self-enquiry - #19

[Guest guest]

Question: How can I tell if I am making progress with my enquiry?

Sri Ramana Maharshi: The degree of the absence of thoughts is the measure of your progress towards Self-realisation. But Self-realisation itself does not admit of progress, it is ever the same. The Self remains always in realisation. The obstacles are thoughts. Progress is measured by the degree of removal of the obstacles to understanding that the Self is always realised. So thoughts must be checked by seeking to whom they arise. So you go to their source, where they do not arise.

Questioner: Doubts are always arising. Hence my question.

Sri Ramana Maharshi: A doubt arises and is cleared. Another arises and that is cleared, making way for yet another; and so it goes on. So there is no possibility of clearing away all doubts. See to whom the doubts arise. Go to their source and abide in it. Then they cease to arise. That is how doubts are to be cleared.

Question: Should I go on asking ‘Who am I?’ without answering? Who asks whom? Which Bhavana (attitude) should be in the mind at the time of enquiry? What is ‘I’, the Self or the ego?

Sri Ramana Maharshi: In the enquiry ‘Who am I?’, ‘I’ is the ego. The question really means, what is the source or origin of this ego? You need not have any Bhavana (attitude) in the mind. All that is required is that you must give up the Bhavana (attitude) that you are the body, of such and such a description, with such and such a name, etc. There is no need to have a Bhavana about your real nature. It exists as it always does. It is real and no Bhavana.

Question: But is it not funny that the ‘I’ should be searching for the ‘I’? Does not the enquiry ‘Who am I?’ turn out in the end to be an empty formula? Or, am I to put the question to myself endlessly, repeating it like some mantra?

Sri Ramana Maharshi: Self-enquiry is certainly not an empty formula and it is more than the repetition of any mantra. If the enquiry ‘Who am I?’ were a mere mental questioning, it would not be of much value. The very purpose of self-enquiry is to focus the entire mind at its source. It is not, therefore, a case of one ‘I’ searching for another ‘I’. Much less is self-enquiry an empty formula, for it involves an intense activity of the entire mind to keep it steadily poised in pure Self-awareness.

Question: Is it enough if I spend some time in the mornings and some time in the evenings for this atma-vichara (self-enquiry)? Or should I do it always, even when I am writing or walking?

Sri Ramana Maharshi: What is your real nature? Is it writing, walking or being? The one unalterable reality is being. Until you realise that state of pure being you should pursue the enquiry. If once you are established in it there will be no further worry.

No one will enquire into the source of thoughts unless thoughts arise. So long as you think ‘I am walking’ or ‘I am writing’, enquire who does it.

Question: If I go on rejecting thoughts can I call it Vichara (enquiry)?

Sri Ramana Maharshi: It may be a stepping stone. But really vichara begins when you cling to your Self and are already off the mental movement, the thought waves.

Question: Then vichara (enquiry) is not intellectual?

Sri Ramana Maharshi: No, it is Antara Vichara, inner quest.

Holding the mind and investigating it is advised for a beginner. But what is mind after all? It is a projection of the Self. See for whom it appears and from where it rises. The ‘I’-thought will be found to be the root-cause. Go deeper. The ‘I’-thought disappears and there is an infinitely expanded ‘I’-consciousness.