Tracing The Ego Back To Its Source
Anup Taneja
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Thoughts have two basic compoT nents: a subjective factor I, me or mine and an objective factor a state, condition or object with which we are associated, like our own body and mind or external circumstances like relationships, possessions or activities.We get so deeply absorbed in the `object' portion that we fail to direct our mind inward to see our true nature apart from these external conditioning influences.The result is that we remain ignorant about our true nature and the pure `I' remains obscure to us.According to Ramana Maharshi, exponent of jnana marga, Atma vichara or Self-enquiry is the method that can help us in detaching from the `object' portion to discover the pure `subject', so that we can become liberated from all external limitations. Self-enquiry is a process of meditation that involves constant reflection on the question, `Who am I?' This repeated enquiry ultimately enables the seeker to take his ego-consciousness (I-thought) back to the Divine `I Am' at the core of one's Being where all sense of duality disappears and true knowledge arises.
The purpose of Self-enquiry is to trace the root of one's thoughts back to the I-thought from which all other thoughts arise and diverge. It is not, therefore, a case of one `I' searching for another `I'. The seeker engaged in Self-enquiry must first, distinguish between the `I', pure in itself, and the `I-thought'. The latter being merely a thought, sees subject and object, sleeps, wakes up, eats and thinks, dies and is reborn. But the pure `I' is the pure Being; eternal existence, free from ignorance and thought-illusion. Second, I-thought or the ego functions as the knot between the Self which is pure consciousness and the physical body which is inert and insentient. The ego is therefore called the `Chit-jada-granthi' the knot between consciousness and the inert body. In one's investigation into the source of I-thought, the seeker is mainly concerned with the essential `chit' (consciousness) aspect of the ego.
Third, the universe exists on account of ego or the `I'-thought. If that ends there is an end of misery also. The per son who exists in sleep is also now awake. There is happiness in sleep but misery in wakeful ness. In sleep there was no `I'-thought, but it is now present while one is awake. The state of happiness in sleep is effortless.
Ramana Maharshi suggests that seekers, in order to be perennially free from suffering, should constantly endeavour to bring about that state even in the waking state. Fourth, knowledge is the light which links the subject to the object, the seer to the seen. Suppose you go in search of a book in the library in pitch darkness. Can you find it without light, although you, the subject, and the book, the object, are both present? You need light. This link between the subject and the object in every experience is `chit' or Consciousness. It is both substratum as well as the witness of the experience, the seer.
When the mind becomes introverted through constant Self-enquiry into the source of ego the `vasanas' (deeprooted desires) become extinct. The light of the Self falls on the `vasanas' and produces the phenomenon of reflection we call the mind. Thus, when the `vasanas' become extinct the mind also disappears, being absorbed into the light of the one reality , the Self, which is beyond all conceivable divisions of time and space, name and form, birth and death. (December 30, 2015 is Ramana Maharshi's 136th birth anniversary).
The purpose of Self-enquiry is to trace the root of one's thoughts back to the I-thought from which all other thoughts arise and diverge. It is not, therefore, a case of one `I' searching for another `I'. The seeker engaged in Self-enquiry must first, distinguish between the `I', pure in itself, and the `I-thought'. The latter being merely a thought, sees subject and object, sleeps, wakes up, eats and thinks, dies and is reborn. But the pure `I' is the pure Being; eternal existence, free from ignorance and thought-illusion. Second, I-thought or the ego functions as the knot between the Self which is pure consciousness and the physical body which is inert and insentient. The ego is therefore called the `Chit-jada-granthi' the knot between consciousness and the inert body. In one's investigation into the source of I-thought, the seeker is mainly concerned with the essential `chit' (consciousness) aspect of the ego.
Third, the universe exists on account of ego or the `I'-thought. If that ends there is an end of misery also. The per son who exists in sleep is also now awake. There is happiness in sleep but misery in wakeful ness. In sleep there was no `I'-thought, but it is now present while one is awake. The state of happiness in sleep is effortless.
Ramana Maharshi suggests that seekers, in order to be perennially free from suffering, should constantly endeavour to bring about that state even in the waking state. Fourth, knowledge is the light which links the subject to the object, the seer to the seen. Suppose you go in search of a book in the library in pitch darkness. Can you find it without light, although you, the subject, and the book, the object, are both present? You need light. This link between the subject and the object in every experience is `chit' or Consciousness. It is both substratum as well as the witness of the experience, the seer.
When the mind becomes introverted through constant Self-enquiry into the source of ego the `vasanas' (deeprooted desires) become extinct. The light of the Self falls on the `vasanas' and produces the phenomenon of reflection we call the mind. Thus, when the `vasanas' become extinct the mind also disappears, being absorbed into the light of the one reality , the Self, which is beyond all conceivable divisions of time and space, name and form, birth and death. (December 30, 2015 is Ramana Maharshi's 136th birth anniversary).
