Arthur Osborne - Sri Ramana Maharshi [7]

[Guest guest]

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Being the universal Guru, Bhagavan proclaimed his

teaching openly. It has been usual for a guru to maintain secrecy

about methods of training, even though he might write openly

on theory; indeed this precaution was necessary, since it was

illegitimate and might be dangerous to practise any technique

without personal authorisation. Under Bhagavan’s guidance,

however, understanding and aspiration are the only

qualifications and their absence the only barriers.

 

A visitor once asked him: “May I be assured that there is

nothing further to be learnt, so far as the technique of spiritual

practise is concerned, than what was written in Bhagavan’s

books?” He further explained, “I ask because in all other systems

the guru holds back some secret technique to reveal to his

disciples at the time of initiation.”

 

And Bhagavan replied: “There is nothing more to be

known than what you find in the books. No secret technique.

It is all an open secret in this system.”

 

Open and yet secret, because, although expressed openly,

few seem to understand all the implications.

 

The method is Self-enquiry: Who am I?

 

Sometimes he would say: “Whether or not you believe in

the reality of the world or of God, you know that you exist, so

start with yourself and find out first who you are.”

 

Who am I? What is the reality of me? Not my body, because

it changes constantly from youth to age, from sickness to health,

but I still am. Besides, I say that I have a body, not that I am

one, and what I have is not what I am. Who is it that says ‘my

head’, ‘my hands’, ‘my body’? Also not my thoughts and feelings,

ambitions and desires, likes and dislikes, hopes and fears: all

these stay with me for a while and then pass away; those I have

now are quite different from what I had ten years ago; but I still

am. Besides, I have none of them when in a deep, dreamless

sleep, and yet I still exist. And of them also I say ‘I have’, not ‘I

am’. What, then, am I? What remains when all that is

adventitious has been taken away?

 

All this is not what Bhagavan meant by Self-enquiry. It is a

useful mental introduction to it, but Self-enquiry, as he taught

it, is not a mental but a spiritual exercise. Therefore any mental

or verbal answer must be wrong. ‘Any answer the mind can

give is wrong.’ To give an answer means mistaking for a

philosophical conundrum what is in fact a spiritual exercise.

 

“The enquiry ‘Who am I?’ really means trying to find the

source of the ego or ‘I’-thought. You are not to occupy the mind

with other thoughts such as ‘I am not the body’. Seeking the source

of the ‘I’ serves as a means of getting rid of all other thoughts.”

 

It is also not a psychological study or a technique for getting

to know one’s qualities or aptitudes or uncovering one’s

subconscious urges, but for realizing the Self behind the ego

that has these qualities and urges. “Just as it is futile to examine

the rubbish that has to be swept up only to be thrown away, so

it is futile for him who seeks to know the Self to set to work

enumerating the tattvas that envelop the Self and examining

them instead of throwing them away.”

 

Nor is it one ‘I’ seeking for another. There is only one Self

in you, not two.

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taken from Arthur Osborne's My Life & Quest