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Awakening Analogies

Ramana Maharshi gives a multitude of ways to understand awakening:

Shade:

• “Mukti or liberation is our nature. It is another name for us. Our wanting mukti is a very funny thing. It is like a man who is in the shade, voluntarily leaving the shade, going into the sun, feeling the severity of the heat there, making great efforts to get back into the shade and then rejoicing, ‘How sweet is the shade! I have reached the shade at last!’ We are all doing exactly the same. We are not different from the reality. We imagine we are different, that is we create the bheda bhava (the feeling of difference) and then undergo great sadhana (spiritual practices) to get rid of the bheda bhava and realise the oneness. Why imagine or create bheda bhava and then destroy it?”

Necklace:

• “A lady had a precious necklace round her neck. Once in her excitement she forgot it and thought that the necklace was lost. She became anxious and looked for it in her home but could not find it. She asked her friends and neighbours if they knew anything about the necklace. They did not. At last a kind friend of hers told her to feel the necklace round her neck. She found that it had all along been round her neck and she was happy. When others asked her later if she had found the necklace which was lost, she said, ‘Yes, I have found it.’ She still felt that she had recovered a lost jewel. Now did she lose it at all? It was all along round her neck. But judge her feelings. She was as happy as if she had recovered a lost jewel. Similarly with us, we imagine that we will realise that Self some time, whereas we are never anything but the Self.”

Dream:

• “We are imagining we are bound and are making various, strenuous attempts to become free, while we are all the while free. This will be understood only when we reach that stage. We will be surprised that we were frantically trying to attain something which we have always been and are. An illustration will make this clear. A man goes to sleep in this hall. He dreams he has gone on a world tour, is roaming over hill and dale, forest and country, desert and sea, across various continents and after many years of weary and strenuous travel, returns to this country, reaches Tiruvannamalai, enters the ashram and walks into the hall. Just at that moment he wakes up and finds he has not moved an inch but was sleeping where he lay down. He has not returned after great effort to this hall, but is and always has been in the hall. It is exactly like that. If it is asked, ‘Why being free do we imagine that we are bound?’ I answer, ‘Why being in the hall did you imagine you were on a world adventure, crossing hill and dale, desert and sea? It is all mind or maya (illusion).’”

Bubble & Ocean:

• “Unbroken ‘I, I’ is the infinite ocean. The ego, the ‘I’-thought, remains only a bubble on it and is called jiva or individual soul. The bubble too is water for when it bursts it only mixes in the ocean. When it remains a bubble it is still a part of the ocean. Ignorant of this simple truth, innumerable methods under different denominations, such as yoga, bhakti, karma, each again with many modifications, are being taught with great skill and in intricate detail only to entice the seekers and confuse their minds. So also are the religions and sects and dogmas. What are they all for? Only for knowing the Self. They are aids and practices required for knowing the Self.”

Script & Paper:

• “Take a paper. We see only the script, and nobody notices the paper on which the script is written. The paper is there whether the script on it is there or not. To those who look upon the script as real, you have to say that it is unreal, an illusion, since it rests upon the paper. The wise man looks upon both the paper and script as one. So also with Brahman and the universe.”

Stage:

• “As example the light that is kept on the stage of a theatre. When a drama is being played, the light is there, which illuminates, without any distinction, all the actors, whether they be kings or servants or dancers, and also all the audience. That light will be there before the drama begins, during the performance and also after the performance is over. Similarly, the light within, that is, the Self, gives light to the ego, the intellect, the memory and the mind without itself being subject to processes of growth and decay. Although during deep sleep and other states there is no feeling of the ego, that Self remains attributeless, and continues to shine of itself.”

• “Does a man who is acting on the stage in a female part forget that he is a man? Similarly, we too must play our parts on the stage of life, but we must not identify ourselves with those parts.”

• “Each person has come into manifestation for a certain purpose and that purpose will be accomplished whether he considers himself to be the actor or not.”

• “All actions go on automatically … actorless action.”

Screen:

• “Consciousness is the screen on which all the pictures come and go. The screen is real, the pictures are mere shadows on it.”

