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Q: How to get rid of the mind?

Sri Ramana Maharshi :

Is it the mind that wants to kill itself ?

The mind cannot kill itself.

So your business is to find the real nature of the mind.

Then you will know that there is no mind.

When the Self is sought, the mind is nowhere.

Abiding in the Self, one need not worry about the mind.

Q: Is mukti the same as realization?

Sri Ramana Maharshi :

Mukti or liberation is our nature.

It is another name for us.

Our wanting mukti is a very funny thing.

It is like a man who is in the shade,

voluntarily leaving the shade,

going into the sun,

feeling the severity of the heat there,

making great efforts to get back into the shade

and then rejoicing,

`How sweet is the shade!

I have reached the shade at last !'

We are all doing exactly the same.

We are not different from the reality.

We imagine we are different,

that is we create the bheda bhava [the feeling of difference]

and then undergo great sadhana [spiritual practices]

to get rid of the bheda bhava and realize the oneness.

Why imagine or create bheda bhava and then destroy it?

Q: This can be realized only by the grace of the master. I was reading Sri Bhagavata. It says that bliss can be had only by the dust of the master's feet. I pray for grace.

Sri Ramana Maharshi :

What is bliss but your own being ?

You are not apart from being which is the same as bliss.

You are now thinking that you are the mind or the body which are both changing and transient.

But you are unchanging and eternal.

That is what you should know.

Q: It is darkness and I am ignorant.

Sri Ramana Maharshi :

This ignorance must go.

Again, who says `I am ignorant '?

He must be the witness of ignorance.

That is what you are.

Socrates said, `I know that I do not know.'

Can it be ignorance?

It is wisdom.

~ From Be as you are book

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Q: I am aware of the `I'. Yet my troubles are not ended.

Sri Ramana Maharshi :

This `I'-thought is not pure.

It is contaminated 

with the association of 

the body and senses. 

See to whom the trouble is.

It is to the `I'-thought.

Hold it.

Then the other thoughts vanish.

Q: Yes. How to do it? That is the whole trouble.

Sri Ramana Maharshi :

Think `I, I',

and hold to that one thought 

to the exclusion of all others.

~ From Be as you are book

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If you look into the life of every sage, they didn't come here to make you happy. They came here to take away your so-called human happiness. They came to show you that human happiness is transitory. It is not permanent. They came to upset you, to upset your lifestyle, not to bring you happiness.

We still have a tendency to believe that when we get into a spiritual teaching, all of our humanhood will improve drastically. If we are sick we'll be healed, if we are poor we'll be rich, if we have mental anguish, we'll have joy and happiness. But that's not a spiritual teaching. Your feelings and your life so-called and your body have nothing to do with spirituality. You gotta understand this once and for all.

True spirituality goes beyond the relative world. It has absolutely nothing to do with the human condition. Yet you've heard me say many times that your humanhood also improves, so it sounds like a contradiction. But what I meant was this: when you make the transcendence, when you awaken to your true self, you have no idea what's going on with the body. You are in a different dimension so to speak.

🌷 R.Adams