Trace the I AM

Sri Ramana Maharshi

• All religions postulate the three fundamentals - the world, the soul and God. The one Reality alone manifests Itself as the three. One can say 'The three are indeed three' only while the ego lasts. Therefore to inhere in one's own Being, where the I, the ego, is dead, is the perfect state.
• Self-enquiry by following the clue of ahamvritti is just like the dog tracing its master by his scent. The master may be at some distant, unknown place, but that does not at all stand in the way of the dog tracing him. The master's scent is an infallible clue for the animal, and nothing else, such as the dress he wears, or his build and stature etc. counts. To that scent the dog holds on undistractedly while searching for him, and finally it succeeds in tracing him.
• The word aham is itself very suggesting. The two letters of the word show that it comprises all. How? Because aham signifies existence itself. Although the concept of I-ness or I amness is by usage known as ahamvritti, it is not really a vritti like other vrittis of the mind. Because unlike the other vrittis which have no essential interrelation the ahamvritti is equally and essentially related to each and every vritti of the mind. Without the ahamvritti there can be no other vritti but the ahamvritti can subsist by itself without depending on any other vritti of the mind. The ahamvritti is therefore fundamentally different from other vrittis.

From Thus Spake Ramana