When the ego is destroyed,
the pure I, the heart, opens by itself
as the supreme fullness of being.
If you seek the ego,
you will find that it does not exist.
That is the way to destroy it.
There is no goal to be reached.
There is nothing to be attained.
You are the Self. You exist always.
As the illuminator of Being
how can Consciousness be different from it?
Consciousness exists as Being.
That consciousness exists as I. (I-I)
-- Sri Ramana Maharshi
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ENQUIRY INTO THE SELF
(In this chapter is given clearly the path of
enquiry into the Self, or 'Who Am I?')
Is not the sense of 'I' natural to all beings,
expressed in all their feelings as
'I came', 'I went', 'I did', or 'I was'?
On questioning what this is [the sense of 'I'],
we find that the *body* is identified with 'I',
because movements and similar functions pertain to the body.
Can the body then be this 'I-consciousness'?
It was not there before birth,
it is composed of the five elements,
it is absent in sleep, and
it (eventually) becomes a corpse.
No, it cannot be.
[This implies that this 'I-consciousness' *was* there
before birth, and is not composed of anything, and
is not absent in sleep, and will not die as the body does.]
This sense of 'I', which arises in the body for the time being,
is otherwise called the ego, ignorance, illusion, impurity,
or individual self.
The purpose of all scriptures is this enquiry (into the Self).
It is declared in them that the annihilation of the ego-sense
is Liberation. How then can one remain indifferent to this teaching?
Can the body, which is insentient as a piece of wood,
shine and function as 'I'? No.
Therefore, lay aside this insentient body
as though it were truly a corpse.
Do not even murmur 'I', but enquire keenly within
what it is that now shines within the heart as 'I'.
Underlying the unceasing flow of varied thoughts,
there arises the continuous, unbroken awareness,
silent and spontaneous, as 'I-I' in the Heart.
If one catches hold of it and remains still,
it will completely annihilate the sense of 'I' in the body,
and will itself disappear as a fire burning camphor.
Sages and scriptures proclaim
this to be Liberation.
The veil of ignorance can never completely hide
the individual self [or rather, the Self in the individual].
How can it? Even the ignorant do not fail to speak of the 'I'.
It only hides the Reality, 'I-am-the-Self', or 'I am pure Consciousness',
and confounds the 'I' with the body.
The Self is self-effulgent.
One need give it no mental picture, anyway.
The thought that imagines it is itself bondage, because
the Self is the Effulgence transcending darkness and light;
one should not think of it with the mind.
Such imagination will end in bondage,
whereas the Self spontaneously shines as the Absolute.
This enquiry into the Self in devotional meditation
evolves into the state of absorption of the mind into the Self
and leads to Liberation and unqualified Bliss.
The great Sages have declared that only by the help of
this devotional enquiry into the Self
can Liberation be attained.
Because the ego in the form of the 'I-thought' is the root
of the tree of illusion, its destruction fells illusion,
even as a tree is felled by the cutting of its roots.
This easy method of annihilating the ego is alone worthy
to be called bhakti (devotion), Jnana (Knowledge),
yoga (union), or dhyana (meditation).
In the 'I-am-the-body' consciousness, the three bodies (the physical,
subtle, and causal - of the waking, dream, and sleep states respectively)
composed of the five sheaths (the gross, sensory, mental, intellectual,
and blissful) are contained. If that mode of consciousness is removed
all else drops off of its own accord; all other bodies depend on it.
There is no need to eliminate them separately because the scriptures
declare that thought alone is bondage. It is their final injunction
that the best method is to surrender the mind in the form of the
'I'-thought to Him (the Self) and, keeping quite still, not forget Him.
=================================
More from Ramana:
If the mind, which is the instrument of knowledge
and is the basis of all activity, subsides,
the perception of the world as an objective reality ceases.
Unless the illusory perception of the serpent in the rope ceases,
the rope on which the illusion is formed is not perceived as such.
Even so, unless the illusory nature of the perception of the world as
an objective reality ceases, the vision of the true nature of the Self,
on which the illusion is formed, is not obtained.
By a steady and continuous investigation into the nature of the mind,
the mind is transformed into That to which the 'I' refers;
and that is verily the Self [the Source of All].
That which arises in the physical body as 'I' is the mind.
If one enquires whence the 'I'-thought in the body arises in the first instance,
it will be found that it is Hrdayam or the Heart.
That (Hrdayam or Heart) is the source and stay of the mind.
Or again, even if one merely but continuously repeats inwardly 'I-I'
with the entire mind fixed thereon, that also leads one to the same source.
If in this manner the mind becomes absorbed in the Heart,
the ego or the 'I', which is the centre of the multitude of thoughts, finally vanishes
and pure Consciousness or Self, which subsists during all the states of the mind,
alone remains resplendent.
It is this state, where there is not the slightest trace of the 'I'-thought,
that is the true Being of oneself.
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