Ramana Maharshi’s practice was to continually ask himself, “Who am I?” It’s a form of self-inquiry. He wrote, “If the mind uninterruptedly investigates its own true nature, it discovers that there is no such thing as mind. Such constant practice is the shortest path for attaining true wisdom.”

The witness that’s useful in our spiritual work has a totally different quality. It isn’t judging—good, bad, it’s all the same. This witness isn’t trying to change anything—it’s just seeing it all. It is the completely uncommitted; it’s not committed to your enlightenment, it’s not trying to get you ahead, it’s simply witnessing, nothing else.

Maharajji said, “I love suffering. It brings me so close to God. You get jnana—wisdom— from suffering. You are alone with God when you are sick, you call on God when you suffer.”

When we say, “Trust your intuition,” when we start to encourage that, we’re reversing the process. As we awaken, we begin to act from the inside out rather than from the outside in—and that’s the transformation we’re really looking for. It leads to behavior that is based not on enlightened self-interest, but on the workings of an awakened heart.

Thomas Merton quote from Seeds of Contemplation; he said, “Prayer and love are learned in the hour when prayer becomes impossible and the heart has turned to stone.” It’s only when our despair reaches rock bottom that the opportunity occurs for the heart to open. So if someone says to me, “I feel nothing; I feel dead inside,”—that, to me, is a

The suffering born of the feeling that our hearts are closed will ultimately open our hearts. Reason will never allow us to understand that one!

In trying to figure out a way to approach our sadhana, there are a few strategies that I would suggest we keep in mind—and the first and most important one is Relax! It doesn’t really matter which next thing you do, because whatever it is, it will become your next teaching. And it isn’t the thing you do that matters, anyway—it’s who it is that’s

As long as we think we’re doing the austerity—“Look at me! I’m giving this up!”—it’s just another ego trip. Whatever we may think we’re renouncing, we’re just stuffing our egos with both hands.

so make the whole thing much easier, is an intense feeling of love for what it is you’re moving toward. Whether you call that a love of Truth, or a love of God, or a love of guru, or a love of the Mother, or a love of the Void—it doesn’t matter. What matters is what happens in your heart through that kind of intense emotional commitment to whatever