Forty Verses on Reality (Ulladu Narpadu) - V Ganesan

"Truth" revealed by Sri Ramana Maharshi, in this remarkable collection of verses, guides aspiring seekers positively towards Liberation.

PART II

Verse 21

To see God is to be absorbed by God

The two important philosophical categories are "God" and "man", the individual being. Generally, man is conceived of as subordinate to God, the all powerful. As far as their forms are concerned, both are unreal and mental concepts only.

That is, the body of man is destructible in death and God’s form also is only man’s mental concept. Yet, the inner being, the Self of man, and the divinity, the Godhood of God, are the same, single absolute Truth. Hence, the Maharshi repeatedly emphasized: "God and Self are synonymous." Therefore, Self-realization is the only true vision of God, he asserted.

The scriptures declare that cognizing one’s own state of Being, the Self, is in reality the true seeing of God. Though one could grasp the verbal meaning of this oft-quoted scriptural statement, its true purport is very difficult to realize experientially.

Razor-sharp attention is needed, to know that one’s feeling of one’s own Being, and one’s Being itself are not two different entities, but the same single truth of Wholeness, the total Awareness.

Yet, scriptural statements are infallible truths. So, what exactly is meant by the statement: "The individual seeing God?"

The Maharshi says that to get merged at the source of the being is actually seeing God. He uses the words in Tamil : "To become food" for the term "merging." Since God and individual being, in essence, are identical, the individual being to merge, without any trace of separation, as thoughts and objects, totaly, within one’s heart, is truly seeing God.

Surrendering totaly the ego-self and merging it in the Self Supreme is the true realization of God, true seeing of God, the Maharshi affirms. For him, God and the Self are coextensive and non-different. Therefore, he asserts that for one to remain as one ever is, is the true act of seeing God.

© "Tattvaloka" (November 2002) published by Sri Abhinava Vidyatheertha Mahaswamigal Education Trust, Abhinav Center, 19, Co-operative Colony, Chennai 600 018. Reprinted with permission.

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