Thoughts come and go
Nisargadatta Maharaj:
January 9, 1981
Questioner: What are thoughts?
Maharaj: They are the result of previous conditioning which the mind has had.
Q: Are the thoughts of the jnani and the ignorant one different from one another?
M: The difference is that the jnani has divorced himself from the body-mind, the body-mind thoughts will come and go but the jnani is not concerned; whereas, the ignorant one gets involved in those thoughts and the ignorant one considers himself as a name and a form.
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Ramana Maharshi:
June 19, 1936, Talk 211
D.: What is this mind?
M.: A bundle of thoughts
July 13, 1935, Talk 65
The ajnani takes the world to be real; whereas the Jnani sees it only as the manifestation of the Self. It is immaterial if the Self manifests itself or ceases to do so.
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Ramana Maharshi:
February, 1939, Talk 623
Sri Bhagavan said to another devotee that there are five states:
(1) Sleep, (2) Before waking, a state free from thoughts, (3) Sense of happiness of that freedom from thoughts (rasasvada), (4) The internal movement of the vasanas (kashaya) and (5) Complete waking with (distraction) vikshepa. The second of those should be made permanent.
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