a dense cloud of thoughts

For those who allow their mind to wander here and there,

 everything will go wrong.

Just as the sun cannot be seen in a densely clouded sky,

 so one’s own Self cannot be seen in a mind-sky

 which is darkened by a dense cloud of thoughts.

All the benefit to be obtained by inner inquiry

 is only the destruction of the deceptive ‘I’-sense [the ego]. 

It would be too much to say that it is to attain Self,

 which always shines clear and ever-attained.

Firmly abiding as ‘I am I’, 

without any movement of the mind, 

is the attainment of Godhood.

When scrutinized, 

among all the many qualities necessary for those 

who wish to attain the imperishable Liberation, 

it is the attitude of a great liking to be in permanent solitude

 that must be well established in their mind.

According to the outlook of different people 

the same woman is considered to be wife, 

husband’s sister, daughter-in-law, wife of one’s brother-in-law,

 mother, and so on. 

 

Yet in truth she does not at all undergo any change in her form.

Unless one realizes oneself to be the unattached Self, 

which is like the space that remains not even in the least attached to anything,

 though it exists inside, outside and pervading everything,

 one cannot remain undeluded.

One who has destroyed the mind is the emperor

 who rides on the neck of the elephant of supreme Jnana (self-knowledge).

 Know for certain that the turmoil of the mind

 is the sole cause of the miserable bondage 

of the cruel and fierce birth [and death].

~ Ramana Maharshi

art by Colette Baumback