What Each Seeker Owes To Ramana Maharshi-Part II

Not a Post Dated Cheque

I suspect that it was because of this renewed assurance – Maharshi"s insistence on the present availability of Self-realisation, that it became possible for me at last to share this realisation with a friend, and then with several friends, and now with many friends. Today, I won't accept that inquirers can fail to see their absence. I don"t any longer ask them whether they can see this, but what it means for them. My job is to point out the obvious, theirs to evaluate it.

It is true that among the many who see, only a few surrender at once to what they see. This is not, however, the end of the story, and in any case the words 'few" and 'many", are inapplicable here. The problem of sharing this with others never was a problem. What others? – as Maharshi would say.

The only serious question one owes

Which brings me to the third debt to him. I thank him for his uncompromising attitude to people"s problems. For him, all the troubles that afflict humans reduce to one trouble – mistaken identity. The answer to the problem is to see who has it. At its own level it is insoluble. And it must be so. There is no greater absurdity, no more fundamental or damaging a madness, than to imagine one is centrally what one looks like at a distance.

To think one is a human being here is a sickness so deep-seated that it underlies and generates all one's ills. Only cure that one basic disease – mistaken identity – and all is exactly as it should be. I know no Sage who goes more directly to the root of the disease, and refuses more consistently to treat its symptoms. Who am I? Is the only serious question.

About the author

The author, Douglas E Harding was an English mystic who was drawn to the teachings of Ramana Maharshi.