Becoming keenly aware that worldly life is full of misery,
because it is infested with desire and fear, one should approach a Guru, a sage
who is free from those bad forces, and after doing reverence to his holy feet
should question him about how to become free.
The sage will give out in reply the supreme secret,
confirmed by the [uniform] experience of all sages: ‘If you know yourself,
there is no suffering for you. If you suffer [it only means that] you do not
know yourself.’
Since you have no suffering in deep sleep, this suffering is
only falsely ascribed to your Self. Realize the truth of yourself by the resolve
to know it, and thereafter remain in your own true nature, which is bliss.
In the Heart there dwells the reality that is pure
consciousness, the real Self. To be in the Heart, with the mind quiescent, is
knowledge [awareness] of it, and also the state of deliverance.
Sri Ramana Paravidyopanishad