Sorupa Saram - II -The Essence of One’s Own True Nature - Sorupananda

Part VII

Q: What is the benefit arising from this experience?

A: It is becoming the ruler of the kingdom of liberation.

I obtained the supreme lordship that is never lost. I burned up the pair of opposites – happiness and misery. I gave up the life of the body-forest, which tormented the mind. I entered and occupied the house of liberation.

Q: What play will this king witness on his stage?

A: He will witness the dance of the three avasthas (waking, dreaming and sleeping).

In the waking state I will witness the dance of the five 

organs of action and the five organs of sense. In dream I will witness the dance of the mind. In thought-free sleep I will dance the object-free-void-dance. However, I will (always) remain as the exalted essence (the Self).

Q: Where was this experience when you were regarding happiness and misery as ‘I’?

A: Then, too, I was remaining as the Self. I was nothing else.

Who was the one who remained as (the ego) ‘I’? If I see him, I will not allow him to take up the form of the body. Only the ‘I’ whose form is consciousness is the real ‘I’. All other ‘I’s will get bound to a form and go through birth and death.

Q: The Self is immutable. Will it not get bound if it gets involved in activities?

A: As the Self remains a witness, like the sun, it will not get bound.

Even if I bear the burdens of the family and have them follow me like a shadow, or even if the cloud called ‘maya’ veils, I am, without doubt, the sun of knowledge, self-shining as pure light and remaining as the witness (of the world).

Q: But the jnani is not remaining motionless like the sun.

A: He also remains actionless.

Whatever comes, whatever actions are performed, in whatever I may delight, I am only pure consciousness, remaining aloof and aware, without becoming any of them.

Q: All things move because the Self makes them move. Hence, is there bondage for the Self?

A: Like the rope that makes the top spin, there is no bondage for it.

In the same way that a top is made to spin by a rope, desires fructify in my presence. But, like the rope that is used to spin the top, I will not merge with them. I have rid myself of their connection. I became my own Self. My bondage is indeed gone.

Q: But what is the way by which knowledge and ignorance was destroyed?

A: In one’s own experience of the Self neither attainment of knowledge nor removal of ignorance is seen.

By what did ignorance get destroyed? Through what did knowledge gained through enquiry arise? How was the clarity, known as the experience of true knowledge, obtained? Other than myself, what do I know?

Q: If the dawn of knowledge and the removal of ignorance are not known, how can we call such a one a jnani?

A: With ignorance removed from knowledge, like unreal from real, becoming both and becoming neither – this indeed is the nature of the jnani.

When, ultimately, the real shone as ‘I’, did the unreal, which became ‘I’, go anywhere? I myself became the base of both the real and the unreal, but remained beyond the reach of the conflicting pair of real and unreal.

Q: Previously it was stated, ‘I am the possessor of the body but not the body’. Now it is said, ‘I will remain different from the body and also be the body’. Which is true?

A: The truth is remaining in but aloof from the body, like the kernel in the mango seed that remains within the seed shell, but aloof from it.

Oh, I said, ‘I am the body!’ I regarded wealth as mine! I felt, ‘I am the enjoyer!’ Are all these not false? Though I remained as everything, beginning with the body, the real ‘I’ always remained aloof without associating with anything, like the mango kernel in the seed of the sweet mango.

Q: Is remaining like this (attached and detached) only in the period of ignorance, or also in the period of knowledge?

A: It is in both.

The periods of jnana and ajnana were seen and passed like the periods in which intellect had not developed and in which intellect had developed. Everything that was a superimposition during practice has now become false.

Q: Is there birth and death during the period of ignorance that exists prior to this experience?

A: As these are illusory, they do not exist.

Oh, where was I born? What did I worship as God? Where did I seek refuge? When I became the blissful essence, the reality, experiencing unbroken bliss, were not all these (known to be) false?

Q: In what condition was the Self before the dawning of this experience?

A: When I am redeemed by realization of the truth, I am not confused any more.

I lived as ‘someone’. I labored in vain for ‘somebody’. I underwent change, taking a thousand names. Now, enough of this! I have seen myself, that which is hard for me to discover. Oh, now I am free!

Q: What is obtained and experienced if one sees the Self?

A: The mind dissolves in love and one becomes sat-chit-ananda.

I made the deceitful mind melt and dissolve. I knew myself as I really am. Since I am the substratum for everything. I became and dwelt as myself, the clear ambrosia of sat-chit-ananda.

Q: Is the statement "The world is only the Self" figuratively true and not literally true?

A: Anything seen cannot exist apart from the eye. Similarly, the world does not exist apart from the Self.

