Insights along the path of Self-enquiry

Here are insights I've compiled from my own direct practice of Self-enquiry (as taught by Ramana Maharshi.)

• Each knows themselves as the "I am".
  

• When the mind is absorbed within, it is known directly that "I am", awareness, and existence are synonymous. This is one's true nature and the nature of Reality.
  

• This true "I"/Self is existence-consciousness. That is, it is existence and the knowledge of existence. They are not different (not two).
  

• Existence-consciousness is innately happy, and ever free. It is ever untouched by any experience like a movie screen is unaffected by the images projected upon it. Its happiness is its own awareness of existence and freedom as that which (one) is. It is thus not dependent on any conditions, and is only masked by (false) identification with the non-Self (the ego). The innate happiness of true Self is not other than uncaused love.

• Awareness is aware that it is aware/awareness. In the ultimate sense the knower and the known are one. To know is to be that which is known. Hence Reality knows itself by virtue of being itself. "I am that I am", sums up the knowing.

• The truth of the Self is known through the practice of Self-awareness/attention, where the mind/attention is turned within (away from objects) to its source through investigation of the source and essence of the subjective first person feeling of I-ness (Who/what am I?). This turns the mind within and submerges the mind into its source. With continual practice the mind gains the strength to stay submerged, like a river discharges into the ocean and is then no longer a river.

• Self-enquiry is not the repeating of the phrase "Who am I?" nor the repeating of the phrases, "I am He", "I am That", "I am Brahman", "He and I are one", etc. The true practice of Self-attention/awareness, as taught by Ramana Maharshi, is the focusing of attention keenly and one-pointedly (exclusively) upon our consciousness, "I am".

• By practice the mind gains strength to turn within. The mind (self) lost in its source (Self) is "no-mind" and is still, silent, joyful, desireless, and the essence of wisdom. It is not a sleep nor trance state, but a natural awake Self-effulgent condition.

• Mind will re-emerge due to latent habits (vasanas). Thus glimpses/tastes of Self are had until those habits are destroyed. They are destroyed through the continued practice of Self-attention.

• Sometimes the ego-mind is so caught up and distressed that Self-inquiry seems almost impossible. This is owing to lack of strength. If the mind will not let something go, other spiritual practice for purifying the ego/mind can be used. For example, forgiveness work, energy psychology work, recontextualizing a problem, prayer, etc.

• As one purifies the mind it gains in strength and can be turned inwards to investigate its source.
  

• The mind goes out and associates with the body's senses and mistakes the body and its processes for itself.
  

• However, inspection reveals that the body does not say/know "I". We (existence-consciousness) are not even aware of the body directly. We know only the registering of sensations by the brain. Who/What is aware of the experience of the registering of sensation though? Surely discrimination reveals that one cannot be an object of experience, but is rather the subject!

• Body-consciousness is a shadow like consciousness (ego) that arises between existence-consciousness and the insentient body.
  

• Consciousness/Awareness says/knows "I" as itself.
  

• One is aware of the body (through the senses). One is existence-consciousness (the essence feeling of "I am") yet the body does not say "I" (the body is an object of consciousness and not the subject - which only existence-consciousness is). Thus the body is not existence-consciousness (true Self/I).
  

• Think how many people take themselves to be the body, which has a name, an age, and characteristics. If you are honest with yourself, the "I am" that you are cannot be described. To see that is the beginning of wisdom and freedom! The Self is neither fat nor thin, ugly or old, stupid or learned! Think how people are proud or self-pitying, feeling better or worse than others, yet do not actually know what/who they really are! Mankind has a great need to awaken from the dream of ego/misery (separation from love and the unlimited).

• Are you your hand? Does the hand say "I"? Do you lose part of the direct experience of being (I am) if you cut your fingernails, hair? No. Would part of your direct experience of being (I am), existence-consciousness, change if you lost a hand? An arm? No. Has that feeling of being changed from when you wore the body of a five year old or a twenty year old? No. Isness is isness and is not dependent upon the body which is constantly changing. You are not the body but have a body. You are the direct awareness "I am".
  

• The "I am" is always prior to I am "this", I am "that". Thus the I am is before I am "a man", "a woman", "old", "a husband", "a daughter", "a lawyer", "ugly", "fat", "smart", etc.
  

• To know the essence of the "I am" as that which one is, is discrimination (between the ever present and the ephemeral, the Real and the unreal).
  

• Not being limited by any definition or label ("this" or "that"), the true Self is ever free. When Consciousness/Awareness/Self recognizes itself, this is the supreme happiness.

• Each "this" or "that", each definition, each label, is a limitation and a block to true Self-Awareness which is unlimited, independent, forever free, continuous, and beyond doubt. Hence perfect happiness.

• If you are honest with yourself, the essence of "I am-ness" is not something that can be described. It is beyond labels of the mind because it is prior to the mind.

• Self is like the sky and the labels and definitions are like the clouds. The clouds, although they arise in the sky, never effect the sky.

• You still exist when thoughts quieten down. Existence-consciousness (I am) does not change when thoughts change. Therefore you are not your thoughts (which are objects of consciousness and not the witnessing awareness). Thus to identify oneself with the mind is ignorance arising from non Self-awareness. What do you mean when you say "I" or "me"? Who/What are you?
  

• If a person does not know what s/he really is yet goes around acting as if they were this or that presumed thing (the mind or the body), it is said that they live in a dream, a play, a game, a delusion even. At times this is great fun, but some people feel a call within to know true peace, to know the truth, to know God, to find lasting love, etc. This is the inner Self attracting the self to it, and the beginning of the awakening spiritual journey in earnest.

• Self-inquiry dissects awareness from false and presumed identification. This separation from the false is the same as union with the Real (God). Its just two ways of looking at the same thing. This is the fulfillment of yoga.
  

• All thoughts are dependent upon and built upon the root thought I/me. After all, they are "my" thoughts. As long as this idea of "me" comes from being falsely identified with non-Self (with name, form, definitions, labels, body, subtle body, energy centers, thoughts, mind, breath, prana, etc.) we live in illusion/falsity/ignorance. Every thought from or about a false initial thought/premise is itself false.
  

• If one takes a rope to be a snake in the dim light, and then acts as if there is a snake in the way, all fear and all actions to escape or kill the snake are based on the false and only re-enforce the idea that the false is true! That is the basis of all suffering, and the obscuration of innate happiness, which is the very recognition that one is existence-consciousness and nothing else exists but existence.
  

• The I thought needs to be investigated to reveal its false identity (to see that the snake is actually non-existent, an illusion, projected upon a harmless inert rope). Upon scrutiny the false (I am the body, I am "this" and "that") dissapears just like a shadow disapears when you turn a light upon it. Killing the ego (false self) is simply through revealing the truth, which is done through Self-attention/recognition.
  

• Thoughts are numerous and disturb peace and happiness. It is not however necessary to deal with every thought that arises.
  

• Thoughts are like leaves and twigs on a tree. It is not necessary to chop them all off, one at a time. Just take an axe to the trunk and do it all at once.
  

• The trunk is the I-thought (I am separate, I am this body with a name). When it is seen through investigation that all the thoughts are built upon a false thought (I am separate, I am this body, I am "this" or "that") then thoughts lose value. What is devalued and seen as false finds no grip and fades.

• Separation occurs at the level of form. The Reality is formless and continuous. It includes form at the level of appearance but is not limited by form. Within all form is the formless. Disidentify from the body by thoroughly convincing yourself you are not an object. Once Self is found then see to the world and see if anything is separate or not. Know Self first though.

• Abiding in Self-awareness deepens the ability to abide in Self-awareness, and dissolves the habit of the mind rising again and branching into many thoughts, thus leading to distress.
  

• Practice of Self-abidance should continue until it becomes continuous. It is the natural state. However the habit of straying (lost in thought) must be unlearned. Until then effort to hone in on the essence of the I (the feeling of existence-consciousness) is required.

• There is no end to the depth or ever-present freshness of existence-consciousness, which ever delights in Self-recognition. To turn away from the false, investigate the very nature of the first person feeling of I and release the false identifications.
  

• The thought "I am the body" (ego) is like the string on a necklace. All other thoughts are like beads attached to it. "I" is the root thought. If you cut the necklace all the beads fall away at once.
  

• Thus investigation of the first person feeling/thought "I" is the way of stilling the mind and revealing the Self.
  

• All "others" (you, he/she, it) are dependent on the existence of the first person I. What is this I though? Is there really a separate I/me? Each takes the body as themselves, but is it true? Self-inquiry investigates that which has been assumed but not confirmed to themselves.
  

• Even God is taken as an other (He/She), and thus does not in that form exist unless we believe we are the separate ego. When the identification with the ego is no more, God and Self are known to be one and not different, and one is not other than the Love of God. "The Father and I are one", is a statement of that realization.

© Jonathan Kalman 2008