Let’s really try to understand Ramana Maharshi’s teaching on self-inquiry. Why does he insist, second only to sacred silence (mauna), that it’s the next highest teaching?

Consider the matter this way: In order for there to be a sense that I am experiencing such and such, there really has to be “an I” that’s playing the role of the experiencer. For instance, in order to think about spring flowers, there really has to be–or so it seems–a thinker who’s able to exist “behind” the process of thinking, in this case, about spring flowers.

Another case might bring this out more easily: When you say, “I have problems” or “I have difficulties” or “I am faced with challenges,” you can’t really meaningfully make such utterances unless you already believe that there’s a self-same “I” that is “standing back behind” all these problems. In fact, the common denominator–the only one–of all your problems is you!

It’s for this reason, I think, that we can take what Ramana Maharshi says about “thoughts” as being identical with “any objective experiencing.” He says, it’s worth noting, that at the root of all thoughts is the I-thought. Translation: At the root of all objective experiences–all thoughts, feelings, sensations, and perceptions–is “the sense that I have that I exist in such a way that I’m conjoined to some form [read: body] or other.”

If, then, you want to really know what’s at the heart of experiencing or, indeed and more specifically, what’s at the root of your suffering, you need to go to this one that seems to be persistently, continuously existing “behind the scenes.”

That is, you need to take “one step backward” and to be interested in yourself, in the nature of your being. What this means, first of all, is that you take an interest in yourself qua apparent ego. After all, isn’t it seemingly obvious that you’re an individuated, separate self that’s conjoined, somehow, to this particular body? Of course, that’s obvious–even if it turns out to be erroneous!

Consequently, when you first step back, your assignment (as it were) is to hold onto the sense of I (“I-thought”), to the sense of “being me,” to the felt sense of I-ness, to I-separation or I-apparent limitation.

Often slowly, something interesting happens: The more you lovingly and keenly hold onto this sense of I, the more it appears that it’s not actually limited or localized. The “limiting adjuncts” (upadhis) slowly fall off. That is, the finite mind slowly dissolves or “dies.”

And what remains is the real, and only, nature of I. This “I” has never been “behind” experiencing and has never actually had any problems at all. This “I” has only ever been reposing as itself.

Isn’t this all, in the final analysis, quite humorous? One acquaintance called this “a Divine Comedy.”