What a wonder it is! This ghostly ego which is devoid of form comes into existence by grasping a form; grasping a form it endures; feeding upon forms which it grasps, it waxes more; leaving one form it grasps another; when sought for it takes to flight. Know thus.

—Ramana Maharshi, Ulladu Narpadu, verse 25

Suppose I feel that I woke up this morning. Suppose, later on, someone were to ask me: “Do you have a sense of ‘yourself,’ of ‘being yourself?’”

“Yes, I do.” 

“That is,” he might go on, “do you have a sense: ‘I exist’”? 

“Yes, I do. I have a sense: ‘I exist.’”

“And do you have a sense that you know, without question, that you are aware?” 

“Yes, I am aware, and I know this for sure.”

So much is clear: I exist and I am aware. But what is less clear is whether this awareness and existence are bound to jivahood—that is, to a sense of being a separate self, or ego.

It would make sense, then, for me to ask: “Am I who am aware and who exist a jiva?” To discover whether I am a jiva, I begin the practice known as self-inquiry or self-investigation (atma vichara). How else am I going to know for sure whether I am this individual self or whether I am “something more”?

Soon enough some curious things happen. Before I begin my inquiry, I believe that the ego, or separate self, is a continuously existing, aware entity that “undergoes changes.” For instance, I believe that the “I” in “I am walking” is the very same “I” as in the statement “I am thinking.” The activities—walking, thinking, and so on—may change, but I believe that I am this individuated “something” that perdures in the midst of change. 

Is it so?

As I go deeper in self-inquiry, I begin to notice that it’s not. I start to see that ego is nothing but an I-thought: that is, a sense of “I” that is seemingly “bonded to” some particular predicate. In fact, I never find an ego that “seems to appear” in the I-thought (“I am the knower”) and that somehow transmigrates to another I-thought like “I am the doer.” I never see that transmigration because there isn’t one. This is astonishing because it nullifies the belief that there is this individuated, continuous entity. Instead, there is just this “island-like” I-thought-arising.

The second discovery goes further still. I see that each I-thought doesn’t actually contain an ego entity of any sort. Instead, “I am the knower” is nothing but a mere appearance without any identifiable essence. It’s like a passing cloud, a vapor, a dream, a bubble.

The final discovery is that this mere appearance (this I-thought) has as its svarupa (substance or essential nature) the Self or consciousness. It’s not the case that consciousness contingently exists or is contingently aware. It’s rather the case that consciousness is Being-Awareness.

The I that I am is, in fact, Being-Awareness.