RE: Maharshi's Gospel - Self and Individuality - 5

July 16, 2006

Disciple: Can I not remain in susupti as long as I like and also be in it

at will, just as I am in the waking state? What is the Jnani's experience

of these three states?

Maharshi: Susupti does exist in your waking state also. You are in susupti

even now. That should be consciously entered into and reached in this very

waking state. There is no real going in and coming out of it. To be aware of

susupti in the jagrat state is jagrat-susupti and that is samadhi.

The ajnani cannot remain long in susupti, because he is forced by his nature

to emerge from it. His ego is not dead and it will rise again and again. But

the Jnani crushes the ego at its Source. It may seem to emerge at times in

his case also if impelled by prarabdha. That is, in the case of the Jnani

also, for all outward purposes prarabdha would seem to sustain or keep up

the ego, as in the case of the ajnani; but there is this fundamental

difference, that the ajnani's ego when it rises up (really it has never

subsided except in deep sleep) is quite ignorant of its Source: in other

words, the ajnani is not aware of his susupti in his dream and waking

states. In the case of the Jnani, on the contrary, the rise or existence of

the ego is only apparent, and he enjoys his unbroken, transcendental

Experience in spite of such apparent rise or existence of the ego, keeping

his attention (lakshya) always on the Source. This ego is harmless; it is

merely like the skeleton of a burnt rope - though with a form, it is useless

to tie up anything. By constantly keeping one's attention on the Source, the

ego is dissolved in that Source like a salt-doll in the sea.

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

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