What is conduct? And what is right? Who is to judge what is right and what is wrong? According to previous samskaras, each one regards something or other as right. It is only when the reality is known, what is right can be known. The best course is to find out who wants this salvation, and in tracing this ‘who’ or ego to its original source consists all right conduct. 

This answer did not satisfy the visitor, and he kept on asking whether doing nitya karmas and sat karmas will not lead to salvation, as mentioned in books. Thereupon Bhagavan said, “It is said so in books. Who denies that good conduct is good or that it will eventually lead you to the goal? Good conduct or sat karma purifies the chitta or mind and gives you chitta suddhi. The pure mind attains jnana, which is what is meant by salvation. So, eventually jnana must be reached, i.e., the ego must be traced to its source. But to those to whom this does not appeal, we have to say sat karmas lead to chitta suddhi, and chitta suddhi will lead to right knowledge or jnana, and that in its turn gives salvation.”

I AM - Always Abides

Sri Ramana Maharshi
27-12-1946

The visitor still pointed out that his teacher, basing himself on various texts from the above authors, had taught him that the proper yoga is to see that the body does not die.

Bhagavan: People put various interpretations on the same texts, according to their pet theories. You quote for instance from Manikkavachakar and say he used the way advocated by your teacher, the way in which the soul is to be made to leave the body by the tenth gate (and not by the nine gates). Can you point out a single line in that saint’s works where the phrase (tenth gate) occurs? You said the great ones used this yoga. What is the viyoga (separation) from? Who got that viyoga, and who wants to achieve yoga (union) again? That must first be known. 

The visitor also asked in the course of his long talk: “How else is the jiva (individual soul) to join sivam (God), how is the jivatman to become one with the Paramatman?”

Bhagavan said, “We do not know anything about Siva or the Paramatman. We know the jiva. Or, rather, we know we exist. ‘I am’ is the only thing that always abides, even when the body does not exist for us, as for instance, when we are asleep. Let us take hold of this, and see wherefrom the ‘I’ sense or ahamkara, as you put it, arises.”

The visitor asked Bhagavan, “I am asked to go the way by which I came. Then what will happen?”

Bhagavan replied, “If you go, you go away. That is all. There is nothing more. You won’t come back. Because you asked ‘which way?’, I said ‘The way you came’. But who are you? Where are you now and where do you want to go, that one may show the way? All these questions will have to be first answered. So the most important thing is to find out who you are. Then all else will be solved.”

Not Enough

Sri Ramana Maharshi

25-12-1946

I was away at Madras from the 13th and returned last night. This evening at about 6-30, our Framji’s brother’s son, who has been staying here for about a month with his wife and child, came with his party to take leave of Bhagavan, as they intended leaving for Bombay the next morning. Mother and son stood near Bhagavan’s feet, and T. S. R. told Bhagavan that the party had come to take leave. The child about three years old went up to Bhagavan, and stood near him close to the grating. Bhagavan graciously took hold of the boy’s right arm and shook it and let him go. He went back to his mother and, as they were prostrating, said something to her in Gujarati. Bhagavan asked what it was all about. The mother said, “He is saying Bhagavan did not place his hands on his head and bless him.” Bhagavan was surprised at this remark of the child. The mother took advantage of the situation, and told her son to go near Bhagavan. Bhagavan began saying, “I have touched his arm. It is enough.” But the child had come up to him and put his head across the grating. Bhagavan touched his head and remarked, “I thought he would be satisfied with my having touched and fondled him. But he persists and wants this.”

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’.

Sleeps Without Sleeping

Sri Ramana Maharshi

This evening just before parayana, a Telugu gentleman wrote a few questions and presented them to Bhagavan. Bhagavan replied to him. The questions in effect were: “They say that jivanmuktas are always having brahmakara vritti. Would they be having it during sleep? If they have it, then who is it that sleeps in their case?” 

Answer: “Of course, the jivanmuktas are having brahmakara vritti always, even during sleep. The real answer to the last question and the whole set of questions is that the jnani has neither the waking, dreaming, or sleeping avasthas, but only the turiya state. It is the jnani that sleeps. But he sleeps without sleeping or is awake while sleeping.”
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A French official from Pondicherry has been here for two days, and he told Bhagavan that he intended giving up his job and doing some sadhana in the spiritual line. As usual, Bhagavan told him it was not necessary to give up one’s job or renounce the world or go to a forest, etc., to do any sadhana; and that, wherever one might be, and whatever duties one might be discharging in one’s office or family, one could still practise sadhana.

