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I AM NOW seventy-four years old. And yet I feel that I am an infant. I feel clearly that in spite of all the changes I am a child. My Guru told me; that child, which is you even now, is your real self. Go back to that state of pure being, where the I am" is still in its purity before it got contaminated with "this I am" or "that I am." Your burden is of false self-identifications-abandon them all. My Guru told me-"Trust me. I tell you; you are divine. Take it as the absolute truth. Your joy is divine, your suffering is divine too. All comes from God. Remember it always. You are God, your will alone is done." I did believe him and soon realized how wonderfully true and accurate were his words. I did not condition my mind by thinking: I am God, I am wonderful, I am beyond." I simply followed his instruction, which was to focus the mind on pure being I am," and stay in it. I used to sit for hours together, with nothing but the I am" in my mind and soon peace and joy and a deep all embracing love became my normal state. In it all disappeared-myself, my Guru, the life lived, the world around me. Only peace remained and unfathomable silence.

quote 2704 | Ramana Maharshi
I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, translated from the Marathi recordings by Maurice Frydman; edited by Sudhakar S. Dikshit. Durham, North Carolina, The Acorn Press, 1982 (11th printing 2000), P. 239.

W ith repeated practice in this manner, the mind will develop the skill to stay in its source. When the mind that is subtle goes out through the brain and the sense-organs, the gross names and forms appear; when it stays in the heart, the names and forms disappear. Not letting the mind go out but retaining it in the Heart is what is called "inwardness (antar-mukha). Letting the mind to go out of the Heart is known as "externalization" (bahirmukha). Thus, when the mind stays in the Heart, the "I" which is the source of all thoughts will go, and the Self which ever exists will shine. Whatever one does, one should do without the egoity “I" If one acts in that way, all will appear as of the nature of Shiva (God).

quote 2703 | Ramana Maharshi
The Collected Works of Ramana Maharshi (Tiruvannamailai, India: Sri Ramanasraman, 1979).

W hat is the means for constantly holding on to the thought “Who am I”
When other thoughts arise, one should not pursue them, but should inquire: "To whom did they arise?" It does not matter how many thoughts arise. As each thought arises, one should inquire with diligence, "To whom has this thought arisen?" The answer that would emerge would be "To me." Thereupon if one inquires “Who am I” the mind will go back to its source; and the thought that arose will become quiescent.

quote 2702 | Ramana Maharshi
The Collected Works of Ramana Maharshi (Tiruvannamailai, India: Sri Ramanasraman, 1979).

W hat is the path of inquiry for understanding the nature of the mind?
That which rises as 'I' in this body is the mind. If one inquires as to where in the body the thought "I" rises first, one would discover that it rises in the heart. That is the place of the mind's origin. Even if one thinks constantly "I" one will be led to that place. Of all the thoughts that arise in the mind, the "I" thought is the first. It is only after the rise of this that the other thoughts arise. It is after the appearance of the first personal pronoun that the second and third personal pronouns appear; without the first personal pronoun there will not be the second and third.

quote 2701 | Ramana Maharshi
The Collected Works of Ramana Maharshi (Tiruvannamailai, India: Sri Ramanasraman, 1979).

W hat is referred to as the Self is the Atman. The mind always exists only in dependence on something gross; it cannot stay alone. It is the mind that is called the subtle body or the soul (jiva).

quote 2700 | Ramana Maharshi
The Collected Works of Ramana Maharshi (Tiruvannamailai, India: Sri Ramanasraman, 1979).

W hen the mind comes out of the Self, the world appears. Therefore, when the world appears (to be real), the Self does not appear; and when the Self appears [shines] the world does not appear.

quote 2699 | Ramana Maharshi
The Collected Works of Ramana Maharshi (Tiruvannamailai, India: Sri Ramanasraman, 1979).

W hat is the nature of the mind?
What is called "mind" is a wondrous power residing in the Self. It causes all thought to arise. Apart from thoughts, there is no such thing as mind. Therefore, thought is the nature of mind. Apart from thoughts, there is no independent entity called the world. In deep sleep there are no thoughts, and there is no world. In the states of waking and dream, there are thoughts, and there is a world also.

quote 2698 | Ramana Maharshi
The Collected Works of Ramana Maharshi (Tiruvannamailai, India: Sri Ramanasraman, 1979).

T hus sang a Vedantist: I never had fear or doubt. Death never came to me. I never had a father or mother, for I was never born. Where are my foes? - for I am All. I am Existence, Knowledge, Bliss Absolute. I am It. I am It."

quote 2696 | Vivekananda
"Vedanta: Voice of Freedom", Vedanta Society of St. Louis, 205 S. Skinker Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63105.

