'I'-thought is the enduring one, and the body-thought is a transient one.

Question: You endorse Maya's teaching, but I cannot reconcile my sense of this chair's reality with your assertion of its unreality.

Ramana Maharshi: The root of your difficulty lies in the confused mingling of two separate ideas into one: the ‘I' and the 'body'.

Ramana continues: When you are aware of the chair, it is the thought subsequent to the primal one, 'I am the body.'

This 'I am the body' is the substratum of all your thoughts of world experience. It arises first. Only then can the others follow. That is why when it fails to arise­ as in deep sleep, the world experience also fails to enter your consciousness.

Now, of these two ideas, the 'I'-thought is the enduring one, and the body-thought is a transient one. This is shown by dreams, where you still have the sense of 'I' but no awareness of the physical body. The 'I' is the only real Being because it is the only durable one. Find it after stopping the thoughts.

-Sri Ramana Maharishi from Conscious Immortality