Find 'I' and 'God'

Sri Ramana Maharshi

15-6-1946

When I entered the hall in the evening Bhagavan was saying, “Everything we see is changing, always changing. There must be something unchanging as the basis and source of all this.”

G.V.S.: What justification have we for imagining that the source of all this must be unchanging?

Bhagavan: It is not mere thinking or imagining that the ‘I’ is unchanging. It is a fact of which everyone is aware. The ‘I’ exists in sleep when all the changing things do not exist. It exists in dream and in waking. The ‘I’ remains changeless in all these states while other things come and go.

Dr. S. Mani, Assistant Director of Public Health at Madras, a frequent visitor, asked Bhagavan “But why should these things, that is the world, appear?”

Bhagavan: To whom does it appear? You see and so the world exists. Does it exist independently of the seer? Does it come and tell you, “I exist”? What proof is there of its existence except that you say you see or perceive it?

Another visitor said to Bhagavan: I want to have darshan of God. What should I do?

Bhagavan: First we must know what you mean by ‘I’ and ‘God’ and by ‘darshan of God'.

The visitor dropped the matter and said no more.