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

Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi
The same one who is now speaking was in deep sleep also. What is
the difference between these two states? There are objects and play
of senses now which were not in sleep. A new entity, the ego, has
risen up in the meantime, it plays through the senses, sees the objects,
confounds itself with the body and says that the Self is the ego. In
reality, what was in deep sleep continues to exist now too. The Self
is changeless. It is the ego that has come between. That which rises
and sets is the ego; that which remains changeless is the Self.
Talk 144.
Mr. Prakasa Rao: What is the root-cause of maya?
M.: What is maya?
D.: Maya is wrong knowledge, illusion.
M.: For whom is the illusion? There must be one to be deluded.
Illusion is ignorance. The ignorant Self sees the objects according
to you. When the objects are not themselves present how can maya
exist? Maya is ya ma (maya is what is not). What remains over is
the true Self. If you say that you see the objects, or if you say that
you do not know the Real Unity, then are there two selves, one the
knower and the other the knowable object. No one will admit of two
selves in himself. The awakened man says that he himself was in
deep slumber but not aware. He does not say that the sleeper was
different from the present one. There is only one Self. That Self is
always aware. It is changeless. There is nothing but the Self.
D.: What is the astral body?
M.: Do you not have a body in your dream? Is it not different from
the recumbent body on the bed?
D.: Do we survive after death? Does the astral body outlive physical
death?
M.: Just as in dreams you wake up after several novel experiences, so
also after physical death another body is found and so on.
D.: They say that the astral body lives for forty years after death.
M.: In the present body you say the dream body is astral. Did you say
so in the dream body? What is astral now would appear real then,
the present body itself is astral according to that viewpoint. What
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