BHAGAVAN SRI RAMANA'S TALKS

BHAGAVAN SRI RAMANA'S TALKS : J.K. SIVAN

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: Could there be advaita in actions? That is how the questions arose.
Maharishi Ramana: There should be. This ‘do’ is applicable only to the practiser and not to the accomplished ones.

D:Yes. I quite see it. Advaita cannot be practised in one’s dealings with the Guru. For, consistently with it, he cannot receive instructions.
M.: Yes, the Guru is within and not without. A Tamil saint has said,
“O Guru! always abiding within me, but manifesting now in human form only to guide and protect me!” What is within as the Self manifests in due course as Guru in human shape.

D.: So it amounts to this. To see a Jnani is not to understand him.You see the jnani’s body and not his jnanam. One must therefore be a Jnani to know a Jnani.
M.: The Jnani sees no one as an ajnani.All are only jnanis in his sight. In the ignorant state one superimposes his ignorance on a Jnani and mistakes him for a doer. In the state of jnana, the Jnani sees nothing separate from the Self. The Self is all shining and only pure jnana. So there is no ajnana in his sight. There is an illustration for this kind of allusion or super-imposition.

Two friends went to sleep side by side. One of them dreamt that both of them had gone on a long journey and had strange experiences. On waking up he recapitulated them and asked his friend if it was not so. The other one simply ridiculed him saying that it was only his dream and could not affect the other.

So it is with the ajnani who superimposes his illusive ideas on
others. There is no jnana as it is commonly understood.
The ordinary ideas of jnana and ajnana are only relative and false.
They are not real and therefore not abiding. The true state is the
non-dual Self. It is eternal and abides whether one is aware or not. It is like kanthabharana or the tenth man.

D.: Someone else points it out.
M.: That one is not external. You mistake the body for the Guru. But the Guru does not think himself so. He is the formless Self. That is within you; he appears without only to guide you.

D.: When all the thoughts are banished and the mind is still or enters into a state of nothingness or emptiness, what is the nature of effort needed on the part of the ‘seeker’ to have a pratyakshabhava of the ‘sought’ (e.g., seeing a mango as a mango)?
M.: Who sees nothingness or emptiness? What is pratyaksha? Do you call perception of mango pratyaksha? It involves the play of karma, karta, and karya (action, doer and deed). So it is relative and not absolute.
Because you see a thing now you say there is nothing afterwards (i.e., when you no longer see it). Both are functions of the mind. What lies behind both these assertions is pratyaksha.There is indriya pratyaksha (directly perceived by senses), manasa pratyaksha (directly perceived
by the mind) and sakshat pratyaksha (realised as the very Being). The last alone is true. The others are relative and untrue.