How to practice continuous self-enquiry? || Acharya Prashant, on Ramana Maharshi (2018) 

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If you can honestly examine your life, that is the deepest form of spiritual enquiry. ~Acharya ji.

Spirituality is not adding up something to your life It is about giving up the nonsense -Acharya

Spirituality is not about ignoring your daily life, spirituality is about inquiry into your daily life. ~ Acharya Prashant

Truth is not for those who seeks security in conclusions. Truth is for the ever vigilant. Truth is for those who are available to the total because they are not occupied with anything. ~Acharya ji.

*Self-enquiry - practice* Beginners in self-enquiry were advised by Sri Ramana to put their attention on the inner feeling of ‘I’ and to hold that feeling as long as possible. They would be told that if their attention was distracted by other thoughts they should revert to awareness of the ‘I’-thought whenever they became aware that their attention had wandered. He suggested various aids to assist this process - one could ask oneself ‘Who am I?’ or ‘Where does this I come from?’ - but the ultimate aim was to be continuously aware of the ‘I’ which assumes that it is responsible for all the activities of the body and the mind. In the early stages of practice attention to the feeling ‘I’ is a mental activity which takes the form of a thought or a perception. As the practice develops the thought ‘I’ gives way to a subjectively experienced feeling of ‘I’, and when this feeling ceases to connect and identify with thoughts and objects it completely vanishes. What remains is an experience of being in which the sense of individuality has temporarily ceased to operate. The experience may be intermittent at first but with repeated practice it becomes easier and easier to reach and maintain. When self-enquiry reaches this level there is an effortless awareness of being in which individual effort is no longer possible since the ‘I’ who makes the effort has temporarily ceased to exist. It is not Self-realization since the ‘I’-thought periodically reasserts itself but it is the highest level of practice. Repeated experience of this state of being weakens and destroys the vasanas (mental tendencies) which cause the ‘I’-thought to rise, and, when their hold has been sufficiently weakened, the power of the Self destroys the residual tendencies so completely that the ‘I’-thought never rises again. This is the final and irreversible state of Self-realization. This practice of self-attention or awareness of the ‘I’-thought is a gentle technique which bypasses the usual repressive methods of controlling the mind. It is not an exercise in concentration, nor does it aim at suppressing thoughts; it merely invokes awareness of the source from which the mind springs. The method and goal of self- enquiry is to abide in the source of the mind and to be aware of what one really is by withdrawing attention and interest from what one is not. In the early stages effort in the form of transferring attention from the thoughts to the thinker is essential, but once awareness of the ‘I’-feeling has been firmly established, further effort is counter- productive. From then on it is more a process of being than doing, of effortless being rather than an effort to be. Being what one already is is effortless since beingness is always present and always experienced. On the other hand, pretending to be what one is not (i.e. The body and the mind) requires continuous mental effort, even though the effort is nearly always at a subconscious level. It therefore follows that in the higher stages of self-enquiry effort takes attention away from the experience of being while the cessation of mental effort reveals it. Ultimately, the Self is not discovered as a result of doing anything, but only by being. As Sri Ramana himself once remarked: ‘Do not meditate - be! Do not think that you are - be! Don’t think about being - you are!’ Self-enquiry should not be regarded as a meditation practice that takes place at certain hours and in certain positions; it should continue throughout one’s waking hours, irrespective of what one is doing. Sri Ramana saw no conflict between working and self-enquiry and he maintained that with a little practice it could be done under any circumstances. He did sometimes say that regular periods of formal practice were good for beginners, but he never advocated long periods of sitting meditation and he always showed his disapproval when any of his devotees expressed a desire to give up their mundane activities in favour of a meditative life. Q: You say one can realize the Self by a search for it. What is the character of this search? A: You are the mind or think that you are the mind. The mind is nothing but thoughts. Now behind every particular thought there is a general thought which is the ‘I’, that is yourself. Let us call this ‘I’ the first thought. Stick to this ‘I’-thought and question it to find out what it is. When this question takes strong hold on you, you cannot think of other thoughts.

Do not ask for doing nothing. See, whether being something has benefitted you. As long as you are something, you can do nothing. Doing nothing is possible only with being nothing. See, whether you are necessary. ~Acharya ji.

How lucky am I?...Infinite!!! Thank you Acharya ji

I am nothing but I am everything I am maya but I am not

Thank you very much Acharya Ji 🙏 ❣️

🙏🙏pranam Acharyaji🙏🙏 🌼🌺🌼🌺🌼🌼🌼🌺🌼

Even one thing in your life, one thought, one idea, one relationship that you cannot do away with, then your search cannot even begin. ~Acharya Prashant Ji.

प्रणाम आचार्य जी

Thanks!

I am curious and I am sure many others are too. The core philosophy of Advaita Vedanta is experiencing Brahman. Most likely through self-enquiry by direct method. Not sure how long the other method "devotion" works or not. The late Ramana Maharishi was a big proponent of self-enquiry and so is the Ramakrishna Order, the four Adi Shankaracharya maths etc. How many people have experienced Brahman via direct method? How long is the average training of self-enquiry to experience Brahman take? These are fundamental questions. I hope the experts here can answer it. Perhaps the experts can find out and reply here? I posed the same question to the ashram folks but did not hear back.

Doing nothing is about the action in absence of the actor. Doing nothing is the words in the absence of speaker. Doing nothing is about the thoughts without the thinker. Who is the doer, speaker, thinker. You are the doer, speaker, thinker. See whether you are necessary. ❤

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The secret of universe ::::The secret of universe is nothing but the imagination of our consciousness.Without consciousness no universe at all. Our consciousness lies everything.Our consciousness having no limitation,but our body is having limitations,our body lies in our consciousness, in the absence of consciousness we have no physical body at all. We can identify our body only through our consciousness.Consciousness is not a material thing it is only the reflection of the cosmic consciousness in our brain.You are really in the cosmic consciousness. Before the birth you were the consciousness in the foetus,brain is the oldest organ designed only to reflect the consciousness.Then the consciousness dictate every thing for your further body components.After death consciousness remains as same.Consciousness can be identified only through consciousness itself no other option.So the eternal truth is consciousness.The medium for identifying the universe is nothing but the imaginations of our consciousness.Imagination is the only the only character of consciousness.Desire of birth is the only imagination of consciousness and the subsequent body e.t.c.are only it's imaginations.One can identify his consciousness by the following simple steps ,man having thinking capacity includes thoughtless capacity.So close your eyes and stop your thoughts,by practicing the same with in a few days one can attain thoughtless point easily,there you can experience your consciousness in your consciousness itself,the experience is your consciousness,the alone factor which is the generator,organisor and destroyer of the universe only through imaginations.By experiencing and realising the ultimate truth after death you can remains as pure consciousness without the imaginary birth and death,ie. the situation of pure consciousness,without generation,organisation and destruction of the universe by imagination.The state of consciousness without generation ,organisation and destruction is the full form of god Thank you.

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