arcticorangutan on Nostr: The revered Indian sage Ramana Maharshi attributed his extraordinary insight and ...
The revered Indian sage Ramana Maharshi attributed his extraordinary insight and liberation to a simple question: “Who am I?”
This self-inquiry, if contemplated with openness and intent, can lead to a recognition of our true nature.
During meditation retreats, I have asked this question 1000s of times, usually in the form of diades: You’re facing another person and they prompt you with the question: “Experience who (or what) you are and communicate that to me”. You then go on to communicate your experience of self for 5 minutes, then the tables are turned.
For the first many times of doing this, I was prompted with the question and immediately my habitual thinking mind became active and tried to answer the question in some cerebral way: “I’m Daniel, born in Germany. I’m human. I’m a curious person…”.
There is no limit to the number of things your mind will come up with to answer a question like this.
Over and over the teacher would ask us to actually be open to what the answer might be, to actually look for what we are… in our experience right now. Not through intellectual hearsay, but through direct recognition.
One day, in between sessions I went for a walk, my mind finally capitulated and suddenly there was a very new, an almost inverted view of self and the world. I was no longer Daniel, up here in my head but I was one with everything: one with the soft breeze in the warm Texan air, one with the sounds of the cicadas and of shoes on gravel, one with my body but not limited to it.
Before this day, I had a subtle suspicion that Ramana Maharshi and many other wise men and women before him, were onto something. On this day any last doubts were erased.
Published at
2024-03-18 12:50:24Event JSON
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"content": "The revered Indian sage Ramana Maharshi attributed his extraordinary insight and liberation to a simple question: “Who am I?”\n\nThis self-inquiry, if contemplated with openness and intent, can lead to a recognition of our true nature.\n\nDuring meditation retreats, I have asked this question 1000s of times, usually in the form of diades: You’re facing another person and they prompt you with the question: “Experience who (or what) you are and communicate that to me”. You then go on to communicate your experience of self for 5 minutes, then the tables are turned.\n\nFor the first many times of doing this, I was prompted with the question and immediately my habitual thinking mind became active and tried to answer the question in some cerebral way: “I’m Daniel, born in Germany. I’m human. I’m a curious person…”.\n\nThere is no limit to the number of things your mind will come up with to answer a question like this.\n\nOver and over the teacher would ask us to actually be open to what the answer might be, to actually look for what we are… in our experience right now. Not through intellectual hearsay, but through direct recognition.\n\nOne day, in between sessions I went for a walk, my mind finally capitulated and suddenly there was a very new, an almost inverted view of self and the world. I was no longer Daniel, up here in my head but I was one with everything: one with the soft breeze in the warm Texan air, one with the sounds of the cicadas and of shoes on gravel, one with my body but not limited to it.\n\nBefore this day, I had a subtle suspicion that Ramana Maharshi and many other wise men and women before him, were onto something. On this day any last doubts were erased.\nhttps://m.primal.net/HmCk.webp ",
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