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

Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi
18th March, 1939
Talk 649.
Mr. Thompson, a very quiet young gentleman who is staying in India for
some years and studying Hindu Philosophy as an earnest student, asked:
Srimad Bhagavad Gita says: “I am the prop for Brahman.” In another
place, it says: “I am in the heart of each one.” Thus the different
aspects of the Ultimate Principle are revealed. I take it that there are
three aspects, namely (1) the transcendental (2) the immanent and
(3) the cosmic. Is Realisation to be in any one of these or in all of
them? Coming to the transcendental from the cosmic, the Vedanta
discards the names and forms as being maya. But I cannot readily
appreciate it because a tree means the trunk, branches, leaves, etc.
I cannot dismiss the leaves as maya. Again the Vedanta also says
that the whole is Brahman as illustrated by gold and ornaments of
gold. How are we to understand the Truth?
M.: The Gita says: Brahmano hi pratishtaham. If that ‘aham’ is
known, the whole is known.
D.: It is the immanent aspect only.
M.: You now think that you are an individual, there is the universe and
that God is beyond the cosmos. So there is the idea of separateness.
This idea must go. For God is not separate from you or the cosmos.
The Gita also says:
The Self am I, O Lord of Sleep,
In every creature’s heart enshrined.
The rise and noon of every form,
I am its final doom as well. B. G., X. 20.
Thus God is not only in the heart of all, He is the prop of all, He
is the source of all, their abiding place and their end. All proceed
from Him, have their stay in Him, and finally resolve into Him.
Therefore He is not separate.
D.: How are we to understand this passage in the Gita:
“This whole cosmos forms a particle of Me.”
M.: It does not mean that a small particle of God separates from Him
and forms the Universe. His Sakti is acting; as a result of one phase of
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