Tracking the Ego To its Source

May 24, 2004, 12.44am IST
A R Natarajan.

The vision of the self and awareness of it as the abidance in the heart - where the unbroken awareness of one's existence can be felt spontaneously as the 'I-I' - has been described by Ramana Maharshi.


What obstructs one's awareness of the fullness of existence is the ego - the mind's wrong identification with a particular body, mistaking it to be the 'I' or the subject. Hence the destruction of ego, or its merging with the source, the only way to experience the joyous and uninterrupted throb of 'I-I'.

Like the diver diving deep, searching for pearls on the ocean floor, Ramana says we have to explore within, with keen intellect as one would do to recover a thing that has fallen into a deep well.


"The ego falls, crestfallen,/ when one searches and/ enters the Heart/ Then another 'I-I', throbs/ Unceasingly, by itself,/ It is not the ego but the self/ Itself, the whole."

This absorption of the mind in its source - or its subsistence in it - is as natural as it is for a salt doll placed in the ocean to be absorbed into it. This is because the essence of both the salt doll and the ocean is saline.

Similarly, the core of the mind, too, is only consciousness; it is the false notion resulting in its identification with a particular body that has caused the limitation.


If one searches for the source of the mind with vigilance and diligence, this false notion drops off. This happens gradually as the mind comes closer to its source. What constitutes self- enquiry? Ramana's first disciple Gambhiram Seshier asked: What is meant by saying that one should enquire into one's true nature and understand it?

Ramana replied that experi-ences such as, 'I went, I came, I was, I did', come naturally to everyone. Does it not appear, then, that the consciousness 'I' is the subject of those various acts?
Enquiry into the true nature of that consciousness and remaining as oneself is the way to understand, through enquiry, one's true nature.


'I'-consciousness cannot be the body or the mind because both are different or non-existent as in dream and deep sleep respectively. Once this false notion is negated, one is off the mental movement.


Only this search for the source of the mind can end its restlessness. The object-oriented world in which it is now caught up can never give peace to a mind because "there is no place like home".


Ramana points out that just as raindrops risen from the sea cannot rest until they reach the ocean (home) or as a bird must return to its 'earthly perch' at night... the mind "may through various ways, self-chosen wander aimlessly for a while, but cannot rest till it rejoins you Arunachala, the source."


Ramana's emphasis is on the unitary nature of the mind in contrast to its present divisive state, always thinking in terms of the opposites - good and bad, ignorance and knowledge, rich and poor.


Self enquiry is the search for the source of the mind by the mind. In Arunachala Pancharatnam he says: "If one enters within, enquiring, 'Wherefrom does this 'I' arise?' he dissolves in his own true nature and merges in you, Arunachala, as a river in the ocean."
( Talk delivered at the Interfaith funded meditation programme, Foundation for Universal Responsibility of HH the Dalai Lama, Apr 1-June 3. The writer is founder-president, Ramana Maharshi Centre for Learning. E-mail maharshi@ bgl.vsnl.net.in )