Ramana Maharshi's Who Am I?

Until we know what we ourself are, none of the knowledge we have about anything else is entirely reliable.

We need to be aware of ourself as we actually are because what we actually are is that infinite happiness. In order to attain that happiness, he says, ‘oneself knowing oneself is necessary’, implying that we do not know ourself.

we experience a mixture of happiness and misery, satisfaction and dissatisfaction.

Bhagavan begins by observing that all living beings seek happiness without any form of misery.

In order to find out what we are, we have to attend to ourself.’ He understood that attention or observation is the fundamental tool of all knowledge: ‘How scientists find out about atoms, about germs, about distant planets and everything – the basic tool they use is observation.

Vāsanā refers to an inclination, propensity, desire, or liking that prompts us to seek happiness.

Anything that appears and disappears must be something different from ourself because it is in our view that they appear and disappear. We are there before objects appear, and we are there after objects disappear. Even the mind is something that appears and disappears. It appears in waking and dream, it disappears in sleep, and therefore even this

The ego, being that which is aware of phenomena, can only be transcended by freeing oneself from all taste for phenomena. ‘This taste for phenomena, this liking to be aware of phenomena, is the very nature of the ego.’

So long as we, as ego, are aware of anything other than ourself, we are not aware of ourself as we actually are.