When a poem speaks to you
it's as if you just spoke to yourself.
- Eric Ashford

Let us consider Ramana Maharshi's death. At seventy, he developed a tumor on his arm which was operated on several times without anesthetic. Ramana tried to clarify the meaning, or lack of meaning, of pain and illness for the totally illuminated person: "They take this body for Ramana and attribute suffering to him. What a pity! Where is pain if there is no mind?" The approach of Ramana was not that of the healer who removes pain but that of the sage who perceives all phenomena, including pain, as Ultimate Consciousness. Years before, Ramana had elucidated this point: "If the hand of the jnani, or knower of Truth, were cut with a knife, there would be pain as with anyone else, but because his mind is in bliss, he does not feel the pain as acutely as others do."