Talks with Ramana Maharshi - Feb 4th 1935, #8

May 23, 2004

D. Can we have disappearance from sight ( antardhana) like the yogis Vasishta or Viswamitra?

Maharshi: These are only physical matters. Is that the essential object of our interest? Are you not the Self? Why trouble yourself about other things? Take the essence; reject other learned theories as useless. They who think that physical disappearing matters for our freedom are mistaken. No such thing is needed. You are not the body; what difference does it make whether it disappears in one way or another? There is no great merit in such phenomena. In what does superiority or inferiority consist? Achievement of the Real alone matters. The loss of "I" is the main fact, and not the loss of body. Identity of the Self with the body is the real bondage. Leave off the false notion and perceive the Real intuitively. That alone matters. If you melt a gold ornament before testing it to be gold, what does it matter how it is melted, whole or in parts, or of what shape or

ornament was? All that you are interested in is whether it is gold. The dead man sees not his body. It is the survivor that thinks about the manner in which the body is parted from. The realized has no death, with or without the body; the realized person is equally aware and sees no difference. To him the one state is not superior to the other. To an outsider also, the fortunes of a liberated person's body need not be of any concern; mind your business. Realize the Self; after realization there will be time to think of what form of death is preferable to you. It is the false identity of the Self with the body that causes the idea of preference, etc. Are you the body? Were you aware of it when you were fast asleep last night? No! What is it that exists now and troubles you? It is "I". Get rid of that and be happy.

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Talks with Ramana Maharshi

On Realizing Abiding Peace and Happiness, 2000

pp. 32-32