Sri Ramana Maharshi

 Q: Yes, I still understand only theoretically. Yet the answers are simple, beautiful and convincing.

Sri Ramana Maharshi :

Even the thought `I do not realize' is a hindrance.

In fact, the Self alone is.

Our real nature is mukti.

But we are imagining we are bound and are making various, strenuous attempts to become free,

while we are all the while free.

This will be understood only when we reach that stage.

We will be surprised that we were frantically trying to attain something which we have always been and are.

An illustration will make this clear.

A man goes to sleep in this hall.

He dreams he has gone on a world tour,

is roaming over hill and dale, forest and country,

desert and sea, across various continents and

after many years of weary and strenuous travel,

returns to this country, reaches Tiruvannamalai,

enters the ashram and walks into the hall.

Just at that moment he wakes up and

finds he has not moved an inch

but was sleeping where he lay down.

He has not returned after great effort to this hall,

but is and always has been in the hall.

It is exactly like that;

If it is asked, `Why being free do we imagine that we are bound?'

I answer,

`Why being in the hall did you imagine you were on a world adventure, crossing hill and dale, desert and sea?

It is all mind or maya [illusion].

~ Be as you are