N ONE CAN DIE. None can be degraded forever. Life is but a playground, however gross the play may be. However we may receive blows and however knocked about we may be, the Soul is there and is never injured. We are that Infinite.

quote 2695 | Vivekananda
"Vedanta: Voice of Freedom", Vedanta Society of St. Louis, 205 S. Skinker Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63105.

T his is the gist of all worship: to be pure and to do good to others. He who sees Shiva in the poor, in the weak, and in the diseased, really worships Shiva. And if he sees Shiva only in the image, his worship is but preliminary. He who has served and helped one poor man seeing Shiva in him, without thinking of his caste or creed or race or anything, with him Shiva is more pleased than with the man who sees Him only in temples.

quote 2694 | Vivekananda
"Vedanta: Voice of Freedom", Vedanta Society of St. Louis, 205 S. Skinker Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63105.

I t IS IN LOVE that religion exists and not in ceremony-in the pure and sincere love in the heart. Unless a man is pure in body and mind, his coming into a temple and worshipping Shiva is useless. The prayers of those who are pure in mind and body will be answered by Shiva, and those who are impure and yet try to teach religion to others will fail in the end. External worship is only a symbol of internal worship, but internal worship and purity are the real things. Without them, external worship would be of no avail.

quote 2693 | Vivekananda
"Vedanta: Voice of Freedom", Vedanta Society of St. Louis, 205 S. Skinker Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63105.

T o sinners and vile men there is vileness outside, but not to good men. So the wicked see this universe as a hell, and the partially good see it as heaven, while the perfect beings realize it as God Himself. Only when a man sees this universe as God does the veil fall from his eyes; then that man, purified and cleansed, finds his whole vision changed. The bad dreams that have been torturing him for millions of years all vanish, and he who was thinking of himself as either a man or a god or a demon, he who was thinking of himself as living in low places, in high places, on earth, in heaven, and so on, finds that he is really omnipresent; that all time is in him, and that he is not in time; that all the heavens are in him, that he is not in any heaven; and that all the gods that man ever worshipped are in him, and that he is not in any one of those gods. He was the manufacturer of gods and demons, of men and plants and animals and stones. And the real nature of man now stands unfolded to him as being higher than heaven, more perfect than this universe of ours, more infinite than infinite time, more omnipresent than the omnipresent ether.

quote 2692 | Vivekananda
"Vedanta: Voice of Freedom", Vedanta Society of St. Louis, 205 S. Skinker Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63105.

I t may frighten many of you, but you will understand it by degrees. The living God is within you, and yet you are building churches and temples and believing all sorts of imaginary nonsense. The only God to worship is the human soul in the human body. Of course all animals are temples too, but man is the highest, the Taj Mahal of temples. If I cannot worship in that, no other temple will be of any advantage. The moment I have realized God sitting in the temple of every human body, the moment I stand in reverence before every human being and see God in him, that moment I am free from bondage. Everything that binds vanishes, and I am free.

quote 2691 | Vivekananda
"Vedanta: Voice of Freedom", Vedanta Society of St. Louis, 205 S. Skinker Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63105.

Y ou are God and so am I.
Who obeys whom? Who worships whom? You are the highest temple of God. I would rather worship you than any temple, image or bible.

quote 2690 | Vivekananda
"Vedanta: Voice of Freedom", Vedanta Society of St. Louis, 205 S. Skinker Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63105.

T his seems to many to be a terrible contradiction of the traditional God, who lives behind a veil somewhere and whom nobody ever sees. The priests only give us an assurance that if we follow them, listen to their admonitions, and walk in the way they mark out for us, then, when we die, they will give us a passport to enable us to see the face of God! What are all these heaven ideas but simply modifications of this nonsensical priestcraft?

quote 2689 | Vivekananda
"Vedanta: Voice of Freedom", Vedanta Society of St. Louis, 205 S. Skinker Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63105.

W here shall we go to find God if we cannot see Him in our own hearts and in every living being?

quote 2688 | Vivekananda
"Vedanta: Voice of Freedom", Vedanta Society of St. Louis, 205 S. Skinker Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63105.

T hat which is Shakti is also Brahman. That which has form, again, is without form. That which has attributes, again, has no attributes. Brahman is Shakti; Shakti is Brahman. They are not two. These are only two aspects, male and female, of the same Reality, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute.

quote 2687 | Ramakrishna
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna as translated into English by Swami Nikhilananda and published by the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center of New York, Copyright 1942, by Swami Nikhilananda.

T he Primordial Power is ever at play. She is creating, preserving, and destroying in play, as it were. This power is called Kali. Kali is … Brahman and Brahman is … Kali. It is one and the same Reality. When we think of it as inactive, that is to say, not engaged in the acts of creation, preservation, and destruction, then we call it Brahman. But when It engages in these activities, then we call it Kali or Shakti. The Reality is one and the same; the difference is in name and form….

quote 2686 | Ramakrishna
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna as translated into English by Swami Nikhilananda and published by the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center of New York, Copyright 1942, by Swami Nikhilananda.

