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

Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi
M.: It is not external and therefore need not be sought elsewhere. It is
internal and also eternal. It is always realised. But you say you are
not aware. It requires constant attention to itself. No other effort
is necessary. Your effort is only meant not to allow yourself to be
distracted by other thoughts.
The person was satisfied.
Talk 313.
Mr. Greenlees: Bhagavan said yesterday that, while one is engaged in
search for “God within”, outer work would go on automatically. In the
life of Sri Chaitanya it is explained that while he sought Krishna (the
Self) during his lectures to students, he forgot where his body was and
went on talking of Krishna. This rouses doubt whether work can safely
be left to itself. Should one keep part-attention on the physical work?
M.: The Self is all. Now I ask you: Are you apart from the Self? Can
the work go on apart from the Self? Or is the body apart from
the Self? None of them could be apart from the Self. The Self is
universal. So all the actions will go on whether you engage in them
voluntarily or not. The work will go on automatically. Attending
to the Self includes attending to the work.
D.: The work may suffer if I do not attend to it.
M.: Because you identify yourself with the body, you consider that
the work is done by you. But the body and its activities, including
the work, are not apart from the Self.
What does it matter whether you attend to the work or not? Suppose you
walk from one place to another place. You do not attend every single
step that you take. After a time, however, you find yourself at your
destination. You notice how the work, i.e., walking, goes on without
your attention to it. Similarly it is with other kinds of work.
D.: Then it is like sleep-walking.
M.: Quite so. When a child is fast asleep, his mother feeds him in sleep.
The child eats the food quite as well as when well awake. But the
next morning he says to the mother “Mother! I did not take food
last night”. The mother and others know that he did. But he says
that he did not. He was not aware and yet the action had gone on.
Somnambulism is indeed a good analogy for this kind of work.
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