Realizing What You Are Not vs. What You Are

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Hello. I was looking through web pages on Advaita, and came across this

quote:

 

"No matter how hard you try, you can't focus your attention on the part

of you that is aware. If you could, it would become something of which

you are aware.

 

Making a strenuous attempt to do this, even though it's impossible, is a

main component of Ramana Maharshi's method of self-inquiry (vicara in

Sanskrit). If you try long enough, eventually you will become convinced

that your ordinary sense of yourself - your ego - is not really you. In

fact, you will realize that it's an illusion. (By the way, don't make

the mistake of thinking that this is all there is to Ramana's method.

Seeing that "you" are an illusion is a wonderful insight, but it's not

self-realization.)"

 

-- http://www.realization.org/page/topics/advaita_vedanta.htm

 

The very last sentence here interests me. So knowing that the self is an

illusion, the passage claims, is finally realizing what you are not. But

it is not the same as knowing what you actually are.

 

Does anyone have opinions as to whether the kind of spiritual practices

that would bring you to the first point would bring you to the second

also? If, for example, one s to Ramana Maharshi's method of

self-inquiry and concentrates on the sense of "I am"--will this very

same method, simply given enough time and patience, get one beyond

knowing who one is not and bring one to final realization? Or is a

slight alteration in method needed? Any thoughts?

 

Thanks.