W hatever we see or think about is the manifestation of the Mother, of the Primordial Energy, the Primal Consciousness. Creation, preservation, and destruction, living beings and the universe, and further, meditation and the meditator, bhakti [devotion] and prema [divine love]-all these are manifestations of the glory of that Power….

quote 2685 | Ramakrishna
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna as translated into English by Swami Nikhilananda and published by the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center of New York, Copyright 1942, by Swami Nikhilananda.

G od reveals Himself to a devotee who feels drawn to Him by the combined force of these three attractions: the attraction of worldly possessions for the worldly man, the child's attraction for its mother, and the husband's attraction for the chaste wife. If one feels drawn to him by the combined force of these three attractions, then one can attain him.

quote 2684 | Ramakrishna
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna as translated into English by Swami Nikhilananda and published by the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center of New York, Copyright 1942, by Swami Nikhilananda.

I n like manner, one who constantly thinks of God can know His real nature; he alone knows that God reveals Himself to seekers in various forms and aspects. God has attributes; then again He has none.

quote 2680 | Ramakrishna
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna as translated into English by Swami Nikhilananda and published by the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center of New York, Copyright 1942, by Swami Nikhilananda.

T ruth is one;
only it is called by different names.
All people are seeking the same Truth;
the variance is due to climate, temperament, and name.

quote 2679 | Ramakrishna
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna as translated into English by Swami Nikhilananda and published by the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center of New York, Copyright 1942, by Swami Nikhilananda.

Y ESTERDAY,
I lived bewildered,
In illusion.

But now I am awake,
Flawless and serene,
Beyond the world.

From my light
The body and the world arise.

So all things are mine,
Or nothing is.

Now I have given up
The body and the world,
I have a special gift.

I see the infinite Self.

As a wave,
Seething and foaming,
Is only water

So all creation,
Streaming out of the Self,
Is only the Self.

Consider a piece of cloth.
It is only threads!

So all creation,
When you look closely,
Is only the Self.
Like the sugar
In the juice of the sugarcane,
I am the sweetness
In everything I have made.

When the Self is unknown
The world arises,
Not when it is known.

But you mistake
The rope for the snake.

When you see the rope,
The snake vanishes.

My nature is light,
Nothing but light.

When the world arises
I alone am shining.

When the world arises in me,
It is just an illusion:
Water shimmering in the sun,
A vein of silver in mother-of-pearl,
A serpent in a strand of rope.

From me the world streams out
And in me it dissolves,
As a bracelet melts into gold,
A pot crumbles into clay,
A wave subsides into water.

I adore myself,
How wonderful I am!

I can never die.

The whole world may perish,
From Brahma to a blade of grass,
But I am still here.

Indeed how wonderful!
I adore myself.

For I have taken form
But I am still one.

Neither coming or going,
Yet I am still everywhere….

I am the infinite ocean.

When thoughts spring up,
The wind freshens, and like waves
A thousand worlds arise.

But when the wind falls,
The trader sinks with his ship.

On the boundless ocean of my being
He founders,
And all the worlds with him.

But 0 how wonderful!

I am the unbounded deep
In whom all living things
Naturally arise,
Rush against each other playfully,
And then subside.

quote 2675 | The Ashtavakra Gita
From The Heart of Awareness: A translation by Thomas Byrom.

T he existence of all that is either affirmed or denied in the one substratum of the indestructible, unattached, non-dual, absolute Self depends only on the mind, just as the appearance or disappearance of the imaginary snake in a piece of rope has no basis in reality. Bondage and Liberation are creations of Maya, superimpositions upon the Brahman imagined by the mind without any existence in reality. It is a fool who blames the sun for his own blindness…. The scriptures even proclaim aloud: "There is in truth no creation and no destruction; no one is bound, no one is seeking Liberation, no one is on the way to Deliverance. There are none Liberated. This is the absolute truth." My dear disciple, this, the sum and substance of all the Upanishads, the secret of secrets, is my instruction to you.

quote 2674 | (Adi Shankaracharya) Shankara
The Vivekachudamani of Shankaracharya

W hen a pot is broken the space that was in it becomes one with space; so too when the limitation caused by the body and its adjuncts is removed the Sage, realized during life, shines as Brahman, becoming absorbed in Brahman he already was, like milk in milk, water in water, or oil in oil, and is radiant as the One Supreme Self.
Thus, when the Sage who abides as Brahman, which is Pure Being, obtains his disembodied absolute state, he is never again reborn.

quote 2673 | (Adi Shankaracharya) Shankara
The Vivekachudamani of Shankaracharya

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