Letters from Sri Ramanasramam, by Suri Nagamma

“After some days, the Guru called him and said, ‘You
have been doing spiritual practices (sadhana) for several
days now. Have you found any benefit from them?’ The
brahmin then related the above story of his life, and said,
‘Swami, at that time I used to love the buffalo mostly because
it was the mainstay of my family. Though it passed away
long ago, yet when I am deeply engrossed in meditation, it
always appears in my thoughts. What am I to do?’ The
Guru, realizing that it was a past bondage, said, ‘My dear
friend, the Brahman is said to be ‘asti, bhati and priyam’. Asti
means omnipresent; bhati means lustre; priyam means love.

That buffalo, being an object of your love, it also is the
Brahman. It has a name and a form; so what you should
do is to give up your own name and form as well as those of
the buffalo. If that is done, what remains is the Brahman
itself. Therefore, give up names and forms and meditate.’
“The brahmin then meditated, giving up both of them,
and attained realization (jnana). Name and form are past
bondages. The fact is, that which IS, is only one. It is
omnipresent and universal. We say ‘here is a table’, ‘there is
a bird’, or ‘there is a man’. There is thus a difference in
name and form only, but That which IS, is present
everywhere and at all times. That is what is known as asti,
omnipresent. To say that a thing is existent, there must be
someone to see — a Seer. That intelligence to see is known
as bhati. There must be someone to say, ‘I see it, I hear it,
I want it’. That is priyam. All these three are the attributes of
nature — the natural Self. They are also called existence
consciousness, bliss (sat-chit-ananda).”
Another devotee queried, “If priyam (Love), is a natural
attribute, it should be existent no matter what the object
may be. Why then is it not existent when we see a tiger or a
snake?”
Bhagavan replied, “We ourselves may not have any
love for them, but every species has love towards its own
kind, hasn’t it? A tiger loves a tiger, and a snake a snake. So
also a thief loves a thief and a debauchee a debauchee. Thus,
love is always existent. There is a picture presented to you
on a screen. That screen is asti, omnipresent, and the light
that shows the pictures is bhati and priyam, lustre and love.

The pictures with names and forms come and go. If one is
not deluded by them and discards them, the canvas screen,
which has been there all through, remains as it is. We see
pictures on the screen with the help of a small light in an
atmosphere of darkness; if that darkness be dispelled by a
big light, can the pictures be visible? The whole place
becomes luminous and lustrous. If, in the same way, you
see the world with the small light called mind, you find it
full of different colours. But if you see it with the big light
known as Self-realization (atma-jnana), you will find that it
is one continuous universal light and nothing else.”