Tag: Consciousness
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What Is An I-thought In Ramana Maharshi’s Teaching?
The I-thought (aham vritti) is not at all easy to understand experientially–until you get it. To come to this experiential understanding, let’s move in a stepwise fashion: 1.) To begin with, a thought appears. That thought, which is indeed an arising, could be: “I am sitting here” or “I don’t like John” or “What a fine…
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Externalized Attention Vs. The Inward-facing Path
Attention Let’s say, for now, that attention can be either “externalized” or “internalized.” By “attention,” I mean awareness in the mode of witnessing. Then “externalized attention” will refer to witnessing objects while being engrossed by and therefore “lost in” them. By contrast, “internalized attention” will, in actuality, refer to the dissolution of witnessing as it…
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The Illusory Appearance Of Ignorance
The direct path teaching of Advaita Vedanta states very clearly that only awareness exists and thus that you are, and have never been anything other than, awareness. For most, the statement above doesn’t “ring true,” and so the teaching also needs to provide an account of the illusory appearance of ignorance, of “not getting it.”…
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The Veiling Of The Self Never Actually Happened
One’s true nature is consciousness, the supreme. When the mind is extinguished in the Self, the [three] saktis, beginning with inch, which are said to exist, will completely cease, being [known to be] an unreal superimposition upon the perfectly pure consciousness that is one’s true nature. —Muruganar, “Verse 42,” Guru Vachaka Kovai, p. 24 One…
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Your Inquiry Into ‘yourself’ Reveals Only YOURSELF
Once you contemplate “Who am I?” enough, you come to the conclusion that you’re neither the perceiver (of the so-called world), nor the gross body, nor the energy body, nor the mind. The most obvious candidate staring you in the face is that you are a self. And as you begin to contemplate this sense…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 