Self-attentiveness, effort and grace
Yesterday the following anonymous comment was posted on my previous article, Atma-vichara and the ‘practice’ of neti neti, with reference to a sentence that I had written in it, “Since thoughts can rise only when we attend to them, they will all subside naturally when we keep our attention fixed exclusively in our own essential self-conscious being, ‘I am’”:
… I try to fix my attention on the feeling ‘I am’, which is present all the time. However, this attention, even when sustained for a considerable amount of time, does not result in the melting away of body consciousness, and as a result of this, other thoughts occasionally arise and sense perceptions are constantly active. Sometimes, I feel the practice is futile because the melting away of body consciousness seems like an act of grace and not something which I can accomplish by attempting to focus on ‘I am’ as much as possible. Exclusive attention to ‘I am’ doesn't seem like something the spurious ‘I’ can accomplish but something which may or may not happen, depending on if an act of grace occurs or not. I’m not sure if I’m practicing correctly. How long should I keep my attention on ‘I am’ before body consciousness abates? If done correctly, should it abate immediately, in a few seconds, in a few hours? Please help.When practising self-attentiveness, our sole aim should be to experience the perfect clarity of pristine non-dual self-consciousness.
The exclusion of all thoughts, the cessation of sense-perceptions and the melting away of body-consciousness are by-products that will certainly result as the clarity of our self-consciousness increases, but we should be careful not to make such by-products our aim, because as soon as we do so our attention will be diverted away from our essential being towards the body-consciousness and resultant thoughts and sense-perceptions that we wish to get rid of. We can free ourself from thoughts, sense-perceptions and body-consciousness only by ignoring them entirely and being attentive only to our essential self, ‘I am’.
The melting away of body-consciousness is certainly an act of grace, but grace is not other than ourself — our own essential being, ‘I am’ — which should be the sole target of our attention when we practise atma-vichara. As Sri Ramana says in verse 966 of Guru Vachaka Kovai (the meaning of which I have discussed on pages 475-6 of Happiness and the Art of Being):
Since being alone is divine grace, which rises as [our] heart [or ‘am’], the fault of despising [ignoring or disregarding] being is fit [to be considered as a defect that belongs] only to souls, who do not think [incessantly of it], inwardly melting [with love for it]. Instead, how can the fault of not bestowing sweet grace be [considered as a defect that belongs] to being?Grace is the beginning, the process and the final end of all spiritual endeavour. Our liking to be self-attentive is grace, our effort to be self-attentive is grace, and our actually being self-attentive is grace, so we should not expect grace to be something that will happen independent of our self-attentiveness.
It is true that as this spurious ‘I’, our mind or ego, we cannot be exclusively self-attentive without the help of grace, but the grace that will help us (and is always helping us) is not other than our own self-conscious being, ‘I am’. Our practice of being self-attentive can never be futile, because it is both the result of grace and the opening of our heart to the influence of grace. Without persistent practice of self-attentiveness, we cannot surrender ourself entirely to grace and thereby allow ourself to be wholly consumed by it, as Sri Ramana teaches us in the thirteenth paragraph of Nan Yar? (Who am I?):
Being completely absorbed in atma-nishtha [self-abidance], giving not even the slightest room to the rising of any thought other than atma-chintana [self-contemplation], alone is giving ourself to God. …Anonymous writes that “exclusive attention to ‘I am’ … [is] something which may or may not happen, depending on if an act of grace occurs or not”. Though it is true that exclusive attention to ‘I am’ happens only by grace and therefore depends entirely upon it, there is no question of ‘an act of grace’ not occurring. Grace is our own being, which is eternal and ever-present, and its only ‘act’ is just to be, so there is never a time or place in which this ‘act of grace’ is not occurring.
Though the only ‘act of grace’ is its mere being, by its being it accomplishes everything. According to an ancient Tamil proverb that Sri Ramana often used to quote, ‘avan arul andri, or anuvum asaiyadu’, which means ‘except by his grace, not even an atom moves’. The mere being of grace in our heart as ‘I am’ is the supreme power that is silently but constantly working within us to draw our mind selfwards in order to consume it in the infinite clarity of its pristine self-conscious being.
