Arunachala Siva - Sri Ramana Maharshi
ॐ
* As long as viṣaya-vāsanās [inclinations or desires to be aware of things other than oneself, which are the seeds that give rise to all thoughts or phenomena] exist in the mind, so long the investigation who am I is necessary.
* As and when thoughts arise, then and there it is necessary to annihilate them all by vicāraṇā [vichara: investigation or vigilant self-attentiveness] in the very place from which they arise.
* Being without attending to [anything] other [than oneself] is vairāgya [dispassion] or nirāśā [desirelessness]; being without leaving [separating from or letting go of] self is jñāna [true knowledge]. In truth [these] two [desirelessness and true knowledge] are only one.
Just as a pearl-diver, tying a stone to his waist and submerging, picks up a pearl which lies in the bottom of the ocean, so each person, submerging [beneath the surface activity of their mind] and sinking [deep] within themself with vairāgya [freedom from desire to experience anything other than self], can attain the pearl of self.
If one clings fast to uninterrupted svarūpa-smaraṇa [self-remembrance] until one attains svarūpa [one’s own actual self], that alone [will be] sufficient.
So long as enemies are within the fort, they will continue coming out from it. If [one] continues cutting down [or destroying] all of them as and when they come, the fort will [eventually] come into [one’s] possession.
Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi - WHO AM I?, Paragraph Eleven
Original Tamil prose by Bhagavan Sri Ramana with English translation by Michael James
Refer to: #other posts about “Nan Yar?” §11 ; #analogy of besieged fort ; #plunge the pure mind into the Heart