Self-enquiry (also spelled self-inquiry - Sanskrit ātma-vicāra) is a practice designed to rapidly bring about Self-realization, Self awareness, spiritual liberation or enlightenment, and is most commonly associated with its most famous modern advocate, Sri Ramana Maharshi. While Sri Ramana said that Self-realisation could be brought about --- as it was for him --- merely by giving up the idea that there is an individual self which functions through the body and the mind, few could readily do so. When asked for the most effective practice to facilitate Self-awareness, he commonly recommended forms of self-enquiry, along with recommending Satsang, (literally association with Sat or Being), in the form of mental contact with a realized Guru, or more properly the One Guru "within".

Please go to the Ramana link on this site to find a short explanation on how to do self-inquiry. This short explanation is all you need and I would almost say that no further reading is necessary.

Below are my personal self-inquiry notes. These notes started about a year after reading the book silence of the heart - from Robert Adams (a student of Ramana Maharshi). There were no notes kept in the first year of self-inquiry but all the tricks and techniques are layed out in this book and would only be a repetition if inserted here. However, there is a very good description about the technique of self-inquiry from one of Adam's students, Edward Muzika, worth reading, click here.

As I said, it all starts with the question "Who am I" and you can also say it ends with the question "Who am I".

Often the first stumbling block to self-inquiry is when you cannot find or understand who you are, even though you do understand that you are not the body nor mind. This can be because you have read books about non-duality where it states that it does not exist and mentally you understand this so you stop looking for it, or you start believing you already know and understand this which results in the same. Another problem might be that you cannot locate "who am I" and then it becomes a mental game without avail. The opposite is also possible where you keep on asking "who am I" but the question has no location or form anymore and becomes similar to asking the question "where is the tree" when you are looking at the ocean.
It all boiles down to sensing (that which has form, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual etc) of who you belief you are and holding that feeling until it dissolves.

One last but big stumbling block is when you think; I have made it. Remember, as long as you can think if you made it or not, there is more self-inquiry material to uncover.

Well you get the idea.

So before we enter the diary lets sum up the layers of who you belief you are. This is just a summary and other items might be there or not. The magic mantra that summons all the layers including the one not written below is: "Be yourself"

Some tricks you can apply when the mind is too possesed on itself such that it inhibits self-inquiry:

Receive a deeksha (an energy that will stimulate the kundalini and in turn burns or melts away these barriers) Look at the 2 pictures below to receive a deeksha from me, the first is to make the barriers more visible and the second is like a vaccuum cleaner that deals directly with these barriers:

Are you too critical towards someone or something: You have done something you feel guilty about. Feel the guilt or tell what you have done and be with that (accept).

Are you too irritated or filled with hatred to someone or something: Just say to yourself: It is because I am just like that.

Is there a problem? You cannot solve a problem even though the mind says you must. Just experience both sides of the problem without doing anything.

While reading or studying you get irritated, sleepy, heavy head, feel stupid or any other feeling - get a dictionary and look up your misunderstood word.

Anything else such as an upset or restimulation - just experience it.

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Before we dive into the rabbit hole of self-inquiry let me show you a little film about how things came to be for me.

The following notes are written in a time format, meaning the first entry is located at the end of the page and the latest entries are on top. Enjoy the rabbithole...

End of diary...

The moment when there are absolutely no more thoughts, also no ability to produce or perceive thoughts, the universe remains as you -subsides as you - and offsprings as you.

Everything, literally everything is like a fata morgana (illusion). First of all there is no observer or experiencer. The only thing that is, is and that is yet another illusion. It all fates away once fully experienced and yet there is nobody there to experience. No emotion is real, no perception, no personality including personal feelings, body, relationship, sex itself, work, people, the world, nature, time, space, energy, doingness, thinkingness, spiritual phenomena, divine etc. all illusionary. Not even the understanding that this can be fully experienced is real. Talking or thinking about this is not real. Even writing this has no purpose or truth in it. Existance happens when the body wakes up from deep sleep, be it a dream or wakeful world. Existance is, without the need for eyes or other perceptions to view it. ParaBrahma is the only truth in which the illusionary bliss world wakes and sleeps.

All wanting or not wanting is ego based.

All concepts are illusions.

Understanding is an illusion.

Now is also an illusion.

