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

Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi
“I was very agreeably surprised and pleased. I took it to be a call
from Maharshi.”
She also expressed a desire to reside near Maharshi and asked for
His blessings.
Maharshi said: A Higher Power is leading you. Be led by the same.
D.: But I am not aware of it. Please make me aware of it.
M.: The Higher Power knows what to do and how to do it. Trust it.
Talk 266.
The Muslim Professor asked: It is said that one should give up desire.
But there are the needs of the body which are irrepressible. What is
to be done?
M.: An aspirant must be equipped with three requisites: (1) Ichcha;
(2) Bhakti; and (3) Sraddha. Ichcha means satisfaction of bodily
wants without attachment to the body (such as hunger and thirst and
evacuation). Unless it is done meditation cannot progress. Bhakti
and Sraddha are already known.
D.: There are two kinds of desires - the baser and the nobler. Is it our
duty to transmute the baser one to the nobler?
M.: Yes.
D.: Well, Bhagavan, you said there are three requisites of which
ichcha is the satisfaction of natural wants without attachment to
the body, etc. I take food three or four times a day and attend to
bodily wants so much so that I am oppressed by the body. Is there
a state when I shall be disembodied so that I might be free from
the scourge of bodily wants?
M.: It is the attachments (raga, dwesha) which are injurious. The
action is not bad in itself. There is no harm in eating three or four
times. But only do not say, “I want this kind of food and not that
kind” and so on.
Moreover you take those meals in twelve hours of wakeful state whereas
you are not eating in the hours of sleep. Does sleep lead you to mukti?
It is wrong to suppose that simple inactivity leads one to mukti.
D.: There are said to be sadeha mukta (liberated in body) and videha
mukta (liberated without body).
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