Ramana Maharshi says Mukti or liberation is our nature

[Guest guest]

A visitor from Poona, who has been here for the last two or three days, asked some questions, and Bhagavan told him, “Mukti or liberation is our nature. It is another name for us. Our wanting mukti is a very funny thing. It is like a man who is in the shade, voluntarily leaving the shade, going into the sun,feeling the severity of the heat there, making great efforts to get back into the shade and then rejoicing, ‘How sweet is the shade! I have after all reached the shade!’ We all are doing exactly the same. We are not different from the reality. We imagine we are different, i.e., we create the bheda bhava (the feeling of difference) and then undergo great sadhana to get rid of the bheda bhava and realise the oneness. Why imagine or create bheda bhava and then destroy it?”

Dr. Masalawala placed in Bhagavan’s hands a letter he had received from his friend V.K. Ajgaonkar, a gentleman of about 35 (a follower of Jnaneswar Maharaj) who is said to have attained jnana in his 28th year. The letter said, “You call me purna. Who is not purna in this world?” Bhagavan agreed and continued in the vein in which he discoursed this morning, and said, “We limit ourselves first, then seek to become the unlimited that we always are. All effort is only for giving up the notion that we are limited.” The letter further said, “The first verse in the Isavasyopanishad says the world is purna. It simply cannot be anything else, as its very existence is built on the purna.” Bhagavan approved of this also, and said, “There is this typed letter, for instance. To see the world alone and not the purna or Self would be something like saying. ‘I see the letters, but not the paper,’ while it is the existence of the paper that makes the existence of the letters possible!” Dr. M. said, “In the letter we see the paper. But we are able to see only the world and we don’t see God!” Bhagavan replied: “What happens in sleep? Where did the world go then? Then you alone or the Self alone existed.”

The ajata doctrine says, ‘Nothing exists except the one reality. There is no birth or death, no projection or drawing in, no sadhaka, no mumukshu, no mukta, no bondage, no liberation. The one unity alone exists ever.’ To such as find it difficult to grasp this truth and who ask, ‘How can we ignore this solid world we see all around us?’,the dream experience is pointed out and they are told, ‘All that you see depends on the seer. Apart from the seer, there is no seen.’ This is called the drishti-srishti vada or the argument that one first creates out of his mind and then sees what his mind itself has created. To such as cannot grasp even this and who further argue,‘The dream experience is so short, while the world always exists. The dream experience was limited to me. But the world is felt and seen not only by me,but by so many, and we cannot call such a world non-existent’, the argument called srishti-drishti vada is addressed and they are told, ‘God first created such and such a thing, out of such and such an element, and then something else, and so forth.’ That alone will satisfy this class. Their mind is otherwise not satisfied and they ask themselves, ‘How can all geography, all maps, all sciences, stars, planets and the rules governing or relating to them and all knowledge be totally untrue?’ To such it is best to say,‘Yes. God created all this and so you see it.’” Dr.M. said, “But all these cannot be true; only one doctrine can be true.” Bhagavan said, “All these are only to suit the capacity of the learner. The absolute can only be one.”

The letter further said, “Avyabhicharini bhakti is the only necessary thing.” As Dr.M. did not understand what avyabhicharini bhakti meant, Bhagavan explained that it only meant bhakti to God without any other thought occupying the mind. Bhagavan said, “This word, ananya bhakti, ekagrata bhakti, all mean the same thing.” The letter continued, “In the mind two things do not exist at the same time. Either God or

samsar. Samsar is already there. That is to be reduced little by little and God is to be entered in its stead.” Bhagavan remarked on this. “God is there already, not samsar. Only you do not see it on account of the samsar rubbish you have filled your mind with. Remove the rubbish and you will see God. If a room is filled with various articles, the space in the room has not vanished anywhere. To have space we have not to create it, but only to remove the articles stocked in the room. Even so, God is there. If you turn the mind inward, instead of outward on things, then you see the mind merges in the one unity which alone exists.”

Bhagavan also agreed with the writer when he said that to see God, Guru’s grace is necessary, for which again God’s anugraha is necessary, which in its turn, could be had only by upasana.

The letter conveyed the writer’s namaskar to Bhagavan.Thereupon, Bhagavan said, “The mind merging in its source, the one unity, is the only true namaskar.”Source: DAY BY DAY WITH BHAGAVAN RAMANA MAHARSHI

-- Om namo Bhagavate Sri Ramanaya

Prasanth Jalasutram