There is only now. No goal, planning, changing, reaching, helping...

There is no seer, hearer, feeler, smeller, thinker, but there is also no seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling and thinking. There only is.

Anything that comes into consciousness including thought that is reacted upon, is an I am layer.

The belief that you can help someone originates from an I am layer.

All non reactive (non-automatic) communication originates from an ego. The truth cannot talk.

It seems by helping people out that self realization is quite easy to attain, but recognition that there is no I thought anymore is more difficult, which in fact are the one and the same.

Who reacts to my name?

Is there any belief of a title, like father, work etc. yet another layer

Are you awake or dreaming

can you feel anybody, not able to think about them, but feel them. if so merge.

someone is paying attention in the silence

imagine you are doing something, such as self-inquiry. feel that structure that is doing it.

Want to, but cannot

Something "I" do not want to do? all based on charge.

all thoughts with an tangible i is based on charge. this includes thought.

thoughts are shiva

not being yourself in a situation

asking the divine or presence to help you, has no meaning anymore.

self-interest

something nearby or far away, what reference point is used?

what will continue after body death?

who monitors sanity / insanity?

being suppressed - cannot be yourself. I layer causing it.

nothing is real, nothing within is alive nor exists. nothing external exists. that which remains is the truth and cannot be viewed, understood or approached. an absolute nothingness without attributes.

Thinking is desiring, thoughts are internal lies

anything that is not me will dissolve into me.

feeling of somebody looking or talking to me.

surrender everything that comes on the screen.

the complete silence and nothingness experienced in meditation is still an experience with something experiencing it.

IF YOU THINK YOU HAVE MADE IT, YOU HAVE NOT.

knowledge is separate, hence another i layer. the jnani does not know he is a jnani because it does not have a vocal point to reflect its truth.

i amness is consciousness, spreading like sound around the absolute.

self realization is the same as i do not exist realization, without anything/one realizing it.

beyond everything including self realization as there is something realizing. the simple truth is that you do not exist neither does i am that exist. a compression in the mind is being reflected on other compressions which gives a feeling of me, i, consciousness, awareness, bliss. in truth there is no me, you, and talking, interchanging, perceiving. it is all body / mind oriented with compressions reflecting on each other making existence as it is. in truth it simply does not exist, has nothing to do with you because there is no you. thinking about it has no use, living it cannot completely be done as some reflection will remain for interchange. destination moksha - end of all, nothing will remain, neither time, space, energy feeling, knowing, being, nothing remains. jivanmukti the person is not there anymore and you are talking to the remaining reflections.

i do not exist realization. relieve all compression left.

just be, and let go of all compressions.

leave existence alone.

leave thoughts alone, leave the world alone, leave the mind and i feeling alone. surrender without doingness.

everything is consciousness including you. until the moment you realize you only talk to yourself and like ramana, be in meditation till the whole universe disappears and the rats feast on the body, there is still someone there being separate.

feeling proud of accomplishments - I layer

there are no other beings, only onion layers in the one mind that becomes visual because it reflects off the oneness.

the mind is just like the hand. the moment you look at it or give it attention it becomes alive - radiating energy.

be who you feel you are and all will vanish.

just like satsang, surrender the compression / cylinder that is being used to view through.

moksha - no separation, recognition that all is source without anything recognizing.

enter the total nothingness in self inquiry and then stop compressing / making a focus, which creates the i am feeling.

i am the flash light, the source of light.

drink the moment

all charge is, is the inability to receive fully, not somebody to receive it but cylinders where it flows through without being stopped or filtered.

there is only receiving even when giving. anything else involves the mind. if the ego receives something, the flow is being stopped or manipulated. hence the no mind state is found only in the flow of receiving.

experience everything going on in the body including heart beat, charges etc. The mind mistakes the heartbeat as being another I layer in a beating form.

keep quiet and stop all effort, including self inquiring. just like holding your breath and try to dissolve the i, it is a contradiction. in self inquiry you need a vocal point, hence the same contradiction. if you just are, the mind is gone. also no need for any practice to swallow up the mind in the hearrt as you are the heart already.
what will happen is what the oneness university is saying all the time, fully experiencing until it disappears.

fear of losing total body / mind control, the fear of losing the awareness of life.

remain as pure witness, till even witnessing dissolves in the supreme.