Can there be anything seen that is apart from the eye? Can there be anything heard that is apart from the ear? Did any of the other four elements manifest independently of space? Though the world may appear like a flowing mirage-river, when thoroughly examined, can the world exist apart from the Self?

Q: Seer and seen appear different.

A: This is just like seeing gold as various ornaments. They are not different.

Here, other than myself, nothing else exists. I swear to this. A gold ornament does not exist separate from the gold. In the same way that one can change the shape of gold and give it different names, I described my Self in various ways.

Q: What is the nature of this experience?

A: It is the transcendence that arises, dissolving thoughts, and in which everything shines as the Self.

It is beyond the reach of speech and it is beyond the reach of the mind. It is the clear ambrosia with which one does not get satiated, even when it overflows. Like saliva that secrets on the tongue, it springs forth from within me. Like a dumb pot it remained as ‘I’, without being another1.

Q: When everything exists as Sivam, why should one become Sivam?

A: This is to enable the removal of all differences of ‘one’ and ‘two’ and to become perfect jnana.

Do not question, "What is the bliss of Siva? What is Siva-nature? What is Siva’s activity?" It is only the fullness of consciousness that does not get divided, does not unite, and does not become different.

Q: What is to be rejected as asat (unreal), and what is to be accepted as sat (reality)?

A: Reject objects that are known as asat and accept consciousness as sat. This is tranquility.

All the tattvas (principles) that one knows are foreign to oneself. While rejecting these objects as ‘not-Self’, realize the Self through the consciousness that remains as the one who rejects objects. This is tranquility.

Q: If tranquility is the one true thing, what is the witness?

A: Tranquility is itself everything, beginning from the witness right down to svanubhava (one’s own experience). It is Sivam, the state of realization.

Tranquility is itself the witness-Self. The witness-Self is itself Brahman. Brahman is fullness. The pure fullness realized by enquiry is itself the ever-present svanubhava. This is the state of realization, which is itself Sivam.

Q: Even if the mind subsides, sayujyam (union) is attained only when maya is destroyed.

A: The destruction of the mind is itself the destruction of maya, and hence it is sayujyam.

I have seen the way of the birth of the mind that leads to the birth of the world and the birth of the doer, the ego ‘I’. The non-subsidence of the mind is itself maya. The firmness of those who destroy this maya is sayujyam.

Q: If this is sayujyam, where will the past karmas go?

A: In this experience they will disappear without leaving a trace.

I rid myself of the fear that arises from the misery of imagining, ‘I underwent an endless succession of births and deaths’. All of the ancient world has become the vast, empty expanse that is my own Self, since everything other than my Self is false.

Q: When there is such an experience, why perform karma?

A: When this experience has not arisen, actions are performed.

Until I became the endless, blissful experience through the superior wisdom that regards all worship and similar things as the ‘not-Self’, I worshipped the gods at the prescribed times and observed all the vows.

Q: Who will attain this experience?

A: Only those who are pure and who have the prescribed qualifications will attain it.

The experience of reality – eternally abiding and shining as oneness, as blemishlessness, as fullness, and as truth – is attained only by those who are most qualified, pure, who have a steady mind, and who are undergoing their final birth.

Q: What are the marks of a pure one?

A: They are as follows:

They will not utter harsh words; they will not hate anyone; they will be of cheerful countenance; whatever things they relish, they will not use them for themselves but will offer them to the great ones; they will not associate with evil persons; they will not curse anyone; their eyes will not blaze with anger. These are the ones who will rid themselves of birth.

They will not value as real those things that are destructible; they will never speak out, saying, ‘This is good and this is bad’; they will not grieve over events of the past; they will not condemn anything; they are the exalted ones.

They will not speak contemptuously of the ordinances of the Vedas; they will not remain without chanting and melting with devotion as long as they live; they will not forget death; they will not get attached to this world through weakness of mind; they are the ones who will not be born again.

They will not experience at all sudden movements of the mind; they will only desire to know the path of salvation; their minds will not get immersed in attachments, saying, greedily, ‘This is my wealth, my house, my wife and my children’. Such are the mature ones.

Will they care for things that are valued by others as desirable and not desirable? When one really looks, those who become tranquil and eternal, who experience truth and abide in the final state are few in number.

Those who do not see anything other than their Self here and in the hereafter, who are beyond both and without any division, will they degrade themselves by not regarding as trivial this phantom-like world appearance that is an illusory play of the sankalpas?

© Permission granted by "The Mountain Path" (Jayanti, 2004).  Copyright David Godman, Translation by Dr. Venkatasubramaniam and Robert Butler.  Edited by David Godman.  Website: www.ramana-maharshi.org. Part I of this article appeared in Splendour, June 2004 issue.

<< Back