Advaita Vedanta · 1879–1950
Ramana Maharshi on Self-realization as service
The greatest service you can render is your own realization
Your own Self-realization is the greatest service you can render the world.
What this verse points to
Ramana was asked repeatedly why he did not leave the mountain to help the world, and this was his consistent reply. It reads as a refusal of duty only if you assume the world is improved mainly by activity.
His position was that action from an unsettled mind reproduces the unsettlement it is trying to fix, and that most people can verify this in their own households without needing to take his word for it.
Sit with it
Before your next attempt to fix something for someone, sit for five minutes and see whether the plan survives the quiet.
About the Ramana Maharshi
Ramana Maharshi underwent a spontaneous experience of death at sixteen that left him permanently established in Self-knowledge, and spent the rest of his life at Arunachala in Tiruvannamalai. He taught mainly in silence, and when he did give a method it was atma-vichara — self-enquiry, holding to the question "who am I?" until the questioner is seen through.