Ramana Maharshi Suggests Let Each One Deal With Their Problems

A TALK WITH SRI RAMANA MAHARSHI By Pryns Hopkins

I asked whether, quite apart from whatever I thought, it wasn’t useful to have pointed out a way to those who were ripe for a new outlook. He countered with “Who thinks they are ready?’’

The Maharshi went on to say that the essential thing is to divorce our sense of self from what our ego and our body are feeling or doing. We should think “Feelings are going on, this body is acting in such and such a manner”, but never “I feel, I
act.” What the body craves or does is not our affair.

I then asked, “Have we then no responsibility at all for the behaviour of our ego?”

He replied, “None at all. Let it go its own way like an automaton.”

“But”, I objected, “you have told us that all the animal propensities are attributes of the ego. If when a man attains jivanmukti he ceases to feel responsibility for the behaviour of his ego and body, won’t they run amok completely?” I illustrated my point with the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Maharshi replied, “When you have attained jivanmukti,you will know the answer to those questions. Your task now is not to worry about them but to know the Self.”

But I am forced to doubt the whole theory unless it explains away this discrepancy. “Here before us is the Maharshi who has attained jivanmukti, and so withdrawn from all responsibility for the conduct of his ego and the body we see before us.

But though he declares them to be the seat of all evil propensities,his ego and body continue to behave quite decorously instead of running wild. This forces me to suspect that something in the hypothesis is incorrect.”

He answered, “Let the Maharshi deal with that problem if it arises and let Mr. Hopkins deal with who is Mr. Hopkins.”

Source: The Silent Power Selections from The Mountain Path and The Call Divine