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

Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi
picture. Imagine the actor in the picture asking if he could enact a
scene without the screen. Such is the case of the man who thinks
of his acting apart from the Self.
D.: It is like asking the spectator to act in the cinema picture.
Somnambulism seems to be desirable.
M.: There is the belief that the crow rolls only one iris into either eye
to see any object. It has only one iris but two eye sockets. Its sight
is manipulated according to its desire.
Or again the elephant has one trunk with which it breathes and
does work such as drinking water, etc.
Again serpents are said to use the same apparatus for either seeing
or hearing.
Similarly the actions and states are according to one’s point of
view. Sleep waking or waking sleep or dreaming sleep or dreaming
wakefulness are about the same.
D.: We have to deal with a physical body in a physical waking world.
If we sleep while work is done or work when sleep overtakes us,
the work will go wrong.
M.: Sleep is not ignorance; it is your pure state. Wakefulness is not
knowledge; it is ignorance. There is full awareness in sleep; there is
total ignorance in waking. Your real nature covers both, and extends
beyond. The Self is beyond knowledge and ignorance.
Sleep, dream and waking are only modes passing before the Self.
They proceed whether you are aware or not. That is the state of the
Jnani in whom pass the states of waking, samadhi, deep sleep and
dream, like the bulls moving, standing or being unyoked when the
passenger is asleep as aforesaid. These questions are from the point
of view of the ajnani; otherwise these questions do not arise.
D.: Of course they cannot arise for the Self. Who would be there to
ask? But unfortunately I have not yet realised the Self.
M.: That is just the obstacle in your way. You must get rid of the idea
that you are an ajnani yet to realise the Self. You are the Self. Was
there ever a time when you were apart from the Self?
D.: So it is an experiment in somnambulism .... or in daydreaming.
Bhagavan laughed.
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