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

Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi
Samadhi is present even in vyavaharadasa (practical life). Our
activities (vyavahara) have no existence apart from samadhi. The
screen is there when the pictures move past on it and also when they
are not projected. Similarly, the Self is always there in vyavahara
(activity) or in shanti (peace).
Talk 498.
People often say that a mukta purusha should go out and preach his
message to the people. They argue, how can anyone be a mukta so
long as there is misery by his side? True. But who is a mukta? Does
he see misery beside him? They want to determine the state of a
mukta without themselves realising the state. From the standpoint of
the mukta their contention amounts to this: a man dreams a dream
in which he finds several persons. On waking up, he asks, “Have the
dream individuals also wakened?” It is ridiculous.
Again, a good man says, “It does not matter even if I do not get mukti.
Or let me be the last man to get it so that I shall help all others to
be muktas before I am one.” It is all very good. Imagine a dreamer
saying, “May all these wake up before I do”. The dreamer is no more
absurd than the amiable philosopher aforesaid.
Talk 499.
The Swami of Sri Ramakrishna Mission had more questions to ask:
Swamiji, I went up the hill to see the asramas in which you lived in
your youth. I have also read your life. May I know if you did not then
feel that there is God to whom you should pray or that you should
practise something in order to reach this state?
M.: Read the life and you will understand. Jnana and ajnana are of
the same degree of truth; that is, both are imagined by the ignorant;
that is not true from the standpoint of the Jnani.
D.: Is a Jnani capable or likely to commit sins?
M.: An ajnani sees someone as a Jnani and identifies him with the
body. Because he does not know the Self and, mistakes his body
for the Self, he extends the same mistake to the state of the Jnani.
The Jnani is therefore considered to be the physical frame.
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