SOURCE: A preface to The Collected Works of Ramana Maharshi, edited by Arthur Osborne, Sri Ramanasraman Tiruvannamalai, 1968, pp. i-ix.

The following preface to The Collected Works of Ramana Maharshi, Osborne explains Ramana Maharshi's concepts of identity, non-duality, and oneness.

When the Maharsi, Bhagavan Sri Ramana, realized the Self he was a lad of seventeen in a middle-class Brahmin family of South India. He was still going to High School and had undergone no spiritual training and learnt nothing of spiritual philosophy. Normally some study is needed, followed by long and arduous training, often lasting a whole lifetime, more often still incomplete at the end of a lifetime. As the Sages say, it depends on the spiritual maturity of a person. It can be compared to a pilgrimage, and a day's journey on it to a lifetime: a person's attaining the goal, or how near he comes to it...