Bhagawan Sri Ramana Maharshi

[Guest guest]

The Supreme is Beyond All

 

Q: You say, reality is one. Oneness, unity, is the attribute of the

person. Is then reality a person, with the universe as its body?

M: Whatever you may say will be both true and false. Words so not

reach beyond the mind.

Q: I am just trying to understand. You are telling us of the Person,

the Self and the Supreme (vyakti, byakta, avyakta). The light of Pure

Awareness (pragna), focused as 'I am' in the Self (jivatma), as

consciousness (chetana( illumines the mind (antahkarana) and as life

(prana) vitalizes the body (deha). All this is fine as far as the

words go. But when it comes to distinguishing in myself the person

from the Self and the Self from the Supreme, I get mixed up.

M: The person is never the subject. You can see a person, but you are

not the person. You are always which appears at a given point of time

and space as the witness, a bridge between the pure awareness of the

Supreme and the mind-fold consciousness of the person.

Q: When I look at myself, I find I am several persons fighting amongst

themselves for the use of the body.

M: They correspond to the various tendencies (samskaras) of the mind.

Q: Can I make peace between them?

M: How can you? They are so contradictory! See them as they are - mere

habits of thought and feelings, bundles of memories and urges.

Q: Yet they all say 'I am'.

M: It is only because you identify yourself with them. Once you

realize that whatever appears before you cannot be yourself, and

cannot say 'I am', you are free of all your 'persons' and their

demands. The sense 'I am' is your own. You cannot part with it, but

you can impart it to anything, as in saying " I am young, I am rich,

and so on. But such self-identifications are patently false and the

cause of bondage.

Q: I can now understand that I am not the person, but that which, when

reflected in the person, gives it a sense of being. Now, about the

Supreme, In what way do I know myself a the Supreme?

M: The source of consciousness cannot be an object in consciousness.

To know the source is to be the source. When you realize that you are

not person, but the pure and calm witness, and that fearless awareness

is your very being, you are the being. It is the source, the

Inexhaustible Possibility.

Q: Are there many sources or one for all?

M: It depends how you look at it, from which end. The objects in the

world are many, but the eye that sees them is one. The higher always

appears as one to the lower and the lower as many to the higher.

Q: Shapes and names are all of one and the same God?

M: Again, it all depends on how you look at it. On the verbal level

everything is relative. Absolutes should be experienced, not discussed.

Q: How is the Absolute experienced?

M: It is not an object to be recognized and stored up in memory. It is

in the present and in feeling rather. It has more to do with the 'how'

than with the 'what'. It is in the quality, in the value; being the

source of everything, it is in everything.

Q: If it is the source, why and how does it manifest itself?

M: It gives birth to consciousness. All else is in consciousness.

Q: Why are there so many centers of consciousness?

M: The objective universe (mahadakash) is in constant movement,

projecting and dissolving innumerable forms. Whenever a from is

infused with life (prana), consciousness (chetana) appears by

reflection of awareness in matter.

Q: How is the Supreme affected?

M: Seeking out causes is a pastime of the mind. There is no duality of

cause and effect. Everything is its own cause.

Q: No purposeful action is then possible?

M: All I say it that consciousness contains all. In consciousness all

is possible. You can have causes if you want then, in your world.

Another may be content with a single cause - God's will.

The root cause is one: the sense 'I am'.

Q: What is the link between the Self (Vyakta) and the Supreme (avayakta)?

M: From the self's point of view the world is the known, the Supreme -

the Unknown. The Unknown gives birth to the known, yet remains

Unknown. The known is infinite, but the Unknown, yet remains Unknown.

The known is infinite, but the Unknown is an infinitude of infinities.

Just like a ray of light is never seen unless intercepted by the specs

of dust, so does the Supreme make everything known, itself remaining

unknown.

Q: Does it mean that the Unknown is inaccessible?

M: Oh, no. The Supreme is the easiest to reach for it is your very

being. It is enough to stop thinking and desiring anything but the

Supreme.

Q: And if I desire nothing, not even the Supreme?

M: Then you are as good as dead, or you are the Supreme?

Q: The world is full of desires. Everybody wants something or other.

Who is the desirer? The person of the self?

M: The self. All desires, holy and unholy, come from the self; they

all hang on the sense of 'I am'.

Q: I can understand holy desires (satyakama) emanating from the self.

It may be the expression of the bliss aspect of the Satchitananda

(Beingness - Awareness - Happiness) of the Self. But why unholy desires?

M: All desires aim at happiness. Their shape and quality depend on the

psyche (antahkarana). Where inertia )tamas) predominates, we find

perversions. With energy (rajas) passions arise. With lucidity

(sattva) the motive behind the desire is goodwill, compassion, the

urge to make happy rather then be happy. But the Supreme is beyond

all, yet because of its infinite permeability all cogent desires can

be fulfilled.

Q: Which desires a cogent?

M: Desires that destroy their subjects, or objects, or do not subside

on satisfaction are self - contradictory and cannot be fulfilled. Only

desires motivated by love, goodwill and compassion are beneficial to

both the subject and object and can be fully satisfied.

Q: All desires are painful, the holy as will as the unholy.

M: They are not the same and pain is not the same. Passion is painful,

compassion - never. The entire universe strives to fulfill a desire

born of compassion.

Q: Does the Supreme know itself? Is the Impersonal conscious?

M: The source of all has all. Whatever flows from it must be there

already in seed form. And as a seed is the last of innumerable seeds,

and contains the experience and the promise of numberless forests, so

does the Unknown contain all that was, or could have been and all that

shall or would be. The entire field of becoming is open and

accessible; past and future coexist in the eternal now.

Q: Are you living in the Supreme Unknown?

M: Where else?

Q: What makes you say so?

M: No desire ever arises in my mind.

Q: Are you then unconscious?

M: Of course not! I am fully conscious, but since no desire or fear

enters my mind, there is perfect silence.

Q: Who knows the silence?

M: Silence know itself. It is the silence of the silent mind, when

passion and desires are silenced.

Q: Do you experience desire occasionally?

M: Desires are just waves in the mind. You know a wave when you see

one. A desire is just a thing among many. I feel no urge to satisfy

it, no action needs be taken on it. Freedom from desire means this:

the compulsion to satisfy is absent.

Q: Why do desires arise at all?

M: Because you imagine that you were born, and that you will die if

you do not take care of your body. Desire for embodied existence is

the root - cause of trouble.

Q: Yet, so many jivas get into bodies. Surely, it cannot be some error

of judgment. There must be a purpose. What could it be?

M: To know itself the self must be faced with its opposite - the not -

self. Desire leads to experience. Experience leads to discrimination,

detachment, self - knowledge - liberation. And what is liberation

after all? To know that you are beyond birth and death. By forgetting

who you are and imagining yourself a mortal creature, you created so

much trouble for yourself that you have to wake up, like from a bad

dream. Enquiry also wakes you up. You need not wait for suffering;

enquiry into happiness is better, for the mind is in harmony and at

peace.

Q: What exactly is the ultimate experience - the Self or the Unknown?

M: " The Self, of course.

Q: Then why introduce the notion of the Supreme Unknown?

M: To explain the Self.

Q: But is there anything beyond the Self?

M: Outside the Self there is nothing. All is one and all is contained

in 'I am " . In the waking and dream states it is the person. In deep

sleep and turiya it is the Self. Beyond the alert intentness of turiya

lies the great, silent peace of the Supreme. But is in fact, all is

one in essence and related in appearance. In ignorance, the seer

becomes the seen and in wisdom, he is the seeing. But why be concerned

with the Supreme? Know the knowers and all will be known.