Visitor : Widespread distress, such as famine
and pestilence, spreads havoc through the world. What is the cause of
this state of affairs?B.: To whom does all this appear?
V.: That won’t do. I see misery all round.
B.: You were not conscious of the world and its sufferings
while asleep, but you are now that you are awake. Continue in the state in which you are not affected by such things. When you are not aware of the world, that is to say when you remain as the Self in the state of sleep, its sufferings do not affect you. Therefore turn inwards and seek the Self and there will be an end both of the world and of its miseries.
V.: But that is selfishness.
B.: The world is not external to you. Because you wrongly identify yourself with the body, you see the world outside you and its suffering becomes apparent to you; but the world and its sufferings are not real. Seek the reality and get rid of this unreal feeling.
This the visitor was unwilling to do, but instead referred again to suffering and to those who strive vainly to remove it.
V.: There are great men and public workers who cannot solve the problem of suffering in the world.
B.: That is because they are based on the ego. If they remained in the Self it would be different.
Still, presuming the absolute reality of the objective world, the visitor now asked in an indirect way how it would be different, demanding that those who abide in the Self should accept the unreal as Real.
V.: Why don’t Mahatmas help?
For the moment, Bhagavan answers on the visitor’s own level.
B.: How do you know that they don’t?
Public speeches, outer activity and material help are all outweighed by the silence of the Mahatmas. They accomplish more than others.
Now, the visitor comes to the practical point: outer activity instead of inner quest; and Bhagavan rejects that viewpoint no less categorically.
V.: What can we do to ameliorate the condition of the world?
B.: If you remain free from pain there will be no pain anywhere. The trouble now is due to your seeing the world outside yourself and thinking there is pain in it. But both the world and the pain are within you. If you turn inwards there will be no pain.
From " Teachings of Ramana Maharshi in His own words"
Per Handy gesendet
Why does my mind keep running outside all the time - why does it not meditate by itself?
A devotee asked Ramana Maharishi:
"Why do we need to meditate? I say it is "my mind" - then should it not listen to me and meditate by itself when I tell it to? Why does it keep running outside all the time?"
Ramana Maharishi kept silent at that time.
At about the same time, a squirrel had given birth in the ashram, and unfortunately a few days later the mother squirrel got eaten by a cat. Ramana Maharishi took the job of taking care of the baby squirrels. He kept them inside a cage that was kept in the mediation hall. After a few days when everyone was sitting in the meditation hall, the same cat came inside. It so happened that the baby squirrels rushed out of the cage at the same time. Ramana Maharishi got up hurriedly, caught all the baby squirrels one by one and put them back in the cage and locked the door firmly shut.
He then turned to the devotee that had asked the above question and calmly said - "These poor little squirrels do not have the maturity to know the dangers of the outside world, that if it goes out, the cat will make a meal of them. When they get that maturity, they will go hide inside by themselves. Until they get the maturity, we have to keep putting them inside. It is the same thing with our mind. Our mind does not know that if it goes to the outside world, there is nothing but suffering. It keeps running out in ignorance. When it gets the maturity, it will go inside by itself. Until then, it is our job to put it inside with effort -which we do in meditation."
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