Ramana Maharshi's Who Am I?
turning our entire attention back on ourself to know our own fundamental awareness ‘I am’.
Ramana Maharshi, Sandra Derksen, • Ramana Maharshi's Who Am I?
saccidānanda, is a well-known philosophical term of Sanskrit origin, which is widely understood and frequently used in Tamil and all other Indian languages, being a term used to describe the nature of the one absolute reality.
Ramana Maharshi, Sandra Derksen, • Ramana Maharshi's Who Am I?
we experience a mixture of happiness and misery, satisfaction and dissatisfaction.
Ramana Maharshi, Sandra Derksen, • Ramana Maharshi's Who Am I?
‘If ego comes into existence, everything comes into existence; if ego does not exist, everything does not exist. Ego itself is everything. Therefore, know that investigating what this [ego] is alone is giving up everything.’[8]
Ramana Maharshi, Sandra Derksen, • Ramana Maharshi's Who Am I?
‘Who am I?’, to which Bhagavan replied simply, ‘அறிவே நான்’ (aṟivē nāṉ), which means ‘Awareness alone is I’
Ramana Maharshi, Sandra Derksen, • Ramana Maharshi's Who Am I?
pure awareness, which is the awareness that is never aware of anything other than itself.
Ramana Maharshi, Sandra Derksen, • Ramana Maharshi's Who Am I?
Bhagavan emphasises the need for us to cease being aware of any phenomena in order to be aware of ourself as we actually are, namely as pure awareness, which is our own
Ramana Maharshi, Sandra Derksen, • Ramana Maharshi's Who Am I?
This opening paragraph serves as a suitable introduction to the subject ‘Who am I?’, because it explains that the reason why we need to investigate and know who or what we actually are is that happiness is our real nature, and we can therefore experience infinite and eternal happiness only by being aware of ourself as we actually are.
Ramana Maharshi, Sandra Derksen, • Ramana Maharshi's Who Am I?
As and when thoughts appear, then and there it is necessary to annihilate them all by vicāraṇā [investigation or keen self-attentiveness] in the very place from which they arise’.