"The very first step in understanding what this is all about is giving up the concept of an active, volitional 'I' as a separate entity and accepting the passive role of perceiving and functioning as a process." - Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Monday, April 4, 2011

Importance of "I am" search

Sri Ramana Maharshi

Although the concept of "I" ness or "I am" ness is by usage known as aham-vritti, it is not really a vritti like the other vrittis of the mind. Because unlike the other vrittis, which have no essential interrelation, the aham-vritti is equally and essentially related to each and every vritti of the mind. Without the aham-vritti there can be no other vritti, but the aham-vritti can subsist by itself without depending on any other vritti of the mind. The aham-vritti is therefore fundamentally different from other vrittis.

So, the search for the source of the aham-vritti is the search not merely for the basis for one of the forms of the ego, but for the very source itself from which arises the "I-am"-ness. In other words, the quest for and the realization of the Source of the ego in the form of aham-vritti necessarily implies the transcendence of the ego in every one of its possible forms.

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Note: vritti refers to "thought".

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सर्वभूताधिवासं यद्भूतेषु च वसत्यपि।
सर्वानुग्राहकत्वेन तद्स्म्यहं वासुदेवः॥

That in whom reside all beings and who resides in all beings,
who is the giver of grace to all, the Supreme Soul of the universe, the limitless being:
I AM THAT. -- Amritabindu Upanishad