Ramana Maharshi’s teaching on “He who thinks he is the doer is also the sufferer” (Talk 420, Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi) highlights that the ego’s belief in being the sole agent of actions creates bondage and suffering, as one becomes attached to the results (pleasure/pain); true freedom comes from realizing the Self, the true “doer,” and understanding that actions happen through awareness, dissolving the “I am the doer” illusion and ending the cycle of karma and suffering, leading to effortless being.
Q: If God is all why does the individual suffer for his actions? Are not the actions prompted by Him for which the individual is made to suffer?
Maharshi: He who thinks he is the doer is also the sufferer.
Q: But the actions are prompted by God and the individual is only His tool.
Maharshi: This logic is applied only when one suffers, but not when one rejoices. If the conviction prevails always, there will be no suffering either.
Q: When will the suffering cease?
Maharshi: Not until individuality is lost. If both the good and bad actions are His, why should you think that the enjoyment and suffering are alone yours? He who does good or bad, also enjoys pleasure or suffers pain. Leave it there and do not superimpose suffering on yourself.
Q: If one remained quiet how is action to go on? Where is the place for karma yoga?
Maharshi: Let us first understand what Karma is, whose Karma it is and who is the doer. Analysing them and enquiring into their truth, one is perforce obliged to remain as the Self in peace. Nevertheless the actions will go on.
Maharshi: Even better than the man who thinks “I have renounced everything” is the one who does his duty but does not think “I do this” or “I am the doer”. Even a sannyasi who thinks “I am a sannyasi” cannot be a true sannyasi, whereas a householder who does not think “I am a householder” is truly a sannyasi.
G. Mehta: If I am not the body am I responsible for the consequences of my good and bad actions?
Ramana Maharshi: If you are not the body and do not have the idea ‘I-am-the-doer’ the consequences of your good or bad actions will not affect you. Why do you say about the actions the body performs “I do this” or “I did that”? As long as you identify yourself with the body like that you are affected by the consequences of the actions and you have merit and demerit.
Maharshi: Actions form no bondage. Bondage is only the false notion. “I am the doer.” Leave off such thoughts and let the body and senses play their role, unimpeded by your interference.
Q: Jiva is said to be bound by karma. Is it so?
Maharshi: Let karma enjoy its fruits. As long as you are the doer so long are you the enjoyer.
Q: How to get released from karma.
Maharshi: See whose karma it is. You will find you are not the doer. Then you will be free. This requires grace of God for which you should pray to Him, worship Him and meditate on Him. The karma which takes place without effort, i.e., involuntary action, is not binding. Even a Jnani is acting as seen by his bodily movements. There can be no karma without effort or without intentions (sankalpas). Therefore there are sankalpas for all. They are of two kinds (1) one, binding – bandha-hetu and the other (2) mukti-hetu – not binding. The former must be given up and the latter must be cultivated. There is no fruit without previous karma; no karma without previous sankalpa. Even mukti must be the result of effort so long as the sense of doership persists.
Q: How is prarabdha (past karma) related to purushakara (one’s own effort here)?
Maharshi: Prarabdha is karma (action). There must be a karta (doer) for it. See who the karta is. Purushakara is effort. See who exerts. There is identity established. The one who seeks to know their relation is himself the link.
Q: What is karma and rebirth?
Maharshi: See the karta (doer) and then the karma (action) becomes obvious. If you are born now, rebirth may follow. See if you are born now.
“Do actions without caring for the result. Do not think that you are the doer. Dedicate the work to God. That is the skill and also the way to gain it.”–Maharshi
Core Meaning:
The Ego-Doer: The mistaken sense of “I” initiating and owning actions (e.g., “I am doing this,” “I am enjoying this”).
The Sufferer: This identification binds you to the consequences (karma), making you responsible for both success and failure, joy and sorrow.
The Reality: Actions occur naturally within awareness, but the ego claims them as its own, creating a false burden.
The Path to Freedom (Self-Inquiry):
Ask “Who am I?”: Inquire into the source of the “I” that thinks it’s the doer.
Discover the Self: Through this inquiry, the false doer (ego) dissolves, revealing the true Self, which is untouched by actions.
Action without Bondage: When you realize you are not the doer, actions still happen (as part of divine will or natural flow), but you are free from the personal burden and suffering, becoming an instrument.
In essence, Ramana Maharshi teaches that the belief in personal agency is the root of suffering, and realizing the Self, the true, non-acting source, ends this suffering.
In the Maharshi’s Own Words:
“By giving up activities is meant giving up attachment to activities or the fruits thereof, giving up the notion ‘I am the doer’. The activities for going through which this body has come, will have to be gone through. There is no question of giving up such activities, whatever one may or may not like.”
