The following excerpt is from Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talk 376, bold type is added by myself for emphasis:

A learned Telugu visitor, who had composed a song in praise of Sri Bhagavan, read it out, placed it at His feet and saluted. After a time he asked for upadesa.

[Tom: Upadesa means spiritual teaching or instruction. The text Ramana refers to below, Upadesa Saram, means ‘The Essential Teaching’, and was written by Sri Ramana Maharshi himself. You can find the full text on the link below, together with a PDF version for download.]

Sri Ramama Maharshi: The upadesa is contained in Upadesa Saram.

Questioner: But oral and personal instruction is valuable.

Sri Ramama Maharshi: If there be anything new and hitherto unknown upadesa will be appropriate. Here it happens to be stilling the mind and remaining free from thoughts.

Questioner: It looks impossible.

Sri Ramama Maharshi: But it is precisely the pristine and eternal state of all.

Questioner: It is not perceived in our everyday active life.

Sri Ramama Maharshi: Everyday life is not divorced from the Eternal State. So long as the daily life is imagined to be different from the spiritual life these difficulties arise. If the spiritual life is rightly understood, the active life will be found to be not different from it.

Can the mind be got at by the mind on looking for it as an object? The source of the mental functions must be sought and gained. That is the Reality.

One does not know the Self owing to the interference of thoughts. The Self is realised when thoughts subside.

Questioner: “Only one in a million pursues sadhanas to completion.” (Bhagavad Gita, VII, 3).

Sri Ramama Maharshi: “Whenever the turbulent mind wavers, then and there pull it and bring it under control.” (Bhagavad Gita, VI, 26.) “Seeing the mind with the mind” (manasa mana alokya), so proclaim the Upanishads.

Questioner: Is the mind an upadhi (limiting adjunct)?

Sri  Ramama Maharshi: Yes.

Questioner: Is the seen (drisya) world real (satya)?

Sri Ramama Maharshi: It is true in the same degree as the seer (drashta), subject, object and perception form the triad (triputi). There is a reality beyond these three. These appear and disappear, whereas the truth is eternal.

[Tom: Triputi here refers to the triad of subject/ object/ verb, or perceiver/ perceived/ perceiving or knower/ known/ knowing]

Questioner: These triputi sambhava are only temporal.

Sri Ramama Maharshi: Yes, if one recognises the Self even in temporal matters these will be found to be non-existent, rather inseparate from the Self; and they will be going on at the same time.