Who Am I?

Transcript

I wanted to talk to you a little about the process of self inquiry set up by the Maharishi Ramana and I don’t claim to be an expert on this or his teaching so I guess you have to take what I say with a grain of salt.

As always I am an authority on my own experience with practicing these techniques. And I’ve been practicing these techniques the past few days, it’s like always trying to observe the I thought.

As I notice this the thought of I or my own identity as I’m aware of it, a memory might surge up in my mind and I’m like “That’s very interesting because I notice that the memories are always somehow linked to my identity.

In fact there are a lot of thoughts you can think, especially in certain states of mind, there aren’t a lot of thoughts that you think that aren’t in some way linked to your own identity.

And of course our own experience as we’re going through it, we do also experience that thought of identity.

This has something to do with me, what I am experiencing is somehow related to me.

I was processing as if it has something to do with me.

What happens sometimes when I’m observing my memories, they pop up and even if it’s an uncomfortable memory or a cringe memory like I’ve been talking about.

I notice there’s the memory, there’s this cringe and I’m associating both with me as if this is somehow my core being.

And what I’d say is, it’s not. It’s not my core being. It’s something that happened to me, an experience, but it’s not directly linked to my core being.

And I guess one has to be careful with this because if I make that statement, this is a memory or an experience and it doesn’t really have anything to do with the core of me.

I think that can be subject to misinterpretation because if I take that as gospel or take that to heart I might say “Ok that’s something that happened and I don’t really have any responsibility relating to that memory.”

Or when someone comes to me with some grievance and they say “Well, you did this.”

And I could say “Oh, that wasn’t me you know. That wasn’t the core of my being. That was just an experience of something that happened in the past now, not directly related to my essence.”

Which would be a way of evading one’s karmic responsibilities and this kind of thing.

It’s kind of mental, karmic, spiritual gymnastics, the kind of spiritual bypassing. I think that’s something to be careful with. Also the risk that you might dissassociate with yourself.

In a sense you are trying to disassociate because you’re trying to notice what is the core identity, what sees, who am I?”

That’s the core of the process but you don’t have to deny that things have happened that on some level, on an earthly level you are a part of these things.

But we are trying to get to the bottom, to explore what is this core of our being.

That’s the purpose of self inquiry.

So ask this question, who am I?

I found this very interesting description of this meditation on the Ramm Dass website.

I wanted to read this out for you, it’s this little article titled The Practice of Self Inquiry, who am I?

“Ramana Maharshi said, “Look, it’s all very simple, everybody,” and then for 40 or 45 years all he did was go around telling everyone how simple it was. He said that all you keep doing is self inquiry, Vichara Atma – “Who am I?” You keep saying this, “Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?”
Here is an exercise you can go through:
You sit down quietly and you say, “Who am I?” and then the way I do it is I put the “I,” the thought of the “I” right in the middle of my head, right here, and I say, “I am not this body.”

Then I experience my body as object to the “I” in the middle of my head. I see it. I feel it. I sense it as an object.

Then I say, “I am not my five organs of action,” and then I experience my arms as objects, my legs as objects, my tongue as an object, my anal sphincter as object, and my genitals as objects.

Each of them are experienced as “that” and here “I” am in the middle of my head. Then I say, “I am not my senses.”

Now, you have been in a room where there is a clock ticking and you start to read something, and you get so turned on by what you’re reading, you don’t hear the clock tick.

Everybody is in that situation, and when you finish reading, then the clock is ticking again.

Now actually, all the time you were there, the clock was ticking, your ear was hearing the clock tick, but you weren’t attending to your ear hearing the clock tick.

It was involuntary. In other words, there is a place between the three and the two. There’s a place between your attention and your ear hearing the clock tick, so what you do is you don’t turn off, but you observe your hearing, like when I’m talking, watch your ear hearing me talk.

Watch your eyes seeing, watch your nose smelling; note your mouth tasting; note your skin feeling. Do it all from a place right in the middle, the “I” thought.

Then “I” am not my five internal organs, and you go through digestion, erection, excretion, respiration, perspiration, and circulation, and then you’re ready for the clincher, the exquisite one.

You got all that? You’re finished with your body; now where are you? You’re in the middle of this “I” thought, in the middle of the head that you own, and you say, “I am not this thought.”

So then it becomes “Well, where am I?”… “I am here; I am here.” Any thought you can think of, you’re not that one.

If you can do that, and it takes quite a while, I mean really, a long time, you come to a place where you go behind your senses, and behind your thinking mind.

When you are able to do that, you go through a doorway and you enter into what in Zen is called Satori, in Hindu is called Samadhi, and the beginning of what is known as Satchitananda.

When you have gone through these stages within that, you come to a place where you are synonymous with that very fine energy, that is an identity with consciousness.

Now you’ve got to understand that the identity, that energy, that very, very, fine energy, is an identity with consciousness – that the universe is consciousness; it is not self-consciousness, but it is consciousness.

Now what an intriguing practice.

I did go through this meditation following the instructions of Ramm Dass this morning in my morning meditation and I don’t know how to describe what happened after I went through those steps except to say it was glorious.

So it’s interesting you go through and you’re looking at each of your senses observing from within your head and within your consciousness rather than your consciousness projected outwards.

SO if I hear a bird chirping I can notice it from out but I can also notice it within, experience it within and as Ramm Dass talks about notice the space between consciousness and awareness or consciousness and the sense.

Through that trying to gain this, this perspective. I don’t know what more to say about that other than why not try this? Why not try self inquiry?

Try noticing the I thought and try experiencing that meditation to find yourself finally being alone with the I thought and letting it go to see what else exists.

Thank you so much for listening, thank you for trying out a new meditation and exploring your mind and exploring inner space to find something that may be wonderful that is working within there.

Thank you for having a great day, I’ll talk to you soon.