Japa Cannot be Stopped

Sri Ramana Maharshi

Mrs. C. then asked, “Am I not then to say (in answer to my own question ‘Who am I?’) ‘I am not this body but a spirit etc.’?” 

Bhagavan then said, “No. The enquiry ‘Who am I?’ means really the enquiry within oneself as to wherefrom within the body the ‘I’-thought arises. If you concentrate your attention on such an enquiry, the ‘I’-thought being the root of all other thoughts, all thoughts will be destroyed and then the Self or the Big ‘I’ alone will remain as ever. You do not get anything new, or reach somewhere where you were not before. When all other thoughts which were hiding the Self are removed, the Self shines by itself.” 

Mrs. C. then referred to the portion in the book (Who am I ?) where it is said, “Even if you keep on saying ‘I’, ‘I’, it will take you to the Self or reality” and asked whether that was not the proper thing to be done. I explained, “The book says one must try and follow the enquiry method which consists in turning one’s thoughts inwards and trying to find out wherefrom the ‘I’, which is the root of all thoughts, arises. If one finds one is not able to do it, one may simply go on repeating ‘I’, ‘I’, as if it were a mantram like ‘Krishna’ or ‘Rama’ which people use in their japa. The idea is to concentrate on one thought to exclude all other thoughts and then eventually even the one thought will die.” 

On this, Mrs. C. asked me, “Will it be of any use if one simply repeats ‘I’, ‘I’ mechanically?” I replied, “When one uses ‘I’ or other words like ‘Krishna’, one surely has in one’s own mind some idea of the God one calls by the name ‘I’ or anything else. When a man goes on repeating ‘Rama’ or ‘Krishna’, he can’t be thinking of a tree as the meaning behind it.” 

After all this, Bhagavan said, “Now you consider you are making an effort and uttering ‘I’, ‘I’ or other mantrams and making meditation. But when you reach the final stage, meditation will go on without any effort on your part. You can’t get away from it or stop it, for meditation, japa, or whatever else you call it, is your real nature.”

Enquire into the 'I'

Sri Ramana Maharshi

Mrs. Chenoy (from Bombay) asked Bhagavan this evening (after reading Who am I?) whether it was the proper thing to do if she asked herself “Who am I?” and told herself she was not this body but a spirit, a spark from the divine flame. 

Bhagavan first said, “Yes, you might do that or whatever appeals to you. It will come right in the end.” But, after a little while, he told her: “There is a stage in the beginning, when you identify yourself with the body, when you are still having the bodyconsciousness. At that stage, you have the feeling you are different from the reality or God, and then it is, you think of yourself as a devotee of God or as a servant or lover of God. This is the first stage. The second stage is when you think of yourself as a spark of the divine fire or a ray from the divine Sun. Even then there is still that sense of difference and the body-consciousness. The third stage will come when all such difference ceases to exist, and you realise that the Self alone exists. There is an ‘I’ which comes and goes, and another ‘I’ which always exists and abides. So long as the first ‘I’ exists, the body-consciousness and the sense of diversity or bheda buddhi will persist. Only when that ‘I’ dies, the reality will reveal itself. For instance, in sleep, the first ‘I’ does not exist. You are not then conscious of a body or the world. Only when that ‘I’ again comes up, as soon as you get out of sleep, do you become conscious of the body and this world. But in sleep you alone existed. For, when you wake up, you are able to say ‘I slept soundly.’ You, that wake up and say so, are the same that existed during sleep. You don’t say that the ‘I’ which persisted during sleep was a different ‘I’ from the ‘I’ present in the waking state. That ‘I’ which persists always and does not come and go is the reality. The other ‘I’ which disappears in sleep is not real. One should try and realize in the waking state that state which unconsciously everyone attains in sleep, the state where the small ‘I’ disappears and the real ‘I’ alone is.” 

At this stage, Mrs. C. Asked, “But how is it to be done?” 

Bhagavan replied, “By enquiring from whence and how does this small ‘I’ arise. The root of all bheda buddhi is this ‘I’. It is at the root of all thoughts. If you enquire wherefrom it arises, it disappears.”

Jnani and Prarabdha

Sri Ramana Maharshi

About 10-30 a.m. today a visitor asked Bhagavan, “The realised man has no further karma. He is not bound by his karma.Why should he still remain with his body?” 

