CHANGING OUR IMPRESSION ABOUT WHO WE ARE

 

 

First, we should investigate if we are the: body, mind, thoughts, emotions, feelings, past life roles, or anything that we could perceive ourselves to be.

We can’t be the perceived, we are that which perceives.

Once we understand that we can’t be any of these, we realize that we don’t know who we are.

We are not the person that we created for ourselves, and we should watch our person and all the situations from a neutral position.

 

There are two ways to get our attention towards what we really are, suggested by Sri Ramana Maharaj, and by Nisargadatta Maharaj.

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi advised asking the question : “Who am I?”, for which there is no answer that could be expressed in words.

This question will silence the mind, and will turn it toward it’s source.

 

 “You have to ask yourself the question ‘Who am I?” This investigation will lead in the end to the discovery of something within you which is behind the mind.”

Sri Ramana Maharshi

 

This question will end the questioner, the ego, the mind.

It is not possible to find our true eternal, infinite Self, and to look at it from the position of the mind, because we are always looking from the position of our true Self.

 

“The one you are looking for is the One who is looking.”

St. Francis of Assisi

 

Nisargadatta Maharaj advised to focus all our attention to the feeling “I am”, the only fact that we know for sure.

 

“My Guru ordered me to attend to the sense ‘I am’ and to give attention to nothing else.

I just obeyed. I did not follow any particular course of breathing, or meditation, or study of scriptures.

Whatever happened, I would turn away my attention from it and remain with the sense ‘I am’.”

Nisargadatta Maharaj

 

The ultimate reality can’t be described in words, so all these are just pointers :

 

“As you watch your mind, you discover your self as the watcher. When you stand motionless, only watching , you discover your self as the light behind the watcher. The source of light is dark, unknown it is the source of knowledge. That source alone is. Go back to that source and abide there.

Nisargadatta Maharaj, “I Am That”