Ramana Maharshi was just asking some very simple questions: Who sees when you see? Who hears when you hear? Who watches the dreams? Who looks at the image in the mirror? Who is it that is having all these experiences? If you try to just give honest, intuitive answers, you are simply going to say, “Me. It’s me. I’m in here experiencing all of this.”

The best way to free yourself from this incessant chatter is to step back and view it objectively. Just view the voice as a vocalizing mechanism that is capable of making it appear like someone is in there talking to you. Don’t think about it; just notice it. No matter what the voice is saying, it’s all the same. It doesn’t matter if it’s saying ni

But closing your heart does not really protect you from anything; it just cuts you off from your source of energy. In the end, it only serves to lock you inside.

But nobody has ever truly become okay by changing things outside.

Now, as you look out through your disturbed energy, everything is distorted by the haze of your disturbance. Things that looked beautiful now look ugly. Things you liked, now look dark and depressing. But nothing has really changed. It’s just that you’re looking at life from that seat of disturbance.

Once you become conscious of the consciousness itself, you attain a totally different state. You are now aware of who you are.

Clinging creates the bricks and mortar with which we build a conceptual self.

But now you are aware that you’re aware. That is the seat of the Buddhist Self1, the Hindu Atman2, and the Judeo-Christian Soul. The great mystery begins once you take that seat deep within.

So there are two ways you can live: you can devote your life to staying in your comfort zone, or you can work on your freedom. In other words, you can devote your whole life to the process of making sure everything fits within your limited model, or you can devote your life to freeing yourself from the limits of your model.