One of the problems about which Bhagavan Sri Ramana
Maharshi (B) was often asked was suffering. The questions were usually personal
rather than academic, since it was often the experience of grief which
drove people to seek solace from him. The real solace came as a silent
influence, but he did also answer theoretical questions. The usual answer was to
bid the questioner find out who it is that suffers, just as he would bid the
doubter find who it is that doubts; for the Self is beyond suffering as it is
beyond doubt. Sometimes, however, on a more contingent level, he would point out
that whatever makes a person dissatisfied with his state of ignorance and turns
him to the quest of the Self is beneficial and that it is often suffering which
is the means of doing this.
B.: The Bliss of Self is always yours and you will find it if
you seek it earnestly. The cause of your misery is not in your outer life; it is
in you, as your ego. You impose limitations on yourself and then make a vain
struggle to transcend them. All unhappiness is due to the ego. With it comes all
your trouble. What does it avail you to attribute the cause of misery to the
happenings of life when that cause is really within you? What happiness can you
get from things extraneous to yourself? When you get it, how long will it last?
If you would deny the ego and scorch it by ignoring it, you
would be free. If you accept it, it will impose limitations on you and throw
you into a vain struggle to transcend them. That was how the 'thief'
sought to ruin King Janaka.
To be the Self that you really are is the only
means to realise the Bliss that is ever yours.
A very devoted and simple devotee had lost his only son,
a child of three. The next day he arrived at the Asramam with his family.
Referring to them Bhagavan said: "Training of mind helps one to bear
sorrows and bereavements with courage; but the loss of one's children is said to
be the worst of all griefs. Grief only exists as long as one considers
oneself to have a definite form; if the form is transcended, one knows the
One Self to be eternal. There is neither death nor birth. What is born
is only the body and this is the creation of the ego. But the ego is not
ordinarily perceived without the body and so is identified with it. It is
thought that matters. Let the sensible man consider whether he knew his body
while in deep sleep. Why, then, does he feel it in the waking state? Although
the body was not felt in sleep, did not the Self exist? What was his state when
in deep sleep and what is it now when awake? What is the difference? The
ego rises up and that is waking.
Simultaneously thoughts arise. Find out who has the
thoughts. Where do they come from? They must arise from the conscious self.
Apprehending this even vaguely helps towards the extinction of the ego. The
realisation of the One Infinite Existence becomes possible. In that state there
are no individuals but only Eternal Being. Hence there is no thought of death or
grieving.
"If a man thinks that he is born he cannot escape the fear of
death. Let him find out whether he was ever born or whether the Self takes
birth. He will discover that the Self always exists and that the body which is
born resolves itself into thought, and that the emergence of thought is the root
of all mischief. Find where thought comes from, and then you will abide in the
ever-present inmost Self and be free from the idea of birth and fear of
death."
D.: If some one we love dies, it causes grief. Should we
avoid such grief by either loving all alike or not loving at all?
B.: If someone we love dies, it causes grief to the one
who continues living. The way to get rid of grief is not to continue living.
Kill the griever, and who will then remain to grieve? The ego must die. That is
the only way. The two alternatives you suggest amount to the same. When all are
realised to be the one Self, who is there to love or hate?
Source: Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi in his own words
by Arthur Osborne, Chapter Two, section Suffering
