Reality Remains As It Is

Sri Ramana Maharshi

10-6-1946

Dr. Haridas, a disciple of Swami Madhava Theertha and a relative of Mahatma Gandhi by marriage, asked Bhagavan, “If ajnana is also Brahman, why is Brahman not visible but only ajnana or the world?”

Bhagavan: Brahman is not to be seen or known. It is beyond the triputis (triads) of seer, seen and seeing or knower, knowledge and knowing. The Reality remains ever as it is; that there is ajnana or the world is due to our moham or illusion. Neither knowledge nor ignorance is real; what is beyond this, as all other pairs of opposites, is the Reality. It is neither light nor darkness but beyond both, though we sometimes have to speak of it as light and of ignorance as its shadow.

G.V.S.: It is said that the Self cannot be realized by reading books but only by anubhava (personal experience).

Bhagavan: What is anubhava? It is only going beyond the pairs of opposites or the triputis.

In the evening Bhagavan said with reference to a question somebody had asked: “During sleep there is both the Self and ajnana — ajnana because we knew nothing and the Self because we existed, and when we wake we say, ‘I slept well’, although we knew nothing. If one asks how the Self and ajnana can exist together, any more than light and darkness, the answer is that to one who realises, the Self is all light and there is no such thing as darkness at all, but to one who has not realised we say that there can be ajnana in the Self like the seeming shadows on the moon.”