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

Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi
Take another example: A passenger in a cart has fallen asleep. The
bulls move or stand still or are unyoked on the journey. He does not
know these occurrences, but finds himself in a different place after
he wakes up. He has been blissfully ignorant of the occurrences on
the way, but his journey has been finished.
Similarly with the Self of the person. He is asleep in the body. His waking
state is the movement of the bulls, his samadhi is their standing still
(because samadhi = jagrat sushupti) i.e., to say, he is aware of but not
attached to actions. So the bulls are in harness but do not move. His
sleep is the unyoking of the bulls, for there is complete suspension of
activities corresponding to the release of the bulls from the yoke.
Still another example: Scenes are projected on the screen in a
cinema show. But the moving pictures do not affect or alter the
screen. The seer pays attention to the pictures and ignores the
screen. They cannot remain apart from the screen. Still its existence
is ignored. So also the Self is the screen on which the pictures,
namely activities, are going on. The man is aware of the latter,
ignoring the former. All the same he is not apart from the Self.
Whether aware or unaware the actions will continue.
D.: There is an operator in the cinema.
M.: The cinema show is made out of insentient materials. The screen,
the pictures, lamp, etc., are insentient and require an operator, a
sentient agent. In the case of the Self, it is consciousness itself and
therefore self-contained. There cannot be an operator apart.
D.: Protested that he did not confuse the body with the operator as
the above answer would imply.
M.: The functions of the body were kept in mind involving the need
for the operator. Because there is the body - a jada object - an
operator, a sentient agent, is necessary.
Because people think that they are jivas, Sri Krishna has said that
God resides in the Heart as the operator of the jivas. In fact there
are no jivas and no operator. The self comprises all. It is the screen,
the pictures, the seer, the actor, the operator, the light and all else.
Your confounding it with the body and imagining yourself as the
actor amounts to the seer being represented as an actor in a cinema
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