Ramana Maharshi : Is solitude necessary for a Sannyasin

Question : Is solitude necessary for a sannyasin?
Ramana Maharshi : Solitude is in the mind of a man. One man may be in the thick of the world and yet maintain perfect serenity of mind. Such a person is always in solitude. Another may live in the forest but still be unable to control his mind. He cannot be said to be in solitude. Solitude is an attitude of the mind. A man attached to the things of life cannot get solitude, wherever he
may be, whereas a detached man is always in solitude The silence of solitude is forced.

Restrained speech in society is equivalent to silence, for then a man controls his speech. There must be a speaker before there can be speech. If the mind of the speaker is engaged otherwise, speech is restrained. When the mind is turned inwards it is active in a different way and is
not anxious to speak. The purpose of a vow of silence is to limit the mental activities provoked by speech but if the mind is controlled, this is unnecessary and silence becomes natural.

Ramana Maharshi : To think about one’s Renunciation defeats the purpose of Renouncing

Question : Is it necessary to take sannyasa (a vow of renunciation) in order to attain Self-realisation?
Ramana Maharshi : ‘Sannyasa’ means renouncing one’s individuality, not shaving one’s head and putting on ochre robes. A man may be a householder but if he does not think he is one he is a sannyasin. On the other hand, he may wear ochre robes and wander about, but so long as he thinks he is a sannyasin he is not one.

To think about one’s renunciation defeats the purpose of renouncing. What do you mean by ‘taking sannyasa’? Do you think it means leaving your home or wearing robes of a certain colour? Wherever you go, even if you fly up into the air, will your mind not go with you? Or, can you leave it behind you and go without it?

Why should your occupation or duties in life interfere with your spiritual effort? For instance, there is a difference between your activities at home and in the office. In your office activities, you are detached and so long as you do your duty you do not care what happens or whether it results in gain or loss to the employer.

Your duties at home, on the other hand, are performed with attachment and you are all the time anxious whether they will bring advantage to you and your family. But it is possible to perform all the activities of life with detachment and regard only the Self as real. It is wrong to suppose that if one is fixed in the Self, one’s duties in life will not be properly performed.

It is like an actor. He dresses and acts and even feels the part he is playing, but he knows really that he is not that character but someone else in real life. In the same way, why should the body consciousness or the feeling ‘I-am-the-body’ disturb you, once you know for certain that you are not the body but the Self?

Nothing that the body does should shake you from abidance in the Self. Such abidance will never interfere with the proper and effective discharge of whatever duties the body has any more than an actor’s being aware of his real status in life interferes with his acting a part on the stage.

Ramana Maharshi :Be the Self and that is bliss. You are always that.

Question : Why then do I feel unhappy when I am in Vellore and feel peace in your presence?
Ramana Maharshi : Can the feeling in this place be bliss? When you leave this place you say you are unhappy. Therefore this peace is not permanent, it is mixed with unhappiness which is felt in another place. Therefore you cannot find bliss in places and in periods of time. It must be permanent in order that it may be useful. It is your own being which is permanent. Be the Self and that is bliss. You are always that.

The Self is always realized. It is not necessary to seek to realize what is already and always realized. For you cannot deny your own existence. That existence is consciousness, the Self.
Unless you exist you cannot ask questions. So you must admit your own existence. That existence is the Self. It is already realized. Therefore the effort to realize results only in your realizing your present mistake - that you have not realized your Self. There is no fresh realization. The Self becomes revealed.

Ramana Maharshi on real purport of sannyasa (renunciation)

Question : What is the real purport of sannyasa (renunciation)?
Ramana Maharshi : Sannyasa is only the renunciation of the ‘I-thought’,and not the rejection of the external objects. He who has renounced (the ‘I-thought’) thus, remains the same whether he is alone or in the midst of the extensive samsara (empirical world).

Just as when the mind is concentrated on some object, it does not observe other things even though they may be proximate, so also, although the sage may perform any number of empirical acts, in reality he performs nothing, because he makes the mind rest in the Self without letting the ‘I-thought’ arise. Even as in a dream one appears to fall head downwards, while in reality one is unmoving, so also the ignorant person, i.e., the person for whom the ‘I-thought’ has not ceased, although he remains alone in constant meditation, is in fact one who performs all empirical actions.

Ramana Maharshi on Reincarnation, Birth and Rebirth

Ramana Maharshi on Reincarnation, Birth and Rebirth

Question : Is reincarnation true?
Ramana Maharshi : Reincarnation exists only so long as there is ignorance. There is really no reincarnation at all, either now or before. Nor will there be any hereafter. This is the truth.

Question : Can a yogi know his past lives?
Ramana Maharshi : Do you know the present life that you wish to know the past? Find the present, then the rest will follow. Even with our present limited knowledge, you suffer so much. Why should you burden yourself with more knowledge? Is it to suffer more?

When seen through the sight of the supreme space of Self, the illusion of taking birth in this mirage-like false world is found to be nothing but the egotistical ignorance of identifying a body as`I'. Among those whose minds are possessed with forgetfulness of Self, those who are born will die and those who die will be born again.

But know that those whose minds are dead, having known the glorious supreme reality, will remain only there in that elevated state of reality, devoid of both birth and death. Forgetting Self, mistaking the body for Self, taking innumerable births, and at last knowing Self and being Self is just like waking from a dream of wandering all over the world.

Question : How long does it take a man to be reborn after death? Is it immediately after death or some time after?
Ramana Maharshi : You do not know what you were before birth, yet you want to know what you will be after death. Do you know what you are now?

Birth and rebirth pertain to the body. You are identifying the Self with the body. It is a wrong identification. You believe that the body has been born and will die, and confound the phenomena relating to the body with the Self. Know your real being and these questions will not arise.

Birth and rebirth are mentioned only to make you investigate the question and find out that there are neither births nor rebirths. They relate to the body and not to the Self. Know the Self and don't be perturbed by doubts.

Question : Do not one's actions affect the person in later births?
Ramana Maharshi : Are you born now ? Why do you think of other births? The fact is that there is neither birth nor death. Let him who is born think of death and palliatives for it.