Grace is always doing its part, so all that is required is for us to do our part, namely to cease ignoring its eternal presence as our own self-consciousness, ‘I am’, by being constantly attentive to its presence and thereby inwardly melting in love of it.
Anonymous ends by asking, “How long should I keep my attention on ‘I am’ before body consciousness abates? If done correctly, should it abate immediately, in a few seconds, in a few hours?” If ‘done correctly’ self-attentiveness will consume our mind and its body-consciousness in an instance, but in order to achieve that state of perfectly correct self-attentiveness, persistent practice is required.
Self-attentiveness is ‘done correctly’ only when we experience the absolute clarity of pristine self-consciousness, and if we do not experience such clarity immediately, it is because we still have vishaya-vasanas — desires to experience things other than our own non-dual self-conscious being, ‘I am’ — which prompt us to think of the things that we desire and which thereby cloud our natural clarity of self-consciousness. As Sri Ramana says in the eleventh paragraph of Nan Yar?:
As long as vishaya-vasanas exist in [our] mind, so long the investigation ‘who am I?’ is necessary. As and when thoughts arise, then and there it is necessary [for us] to annihilate them all by investigation [keen and vigilant self-attentiveness] in the very place from which they arise. …In order to destroy all our vishaya-vasanas — our desires or latent impulsions — patient and persistent practice of self-attentiveness is essential. After making a little effort, we should not give up thinking that our efforts are not producing immediate results. Every moment of self-attentiveness weakens our vishaya-vasanas by undermining their foundation, our mind, and thereby brings us closer to our final goal. As Sri Ramana assures us in the tenth paragraph of Nan Yar?:
Even though vishaya-vasanas, which come from time immemorial, rise [as thoughts] in countless numbers like ocean-waves, they will all be destroyed when svarupa-dhyana [self-attentiveness] increases and increases. Without giving room to the doubting thought, ‘Dissolving so many vasanas, is it possible [for me] to be only as self?’, [we] should cling tenaciously to self-attentiveness. However great a sinner a person may be, if instead of lamenting and weeping, ‘I am a sinner! How am I going to be saved?’, [he] completely rejects even the thought that he is a sinner and is zealous in self-attentiveness, he will certainly be reformed [transformed into his true ‘form’ of thought-free self-conscious being].The words that I have translated here as ‘[we] should cling tenaciously to self-attentiveness’ are சொரூபத்யானத்தை விடாப்பிடியாய்ப் பிடிக்க வேண்டும் (sorūpa-dhyāṉattai viḍāppiḍiyāyp piḍikka vēṇḍum), which emphasise the imperative need for tenacious perseverance in an extremely strong manner. If we are truly zealous and persistent in our practice of self-attentiveness, we will certainly reach our final goal of manōnāśa or vāsanākṣaya — the complete annihilation of our mind and all its vāsanās or desires.
Therefore no effort is required on our part other than to persevere lovingly, earnestly and persistently in our practice of self-attentiveness or self-remembrance. This is the truth that Sri Ramana teaches us clearly in the eleventh paragraph of Nan Yar? when he says:
… If one clings fast to uninterrupted svarupa-smarana [self-remembrance] until one attains svarupa [one’s own essential self], that alone [will be] sufficient. …Anonymous also wrote, “I’m not sure if I’m practicing correctly”, but as long as we understand that the correct practice of atma-vichara or self-investigation is only to be wholly and exclusively attentive to our own essential being, ‘I am’, we cannot really practise it incorrectly.
There is truly nothing mysterious or difficult about this simple practice of atma-vichara. We all know ‘I am’, more clearly than we know any other thing, so there can be nothing easier or more straightforward than to remember ‘I am’ — that is, to be simply attentive to our own fundamental consciousness of being.
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7 comments:
Hi Michael,
Thanks for the clear explanation and clarification. I had similar doubts as well.
Sincerely,
Sriram
Michael,
Thanks a lot for taking the time to reply to my doubts in a clear, detailed manner. I have been reading and re-reading this article. The key, for me, is to understand that all that I can ever 'do' is to try and pay attention to 'I am' as exclusively and as persistently as possible.