• “Take the instance of moving pictures on the screen in the cinema-show. What is there in front of you before the play begins? Merely the screen. On that screen you see the entire show, and for all appearances the pictures are real. But go and try to take hold of them. What do you take hold of? Merely the screen on which the pictures appeared. After the play, when the pictures disappear, what remains? The screen again. So with the Self. That alone exists, the pictures come and go. If you hold on to the Self, you will not be deceived by the appearance of the pictures. Nor does it matter at all if the pictures appear or disappear. Ignoring the Self the ajnani thinks the world is real, just as ignoring the screen he sees merely the pictures, as if they existed apart from it. If one knows that without the seer there is nothing to be seen, just as there are no pictures without the screen, one is not deluded. The jnani knows that the screen and the pictures are only the Self. With the pictures the Self is in its manifest form; without the pictures it remains in the unmanifest form.”

• “It is like a cinema. The screen is always there but several types of pictures appear on the screen and then disappear. Nothing sticks to the screen, it remains a screen. Similarly, you remain your own Self in all the three states. If you know that, the three states will not trouble you, just as the pictures which appear on the screen do not stick to it. On the screen, you sometimes see a huge ocean with endless waves; that disappears. Another time, you see fire spreading all around; that too disappears. The screen is there on both occasions. Did the screen get wet with the water or did it get burned by the fire? Nothing affected the screen. In the same way, the things that happen during the wakeful, dream and sleep states do not affect you at all; you remain your own Self.”

• “It is like a cinema-show. There is the light on the screen and the shadows flitting across it impress the audience as the enactment of some piece. If in the same play an audience also is shown on the screen as part of the performance, the seer and the seen will then both be on the screen. Apply it to yourself. You are the screen, the Self has created the ego, the ego has its accretions of thoughts which are displayed as the world, the trees and the plants of which you are asking. In reality, all these are nothing but the Self.”

• “In a cinema-show you can see pictures only in a very dim light or in darkness. But when all the lights are switched on, the pictures disappear. So also in the floodlight of the supreme atman all objects disappear.”

Waking, Sleep, & Dream States

“The three states owe their existence to non-enquiry and enquiry puts an end to them.”

Sleep:

• “Sleep reveals that you exist even without a body.”

Dream & Waking:

• “There is no difference between dream and the waking state except that the dream is short and the waking long. Both are the result of the mind. Because the waking state is long, we imagine that it is our real state.”

• “There cannot be a break in your being. You who slept are also now awake. There is no unhappiness in your deep sleep whereas it exists now. What is it that has happened now so that this difference is experienced? There was no ‘I’-thought in your sleep, whereas it is present now. The true ‘I’ is not apparent and the false ‘I’ is parading itself. This false ‘I’ is the obstacle to your right knowledge. Find out from where this false ‘I’ arises. Then it will disappear. You will then be only what you are, that is, absolute being.”

• “While you are dreaming, the dream was a perfectly integrated whole. That is to say, if you felt thirsty in a dream, the illusory drinking of illusory water quenched your illusory thirst. But all this was real and not illusory to you so long as you did not know that the dream itself was illusory. Similarly with the waking world.”

• “What is wrong with the sense of reality you have while you are dreaming? You may be dreaming of something quite impossible, for instance, of having a happy chat with a dead person. Just for a moment, you may doubt in the dream, saying to yourself, ‘Was he not dead?’, but somehow your mind reconciles itself to the dream-vision, and the person is as good as alive for the purposes of the dream. In other words, the dream as a dream does not permit you to doubt its reality. It is the same in the waking state, for you are unable to doubt the reality of the world which you see while you are awake. How can the mind which has itself created the world accept it as unreal? That is the significance of the comparison made between the world of the waking state and the dream world. Both are creations of the mind and, so long as the mind is engrossed in either, it finds itself unable to deny their reality. It cannot deny the reality of the dream world while it is dreaming and it cannot deny the reality of the waking world while it is awake. If, on the contrary, you withdraw your mind completely from the world and turn it within and abide there, that is, if you keep awake always to the Self which is the substratum of all experiences, you will find the world of which you are now aware is just as unreal as the world in which you lived in your dream.”

The Fourth State:

• “The jnani being established in the fourth state – turiya, the supreme reality – he detachedly witnesses the three other states, waking, dreaming and dreamless sleep, as pictures superimposed on it.”

• “For the jnani all the three states are equally unreal. But the ajnani is unable to comprehend this, because for him the standard of reality is the waking state, whereas for the jnani the standard of reality is reality itself. This reality of pure consciousness is eternal by its nature and therefore subsists equally during what you call waking, dreaming and sleep.”

