THE PRACTICE OF SELF-ENQUIRY

[Guest guest]

THE PRACTICE OF SELF-ENQUIRY-THE RAMANA WAY

PART II

 

2-THE "HOW" OF SELF-ENQUIRY

 

How does an individual, for that matter, every individual, refer to

himself? Every one refers to himself as "I" only. The entire vast

population, millions and millions of them, all the time say,

referring to themselves only as "I", "I". Are there so many millions

of "I"s? Conversely, there is only one "I" to which countless number

of bodies are referred to! Is it not strange that the entire

multiplicity is reduced to one single syllable! Yes, the "I" is a

symbol, which stands for something immeasurably wider than itself.

 

Though every one says "I", "I" only, yet strangely not many make

effort to know what exactly this "I" is or what it means. By "I"

usually primarily we mean only the body, but on deeper analysis we

mean by it the faculties of thinking, feeling and willing. We can

easily arrive at the conclusion that the body is not the "I" since

it is insentient. By insentience we mean that the body is always the

known one and never the knowing principle. Said the great Hindu

sage, Allama Prabhu: "Know yourself without losing your awareness.

If the body be yourself, why do you say: "my body"? Everybody speaks

of his possessions as "my clothes, my gold" only. Tell me if anyone

ever identifies himself saying "I am the clothes or I am the gold"?

You are mistaking a superimposition for a fact when you take your

body to be your Self".

 

Then, what is this "I"?

 

In the body, which is insentient, there arises a sense of alertness,

a sensation of "I". It is termed as "mind". Bhagavan Ramana says

that if one investigates the mind, it is seen to be a bundle of

thoughts. Mind is, therefore, a function wherein the "I" functions

as the basis of all thoughts. All thoughts are related to you. Every

thought is either about you or connected with you as individuals,

objects, things, events or opinions. All these are rooted in

your "I"; thus the "I" in you is only an "I"-thought, the ground for

the entire gamut of countless thoughts. Let us look at it still

closer. Every day the first thought on waking from our sleep is

this "I"-thought. In sleep you do not know anything, including

the "I" with which you refer to yourself. This "I" or "I"-thought is

completely subsided in deep sleep, along with its chain of other

thoughts. If we observe further carefully it will be seen that the

last before sleep to "set" is this "I"-thought, which is also

strangely the first to "rise" when you wake up the next morning!

Where does this "I" set and wherefrom does this "I" rise? It is an

immediate necessity to search for and find out the source of

this "I" which "dies" every night in our sleep and again takes birth

the next morning. In addition to our perseverance to find out its

source we have the assured help of Sri Bhagavan who leads us further

on by saying that there is an Eternal "I" behind the known "I", into

which this "I" or "I"-thought merges and again comes out daily,

since it is the Source. It is important to record here that

Scriptures declare that the first Name of God is "I". It should

definitely refer to the Eternal "I", the source of Being and not to

the "I" of our every day knowledge. Moses got a verbal answer from

God when he questioned God what His Name was: "My name is I AM, I

AM". So, both from sages' statements and scriptural declarations and

also from our own common experience we can easily arrive at the

conclusion that there is an Eternal "I" behind the "I" by which we

refer to ourselves every day. It also propels us further to awake to

the knowledge of this naked truth of Awareness, which is hidden

unattended to within. For, it is very essential that we have to

observe closely the "I"-thought since it is the link between the

body and the Eternal "I" spoken of as hidden within us by the

scriptures. We must track the "I"-thought to its source, by paying

full attention to it and whence it arises. How to do it? It is like

this. When other thoughts arise we should focus our attention to

the "I"-thought. All the time one's attention should be unwaveringly

directed to the feeling of "I" or the "I"-thought. When we are

filled with thoughts, how to bring back the attention from other

thoughts to the "I"-thought? When we have other thoughts if we pose

the question "for whom is this thought?" the answer would come: "to

me". Then ask "Who am I?" This questioning "Who am I?" again draws

back our attention to the "I' or the "I"-thought and this attention

leads to its Source. Thus, focusing one's attention on oneself is

the sole effort one has to put forth to find out one's true identity.

 

NOTE: TAKEN FROM: "BE THE SELF", BY V. GANESAN", PAGES 5 TO 17.