“If one keeps fixed in the Self, the activities will still go on and their success will not be affected. One should not have the idea that one is the doer. The activities will still go on. That force, by whatever name you may call it, which brought the body into existence will see to it that the activities which this body is meant to go through are brought about.”
Question: Without the sense of doership — the sense ‘I am doing’ — work cannot be done.
Ramana Maharshi: It can be done. Work without attachment. Work will go on even better than when you worked with the sense that you were the doer.
Another visitor, who said that he was from Sri Aurobindo’s Ashram, asked Bhagavan: “But we see pain in the world. A man is hungry. It is a physical reality. It is very real to him. Are we to call it a dream and remain unmoved by his pain?”
Ramana Maharshi: From the point of view of jnana or the reality, the pain you speak of is certainly a dream, as is the world of which the pain is an infinitesimal part. In the dream also you yourself feel hunger. You see others suffering hunger. You feed yourself and, moved by pity, feed the others that you find suffering from hunger. So long as the dream lasted, all those pains were quite as real as you now think the pain you see in the world to be. It was only when you woke up that you discovered that the pain in the dream was unreal. You might have eaten to the full and gone to sleep. You dream that you work hard and long in the hot sun all day, are tired and hungry and want to eat a lot. Then you get up and find your stomach is full and you have not stirred out of your bed. But all this is not to say that while you are in the dream you can act as if the pain you feel there is not real. The hunger in the dream has to be assuaged by the food in the dream. The fellow beings you found in the dream so hungry had to be provided with food in that dream. You can never mix up the two states, the dream and the waking state. Till you reach the state of jnana and thus wake out of this maya, you must do social service by relieving suffering whenever you see it. But even then you must do it, as we are told, without ahamkara, i.e., without the sense “I am the doer,” but feeling, “I am the Lord’s tool.” Similarly one must not be conceited, “I am helping a man below me. He needs help. I am in a position to help. I am superior and he inferior.” But you must help the man as a means of worshipping God in that man. All such service too is for the Self, not for anybody else. You are not helping anybody else, but only yourself.
“And if it is held that a man cannot be considered a jnani so long as he performs actions in the world (and action is impossible without the mind), then not only the great Sages who carried on various kinds of work after attaining jnana must not be considered jnanis, but the gods also, and Ishwara Himself, since He continues looking after the world. The fact is that any amount of action can be performed, and performed quite well, by the jnani without his identifying himself with it in any way or ever imagining that he is the doer. Some power acts through his body and uses his body to get the work done.”
“After the sense of doership has gone let us see what happens. Sri Sankara advised inaction. But did he not write commentaries and take part in disputation? Do not trouble about doing action or otherwise. Know Thyself. Then let us see whose action it is. Whose is it? Let action complete itself. So long as there is the doer he must reap the fruits of his action. If he does not think himself the doer there is no action for him. He is an ascetic who has renounced worldly life (sanyasin).”
Karma is posited as past karma, etc., prarabdha, agami and sanchita. There must be kartritva (doership) and karta (doer) for it. Karma (action) cannot be for the body because it is insentient. It is only so long as dehatma buddhi (‘I-am-the-body idea’) lasts. After transcending dehatma buddhi one becomes a Jnani. In the absence of that idea (buddhi) there cannot be either kartritva or karta. So a Jnani has no karma. That is his experience. Otherwise he is not a Jnani. However an ajnani identifies the Jnani with his body, which the Jnani does not do. So the ajnani finds the Jnani acting, because his body is active, and therefore he asks if the Jnani is not affected by prarabdha. The scriptures say that jnana is the fire which burns away all karma (sarvakarmani). Sarva (all) is interpreted in two ways: (1) to include prarabdha and (2) to exclude it. In the first way: if a man with three wives dies, it is asked. “can two of them be called widows and the third not?” All are widows. So it is with prarabdha, agami and sanchita. When there is no karta none of them can hold out any longer. The second explanation is, however, given only to satisfy the enquirer. It is said that all karma is burnt away leaving prarabdha alone. The body is said to continue in the functions for which it has taken its birth. That is prarabdha. But from the jnani’s point of view there is only the Self which manifests in such variety. There is no body or karma apart from the Self, so that the actions do not affect him.
Q: Is there no dehatma buddhi (I-am-the-body idea) for the Jnani? If, for instance, Sri Bhagavan be bitten by an insect, is there no sensation?
Maharshi: There is the sensation and there is also the dehatma buddhi. The latter is common to both Jnani and ajnani with this difference, that the ajnani thinks dehaiva Atma (only the body is myself), whereas the Jnani knows all is of the Self (Atmamayam sarvam), or (sarvam khalvidam Brahma) all this is Brahma. If there be pain let it be. It is also part of the Self. The Self is poorna (perfect).
(Sources: Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi; Day by Day with Bhagavan)
Know Thyself 