Ramana..The World and it's Sufferings

[Guest guest]

Visitor: Widespread distress, such as famine and pestilence, spread havoc

thought the world. What is the cause of this state of affairs.

Bhagavan: To whom does all this appear?

V: That won't do. I see misery all round.

B: You were not conscious of the world and its sufferings while asleep, but you

are now that you are awake. Continue in the state in which you are not affected

by such things. When you are not aware of the world, that is to say when you

remain as the Self in the state of sleep, its suffering do not affect you.

Therefore turn inwards and seek the Self and there will be an end both of the

world and its miseries.

V: But that is selfishness.

B: The world is not external to you. Because you wrongly identify yourself

with body, you see the world and its sufferings are not real. Seek the reality

and get rid of this unreal feeling.

V: There are great men and public workers who cannot solve the problem of

suffering in the world.

B: The is because they are based on the ego. If they remained in the Self it

would be different.

V: Why don't Mahatmas help?

B: How do you know that they don't? Public speeches, outer activity and

material help are all outweighed by the silence of the Mahatmas. They

accomplish more than others.

V: What can we do to ameliorate the condition of the world?

B: If you remain free from pain there will be no pain anywhere. The trouble no

is due to your seeing the world outside yourself and thinking there is pain in

it. But both the world and the pain are within you. If you turn inwards there

will be no pain.

V: God is perfect. Why did he create the world imperfect? A work partakes of

the nature of its author, but in this case it is not so.

B: Are you something separate from God that you should ask this question? So

long as you consider yourself the body, you see the world as external to you.

It is to you that the imperfection appears. God is perfection and his work is

also perfection but you see it as imperfect because of you wrong identification

with the body or the ego.

V: Why did the Self manifest as this miserable world?

B: In order that you might seek it. Your eyes cannot see themselves but if you

hold a mirror in front of them they see themselves. Creation is the mirror.

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

V: Then what it amount to is that I should always turn inwards.

B: Yes.

V: Shouldn't I see the world at all?

B: You are not told to shut your eyes to the world, but only to see your Self

first and then see the whole world as the Self. If you consider yourself as the

body the world appears to be external; if you are the Self the world appears as

Brahman manifested.

 

 

>From The Teaching of Ramana Maharshi edited by Arthur Osborne