Category: philosophical counseling
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What Is Required To Undertake Self-inquiry?
What is required to undertake self-inquiry? Sri Sadhu Om answers the questions masterfully: one needs “unbreakable indifference” to mental and worldly objects as well as a “tremendous love to attend [only] to ourself” (The Path of Sri Ramana [2023], p. 90). The first is vairagya–dispassion or detachment–and yet this “unbreakable indifference” needs to be better…
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Who Is Disappointed?
Let’s suppose that you feel disappointed with someone. Who hasn’t? If you’re generally reflective, then the first question you’ll ask will likely be: “Why do I feel disappointed in this person?” For a while, your considerations will have to do with what he or she did or did not do and with what sorts of…
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Is Self-inquiry Really The Preeminent Practice?
In The Path of Sri Ramana (rev. ed. 2023), Sri Sadhu Om offers might seem to be “fighting words” but actually comes out of sense and compassion: All spiritual practices, other than self-investigation, consider the existence of the individual being or ego rising in the form of ‘I am this body, I am so-and-so’ as…
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Do I Exist In The Absence Of This Particular Thing?
A preparatory exercise, one I borrow from Sri Sadhu Om, that can lead to self-inquiry (atma vichara) involves asking: “Do I exist in the absence of this particular thing?” If I do exist in the absence of that particular thing, then that particular thing cannot be essential to my nature. Then: Do I exist in…
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To Know Yourself, Attend To Yourself Alone
“When we want to know a thing,” writes Sri Sadhu Om, one of the most highly regarded disciples of Sri Ramana Maharshi, “we attend [only] to that thing [i.e., not to some other thing]. So, accordingly, if we want to know ourself, we should attend only to ourself” (The Path of Sri Ramana [rev. ed.…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 