Help on the Quest for Self-realization-Reminders-68

September 24, 2006

As you are so is the world. Without understanding yourself, what is

the use of trying to understand the world? This is a question that

seekers after the Truth need not worry about. People waste their

energy over all such questions. First find out the Truth behind

yourself, then you will be in a better position to understand the

Truth behind the world of which you are a part.

It is enough to become aware of what one is; all the rest then comes

of itself, all the problems of life, whether speculative or

practical, are ipso facto (by that very fact or act) seen to be

solved. The sage does not deny these problems or evade them through

forgetfulness or indifference; but they will continue to reappear

again and again so long as the essential problem has not been

solved. It is that fundamental problem that one must address

oneself, for it governs the destiny of man and contains all the

others.

Every man has problems peculiar to himself-physical, mental,

emotional and what not. Added to them are foolish biases and deep-

seated beliefs of all kinds-religious, racial, national, domestic,

etc.-which are so subtle that the individual himself may not be

aware of them. There is no need to have a detailed enumeration of

obstacles in order to be freed from them. It will be more

profitable to know the general principle that the major disease is

the world itself, for the simple reason that it is the non-Self,

which stands in deadly opposition to the Self, barring the slightest

sight of it. The sovereign remedy is therefore the shutting out of

the not-Self altogether. Constant elimination of the world

ultimately results in compete detachment from everything worldly,

causing the permanent thinning away of the thinking processes,

through which the light of the Self can be perceived and the

remaining single thought is absorbed.

Before a man tries to reform the world he should first know himself,

and then he can go about reforming the world if he still feels so

inclined.

Source: Various reliable publications of / on Sri Ramana Maharshi's

teachings.

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