Judgment & Suffering

“Creation is neither good nor bad; it is as it is. It is the human mind which puts all sorts of constructions on it, seeing things from its own angle and interpreting them to suit its own interests.”

Judgment:

• “There is no standard by which to judge something to be right and another to be wrong. Opinions differ according to the nature of the individual and according to the surroundings. They are again ideas and nothing more.”

• “So long as the feeling ‘I am doing’ is there, one must experience the result of one’s acts, whether they are good or bad … When the feeling ‘I am doing’ is lost, nothing affects a man. Unless one realises the Self, the feeling ‘I am doing’ will never vanish.”

• “Only when the reality is known can the truth about right and wrong be known.”

Suffering:

• “He who thinks he is the doer is also the sufferer.”

• “Misery is nothing but an illusion caused by the unreal sense of individuality.”

• “It is the human mind that creates its own difficulties and then cries for help.”

• “Truly there is no cause for you to be miserable and unhappy. You yourself impose limitations on your true nature of infinite being, and then weep that you are but a finite creature. Then you take up this or that spiritual practice to transcend the non-existent limitations. But if your spiritual practice itself assumes the existence of the limitations, how can it help you to transcend them?”

• “The cause of your misery is not in the life outside you, it is in you as the ego. You impose limitations on yourself and then make a vain struggle to transcend them. All unhappiness is due to the ego; with it comes all your trouble.”

• “When you seek to reduce the suffering of any fellow man or fellow creature, whether your efforts succeed or not, you are yourself evolving spiritually especially if such service is rendered disinterestedly, not with the egotistic feeling ‘I am doing this’, but in the spirit ‘God is making me the channel of this service; he is the doer and I am the instrument.'”

• “If one knows the truth that all that one gives to others is giving only to oneself, who indeed will not be a virtuous person and perform the kind act of giving to others? Since everyone is one’s own Self, whoever does whatever to whomever is doing it only to himself.”

Ignorance & Relative Knowledge

“Only remove ignorance. That is all there is to be done.”

Ignorance:

• “Ignorance is identical with the ‘I’-thought.”

• “When one looks for it, this individual ‘I’ is not found because it is not real. Hence this ‘I’ is synonymous with illusion or ignorance (maya, avidya or ajnana). To know that there never was ignorance is the goal of all the spiritual teachings.”

• “The fact is, you are ignorant of your blissful state. Ignorance supervenes and draws a veil over the pure Self which is bliss. Attempts are directed only to remove this veil of ignorance which is merely wrong knowledge. The wrong knowledge is the false identification of the Self with the body and the mind. This false identification must go, and then the Self alone remains.”

• “Know then that true knowledge does not create a new being for you, it only removes your ignorant ignorance. Bliss is not added to your nature, it is merely revealed as your true natural state, eternal and imperishable.”

Relative Knowledge:

• “There is no duality. Your present knowledge is due to the ego and is only relative. Relative knowledge requires a subject and an object, whereas the awareness of the Self is absolute and requires no object.”

• “Remembrance also is similarly relative, requiring an object to be remembered and a subject to remember. When there is no duality, who is to remember whom?”

• “The concept will be only according to the one who conceives. Find out who you are and the other problems will solve themselves.”

Doer, Doing, & Work

“The Self cannot be the doer. Find out who is the doer and the Self is revealed.”

Doer:

• “Agitation of mind is the cause of desire, the sense of doership and personality.”

• “The present difficulty is that man thinks he is the doer. But it is a mistake. It is the higher power which does everything and man is only a tool. If he accepts that position he is free from troubles, otherwise he courts them. Take, for instance, the sculpted figure at the base of a gopuram (temple tower), which is made to appear as if it is bearing the burden of the tower on its shoulder. Its posture and look are a picture of great strain which gives the impression that it is bearing the weight of the tower. But think. The tower is built on the earth and it rests on its foundations. The figure is a part of the tower, but it is made to look as if it is bearing the weight of the tower. Is it not funny? So also is the man who takes on himself the sense of doing.”

Doing:

• “So long as the sense of doership is retained there is the desire … The sense of doership is the bondage and not the actions themselves.”

• “The radio sings and speaks, but if you open it you will find no one inside. Similarly, my existence is like the space; though this body speaks like the radio, there is no one inside as a doer.”

• “The fact is that any amount of action can be performed, and performed quite well, by the jnani, without his identifying himself with it in any way or ever imagining that he is the doer. Some power acts through his body and uses his body to get the work done.”

