Do you remain apart from Self that you speak of yourself as Its modification?

Devotee:  It is said that individuals are modifications of the Self, just as ornaments are of gold.


Ramana Maharishi:  When a man speaks in terms of ornaments ignoring their substance gold, he is told that they are gold. But here the man is consciousness and speaks of himself as its modification. Do you remain apart from Self that you speak of yourself as Its modification?


Devotee:  Cannot gold be imagined to say that it has become an ornament?


Ramana Maharishi:  Being insentient, it does not say so. But the individual is sentient and cannot function apart from consciousness. The Self is Pure Consciousness. Yet the man identifies himself with the body which is itself insentient and does not say “I am the body” of its own accord. Someone else says so. The unlimited Self does not.  Who else is he that says so? A spurious ‘I’ arises between the Pure Consciousness and the insentient body and imagines itself limited to the body. Seek this and it will vanish as a phantom. That phantom is the ego, or the mind or the individuality. All the sastras are based on the rise of this phantom, whose elimination is their purpose. The present state is mere illusion. Disillusionment is the goal and nothing more.