Ramana says:
"God dwells in you, as you, and you don't have to 'do' anything to be God-realized or Self-realized, it is already your true and natural state." Just drop all seeking, turn your attention inward, and sacrifice your mind to the One Self radiating in the Heart of your very being. For this to be your own presently lived experience, Self-Inquiry is the one direct and immediate way."
There is no difference between the dream and the waking state except that the dream is short and the waking long. Both are the result of the mind. Our real state is called turiya, which is beyond the waking, dream and sleep states.
The Self alone exists and remains as It is. The three states owe their existence to avichara (non-enquiry), and enquiry puts an end to them. However much one may explain, this fact will not become clear until one attains Self-realization, and wonders how he was blind to the self-evident and only existence for so long.
All that we see is a dream, whether we see it in the dream state or waking state. On account of some arbitrary standards about the duration of the experience and so on, we call one experience a dream and another waking experience. With reference to Reality both the experiences are unreal. A man might have an experience such as getting anugraha (grace) in his dream, and the effects and influence of it on his entire subsequent life may be so profound and abiding, that one cannot call it unreal – whilst calling real some trifling incident in the waking life that just flits by, which is casual, of no consequence and is soon forgotten. Once I had an experience, a vision or a dream, whatever you may call it. I and some others, including Chadwick, had a walk on the hill. Returning, we were walking along a huge street with great buildings on either side. Pointing out the street and the buildings, I asked Chadwick and others, whether anybody could say that what we were seeing was a dream, and they all replied, ‘Which fool will say so?’ We then walked along, entered the hall and the vision or dream ceased, or I woke up. What are we to call this?
Just before waking up from sleep, there is a very brief state, free from thought. That should be made permanent. In dreamless sleep there is no world, no ego and no unhappiness, but the Self remains. In the waking state there are all of these. Yet there is the Self. One has only to remove the transitory happenings in order to realize the ever-present beatitude of the Self.
Your nature is bliss. Find that on which all the rest are superimposed and you then remain as the pure Self. In sleep there is no space or time. They are concepts, which arise after the ‘I-thought’ has arisen. You are beyond time and space. The ‘I-thought’ is the limited ‘I’. The real ‘I’ is unlimited, universal, beyond time and space. Just while rising from sleep and before seeing the objective world, there is state of awareness which is your Pure Self. That must be known.
~Ramana Maharshi
Q: What is the difference between the mind and the Self ?
Sri Ramana Maharshi :
There is no difference.
The mind turned inwards is the Self; turned outwards,
it becomes the ego and all the world.
Cotton made into various clothes we call by various names.
Gold made into various ornaments,
we call by various names.
But all the clothes are cotton and all the ornaments gold.
The one is real, the many are mere names and forms.
But the mind does not exist apart from the Self,
that is, it has no independent existence.
The Self exists without the mind, never the mind without the Self.
Q: Brahman is said to be sat-chit-ananda. What does that mean?
Sri Ramana Maharshi :
Yes.
That is so.
That which is, is only sat.
That is called Brahman.
The luster of sat is chit and its nature is ananda.
These are not different from sat.
All the three together are known as satchit-ananda.
~ From Be as you are book
The only person who can write about Bhagavan is the person who really knows Him, and that only person who really knows Him is Bhagavan Himself. And it is perfectly certain that Bhagavan will never write about Himself.
You say: "If there is nothing, why write?"
Yes, why? The whole thing can be summed up in four words:
THERE IS NOTHING. BE!
When one understands those four words, one understands everything including Bhagavan Himself.
Then, there is no more to say.
(Source: Arunachala's Ramana., Boundless Ocean of Grace, Volume 6.
Sri Ramanasramam, Tiruvannamalai.)
Q: In what sense is happiness or bliss (ananda) our real nature?
Sri Ramana Maharshi :
Perfect bliss is Brahman.
Perfect peace is of the Self.
That alone exists and is consciousness.
That which is called happiness is only the nature of Self;
Self is not other than perfect happiness.
That which is called happiness alone exists.
Knowing that fact and abiding in the state of Self,
enjoy bliss eternally.
If a man thinks that his happiness
is due to external causes and his possessions,
it is reasonable to conclude that
his happiness must increase with the increase of possessions
and diminish in proportion to their diminution.
Therefore if he is devoid of possessions,
his happiness should be nil.
What is the real experience of man?
Does it conform to this view?
In deep sleep man is devoid of possessions,
including his own body.
Instead of being unhappy he is quite happy.
Everyone desires to sleep soundly.
The conclusion is that happiness is inherent in man
and is not due to external causes.
One must realize the Self in order to open the store of unalloyed happiness.
~ From Be as you are book
The story of King Janaka was told by Sage Vasishta to Sri Rama as follows:
King Janaka took evening walks everyday in his royal garden, while his retinue stayed outside. One day Janaka, when alone in the garden, happened to hear the conversation of some invisible siddhas. The purport of the conversation is as follows:
(1) When the knower and the known become one, then the bliss of the Self is experienced. This is known as Self -Knowledge and this is what one should aim at.
(2) To eradicate the vasanas one should contemplate on the Self which bestows light on the seer, seen and the act-of-seeing. One should thus contemplate on the eternal Self which is the centre between the being and non-being.
(3) That in which this entire universe is established, to which it pertains, out of which it arises, for which it exists, by which it really is, that is the self-existent-reality, the Truth. Let us contemplate on that in the Heart.*
(4) One should contemplate the one eternal Self which reveals itself shining as "I"-"I". Instead of seeking the truth in the heart, the ignorant goes in search of God outside oneself. It is like a man throwing away the valuable Kaustubba gem in hand and going after conch shells.
(5) The self can be realised only by those who have destroyed completely the hosts of desire. Knowing the absence of happiness in the baneful objects (both in the past and future) yet if one clings on to them one would remain in bondage and is no better than an ass.
(6) Just as the celestial Indra struck down the mountains with his thunderbolt, let us strike at the senses which raise their hoods as hissing snakes, with our powerful discriminative mind. By this the mind acquires peace, gets equanimity and becomes one with the Blissful Self.
* Invocatory verse to Supplement to Forty Verses. The Sanskrit (original) verse was translated into Tamil by Bhagavan.
Taken from Moments Remembered:Reminiscences of Bhagavan Ramana by Sri V Ganesan.
