Sri Ramana Maharshi
Mrs. Hick Riddingh asked Sri Bhagavan in writing:
When Bhagavan writes about the help given towards attaining Self-Realisation by the gracious glance of the Master or looking upon theMaster, how exactly is this to be understood?”
M.: Who is the Master? Who is the seeker?
D.: The Self.
M.: If the Self be the Master and also the seeker, how can the questions arise at all?
D.: That is just my difficulty. I must seek the Self within myself. What is then the significance of the writing above referred to? It seems contradictory.
M.: It is not. The statement has not been rightly understood. If the seeker knows the Master to be the Self he sees no duality in other respects either and is therefore happy, so that no questions arise for him.
But the seeker does not bring the truth of the statement to bear in practice. It is because of his ignorance. This ignorance is however unreal. The Master is required to wake up the seeker from the slumber of ignorance and he therefore uses these words in order to make Reality clear to others.
The only thing that matters is that you see the Self. This can be done wherever you remain. The Self must be sought within. The search must be steadfast. If that is gained there is no need to stay near the Master as a physical being.
The ‘statement’ is meant for those who cannot find the Self remaining where they are.
Mr. Ward Jackson: The lady’s difficulty is real and I sympathize with her. She asks, “If we could see the Self within ourselves, why should we have come all the way to see Him? We had been thinking of Him so long and it is only right that we came here. Is it then unnecessary to do so?”
M.: You have done well in having come. “Isvaro gururatmeti” (The Self is the God and Guru). A person seeks happiness and learns that God alone can make one happy. He prays to God and worships Him. God hears his prayers, and responds by appearing in human shape as a Master in order to speak the language of the devotee and make him understand the Reality. The Master is thus God manifest as human being. He gives out His experience so that the seeker might also gain it. His experience is to abide as the Self. The Self is within. God, Master and the Self are therefore seeming stages in the Realisation of the Truth. You have doubts on reading books. You have come here to have them cleared. That is only right.