Bhagavan [Sri Ramana Maharshi] has said:
'When thoughts arise stop them from developing by enquiring, "To whom is
this thought coming?" as soon as the thought appears. What does it matter
if many thoughts keep coming up? Enquire into their origin or find out who has
the thoughts and sooner or later the flow of thoughts will stop.'
This is how self-enquiry should be
practiced.
When Bhagavan spoke like this he sometimes
used the analogy of a besiged fort.
If one systematically
closes off all the entrances to such a fort and then picks off the occupants
one by one as they try to come out, sooner or later the fort will be be empty.
Bhagavan said that we should apply these same tactics to the mind. How to go
about doing this?
Seal off the entrances and exits to the
mind by not reacting to rising thoughts or sense impressions. Don't let new
ideas, judgements, likes, dislikes, etc. enter the mind, and don't let rising
thoughts flourish and escape your attention. When you have sealed off the mind
in this way, challenge each emerging thought as it appears by asking, 'Where
have you come from?' or 'Who is the person who is having this thought?' If you
can do this continuously, with full attention, new thoughts will appear momentarily
and then disappear. If you can maintain the siege for long enough, a time will
come when no more thoughts arise; or if they do, they will only be fleeting,
undistracting images on the periphery of consciousness. In that thought-free
state you will begin to experience yourself as consciousness, not as mind or
body.
However, if you relax your
vigilance even for a few seconds and allow new thoughts to escape and develop
unchallenged, the siege will be lifted and the mind will regain some or all of
its former strength.
In a real fort the
occupants need a continuous supply of food and water to hold out during a
siege. When the supplies run out, the occupants must surrender or die. In the
fort of the mind the occupants, which are thoughts, need a thinker to pay
attention to them and indulge in them. If the thinker witholds his attention
from rising thoughts or challenges them before they have a chance to develop,
the thoughts will all die of starvation. You challenge them by repeatedly
asking yourself 'Who am I? Who is the person who is having these thoughts?' If
the challenge is to be effective you must make it before the rising thought has
had a chance to develop into a stream of thoughts.
Mind is only a collection
of thoughts and the thinker who thinks them. The thinker is the 'I'-thought,
the primal thought which rises from the Self before all others, which
identifies with all other thoughts and says, 'I am this body'. When you have
eradicated all thoughts except for the thinker himself by ceaseless enquiry or
by refusing to give them any attention, the 'I'-thought sinks into the Heart
and surrenders, leaving behind it only an awareness of consciousness. This
surrender will only take place when the 'I'-thought has ceased to identify with
rising thoughts. While there are still stray thoughts which attract or evade
your attentoin, the 'I'-thought will always be directing its attention outwards
rather than inwards. The purpose of self-enquiry is to make the 'I'-thought
move inwards, towards the Self. This will happen automatically as soon as you
cease to be interested in any of your rising thoughts.
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