Go On With Your Enquiry!

Sri Ramana Maharshi

Q: Isn't the Guru's Grace necessary for one's progress in vichara (enquiry)?

Yes. But the vichara that you are making is itself the Guru's grace or God's grace.

Q: I request you to bless me with your Grace.

The Maharshi remains silent for a while, showing his very silent presence in perpetual (i.e., sahaja) samadhi, is an ever present help, which it is for the thirsty questioner to quaff and quench his spiritual thirst with. Then he said: Go on with your enquiry.

Q: How? I don't know how to proceed.

Who doesn't know? You say 'I' and yet you say you don't know 'I'. Can anyone be ignorant of himself? Isn't that ludicrously impossible? If there were something else to be attained or known, then you might feel difficulty in attaining or knowing it. But in the case of the ever present, inescapable 'I', how can you be ignorant? You have constantly to fight out and get rid of your false notion of 'I'. Do that.

Q: In doing so isn't a Guru's help necessary and useful? 

Yes, to start you on the inquiry. But you must yourself pursue your enquiry.

Q: To what extent can I rely on the Guru's Grace in this? Up to what point is the enquiry itself to be carried on?

You must carry on this demolition of wrong idea by enquiry, till your last wrong notion is demolished - till the Self is realized.