BHAVAN’S BOOK UNIVERSITY
ERASE THE EGO
——SRI RAMANA MAHARSHI
çompiled by
Swami Rajeswarananda
1978
Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan
Kulapati K. M. Munshi Marg
Bombay 400 007
Copyright Reserved
First Edition 1963
Second Edition 1974
Third Edition 1978
Price Rs. 5/-
PRINTED IN INDIA
By R. Monteiro at Associated Advertisers~ & Printers, 505. Tardeo Arthur Road, Bombay-400 034, and
Published by S. Ramakrishnan,
Executive Secretary, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan,
Kulapati K. M, Munshi Marg, Bombay ~400 007.
CONTENTS
Kulapati’s Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .v
Forward. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .ix
Invocatory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..1
Benedictory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2
Prefatory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Teachings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Talks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..50
KULPATI’S PREFACE
The Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan –that Institute of Indian Culture in Bombay bay—needed a Book University,
a series of books which, if read, would serve the purpose of providing higher education. Particular
emphasis, however, was to be put on such literature as revealed the deeper impulsions of India. As a first
step it was decided to bring out in English 100 books, 50 of which were to be taken in hand almost at once.
Each book was to contain from 200 to 250 pages.
It is our intention to publish books we select, not only in English, but also in the following Indian
languages: Hindi, Bengali, Guajarati~ Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam.
This scheme, involving the publication of 900 volumes, requires ample funds and an all-India organisation.
The Bhavan is exerting its utmost to supply them.
The objectives for which the Bhavan stands are the reintegration of the Indian culture in the light of modem
knowledge and to suit our present-day needs and the resuscitation of its fundamental. values in their
pristine vigour.
Let me make our goal more explicit:
We seek the dignity of man, which necessarily implies the creation of social conditions which would allow
him freedom to evolve along the lines of his own temperament and capacities; we seek the harmony of
individual efforts and social relations, not in any makeshift way, but within the frame-work of the Moral
Order; we seek the creative art of life, by the alchemy of which human limitations arc progressively
transmuted, so that man may become the instrument of God, ‘and is able to see Him in all and all in Him.
The world, we feel, is too much with us. Nothing would uplift or inspire us so much as the beauty and
aspiration which such books can teach.
In this series, therefore, the literature of India, ancient and modern, will be published in a form easily
accessible to all Books in other literatures of the world, if they illustrate the principles we stand for, will
also be included.
This common pool of literature, it is hoped, will enable the reader, eastern or western, to understand and
appreciate currents of world thought, as also the movements of the mind in India, which, though they flow
through different linguistic channels,, have a common urge and aspiration.
Fittingly, the Book University’s first venture is the Mahabharata, summarised by one of the greatest living
Indians, C. Rajagopalachari; the second work is on a section of It, the Gita by H. V. Divatia, an eminent
jurist and a student of philosophy. Centuries ago, it was proclaimed of the Maha- bharata: “What is not in
it, is nowhere.” After twenty-five centuries, we can use the same words about it. He who knows it not,
knows not the heights and depths of the soul; he misses the trials and tragedy and the beauty and grandeur
of life.
The Mahabharata is not a mere epic; it is a romance, telling the tale of heroic men and women and of some
who were divine; it is a whole literature in itself, containing a code of life, a philosophy of social and
ethical relations, and speculative thought on human problems that is hard to rival; but, above all, it has for
its core the Gita, which is, as the world is beginning to find out, the noblest o scriptures and the grandest of
sagas in which the climax is reached in the wondrous Apocalypse in the Eleventh Canto.
Through such books alone the harmonies underlying true culture, I am convinced, will one day reconcile
the disorders of modern life.
thank all those who have helped to make this new branch of the Bhavan’s activity successful.
I, QUEEN VICTORIA ROAD,
New DELHI:
K. M. MUNSHI
3rd October, 1951
FOREWORD
Herein are a few salient and solemn Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi, the Sage of
Tiruvannamalai, South India, These sacred teachings were culled from his talks and works published by Sri
Ramanashram, Tiruvannamalai. They are all in his own words.
INVOCATORY
THAT in which all these worlds are fixed, of which they are, from which they all arise, for which they all
exist, because of which they all come into being, and which they in truth are –THAT alone Is the Real, the
Truth. May we adore that at Heart!
The One Self, the Sole Reality, alone exists eternally, ~en When even the Ancient Teacher, Dakshinamurthi,
revealed through speechless Eloquence, how could any other convey it by speech?
That Sankara, who appeared as Dakshinamurthi to grant peace to the great ascetics (Sanaka, etc.), who
revealed his real state of silence, and who has expressed the nature of Self in this hymn, abides in me
Aruna—”4’, ‘RU’, and’ ‘NA’—signify Sat Chit, and anda (Being, consciousness and Bliss). or again the
supreme Self, the individual Self, and their union as the Absolute, expressed in the rnahavakya ‘That thou
art’; ‘Achala’ signifies Perfection. So worship Arunachala of shining golden lustre, for mere remembrance
of Him ensures deliverance.
‘Thou art my father, Thou art my mother, Thou art relations, my possessions and all,” and so on, a song
sung in prayer. Sri Ramana remarked with a smile, “Yes, yes, Thou art this, that and the other, everything
except ‘I’. Why not say ‘I’ am Thou’ and have done with it.”
—Sri Ramana Maharshi
BENEDICTORY
Master: What is the Light for you?
Disciple: By day the sun, by night a lamp.
Master: What is the light that perceives the light?
Disciple: The eye.
Master: What is the light that illumines the eye?
Disciple: That light is the intellect.
Master: What is the light that knows the intellect?
Disciple: The ‘I’.
Master: You are (therefore) the supreme Light of (all) lights.
Disciple: Yes, That I am.
—Sri Ramana
To stay where a Jnani, who is none else but the Supreme Self, stays is mukti. He who serves a Jnani is so
great that I permanently bear on my head his feet. None can equal the spotless and supreme Jnani, neither
Siva, Vishnu nor I Brahman, Who else then can equal him? —Brahma Gita
Vishnu will carry on his head all that a real Jnani wants. Siva will follow him everywhere. While virtuous
kings and all the devas do obeisance to the dust of such a Jnani’s feet, Brahman will beg that those feet may
be placed on his head.
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