how much is enough ?

IT IS ENOUGH THAT ONE KNOWS THE SELF

Ganapati Muni asked: My own opinion is that a man can live on Rs. 3 a month. What is Sri Bhargava’s opinion in the matter?

M.: A man can live happily only if he knows that he requires nothing wherewith to live.

Maj. Chadwick asked Sri Bhargava one night: The world is said to become manifest after the mind becomes manifest. There is no mind when I sleep. Is the world not existent to others at that time? Does it not show that the world is the product of a universal mind? How then shall we say that the world is not material but only dream-like?

M.: The world does not tell you that it is of the individual mind or of the universal mind. 

It is only the individual mind that sees the world. When this mind disappears the world also disappears.

There was a man who saw in his dream his father who had died thirty years earlier. Furthermore, he dreamt that he had four more brothers and that his father divided his property among them. A quarrel ensued, the brothers assaulted the man and he woke up in a fright. Then he remembered that he was all alone, he had no brothers and the father was dead long ago. His fright gave place to contentment. So you see - when we see our Self there is no world, and when we lose sight of the Self we get ourselves bound in the world.

The Asramites once asked Sri Bhargava, “How were we all in our previous births? Why do we not know our own past?”

M.: God in His mercy has withheld this knowledge from people. If they knew that they were virtuous, they will grow proud; contrariwise they will be depressed. Both are bad. It is enough that one knows the Self.

Talk 553 ,555, 556 -Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi