Guru Ramana - Memories & Notes, S.S. Cohen, 22nd February, 1949

[Guest guest]

22nd February, 1949

 

A well-educated North Indian came forward,

prostrated to Sri Bhagavan and sat in the front line. He askedin excellent English:

Visitor. What is the cause and origin of the universe?

Bh. Have you no worries of your own?

V. Of course I have; that is why I want to know about Life,

Death, Consciousness, etc.

 

Bh. Begin with the beginning: who has Life, Consciousness,

etc.? Have you, for instance, life?

 

V. Of course I know I am alive, for I see my body.

Bh. Do you always see the body? What happens to it and to

the universe when you go to sleep?

 

V. I don’t know, it is a mystery.

Bh. You may not know what happens to them, but do you

for that reason cease to exist?

 

V. I don’t know.

 

Bh. How do you then know that you exist even now?V. Now I have awareness and see my body moving and

thinking.

 

Bh. But you see your body also moving and thinking and

being in all sorts of places while it is actually lying fastasleep in Tiruvannamalai.

 

V. It is a mystery. Can I say that I, the permanent, am ever

present and only my ego changes?

 

Bh. So you think you are two persons: the permanent ‘I’ and

the ego. Is that possible?

 

V. Then please show me the way to the Real.

Bh.The Real is ever-present, like the screen on which all the

cinematographic pictures move. While the picturesappear on it, it remains invisible. Stop the pictures, andthe screen, which has all along been present, in fact theonly object that has existed throughout, will become clear.All these universes, humans, objects, thoughts and eventsare merely pictures moving on the screen of PureConsciousness, which alone is real. Shapes andphenomena pass away, but Consciousness remains ever.

 

A few days later Sri Bhagavan gave a different answer to a

similar question asked by Dr. Godel, a French MedicalOfficer of the Suez Canal. He told the doctor: “You mustdistinguish between the ‘I’, pure in itself, and the ‘I’-thought. The latter, being merely a thought, sees subjectand object, sleeps, wakes up, eats and thinks, dies and isreborn. But the pure ‘I’ is the pure Being, eternalexistence, free from ignorance and thought-illusion. Ifyou stay as the ‘I’, your being alone, without thought,the I-thought will disappear and the delusion will vanish

forever. In a cinema-show you can see pictures only in avery dim light or in darkness. But when all lights areswitched on, all pictures disappear. So also in the flood-light of the Supreme Atman all objects disappear.”

Dr. G. That is the Transcendental State.Bh. No, transcending what, and by whom? You alone exist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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