chit-jada-granthi

Sri Ramana Maharshi

• The ego functions as the knot between the Self which is pure Consciousness and the physical body which is inert and insentient. The ego is therefore called the chit-jada-granthi. In your investigation into the Source of aham-vritti, you take the essential chit aspect of the ego; and for this reason the enquiry must lead to the realization of the pure Consciousness of the Self.
• The undifferentiated Consciousness of pure Being is the heart or hridayam which you really are, as signified by the word itself (hrit + ayam - Heart am I). From the Heart arises the I AMness as the primary datum of one's experience. By itself is shuddha-sattva in character. It is in this shuddha-sattva svarupa (that is uncontaminated by rajas and tamas) that the 'I' appears to subsist in the jnani.
• Knowledge does not exist without ignorance; ignorance does not exist without knowledge. That knowledge alone is true knowledge, wherein one knows the Self through enquiry to whom knowledge and ignorance pertain. Is it not, rather, ignorance to know all else without knowing oneself, the knower? On knowing oneself, the substratum of knowledge and ignorance, knowledge and ignorance perish.

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From Thus Spake Ramana