For those who have obtained unobstructed knowledge of Self, the

Host:
The monastery lay cradled in the mountains like a secret the world had forgotten how to ask about. Mist curled over the temple roofs, soft and silver, dissolving the edges of reality until sky and earth seemed to exhale into one another. The only sound was the wind weaving through the pines, a low, eternal hymn that had no beginning and no end.

Inside, the hall was lit by the trembling glow of oil lamps. The air was thick with the scent of sandalwood and quiet devotion — that kind of silence which listens, rather than empties.

Jack sat cross-legged on the floor, facing the open door that framed the vastness beyond — the slow drift of clouds, the faint call of a bell somewhere far below. His eyes, cold and analytical, tried to comprehend the simplicity of stillness. Jeeny sat opposite him, her posture effortless, her gaze steady and luminous — a mirror untroubled by reflection.

Between them, a small bowl of water caught the lamplight. Every ripple of breath disturbed its surface, bending light into motion.

Jeeny:
(Softly)
Ramana Maharshi once said, “For those who have obtained unobstructed knowledge of Self, the world is seen merely as a bondage causing imagination.”

(She glances toward him)
You ever wonder what that means, Jack — “bondage causing imagination”?

Jack:
(Looking toward the mountains)
It sounds like the kind of paradox mystics love. The world as illusion. The mind as its own jailer.

Jeeny:
(Smiling faintly)
Or its own liberator.

Jack:
You really believe that? That this — (gestures outward) — everything we touch, love, fight for, fear — is just imagination?

Jeeny:
Yes. But not the small imagination we use to dream or create stories. The big one — the imagination that builds the universe and forgets it built it.

Jack:
(Quietly)
So we’re trapped in our own invention.

Jeeny:
Exactly. We mistake the dream for the dreamer.

Host:
The lamplight trembled, reflected in the bowl like a miniature sun. The mist outside moved like thought itself — forming, dissolving, reforming, never truly gone.

Jack leaned forward, his voice low, curious, skeptical.

Jack:
You make it sound poetic. But if the world’s just imagination, why does pain feel so real? Why does loss cut so deep?

Jeeny:
Because even dreams have consequences until you wake up.

Jack:
That’s too easy. Tell that to someone who’s lost everything.

Jeeny:
(Softly)
I would. And I’d tell them the same thing Ramana meant — that freedom isn’t in changing the dream, it’s in realizing you’re dreaming.

Jack:
So we’re supposed to detach? Watch our lives like a film and pretend we’re not the ones bleeding?

Jeeny:
Not pretend — perceive. Once you know the screen, the movie can’t hurt you the same way.

Jack:
(Smiling faintly)
You sound like someone who’s never had the film catch fire.

Jeeny:
I have. That’s how I learned what burns isn’t the world — it’s our belief that it’s real.

Host:
Her words hovered in the air like smoke — impossible to grasp, yet heavy with truth. Jack rubbed his temple, his brow furrowed. He wasn’t resisting; he was remembering. Something in her calm stirred the edges of his long-forgotten yearning for peace.

Jack:
You talk about “unobstructed knowledge of Self” like it’s a destination. But how do you get there?

Jeeny:
By stopping.

Jack:
Stopping what?

Jeeny:
Everything that isn’t you. Thought, reaction, fear, craving — the constant commentary about what life is or isn’t. The Self isn’t found; it’s what’s left when the noise ends.

Jack:
And when it does?

Jeeny:
You realize there never was a seeker. Only awareness pretending to be lost.

Jack:
(Smiling faintly)
You make enlightenment sound like a prank.

Jeeny:
(Laughing softly)
Maybe it is. The longest joke the universe ever told — that it forgot it was telling it.

Host:
The lamps flickered as a wind brushed through the open doorway. The scent of pine smoke and rain mingled, and for a moment, the entire hall seemed to inhale.

Outside, a monk passed silently, his robes whispering against the stones — another ripple in the stillness.

Jack:
If the world’s an illusion, Jeeny, then why bother living in it? Why not just sit here and dissolve into peace?

Jeeny:
Because the illusion is sacred too. The Self doesn’t reject the dream — it wakes within it.

Jack:
So, we still act.

Jeeny:
Of course. We eat, we love, we build — but without believing those things define us.

Jack:
(Quietly)
Without attachment.

Jeeny:
Exactly. Attachment is imagination believing its own story.

Jack:
And detachment?

Jeeny:
Imagination remembering it’s free.

Host:
A long silence followed. Only the rain spoke now — steady, rhythmic, purifying. Jack watched the water bowl again, the reflections shifting as droplets fell from the eaves outside.

He saw it then — how one drop could disturb everything and still settle again into clarity.

Jack:
You know, I think I understand. Ramana’s not denying the world. He’s saying it’s a mirror — not of God, but of mind.

Jeeny:
Yes. The bondage isn’t the world itself — it’s the imagination that clings to “I” and “mine.”

Jack:
(Softly)
So freedom is losing the one who wants to be free.

Jeeny:
That’s the paradox. You stop searching, and suddenly you’re home.

Jack:
(Smiling faintly)
And the price of home is surrender.

Jeeny:
Always.

Host:
She reached forward and stilled the water bowl with her fingertips. The ripples vanished. For a breathless second, there was nothing but still reflection — flame, mist, face, all one.

Then she released it, and the ripples returned.

Jack:
You think anyone can really live like that? Without the illusion?

Jeeny:
No one lives without illusion, Jack. But some learn to love it without mistaking it for truth.

Jack:
(Whispering)
To dream, but not be deceived by the dream.

Jeeny:
Yes. To imagine without being imprisoned by imagination.

Host:
The mist began to clear beyond the temple walls, revealing the pale outline of the valley below — vast, silent, alive. The world had not changed. Only the way they saw it had.

Jeeny smiled — that quiet, knowing smile that seemed to exist beyond words. Jack looked at her, and for once, didn’t need to respond. The silence between them was enough.

Host:
And in that stillness —
in the space where thought no longer tried to name truth —
they both understood what Ramana Maharshi had meant:

That bondage is not of the world,
but of imagination clinging to identity.
That knowledge of Self does not erase reality,
but reveals its source —
the pure, unbroken awareness watching its own reflection.

When imagination forgets itself, it binds.
When it remembers, it liberates.

Host:
The lamps flickered once more.
The rain slowed to mist.

And in the calm that followed,
the world — that endless, shimmering dream —
bowed to the quiet knowing that had never left it.