Self Inquiry 7 - Self Enquiry Theory

Listen to Ektaji talk about Ramana Maharshi's self-inquiry teachings. These teachings are aimed at the experiential understanding of the true nature of the self and that consciousness is the only existing reality.

Transcript

Salaam.

Salaam.

Salaam.

Salaam.

The conversations which comprise this chapter mostly deal with Sri Ramana's views on the theoretical background of self-inquiry.

What is the nature of the mind?

These are questions that have been asked to Ramana by other disciples and they've been compiled together and put into this book.

Ramana has not written this book.

Is this very clear?

Like you're asking questions.

So there's one person sitting here just writing down the questions and writing down the answer.

Like that the book has been compiled.

Ramana has not sat and written this.

Very clear?

The mind is nothing other than the I thought.

The mind and the ego are one and the same.

The other mental faculties such as the intellect and the memory are only this.

Mind which is called Manas,

Intellect which is Buddhi,

The storehouse of mental tendencies called Chittam and ego Ahankara.

All these are only the one mind itself.

This is like different names being given to a man according to his different functions.

The individual soul or jiva is nothing but this soul or ego.

When I say I the soul there is still an identification I am hiding.

Yes I don't like it.

Oh how did you call the soul the ego?

But the truth is the truth whether you take it or not.

Till the time there is an identification it is ego.

Clear?

How shall we discover the nature of the mind that is its ultimate cause or the noumena of what it is a manifestation.

Arranging thoughts in the order of value.

The I thought is the all-important thought.

Personality idea or thought is also the root or stem of all other thoughts since each idea or thought arises only as someone's thought and is not known to exist independently of the ego.

Are you getting it?

It's always my thought,

My feeling,

My perception,

My idea,

My concept.

Can a concept exist without the minus in it?

It wouldn't even arise in me.

An idea wouldn't even arise in me without the mineness or I-ness.

Yeah so I have to recognize that I have identified with it.

It cannot exist by itself.

Very clear?

Yeah this is the nature.

He's explaining the nature of the mind to you.

The ego therefore exhibits through activity.

What does it mean?

All doing is ego and?

All thoughts are born out of ego.

All thoughts are born out of doership.

Are you understanding ego?

So those are the subsequent thoughts not the first thought.

Not the first thought.

The subsequent thoughts.

First thought will come because it is part of my past seed.

When that memory from the past comes up because I fed it,

I decide I'm not going to react to it anymore.

The first thought comes.

I don't identify with it.

I look at to whom has this thought arisen.

I turn inwards.

What happens?

It drops away because it needs I or mine to hold on to it.

I've seen you.

Yeah,

You just turn inwards.

It's like ignoring your kid who's screaming in the middle of Walmart.

I need that $500 toy right now.

You don't have the cash.

You can't buy that kind of a toy.

I'm going home.

You want to come?

You just walk away.

You turn away and you look at who did this thought arise to?

It drops off.

That is your key.

That is your formula.

How to drop a thought?

Turn inwards.

So you write this down.

This is what you need to do again and again and again.

Turn inwards towards the awareness.

Who am I?

Go to the source of I.

Will the thought go away forever?

No.

It will come back again.

What will I do?

Again turn inwards.

Again turn inwards because the child is not going to stop.

You know how long he cries,

Right?

How long does he cry?

I don't know.

So until how long does it last?

He relies his luck.

Yes,

So that means that entire energy is sucked out of him.

You have fed your thought with energy in the past.

It's reacting to the same thought in the past.

You have fed it with energy.

Its energy will keep getting sucked out every time you turn away,

Turn away,

Turn inwards,

Turn towards the awareness.

Finally it loses its energy and it will drop like that thought start dropping and dropping and dropping and dropping and dropping and your mind automatically starts becoming quieter and quieter and quieter and quieter and you can stay in the awareness longer and longer and longer.

Got it?

It's a very natural process that anyway happens to you.

You've just not realized it.

You're just realizing something that was always there.

Did I create this awareness last evening for you?

Magically put it inside you?

Yes,

He says yes.

It was always there inside.

The screen was always there behind the heroine heroine,

But you were so lost in the drama.

You could not see the white screen.

It was always there.