Bhagavan replied, “Who asks this question? Is it the realised man or the ajnani? Why should you bother what the jnani does or why he does anything? You look after yourself.” A little later he added, “You are under the impression you are the body. So you think the jnani also has a body. Does the jnani say he has a body? He may look to you as having a body and doing things with the body, as others do. The burnt rope still looks like a rope, but it can’t serve as a rope if you try to bind anything with it. So long as one identifies oneself with the body, all this is difficult to understand. That is why it is sometimes said in reply to such questions, ‘The body of the jnani will continue till the force of prarabdha works itself out, and after the prarabdha is exhausted it will drop off. An illustration made use of in this connection is that of an arrow already discharged which will continue to advance and strike its target. But the truth is the jnani has transcended all karmas, including the prarabdha karma, and he is not bound by the body or its karmas.” 

JnanaMarga and Sastraic Path

Sri Ramana Maharshi

18-11-1946

Question: If such rites as the annual ceremony performed by descendants are able to do away with the karma of the dead, it seems to strike at the root of the theory of karma. For then a man may escape the evil consequences of his bad acts through the help of the rites performed by his sons, etc. 

Answer: Such rites only help the deceased to a small extent. It is on the same principle that prayaschittam and good deeds are said to mitigate the evil consequences of one’s bad actions. 

After the visitor went away I asked Bhagavan, “Till three years ago, I was under the impression that doing annual ceremonies to the dead would confer benefit on them so long as they are not reborn.” Bhagavan intervened with the remark, “They will receive benefit though they are reborn several times and there is an agency to look after all this. Of course, Jnana marga does not say all this.” 

After a while I said, “Bhagavan used to say that if one believes in the existence of this world, one should also believe in the existence of other worlds.” Bhagavan said that it was so. 

I asked, “The jnani transcends all stages and he is not bound by any karma (vidhi or nisheda). The ajnani should do his own dharma prescribed by sastras till he gets jnana. But while he is attempting to reach jnana, will he be held responsible for the consequences of not doing the ordinary karma or will he be presumed to have done all this karma, just as a person reading in a higher class is presumed to have finished the lower classes?” 

Bhagavan said, “It depends on the superiority of the path one pursues. Unless a person has finished (in this or previous births) the other paths, he will not pursue the jnana path; and he need not bother himself that he has not done the various karmas prescribed by sastras. But he should not wilfully transgress the sastraic injunctions by doing things prohibited by them.”

Seeing is Being

Sri Ramana Maharshi

The visitor also asked, “When a man realises the Self, what will he see?” 

Bhagavan replied, “There is no seeing. Seeing is only Being. The state of Self-realization, as we call it, is not attaining something new or reaching some goal which is far away, but simply being that which you always are and which you always have been. All that is needed is that you give up your realization of the not-true as true. All of us are realizing, i.e., regarding as real, that which is not real. We have only to give up this practice on our part. Then we shall realize the Self as the Self, or in other words, ‘Be the Self’. At one stage one would laugh at oneself that one tried to discover the Self which is so self-evident. So, what can we say to this question? “That stage transcends the seer and the seen. There is no seer there to see anything. The seer who is seeing all this now ceases to exist and the Self alone remains.”

Mind: A Bundle of Thoughts

Sri Ramana Maharshi

18-10-1946

This afternoon a visitor from Shimoga asked Bhagavan, “How to still the tossing mind?”

Bhagavan replied, “Who asks this question? Is it the mind or you?”

The visitor said, “The mind.”

Bhagavan: If you see what this mind is, it will be stilled.

Visitor: How to see what the mind is?

Bhagavan: What is your idea of the mind?

Visitor: My idea is, it is thought.

Bhagavan: The mind is a bundle of thoughts. But the source of all thoughts is the I-thought. So if you try to find out who this ‘I’ is, the mind will disappear. The mind will exist only so long as you think of external things. But when you draw it from external things and make it think of the mind or ‘I’ - in other words introvert it - it ceases to exist.

An Open Secret

Sri Ramana Maharshi

The visitor further asked, “May I believe that there is nothing more to be known now, so far as the technique of sadhana is concerned, than that which has been written in your books from time to time? This question arises from the fact that, in all other systems of sadhana, the sadguru unfolds some secret technique of meditation to his disciple at the time of initiation or diksha, as it is called.” 

Bhagavan: There is nothing more to be known than what you find in books. No secret technique. It is all an open secret, in this system.

Visitor: If, even after God-realisation, one has to pay attention to his bodily needs such as hunger, sleep, rest, heat and cold, of what use is Self-realisation? This state is something, which cannot be called completeness. 

