Maharshi - Karma Yoga, #3

[Guest guest]

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 experience 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.