Who am I?
Simplified translation of Ramana Maharshi’s seminal essay
[Note: This essay was originally written in tamil by Ramana Maharshi as responses to questions and compiled with the title ‘nān yār’ (‘Who am I’) and later made into an essay form. Existing translations retain the complex sentence structure of what’s now a bit archaic tamil, thus remaining very loyal to the original which has its own value, but makes it harder to read in English. So I have taken some liberty with the sentence structure alone to make it easier to comprehend. The ultimate comprehension of course is when all sentences and words are resolved within.]
All living beings desire to be eternally happy without a trace of misery. Also, everyone has the greatest love for oneself. And happiness alone is the cause of such love. Everyone experiences this happiness which is our very nature daily in deep sleep when thought is absent. To always abide in this happiness is possible only through realizing our true nature. For that, self-inquiry in the form of ‘who am I’ is the primary means.
Who am I? The physical body I am not. The five sense organs that experience sight, sound, smell, taste and touch I am not. The five active organs that perform speech, mobility, hold, excretion and copulation I am not. The five vital airs of breath I am not. The thinking mind I am not. The ignorance that holds the seed of all desires as in deep sleep I am not.
That which negates all the above as not I — the pure awareness alone am I. The nature of pure awareness is to simply be, conscious and blissful.
The mind is the cause for all phenomena and all activities. If the mind subsides, perception of the world is removed. Unless projection of an imaginary snake on a rope goes, the underlying rope will not be seen. Similarly unless the projection of the illusory world vanishes, the realization of our underlying nature as pure awareness will not arise.
Mind is an extraordinary power inherent in our true nature that is pure awareness. It creates all thoughts. If all thoughts are removed and looked into, there is no separate entity called the mind. So thought is the true nature of mind. Other than thoughts, there is no such separate thing as the world. In sleep, there are no thoughts and there is no world either. In waking and dream, there are thoughts and there is the world too. Just as a spider spins out of itself a web and draws it back into itself, mind projects the world from itself and dissolves it back within. When the mind comes out from pure Awareness, the world appears. Therefore when the world appears, our true nature does not shine. When our true nature as Awareness shines forth, the world does not appear. By inquiring into the nature of the mind constantly, our true Self is seen in the end as the mind. Our true Self is pure Awareness. The mind lives on only by attaching itself to a gross body. It does not stand alone. Mind alone is known as the subtle body or the soul.
What rises as I in this body is alone the mind. If one inquires as to where the I-thought first appears in the body, it will be known to be the heart. That is the birthplace of the mind. Simply thinking ‘I-I’ will itself lead us there. Of all the thoughts appearing in the mind, the I-thought alone is the first thought. Only after this arises, do other thoughts arise. Only after the first person appears, do second and third persons appear. Without the first person, there are no second and third persons.
Only by the inquiry ‘who am I’ will the mind dissolve. The inquiry ‘who am I’ will destroy all other thoughts and itself extinguish like the stick used to stir a funeral pyre. If other thoughts arise, instead of trying to complete them, one ought to inquire to whom they have occurred. What matters if any number of thoughts rise? With vigilance as soon as each thought arises, if one inquires to whom it has occurred, it will be known: to me. If one inquires ‘who am I’, the mind will return to its source. The thought that had risen will also dissolve. By alertly inquiring in this manner, the mind increases its strength to abide in its source. The subtle mind expressing itself through the brain and the senses appears as gross name and forms. When it remains in the Heart, the names and forms disappear. To not let the mind go out and retain it in the Heart is introversion. Letting it go out is extroversion. With the mind thus abiding in the Heart, the ego ‘I’ which is the root of all thoughts will vanish and the true Self of being alone will shine. The space where even a trace of I-thought does not exist is our real nature. It is called silence. To thus simply be is alone called wisdom. It is to make the mind abide in its real nature. Knowing others’ opinions, past, present and future, events in distant places etc do not comprise wisdom.
What exists in reality is only true nature as Pure Awareness. The world, individual soul, and God are illusory appearances in it like the silver in shell. These three appear and disappear simultaneously. Our true nature as Awareness alone appears as the world, I and God. All are of the nature of Shiva, the Infinite Being.
For the mind to be still, there are no adequate means other than self-inquiry. If made to be still by other means, the mind remaining as if still, will rise up again. By prāṇāyāma, the mind will become still only so long as prāṇa (breath) remains subsided and once prāṇa re-emerges, the mind will also sprout up and wander about under the sway of its tendencies. The birthplace for both mind and breath is one. Thought alone is the nature of mind. I-thought is the first thought of the mind. It is only the ego. From where the ego rises, the breath also rises. Therefore when the mind is still, breath also quietens and when breath quietens, the mind is still. The gross form of the mind is breath. Until the time of death, the mind keeps breath in the body and when the body dies, the mind goes taking breath with it. Therefore prāṇāyāma is only an aid to temporarily subside the mind but not bring about its total stillness.
Just like prāṇāyāma, meditation upon a form of God, repetition of mantras and diet regulations are also only aids in keeping the mind restrained. Through meditation on form and repetition of mantras, the mind attains one-pointedness. Just as a constantly swaying elephant, when given a chain to hold onto with its trunk, goes about grasping only the chain, similarly the ever chattering mind, if habituated with any one name or form, will hold onto that alone. When the mind spreads out as endless thoughts, each thought becomes very weak. When thoughts subside, mind attains one-pointedness and thereby gaining strength, can easily perfect self-inquiry. The best among regulations is moderate sattvic food that increases the sattvic nature of the mind and becomes helpful for self-inquiry.
