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

Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi
D.: Is ‘surrender’ accepting all physical annoyances such as ants,
mosquitoes, snakes, etc., and, in accepting, willing or ceasing to
be really hurt by them?
M.: Whatever it is, is it apart from you, the seer or the thinker?
A Parsi lady from the audience intervened: If they are not apart,
do we not feel the sting of the ants?
M.: Whom does the ant sting? It is the body. You are not the body.
So long as you identify yourself with the body, you see the ants,
plants, etc. If you remain as the Self, there are not others apart
from the Self.
D.: The body feels the pain of the sting.
M.: If the body feels it, let it ask. Let the body take care of itself. How
does it matter to you?
The American lady again: Does complete surrender mean that all
noise and disturbance in our environment, even during meditation,
must be accepted? Or should we seek a cave in a mountain for
solitude? Did not Bhagavan do this?
M.: There is no going or returning. The Self is said to be unaffected
by the elements, infinite, eternal. It cannot move. There is no place
to move in for the Self.
D.: But, in the process of finding the Self, is this seeking external
help spiritually legitimate?
M.: The error lies in the identification of the Self with the body.
If Bhagavan is the body you may ask that body. But understand
him whom you address as Bhagavan. He is not the body. He
is the Self.
Then she referred to an article in Harijan where it is said that everything
is God and nothing belongs to the individual, and so on.
M.: Everything, the individual, God and all are only the Self.
Then she read some lines from Shelley and asked if Shelley was
not a realised soul.
Within a cavern of man’s trackless spirit
Is throned an Image so intensely fair
That the adventurous thoughts that wander near it
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