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

Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi
D.: It is not clear to me.
M.: You exist. You say ‘I am’. That means existence.
D.: But I am not sure of it, i.e., my existence.
M.: Oh! Who then is speaking now?
D.: I, surely. But whether I exist or not, I am not sure. Moreover,
admitting my existence leads me nowhere.
M.: There must be one even to deny the existence. If you do not exist,
there is no questioner, and no question can arise.
D.: Let us take it that I exist.
M.: How do you know that you exist?
D.: Because I think, I feel, I see, etc.
M.: So you mean that your existence is inferred from these.
Furthermore, there is no feeling, thinking etc., in sleep and yet
there is the being.
D.: But no. I cannot say that I was in deep sleep.
M.: Do you deny your existence in sleep?
D.: I may be or may not be in sleep. God knows.
M.: When you wake up from sleep, you remember what you did
before falling asleep.
D.: I can say that I was before and after sleep, but I cannot say if I
was in sleep.
M.: Do you now say that you were asleep?
D.: Yes.
M.: How do you know unless you remember the state of sleep?
D.: It does not follow that I existed in sleep. Admission of such
existence leads nowhere.
M.: Do you mean to say that a man dies every time that sleep overtakes
him and that he resuscitates while waking?
D.: Maybe. God alone knows.
M.: Then let God come and find the solution for these riddles. If one
were to die in sleep, one will be afraid of sleep, just as one fears
death. On the other hand one courts sleep. Why should sleep be
courted unless there is pleasure in it?
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