The Sage

Photo is mother of Pearl. Ramana often used it as an analogy, I believe saying that the world, the individual soul, and god were like the illusory apperance of silver in mother of Pearl.

The dialogue below is from Talks with Ramana Maharshi, I have used this text repeatedly, I had an old copy that was falling apart, and read it repeatedly. Ramana is really a thing and the teachings articulated by him have been life changing for me, helping me clear away the Bad. Since I didn't know which dialogue to choose, I'm going to fittingly choose randomly. M = Ramana Maharshi

D.: Which time is most suitable for meditation?
M.: What is time?
D.: Tell me what it is!
M.: Time is only an idea. There is only the Reality Whatever you
think it is, it looks like that. If you call it time, it is time. If you
call it existence, it is existence, and so on. After calling it time, you
divide it into days and nights, months, years, hours, minutes, etc.
Time is immaterial for the Path of Knowledge. But some of these
rules and discipline are good for beginners.
D.: What is Jnana Marga?
M: Concentration of the mind is in a way common to both Knowledge
and Yoga. Yoga aims at union of the individual with the universal,
the Reality. This Reality cannot be new. It must exist even now,
and it does exist.
Therefore the Path of Knowledge tries to find out how viyoga
(separation) came about. The separation is from the Reality only.
D.: What is illusion?
M.: To whom is the illusion? Find it out. Then illusion will vanish.
Generally people want to know about illusion and do not examine
to whom it is. It is foolish. Illusion is outside and unknown. But
the seeker is considered to be known and is inside. Find out what
is immediate, intimate, instead of trying to find out what is distant
and unknown.
D.: Does Maharshi advise any physical posture for the Europeans?
M.: It may be advisable. However, it must be clearly understood that
meditation is not prohibited in the absence of asanas, or prescribed
times, or any accessories of the kind.
D.: Does Maharshi have any particular method to impart to the
Europeans in particular?
M.: It is according to the mental equipment of the individual. There
is indeed no hard and fast rule.
Mr. Evans-Wentz began to ask questions, mostly relating to Yoga
preliminaries, for all of which Maharshi replied that they are aids to
Yoga, which is itself an aid to Self-realisation, the goal of all.

D.: Is work an obstruction to Self-realisation?
M.: No. For a realised being the Self alone is the Reality, and actions
are only phenomenal, not affecting the Self. Even when he acts he
has no sense of being an agent. His actions are only involuntary
and he remains a witness to them without any attachment.
There is no aim for this action. Even one who is still practising
the path of Wisdom (jnana) can practise while engaged in work. It
may be difficult in the earlier stages for a beginner, but after some
practice it will soon be effective and the work will not be found a
hindrance to meditation.
D.: What is the practice?
M.: Constant search for ‘I’, the source of the ego. Find out ‘Who am I?’
The pure ‘I’ is the reality, the Absolute Existence-Consciousness-
Bliss. When That is forgotten, all miseries crop up; when that is
held fast, the miseries do not affect the person.
D.: Is not brahmacharya (celibacy) necessary for realisation of the Self?
M.: Brahmacharya is ‘living in Brahman’. It has no connection with
celibacy as commonly understood. A real brahmachari, that is one
who lives in Brahman, finds bliss in the Brahman which is the
same as the Self. Why then should you look for other sources of
happiness? In fact the emergence from the Self has been the cause
of all the misery.
D.: Celibacy is a sine qua non for Yoga?
M.: So it is. Celibacy is certainly an aid to realisation among so many
other aids.
D.: Is it then not indispensable? Can a married man realise the Self?
M.: Certainly, it is a matter of fitness of mind. Married or unmarried,
a man can realise the Self, because that is here and now. If it were
not so, but attainable by some efforts at some other time, and if it
were new and something to be acquired, it would not be worthy of
pursuit. Because what is not natural cannot be permanent either.
But what I say is that the Self is here and now and alone.
D.: God being immanent in all, one should not take life of any kind. Is
society right in taking the life of a murderer? Can the State do so either?
The Christian countries begin to think that it is wrong to do so.

M.: What is it that prompted the murderer to commit the crime? The
same power awards him the punishment. Society or the State is
only a tool in the hands of the power. You speak of one life taken
away; But what about innumerable lives lost in wars?
D.: Quite so. Loss of lives is wrong anyway. Are wars justified?
M.: For a realised man, the one who remains ever in the Self, the loss
of one or several or all lives either in this world or in all the three
worlds makes no difference. Even if he happens to destroy them
all, no sin can touch such a pure soul. Maharshi quoted the Gita,
Chapter 18, Verse 17 - “He who is free from the notion of ego,
whose intellect is unattached, though he annihilates all the worlds,
he slayeth not, nor is he bound by the results of his actions.”
D.: Do not one’s actions affect the person in after-births?
M.: Are you born now? Why do you think of other births? The fact
is that there is neither birth nor death. Let him who is born think
of death and palliatives therefore.
D.: How long did it take Maharshi to realise the Self?
M.: This question is asked because the name and form are perceived.
These are the perceptions consequent on the identification of the
ego with the gross body.
If the ego identifies itself with the subtle mind, as in dream, the
perceptions are subtle also. But in sleep there are no perceptions.
Was there not the ego still? Unless it was, there cannot be the
memory of having slept. Who was it that slept? You did not say in
your sleep that you slept. You say it now in your wakeful state. The
ego therefore is the same in wakefulness, dream and sleep. Find
out the underlying Reality behind these states. That is the Reality
underlying these. In that state there is Being alone. There is no you,
nor I, nor he; no present, nor past, nor future. It is beyond time and
space, beyond expression.
It is ever there.
Just as a plantain tree produces shoots at its roots, before yielding
fruits and perishing, and these shoots, being transplanted, do the
same again, so also the original primeval Master of antiquity
(Dakshinamurti), who cleared the doubts of his rishi disciples in
silence, has left shoots which are ever multiplying. The Guru is

a shoot of that Dakshinamurti. The question does not arise when
the Self is realised.
D.: Does Maharshi enter the nirvikalpa samadhi?
M.: If the eyes are closed, it is nirvikalpa; if open, it is (though
differentiated, still in absolute repose) savikalpa. The ever-present
state is the natural state sahaja.
26th January, 1935
Talk 18.
Mr. Evans-Wentz asked: There are yogis with occult powers. What
does Maharshi think of them?
M.: The powers are known by hearsay or by exhibition. Thus they
are in the realm of the mind only.
D.: Mr. Brunton mentions a yogi in Madras who is said to hold
communion with his master in the Himalayas.
M.: It is not more marvellous than telepathy - so commonly known.
Telepathy cannot exist without the hearer and television without
the seer. What is the difference between hearing from far and from
near? It is only the hearer who matters. Without the hearer there
cannot be hearing; without the seer there cannot be vision.
D.: So you want me to consider the subject and not the object.
M.: The subject and object appear only after the mind has arisen. The
mind comprises them and also the occult powers.
D.: Can the manifestations of light (jothis) be seen on Arunachala Hill?
M.: Yes.
D.: Is there any psychic effect in visiting sacred places like Mt.
Kailas, Benares, etc.?
M.: Yes.
D.: Is there any benefit accruing by dying in Benares?
M.: Yes, the meaning will be clear if the real Benares and real dying
be understood.
D.: You mean that they are in the Self?
M.: Yes.