He who sees the Self sees the Self alone in the world also

February 24, 2010

The Teachings of BhagavanSri Ramana Maharshiin His Own WordsCHAPTER ONETHE

WORLD : REAL OR ILLUSION?The world is indeed real, but not as an independent, selfsubsistentreality, just as a man you see in a dream is real as adream-figure but not as a man.To

those who have not realised the Self as well as to thosewho have, the world is real. But to the former, Truth is adaptedto the form of

the world whereas to the latter Truth shines asthe formless Perfection and the Substratum of the world. Thisis the only difference between them. 1As I recalled Bhagavan saying sometimes that unreal(mithya, imaginary) and real (satyam) mean the same, but didnot quite understand, I asked him about it. He said, `Yes, I dosometimes say that. What do you mean by real? What is it thatyou call real?'I answered: "According to Vedanta, only that which ispermanent and unchanging can be called real. That is themeaning of Reality."Then Bhagavan said: "The names and forms whichconstitute the world continually change and perish and aretherefore called unreal. It is unreal (imaginary) to limit the Selfto these names and forms and real to regard all as the Self. Thenon-dualist says that the world is unreal, but he also says, `Allthis is Brahman'. So it is clear that what he condemns is,regarding the world as objectively real in itself, not regarding itas Brahman. He who sees the Self sees the Self alone in theworld also. It is immaterial to the Enlightened whether the worldappears or not. In either case, his attention is turned to the Self.It is like the letters and the paper on which they are printed.You are so engrossed in the letters that you forget

about thepaper, but the Enlightened sees the paper as the substratumwhether the letters appear on it or not. 21 Forty Verses, 18.2 Day by Day with Bhagavan by Devaraja Mudaliar (5th Edition, 2002), pp. 307-8.