Rama said, ‘Bharata! The gods, the sages and the great personages do not engage themselves in acts involving dualities they are ever engaged in adoring Me in a dedicated state of mind. They engage themselves in activities without any desire or attachment to the consequences of those activities. If austerities are taken up in order to gain some ends, if activities are undertaken with a view to earn the fruits they yield, people have to be born with bodies so that they may be awarded the good and the bad which those activities deserve. When the fruits are not craved for, and acts are still done sincerely and rightly and correctly, they don’t bind; on the other hand they confer wisdom on the doer. The person will have his devotion and dedication advanced a great deal. And as a result, he will be nearer to the Supreme and mergence in the Supreme. When you are able to distinguish between the good and the bad on the basis of these characteristics, and act accordingly while choosing company, you will be able to extricate yourself from the coils of the sea of change, the Samsara Ocean. Brother! Know that all these distinctions between good and bad are basically the result of attachment and development, due to your considering the world as real, while it is neither real nor unreal.
Those who have escaped this ‘illusion’ and this duality are the Mahatmas. They have realised that their reality is the unchanging Atma. They know that there are not two; they experience always only the One. Others are the ignorant lot.’ (RKRV Part II, p. 292)
A Mahatma is one in whom thought, word and deed are harmonious and one. (TTFFW, p. 12)
A ‘Mahatma’ is one in whom the thought, word and deed harmonise completely. A person in whom the thought is one, word is another and deed is yet another cannot be called a great man. He will be called a ‘Duratma’. (SSB 1976, p. 71)
If a man practises what he preaches, he is not an ordinary man, but a Mahatma, a great man,
If a man says one thing and does another thing He is only a beast, not a man. (ICS , p. 157)
The Mahatma is far superior to the ordinary man. The latter is established in the body and the jiva; he identifies himself with the body and with breath, with the particular, ‘the wave’. So, he is tossed about by joy and grief; he rises or falls with each experience. Between snatches of calm and storm, he reels under many a blow. The Mahatma is free from all dual experience. He is above and beyond. He has released himself from identity with the particularised; he is in the Universal, the Eternal, the Changeless, the Brahma bhava , not the Jiva bhava . He knows that the Atma is not a limited entity; he feels that it extends beyond all limits; he is free from the blemish of Tamas and Rajas; he is neither dull nor driven about by desire; he has pure consciousness, unaffected by attachment or hate. (GV, pp. 143-144)
Ravana is a Mahatma; Thataki, described as an ogress, is also a Mahatma! That is to say, they had superhuman prowess, and mysterious powers. All are Divine; God is the inner motivator of every one. They are Mahatmas not only in the sense that all are Mahatmas; they are Rajasika Mahatmas, enslaved by their emotions and passions, quick to hate and slow to forget the slights inflicted on them. Rama and Lakshmana are Sattvika Mahatmas, embodiments of the prowess and powers that righteousness and virtue can endow. A red-hot iron hammer can be hammered into shape, by a cold iron hammer can’t? So too, a person red hot with emotion and passion can be hammered by the hammer that knows no heat of anger or hate. That is the reason Rama was able to defeat Ravana and destroy him. Why? The very word Sattva means strength, power, vigour, vitality. For, virtue is power, goodness is power. A person is angry, because he is weak; he is a bully, because he is a coward; he utters lies, because he is sure he deserves to be punished and he is too weak to welcome it gladly! (SSS Vol.7, p. 83)
The uplifted hand represents who ascended from human level to the divine level after intense effort by way of Sadhana. In contrast, the lowed hand symbolises Swami who has descended from Divine level to the human level, solely for the sake of redeeming humanity. The other Mahatmas, on the contrary, strove first for self-redemption before they could help others on the spiritual path. (NNSG Vol.9, p. xx)