IT IS NOT DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND BHAGAVAN RAMANA IF YOU READ THE QUESTIONS PUT TO HIM AND THE ANSWERS GIVEN BY HIM, SLOWLY, CONCENTRATING ON EACH WORD ATTENTIVELY WITH INVOLVEMENT AND INTEREST TO LEARN.- It is made simple for you. So you will enjoy profusely. JKS
Devotee: How we are not to fall into sleep during meditation.
Maharishi Ramana: That is stupor you must guard against. That sleep which alternates with waking is not true sleep. That waking which alternates with sleep is not true waking. Are you now awake? You are not. You are required to wake up to your real state. You should not fall into false sleep nor keep falsely awake. Hence:Laye sambodhayec cittam vikshiptam samayet punah. What does it mean?
It means that you should not fall into any one of these states but remain amidst them in your true unsullied nature.
D.: The states are of our mind only.
M.: Whose mind? Hold it and see.
D.: The mind cannot be held. It is that which creates all these. It is known only by its effects and not in its true nature.
M.: Quite so. You see the colours of the spectrum. Together they form the white light. But seven colours are seen through the prism.
Similarly, the one Self resolves itself into so many phases, mind, world, body, etc. The Self is seen as the mind, the body or the world.That is to say, it becomes whatever you perceive it to be.
D.: These are difficult to follow in practice. I will hold on to God
and surrender.
M.: That is the best.
D.: How can I do my duties without attachment? There is my wife, there are my children. I must do my duty towards them. Affection is necessary. Am I right?
M.: How do you do your work in the College?
D.: (laughing) For wages.
M.: Not because you are attached, simply as doing your duty.
D.: But my pupils expect me to love them.
M.: “Detachment in the interior and attachment in appearance,” says Yoga Vasishta. Avidya (ignorance) is the obstacle for knowing your true nature even at the present moment.
D.: How is one to get over Avidya?
M.: Ya navidya te aavidya (What is not, is avidya). So it is itself a myth. If it really be, how can it perish? Its being is false and so it disappears.
D.: Although I understand it intellectually, I cannot realise the Self.
M.: Why should this thought disturb your present state of realisation.
D.: The Self is One, but yet I do not find myself free from the present trouble.
M.: Who says this? Is it the Self which is only one? The question contradicts itself.
D.: Grace is necessary for realisation.
M.: Inasmuch as you, being a man, now understand that there is a higher power guiding you, it is due to Grace. Grace is within you. Isvaro gururatmeti (Isvara, Guru and the Self are synonymous).
D.: I pray for that Grace.
M.: Yes, yes.
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