Guru Ramana Vachanamala Obeisance to the unique being,
The one self in all,
Namely the serene and unfathomable Bhagavan Ramana,
Who has no ego and no possessiveness.
To become aware of the real self,
Since he is ever-present within the heart of everyone,
Would be very easy if the notion that the body and the world are real should become utterly extinct.
The one who,
Believing the world to be real,
Has been cheated of happiness,
Like the parrot that expected to eat the ripe fruit of the silk cotton tree.
What proof have you that the world really exists?
If you think that this world is real because it appears,
Then conclude that mirage water is also real because it also appears.
What material difference is there between these two?
How can the world,
Which is diversified by space and time,
Mutable and transient,
Be real?
That alone is real,
Which is eternal,
Unchanging and beyond space and time.
Nothing else.
All this appears when there is mental activity,
That is,
In the dream and waking states.
Not only does it not appear in deep sleep,
But it does not appear in the transcendental state where the self is alone and the mind is at rest.
Therefore it is unreal.
Revelation does describe creation in diverse ways in different places.
That must not be understood literally.
The purpose of these passages is to indicate that which is the source of the world and the individual soul,
Not to enjoin the belief in the fact of creation.
If the individual soul and the world are taken as real,
Then how can the supreme being be infinite,
As he is declared to be by revelation?
Unless his infiniteness be given up,
How can this contention,
That the soul and the world are real,
Be right?
The real meaning of the two teachings,
Namely,
That he himself became all this and that that same self created all this,
Is that the world is just a false appearance in him.
As the dog conceals the stone of which it is made,
When taken to be a real dog and is seen to be only stone and not a dog,
When its truth is known,
So is the world in the states of ignorance and of illumination,
Respectively.
So long as this world appears,
Its substance,
The real self,
Does not appear.
When the world ceases to appear,
The real self appears as he really is.
This world,
Which is of the stuff of dreams,
But appears as real by veiling the self,
Will be seen as the self itself,
If it be veiled by the self.
As the many-colored peacock is but the substance of the egg,
So this variegated world is the self and nothing else.
That you'll see when you're in your natural state as the real self.
To the sage that never strays from the self,
Who is consciousness,
This world is of the essence of the self.
Therefore they say that the world is real.
But how can the unenlightened one,
Who is without experience of the reality,
And consequently sees the world as outside of and distinct from themself,
Understand the true meaning of this saying of the sage?
The world is said to be God's creation to those that delight in it,
Regarding it as real.
But it should be regarded as the stuff of the mind by those that seek to know the truth of the self,
In order to become free from bondage.
The world is not other than the body.
The body is not other than the mind.
The mind not other than pure consciousness,
That exists unborn in peace.
There is neither creation nor destruction.
There is no one that is bound,
Nor one striving for liberation.
Nor is there any liberated person.
Such is the truth as realized by the sages.
There is no mind nor body nor world,
Nor anyone called a soul.
The one pure reality alone exists,
Without a second,
Unborn and unchanging,
Abiding in utter peace.
Though the holy Ramana has uttered teachings of diverse tenor to suit the minds of questioners,
The teaching that he has given us as being in accord with his own experience is the teaching of the unborn,
Which has been stated above.
Therefore only by renouncing the world as illusory and turning the mind inwards can one dive into the heart,
Persevering in the will to realize the self and thus attain liberation.