The background is always there.

Yeah,

This is the book when you're so engrossed in the words of the book.

You don't realize there is a white page on which everything is written.

Now all I did since yesterday took your attention.

Look at the white page.

Look at the whiteness of that page.

Then you're like,

Huh?

You just put it there.

No,

It was always there.

You just became aware.

Are you seeing this?

That was the question I want to ask you.

The experience I had this morning about the peace and calmness of the calmness.

I was thinking,

Is that the belief that the page is white?

It's so straightforward.

It is what you experience is your truth.

Is your truth.

Because if you were guiding that's why we were able to stay.

But I was not really guiding.

I was just taking your attention away from all the things you did at home before coming here and chit chat that you did upstairs and the coffee that you were drinking there.

You all came and sat.

I just took your attention away for those first few words.

And then you were in that awareness.

Your eyes were open most of you.

Only some of you closed your eyes.

Just open-eyed experience for you that you can be there.

Now also,

Why do you enjoy wisdom?

Do you know?

Why do you like to keep coming to knowledge sessions?

Do you know?

You automatically go to the awareness.

When you are not logically analysing,

You're not in the mind.

You're automatically there.

You're automatically there.

Again,

When you come to analysis,

Then you come here.

You drop the analysis and just you're experiencing what the words are saying.

You're there.

Do you get it?

You are there.

It is you.

I didn't put the white page behind the words.

It was always there.

You suddenly became aware of awareness.

Clear?

Yeah.

There are a couple of questions on subject-object relationship.

When I am observing awareness,

I become awareness.

Isn't the awareness is object?

Yes,

The awareness is the subject and the object in stage two.

If I can watch awareness,

I am not the awareness.

Is awareness becomes object?

Two different people ask the same question.

Yeah,

They're subject and object.

It's like you're collapsing into yourself.

You're not really looking looking now anymore.

The moment you're looking looking,

You're still at the mind.

And there's a moment when that also collapses.

The collapse happens.

Yeah,

There are stages in this also.

When you're here,

You're here.

When you're here.

Now inside also there are stages.

And the initial stage is still looking and there is a moment of collapse where the answer comes.

And then you formulate the answer in words and the mind gives the answer.

Yes,

I'm aware.

Yeah,

Pure awareness being aware of itself is in this collapse.

Very clear.

You're experiencing what I'm putting in words.

There's no difference between what you experience and I experience.

I just know how to put it in words.

Yeah,

You're experiencing the same thing.

I've only learned the skill how to stay here and not be interested in this.

Yeah,

And I'm just just a few steps ahead and I'm telling you drop this you'll be here.

It's very easy to be here.

You just be be be and he collapsed with it.

You let it collapse.

What doesn't let it collapse?

Ego wants to understand,

Wants to learn,

Wants to analyze,

Wants to think,

Wants to put some logic.

It pulls me out.

Just learn to collapse in it,

Learn to collapse in it and just be at peace with the collapse.

And you'll notice it's so much peace.

It's so much peace.

And automatically the next stage will start happening when that peace starts percolating the mind.

It just pushes itself ahead like waves just come in.

You cannot stop the waves like that.

They just come in and you're peaceful even in your activities.

You see that awareness in action is the mind.

Mind at rest is the awareness.

Again and again we draw from the noise of the mind not interested in analyzing,

Not interested in chit chat,

Just being in that awareness.

Withdrawing,

Being in that silence.

You'll have to make that effort.

Make that effort of withdrawing from noise.

All this noise in the mind comes from?

Ego.

We just read the sentence.

Everything comes from the ego.

Withdraw,

Withdraw,

Withdraw.

Make it a practice to be silent.

You'll get your answers only there.

All answers will come to you and only your answers can satiate you.

Ekta's answers will never satiate you.

Have you understood this till today?

Whoever gave you an answer,

Whatever highest pedestal you have put that teacher on,

Still a doubt comes in your mind about him.

Does it or does it not?

Very simple.

Somebody else's answer will never satiate me.

What can satiate me?

My own experience.

So I'm taking you there now.

Drop.

Get to experience.

Find your own answer.

You'll get your answer.

Yeah,

You're saying I want my answer right now.

You're not there yet.

