Part 2 - Thus Spake Ramana

You see how you are acting
without your intention to do so?
The Gita says that a man
cannot remain without acting.
The purpose of one's birth will be fulfilled
whether you will it or not.
Let the purpose fulfill itself.

Everyone is the Self
by his own experience.
Still, he is not aware,
he identifies the Self with the body
and feels miserable.
This is the greatest of all mysteries.
One is the Self!
Why not abide as the Self
and be done with miseries?

In dreamless sleep, there is no world,
no ego, and no unhappiness,
but the Self remains.
In the waking state, there are all 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 is superimposed
and you then remain
as the pure Self.

So long as the ego is not dead, humility alone is good for a sadhaka spiritual seeker); acceptance of obeisance from others is not good.

The Sage whose ego is extinct
is freed
from the three seeming states
of waking,
dreaming
and deep sleep.

All that remains for such a Sage
Is turiya,
the most noble state,
First, last and all-transcendent

Be what you are.
There is nothing to come down
or become manifest.
All that is needed is to lose the ego.
That which is is always there.
The blank is seen by you.
You are there to see the blank.
What are you waiting for?
The thought, 'I have not seen,'
the expectation to see,
and the desire of getting something
are all the working of the ego.
You have fallen into the snares of the ego.
The ego says all that and not you.
Be yourself and nothing more!

As the restlessness of the elephant's trunk is checked by a chain held (by the elephant), so the restlessness of the mind is corrected by meditation on (spiritual) Names or Forms.

He who engages in investigation
starts holding on to himself,
asking. "Who am I?"
and the Self becomes clear to him.

Even now you are the Self.
But you are confounding this consciousness
[or ego] with the absolute consciousness.
This false identification is due to ignorance.
Ignorance disappears along with ego.
Killing the ego is the only thing to accomplish.
Realization is already there.
No attempt is needed to attain realization.
For it is nothing external.
Nothing new.
It is always and everywhere;
Here and now.

First surrender the self
and then harmonize the conflicts.

First give yourself up
and then think of the rest.

Reincarnation can be real
if you are incarnate now.
Even now you are not born.

The ego is the root of all diseases.
Give it up. There will be no disease.

There is only one Master
and that is the Self.

What is silence? It is eternal eloquence.

Each seeker after God should be allowed to go his own
way, the way for which he alone may be built (meant). It will
not do to convert him to another path by violence. The Guru
will go with the disciple in his own path and then gradually
turn him onto the Supreme path at the ripe moment. Suppose
a car is going at top speed. To stop it at once or to turn it at
once would be attended with disastrous consequences. - Bhagavan

Grace is in the beginning, middle, and end.
Grace is the Self. Because of false identification
of the Self with the body,
the Guru is thought to be with body,
but from the Guru's point of view,
the Guru is only the Self.
The Self is one only.
He states that the Self alone is.
Is not then the Self your Guru?
Where else would grace come from?
It is from the Self alone.
All of these doubts arise
because of the wrong outlook and
consequent expectation of things
external to oneself.
Nothing is external to the Self.

There is no greater mystery
than the following.
Ourselves being the Reality,
we seek to gain reality.
We think there is something hiding our Reality,
and that it must be destroyed,
before the Reality is gained.
That is ridiculous.
A day will dawn
when you will yourself laugh at your past efforts.
That which will be on the day you laugh,
is also here and now.

In Nagamma, letters, entry 9th February 1947 the talk was on getting rid of the gunas (qualities of the mind). Then it turns on the Guru.

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