Ramana Maharshi's Forty Verses on What Is

Bhagavan does not ask us to blindly believe what he teaches us, so he begins his exposition of this philosophy of pure non-duality (advaita) by asking us to critically analyse our own experience of ourself in our three states of waking, dream and sleep, in order to understand why we cannot actually be what we now seem to be.

That is, when we as ego attend to ourself so keenly that we thereby cease to be aware of anything else at all, we will cease to be ego, whose very nature is to be always aware of things other than itself, and will remain as we actually are, namely just as pure awareness, whose nature is to never be aware of anything other than itself.

‘real’ is not awareness of any phenomena, but only pure self-awareness.

If we are not willing to question deeply and if necessary let go of all the beliefs, assumptions and preconceptions that we had previously cherished, it is very easy for us to misunderstand him, so we need to study his teachings carefully, patiently and with discrimination (vivēka), considering with due care the meaning of each word, phrase, clause

The essential import of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu is very simple: What we actually are is sat-cit, because we are both pure existence (sat) and pure awareness (cit), which are one and indivisible.

Bhagavan did distinguish between pure consciousness and the adjunct-mixed consciousness that we call ‘ego’. But that does not mean that there are two ‘consciousnesses’. It is one consciousness: one in its pure condition and one and the same consciousness mixed and conflated with adjuncts, which is called cidābhāsa, the semblance of awareness.

manana, which means thinking, considering, reflecting, pondering or meditating, and which entails carefully considering all that we learn through śravaṇa.

The awareness that is aware of phenomena (anything other than itself) is the mind or ego,

Verse 23: This body is not aware of itself as ‘I’, and ‘I’ does not cease to exist in sleep, but after something called ‘I’ rises, everything rises, so keenly discern where it rises.