Thoughts have two basic components: a subjective factor – a
state, condition or object with which we are associated, like our own body and
mind or external circumstances like relationships, possessions or activities.
We get so deeply absorbed in the ‘object’ portion that we fail to direct our
mind inward to see our true nature apart from these external conditioning
influences. The result is that we remain ignorant about our true nature and the
pure remains obscure to us.
According to ramana Maharishi, exponent of jnana marga, Atma
vichara or self –enquiry is the method that can help us in detaching from the’object’ portion to discover the pure ‘subject’, so that we can become
liberated from all external limitations. Self-enquiry is a process of
meditation that involves constant reflection on the question, ‘Who am I?’This
repeated enquiry ultimately enables the seeker to take his
ego-consciousness(I-thought) back to the Divine’I Am’ at the core of one’s
Being where all sense of duality disappears and true knowledge arises.
The purpose of self-enquiry is to trace the root of one’s
thought back to the I-thought from which all other thoughts arise and
diverge.It is not,therefore, a case of one ‘I’ searching for another ‘I’.
The seeker engaged in Self-enquiry must-
1. First,
Distinguish between the ‘I’, pure in itself, and the “I-thought’. The latter
being merely a thought,sees subject and object, sleeps, wakes up, eats and
thinks, dies and reborn. But the pure ‘I’ is the pure Being; Eternal existence,
free from ignorance and thought-illusion.
2.Second,
I-thought or the ego functions as the knot between the self which is pure
consciousness and the physical body which is insert and insentient. The ego is
therefore called the ‘Chit-jada-granthi’-the knot between consciousness and the
inert body. In one’s investigation into the source of I-thought, the seeker is
mainly concerned with the essential ‘chit’(consciousness) aspect of the ego.
3.Third, the
universe exists on account of ego or the ‘I’-thought.If that ends there is an
end of misery also. The person who exists in sleep is also now awake. There is
happiness in sleep but misery in wakefulness. In sleep there was no ‘I’-thought,
but it is now present while one is awake. The state of happiness in sleep is
effortless. Ramana Maharishi suggests that seekers, in order to be perennially free from suffering,
should constantly endeavour to bring about that state even in the waking state.
4.Fourth,
knowledge is the light which links the subject to the object, the seer to the seen. Suppose you
go in search of a book in the library in
the pitch darkness. Can you find it without light, although you, the subject,
and the book, the object, are both present? You need light. This link between
the subject and the object in every experience is ‘chit’ or consciousness. It is
both substratum as well as the witness of the experience, the seer.
When the mind becomes
introverted through constant Self-enquiry-into the source of ego- the
‘vasanas’(deep rooted desires) become extinct. The light of the Self falls on
the ‘vasanas’ and produces the phenomenon of reflection we call the mind. Thus,
when the ‘vasanas’ become extinct the mind also disappears, being absorbed into
the light of the reality, the Self, which is beyond all conceivable divisions
of time and space, name and form, birth and death.
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