SFTS Lodge Dharma Message for September 2018: "It is false to speak of realisation ..."

Above an altar on a high hill. San Francisco, August 2018.

 

 

 

"It is false to speak of realisation. What is there to realise? The real is as it is always. We are not creating anything new or achieving something which we did not have before. The illustration given in books is this. We dig a well and create a huge pit. The space in the pit or well has not been created by us. We have just removed the earth which was filling the space there. The space was there then and is also there now. Similarly we have simply to throw out all the age-long samskaras [innate tendencies] which are inside us. When all of them have been given up, the Self will shine alone." -- Ramana Maharshi, Be As You Are: The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi, Edited by David Godman (1989).