Bhagawan Sri Ramana Maharshi

[Guest guest]

Question: Why should self-enquiry alone be considered the direct means

to Jnana (knowledge)?

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: Because every kind of Sadhana (spiritual

practice) except that of Atma-vichara (self-enquiry) presupposes the

retention of the mind as the instrument for carrying on the Sadhana,

and without the mind it cannot be practised. The ego may take

different and subtler forms at the different stages of one's practice,

but is itself never destroyed.

 

When king Janaka exclaimed, 'Now I have discovered the thief who has

been ruining me all along. He shall be dealt with summarily', the king

was really referring to the ego or the mind.

 

Questioner: But the thief may well be apprehended by the other Sadhana

as well.

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: The attempts to destroy the ego or the mind

through Sadhanas (spiritual practices) other than Atma-Vichara (self-

enquiry) is just like the thief pretending to be a policeman to catch

the thief, that is, himself. Atma-Vichara alone can reveal the truth

that neither the ego nor the mind really exists, and enable one to

realise the pure, undifferentiated being of the Self or the absolute.

 

Having realised the Self, nothing remains to be known, because it is

perfect bliss, it is the all.

 

Question: Why is self-enquiry more direct than other methods?

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi: Attention to one's own Self, which is ever

shining as 'I', the one undivided and pure reality, is the only raft

with which the individual, who is deluded by thinking 'I am the body',

can cross the ocean of unending births.

 

Reality is simply the loss of ego. Destroy the ego by seeking its

identity. Because the ego is no entity it will automatically vanish

and reality will shine forth by itself. This is the direct method,

whereas all other methods are done only by retaining the ego. In those

paths there arise so many doubts and the eternal question 'Who am I?'

remains to be tackled finally. But in this method the final question

is the only one and it is raised from the beginning. No Sadhanas are

necessary for engaging in this quest.

 

There is no greater mystery than this- that being the reality we seek

to gain reality. We think that there is something hiding our reality

and that it must be destroyed before the reality is gained. It is

ridiculous. A day will dawn when you will yourself laugh at your past

efforts. That which will be on the day you laugh is also here and now.