MAHARISHI RAMANA

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 that you will enjoy His teaching profusely.

Maharishi Ramana:  The same person sleeps, dreams and wakes up. The waking state is considered to be full of beautiful and interesting things. The absence  of such experiences makes one say that the sleep state is dull. Before we proceed further let us make this point clear. Do you not admit  that you exist in your sleep?

Devotee: Yes, I do.

M.: You are the same person that is now awake. Is it not so?

D.: Yes.

M.: So there is a continuity in the sleep and the waking states. What is that continuity? It is only the state of Pure Being.

There is a difference in the two states. What is that difference? The

incidents, namely, the body, the world and the objects appear in

the waking state but they disappear in sleep.

D.: But I am not aware in my sleep.

M.: True, there is no awareness of the body or of the world. But you must exist in your sleep in order to say now “I was not aware in my sleep”.Who says so now? It is the wakeful person. The sleeper cannot say so. That is to say, the individual who is now identifying the Self with the body says that such awareness did not exist in sleep. Because you identify yourself with the body, you see the world around you and say that the waking state is filled with beautiful and interesting things. The sleep state appears dull because you were not there as an individual and therefore these things were not. But what is the fact? There is the continuity of Being in all the three states, but no continuity of the individual and the objects.

D.: Yes.

M.: That which is continuous is also enduring, i.e. permanent. That

which is discontinuous is transitory.

D.: Yes.

M.: Therefore the state of Being is permanent and the body and the

world are not. They are fleeting phenomena passing on the screen

of Being-Consciousness which is eternal and stationary.

D.: Relatively speaking, is not the sleep state nearer to Pure

Consciousness than the waking state?

M.: Yes, in this sense: When passing from sleep to waking the ‘I’

thought must start; the mind comes into play; thoughts arise;

and then the functions of the body come into operation; all these

together make us say that we are awake. The absence of all this

evolution is the characteristic of sleep and therefore it is nearer to

Pure Consciousness than the waking state.

But one should not therefore desire to be always in sleep. In the

first place it is impossible, for it will necessarily alternate with the

other states. Secondly it cannot be the state of bliss in which the

Jnani is, for his state is permanent and not alternating. Moreover,

the sleep state is not recognised to be one of awareness by people,

but the sage is always aware. Thus the sleep state differs from the

state in which the sage is established.