• “In their daily routine of taking food, moving about and all the rest, they, the jnanis, act only for others. Not a single action is done for themselves … the jnanis do things for the sake of others with detachment, without themselves being affected by them.”

Work:

• “There is no conflict between work and wisdom.”

• “Do not hurry, take your own time. Keep the remembrance of your real nature alive, even while working, and avoid haste which causes you to forget.”

• “The feeling ‘I work’ is the hindrance. Ask yourself ‘Who works?’ Remember who you are. Then the work will not bind you, it will go on automatically. Make no effort either to work or to renounce; it is your effort which is the bondage.”

• “It is neither necessary to resign your job nor run away from home. Renunciation does not imply apparent divesting of costumes, family ties, home, etc., but renunciation of desires, affection and attachment.”

• “A man should surrender the personal selfishness which binds him to this world. Giving up the false self is the true renunciation.”

• “Renunciation is always in the mind, not in going to forests or solitary places or giving up one’s duties.”

• “It is no help to change the environment. The one obstacle is the mind and it must be overcome whether in the home or in the forest.”

• “A sannyasi who apparently cast away his clothes and leaves his home does not do so out of aversion to his immediate relations but because of the expansion of his love to others around him. When this expansion comes, one does not feel that one is running away from home, instead one drops from it like a ripe fruit from a tree. Till then it would be folly to leave one’s home or job.”

• “One will not think that it is the old personality which is doing the work, because one’s consciousness will gradually become transferred until it is centered in that which is beyond the little self.”

Solitude & Silence

“We must be inwardly quiet, not forgetting the Self, and then externally we can go on with activity.”

Solitude:

• “Work performed with attachment is a shackle, whereas work performed with detachment does not affect the doer. One who works like this is, even while working, in solitude.”

• “Solitude is in the mind of man. One might be in the thick of the world and maintain serenity of mind. Such a one is in solitude.”

• “Solitude is a function of the mind. A man attached to desires cannot get solitude wherever he may be, whereas a detached man is always in solitude.”

• “Setting apart time for meditation is only for the merest spiritual novices. A man who is advancing will begin to enjoy the deeper beatitude whether he is at work or not. While his hands are in society, he keeps his head cool in solitude.”

Silence:

• “Speech is always less powerful than silence.”

• “Silence is the most potent form of work.”

• “Silence is the eternal flow of language, obstructed by words.”

• “Silence is ever-speaking. It is a perennial flow of language which is interrupted by speaking.”

• “Language is only a medium for communicating one’s thoughts to another. It is called in only after thoughts arise. Other thoughts arise after the ‘I’-thought rises and so the ‘I’-thought is the root of all conversation. When one remains without thinking one understands another by means of the universal language of silence.“

• “What one fails to know by conversation extending several years can be known instantly in silence, or in front of silence … This is the highest and most effective language.”

• “For those who live in Self as the beauty devoid of thought, there is nothing which should be thought of. That which should be adhered to is only the experience of silence, because in that supreme state nothing exists to be attained other than oneself.”

• “That state which transcends speech and thought is mouna (silence). That which is, is mouna. How can mouna be explained in words?”

• “Truth is beyond words.”

• “Sages say that the state in which the thought ‘I’ (the ego) does not rise even in the least, alone is Self (swarupa) which is silence (mouna).”

Mind, Ego, Time, & Space

“The mind turned inwards is the Self; turned outwards, it becomes the ego and all the world.”

Mind & Ego:

• “The mind does not exist apart from the Self, that is, it has no independent existence. The Self exists without the mind, never the mind without the Self.”

• “The mind is nothing other than the ‘I’-thought. The mind and the ego are one and the same. The other mental faculties such as the intellect and the memory are only this. Mind (manas), intellect (buddhi), the storehouse of mental tendencies (chittam), and ego (ahamkara); all these are only the one mind itself. This is like different names being given to a man according to his different functions. The individual soul (jiva) is nothing but this soul or ego.”

• “The mind is nothing but a bundle of thoughts, and the ‘I’-thought is the root of all of them.”

• “This ‘I’-thought rises and sinks, whereas the true significance of ‘I’ is beyond both.”

• “The ego-Self appears and disappears and is transitory, whereas the real Self is permanent. Though you are actually the true Self you wrongly identify the real Self with the ego-self.”

• “The ego is the thought ‘I’. The true ‘I’ is the Self.”

• “The ego-self does not exist at all.”

