Self enquiry - #1

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SELF-ENQUIRY / THEORY^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ From :

Be As You Are

The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi

edited by David Godman

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ It will be remembered that in the chapter of Self-awarenessand Self-ignorance Sri Ramana maintained that Self-realisation could bebrought about merely by giving up the idea that there is an individualself, which functions through the body and the mind. A few of his advanceddevotees were able to do this quickly and easily, but the others found itvirtually impossible to discard the ingrained habits of a lifetime withoutundertaking some form of spiritual practice. Sri Ramana sympathised with their predicament and whenever he was asked to prescribe a spiritual practice which would facilitateSelf-awareness he would recommend a technique he called

self-enquiry.This practice was the cornerstone of his practical philosophy and the nextthree chapters will be devoted to a detailed presentation of all its aspects. Before embarking on a description of the technique itself it willbe necessary to explain Sri Ramana's views on the nature of the mind sincethe aim of self-enquiry is to discover by direct experience, that the mindis non-existent. According to Sri Ramana, every conscious activity of themind or body revolves around the tacit assumption that there is an 'I' whois doing something. The common factor in 'I think', 'I remember','I am acting',is the 'I' who assumes that it is responsible for all these activities.Sri Ramana called this common factor the 'I'-thought [aham-vritti].Literally aham-vritti means "mental modification of 'I' ". The Self or real 'I' never imagines that it is doing

or thinking anything;the 'I' that imagines all this is a mental fiction and so it is called amental modification of the Self. Since this is a rather cumbersome translationof aham-vritti it is usually translated as 'I'-thought. Sri Ramana upheld the view that the notion of individuality is onlythe 'I'-thought manifesting itself in different ways. Instead of regardingthe different activities of the mind [such as ego, intellect and memory]as separate functions he preferred to view them all as different forms ofthe 'I'-thought. Since he equated individuality with the mind and the mindwith the 'I'-thought it follows that the disappearance of the sense ofindividuality [i.e. Self-realisation] implies the disappearance of boththe mind and the 'I'-thought. This is confirmed by his frequent statementsto the effect that after Self-realisation there is no thinker of thoughts,no performer of

actions and no awareness of individual existence. Since he upheld the notion that the Self is the only existing realityhe regarded the 'I'-thought as a mistaken assumption which has no real existenceof its own. He explained its appearance by saying that it can only appear toexist by identifying with an object. When the thoughts arise the 'I'-thoughtclaims ownership of them- 'I think', 'I believe', 'I want','I am acting' - but there is no separate 'I'-thought that exists independentlyof the objects that it is identifying with. It only appears to exist as a realcontinuous entity because of the incessant flow of identification which arecontinually taking place. Almost all of these identifications can be traced backto an initial assumption that the 'I' is limited to the body, either as anowner-occupant or co-extensive with its physical form. This 'I am the body' ideais the primary source of all

subsequent wrong identifications and its dissolutionis the principal aim of self-enquiry. Sri Ramana maintained that this tendency towards self-limiting identificationscould be checked by trying to separate the subject 'I' from the objects of thoughtwhich it identified with. Since the individual 'I'-thought cannot exist without anobject, if attention is focused on the subjective feeling of 'I' or 'I am' withsuch intensity that the thoughts 'I am this' or 'I am that' do not arise, then theindividual 'I' will be unable to connect with objects. If this awareness of 'I' issustained, the individual 'I' [the 'I'-thought] will disappear and in its placethere will be a direct experience of the Self. This constant attention to the innerawareness of 'I' or 'I am' was called self-enquiry [vichara] by Sri Ramana and heconstantly recommended it as the most efficient and direct way of discovering theunreality of the

'I'-thought. In Sri Ramana's terminology the 'I'-thought rises from the Self or the Heartand subsides back into the Self when its tendency to identify itself with thoughtobjects ceases. Because of this he often tailored his advice to conform to thisimage of a rising and subsiding 'I'. He might say 'trace the "I"-thought back toits source', or 'find out where the "I" rises from', but the implication was alwaysthe same. Whatever the language used he was advising his devotees to maintainawareness of the 'I'-thought until it dissolved in the source from which it came. He sometimes mentioned that thinking or repeating 'I' mentally would also leadone in the right direction but it is important to note that this is only a preliminarystage of the practice. The repetition of 'I' still involves a subject (the 'I'-thought)having a perception of an object [the thoughts 'I, I'] and while such duality

existsthe 'I'-thought will continue to thrive. It only finally disappears when the perceptionof all objects, both physical and mental ceases. This is not brought about by beingaware of an 'I', but only by being the 'I'. This stage of experiencing the subjectrather than being aware of an object is the culminating phase of self-enquiry. This important distinction is the key element which distinguishes self-enquiryfrom nearly all other spiritual practices and it explains why Sri Ramanaconsistently maintained that most other practices were ineffective. He oftenpointed out that traditional meditations and yoga practices necessitated theexistence of a subject who meditates on an object and he would usually add thatsuch a relationship sustained the 'I'-thought instead of eliminating it. In hisview such practices may effectively quieten the mind, and they may even produceblissful experiences, but they will never

culminate in Self-realisation becausethe 'I'-thought is not being isolated and deprived of its identity. The conversations which comprise this chapter mostly deal with Sri Ramana'sviews on the theoretical background of self-enquiry. BE AS YOU ARE

.....to be cont.

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