Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai verse 11

This is the eleventh in a series of articles that I hope to write on Śrī Aruṇācala Akṣaramaṇamālai, Bhagavan willing, the completed ones being listed here.

Why or how we have risen as ego is inexplicable, but Bhagavan does explain why and how we can cease rising

In my previous article, What does Bhagavan mean by the term ‘mind’?, I explained that the mind is essentially just ego, and in the third section, Mind (in the sense of ego) is the extraordinary power called māyā, which is a distorted reflection of the original power of awareness (cit-śakti), so it is what causes all phenomena to appear, I wrote:

Why should we believe what Bhagavan taught us?

In a comment on my previous article, Why do I believe that ātma-vicāra is the only direct means by which we can eradicate the illusion that we are this ego?, a friend called Maya explained why he was not convinced by what I wrote in it, so this article started off as a reply to some of the ideas he expressed in that comment. However when I began to discuss the logical reasons that Bhagavan gave us to explain why we should believe the fundamental principles of his teachings, this led to a series of reflections on aspects of his teachings that Maya did not refer to, so this article has developed into being more than just a direct reply to what he wrote in his comment.

Is there more than one way in which we can investigate and know ourself?

A friend recently sent me an email in which he asked:

I had mentioned to you that in my view there appear to be three different approaches to self-investigation, i) self-enquiry, which involves asking who am I and going to the root of the I thought, ii) meditating on I am, excluding the arising of any thought, and concentrating on I am, and iii) trying to notice the gap between two thoughts, expanding the gap, and being without any thought, summa iru. You had replied that these are not three different approaches but constitute only one approach. Could you please elaborate your comment?

This article is adapted from the reply that I wrote to him.

The terms ‘I’ or ‘we’ refer only to ourself, whether we experience ourself as we actually are or as the ego that we now seem to be

In a comment on one of my recent articles, The fundamental law of experience or consciousness discovered by Sri Ramana, Palaniappan Chidambaram asked, ‘If the whole sadhana [spiritual practice] is in just being one self […] then why do we use the term vichara or investigation? When thoughts come we don’t investigate but just ignore and turn attention to ourselves. So ideally there is no investigation or enquiry?’, to which I replied in a comment:

Since pure self-awareness is our essential nature, being ourself entails being clearly aware of ourself alone. Therefore trying to be aware of ourself alone is the only means by which we can succeed in being what we really are.