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Talk 195. 

Mr. Jharka, a gentleman from the University of Benares, holding the M.A. and the M.Sc. degrees, said that he was stricken with grief due to bereavement of wife and children. He sought peace of mind and asked how to get it.

M.: It is in the mind that birth and death, pleasure and pain, 

in short the world and ego exist. 

If the mind is destroyed all these are destroyed too. 

Note that it should be annihilated, 

not just made latent. 

For the mind is dormant in sleep. 

It does not know anything. 

Still, on waking up, 

you are as you were before. 

There is no end of grief. 

But if the mind be destroyed the grief will have no background and will disappear along with the mind.

D.: How to destroy the mind?

M.: Seek the mind. 

On being sought, it will disappear.

D.: I do not understand.

M.: The mind is only a bundle of thoughts. The thoughts arise because there is the thinker. 

The thinker is the ego. 

The ego, if sought, will vanish automatically. The ego and the mind are the same. 

The ego is the root-thought from which all other thoughts arise.

D.: How to seek the mind?

M.: Dive within. You are now aware that the mind rises up from within. 

So sink within and seek.

D.: I do not yet understand how it is to be done.

M.: You are practising breath-control. Mechanical breath-control will not lead one to the goal. It is only an aid. While doing it mechanically take care to be alert in mind and remember the ‘I’ thought and seek its 

source. Then you will find that where breath sinks, there ‘I-thought’ arises. 

They sink and rise together. 

The ‘I-thought’ also will sink along with breath. 

Simultaneously, 

another luminous and infinite ‘I-I’ will become manifest, 

which will be continuous and unbroken. 

That is the goal. 

It goes by different names - God, Self, Kundalini Sakti, Consciousness, Yoga, Bhakti, Jnana, etc.

D.: Not clear yet.

M.: When the attempt is made, it will of itself take you to the goal.

~ Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi