Exercise: “Who Am I?”

Sri Ramana Maharshi teaching :

All beings desire happiness always, happiness without a tinge of sorrow. At the same time everybody loves himself best. The cause for love is only happiness. So, that happiness must lie in one. Further that happiness is daily experienced by everyone in sleep, when there is no mind. To attain that natural happiness one must know oneself. For that, Self-Enquiry, ‘Who am I?’ is the chief means.

Existence or Consciousness is the only reality. Consciousness plus waking we call waking. Consciousness plus sleep we call sleep. Consciousness plus dream, we call dream. Consciousness is the screen on which all the pictures come and go. The screen is real, the pictures are mere shadows on it.

Mind is a wonderful force inherent in the Self.

That which arises in this body as ‘I’ is the mind.

When the subtle mind emerges through the brain and the senses, the gross names and forms are cognized. When it remains in the Heart names and forms disappear… If the mind remains in the Heart, the ‘I’ or the ego which is the source of all thoughts will go, and the Self, the Real, Eternal ‘I’ alone will shine. Where there is not the slightest trace of the ego, there is the Self.

For all thoughts the source is the ‘I’ thought.

The mind will merge only by Self-enquiry ‘Who am I?’ The thought ‘Who am l?’ will destroy all other thoughts and finally kill itself also. If other thoughts arise, without trying to complete them, one must enquire to whom did this thought arise. What does it matter how many thoughts arise? As each thought arises one must be watchful and ask to whom is this thought occurring. The answer will be ‘to me’. If you enquire ‘Who am I?’ the mind will return to its source (or where it issued from). The thought which arose will also submerge. As you practise like this more and more, the power of the mind to remain as its source is increased.

There are two ways of achieving surrender. One is looking into the source of the ‘I’ and merging into that source. The other is feeling ‘I am helpless myself God alone is all powerful and except throwing myself completely on Him, there is no other means of safety for me’, and thus gradually developing the conviction that God alone. exists and the ego does not count. Both methods lead to the same goal. Complete surrender is another name for jnana or liberation.

There is no difference between the dream and the waking state except that the dream is short and the waking long. Both are the result of the mind. Our real state is beyond the waking, dream and sleep states.

The state we call realization is simply being oneself, not knowing anything or becoming anything. If one has realized, he is that which alone is, and which alone has always been. He cannot describe that state. He can only be That. Of course we loosely talk of self-realization for want of a better term.

That which ‘Is’ is peace. All that we need do is to keep quiet. Peace is our real nature. We spoil it. What is required is that we cease to spoil it.