Bhagavan: What will be the state after Self-realisation? Why should you bother about it now? Attain Self-realisation, and then see for yourself. But why go to the state of Selfrealisation? Even now, are you without Self? And are all these things, eating, sleeping, etc., without or apart from the Self?

Direct and Easy Method

Sri Ramana Maharshi

This afternoon, a visitor asked Bhagavan, “No doubt the method taught by Bhagavan is direct. But it is so difficult. We do not know how to begin it. If we go on asking, ‘Who am I?’ ‘Who am I?’ like a japa, with ‘Who am I?’ for mantra, it becomes dull. In other methods, there is something preliminary and positive with which one can begin and then go step by step. But in Bhagavan’s method, there is no such thing, and to seek the Self at once, though direct, is difficult.” 

Bhagavan: You yourself concede, it is the direct method. It is the direct and easy method. When going after other things, alien to us, is so easy, how can it be difficult for one to go to one’s own Self? You talk of ‘Where to begin’. There is no beginning and no end. You are yourself the beginning and the end. If you are here and the Self somewhere else, and you have to reach that Self, you may be told how to start, how to travel and then how to reach. Suppose you who are now in Ramana Asramam ask, ‘I want to go to Ramana Asramam. How shall I start and how to reach it?’, what is one to say? A man’s search for the Self is like that. He is always the Self and nothing else. You say ‘Who am I?’ becomes a japa. It is not meant that you should go on asking ‘Who am I?’ In that case, thought will not so easily die. All japas are intended, by the use of one thought, the mantra, to exclude all other thoughts. This, japa eventually does for a man. All other thoughts, except the thought of the mantra, gradually die and then even that one thought dies. Our Self is of the nature of japa. Japa is always going on there. If we give up all thoughts, we shall find japa is always there without any effort on our part. 

In the direct method, as you call it, by saying ask yourself ‘Who am I?’ you are told to concentrate within yourself where the I-thought (the root of all other thoughts) arises. As the Self is not outside but inside you, you are asked to dive within, instead of going without, and what can be more easy than going to yourself? But the fact remains that to some this method will seem difficult and will not appeal. That is why so many different methods have been taught. Each of them will appeal to some as the best and easiest. That is according to their pakva or fitness. But to some, nothing except the vichara marga will appeal. They will ask, ‘You want me to know or to see this or that. But who is the knower, the seer?’ Whatever other method may be chosen, there will be always a doer. That cannot be escaped. Who is that doer must be found out. Till that, the sadhana cannot be ended. So eventually, all must come to find out ‘Who am I?’. You complain that there is nothing preliminary or positive to start with. You have the ‘I’ to start with. You know you exist always, whereas the body does not exist always, e.g., in sleep. Sleep reveals that you exist even without a body. We identify the ‘I’ with a body, we regard the Self as having a body, and as having limits, and hence all our trouble. All that we have to do is to give up identifying our Self with the body, with forms and limits, and then we shall know ourselves as the Self that we always are. 

Merely Saying 'I am free' Won't Set You Free

Sri Ramana Maharshi

21-8-1946 Afternoon

A visitor from Bengal asked Bhagavan, “Shankara says we are all free, not bound, and that we shall all go back to God from whom we have come as sparks from fire. Then, why should we not commit all sorts of sins?” 

Bhagavan: It is true we are not bound, i.e., the real Self has no bondage. It is true you will eventually go back to your source. But meanwhile, if you commit sins, as you call them, you have to face the consequences of such sins. You cannot escape their consequences. If a man beats you, then, can you say, ‘I am free, I am not bound by these beatings and I don’t feel any pain. Let him beat on?’ If you can feel like that, you can go on doing what you like. What is the use of merely saying with your lips ‘I am free?’ 

The visitor also asked, “The books mention several methods for Self-realisation. Which is the easiest and best?” 

Bhagavan: Several methods are mentioned to suit several minds. They are all good. You can choose whatever method appeals to you best.

Self is Sakshat

Sri Ramana Maharshi

This evening, D.S. Sarma, asked Bhagavan: “In Western mysticism three definite stages are often spoken of — viz., Purgation, illumination and union. Was there any such stage as purgation — corresponding to what we call sadhana — in Bhagavan’s life?” 

