The Mad Race And Self Knowledge

By Staff

Tuesday, March 24, 2009, 14:09

Everyone in the world is frightfully busy doing something or the other or thinking about this or that. This is a non-stop affair. The so called entertainment provided by the mass-media also continues this process by keeping the mind busy with its identifications of what is seen or heard on the movie screen or the TV. Having spent a tiresome day when one hits the bed for rest does he have it? No. More thoughts are there in store. This time it is through dreams, which could be as real as 'real life situations' so that one screams in fright or cries in sorrow.

God's compassion then gives a little rest to everyone from all this ceaseless madness. Rest is forced on the individual. There is a lull. Neither the thinker nor his ambitions, dreams, and so on are there. All thoughts have stopped for they are the thinker's thoughts. The mind is no doubt at rest in deep sleep. But it is not by choice, not by any act of the individual but by some divine plan.

Many are content to live this way, happy with their daily gains, with their small fenced in world of attachments and passions which are no more than storms in a tea cup. These persons miss the bus of life. However there are some who wish to escape from the complacent satisfaction of their routine lives. Somehow they have the good sense to see that there is no end of the road in action, that one can never know peace of mind unless they are prepared to look at the basic structure of their lives. To all such persons Ramana and his path of Self-knowledge through self-enquiry is very appealing.

Self-attention is possible only to the extent to which one is able to set aside one's ceaselessly chattering mind. The mind is engaged in thoughts without respite because it does not know better. It has its pet object with which it plays like a child with its toys. One needs to create a counter weight by imbibing the spirit of enquiry, which is the essential human spirit. The torch of enquiry which has been dampened by a unquestioning mind is to be rekindled by asking the basic question, "Whose thoughts are they anyway?" They are of course mine. But who is this 'I'? This seemingly simply question holds the key; it is the open-sesame, for the transformation of life. For a new and right direction would then be given to one's mental energies. What was being dissipated on the periphery would now be gathered together on the single 'I' thought.

With such questioning one is already on the trail of understanding the mind. The subject, the individual about whom one has no knowledge, because no enquiry was set afoot, would now be the focus of interest. With more practice of the shifting of mind's energies, shifting of its interest and attention inward towards itself would enable one to stay with this question of questions, who am I really? D'horse my thoughts, am I a big zero? Am I nothing or everything? This question has its own magnetism if you allow it to take hold of you. For one would have caught mind's power by the scruff before it has fragmented itself into thoughts. This is a point, which Ramana has been dinning into us. Enquire into the subject. Let your attention be exclusively on it. Faith in his words is an invigorating tonic, the very elixir of life.

Should one stop with this questioning? Ramana tells us that this is but a half way stage. One has to pose to the energised mind a further question about its source or place from which it originates. This questioning takes the form of 'When am 'I'?' The purpose of this question is to expose us to the truth that what one has taken to be the subject is not really the true subject. Is the mind as we know it now the reality about one's existence? Or is it a mere fragment of that reality? These are doubts which could well be entertained. They are understandable since we are looking within, turning the mind inward.

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