Dear Sir,
You wrote:
“We can free ourself from thoughts, sense-perceptions and body-consciousness only by ignoring them entirely and being attentive only to our essential self, ‘I am’.”
As I see it, thoughts, sense-perceptions and body-consciousness can´t be ignored nor we can be attentive only to our essential self then. If we are attentive only to our essential self, it is because there is not thought, sense - perception nor body-consciousness to be ignored by us. Otherwise, we have to be attentive to thoughts and so on, because it is only then, through this practice, that attention becomes self-attentive and therefore self-consciousness because then, there is not thought, sense-perception nor body-consciousness as a natural result of the practice, obtained without an act of will nor effort. Effort is in paying attention to mind which is a reflection of true consciousness, but once attention becomes self-attentive the rest just disappears and all happens by itself. Asking at that moment: who am I? it is something that I couldn´t do yet.
Baghavan Sri Ramana talking on being attentive only to our essential self from the beginning, gives us a clue on how far we are from that state. To me, starting from that point is starting from just one more thought, I have to follow a long process before to arrive to the pure feeling of just being, and I don´t always arrive, only in very few occasions. Feeling is so much perfect that then I´m unable of asking “what is this? Who am I?
Baghavan used to talk on weakness of mind as well, I guess he meant exactly this.
Sharing some self-inquiry. Sorry about my English. Kind regards and thank you very much for this blog.
In reply to the most recent anonymous comment posted above, I have written a new article, Making effort to pay attention to our mind is being attentive only to our essential self .
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Sri Sadhu Om spent five years in the company of Sri Ramana Maharshi and decades in the company of Sri Muruganar. Sri Sadhu Om wrote a book called The Path of Sri Ramana, Part One, which contains what has been called the most detailed teaching on the method of Self-inquiry ever written. Sri Sadhu Om points out that:
Self-inquiry is only an aid to Self-Awareness;
only Self-Awareness is the True Direct Path.
SELF-INQUIRY by Sri Sadhu Om
Chapter 7 from The Path of Sri Ramana, Part One
On hearing the expression ‘Self-inquiry’, people generally take it to mean either inquiring into the Self or inquiring about the Self. How to do so? Who is to inquire into the Self, or who is to inquire about Self? What does inquiry actually mean?
Such questions naturally arise, do they not?
As soon as we hear the terms ‘Self-inquiry’, many of us naturally consider that there is some sort of effulgence or a formless power within our body and that we are going to find out what it is, where it is, and how it is.
This idea is not correct, because, Self does not exist as an object to be known by us who seek to know it! Since Self shines as the very nature of him who tries to know It, Self-inquiry does not mean inquiring into a second or third person object.
It is in order to make us understand this from the very beginning that Sri Ramana called Self-inquiry ‘Who am I?’, thus drawing our awareness directly to the first person.
In this question, ‘Who am I?’, ‘I am’ denotes the Self and ‘who’ stands for the inquiry.
Who is it that is to inquire into the Self? For whom is this inquiry necessary?
Is it for the Self? No.
Since the Self is the ever-attained, ever-pure, ever-free and ever-blissful Whole, It will not do any inquiry, nor does it need to!
All right, then it is only the ego that needs to do the inquiry.
Can this ego know Self?
As said in the previous chapters, this ego is a false appearance, having no existence of its own. It is a petty infinitesimal feeling of ‘I’, which subsides and loses its form in sleep.
So, can Self become an object that could be known by the ego?
No, the ego cannot know Self!
Thus, when it turns out that Self-inquiry is unnecessary for Self, and Self-Awareness is impossible for the ego, the questions arise: ‘What then is the practical method of doing Self-inquiry?’
Why is this term Self-inquiry found in the scriptures? Are we not to scrutinize thus and find out? Let us do so.
There is a difference between the way in which the term ‘inquiry’ is used by Sri Ramana and the way in which the scriptures use it. The scriptures advocate negating the five sheaths, namely the body, vital force (breath), mind, intellect and the darkness of ignorance, as ‘not I, not I’.
But who is to negate them, and how?
If the mind (or the intellect) is to negate them, it can at best negate only the insentient physical body and the breath, which are objects seen by it.
Beyond this, how can the mind negate itself, its own form?
