Āṉma-Viddai

Awareness (in the sense of what is aware) certainly does exist, because its existence is self-shining (svayam-prakāśa), which means that it knows itself by its own light of awareness.

Some philosophers confuse themselves so much with their convoluted reasonings that they may doubt or even deny the existence of any such thing as ‘self’ or ‘I’, but even a little clear reflection will show the absurdity of such a view, because in order to doubt or deny the existence of ourself we must exist.

Are a table and itself two different things? Are you and yourself two different things? Am I and myself two different things? No, obviously not, so there is no such thing as a ‘self’ other than the thing whose self it is. Everything is itself, and nothing has any ‘self’ that is other than itself.

the fact that we exist as the fundamental awareness ‘I am’ cannot reasonably be doubted by anyone.

The problem is that though we always know ourself, in the sense that we are always aware of ourself, we now know ourself as something other than what we actually are, because we mistake ourself to be a person consisting of five sheaths, namely a physical body, life, mind, intellect and will.

in order to be aware of ourself as we actually are, all we need do is to remove the false awareness ‘I am this body’

The body and world are just thoughts, so when all thoughts cease there is no body or world but only the fundamental awareness ‘I am’

‘ātma-svarūpa’ (the real nature of oneself), is pure awareness, which means awareness that is not aware of anything other than itself, and since it is immutable, it never undergoes change of any kind whatsoever, so it is always clearly aware of itself as it actually is and is never aware of anything else, and hence in its clear view no body or worl

Since we always exist and shine imperishably and indubitably as ‘I am’, we can always attend to ourself, and it is never difficult to do so