• “The appearance of the ego in any form … is itself an experience.”

• “The ego is something intermediate between the inert body and the Self.”

• “The ego is an intangible link between the body and pure consciousness.”

Time & Space:

• “When you try to trace the ego, which is the basis of the perception of the world and everything else, you find the ego does not exist at all and neither does all this creation that you see.”

• “The idea of time is only in your mind. It is not in the Self. There is no time for the Self. Time arises as an idea after the ego arises. But you are the Self beyond time and space. You exist even in the absence of time and space.”

• “You are already that. Time and space cannot affect the Self. They are in you. So also all that you see around you is in you.”

Surrender & Self-Enquiry

“Either the thoughts are eliminated by holding on to the root-thought ‘I’, or one surrenders oneself unconditionally to the higher power. These are the only two ways for realisation.”

Surrender:

• “Surrender is to give oneself up to the original cause of one’s being.”

• “Surrender means to be without any attachment to thoughts.”

• “If you have surrendered, you must be able to abide by the will of God and not make a grievance of what may not please you.”

• “Surrender can never be regarded as complete so long as the devotee wants this or that from the Lord. True surrender is love of God for the sake of love and nothing else, not even for the sake of liberation.”

• “Surrender is complete only when you reach the stage ‘Thou art all’ and ‘Thy will be done’.”

• “Complete surrender is another name for jnana or liberation.”

• “Complete surrender does require that you have no desire of your own. You must be satisfied with whatever God gives you and that means having no desires of your own.”

Self-Realisation

“The state of Self-realisation, as we call it, is not attaining something new or reaching some goal which is far away, but simply being that which you always are and which you always have been. All that is needed is that you give up your realisation of the not-true as true.”

Removing Wrong Knowledge:

• “The wrong knowledge of ‘I am the body’ is the cause of all the mischief. This wrong knowledge must go. That is realisation. Realisation is not acquisition of anything new nor is it a new faculty. It is only removal of all camouflage.”

• “Removal of the notion that we have not realised the Self is all that is required. We are always the Self only we don’t realise it.”

• “The ‘I’ casts off the illusion of ‘I’ and yet remains as ‘I’. Such is the paradox of Self-realisation. The realised do not see any contradiction in it.”

• “Thoughts will cease to rise and the Self alone will remain.”

Seer & Seen, Subject & Object:

• “Misery is due to the perception of objects. If they are not there, there will be no contingent thoughts and so misery is wiped off. ‘How will objects cease to be?’ is the next question. The srutis (scriptures) and the sages say that the objects are only mental creations. They have no substantive being. Investigate the matter and ascertain the truth of the statement. The result will be the conclusion that the objective world is in the subjective consciousness. The Self is thus the only reality which permeates and also envelops the world. Since there is no duality, no thoughts will arise to disturb your peace. This is realisation of the Self. The Self is eternal and so also is realisation.”

• “The seer and the seen together constitute the mind. See if there is such a thing as the mind. Then, the mind merges in the Self, and there is neither the seer nor the seen.”

• “If the mind subsides, the whole world subsides. Mind is the cause of all this. If that subsides, the natural state presents itself.”

• “(Self-realisation) transcends the seer and the seen. There is no seer there to see anything. The seer who is seeing all this now ceases to exist and the Self alone remains.”

• “Atman is realised with mruta manas (dead mind), that is, mind devoid of thoughts and turned inward. Then the mind sees its own source and becomes that (the Self). It is not as the subject perceiving an object.”

• “When the mind perishes in the supreme consciousness of one’s own Self, know that all the various powers beginning with the power of liking (and including the power of doing and the power of knowing) will entirely disappear, being found to be an unreal imagination appearing in one’s own form of consciousness.”

Already & Always:

• “Realisation is nothing new to be acquired. It is already there, but obstructed by a screen of thoughts. All our attempts are directed to lifting this screen and then realisation is revealed.”

• “The Self is already realised. Therefore the effort to realise results only in your realising your present mistake – that you have not realised your Self. There is no fresh realisation. The Self becomes revealed.”

• “Realisation is already there. The state free from thoughts is the only real state. There is no such action as realisation.”

• “The Self is always realised. It is not necessary to seek to realise what is already and always realised.”

Being / Happiness / Bliss:

• “If We talk of knowing the Self, there must be two selves, one a knowing self, another the self which is known, and the process of knowing. The state we call realisation is simply being oneself, not knowing anything or becoming anything. If one has realised, one is that which alone is and which alone has always been. One cannot describe that state. One can only be that.”

