WHO AM I

Sri Ramana Maharshi

Dear All,

Let us understand the subtler meaning of the above gospel and for that, let us take clue from the horse's mouth, from an answer given by Sri Ramana Himself for a question on WHO AM I.

Q: I begin to ask myself ‘Who am I?’, eliminate the body as not ‘I’, the breath as not ‘I’, and I am not able to proceed further.

Ramana: Well, that is as far as the intellect can go. Your process is only intellectual. Indeed, all the scriptures mention the process only to guide the seeker to know the truth. The truth cannot be directly pointed at. Hence, this intellectual process.

This ‘I’ is only the ego or the ‘I’-thought. After the rising up of this ‘I’-thought, all other thoughts arise. The ‘I’-thought is therefore the root thought.

If the root is pulled out all others are at the same time uprooted. Therefore, seek the root ‘I’, question yourself ‘Who am I?’ Find the source and then all these other ideas will vanish and the pure Self will remain.

Author’s comments:

Dear All,

This who am I given by Ramana to the world is often talked about at intellectual level and is explained as I am not the body, I am not the mind, I am not the intellect, I am not the vasanas, I am not this, I am not that…. And then it is explained that the one who remains as you after elimination of all other notions about you, is pure SELF.

However, all these are merely at intellectual level. The real SELF is not the one who/ which is talked about at intellectual level or knowledge level.

Scriptures are guide posts just as the guide posts which shows “Puttaparthi” as sign posts when you drive all the wasy from Bangalore to Puttaparthi. The guideposts are the GPS now a days on our mobile.(Has the Science has made us that much dependent on technology that we have forgotten the way to FIND the answers to the puzzle of our life ourselves?)

However, when the navigator in your mobile or car says “You have reached the destination” , does it really mean that you have reached the destination? Yes, may be in physical terms, just like you talk intellectually and eliminate all other identities and say that I AM SELF.

You actually say that you have reached prashanti nilayam  when you go in, sit in the Sai Kulwant hall, close your eyes, listen to the bhajans, lose your identity totally and merge internally with the Lord.

Similarly, the real answer to WHO AM I is given in a word highlighted in Ramana’s answer, “ FIND”.

What is this FIND(ING) WHO ARE YOU ?

The finding, as explained in  the travel to Parthi example above, happens when you start eliminating all that you really are not, your body which is perishable, your mind as Swami says, is a monkey mind which can never be stable, your intellect which comes with your body and mind and leaves with them and …, in the process of this intense mediation, like the experience you got inside the SK Hall, a moment MUST come in your meditation or sadhana where, the one who asked this question WHO AM I and the one who is eliminating many things as NOT I, actually is gone and there is no more the seeker, no more questions, no more answers, no more intellect for sure.

When the meditator merges with the meditation and when the process of meditation merges with the God / SELF on which the meditation actually started, then, in that absolute merger, you do not find answer to WHO AM I but you actually exist as the REAL I!

This FINDING the real answer to WHO AM I is Discovering the real I within your heart, devoid of all objects, devoid of all external knowledge!

Hari Aum Tatsat