Episode 13: Absolute Being

“Only the absolute Being is real.” I found this quote in Robert Wolfe’s “Ramana Maharshi: Teachings of Self-Realization”. The relevant text surrounding this quote on pages 24-25 is as follows:

The world of objects, names and form is only the mind; when the mind dies [into the Self], the “world” dies with it. Only the Self then remains. The “personal” God is the last of the unreal forms to go. Only the absolute Being is real. Hence not only the world, not only the “me”, but also the individual God are of unreality. Yours is eternal life. Let a person consider if he has been born, or if the Self ever has any birth. He will discover that the Self always exists; then he will abide in the ever-present inmost Self and be free from the idea of birth or the fear of death.

I feel this most fully during my morning walks with Sadie, my elderly golden retriever. She sets a leisurely pace, giving me plenty of time to observe the world around me. I’m able to see the world with soft eyes, allowing the colors and shapes and sounds to speak to me. I feel the silent communication of the trees, the photons flowing all around us, the so-called solid ground beneath my feet with its innumerable electrons, protons, neutrons, and quarks and the space between them.

When we define things with our minds, these things become real to our egos. Each of us develops a particular point of view from which we interpret the world around us, so what one person sees one way may not be the same to another. However, according to Ramana Maharshi, “only the absolute Being is real.”

I endeavor to bring this way of Being to full fruition in my life. It’s often hard, with 50 years of life behind me spent immersed in the ideas of materialism and the importance of the individual self. But when I am able to let go of my preconceptions of the world and my place in it, when I am able to immerse my consciousness in the Being of the universe, I feel free. I can feel the world around me, in me, through me. I am no longer “me”, I do not exist as an individual, I am merely a bundle of subatomic particles held together by forces I do not understand, mixing with all the other particles that exist. Just—Being.

In this state, I appreciate the life I have and do not fear death. I realize that my birth was merely the result of a mixing of genetic material and the energy provided by my mother’s metabolism. My death will only result in the return of matter and energy to the universal Being.



This acceptance of the forces of the universe leaves me at peace, and I hope that you too will find the peace you are seeking.