Forty Verses on Reality By Sri Ramana Maharshi -- Verses 11-20

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11. Is it not, rather, ignorance to know all else without knowing oneself,

the knower? As soon as one knows the Self, which is the substratum of

knowledge and ignorance, knowledge and ignorance perish.

 

12. That alone is true Knowledge which is neither knowledge nor ignorance.

What is known is not true Knowledge. Since the Self shines with nothing else

to know or to make known, It alone is Knowledge. It is not a void.

 

13. The Self, which is Knowledge, is the only Reality. Knowledge of

multiplicity is false knowledge. This false knowledge, which is really

ignorance, cannot exist apart from the Self, which is Knowledge-Reality. The

variety of gold ornaments is unreal, since none of them can exist without

the gold of which they are all made.

 

14. If the first person, I, exists, then the second and third persons, you

and he, will also exist. By enquiring into the nature of the I, the I

perishes. With it 'you' and 'he' also perish. The resultant state, which

shines as Absolute Being, is one's own natural state, the Self.

 

15. Only with reference to the present can the past and the future exist.

They too, while current, are the present. To try to determine the nature of

the past and the future while ignoring the present is like trying to count

without the unit.

 

16. Apart, from us where is time and where is space? If we are bodies, we

are involved in time and space, but are we? We are one and identical now,

then, and forever, here, and everywhere. Therefore we, timeless, and

spaceless Being, alone are.

 

17. To those who have not realized the Self, as well as to those who have,

the word 'I' refers to the body, but with this difference, that for those

who have not realized, the 'I' is confined to the body whereas for those who

have realized the Self within the body the 'I' shines as the limitless Self.

 

18. To those who have not realized (the Self) as well as to those who have

the world is real. But to those who have not realized, Truth is adapted to

the measure of the world, whereas to those that have, Truth shines as the

Formless Perfection, and as the Substratum of the world. This is all the

difference between them.

 

19. Only those who have no knowledge of the Source of destiny and free-will

dispute as to which of them prevails. They that know the Self as the one

Source of destiny and free-will are free from both. Will they again get

entangled in them?

 

20. He who sees God without seeing the Self sees only a mental image. They

say that he who sees the Self sees God. He who, having completely lost the

ego, sees the Self, has found God, because the Self does not exist apart

from God.

 

*Source:* http://www.realization.org/page/namedoc0/40_verses/40_verses_2.htm

 

.... To Be Continued

 

--

Om namo Bhagavate Sri Ramanaya

Prasanth Jalasutram