Who experiences something / everything. who is feeling the i thought, fear, surrender etc

be who you are and let go of the rest

you are already that, just surrender all that is not you.

anything that you put your attention to becomes alive.

knowledge about something is like an i feeling.

hold your breath until no more i wants to survive. surrender the i when it remains. this does not work because an i holds the breath and another i feels the charge.

there is no individuality in oneness, nothing is experiencing the oneness but is oneness.

if you learn to look at consciousness as a sort of fever, personal and private, in which you are enclosed like a chick in its shell, out of this attitude will come the crisis which will break the shell.

feel what is still separate and recognize that someone is feeling this separation. do not hold on to the object of the feeling but subject.

there is no separation between me and the universe.

let the mind and everything else for that matter reflect in the silence until truth remains.

Who feels?
Who sees the law of nature such as gravity, space, time life?
Who is experiencing cause and effect?
Who needs a body or a mind?

the source of the personal i thought seems to be a specific chakra. the moment the core of kundalini has finished burning a specific chakra that onion layer of i thought does not return. There seem to be 365 chakra's above the sahasrara, but sometimes this is referred to as 365 dimensions. Besides the chakra's there are 3 big knots (granthi) and the rudra granthi seems to be the biggest i am layer onion that is being burned of all the chakra's and granthi's.

behind the 3rd eye surrender everything that is left inside being, existence.

surrender 3rd eye. let it die, never to be used again. say goodbye to it.

existence is before awareness.

now that beingness and doing are zero, havingness is ready to go down the drain. who owns anything anyway.

existence is a feeling happening inside the silence like a cloud that is inside the air. observe the awareness, consciousness, existence coming and going like the waves of the ocean. the only thing that is real is deep sleep where there is no mind to register anything.

witness the witness. there is i am consciousness and the next step is i am that consciousness.

loosing perceptions, eyes etc. Do not care what happens to the body.

there is no external event. all fear, desire or separation feelings happens within. there is nobody to help, because there are no others.

surrender the visual perception and doingness towards the i thought.

do not fight anything however much you are against it, but surrender to it. if it is a being trying to control you, or aliens or suppressive people.

loss of control, let divine take over.

The only thing remaining is to be.
holding on to an i feeling is doingness. even if it is viewed from the silence, because something is viewing and tracking it for progress or whatever. it is not the silence holding on, how can it. it is also not observing, as there is something there that experiences it. all thoughts and i feelings in the mind have nothing to do with who you truly are. leave the mind alone, leave the world alone and be who you are. even the idea of sitting down and trying to get a step further by loosing another peace of mind is still part of the mind. leave it all alone and just be.
it is a direct process of mind dying.
to know yourself, be yourself. to be yourself, stop imagining yourself to be this or that. just be. let your true nature emerge. don’t disturb your mind with seeking.
let the mind die, including the one that feels there is a need for it.

let the movements happen in silence, for what comes will go away as well.

love and enjoy the i thought until bliss is the only thing that remains.

surrender

surrender the i thought, even though you recognize it not being yours. silence remains.

thinking is desiring is a thirst for bliss which is only found without.

all phenomena takes place within the self.

whatever method there is to get rid of charge or to let you grow is a method where the ego is needed.

The feeling that you can gain something, desire, is yet another I layer.

There is just full experience without object / subject. So affinity / reality / communication breakdowns, feeling suppressed, things you do not want anyone to know - withholds, emotions and any other mental stuff cannot but be fully experienced. any other activity is ego oriented.

There is no thinker.

Stilling and holding the silence is still doingness, find out who is doing it or is aware of it. Who is seeing and hearing or even understanding things. It is all duality when logic is involved.

you are dying, there will be nothing left to experience. let go of existence, let the one who is experiencing life, die. surrender to the vacuum, and don’t care what that emptiness is or will do.

total surrender of any stress giving form and motion in the mind gives way to the self.

don’t try to be, you already are.

the mind for whatever reason acquires a ridge in memory at a certain point. this ridge gets energy from the source and becomes a being, thinking in terms of i, verses the outer. but in reality there is just a ridge and experience.

There is no afterlife. Past life recall is only related to the ego and is not who you truely are. Out of body experience is also related to the ego, and is not who you truely are.

Start of diary...