2023-05-07 San Diego Ramana Satsang: How to do self enquiry and what to observe?

In a Zoom meeting with the San Diego Ramana Satsang ([e-mail]) on 7th May 2023 Michael answers various questions about Bhagavan’s teachings.
A clearer audio copy of this video can be listened to on Sri Ramana Teachings podcast (ramanahou.podb... ) or downloaded from ramanahou.podb... and a more compressed audio copy in Opus format (which can be listened to in the VLC media player and some other apps) can be downloaded from mediafire.com/...

[@SriRamanaTeachings]

A clearer audio copy of this video can be listened to on Sri Ramana Teachings podcast (ramanahou.podbean.com ) or downloaded from ramanahou.podbean.com/e/how-to-do-self-enquiry-and-what-to-observe and a more compressed audio copy in Opus format (which can be listened to in the VLC media player and some other apps) can be downloaded from mediafire.com/file/jpxiq9b0o91pxe9

[@catalinatata8652]

I will never be able to thank you enough, Michael, for transmitting His teachings and words. His Grace is pouring upon me through your voice. 🙏❤️‍🔥 Other traditions teach us to use the breath for meditation, ok, that was always easy. Then, you asked yourself : in what you're going to meditate on when you don't breathe anymore ?.. That was a scary question to answer until you, without knowing, responded to it. There is only one thing to meditate upon, Atma Suarupa, the Self, the One Reality 🙏❤ Namo Ramana !

[@Liyah-encyclopedia333]

🙏🙏🙏

[@somasum]

Sir, shall remain indebted for ever to Sri Bhagaban & you Sir. Haven't yet been able to definitely identify my own ego but have found its total absence in your persona. My pranam to Sri Bhagaban & you. I am indebted for ever. This life and beyond.

[@akn650]

Om Namo Bhagavathe Sri Ramanaya! 🙏🙏🙏

[@mohanbhaibhad3703]

A great deep and profound clarification on-self investigation

[@davidstrevens9170]

The question "Who am I?" initiates the investigative disposition. Bhagwan recommended the question as a strategy to set the vichara in motion. This is the purpose of the question. Otherwise the ego will evade directly facing itself and consequently it's invalidity. When the ego is facing itself directly it will take flight. The ego cannot remain in the presence of it's own deception. Bhagwan gave us this practice out of divine compassion. It is the most direct path. God bless Bhagwan. Lord of Lords.

[@RawandCookedVegan]

Excellent, thanks to Michael and the San Diego Satsang.

[@kamaray1151]

Wonderful guidance, thankyou so much 🙏

[@christianandersson2217]

Thank you! 😊

[@rviswanathan]

🙏

[@visweshwaranr]

We constantly need to hear this even though we feel we have understood because the subject to too too subtle to grasp in few listening. My personal experience. 19:41

[@davidallan1301]

Michael's clarity on Baghavans teachings on the practice of investigation is pure, direct & wonderfully helpful ❤ Thank you 🙏🦋🙏

[@jayanthiramadas2713]

Clear and wonderful explanation.😊

[@michaeldillon3113]

' What makes you think it is just a picture ' ? This is Bhagavan giving Benediction to the fact that His picture is a Holy form that leads to the Holy formless . 🙏🕉️

[@visweshwaranr]

Again just listening to later part of this video. Really u clarified my doubt too on thinking of arunachala. My prostrations ji

[@SriRamanaTeachings]

Short Q&A videos from this channel can be watched on youtube.com/@sriramanateachingsqa

[@prasannachaporkar4512]

My understanding of self inquiry is as follows: whatever we think we are is not what we are. So, stop thinking and just be aware ( don’t doze off). Main question is how to stop thinking. Maharshee gave pointers for that through “who am I?” inquiry. Whenever thought comes, mind or ego is coming out and attaching itself to something other than I. So, don’t continue the thought and turn inwards using the question. So, inquiry is for turning repeatedly inwards. Intellect can’t answer the question, but only helps to stop flight of thought. Am I at least close?

[@johnmcdonald260]

My first comment here was deleted, maybe because of the link to Michael's blog. I asked what do you mean with "just be aware" because for most that means silently watching one's surroundings, phenomena and objects presumably without thoughts. That is not Self-enquiry. Michael has a blog where he posted a number of articles about Self-enquiry. On the upper left is a search function and when you enter "Self-enquiry" it will show you all of these articles.