No.

If you were there,

You would have gotten it.

Make an effort to practice this being in experiencing.

You want ready-made answers also and you want to doubt that ready-made answer also.

It's having the cake and eating it too.

You're never going to get there.

Forget about it.

Try next lifetime.

Okay.

Let's move ahead.

The ego therefore exhibits thought activity.

We stopped here.

This is very clear.

All thoughts come from ego.

The second and the third persons like he,

You,

That do not appear except to the first person.

Therefore,

They arise only after the first person appears.

So all the three persons seem to rise and sink together.

Trace then the ultimate cause of I or personality.

I is first person.

You is second person.

He,

She,

It,

That is third person.

For either the third person or the second person to arise,

First what needs to arise in your mind?

I.

Very clear.

Yeah.

So you're saying it's almost simultaneous that all this arose.

Yeah.

Drop this.

Drop this drama we don't need right now.

We are practicing.

Who am I?

So again,

Come back and ask who am I?

Trace from where did this I come?

Who am I?

Look within.

Trace the source.

Every sentence that you read is going to be turned inwards is going to be the answer.

Clear?

That's what the misconception comes like.

Okay,

You don't exist without me.

Very nice.

Very nice.

Okay.

So from where does this I arise?

Seek for it within.

It then vanishes.

This is the pursuit of wisdom.

When the mind unceasingly investigates its own nature,

It transpires that there is no such thing as mind.

Who's saying there is no mind?

Mind is saying.

Mind only figures out there is no mind.

Because awareness does not speak.

Don't think my awareness is saying this.

You can come up with your theories.

No.

Now awareness says I am that.

Who's saying it?

Mind and in the previous paragraph,

Who really whose activity is mind activity is egos.

Very very clear.

What part of this mind accepts?

If ego is resistant.

So for acceptance,

What is the part of the mind which is which realizes there is no mind?

There are different parts of the mind,

Different voices inside you.

Don't think that it's just one voice.

The intellect is getting sharpened with all this knowledge.

The intellect is saying,

Yes,

This makes complete sense.

But then the ego still has its old beliefs and then those come back.

The thought holds on.

There is identification with the old belief.

The intellect is holding on to this new understanding.

And there is this inner tussle between the ego and the intellect happening in you.

You're noticing this?

Yeah,

The ego does not want to let go of the old belief.

It's I'm still that.

I'm still the soul.

I'm there.

I'm not the ego.

Listen to me.

I am that.

Yeah,

You're saying this and intellect is saying that's not my experience.

Don't go away.

So your ego is the old program and the intellect is the deprogramming.

The new programing.

Yes,

Very good.

It gives you good words.

Is the soul like the nickel translation of the English word ego?

Yeah,

Yeah.

The soul.

The soul is also ego here.

Even your English word ego is the ego.

Anything that has identification.

I that which identifies.

Is identification a big word?

Give another word.

Association.

Association.

Everything is ego.

Anything where there is identification.

Tadatma,

Association,

Attachment.

I,

Mine,

Myself is ego.

Yes,

He's so sad.

Everything is ego that means.

Yes,

Everything is ego.

Wake up.

Wake up.

Everything is ego.

All your thoughts are ego.

There is zero thought that would arise that would not be ego.

Thought equals to ego.

He said no in the previous.

Let's read that sentence again.

The ego therefore exhibits thought activity.

Are you getting that?

So if there is thought it is from ego.

It's that simple.

Who's not accepting?

Ego.

It's so simple.

It's so easy to just let go.

Drop.

Drop the resistance.

You want peace also.

You want noise also.

Both are not going to exist together.

You have to choose one over the other and then if you've chosen noise now be happy with stress.

Yay,

I'm stressful.

I'm going to the psychiatrist.

I just spent $5,

000.

Yay.

Be happy with that because you have chosen noise.

You have chosen ego.

You cannot say I'll keep my ego also and I want peace also.

Illy.

Not this lifetime.

Next.

So noise equals ego.

Correct.

Who am I that I is ego or that I is awareness?

It is ego no?

Till the time there is words.

Who posed the question?

The mind said it.

The I said who am I and then you turned in.

That's where the ego has dropped and there is just that investigation happening.

