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

Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi
The books say that there are so many kinds of diksha (initiations
- hasta diksha, sparsa diksha, chakshu diksha, mano diksha, etc.)
They also say that the Guru makes some rites with fire, water, japa,
mantras, etc., and call such fantastic performances dikshas, as if
the disciple (sishya) becomes ripe only after such processes are
gone through by the Guru.
If the individual is sought he is nowhere to be found. Such is the
Guru. Such is Dakshinamurti. What did he do? He was silent; the
disciples appeared before him. He maintained silence, the doubts
of the disciples were dispelled, which means that they lost their
individual identities. That is jnana and not all the verbiage usually
associated with it.
Silence is the most potent form of work. However vast and
emphatic the sastras may be, they fail in their effect. The Guru
is quiet and peace prevails in all. His silence is more vast and
more emphatic than all the sastras put together. These questions
arise because of the feeling, that having been here so long, heard
so much, exerted so hard, one has not gained anything. The work
proceeding within is not apparent. In fact the Guru is always
within you.
Thayumanavar says: “Oh Lord! Coming with me all along the
births, never abandoning me and finally rescuing me!” Such is the
experience of Realisation.
Srimad Bhagavad Gita says the same in a different way, “We two
are not only now but have ever been so.”
D.: Does not the Guru take a concrete form?
M.: What is meant by concrete? Because you identify your being with
your body, you raise this question. Find out if you are the body.
The Gita says: param bhavam ajanantah (Bh. Gita IX - II) - that
those who cannot understand the transcendental nature (of Sri
Krishna) are fools, deluded by ignorance.
The master appears to dispel that ignorance. As Thayumanavar puts
it, he appears as a man to dispel the ignorance of a man, just as a deer
is used as a decoy to capture the wild deer. He has to appear with a
body in order to eradicate our ignorant “I-am-the-body” idea.
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