No Thing, Nothing


 




 

 

There is really nothing….no thing and I don’t mean
shunyata!

 


Ramana Maharshi

11th March, 1936

180. Later, the same gentleman said that sleep was a
state of oblivion and the wakeful state was the mind’s
activity. The mind was in a potential state in sleep.

M.: Were you not in sleep?

D.: Yes, I was. But in a state of oblivion. There must be
a witness of oblivion and of the mind which says that ‘I’ am
continuous in both states.

M.: Who is this witness? You speak of ‘witness’. There
must be an object and a subject to witness. These are
creations of the mind. The idea of witness is in the mind.
If there was the witness of oblivion did he say, ‘I witness
oblivion’? You, with your mind, said just now that there
must be a witness. Who was the witness? You must reply ‘I’.
Who is that ‘I’ again? You are identifying yourself with the
ego and say ‘I’. Is this ego ‘I’, the witness? It is the
mind that speaks. It cannot be witness of itself. With
self-imposed limitations you think that there is a witness
of mind and of oblivion. You also say, “I am the witness”.
That one who witnesses the oblivion must say, “I witness
oblivion”. The present mind cannot arrogate to itself that
position.

 

The whole position becomes thus untenable. Consciousness
is unlimited. On becoming limited it simply arrogates to
itself the position. There is really nothing to witness. IT
is simple BEING.

Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi

Ramana/Talks_with_Ramana_Maharshi.html

 

Nothing could be more mad than to be happy in this place,
because there is really no justification for it. It is not
reasonable to be happy. If you thoroughly examine this
world, there is reason to feel very unhappy. Even with a
little pleasurableness thrown in, it is not enough to
overcome that conviction of darkness that you get when you
really see what is happening here. So it is not any
philosophy we can base on our experience here that makes us
happy. It is complete release from the implications, the
force, of this dreaming, this appearance for which we cannot
account for….

Identification
of the Beloved