Investigation.

You're looking with a torch light in the darkness and then there is that collapse because you cannot find an answer.

Have you realized that?

Why the collapse happened?

There's no answer.

You can't.

You're like almost breathless.

You're out of a logical answer.

That's where that collapse happens.

The awareness is there and it comes back.

Yes,

I'm aware.

There is no I.

So then we pose a question.

Who am I?

What is the answer?

What is the answer?

There is no I.

That is the answer.

This question myself confusing.

You're looking for something that doesn't exist.

Good.

No,

Because you feel that it exists.

Yeah,

You want I to exist and who in you does not want to say there is no I?

The I only wants to say,

No,

I am there.

Okay,

You be happy.

Okay,

I'm there.

I'm changing a hat.

That's it.

I'm there.

But really it's only a false continuity of thoughts.

We discussed yesterday.

It's just false continuity.

Yeah,

That one thought after another thought after another thought that I keep identifying saying I,

Mine,

Myself,

I,

Mine,

Myself.

That makes me feel that it is a continuous single I.

But there is no continuous single I.

This is this false identification.

It's such a relief when you are on this side.

So come come on this side.

It's pretty lonely here.

Yeah,

Drop,

Let go of that I and just be in that peace.

It's real relaxation is.

So when you say,

So when is the joy that it's only peace or is it joy and peace and is a wrong understanding that is this ecstatic happiness.

Some great joy are going to be shimmering with some yellow light or some things in your body.

Nothing like that happens.

It's an absolute peace.

Yeah,

The joy of being in continuous peace unshakable peace that even when this awareness flows out and becomes activity of the mind,

The peace is not shaken.

The joy of unshakable peace is Ananda.

There's a different kind of joy.

It's a very high kind of joy.

Yeah,

The joy of unshakable peace.

And there is a higher definition that I will teach you after we get to stage three.

Yeah,

But at stage two,

This is your definition of Ananda and this taste itself is great enough.

The absence of sorrow.

Yes,

It's absence of pleasure also.

Unshakable ego also is.

Unshakable ego.

There is no ego there.

The moment ego comes in,

Everything starts shaking,

Shaking foundation,

Earthquake.

Ego causes the earthquake.

Everything comes breaking down.

Yeah,

There is no ego there.

There's just plain awareness.

Make that effort of getting there.

Make that effort.

You can make that effort with open eyes right now.

Yeah,

You're observing an object.

Yeah,

Awareness is observing Inka right now.

Turn towards your awareness right now.

See experience that.

Just there.

Again inside.

Just there.

Yeah.

See it only becomes mind activity goes out as a thought.

Again,

You come back.

Look at the quality of that awareness.

What is the quality?

Tell me.

What drops tell me?

Like a relief.

What drops?

All the minds activity drops.

That is the big burden.

Now do you understand when I say thought is burden?

The thought dropped for a moment and you were just there.

So what was the quality of that?

Silence peace.

Still and what is the stuff it is made of?

This is your next.

You have to keep doing it and tell me what is the stuff it is made of?

Yeah.

You have to keep looking for that.

Now we're going one step further.

Again concept somebody else's name my experience.

Are you understanding the difference between my experience and somebody else's words now?

What is the stuff made of?

You cannot use mind.

If you try to use mind,

You will never get it.

Mind is not equal to experiencing.

Intellectual understanding is equal to mind.

More what is that?

Nothing is made of.

You don't have to come up with the answer right now.

Don't put your words to it.

Let the experience come to you rather than you hankering for the experience.

It will come to you.

When you relax,

It will come to you.

The more you run after it,

Thoughts will come.

Are you saying this?

Let the experience come to you.

I've already sown the seed.

You have to tell me the stuff it is made of.

Silence.

What does the silence mean?

More,

A little more,

A little more astute experience.

Silence.

Silence.

Ah.

Ah.

Reviews

The idea of no longer experiencing pleasure can be intimidating until realizing that all pleasure coincides with pain. This is helpful to see. The pursuit of peace is more valuable than the pleasure/pain cycle.

Very beautiful. Thank you 🌺.

🙏🏾. This feels like private tutoring. And I appreciated that silent offering at the end… it helped me with the practice.