March 10, 2025 - Be Yourself

A great spiritual instruction: Just be yourself.

Question 1: What does that even mean? Isn’t everyone in the world already doing exactly that and creating great chaos?

Question 2: How could anyone ever be anything other than themselves?

Answer 1: No. It means to coming home to your real self, not what you believe yourself to be. The real self is beyond all dogma, superstition, and belief. It is direct experience.

Answer 2: This question is definitely nothing more than a flag waving in the wind.

(The following is from Talk 183 from “Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi”)

A gentleman from Bombay said: “I asked Mother in Sri Aurobindo Ashram the following question: ‘I keep my mind blank without thoughts arising so that God might show Himself in His true Being. But I do not perceive anything.’

“The reply was to this effect: ‘The attitude is right. The Power will come down from above. It is a direct experience’.”

So he asked what further he should do.

Maharshi: Be what you are. There is nothing to come down or become manifest. All that is needful is to lose the ego, That what is, is always there. Even now you are That. You are not apart from it. The blank is seen by you. You are there to see the blank. What do you wait for? The thought “I have not seen,” the expectation to see and the desire of getting something, are all the working of the ego. You have fallen into the snares of the ego. The ego says all these and not you. Be yourself and nothing more!

So is there one self or two? An ego self, and a real self? Finding out who is seeing these words right now is the doorway to the Immutable. What was never born does not die.

There is just seeing, and seeing isn’t It. Seeing is the doorway. If It could be seen It wouldn’t be Real, It would change, it would die.

So what if you’re not real? Neither is the world. If this seems like news there’s trouble brewing. It’s more than enough to just let every corner of the world come to rest as you, within You.