Author: Munagala Venkataramiah
Translator(s)/ Editors(s): Dinesh Chand Sharma
Publisher: Sri Ramanasramam
Year: 2015
Language: Hindi
Pages: 580
ISBN/UPC (if available): 9788193009307
Description
The Talks are a record in the form of diary of some of the conversations which the visitors and disciples have had with the Master on Spiritual matters for almost exactly four years - April 1935 to May 1939. In those years it used to be called "The Journal". Roughly half of this period it used to be written in the Darshan Hall itself by the diarist, or recorder, Sri M. Venkataramiah, the late Swami Ramanananda Saraswati at the end of each particular conversation at which he was present.
Sri Bhagavan scarcely ever answered in English, but invariable in Tamil, which very often the diarist himself translated into English to the questioner in the hearing of the whole audience. But questions in Telugu and Malaayalam, Bhagavan answered in the same languages, and the answers in the latter language may be said to have been lost to the diarist, who did not understand Malayalam.
Therefore the language of this diary is of the recorder, more often it is a paraphrase of the Master's answers, occasionally His very words, rendered into English, for it is impossible to write down afterwards all He had said, or to keep pace with Him even if the answers were to be taken down verbatim on the spot.
"Sri Bhagavan always stressed the one essential truth that was necessary for Liberation, that there is only one Self and nothing but the Self. Know that and everything else is known. This cannot be repeated too often. You are the Self, he tells us, nothing but the Self, anything else is just imagination, so BE the Self here and now. There is no need to run off to a forest or shut oneself in room; carry on with your essential activities but free yourself from association with the doer of them. Self is the witness, you are That.
Example after example is given in these talks, in language to suit all tastes and mentalities. The reading of the book automatically drives one inward to the source. It is itself a sufficient Sadhana. Do not delude yourself, you are already That, there is nothing more to be obtained, only false association to be shed, limitation to be recognised as illusory.
What more is there to say, but to advise one and all to read this book and try to make it a part of themselves? Not one word to be passed over lightly, or one conversation to be dismissed as superfluous.''
Sadhu Arunachala
Major A. W. Chadwick, O.B.E.