• “There is no goal to be reached. There is nothing to be attained. You are the Self. You exist always. Nothing more can be predicated of the Self than that it exists. Seeing God or the Self is only being the Self or yourself. Seeing is being. You, being the Self, want to know how to attain the Self.”

• “One must realise the Self in order to open the store of unalloyed happiness.”

• “To be the Self that you really are is the only means to realise the bliss that is ever yours.”

• “Having realised the Self, nothing remains to be known, because it is perfect bliss, it is the all.”

Self-realisation, “others,” & “the world”:

• “Self-realisation is the best help that you can possibly render to others. But really there are no others to be helped. For the realised being sees only the Self … the others disappear. The realised one does not see the world as different from himself.”

• “There are no others … The Self is the only reality. The sage helps the world merely by being the real Self. The best way for one to serve the world is to win the egoless state.”

• “The power that created you has created the world as well. If it can take care of you, it can similarly take care of the world also. If God has created the world it is his business to look after it, not yours.”

• “You realise that you are moved by the deeper real Self within. You have no worries, no anxieties, no cares, for you come to realise that there is nothing belonging to you. You know that everything is done by something with which you are in conscious union.“

Self, Guru, & God

“There is no difference between God, Guru and the Self.”

Self:

• “It is only as it is. It cannot be defined. The best definition is ‘I am that I am’.”

• “The essence of mind is only awareness or consciousness. When the ego, however, dominates it, it functions as the reasoning, thinking or sensing faculty. The cosmic mind, being not limited by the ego, has nothing separate from itself and is therefore only aware. This is what the Bible means by ‘I am that I am’.”

• “For the wise one who has known Self by diving within himself, there is nothing other than Self to be known. Why? Because since the ego which identifies the form of a body as ‘I’ has perished, he (the wise one) is the formless existence-consciousness.”

• “When the not-Self disappears, the Self alone remains. To make room, it is enough that objects be removed. Room is not brought in from elsewhere.”

• “You are awareness. Awareness is another name for you. Since you are awareness there is no need to attain or cultivate it. All that you have to do is to give up being aware of other things, that is of the not-Self. If one gives up being aware of them then pure awareness alone remains, and that is the Self.”

• “The Self is the unassociated, pure reality, in whose light the body and the ego shine. On stilling all thoughts the pure consciousness remains.”

• “The Self is pure consciousness and non-dual.”

• “The Self is universal.”

• “See yourself first and then see the whole world as the Self.”

Guru:

• “Guru is God or the Self.”

• “One must see the Guru in all living beings. It is the same with God.”

• “A Guru need not be in a human form.”

• “The Guru does not bring about Self-realisation. He simply removes the obstacles to it.”

• “So long as the sense of duality persists in you, you seek a Guru, thinking that he is different from you. However, he teaches you the truth and you gain the insight.”

• “The Guru will say only what I am saying now. He will not give you anything you have not already got.”

• “The Guru cannot give you anything new, which you don’t have already.”

God:

• “Call it by any name, God, Self, the Heart or the seat of consciousness, it is all the same.”

• “Formless consciousness alone is God.”

• “God is not separate from you or the cosmos.”

• “The Self is God. ‘I am’ is God.”

• “Knowing the Self, God is known.”

• “Know yourself before you seek to decide about the nature of God and the world.”

• “Real nature is … one and identical with the undifferentiated, pure consciousness.”

• “From the absolute standpoint the sage cannot accept any other existence than the impersonal Self, one and formless.”

Love & Peace

“When you talk of love, there is duality, is there not—the person who loves and the entity called God who is loved? The individual is not separate from God.”

Love:

• “Love itself is the actual form of God.“

• “To see God is to be God. There is no all apart from God for him to pervade. He alone is.”

• “What remains is the Self alone. That is real love. One who knows the secret of that love finds the world itself full of universal love.”

• “Only if one knows the truth of love, which is the real nature of Self, will the strong entangled knot of life be untied. Only if one attains the height of love will liberation be attained. Such is the heart of all religions.”

Peace:

• “Peace is absence of disturbance. The disturbance is due to the arising of thoughts in the individual, which is only the ego rising up from pure consciousness.”

• “To bring about peace means to be free from thoughts and to abide as pure consciousness.”

• “If one remains at peace oneself, there is only peace everywhere.”