Though desires coming from time immemorial seem to rise endlessly like ocean waves, they shall be all destroyed as Self abidance deepens. Without giving room to the doubting thought as to whether it is possible to abide simply as the Self with all desires removed, one must incessantly cling to Self abidance. However great a sinner one may be, instead of lamenting and weeping, ‘I am a sinner! How am I going to be saved?’, if one completely rejects the thought that I am a sinner and is steadfast in Self abidance, one will certainly be transformed.
As long as desires exist within the mind, so long is the inquiry ‘who am I’ necessary. As and when thoughts appear, then and there it is necessary to annihilate them all through inquiry in the very place from which they arise. Not attending to anything external is vairāgya [detachment] or desirelessness; not leaving oneself is jñāna [true awareness]. In truth , both are the same. Just as pearl-divers, tying stones to their waists and sinking, pick up pearls from the bottom of the ocean, so each one, sinking deep within oneself with vairāgya may obtain the pearl of one’s true Self. If one clings fast to uninterrupted Self attentiveness until one realizes one’s true nature, that alone is sufficient. So long as enemies [desires] are within the fort [heart], they will be continuously coming out from it. If one is continuously slaying all of them as and when they come, the fort will be captured.
God and Guru are in truth non-different. Just as one caught in a tiger’s jaws will not return, those caught in the Guru’s look of Grace will be certainly saved by him and never forsaken. Still it is essential to walk unfailingly in the way shown by the Guru.
To not give even the slightest room for any thought other than Self inquiry and to abide ever in the Self is alone surrender to God. However much burden is placed on God, he bears it entirely. Since one supreme divine power drives all activities, instead of surrendering to it, why constantly think, “It has to be done this way or that way”? Though we know that the train will move bearing all the load, instead of dropping our luggage happily upon boarding the train, why should we bear it on our head and suffer?
Happiness is one’s own true nature. Happiness and the true nature of our Self are non-different. And happiness of our own Self is the only true happiness. Not in any single object of the world is there any happiness. We imagine that happiness is obtained from them because of our ignorance. When the mind is externalized, it experiences suffering. In truth, whenever our desires are fulfilled, the mind turns back to its source and experiences only the happiness of the Self. Likewise during times of deep sleep, samādhi and swoon, and when any object of desire is attained or when any object of dislike is removed, the mind becomes inward turned and experiences only the bliss of the Self. Thus the mind wanders restlessly between leaving our Self to go outwardly and turning back inward. The shade at the foot of a tree is very pleasant. The heat of the sun outside is harsh. One who roams outside gets cooled down by going into the shade. A short while later, going out and unable to withstand the severity of the heat, again he returns to the shade of the tree. Thus he keeps moving from the shade into the heat and from the heat back into the shade. Doing so is ignorant. But the wise one does not leave the shade. Likewise the mind of the jnani does not leave Brahman. But the mind of the ignorant keeps experiencing suffering by engaging in the world and for a short while obtains happiness by turning back to Brahman. The world is only thought. When free of thought, the world disappears and mind experiences bliss. When the world appears, it experiences suffering.
Without desire, resolve or effort, the sun rises. And in its mere presence, the sun-stone emits fire, lotus blooms, water evaporates and people of the world engage in their respective activities and finish them. Just as the needle moves in the presence of a magnet, similarly by the mere presence of God, the souls subject to the the five fold functions (creation, sustenance, dissolution, concealment and grace) perform their actions and rest according to their respective karma. Nevertheless God is free of any will or volition, so remains totally unaffected by any karma. This is just as the world activities not affecting the sun or the qualities and defects of the other four elements [earth, water, fire and air] not affecting the all pervading space.
Since every text says that the mind has to be quietened to attain liberation, after knowing that stilling the mind alone is the conclusion of all texts, there is no use in studying texts endlessly. To quieten the mind, it is necessary to inquire who am I. How can one inquire this through texts? One has to realize oneself through one’s own eye of wisdom. Does a man named Ram need a mirror to know himself as Ram? One’s true Self is within the five sheaths of the body, while the texts are outside them. Therefore it is useless to inquire in texts that which has to be inquired within by negating the five sheaths. Inquiring into who is in bondage and realizing one’s essential true nature is alone liberation. To keep the mind in one’s true Self every moment is alone called self-inquiry, while meditation is to feel one to be the absolute reality of truth, consciousness and bliss. At one point, it will become necessary to forget all that one has learned.
Just as one who needs to sweep and throw away trash gains nothing by examining it, one who needs to know oneself gains nothing by analyzing the various concepts concealing oneself, counting them and looking into their qualities instead of rejecting them all. It is necessary to see the entire universe as a dream.
Waking is long and dream is short, there is no other difference. Just as the activities that happen in waking seem to be real, even the activities that happen in dream seem at that time to be real. In dream the mind takes on another subtle body. In both waking and dream, thoughts, names and forms occur in the same manner.
There are not two minds, a good mind and a bad mind. Mind is only one. Only vāsanās [impulses] are of two kinds, good and bad. The mind is said to be good when under the sway of good vāsanās and bad when under the sway of bad vāsanās. However bad others may appear to be, disliking them is not correct. Likes and dislikes are both to be spurned. It is not good to let the mind dwell excessively on worldly matters. To the extent possible, it is good to not intrude in others’ affairs. All that one gives to others, one gives only to oneself. If one knew this truth, who indeed would refrain from giving?
If the ego rises , everything rises; if the ego subsides, everything subsides. To the extent that we act humbly, it is good. By keeping the mind subdued, one can be wherever one may be.