Devotee: What is the difference between meditation and enquiry into the Self?
Ramana Maharishi: Meditation is possible only if the ego be kept up. There is the ego and the object meditated upon. The method is indirect. Whereas the Self is only one. Seeking the ego, i.e., its source, ego disappears. What is left over is the Self. This method is the direct one.
Devotee: Then what am I to do?
Ramana Maharishi: To hold on to the Self.
Devotee: How?
Ramana Maharishi: 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 the ego. Killing the ego is the only thing to accomplish. Realisation is already there. No attempt is needed to attain realisation. For it is nothing external, nothing new. It is always and everywhere here and now too.
Ramana Maharishi: Meditation is possible only if the ego be kept up. There is the ego and the object meditated upon. The method is indirect. Whereas the Self is only one. Seeking the ego, i.e., its source, ego disappears. What is left over is the Self. This method is the direct one.
Devotee: Then what am I to do?
Ramana Maharishi: To hold on to the Self.
Devotee: How?
Ramana Maharishi: 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 the ego. Killing the ego is the only thing to accomplish. Realisation is already there. No attempt is needed to attain realisation. For it is nothing external, nothing new. It is always and everywhere here and now too.
No comments:
Post a Comment