Letters from Sri Ramanasramam, by Suri Nagamma

After some time I woke up and even after that, you were
speaking to me. What is that?” Bhagavan said, “You were
sleeping, weren’t you? Then with whom could you be
speaking?” “Only with myself” he said. Everyone laughed.

“You say you were sleeping. How could there be any
conversation with someone who is asleep? ‘No, I was
conversing,’ you say. That meant that, even though the body
was asleep, you were awake. Then find out who that ‘you’ is.

After that we will consider the conversation during sleep,”
said Bhagavan. There was no reply at all. Looking at all the
people with a kind look, he said, “There are only two things:
creation and sleep. There is nothing if you go to sleep. You
wake up and there is everything. If you learn to sleep while
awake, you can be just a witness. That is the real truth.”
In the same manner, some time back Subbaramayya
asked Bhagavan, “What is meant by asparsa rupam?” “It means
that a thing is visible but not tangible.” “What is meant by
chhaya rupam?” he again asked. “That is the same thing. It
appears as a shadow. If you examine it, you will find nothing.

Call it God, devil, dream, vision, inspiration or whatever you
like. All this is existent if there is someone to see it. If you
find out who it is that sees, all these will not be there. That
which is nothing, that which is the source of everything, is
the Self. Without seeing his own self, what is the use of a
man’s seeing other things?” said Bhagavan.

Recently a person told Bhagavan that he had a friend
who could see the limits of sukshma sakti (subtle powers), that
he had seen the limits of the subtle power of Mahapurushas
(great souls), that among them Sri Aurobindo’s subtle power-
light extended to a distance of seven furlongs, that of
Bhagavan’s, he could see upto three miles, but could not see
to what further distance it extended and that the power-
light of Buddha and others had not extended to that much
distance. Having heard him patiently till the very end,
Bhagavan said with a smile, “Please tell him that he should
first look into his own power-light before looking into the
extent of the subtle powers of so many others. What is all
this about the limits of subtle powers and examining them?
If one looks into one’s own self, all these silly ideas do not
come up. To him who realises himself, all these are mere
trifles.”