And when it cannot even negate itself, how can it negate the other two sheaths, the intellect and the darkness of ignorance, which are beyond its range of perception?
During the time of inquiry, therefore, what more can the mind do to remain as the Self except to repeat mentally, ‘I am not this body, I am not this breath’? From this, it is clear that ‘inquiry’ is not a process of one thing inquiring about another thing.
That is why the inquiry ‘Who am I?’ taught by Sri Ramana should be taken to mean Self-awareness! (that is, attention merely to the first person, the feeling ‘I’).
The nature of the mind is to attend always to things other than itself, that is, to know only second and third persons. If the mind in this way attends to a thing, it means that it is attending (attaching itself) to that thing.
Attention itself is attachment!
Since the mind is to think about the body and breath – though with the intention of deciding ‘this is not I, this is not I’ – such attention is only a means of becoming attached to them and it cannot be a means of negating them!
This is what is experienced by any true aspirant in his practice.
Then what is the secret hidden in this?
Since, whether we know it or not, Self, which is now wrongly considered by us to be unknown, is verily our reality, the very nature of our (the Supreme Self’s) awareness itself is Grace.
This means that whatever thing we attend to, witness, observe or look at, that thing is nourished and will flourish, being blessed by Grace.
Though one now thinks that one is an individual soul, since one’s power of awareness is in fact nothing but a reflection of the ‘knowing-power’ of Self, that on which it falls or is fixed is nourished by Grace and flourishes more and more!
Hence, when the power of attention of the mind is directed more and more towards second and third person objects, both the strength to attend to those objects, and the ignorance of the knowledge of the five senses in the form of thoughts about them – will grow more and more, and will never subside!
Have we not already said that all our thoughts are nothing but attention paid to second and third person objects? Accordingly, the more we attend to the mind, the thoughts which are the forms (the second and third person objects) of the world, the more they will multiply and be nourished. This is indeed an obstacle.
The more our attention – the glance of Grace - falls on it, the more the mind’s wavering nature and its ascendancy will increase. That is why it is impossible for the mind to negate anything by thinking ‘I am not this, I am not this’.
On the other hand, if our awareness is directed only towards ourself, our knowledge of existence alone is nourished, and since the mind is not attended to, it is deprived of its strength, the support of our Grace.
‘Without use when left to stay, iron and mischief rust away’ – in accordance with this Tamil proverb, since they are not attended to, all the latent tendency-habit-predisposition seeds, whose nature is to rise stealthily and mischievously, have to stay quiet, and thus they dry up like seeds deprived of water and become too weak to sprout out into thought-plants.
Then, when the fire of Self-knowledge blazes forth, these tendencies, like well dried firewood, become a prey to it. This alone is how the total destruction of all tendencies-habits-predispositions, is effected.
If we are told, ‘Abandon the East’, the practical way of doing so would be to do as if told, ‘Go to the West’! In the same manner, when we are told, ‘Discard the five sheaths, which are not Self’, the practical way of discarding the non-Self is to focus our awareness on ourself, ‘What is this?’ or ‘Who am I?’.
Thinking ‘I am not this, not this’, is a negative method. Knowing that this negative method is just as impractical as saying ‘Drink the medicine without thinking of a monkey’, Sri Ramana has shown us the practical way of drinking the medicine without thinking of a monkey, by giving us the clue, ‘Drink the medicine without thinking of an elephant’, that is, He has replaced the ancient negative method by giving us the positive method ‘Who am I?’.
‘Verily the ego is all! Hence the inquiry ‘What is it?’
(In other words, ‘Who am I, this ego?’)
is the true giving up (renunciation) of all,
Thus should you know!’ - Forty Verses on Reality, verse 28
Verily, all (that is, the five sheaths and their projections – all these worlds) is the ego. So, attending to the feeling ‘I’, ‘What is it?’ or ‘Who is this I?’, alone is renouncing the five sheaths, discarding them, eliminating them, or negating them. Thus Sri Ramana has declared categorically that Self-awareness alone is the correct technique of eliminating the five sheaths!
Since this is so, with what purpose did the scriptures use the term ‘inquiry’ to denote the method not this, not this? By means of not this, not this, can we not formulate intellectually the test which we have given in paragraph 4 of this book, ‘A thing is surely not ‘I’ if it is possible for one to experience ‘I am’ even in the absence of that thing?
So long as there exists the wrong knowledge ‘I am the body’ pertaining to the aforesaid five sheaths or three bodies, will not one’s paying attention towards the first person automatically be only an attention towards a sheath or a body – a second person?
But if we use this test, can we not find out that all such attentions are not the proper first person attention? Therefore, it is necessary first of all to have an intellectual conviction that these are not ‘I’ in order to practice Self-awareness, without losing our bearings.
It is only the discrimination by which we acquire this conviction that has been termed ‘inquiry’ by the scriptures. What then is an aspirant to do after discriminating thus? How can the attention to these five sheaths, even with an intention to eliminate them, be an attention to Self?
Therefore, while practicing Self-inquiry, instead of taking any one of the five sheaths as the object of our attention, we should fix our attention only on the ‘I’-consciousness, which exists and shines as oneself, as the singular, and as a witness to and aloof from these sheaths.
Instead of being directed towards any second or third person, is not our power of attention, which was hitherto called mind or intellect, thus now directed only towards the first person?
Although we formally refer to it as ‘directed’, in truth it is not of the nature of a ‘doing’ in the form of directing or being directed; it is of the nature of ‘being’ or ‘existing’. Because the second and third persons (including thoughts) are alien or external to us, our attention paid to them was of the nature of a ‘doing’.
But this very attention, when fixed on the non-alien first person feeling, ‘I’, loses the nature of ‘paying’ and remains in the form of ‘being’, and therefore it is of the nature on non-doing or inaction. So long as our power of attention was dwelling upon second and third persons, it was called ‘the mind’ or ‘the intellect’, and its attending was called a doing or an action.
Only that which is done by the mind is an action. But on the other hand, as soon as the attention is fixed on the first person (or Self), it loses mean names such as mind, intellect or ego-sense. Moreover, that attention is no longer even an action, but inaction or the state of ‘being still’. Therefore, the mind, which attends to Self, is no more the mind; it is the consciousness aspect of Self!
Likewise, so long as it attends to the second and third persons (the world), it is not the awareness aspect of Self; it is the mind, the reflected form of consciousness! Hence, since Self-attention is not a doing, it is not an action. That is, Self alone realizes Self; the ego does not!
The mind which has obtained a burning desire for Self-attention, which is self-inquiry, is said to be the fully mature one. Since it is not now inclined to attend to any second or third person, it can be said that it has reached the pinnacle of desirelessness. For, do not all sorts of desires and attachments pertain only to second and third persons?
Since the mind, which has very well understood that (as already seen in earlier chapters) the consciousness which shines as ‘I’ alone is the source of full and real happiness, now seeks Self because of its natural craving for happiness, this intense desire to attend to Self is indeed the highest form of devotion.
It is exactly this Self-attention of the mind, which is thus fully mature through such devotion and desirelessness that is to be called the inquiry ‘Who am I?’ taught by Sri Ramana!
Well, will not at least such a mature mind, which has come to the path of Sri Ramana, willingly agreeing to engage in Self-attention, realize Self?
No, no, it has started for its doom! Agreeing to commit suicide, it places its neck (through Self-attention) on the scaffold where it is to be sacrificed! How? Only so long as it was attending to second and third persons did it have the name ‘mind’. But as soon as Self-attention is begun, its name and form (the name as mind and its form as thoughts) are lost.
So we can no longer say that Self-attention or Self-inquiry is performed by the mind. Neither is it the mind that attends to Self, nor is the natural, spontaneous Self-attention of the consciousness aspect of Self, which is not the mind, an activity!
“A naked lie then it would be if any man were to say that he Realized the Self, diving within through proper inquiry set in. Not for knowing but for death the good-for-nothing ego’s worth! ‘Tis Arunachala alone, the Self, by which the Self is known!” --Sri Arunachala Venba, verse 39
The feeling ‘I am’ is the experience common to one and all. In this, ‘am’ is awareness. This awareness is not of anything external, it is the awareness of oneself. This is awareness. This awareness is ‘we’. “We are verily awareness”, says Sri Ramana in ‘The Essence of Instruction’ verse 23. This is our ‘being’ (that is, our true existence). This is called ‘that which is’.
Thus in ‘I am’, ‘I’ is existence and ‘am’ is awareness. When Self, our nature of existence-consciousness, instead of shinning only as the pure awareness ‘I am’, shines mixed with an adjunct as ‘I am a man, I am Rama, I am so-and-so, I am this or that’, then this mixed awareness is the ego.
This mixed awareness can rise only by catching hold of a name and form. When we feel ‘I am a man, I am Rama, I am sitting, I am lying’, is it not clear that we have mistaken the body for ‘we’, and that we have thus assumed its name and postures as ‘I am this and I am thus’? The feeling ‘this and thus’ which has now risen mixed with the pure awareness ‘I am’ is what is called thought. This is the first thought.
The feeling ‘I am a man, I am so-and-so’ is only a thought. But the awareness, ‘I am’ is not a thought; it is the very nature of our ‘being’.
The mixed awareness ‘I am this or that’ is a thought that rises from our ‘being’. It is only after the rising of this thought, the mixed awareness (the first person), that all other thoughts, which are the knowledge of second and third persons, rise into existence.
“Only if the first person exists, will the second and third person exist...” ‘Forty Verses’ verse 14.
This mixed awareness, the first person is called our ‘rising’ or the rising of the ego. This is the primal mentation! Hence:
“Thinking is a mentation; being is not a mentation!...” - ‘Eleven Verses on Self-inquiry’, verse 1 by Sri Sadhu Om.
The pure existence-awareness, ‘I am’ is not a thought; this awareness is our nature. ‘I am a man’ is not our pure awareness; it is only our thought! To understand thus the difference between our ‘being’ and our ‘rising’ (that is between existence and thought) first of all, is essential for aspirants who take to the inquiry ‘Who am I?’
Sri Ramana has advised that Self-inquiry can be done either in the form ‘Who am I?’ or in the form ‘Whence am I?’. Hearing these two interrogative sentences, many aspirants have held various opinions about them up till now and have become confused as to which of them is to be practiced and how!
Even among those who consider that both are one and the same, many have only a superficial understanding and have not scrutinized deeply how they are the same. Some who try to follow the former one, ‘Who am I’? simply begin either vocally or mentally the parrot-like repetition ‘Who am I?, Who am I?, as if it were chanting. This is utterly wrong!
Doing repetition of ‘Who am I?’ in this manner is just as bad as meditating upon or doing repetition of the Great Sayings such as ‘I am the Absolute’ and so on, thereby spoiling the very objective with which they were revealed!! Sri Ramana Himself has repeatedly said, “’Who am I?’ is not meant for repetition”!
Some others, thinking that they are following the second interrogative form, ‘Whence am I?’ try to concentrate on the right side of the chest (where they imagine something as the spiritual heart), expecting a reply such as ‘I am from here”! This is in no way better than the ancient method of meditating upon any one of the six yogic centers in the body!! For, is not thinking of any place in the body only a second person attention (an objective attention)?
Before we start to explain the technique of Self-inquiry, is it not of the utmost importance that all such misconceptions be removed? Let us see, therefore, how they may be removed.
In Sanskrit, the terms ‘atman’ (Self) and ‘aham’ both mean ‘I’. Hence ‘atma-vichara’ (Self-inquiry) means an attention seeking ‘Who is this I?’. It may rather be called ‘I-attention’, ‘Self-awareness’ or ‘Self-abidance’.
The awareness ‘I’ thus pointed out here is the first person feeling. But as we have already said, it is to be understood that the awareness mixed with adjuncts as ‘I am this’ or ‘I am that’ is the ego or the individual soul, whereas the unalloyed awareness, devoid of adjuncts and shining alone as ‘I-I’ (or ‘I am that I am’) is Self, the Absolute or God. Does it not amount to saying then that the first person awareness, ‘I’, can be either ego or Self?
Since all people generally take the ego-feeling (‘I am the body’) to be ‘I’, the ego is also given the name ‘self’ and is called ‘individual self’ by some scriptures even now.
