Chapter 2 Self-awareness and Self-ignorance
Sri Ramana occasionally indicated that there were three classes of spiritual aspirants. The most advanced realise the Self as soon as they are told about its real nature. Those in the second class need to reflect on it for some time before Self-awareness becomes firmly established. Those in the third category are less fortunate since they usually need many years of intensive spiritual practice to achieve the goal of Self-realisation. Sri Ramana sometimes used a metaphor of combustion to describe the three levels: gunpowder ignites with a single spark, charcoal needs the application of heat for a short time, and wet coal needs to dry out and heat up over a long period of time before it will begin to burn.
For the benefit of those in the top two categories Sri Ramana taught that the Self alone exists and that it can be directly and consciously experienced merely by ceasing to pay attention to the wrong ideas we have about ourselves.
These wrong ideas he collectively called the ‘not-Self’ since they are an imaginary accretion of wrong notions and misperceptions which effectively veil the true experience of the real Self. The principal misperception is the idea that the Self is limited to the body and the mind. As soon as one ceases to imagine that one is an individual person, inhabiting a particular body, the whole superstructure of wrong ideas collapses and is replaced by a conscious and permanent awareness of the real Self.
At this level of the teaching there is no question of effort or practice. All that is required is an understanding that the Self is not a goal to be attained, it is merely the awareness that prevails when all the limiting ideas about the not-Self have been discarded.
Q: How can I attain Self-realisation?
A: Realisation is nothing to be gained afresh; it is already there. All that is necessary is to get rid of the thought ‘I have not realised’’.
Stillness or peace is realization. There is no moment when the Self is not. So long as there is doubt or the feeling of non-realization, the attempt should be made to rid oneself of these thoughts.
They are due to the identification of the Self with the not-Self. When the not-Self disappears, the Self alone remains.
To make room, it is enough that objects be removed. Room is not brought in from elsewhere.
Q: Since realization is not possible without vasana-kshaya [destruction of mental tendencies], how am I to realize that state in which the tendencies are effectively destroyed?
A: You are in that state now.
Q: Does it mean that by holding on to the Self, the vasanas [mental tendencies] should be destroyed as and when they emerge?
A: They will themselves be destroyed if you remain as you are.
Q: How shall I reach the Self?
A: There is no reaching the Self. If Self were to be reached, it would mean that the Self is not here and now and that it is yet to be obtained. What is got afresh will also be lost. So it will be impermanent. What is not permanent is not worth striving for. So I say the Self is not reached. You are the Self, you are already that.
The fact is, you are ignorant of your blissful state. Ignorance supervenes and draws a veil over the pure Self which is bliss. Attempts are directed only to remove this veil of ignorance which is merely wrong knowledge. The wrong knowledge is the false identification of the Self with the body and the mind. This false identification must go, and then the Self alone remains.
Therefore realization is for everyone; realization makes no difference between the aspirants.
This very doubt, whether you can realize, and the notion ‘I-have-not-realized’ are themselves the obstacles. Be free from these obstacles also.
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Self-Enquiry 