Fwd: Selections from TALKS WITH SRI RAMANA MAHARSHI-11

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ThePowerOfSilence , " saikali6362 "

<saikali6362 wrote:

 

Selections from TALKS WITH SRI RAMANA MAHARSHI-11

 

TALK 54:

 

D.: How does a grihasta (householder) fare in the scheme of moksha

(liberation)?

 

M.: Why do you think you are a grihasta? If you go out as a sanyasi

(an ascetic), a similar thought (that you are a sanyasi) will haunt

you. Whether you continue in the household, or renounce it and go to

the forest, your mind haunts you. The ego is the source of thoughts.

It creates the body and the world and makes you think you are a

grihasta. If you renounce the world, it will only substitute the

thought sanyasi for grihasta and the environments of the forest for

those of the household. But the mental obstacles are always there.

They even increase in new surroundings. There is no help in the

change of environment. The obstacle is the mind. It must be got over

whether at home or in the forest. If you can do it in the forest,

why not in the home? Therefore why change the environment? Your

efforts can be made even now, in whatever environment you may be.

 

The environment never abandons you, according to your desire. Look

at me. I left home. Look at yourselves. You have come here leaving

the home environment. What do you find here? Is this different from

what you left? Even if one is immersed in nirvikalpa samadhi (the

highest state of concentration in which the soul loses all sense of

being different from the universal Self, but a temporary state from

which there is a return to ego-consciousness) for years together,

when he emerges from it he will find himself in the environment

which he is bound to have. That is the reason for the Acharya

emphasising sahaja (natural; one's natural state) Samadhi (samadhi

which comes naturally and is present always) in preference to

nirvikalpa samadhi in his excellent work Viveka Chudamani.

 

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