'Talks with Sri Ramana Maharishi' - 11.

From: ~~~ Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talk 607.
Bhagavan:

There is a fixed state;
 sleep, dream and waking states are mere movements in it.

They are like pictures moving on the screen in a cinema show.
Everyone sees the screen as well as the pictures  but ignores the screen and takes in the pictures  alone.

The Jnani however considers only the screen  and not the pictures.
The pictures certainly move on the screen  yet do not affect it.
The screen itself does not move but remains stationary.

Similarly,
 a person travels in a train and thinks that he moves.
 Really speaking he sits and reposes in his seat,  and it is the train which is steaming fast.
He however superimposes the motion of the train  on himself because he has identified himself with the body.

He says,
 “I have passed one station  - now another - yet another - and so on”.
A little consideration will show that he sits unmoved  and the stations run past him.
But that does not prevent him from saying that  he has travelled all the way as if he exerted himself
 to move every foot of the way.

The Jnani is fully aware that the true state of Being  remains fixed and stationary  and that all actions go on around him.
His nature does not change  and his state is not affected in the least.

He looks on everything with unconcern  and remains blissful himself.
His is the true state and also  the primal and natural state of being.
When once the man reaches it he gets fixed there.
 Fixed once, fixed ever he will be.
Therefore that state which prevailed in the days  of Pathala Linga Cellar continues uninterrupted,
 with only this difference that the body  remained there immobile but is now active.

There is no difference between a Jnani  and an ajnani in their conduct.
The difference lies only in their angles of vision.
The ignorant man identifies himself with the ego  and mistakes its activities for those of the Self,
whereas the ego of the Jnani has been lost  and he does not limit himself to this body or that,
 this event or that, and so on.
~~~~
Sri Ramanasramam