There is a fixed state; sleep , dream and waking states are mere movements in it. They are like pictures moving on the screen in a cinema show. Everyone sees the screen as well as the pictures but ignores the screen and takes in the pictures alone. The Jnani however considers only the screen and not the pictures. The pictures certainly move on the screen yet do not affect it. The screen itself does not move but remains stationary.
Similarly, a person travels in a train and thinks that he moves. Really speaking he sits and reposes in his seat, and it is the train which is steaming fast. He however superimposes the motion of the train on himself because he has identified himself with the body. He says, "I have passed one station - now another - yet another - and so on". A little consideration will show that he sits unmoved and the stations run past him. But that does not prevent him from saying that he has travelled all the way as if he exerted himself to move every foot of the way. The Jnani is fully aware that the true state of Being remains fixed and stationary and that all actions go on around him. His nature does not change and his state is not affected in the least. He looks on everything with unconcern and remains blissful himself. His is the true state and also the primal and natural state of being. When once the man reaches it he gets fixed there. Fixed once, fixed ever he will be.
Sri Ramana: Which is the real power? Is it to increase prosperity or bring about peace? That which results in peace is the highest perfection.
D.: But common people in Europe and America would not appreciate such an attitude and would desire a display of powers and instructions by lectures, etc.
M.: Lectures may entertain individuals for a few hours without improving them. Silence on the other hand is permanent and benefits the whole of humanity.
D.: But silence is not understood.
M.: It does not matter. By silence, eloquence is meant. Oral lectures are not so eloquent as silence. Silence is unceasing eloquence. The Primal Master, Dakshinamurti, is the ideal. He taught his rishi disciples by silence.
D.: But then there were disciples for Him. It was all right. Now it is different. They must be sought after and helped.
M.: That is a sign of ignorance. The power which created you has created the world. If it can take care of you, it can similarly take care of the world also.
- from Talks, No 20
Ramana Maharshi
Q: Is it possible to enjoy samadhi while busy in worldly work?
Sri Ramana: The feeling ‘I work’ is the hindrance. Ask yourself ‘who works?’ Remember who you are. Then the work will not bind you; it will go on automatically. Make no effort either to work or to renounce; your effort is the bondage. What is destined to happen will happen.
If you are destined not to work, work cannot be had even if you hunt for it; if you are destined to work, you will not be able to avoid it; you will be forced to engage yourself in it. So, leave it to the higher power; you cannot renounce or retain as you choose.
- Maharshi's Gospel
M.: It is in the mind that birth and death, pleasure and pain, in short the world and ego exist. If the mind is destroyed all these are destroyed too. Note that it should be annihilated, not just made latent. For the mind is dormant in sleep. It does not know anything. Still, on waking up, you are as you were before. There is no end of grief. But if the mind be destroyed the grief will have no background and will disappear along with the mind.
D.: How to destroy the mind? M.: Seek the mind. On being sought, it will disappear. D.: I do not understand.
M.: The mind is only a bundle of thoughts. The thoughts arise because there is the thinker. The thinker is the ego. The ego, if sought, will vanish automatically. The ego and the mind are the same. The ego is the root-thought from which all other thoughts arise.
D.: How to seek the mind?
M.: Dive within. You are now aware that the mind rises up from within. So sink within and seek.
- Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi No 195
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