It is only for this reason that even the attention to the ego, ‘What is it?’ or ‘Who is it?’, is also named by the scriptures as ‘Self-inquiry’. Is it not clear, however, that Self, the existence-awareness, neither needs to do any inquiry nor can be subjected to any inquiry? It is just in order to rectify this defect that Sri Ramana named it ‘Who am I?’ rather than using the ancient term ‘Self-inquiry’!
The ego, the feeling of ‘I’ generally taken by people to be the first person awareness, is not the real first person awareness; Self alone is the real first person awareness. The ego-feeling, which is merely a shadow of it, is a false first person awareness. When one inquires into this ego, what it is or who it is, it disappears because it is really non-existent, and the inquirer, having nothing more to do, is established in Self as Self.
Because it rises, springing up from Self, the false first person awareness mentioned above has to have a place and a time of rising. Therefore, the question ‘Whence am I?’ means only ‘Whence (from where) does the ego rise?’. A place of rising can only be for the ego. But for the Self, since It has no rising or setting, there can be no particular place or time.
“When scrutinized, we - the ever-known existing Thing – alone are; then where is time and where is space? If we are (mistaken to be) the body, we shall be involved in time and space; but are we the body? Since we are the One, now, then and ever, that One in space, here there and everywhere, we – the timeless and spaceless Self alone are!” – ‘Forty Verses’ verse 16 - thus says Sri Ramana.
Therefore, inquiring ‘Whence am I?’ is inquiring ‘Whence is the ego?’. Only to the rising of the ego, which is conditioned by time and space, will the question ‘Whence am I?’ be applicable.
The meaning, which Sri Ramana expects us to understand from the term ‘Whence’ or ‘From where?’ is ‘From what?’. When taken in this sense, instead of a place or time coming forth as a reply, Self-existence, ‘we’, the Thing, alone is experienced as the reply.
If, on the other hand, we anticipate a place as an answer to the question ‘Whence?’, a place, conditioned by time and space, will be experienced within the body ‘two digits to the right from the center of the chest’ (as said in ‘Forty Verses’ verse 18). Yet this experience is not the ultimate or absolute one. For, Sri Ramana has positively asserted that Heart is verily Self-awareness, which is timeless, spaceless, formless, and nameless.
“He who thinks that Self (or Heart) is within the insentient body, while in fact the body is in the Self, is like one who thinks that the screen, which supports the cinema picture, is contained within the picture!” –‘Five verses on the Self’, verse 3
Finding a place in the body as the rising-point of the ego in reply to the question ‘Whence?’ is not the objective of Sri Ramana’s teachings; nor is it the fruit to be gained by Self-inquiry. Sri Ramana has declared clearly the objective of His teachings and the fruit to be gained by seeking the rising-place of the ego as follows:
“When sought within ‘What is the place from which it rises as I?’, ‘I’ (the ego) will die! This is Self-inquiry.” – ‘The Essence of Instruction’, verse 19
Therefore, the result which is aimed at when seeking the rising-place of the ego, is the annihilation of that ego and not an experience of a place in the body.
It is only in reply to the immature people who – not able to have even an intellectual understanding about the nature of the Self, which shines alone as the one, non-dual Thing, unlimited by (indeed absolutely unconnected with) time and space, unlimited even in the form: ‘The Absolute is everywhere, the Absolute is at all times, the Absolute is everything’ always raises the question, ‘Where is the seat for the Self in the body?”, that the scriptures and sometimes even Sri Ramana had to say: “...two digits to the right (from the center of the chest) is the heart”. Hence this heart-place is not the ultimate or absolute Reality.
The reader may here refer to ‘Maharshi’s Gospel’, Book II, chapter IV, ‘The Heart is the Self’ (8th edition 1969, pages 68 to 72; 9th edition, 1979, pages 72 to 76).
Thus attending to oneself in the form ‘Whence am I?’ is inquiring into the ego, the ‘rising I’, but while inquiring ‘Who am I?, there are some aspirants who take the feeling ‘I’ to be their ‘being’ (existence) and not their ‘rising I’! If it is taken thus, that is attention to the Self.
It is just to understand clearly the difference between these two forms of inquiry that the difference between our ‘rising’ and our ‘being’ has been explained earlier in this chapter.
