SRI RAMANA MAHARISHI ANSWERS - JNANI (Part 1)

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Jnani - Self-realised (1)

The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi

Edited by David Godman

 

Question: Does a jnani have Sankalpas (desires)?

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: The main qualities of the ordinary mind are

Tamas (sloth, inertia) and Rajas (passion, excitement); hence it is

full of egoistic desires and weaknesses. But the jnani's mind is

Suddhi-Sattva (pure harmony) and formless, functioning in the subtle

Vijnanmayakosha (the sheath of knowledge), through which he keeps

contact with the world. His desires are therefore also pure.

 

Question: What is the relation between the pure consciousness

realised by the jnani and the `I am'-ness, which is accepted as the

primary datum of experience?

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: The undifferentiated consciousness of pure being

is the Heart or Hridayam, which is what you really are. From the

Heart arises the `I am'-ness as the primary datum of one's

experience. By itself it is completely pure (suddha-sattva) in

character. It is in this form of pristine purity (suddha-sattva-

swarupa), uncontaminated by Rajas and Tamas (activity and inertia,

that the `I' appears to subsist in the jnani.

 

Question: In the jnani the ego subsists in the pure form and

therefore it appears as something real. Am I right?

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: The existence of the ego in any form, either in

the jnani or ajnani, is itself an experience. But to the ajnani who

is deluded into thinking that the waking state and the world are

real, the ego also appears to be real. Since he sees the jnani act

like other individuals, he feels constrained to posit some notion of

individuality with reference to the jnani also.

 

Question: How then does the Aham-Vritti (`I' thought, the sense of

individuality) function in the jnani?

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: It does not function in him at all. The jnani's

real nature is the Heart itself, because he is one and identical with

the undifferentiated, pure consciousness referred to by the

Upanishads as the Prajnana (full consciousness). Prajnana is truly

Brahman, the absolute, and there is no Brahman other than Prajnana.

 

Question: I am trying to understand the jnani's point of view about

the world. Is the world perceived after Self-realisation?

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: Why worry about the world and what happens to it

after Self-realisation? First realise the Self. What does it matter

if the world is perceived or not? Do you gain anything to help you in

your quest by the non-perception of the world during sleep?

Conversely, what would you lose now by the perception of the world?

It is quite immaterial to the jnani or ajnani if he perceives the

world or not. It is seen by both, but their view-points differ.

 

Question: If the jnani and the ajnani perceive the world in like

manner, where is the difference between them?

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: Seeing the world, the jnani sees the Self which

is the substratum of all that is seen; the ajnani, whether he sees

the world or not, is ignorant of his true being, the Self.

 

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. To the

jnani it is quite immaterial if the Self is in the one form or the

other. He is always the Self. But the ajnani seeing the jnani active

gets confounded.

 

Question: Does Bhagavan see the world as part and parcel of himself?

How does he see the world?

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: The Self alone is and nothing else. However, it

is differentiated owing to ignorance. Differentiation is threefold:

 

1. Of the same kind

2. Of a different kind; and

3. As parts in itself

 

The world is not another Self similar to the Self. It is not

different from the Self; nor is it part of the Self.

 

Question: Is not the world reflected on the Self?

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: For reflection there must be object and an

image. But the self does not admit of these differences.

 

 

 

 

Question: What is the difference between the Baddha and the Mukta,

the bound man and the one liberated?

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: The ordinary man lives in the brain unaware of

himself in the Heart. The jnana-siddha (jnani) lives in the Heart.

When he moves about and deals with men and things, he knows that what

he sees is not separate from the one supreme reality, the Brahman

which he realised in the Heart as his own Self, the real.

 

Question: What about the ordinary man?

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: I have just said that he sees things outside

himself. He is separate from the world, from his own deeper truth,

from the truth that supports him and what he sees. The man who has

realised the supreme truth of his own existence realises that it is

the one supreme reality that is there behind him, behind the world.

In fact, he is aware of the one, as the real, the Self in all selves,

in all things, eternal and immutable, in all that is impermanent and

mutable.

 

Question: Does a jnani have dreams?

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: Yes, he does dream, but he knows it to be a

dream, in the same way as he knows the waking state to be a dream.

You may call them dream number one and dream number two. 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 those who experience waking, dream and sleep, the state of

wakeful sleep, which is beyond those three states, is named Turiya

(the fourth). But since that Turiya alone exists and since the

seeming three states do not exist, know for certain that turiya is

itself turiyatitta (that which transcends the fourth).

 

Question: For the jnani then, there is no distinction between the

three states of mind?

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: How can there be, when the mind itself is

dissolved and lost in the light of consciousness?

 

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 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. To him who is one with that reality there is neither the

mind nor its three states and, therefore, neither introversion nor

extroversion.

 

His is the ever waking state, because he is awake to the eternal

Self; his is the ever dreaming state, because to him the world is no

better than a repeatedly presented dream phenomenon; his is the ever

sleeping state, because he is at all times without the `body-am I'

consciousness.

 

Question: Is there no Dehatma Buddhi (I-am-the-body idea) for the

jnani? If, for instance, Sri Bhagavan is bitten by an insect, is

there no sensation?

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: There is the sensation and there is also the

dehatma buddhi. The latter is common to both jnani and ajnani with

this difference, that the ajnani thinks only the body is myself,

whereas the jnani knows all is of the Self, or all this is Brahman.

If there be pain let it be. It is also part of the Self. The Self is

Poorna (perfect).

 

After transcending dehatma buddhi one becomes a jnani. In the absence

of that idea there cannot be either Kartritva (doership) or Karta

(doer). So a jnani has no karma (that is, a jnani performs no

actions). That is his experience. Otherwise he is not a jnani.

However, the ajnani identifies the jnani with his body, which the

jnani does not do.

 

Question: I see you doing things. How can you say that you never

perform actions?

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: 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.

 

Question: I find this hard to understand. Could you please elaborate

on this?

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: Various illustrations are given in books to

enable us to understand how the jnani can live and act without the

mind, although living and acting require the use of the mind. The

potter's wheel goes on turning round even after the potter has ceased

to turn it because the pot is finished. In the same way, the electric

fan goes on revolving for some minutes after we switch off the

current. Prarabdha (predestined Karma) which created the body will

make it go through whatever activities it was meant for. But the

jnani goes through all these activities without the notion that he is

the doer of them. It is hard to understand how this is possible. The

illustration generally given is that the jnani performs actions in

some such way as a child that is roused from sleep to eat eats but

does not remember next morning that it ate. It has to be remembered

that all these explanations are not for the jnani. He knows and has

no doubts. He knows that he is not the body and he knows that he is

not doing anything even though his body may be engaged in some

activity. These explanations are for the onlookers who think of the

jnani as one with a body and cannot help identifying him with his

body.

 

Question: It is said that the shock of realisation is so great that

the body cannot survive it.

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: There are various controversies or schools of

thought as to whether a jnani can continue to live in his physical

body after realisation. Some hold that one who dies cannot be a jnani

because his body must vanish into thin air, or some such thing. They

put forward all sorts of funny notions. If a man at once leaves his

body when he realises the Self, I wonder how any knowledge of the

Self or the state of realisation can come down to other men. And that

would mean that all those who have given us the fruits of their Self-

realisation in books cannot be considered jnanis because they went on

living after realisation. And if it is held that a man cannot be

considered a jnani so long as he performs actions in the world (and

action is impossible without the mind), then not only the great sages

who carried on various kinds of work after attaining jnana must be

considered ajnanis but the gods also, and Iswara (the supreme

personal God) himself, since he continues looking after the world.

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.