Self-Enquiry, Not An Empty Formula

Sri Ramana Maharshi

Q: But is it not funny that the ‘I’ should be searching for the ‘I’? Does not the enquiry, ‘Who am I?’ turn out in the end an empty formula? Or, am I to put the question to myself endlessly, repeating it like some mantra? 

M: Self-enquiry is certainly not an empty formula; it is more than the repetition of any mantra. If the enquiry, ‘Who am I?’ were a mere mental questioning, it would not be of much value. The very purpose of Self-enquiry is to focus the entire mind at its source. It is not, therefore, a case of one ‘I’ searching for another ‘I’. Much less is Self-enquiry an empty formula, for it involves an intense activity of the entire mind to keep it steadily poised in pure Self-awareness. Self-enquiry is the one infallible means, the only direct one, to realise the unconditioned, Absolute Being that you really are.

Q: Why should Self-enquiry alone be considered the direct means to jnana? 

M: Because every kind of sadhana except that of atma vichara presupposes the retention of the mind as the instrument for carrying on the sadhana, and without the mind it cannot be practised. The ego may take different and subtler forms at the different stages of one’s practice, but is itself never destroyed. When Janaka exclaimed, “Now I have discovered the thief who has been ruining me all along. He shall be dealt with summarily”, the King was really referring to the ego or the mind.

Q: But the thief may well be apprehended by the other sadhanas as well. 

M: The attempt to destroy the ego or the mind through sadhanas other than atma vichara, is just like the thief assuming the guise of a policeman to catch the thief, that is himself. Atma vichara alone can reveal the truth that neither the ego nor the mind really exists, and enables one to realise the pure, undifferentiated Being of the Self or the Absolute. Having realised the Self, nothing remains to be known, because it is perfect Bliss, it is the All.