Can we perform Sri Ramana Maharshi's most important question "Who am I?" with our eyes open, during "the day" ? If not, what else is there to do?

[Kasuku]

Therefore, if there is no world for you, how can you participate in the world?

See the whole thing is you are not the body. The I-thought is the "i am the body" thought which for normal people takes control over their crown, brain and the nadis making them think they are the body. Self inquiry is reversal. So when ur done and the thought goes you truly experience, "you are not the body".

So for you no one is participating in anything. Everything becomes your peace and bliss and happiness. Truly theres nothing to complain about and no more questions to be asked. All you can do is help other people to realize their own Happiness as the Self.

[Tibetan_Ice]

Kabuki,

Well, thank you for taking the time to respond. I have my opinions and am a stickler for detail. But in this case, I will reserve my comments about Ramaji and neo-advaita as perhaps the existence of such has been precipitated by the need for some people to go through that?..

[Wayfarer]

It seems that the clearer the 'Truth' is described the more a person either refutes or accepts it; there is really little room for anything else.

 

How can a person be told "there is no you" and believe it? It needs to be internalised somehow and that doesn't happen (it seems) with clear explanation; it requires either some form of questioning that forces the practitioner to contemplate the answer or a poem/riddle/parable where the meaning is hidden in the space between words; in what is not said.

 

Ultimately, all things are One. We can grasp this intellectually to a limited degree. If we think along the Oneness idea for a moment then perhaps we might ask ourselves; if there is only One, how can there be cause and effect? What is it that is reincarnated? What is talking to what? What needs more information? and so on...

 

Now in reading those questions you begin to internalise them and this works better than being given the answers, no matter how accurate they might be...and yet when the Answer is realised and Oneness experienced...would you expect to find someone knows and someone doesn't? Or someone is awake and another is deluded?

 

I recommend that any 'understanding' a person may have is tested against the idea of non-duality e.g...I believe there are people who are Awake and those who are deluded...now stop for a moment and ask yourself, does this fit with non-duality or is my thinking dualistic? If you see duality in your belief then question it, this is how we deepen our understanding. So I see something wrong in my view...there cannot be some enlightened people and some who are not as that is dualistic thinking, so I ask myself what does this mean, how can it not be 'true' - so I internalise, and Self-Enquire

 

Best of luck.

Edited October 20, 2014 by Wayfarer

[3bob]

The main point is love the rest tends to be some form of vanity and or insanity.

Edited October 21, 2014 by 3bob

[Jetsun]

Just being honest and sincere is the best place to start, how important is the question of who you are? Many years ago when I first heard of Ramana and self enquiry I would do it but there was no real intensity or sincerity in it, which is strange in itself because what is more important than finding out who you are? Yet if I was honest at the time it wasn't any sort of priority or hold much importance beyond the few minutes a week I would ask the question.

 

I realised most of us either think we know who we are with blind confidence or we don't realky care who we are, its not a vitally important question for our lives and you can't pretend its important if it isnt, you are better off investigating why it isn't important and whether our other priorities which we put all of our attention on have any real value or reality.

[Kasuku]

The whole thing is you have to have either the highest devotion, to see the Lord in all and surrender everything including your ego to the Feet of the Lord. Or you must search through inquiry what is the source of the ego. In sleep, there was Existence with no ego, now there is Existence, but "whence this ego I-thought". Firm devotion and rigorous inquiry is abidance in the Self. If you practice like this, the Sadguru showers His Grace on you. Then your soul shall forever dissolve in Brahman and you shall drink the nectar of immortality at the Lord's Feet.

 

Om Namo Bhagavate Sri Arunachala Ramanaya!