Ramana Maharshi, Pessoa, and Ninguem

1.

I recently read The Book Of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa. One cannot help but be moved and fascinated by the insights—the book is a collection of short, philosophical commentaries on his life and on life in general—of this solitary writer, one of the great literary masters of the past century. You can read the sections out of order; the sections are not progressive. Some of the passages are astonishingly profound.

On a recent trip that included a brief visit to Lisbon, I headed for the A Brasileira, the café that Pessoa had frequented.  I had read that there was a famous brass statue of Pessoa in front of the café; I wanted to see it. (Unfortunately, there was not time to visit his residence nearby, which has since been transformed into The Pessoa Museum. Next time!)

My wife, Nirmala, and I took some photos of the statue, one of which I include here:

At the base of the statue is the following quote from Pessoa's best-known work,The Book of Disquiet:

Ler é sonhar pela mão de outrem.

(To read is to dream while led by another.)

An interesting quote! It is, however, only the opening phrase of a passage of remarkable insight. This will be discussed at length in a subsequent essay.

I immediately began to play with the sentence in my mind, transforming it with a twist of non-duality into a philosophical statement regarding the human condition. (I asked our guide. Leonor, who is Spanish, what the Portuguese equivalent of “nadie,” ("nobody") is, a word without which the sentence, with my very limited knowledge of Portuguese, could not have have been written:

Viver è sonhar pela mão de niguem.

(To live is to dream while led by no one.)

This sentence provides, I think, a summary of Eastern thinking, a glorious worldview that is completely consistent with science. Leonor, an intelligent woman, didn’t get it; most are too captivated by their own identities and the necessary prose-colored glasses that their worldview provides, to see the world-play beyond the word-play.

Just what is the significance of this sentence?

2.

Pessoa’s quote is an opening phrase of a longer sentence which gives the whole quote a considerable degree of profundity; the phrase is, on a lesser level, complete in itself. Pessoa is informing us, at least in my interpretation, that reading, whether the material in question is fiction or nonfiction, is based on illusion. I don’t mean that merely a partial view of an only partially comprehensible world takes place during reading, I mean that our partial view of a partially comprehensible world is illusory on both counts.  The basic illusion of human existence, the belief that we are individuals, separate from nature, is a fiction, albeit an evolutionary advance of the utmost importance to human survival. If we did not imagine that we are separate from nature, how would we separate ourselves, as it were, from the world and create tools, culture, art—and, alas! war? There is no getting around this fact. If we are not wholly part of nature, we possess something which many traditions have referred to as a soul. Very few modern scientists, however, believe in the duality of soul and world.

If we are ultimately fictive, readers reading fiction or nonfiction must be illusory as well. (Illusion, however is strong, it comprises the majority of our identity. At the center of our identity, there is, at least according to my experience, something impersonal. It, however, comprises a small fraction of our identities).  I, for one, am convinced, as Buddha and Ramana Maharshi taught, that one of the central truths of our reality is anatta, that is, non-self. This doesn’t stop me, however, from living as if the little man inside my brain, really merely a concatenation of thoughts, were something more than that, an individual, a soul.

Pessoa, however, is also informing us how to read. We must leave our egos behind; we must  enter the world of the author without preconceptions. For instance, we must not approach Shakespeare with a point of view in mind, be it Christian, Hindu or secular; we must let Shakespeare overwhelm us. Attempting to put an ineffable experience into words comes later.

We must be guided by the hand of another, as Pessoa so aptly puts it. This applies, of course, only to authors who delight us. If we feel like we’re being guided by an idiot, we put the book down after a few pages and choose something else. Pessoa certainly would have agreed with that!

3.

When I told our Portuguese guide,  Rafaela, about the quote I copied off the base of the statue, she revealed herself to be an admirer of Pessoa.  She wrote in my notebook one of her favorite Passoa quotes;

Tudo vale a pena quando a alma não e pequena.

(which I translate us: Everything is worthy of effort once the soul is not small.  NB—Please don’t assert here that this great writer believed in the reality of the soul. He means the reference to be taken metaphorically).

This is an interesting quote. Everything is worth the effort once one has gone beyond effort. It is a paradox. Ramana Maharshi stated that once one realizes one’s true nature, there is no more volition; there is nothing more to accomplish. One thinks of Li Po’s poem in which he enjoins us to meditate before a mountain until only the mountain remains. This transformed human being would thus find everything worth the effort that is consistent with its true nature, that is, breathing, eating when hungry, sleeping when tired, serving as an example, helping others. I doubt Pessoa meant that once the soul isn’t small, viewing telenovelas or soap operas is worth the effort! (And if the man-mountain did, what would the man-mountain see?)

4.

I couldn’t help riffing in four languages on Ramana Maharshi’s teaching that once enlightenment is obtained, there is nothing more to do.

Freneh version: Quand l’alme est tellement grande, ce n’est pas nécessaire de faire quelque chose, parce que on est déjà le monde entier.

Spanish version : Cuando la alma es bastante grande, no es necesario de hacer algo, porque eres ya el mundo entero.

German version : Nichts muss man tun, wenn die Seele gross genug ist, weil man schon die ganze Welt ist.

English version: When one’s soul is big enough, one need not do anything, because one is already the entire world.

Note; You might think that these quotes foster passivity; they do not, however. Very, very few "individuals" permanently go beyond illusion; complete enlightenment is extremely rare. (Having episodes of cosmic consciousness, which inevitably delight, is not at all rare, however).

Once a man, in visible distress, approached Ramana Maharshi, Should he give up the world and become a sage, or continue to meet worldy obligations? Ramana smiled. If it were your destiny to give up the world, he told him, it would happen as naturally as a leaf falling from a tree.

Such leaves, however, very rarely fall.  Ramana Maharshi is telling us to accept ourselves as we are.  Not bad advice.  And since my bouts of cosmic consciousness do not last, my advice is: accept yourself, find yourself--and do good in the world.