No Religion for the Self

Sri Lakshmana Swamy

What is religion? I don't know the answer to that. I don't know anything about all these religions. So many religions, all insisting that they know the truth. Hindus say that the Bhagavad Gita contains the truth, the Christians say that the truth can be found only in the Bible while the Muslims say that it is all in the Koran.

Followers of different religions are always fighting and quarreling with each other about whose religion is correct. Sometimes they even have wars because they cannot agree on what truth is. No one wants to give up their life in search of truth, which is what is required for Self-realization, but many people will happily kill someone else, just to prove that their beliefs are the only correct ones.

At the end of all religious paths there is the quest 'Who am I?'. Until that question is satisfactorily answered no one can claim what truth is or what God is. The ultimate instruction in all religions should therefore by 'Know Thyself'. When one looks for the source of the 'I' by asking the question 'Who am I?', the 'I' or the mind sinks into the Heart and experiences the bliss of the Self. When the individual 'I' dies at the end of the quest only the Self remains. That Self is not Hindu, not Christian and not Buddhist because it has no name, no form and no religion.

This path of Self-enquiry was taught by Bhagavan Sri Ramana. He knew, from his direct experience of the Self, that the 'I' must go back into the Heart and die. He also knew that self-enquiry was the only direct way to make this happen. Actually, the method is not a new one. The sage Vasishtha taught it to Rama in the Yoga Vasishtha, but most people had forgotten about this. Ramana Maharshi was only reviving a technique that had been taught and practised long ago.

How can I be a Hindu or a Christian? Is this body a Hindu? The body is inert, being composed of the five elements; it has no religious beliefs. Is the mind a Hindu? There is no mind and no individual self after Self-realization, so how can something that does not exist be a Hindu? The Self cannot be a Hindu because it is nameless and formless.

The followers of different religions quarrel about truth because they have never experienced it. Most of them don't even try to experience it; they are much happier quarreling, fighting and killing each other. The truth is actually very simple: when the individual self dies in the Heart, which is what happens of one successfully follows the quest 'Who am I?', the Self alone remains, one without a second. That Self is truth, that Self is God. What can be simpler that that? But people don't want simplicity, they want something complicated so that they can argue and fight over it.