[@jazzsnare]

Still not sure why the Atma Swarupa, our real nature, would refer to itself as I-Am-I. Why attribute an I to it? What would "I" even mean? Who would be the "I" in pure awareness? It seems so underwhelming to me when he says that we are all aware of it already, and do so in sleep as well as all the time; how great can it be then if it's already in our field of experience? Many thanks to the ever gracious Michael James for all of the teachings, and for free no less.

[@SriRamanaTeachings]

Namaskaram, perhaps you would find it useful to read this article: happinessofbeing.blogspot.com/2021/11/the-ramana-mahavakya-nan-nan-or-aham.html (which is an extract from happinessofbeing.blogspot.com/2023/05/anma-viddai-verse-2-thought-i-am-this.html ), in which the significance of the statement ‘I am I’ is discussed and explained in detail Namo Ramanaya 🙏🙏🙏

[@lazerlloyd1]

Not sure we are aware in deep sleep of being in any state - we only know we were in deep sleep because we are aware of dream state and the waking state yet we know we can’t explain what happens in the deep sleep state - when we are awake we are aware of it yet not while we are in deep sleep- Bhagavan says it’s a wonderous mystery how the body is kept going during sleep

[@fizywig]

For vast majority of practitioners, manolya is an indispensable requirement to having a chance to attain manonasa. An analogy would be that a heroin addict would first need to kick his habit (manolata) before pursuing self inquiry at all

[@gireeshneroth7127]

Nothing perceives its own being as what it is. Then what is it that perceives its own being?

[@SriRamanaTeachings]

happinessofbeing.blogspot.com/2017/09/upadesa-undiyar-tamil-text.html#uu23 “Because of the non-existence of [any] awareness other [than being] to be aware of being, being is awareness. Awareness alone exists as we.” (Upadēśa Undiyār verse 23) Namo Ramanaya 🙏🙏🙏

[@rajpillai6471]

❤​@@SriRamanaTeachings

[@ultrafeel-tv]

Nisargadatta also had to speak sometimes in a more diluted way, depending on the questioner - that's why there seem to be contradictions regarding the issue with the "I am"

[@Legion6363]

ref pt 4:42 @ 7:58 this i have trouble with. To say after awakening in our physical body that we are aware that we werent aware of anything during sleep can also be stated that we are aware of being unconscious and not aware during sleep. It seems to me that it ought to be the goal to become awake and lucid when the body sleeps, rather than continue to slumber into unconsciousness. The ability to become lucid when the body sleeps can then be appled to when we awaken in our physical body and then apply that lucidity during the day.

[@lalithashivakumar1428]

Pls tell about the procedures for investigating who i am

[@Leenyazbek]

Please provide the email address in writing for a chance to join the Sunday discussion live 🙏

[@SriRamanaTeachings]

[e-mail]

[@TheNativoamericano]

Hello. Thanks for sharing This. I would like to have the website address of Michael's written here as I tried the way it ended up written in the transcript and didn't work. Much appreciated. Thanks

[@SriRamanaTeachings]

happinessofbeing.com and happinessofbeing.blogspot.com

[@lazerlloyd1]

Hi Michael - I’m your biggest fan but you have to know that Nisargadatta Maharaj also would explain that you are not the “ I Am “ and as you have explained that there were many people who came to Bhagwan and he gave different answers depending on the level of a listener that was the same with Nisargadatta Maharaj but over and over again he would go past that into exactly the same exclamations that are The same as Sri Ramana’s … I think one of the important lessons of Sri Ramana Maharishi is the ultimate respect you had for every person in especially the way he would speak of other teachers was on such a level of respect that I think we can continue in those footsteps -we can teach the absolute truth without moving from it while keeping with his example-kzbin.info/www/bejne/fpqvfmylbKt6iqM

[@SriRamanaTeachings]

