Ramana Maharshi - Upadesa Saram

* When the enquiry, “What is the thinking mind?” occurs, the thinking mind

understands intuitively that it has no free will and stops thinking itself to be

the doer and gives way to the feeling of ‘I AM.’ This is the Direct path.

* In the ordinary man when a thought occurs the ego takes delivery of it as

‘my thought’ and gets involved. The thinking mind is nothing but the ego

identifying with a thought and getting involved. In the enlightened Sage, when a

thought arises, witnessing happens and involvement with the thought does not take

place. Ramana Maharshi says, “The Sage has no thinking mind and therefore there

are no ‘others’ for him.”

* When one enquires, “Where has the ‘me’ come from?” it will vanish into

Consciousness revealing the truth that the ‘me’ has really come from Totality as

part of the Divine Hypnosis. Consciousness has created the ego and Consciousness

will annihilate the ego by initiating the process of Self-enquiry.

* When we accept that Universal will prevails all the time and not the individual

will, the ‘me’ as the doer gets smaller and smaller till it gets completely merged

in Consciousness.

* When the sense of personal doership disappears with the total acceptance

that “All there is, is Consciousness,” the thinking mind ceases to exist during

the waking hours as in deep sleep. What remains is the light of pure

Consciousness, the indestructible ‘I AM.’

Sri Ramana Maharshi - Upadesa Saram