Sree Ramana Maharshi was resting on a rock after a walk on the mountain path. He was in deep contemplation as always, one with the Cosmos and it’s creator. His face shown in a hallow of divine light, composed in absolute tranquility and peace, the ocean of compassion he was and is still today, remained seated on a rock.
Suddenly a jettison of flies emerged from a tiny hole by the side of the rock spreading themselves into the space as a piece of black cloud and moving around. A vast number of flies filled the atmosphere for some time and then the entire flies suddenly made a beeline into the tiny whole from where they came and vanished in a jiffy. One could not but wonder how such a large number of flies from a tiny whole appeared and disappeared in such a short span of time.
Bhagavan, as Sri Ramana Maharshi is known and addressed by one and all, cited this incident and compared the tiny hole to the ‘ I ‘ thought and the large number of flies to the innumerable thoughts circumventing it. He said if you hold on and concentrate on the ‘ I ‘ thought, that is, one’s feeling of ‘ I ‘ when one thinks or says ‘ I ‘, a keen observation, an inward attention, will show you that all the thoughts move around the event horizon, the spherical boundary surrounding the ‘ I ‘ thought within which there is a strong gravity which sucks in all the thoughts to its core. Because the thoughts are experienced by the ‘ I ‘ feeling which emerges from the self within and stays as one’s identity.
The ‘ I ‘ thought is only the smell of honey for the bear and it has to keenly follow this smell with the single aim of discovering its ‘ source’ or ‘ origin ‘. At this juncture some may want to enter the think tank, naturally, but beware, don’t hibernate there. It's action in inaction that we want inside the think tank.
