Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi Complete ... - BrahminVoice.org

Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi
the middle line. But the Heart is also formless. Should we then
imagine it to have a shape and meditate on it?
M.: No. Only the quest “Who am I?” is necessary. What remains all
through deep sleep and waking is the same. But in waking there
is unhappiness and the effort to remove it. Asked who wakes up
from sleep you say ‘I’. Now you are told to hold fast to this ‘I’.
If it is done the eternal Being will reveal Itself. Investigation
of ‘I’ is the point and not meditation on the heart-centre. There
is nothing like within or without. Both mean either the same
thing or nothing.
Of course there is also the practice of meditation on the heartcentre.
It is only a practice and not investigation. Only the one who
meditates on the heart can remain aware when the mind ceases to
be active and remains still; whereas those who meditate on other
centres cannot be so aware but infer that the mind was still only
after it becomes again active.
Talk 132.
An educated man asked: Is there an Absolute Being? What is its
relation to the relative existence?
M.: Are they different from each other? All the questions arise
only in the mind. The mind arises with waking and subsides
in deep sleep. As long as there is a mind, so long will there be
such questions and doubts.
D.: There must be stage after stage of progress for gaining the
Absolute. Are there grades of Reality?
M.: There are no grades of Reality. There are grades of experience for
the jiva and not of Reality. If anything can be gained anew, it could
also be lost, whereas the Absolute is central - here and now.
D.: If so, how do I remain ignorant of it (avarana)?
M.: For whom is this ignorance (veiling)? Does the Absolute tell you
that it is veiled? It is the jiva who says that something veils the
Absolute. Find out for whom this ignorance is.
D.: Why is there imperfection in Perfection? That is, how did the
Absolute become relative?
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