Maharshi's Gospel - Work and Renunciation 8

[Guest guest]

(Comment: in the previous passages Bhagavan has been saying that one should

not identify with the 'doer'; actions will go on whether we strain ourselves

to be engaged in them or not. Attending to the Self is attending to work,

as the body and its activities are not apart from the Self. The Self is the

basis for all, just as the screen is the basis for the images and actions

projected onto it in the cinema. This is the case whether or not one is

aware of the screen - the Self . See The Forty Verses, Ulladhu Narpadhu,

verse 1, http://acalayoga.suddenlaunch3.com/ )

 

..... continued:

 

 

Disciple : But there is an operator in the cinema!

 

Maharshi : The cinema show is made out of insentient materials. The lamp,

the pictures, the screen, etc., are all insentient and so they need an

operator, the sentient agent. On the other hand, the Self is absolute

Consciousness, and therefore self-contained. There cannot be an operator

apart from the Self.

 

D. I am not confusing the body with the operator; rather I am referring to

Krishna's words in chapter 18, verse 61, of the Gita: "The Lord, O Arjuna,

dwells in the Heart of every being, and He by His delusive power spins round

all beings set as if on a machine."

 

M. The functions of the body involving the need for an operator are borne

in mind; since the body is jada or insentient, a sentient operator is

necessary. Because people think they are jivas, Krishna said that God

resides in the Heart as the Operator of the jivas. In fact, there are no

jivas and no Operator, as it were, outside of them; the Self comprises all.

It is the screen, the pictures, the seer, the actors, the operator, the

light, the theatre, and all else. Your confounding the Self with the body

and imagining yourself the actor is like the seer representing himself as

actor in the cinema show. Imagine the actor asking if he can enact a scene

with the screen! Such is the case of the man who thinks of his actions

apart from the Self.

 

 

(From Maharshi's Gospel, published by Sri Ramanasramam and available for

download from http://www.ramana-maharshi.org/ )

[Guest guest]

Correction:

 

"Imagine the actor asking if he can enact a scene with the screen! Such is

the case of the man who thinks of his actions apart from the Self."

 

This should be: "Imagine the actor asking if he can enact a scene WITHOUT

the screen!"