Ramana Maharshi

is only a formal answer to the question of the ignorant. Of several wives, none escapes widowhood when the husband dies. Even so, when the doer goes, all three karmas vanish.

For unlearned folk, there is only one family consisting of wife, husband, children and dependents.

But in the mind of those with much learning, there are many families of books, theories, and opinions as obstacles to yoga. What is the use of letters to those lettered folk?

who do not seek to wipe out the letters of fate by inquiring, Whence are we born? What else are they but gramophones, O Lord of Arunachala? They learn and repeat words without realizing their meaning.

The unlettered are easier saved than those who are learned, but unsubdued.

The unlettered are free from the clutches of the demon pride. They are free from the malady of many whirling thoughts and words. They are free from the mad pursuit of wealth. They are free from many, many ills.

Though a person looks on the world as a wisp of straw and holds all sacred law in their hand, it is hard for them to escape from thralldom if they have yielded to vile flattery.

Without thinking of oneself as apart from others, without swerving from one's true nature,

If one abides always in the self, who is there alien to one? What matters it what people say of one? What matters it if one praises or blames oneself?

Keep Advaita within the heart.

Do not ever carry it into action. Even if you apply it to all the three worlds, it is not to be applied to the guru.

I shall declare truly the essence of the final doctrine of the Vedanta.

When the ego dies and becomes that, the self of pure awareness, that alone abides.