Namaste 🙏 and welcome to the next episode of Ulladu-Narpadu, and here’s where we start the actual 40 verses that are the body of the work, so let’s just jump right into it!
“From our perception of the world
there follows acceptance of a unique First Principle
–a common cause or Supreme Lord–
possessing various powers.
Pictures of name and form, the person who sees,
the screen on which he sees,
and the light by which he sees:
He Himself is all of these.”
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So, basically, Awareness is everything. Now, what’s going on here in this verse is that Ramana is accepting the fact that most people perceive the world as real, and he’s starting from that point. So, let’s say we are in the world [laughs], and perceiving it as real as such, perceiving the world as real in itself. So, naturally this brings up the question: where did all this come from? I mean, look at all this stuff, this incredible variety of phenomena!
Well, first we have to understand that the world in and of itself is not real. Why do I say that? Because the highest standard of reality is that something exists eternally, both in the past and the future, and without change, isn’t it? If something comes into existence at a certain point in time, then for sure it’s going to go out of existence again, so it’s not fully real. And also, if something changes – I mean, beyond coming and going [chuckles] – if it changes in the middle, it’s also not fully real. Only that which is changeless and eternal is real enough to serve as the first cause, or the Lord, the Creator, the source of everything. In other words, as long as we accept the existence of the world, as long as we accept the existence of myself as an ego, being in the world, and an identity which is derived from the world, then we have to accept that there is something higher. Because the existence of this world, and all the phenomena in it, including ourselves, is only relative. In other words, it’s temporary and changeable, isn’t it?
I think it was the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, who said, “You cannot step in the same river twice.” What does he mean by that? That between one step and the next step the river has flowed so much downstream, and so that river is gone, and now there’s a different river there – the river has changed. This world changes constantly. I mean, just look at what science has revealed about matter: matter is nothing but a conglomeration of atoms and subatomic particles that are vibrating at some incredible frequency! Changing, constantly changing, vibrating, moving, going in and out of different quantum states; in some cases going in and out of existence, on subatomic, micro timescales. So, what’s with that? [laughs] Even this planet, even the Sun, or the galaxy in which we live came into existence at a certain point, went through lots and lots of changes, and at some point in time it’s going to disappear.
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