Hi Lazer, yes, of course we should have respect for everyone, but that does not mean that we should accept all teachings. We need vivēka (discernment, discrimination and judgement), because we need to distinguish what is real from what is unreal, and what is true from what is false. It would be foolish to accept any teachings without first considering them carefully and critically, so if we hear or read any teachings that do not make sense or that are logically inconsistent, we should have the wisdom and courage to reject them. What does it mean to say “you are not the ‘I am’”? Does it make any sense at all? What does ‘I am’ mean? It means ‘I exist’, so it refers to our existence or being. Does it make any sense to say ‘you are not your existence’? How can we be anything other than our existence. Our existence or being is what we actually are. We can reasonably doubt the existence of all other things, because they could all be (and according to Bhagavan are) just an illusory appearance, but we cannot reasonably doubt our own existence, ‘I am’, because our existence is self-shining. We can and should doubt our identity, because we may not be what we seem to be, but whatever we are, we certainly exist, so ‘I am’ is indubitably real. This is why Bhagavan always distinguished ‘I am’ from ‘I am this’ or ‘I am that’, saying that ‘I am’ is what we actually are, whereas ‘I am this’ or ‘I am that’ is ego, which is ‘I am’ mixed and conflated with adjuncts. ‘I am’ is real, because it shines eternally by its own light, not only in waking and dream but also in sleep, when everything else is absent, whereas adjuncts such as ‘this’ or ‘that’ are unreal, because they appear in waking and dream but disappear in sleep, so ego, the adjunct-conflated awareness ‘I am this’ or ‘I am that’, is just an unreal appearance. Since we exist without adjuncts in sleep, they are not what we actually are, so ego is a false awareness of ourself, but we can never exist without our existence, ‘I am’, so ‘I am’ alone is real awareness of ourself. ​Namo Ramanaya 🙏🙏🙏

[@lazerlloyd1]

@@SriRamanaTeachings thank you

[@ravisrinivasan6968]

Could you kindly send the email ❤

[@ravisrinivasan6968]

Id please

[@masumhasan7646]

প্রকৃতপক্ষে আমি কে ? উত্তর : আপনি দেহ বা মন নয় , আপনি আদমা বা চেতনা । দড়ীকে সাপ ভাবার মতো আপনি নিজেকে যাহা ভাবছেন , আসলে আপনি তাহা নন।অর্থাৎ মায়া বা দৃষ্টি ভ্রমের কারনে নিজের আদমা পরিচয় ভূলে আপনি দেহকে আমি ভাবছেন এক দ্বৈত ভাবের মনোজগতে। এই শক্তিশালী দেহরুপ আমি ভাবনার অপর নাম মানব প্রকৃতি বা আমিত্ব বা অহম। আত্ম পরিচয় বা আদমাকে খোঁজার নামে এই মানব প্রকৃতি বা আমিত্বের কোনরুপ পরিবর্তন গীতা সহ সকল ধর্ম গ্রন্হ নিষেধ করেছেন । আদেশ করেছেন , ভগমানের হুকুম বা ধর্ম মানতে , নিজেকে বা ভগমানকে খোঁজতে নয়। তাই গীতা বলে : ধর্মং ততু সাক্ষাৎ ভগবান প্রণীতম । কারনএর পরিবর্তনে জড় বন্ধন ভেংগে যায় । নিষ্কাম কর্মের নামে কর্মের কর্তৃত্বের দাবী ছেড়ে দিলে বা অদ্বৈতবাদের নামে ভাল মন্দ দ্বৈতবাদের শৃংখল ভেংগে অদ্বৈতবাদের শুন্যধামে চলে গেলে জগতের সকল আপাত কারন নিষ্ক্রিয় হয়ে এক পরম কারনে মিশে যায়। ফলে মায়া বা দৃষ্টিভ্রম অপসারিত হয়ে সে বুঝে যায় এটা সাপ নয় দড়ী অর্থাৎ সে নিজেকে যাহা ভাবে সে তাহা নয় । সে বুঝে যায় সে দেহ বা মন নয় , সে এক মহা চেতনার আবেশিত রুপ পরম শান্ত আদমা বা চেতনা । বেজে উঠে নিজের মাঝে এই গান : তোমার কর্ম তুমি কর মা লোকে বলে করি আমি । মানুষ তখন আর মানুষ থাকেনা , সে প্রতিক্রিয়া শুন্য পরম নির্বিকার মজ্জুব হয়ে পরে । আত্মদর্শীরা এর নাম দিয়েছে ব্রম্ম জ্ঞান বা মোক্ষলাভ । মহা মায়াকে অতক্রম করে নিজেকে চেনার এই আত্মবিনাশী ধর্ম বিরোধী স্তরে কোটিতে গুটিক যেতে পারে। বাকী সবাই শুনা ও বলার স্তরের রসিকজন মাত্র। এরা ধার্মিক নয় বরং ভগমানের মকরবাজী বা আরো এক ছলনার শিকার।

[@Liyah-encyclopedia333]

🙏🙏🙏

[@silentdream97]

🙏

[@rblais]

🙏🙏🙏