Bhagavan replied, “I have never done any sadhana. I did not even know what sadhana was. Only long afterwards I came to know what sadhana was and how many different kinds of it there were. It is only if there was any object or anything different from me that I could think of it. Only if there was a goal to attain, I should have made sadhana to attain that goal. There was nothing which I wanted to obtain. I am now sitting with my eyes open. I was then sitting with my eyes closed. That was all the difference. I was not doing any sadhana even then. As I sat with my eyes closed, people said I was in samadhi. As I was not talking, they said I was in mauna. The fact is, I did nothing. Some Higher Power took hold of me and I was entirely in Its hand.” 

Bhagavan further added, “The books no doubt speak of sravana, manana, nididhyasana, samadhi and sakshatkara. We are always sakshat and what is there for one to attain karam of that? We call this world sakshat or pratyaksha. What is changing, what appears and disappears, what is not sakshat, we regard as sakshat. We are always and nothing can be more directly present pratyaksha than we, and about that we say we have to attain sakshatkaram after all these sadhanas. Nothing can be more strange than this. The Self is not attained by doing anything, but remaining still and being as we are.”

The Gita Way

Sri Ramana Maharshi

In the evening, after parayana, a visitor asked Bhagavan, “How to control the wandering mind?” He prefaced the question with the remark, “I want to ask Bhagavan a question which is troubling me.” 

Bhagavan replied, after laughing, “This is nothing peculiar to you. This is the question which is always asked by everybody and which is dealt with in all the books like the Gita. What way is there, except to draw in the mind as often as it strays or goes outward, and to fix it in the Self, as the Gita advises? Of course, it won’t be easy to do it. It will come only with practice or sadhana.” 

The visitor said, “The mind goes after only what it desires and won’t get fixed on the object we set before it.” 

Bhagavan said, “Everybody will go after only what gives happiness to him. Thinking that happiness comes from some object or other, you go after it. See from whence all happiness, including the happiness you regard as coming from sense objects, really comes. You will understand all happiness comes only from the Self, and then you will always abide in the Self.”

Do You Exist Or Not?

Sri Ramana Maharshi

17-8-1946

This morning, a number of Gujarati visitors arrived here, evidently returning from Pondicherry, after darshan there on the 15th. One of them asked Bhagavan, “What is meant by Self-realisation? Materialists say there is no such thing as God or Self.” 

Bhagavan said, “Never mind what the materialists or others say; and don’t bother about Self or God. Do you exist or not? What is your idea of yourself? What do you mean by ‘I’?” 

The visitor said he did not understand by ‘I’ his body, but something within his body. 

Thereupon, Bhagavan continued, “You concede ‘I’ is not the body but something within it. See then from whence the ‘I’ arises within the body. See whether it arises and disappears, or is always present. You will admit there is an ‘I’ which emerges as soon as you wake up, sees the body, the world and all else, and ceases to exist when you sleep; and that there is another ‘I’ which exists apart from the body, independently of it, and which alone is with you when the body and the world do not exist for you, as for instance in sleep. Then ask yourself if you are not the same ‘I’ during sleep and during the other states. Are there two ‘I’s? You are the same one person always. Now, which can be real, the ‘I’ which comes and goes, or the ‘I’ which always abides? Then you will know that you are the Self. This is called Self-realisation. Self-realisation is not however a state which is foreign to you, which is far from you, and which has to be reached by you. You are always in that state. You forget it, and identify yourself with the mind and its creation. To cease to identify yourself with the mind is all that is required. We have so long identified ourselves with the not-Self that we find it difficult to regard ourselves as the Self. Giving up this identification with the not-Self is all that is meant by Self-realisation. How to realise, i.e., make real, the Self? We have realised, i.e., regarded as real, what is unreal, the not-Self. To give up such false realisation is Self-realisation.” 

Back to God

Sri Ramana Maharshi

21-8-1946

A visitor from Bengal asked Bhagavan, “Shankara says we are all free, not bound, and that we shall all go back to God from whom we have come as sparks from fire. Then, why should we not commit all sorts of sins?” 

Bhagavan: It is true we are not bound, i.e., the real Self has no bondage. It is true you will eventually go back to your source. But meanwhile, if you commit sins, as you call them, you have to face the consequences of such sins. You cannot escape their consequences. If a man beats you, then, can you say, ‘I am free, I am not bound by these beatings and I don’t feel any pain. Let him beat on?’ If you can feel like that, you can go on doing what you like. What is the use of merely saying with your lips ‘I am free?’ 

The visitor also asked, “The books mention several methods for Self-realisation. Which is the easiest and best?” 

Bhagavan: Several methods are mentioned to suit several minds. They are all good. You can choose whatever method appeals to you best.