A Sadhu's Reminiscenses of Ramana Maharshi, #8

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Bhagavan once told me that thought comesin flashes, no thought was continuous.It was like the cycle of an alternatingcurrent, but was so rapid that it seemedcontinuous as does the light given off byan electric bulb.If one could only concentrate

on the intervals between thoughts rather

than on thoughts themselves that would be

Self-realization.He always taught that mind and thought wereexactly the same,"The mind is nothing but a lot of thoughts."Upadesa Saram V.18And again that ego and mind were identical andarose together,"The ego rising all else will rise,"(Ull. Narp. v. 26)

"The ego the root of all thought".

(Ull. Narp. v. 40)

Yes, surely but,"The mind in truth is only the thought 'I'."

(Ull. Narp. v. 40)

The ego is as impermanent as thought and hasin truth no real existence at all.Do not the Buddhists say that there is no suchthing as ego?Which brings us directly to Advaita.

Now Advaita is not the same as is usually meantby Monism ,nor is it some catch-word to avoiddifficulties.The word means, of course, Not-Two,butthis is not the equivalent for One, though tothe casual thinker it is not easy to see wherethe differences lies. But if we call it Monismthen premising one we infer a whole series,one,two,three etc.Not such series actually exists, there is justNot-Two.When we see things we see duality; in one sensethis duality is not unreal, it is only unrealin the sense that there is Not-Two.It is there in appearance but yet is imparmanentand fleeting.This fleeting manifestation is called Maya,which is often taken to mean illusion,but actually means "that which is not,"or which sets a limit to the limitless.In fact everything we sense (everything being inthe mind, and the senses only the instrumentof the mind). For as a matter of fact there

is no illusion, only impermanence.The same truth is behind all. What then is thesolution, seeing that everything has nopermanency and is only an appearance ?This , Bhagavan taught , also appliesto our bodies and even our egos , which by usare thought to be all-important , but now we findthem discarded as fleeting shadows.There is , however , no need to be despondent ,for behind even the most fleeting appearancethere must be something to appear .We jump aside because we think we see a snakeonly afterwards to discover that it is but arope. But even though the snake is quite unrealthe rope is there. So the obvious solution to ourriddle is to search out and find the permanentbehind the impermanent .This was Bhagavan's solution and he taught ushow to do it by his method of self-enquiry.Though the ego changes minute by minute ,though we are entirely different people throughevery stage of our life , there has alwaysbeen for us an "I". Now , this is obviously notthe ego , for we have already seen that the egochanges every second , while the "I" has beenthere all along as the observer.Let us trace it to its source.And through this method of self-enquiry we shalleventually realize the Self...

---A Saddhu's Reminiscenses of Ramana MaharshiBy Saddhu Arunachala (A.W. Chadwick)

(pp. 43-45)