From ‘Heart is they Name, Oh Lord. Moments of Silence with Ramana Maharshi’. Published by Sri Ramanasramam, Tiruvannamalai

The thought ‘Who am I?’ will destroy all other thoughts,
and like a stick used for stirring the burning pyre,
it will itself in the end get destroyed.
Then
there will arise
Self-realization

The Self is that where there
is absolutely no ‘I-thought’.
That is called Silence.
The Self itself is the world;
the Self itself is ‘I’;
the Self itself is God;
all is Siva, the Self.



All that is required
to realize the Self
is
to be still.
What can be easier than that?



There is a state beyond our efforts or effortlessness.
Until it is realized effort is necessary.
After tasting such Bliss even once
one will repeatedly try to regain it




Christ is the ego.
The cross is the body.
When the ego is crucified,
and it perishes,
what survives is
the Absolute Being,
and this glorious survival is called
Resurrection.



Be what you are.
There is nothing to come down or become manifest
All that is needed is to lose the ego.
What do you wait for?
The thought ‘I have not seen’, the expectation to see and
the desire to get something, are all the working of the ego.
To think is not your real nature.



In darkness a man imagines
there is something by his side.
If he looks closely the ghost is not to be seen
but some dark object, a tree or post, etc.;
if he does not look closely
the ghost strikes terror in the person
So also with the ego.
It is an intangible link between the body and Pure Consciousness.
It is not real.
So long as one does not look closely
it continues to give trouble.
But when one looks for it,
it is found not to exist.



“How is the ego to be destroyed?”
This question is a sure way to cherish the ego and not to kill it.
Can the ego ever agree to kill itself?
If you seek the ego
you will find it does not exist.
That is the way to destroy it



The whole of Vedanta is contained
in the two biblical statements
‘I am that I am’
and
‘Be still and know that I am God’.