• “The conception that there is a goal and a path to it is wrong. We are the goal or peace always. To get rid of the notion that we are not peace is all that is required.”

• “Peace is your natural state. It is the mind that obstructs the natural state. If you do not experience peace it means that your vichara has been made only in the mind. Investigate what the mind is, and it will disappear. There is no such thing as mind apart from thought. Nevertheless, because of the emergence of thought, you surmise something from which it starts and term that the mind. When you probe to see what it is, you find there is really no such thing as mind. When the mind has thus vanished, you realise eternal peace.”

Fate & Free Will

“Whose will is it? So long as there is the sense of doership, there is the sense of enjoyment and of individual will. But if this sense is lost through the practice of vichara, the divine will will act and guide the course of events. Fate is overcome by jnana, Self-knowledge, which is beyond will and fate.”

• “The only freedom man has is to strive for and acquire the jnana which will enable him not to identify himself with the body. The body will go through the actions rendered inevitable by prarabdha and a man is free either to identify himself with the body and be attached to the fruits of its actions, or to be detached from it and be a mere witness of its activities.”

• “Free will holds the field in association with individuality. As long as individuality lasts there is free will.”

• “Find out to whom free will or destiny matters. Find out where they come from, and abide in their source. If you do this, both of them are transcended. That is the only purpose of discussing these questions. To whom do these questions arise? Find out and be at peace.”

• “There are only two ways to conquer destiny or be independent of it. One is to enquire for whom is this destiny and discover that only the ego is bound by destiny and not the Self, and that the ego is non-existent. The other way is to kill the ego by completely surrendering to the Lord, by realising one’s helplessness and saying all the time, ‘Not I but thou, O Lord’, giving up all sense of ‘I’ and ‘mine’ and leaving it to the Lord to do what he likes with you.”

• “In other words, complete effacement of the ego is necessary to conquer destiny.”

Reality & Liberation

“The world does not exist without the body, the body never exists without the mind, the mind never exists without consciousness and consciousness never exists without the reality.”

Reality:

• “The one unalterable reality is being.”

• “‘I am’ is the goal and the final reality.”

• “‘I am’ is God, not thinking ‘I am God.’ Realise ‘I am’ and do not think ‘I am.'”

• “Reality is simply the loss of ego. Destroy the ego by seeking its identity.”

• “There is no greater mystery than this – that being the reality we seek to gain reality. We think that there is something hiding our reality and that it must be destroyed before the reality is gained. It is ridiculous. A day will dawn when you will yourself laugh at your past efforts. That which will be on the day you laugh is also here and now.”

• “Truly speaking, pure consciousness is indivisible, it is without parts. It has no form and shape, no ‘within’ and ‘without’. There is no ‘right’ or ‘left’ for it. Pure consciousness, which is the Heart, includes all, and nothing is outside or apart from it. That is the ultimate truth.”

• “The ultimate truth is so simple. It is nothing more than being in the pristine state. This is all that need be said.”

• “I have said that equality is the true sign of jnana. The very term equality implies the existence of differences. It is a unity that the jnani perceives in all differences, which I call equality. Equality does not mean ignorance of distinctions. When you have the realisation you can see that these differences are very superficial, that they are not at all substantial or permanent, and what is essential in all these appearances is the one truth, the real. That I call unity. You referred to sound, taste, form, smell, etc. True the jnani appreciates the distinctions, but he always perceives and experiences the one reality in all of them. That is why he has no preferences. Whether he moves about, or talks, or acts, it is all the one reality in which he acts or moves or talks. He has nothing apart from the one supreme truth.”

Liberation:

• “Liberation is our very nature. We are that.”

• “Liberation is absolute and irrevocable.”

• “Annihilation of thoughts is liberation.”

• “Liberation is not anywhere outside you. It is only within.”

• “Questions are endless. Why worry oneself in so many ways? Does liberation consist in knowing these things?”

• “One believes that there is bondage and therefore seeks liberation. But the fact is that there is no bondage but only liberation. Why call it by a name and seek it?”

• “All that is necessary is to get rid of the false notion that we are bound. When we achieve that, there will be no desire or thought of any sort. So long as one desires liberation, so long, you may take it, one is in bondage.”

• “What is bliss but your own being? You are not apart from being which is the same as bliss.”

• “Call it pure bliss, God, atma, or what you will. That is devotion, that is realisation and that is everything.”