Who Am I?

Question: What is the nature of your Master’s teaching?

Hanuman: In ordinary, everyday consciousness, we take ourselves to be this separate, individual human being: this mind, this body, this psychological one. We take ourselves to be a mother or a father, husband or wife, a finder or a seeker, etc. We speak about ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ thoughts, ‘my’ suffering, ‘my’ hopes and aspirations, and it seems so convincingly real that we are that separate, individual one.

But the undeniable truth is that the separate individual one does not exist except in the imagination. What appears so amazingly real and true turns out to be so absolutely false.

It is so rare to take a few moments out of a day, or a week, or a month, or a year, or even out of a lifetime, to just stop and look and ask: ‘Who am I? What is my true, eternal, unchanging nature?’

This inquiry is the heart of Ramana’s teaching, the heart of my Master’s teaching.

This is not a teaching of becoming. It is not a teaching of attainment through some practice over time. This teaching is only pointing to That which you already are, in truth, as opposed to that which you appear to be. I am saying that your essential nature, your Buddha nature, is already, always pure Consciousness, Presence and Contentment. Your very nature is Silence itself. You are already always This.

That which you are is not dependent on the absence or presence of anything.

There is no emotional state or mental state or physical state or spiritual state required. You are already, always This, regardless of any and every state. You are the unchanging. All states come and go. So, the Silence that you are, the Substratum, is always, already your very own nature. It is a question of realizing this and coming to rest. Let thoughts come and go as they please.

Question: It’s just a little frustrating because I hear the words, and I read them and I understand them, but for me these words are not enough.

Hanuman: What are the words pointing to?

Question: Me.

Hanuman: Okay. And this ‘me’ that these words are pointing back to? What is the nature of this ‘me’? Don’t say book words or words to please me, but really, by your own looking, here and now.

Question: There is nothing.

Hanuman: Okay. And again, investigate what is present in this nothing. Are you absent from this nothing? No? So, this nothing doesn’t exclude you; it includes you. So, what is this ‘you’? What is found in this nothing that is ‘you’?

Certainly, the sense of presence, the sense of I-am-ness, Being-ness is revealed in this nothing, right? And certainly, there is Awareness. As it turns out, this nothingness is composed of being-ness, Consciousness …and That which you are. That is what these words point to. It is the very Source of these words, and it is That into which these words disappear.

The habit of the spiritual ego is to make an object out of Consciousness, a trophy to be put on the spiritual mantel piece.

Remain vigilant. Remain vigilant to your last breath.