“Padam is the Self Supreme, the perfect truth. Activity is possible only at the conceptual level.”

—Muruganar, Padamalai: Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi Recorded by Muruganar (ed. David Godman), p. 39

“The truth of not doing anything is the truth of one’s real nature. Action or doing can only be seen from a relative point of view.”

—Bhagavan (Ramana Maharshi), p. 39

The perennial question concerning the One and the many or, most especially, that of Being and becoming is answered in various ways in the nondual teaching. In this instance, the explanation hinges on the understanding of the imagination.

When one asks, “Where or in what does motion appear?,” the first natural answer might be: “Motion appears in the world.” 

Yet, upon further reflection, it should become clear that the world is just an idea. In this sense, it’s a projection, a conception, or imagination and thus is nothing but mind. In which case, it can be said that “the world appears ‘in’ the mind.”

This answer to the metaphysical question is now brought into focus: since all motion in the world is actually taking place only ‘in’ the mind, it follows that all activity is “possible only at the conceptual level.” More succinctly put: all motion is nothing but concept. Without thought—that is, mind—arising, you can’t find any motion not because you’re not looking hard enough but because there can’t be any. Mind is motion, motion mind.

The suggestion that motion is only “mind stuff” starts to make sense as one comes to grasp the implications that space, time, motion, and objectivity are also all concepts—or a matrix of concepts. As the understanding emerges that this “matrix” is just another name for the mind, one then begins to ask: “Then what is the nature of that reality that is ‘beyond’ motion—or change—and thus ‘beyond’ the mind?” 

Naturally, whatever this ultimate reality is, it is—logically speaking—not in motion. Hence, it neither appears nor disappears; neither moves nor is temporarily at rest; is neither ‘in’ space nor ‘in’ time. Because ultimate reality cannot be named, described, or delineated, it is unnamable—yet incontrovertibly the case.

We’ve seen that the manifold, which is subject to becoming, is just the mind or—said differently—is the product of imagination. The last twist is to know that the mind is unreal. When it’s understood that the mind does not actually exist, then the metaphysical puzzle falls away and the direct knowledge that there’s only the Self Supreme dawns.