The Self Is Ever Present

So this is again from the first chapter [Referring to book title ‘Be As You Are – The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi, Edited by David Godman] when the questioner asked ‘what is this awareness and how can one obtain and cultivate it?’ Bhagwan [Sri Raman Maharishi] said ‘You are awareness; awareness is another name for you.’ Since you are awareness, since you are awareness, there is no need to attain or cultivate it. All that you have to do is give up being aware of other thing that is the ‘not-self.’ If one gives up being aware of them then pure awareness alone remains and that is the ‘Self.’ Then the questioner said ‘if the Self itself is aware, why am I not aware of it even now?’ This is the point we are talking about. If the ‘Self’ itself is aware, why am I not aware of it even now? Bhagwan [Sri Raman Maharishi] said ‘there is no duality. Your present knowledge is due to the ‘ego’ and is only relative. Relative knowledge requires a subject and an object. Whereas the awareness of the ‘Self’ is absolute and requires no object. Remembrance is also similarly relative, requiring an object to be remembered and a subject to be remembered. And there is no duality who is to remember whom? The ‘Self’ is present. Each one wants to know the ‘Self.’ What kind of help does one require to know ones ‘Self’? Now do not sleep on this point, just for a moment. The ‘Self’ is present. Each one wants to know the ‘Self.’ What kind of help does one require to know one’s ‘Self’? People want to see the ‘Self’ a something new. But it is eternal and remains the same all along. They desire to see it as a blazing light etcetera. How can it be so? It is not light, not darkness. It is only as it is. It cannot be defined. [Smiles] The best definition is ‘I am that, I am.’ The scripture speaks of the ‘Self’ as being the size of one thumb, a tip of a hair, an electric spark, vast, subtler than the subtlest etcetera. This has no foundation in fact. There is no body being different from the real and unreal. It is knowledge different from knowledge and ignorance. This is the atomic pointer. When he says ‘this is knowledge different from knowledge and ignorance.’ But what is that knowledge? You go through all the knowledge that you have. You had it and then you lost it. You had one idea and then you had its opposite. All of these is caught up in that but this knowledge is not caught up in this knowledge and ignorance. It is not in that dichotomy. It is not in those opposites. In fact, all of these knowledge whether we categorize it as knowledge or ignorance actually forms the clouds in a way. So how can it… he says ‘how can it be defined at all. It is simply being.’ Then the questioner asks ‘when a man realizes the Self what will he see?’ Bhagwan [Sri Raman Maharishi] says ‘there is no seeing, seeing is only being, the state of self- realization as we call it, is not attaining something new or reaching some goal which is far away. But being that which you always are and which you have always been.’ All that is needed is to give up your realization of the not true as true. This is the most brilliant line may be I have ever read. [Smiles] He says ‘all that is needed is that you give up your realization as not true as true.’ Whatever you think to be true but is actually not true. That has to be given up. That is all that you need. All of us are regarding as real that which is not real. We only, we have only to give up this practice on our part. We are taking something unreal as the real and to find the truth we just have to give up this practice. Then we shall realize the ‘Self’ as the ‘Self.’ In other words, be the ‘Self.’ At one stage, you will laugh at yourself to trying to discover your ‘Self’, which is so self-evident. What can we say to this question? So it is so self-evident the ‘Self.’ [Sangha Smiles] [Ananta Chuckles] It is that which is most apparent to you. Simplest. Now what is the trouble? The trouble is that ‘you cannot represent it well, as a concept or an experience. And you will never be able to.’