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

Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi
D.: “There is a blankness intervening,” it is said in the book.
M.: Yes. Do not stop there. See for whom the blankness appears.
D.: For devotees there is no blankness, it is said.
M.: Even there, there is the latent state, laya; the mind wakes up after
some time.
D.: What is the experience of samadhi?
M.: It is as it is. For onlookers it may seem to be a swoon. Even to
the practiser it may appear so in the early experiences. After a few
repeated experiences it will be all right.
D.: Do they soothe nadis or do they excite them by such experiences?
M.: They are excited at first. By continued experience it becomes
common and the man is no longer excited.
D.: Proceeding on safe lines there should be no unpleasantness.
Excitement is uncongenial to smooth being and working.
M.: A wandering mind is on the wrong way; only a devotional mind
is on the right way.
Talk 139.
19th January, 1936
Mr. Ellappa Chettiar, a Member of the Legislative Council, from
Salem, asked: “Is it enough to introvert the mind or should we meditate
on ‘I am Brahman’?”
M.: To introvert the mind is the prime thing. The Buddhists consider the
flow of ‘I’ thought to be Liberation; whereas we say that such flow
proceeds from its underlying substratum - the only - Reality.
Why should one be meditating ‘I am Brahman’? Only the
annihilation of ‘I’ is Liberation. But it can be gained only by
keeping the ‘I-I’ always in view. So the need for the investigation
of the ‘I’ thought. If the ‘I’ is not let go, no blank can result to the
seeker. Otherwise meditation will end in sleep.
There is only one ‘I’ all along, but what arises up from time to time
is the mistaken ‘I-thought’; whereas the intuitive ‘I’ always remains
Self-shining, i.e., even before it becomes manifest.
125