Reflections on the HEART or REALITY
series -3
The question ‘Who actually am I?’ still remains obscure under a fog bank of doubts due to lack of sufficient experience on the part of the questioner.
“Watch the ‘I’ thought, hold on to it without losing it, it will lead all the way to the Heart.”
As I could locate and follow the ‘I’ thought I felt happy about the lead the above statement and experience gave me and I started enjoying the solitude I felt in my silent inner journey.
But suddenly something stopped me here and in came another wave of doubts. Did I not get the above statement right? I saw a catch here that lead me back to trace the events in my experience. I felt I was again like somewhere in the book titled ‘Catch 22’ by Joseph Heller.
‘I am the ‘I’ vibe or the Aham sphurana which is leading me to a realm of inner silence and I have managed to hold on to it tightly not losing the grip on it. But I find a catch here in my experience. I have to necessarily focus my attention to another aspect of the ‘I’ here.
‘I am watching my ‘I’ thought. So I find another ‘I’ here watching my other ‘I’ thought or Aham Sphurana or ‘I’ vibe. How come there are two ‘I’’s here in me? I was really stuck here.
I remembered Bhagavan’s words here in his ‘Ekasloki’, the second verse in chapter two of Ramana Gita reading “In the interior of the Heart-cave Brahman (Heart) alone shines in the form of the Atman with direct immediacy as ‘I’, as ‘I’…..”
The Forty verses on Reality refers to the ‘I’ - ’I’ as the absolute consciousness. Bhagavan says the understanding of this fact before one is firmly established in the natural state (Sahaja) by constant practice remains intellectual only. Even though this consciousness happens before Sahaja there is in it the subtle intellect. The difference being that in the latter the sense of forms disappear, which is not the case in the former.
The individual with name and form is the false ’I’, the imagined identity, with the notion of limitation as there is no unbroken continuity in it and the awareness of fullness of consciousness is termed as ‘I’-‘I’ because in it there is no limitation which breaks the experience of the ‘I’-‘I’.
The ‘I’-‘I’ remains in all the three states, the waking dreaming and dreamless sleep, whether one is conscious of it or not.
The enquiry ‘Who am I’ leads one to self consciousness and since it relates to the individual it is experienced in one’s being with a centre of experience in the body like a vibrating power house which supplies power to all the parts of the body and maintains life as well the relation between the physical and the subtler planes in which the individual functions. Actually the vibrations of the consciousness can be felt by one’s calm mind that pays attention to it. It is known as sphurana for the sadhakas which ultimately leads one to the state of Sahaja Samadhi which is otherwise known as the natural state.
(Ref: ‘Ramana Gita’ by Sree Ramanasramam and ‘Know Yourselves’ by Sri.A.R.Natarajan, President, RMCL, Bangalore
To be continued...
