How To Know The Self

20th July, 1936

D.: How to know the Self?

Maharshi: Are there two ‘I’s? How do you know your own existence? Do you see yourself with these eyes? Question yourself. How does this question arise? Do I remain to ask it or not? Can I find my Self as in a mirror?

Because your outlook has been outward bent, it has lost sight of the Self and your vision is external. the Self is not found in external objects. Turn your look within and plunge down; you will be the Self.

D.: Is discovery of the Self dependent on the observance of caste rules? Or should we flout them?

M.: Not in the beginning. Observe them to start with. Caste-rules serve as a check on the vagaries of the mind. It is thus purified.

D.: The unknowable can be attained only by the grace of the unknowable.

M.: He helps the attainment. That is the Grace.

D.: How to check the mind?

M.: Will a thief betray himself? Will the mind find itself? The mind cannot seek the mind. You have ignored what is real and are holding on to the mind which is unreal and also trying to find what it is. Was there mind in your sleep? It was not. It is now here. It is therefore impermanent. Can the mind be found by you? The mind is not you. You think you are the mind and therefore ask me how it is checked. If it is there it can be checked. But it is not. Understand this truth by search. Search for unreality is fruitless. Therefore seek the reality i.e. the Self. that is the way to rule over the mind. There is ony one thing Real!

D.: What is the one Real thing?

M.: That is what is; the others are only appearances. Diversity is not its nature. We are reading the printed characters on paper but ignore the paper which is the background. Similarily you are taken up by the manifestations of the mind and let go the background. Whose fault is it?

D.: Is there a limit to the Self?

M.: What is the Self?

D.: The individual soul is the Self.

M.: What is the individual Soul? Is there any difference between the two or are they identical?

Any new appearances are bound to disappear. Anything created will certainly be destroyed. The eternal is not born nor does it die. We are now confounding appearances with reality. Appearance carries its end in itself. What is it that appears newly? If you cannot find it, surrender to the substratum of appearances unreservedly; then, the reailty will be left over as the residue.

Source: Talks with Ramana Maharshi