7. Is This Difficult?

People think Enlightenment is difficult to attain. The opposite is true.

Ramana Maharishi, an enlightened Master from South Bharat, says this so beautifully: 'So easy this atmavidya, so easy this enlightenment.' His followers ask him how could he say that it was easy. It seemed so hard, difficult and perplexing.

Ramana Maharishi replied, 'To achieve success in this outer world, to have a good lifestyle, we need to work very hard. We need to please so many people. But to achieve in the inner world, we only have to relax and be quiet. That is all and that is enough. All that you need to do is to just be.'

If it is so simple, we will think, how can we go about doing it. Simply by being aware of everything that is happening outside us, inside us and around us. We don't have to form opinions, have solutions, smart come backs or anything. We simply have to watch, become an observer of the drama of human life.

It is easier than we think. We just need to change the programming in our mind! Instead of always saying it is very difficult, let us start saying it is easy. Understand! We are the creators of the concept and the word ' difficult' lives in our minds. In the beginning our mind will not accept that it is easy. It will resist. But if we persist and repeat it over and over again, telling ourself that it is easy, we will find that we have become more positive in our outlook.

Does that look difficult? Think about the things we have trained our minds to achieve. We have been trained to achieve so many difficult things that we have forgotten the simple things. We are all born in the state of Ananda or bliss. Till the age of seven, we are in a blissful state. We allow ourselves to forget this state.

Let us reclaim this state. It is still within us. Let us look deep into ourself. Can we say that we are so poor, so impoverished that we have no good words for ourself? Surely, we can address our own mind, our being, with good words. Certainly we can speak kindly to ourselves. Of course, we can!

We can make this our path. This is the simplest way for all of us who have spent our life chasing everything in the outer world. This inner bliss is bottomless. Let us, each one of us, seek it.