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

Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi
Talk 555.
Sri Bhagavan once recounted how Kavyakantha Ganapathi Muni
asked Him: My own opinion is that a man can live on Rs. 3 a month.
What is Sri Bhagavan’s opinion in the matter?
M.: A man can live happily only if he knows that he requires nothing
wherewith to live.
Talk 556.
Maj. Chadwick asked Sri Bhagavan one night: The world is said to
become manifest after the mind becomes manifest. There is no mind
when I sleep. Is the world not existent to others at that time? Does it
not show that the world is the product of a universal mind? How then
shall we say that the world is not material but only dream-like?
M.: The world does not tell you that it is of the individual mind or
of the universal mind. It is only the individual mind that sees the
world. When this mind disappears the world also disappears.
There was a man who saw in his dream his father who had died thirty
years earlier. Furthermore he dreamt that he had four more brothers
and that his father divided his property among them. A quarrel
ensued, the brothers assaulted the man and he woke up in a fright.
Then he remembered that he was all alone, he had no brothers and
the father was dead long ago. His fright gave place to contentment.
So you see - when we see our Self there is no world, and when we
lose sight of the Self we get ourselves bound in the world.
Talk 557.
A visitor asked: “We are advised to concentrate on the spot in the
forehead between the eyebrows. Is it right?”
M.: Everyone is aware, ‘I am’. Leaving aside that awareness one goes about
in search of God. What is the use of fixing one’s attention between the
eyebrows? It is mere folly to say that God is between the eyebrows.
The aim of such advice is to help the mind to concentrate. It is one of
the forcible methods to check the mind and prevent its dissipation. It is
forcibly directed into one channel. It is a help to concentration.
But the best means of realisation is the enquiry “Who am I?” The present
trouble is to the mind and it must be removed by the mind only.
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