Question: For those who long for release, is it useful to read books?
It is said in all the scriptures that to attain liberation one should make the mind subside. After realising that mind control is the ultimate injunction of the scriptures, it is pointless to read scriptures endlessly. In order to know the mind, it is necessary to know who one is. How [can one know who one is] by researching instead in the scriptures? One should know oneself through one's own eye of knowledge. For [a man called] Rama to know himself to be Rama, is a mirror necessary? One's self exists within the five sheaths, whereas the scriptures are outside them. This self is the one to be enquired into. Therefore, researching in the scriptures, ignoring even the five sheaths, is futile. Enquiring 'Who am I that am in bondage?' and knowing one's real nature is alone liberation.
Question: Is it necessary for one who longs for release to enquire into the nature of the tattvas?
Just as it is futile to examine the garbage that has to be collectively thrown away, so it is fruitless for one who is to know himself to count the numbers and scrutinize the properties of the tattvas that are veiling the Self, instead of collectively throwing them all away.
~RAMANA MAHARSHI
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