If the self is just an illusion, who has achieved enlightenment if there is no self?

Ramana Maharshi’s father died when he was 12.

He heard people crying and talking about his father having passed.

The death was recent and the corpse well-preserved, so he thought his father was sleeping.

He pointed to the corpse and said:


My father is sleeping over there.

His relatives explained that his father is gone and only his body is there.

Most of us would just accept this self-contradictory statement.

But Sri Ramana had a logical mind.

He thought:


All this time, I thought my father was that body.

When a loved one dies, we believe they’re an astral body that left the material plane.

But Sri Ramana realized:

What ‘leaves’ the body was never there to begin with.

When you break a bowl, the space ‘inside’ isn’t liberated.

It’s seen to be identical with the surrounding space.

At age 16, he completely abandoned the ‘I am the body’ idea.

He didn’t say he was liberated because he was never trapped.

No one attains enlightenment - infinite Spirit simply is.