Just as the correct meaning of the term ‘meditation upon the Absolute Being’ used by the scriptures up till now is explained by Sri Ramana in the last two lines of the first benedictory verse of ‘Forty Verses’ to be ‘abiding in the Heart as it is’ (that is to say, abiding as the Self is the correct way of meditating upon it), so also, the correct meaning of the term ‘Self-inquiry’ is here rightly explained to be ‘turning Selfwards’ (or attending to Self).
In either of these two kinds of inquiry (‘Who am I? or ‘Whence am I?’), since the attention of the aspirant is focused only on himself, nothing other than Self, which is the true import of the word ‘I’, will be finally experienced.
Therefore, the ultimate result of both the inquiries, ‘Whence am I?’ and ‘Who am I?’, is the same! How? He who seeks ‘Whence am I?’ is following the ego, the form of which is ‘I am so-and-so’, and while doing so, the adjunct ‘so-and-so’, having no real existence, dies on the way, and thus he remains established in Self, the surviving ‘I am’.
On the other hand, he who seeks ‘Who am I?’ drowns effortlessly in his real natural ‘being’ (Self), which ever shines as ‘I am that I am.’
Therefore, whether done in the form ‘Whence am I?’, or ‘Who am I?’, what is absolutely essential is that Self-awareness should be pursued to the very end.
Moreover, it is not necessary for sincere aspirants even to name beforehand the feeling ‘I’ either as ego or as Self. For, are there two persons in the aspirant, the ego and Self?
This is said because, since every one of us has the experience ‘I am one only and not two’, we should not give room to an imaginary dual feeling – one ‘I’ seeking for another ‘I’ – by differentiating ego and Self as ‘lower self’ and ‘higher self’.
“...Are there two selves, one to be an object known by the other? For, the true experience of all is ‘I am one’” -- ‘Forty Verses’ verse 33 - asks Sri Ramana.
Thus it is sufficient if we cling to the feeling ‘I’ uninterruptedly till the very end. Such attention to the feeling ‘I’, the common daily experience of everyone, is what is meant by Self-awareness.
For those who accept as their basic knowledge the ‘I am the body’ – awareness, being unable to doubt its (the ego’s) existence, it is suitable to take to Self-awareness (that is, to do Self-inquiry) in the form ‘Whence am I?’. On the other hand, for those who, instead of assuming that they have an individuality such as ‘I am so-and-so’ or ‘I am this’, attend thus, ‘What is this feeling which shines as I am?’ it is suitable to be fixed in Self-awareness in the form ‘Who am I?’.
What is important to be sure of during practice is that our attention is turned only towards ‘I’, the first person singular feeling.”
For instructions by Sri Sadhu Om on the technique of Self-inquiry advocated by Sri Ramana Maharshi click this link: sadhu_om_technique.aspx
For information on where you can order the book The Path of Sri Ramana, Part One by Sri Sadhu Om click this link: http://www.seeseer.com
Michael James translated the book “The Path of Sri Ramana, Part One” into English. Michael James has a website dedicated to exploring in depth the philosophy and practice of the spiritual teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi. To see his web site click this link: http://www.happinessofbeing.com
After clicking the above link, look left under the BOOKS category and click the link called “Happiness and the Art of Being”. Then you can read the book “Happiness and the Art of Being” by Michael James.
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Michael Langford
In reply to the most recent comment above, most of which is an edited copy of chapter 7 of Part One of The Path of Sri Ramana, I have written a new article, Self-enquiry, self-attention and self-awareness, in which I explain firstly that Sri Sadhu Om never pointed out that ‘Self-inquiry is only an aid to Self-Awareness; only Self-Awareness is the True Direct Path’ (as claimed by Michael Langford at the beginning of the webpage from which this comment was copied), and secondly why it is wrong say that ‘Self-inquiry is only an aid to Self-Awareness’, as if ‘self-inquiry’ and ‘self-awareness’ were two separate practices.
Trying to get rid of one's thoughts engenders more thoughts. Thoughts under attack know how to dig in. So why not simply accept what comes into one's head? Indeed, is it not God that gives us 'our' thoughts? So why try and reject them? Accepting 'our' thoughts is accepting His thoughts. Indeed is there anything else away from God?
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