A simple three word question but is the answer simple?
These last three days I have been on a silent satsang/meditation retreat with a Swami based in Rishikesh, India who heads up an interfaith ashram.
This retreat aimed to answer the question ‘Who Am I’. The teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi and the school of vedantic philosophy provided the framework for exploration and study.
Vedanta and more specifically Advaita (non duality or oneness) is a 3000 year old Indian philosophy which is one of the six classical traditions of Hindu philosophy. It presents a non duality view of the world, i.e there is no self, no other, there is no god in the traditional sense of monotheist religions like Christianity.
Sri Ramana was ‘enlightened’ at the age of 16 in 1896, at a famous mountain in South India called Arunachala. I have visited this mountain in Tamil Nadu briefly and even had a little time meditating in the cave where Sri Ramana spent his time, the energy of that mountain is really something to behold! I am returning in about 3 weeks time to spend more time at the Sri Ramana ashram, cave and the mountain. I’m drawn to Sri Ramana as a teacher as he didn’t see himself as a guru, he was still interested in world affairs and he served others, and I really like the pictures of him he has such a kind face!
But what about his teachings?
Sri Ramana’s teachings are based on self enquiry and assert that there is no personal ‘self’ no ‘me’, ‘mine’ or ‘I’ in the way we individually perceive the world through our senses, through our conditioning, our Samskaras (our mental impressions). The world is not as it appears. Once we move past the senses, the conditioning and the mind, we realise we are pure consciousness The same pure consciousness that is in you, in Donald Trump (!) and in all sentient beings. This consciousness is called Brahman in Vedanta. This sense of awareness of pure consciousness is beyond language and even the mind and its conceptual view of the world.
The transcendental (that which is not perceivable, has no form and is only known by itself i.e consciousness) and the Phenomenal (that which can be perceived, the world of form, i.e the personal self) meets at the heart. It is through the heart we open the door to the realisation that our individual consciousness is the same as the universal consciousness. The ‘I’ that we identify with becomes purely operational so we can function in this world but we are not identified with it.
The dissolution of the ego self is the real death, not the death of the physical body. Being able to let go of our body, our possessions, our friends and family, and our ‘identification with the I” is necessary to achieve Moskha - liberation.
There was much discussion in the retreat about enlightenment and the different states, samadhi, moksha etc, and what to do when you get there! How do you transition living in this world when you uncover that it’s not real (in the sense that we perceive it).
The importance of following one path, one teacher and having a sangha (Community) around you was stressed. This is where I still have much work to do. I remain drawn to different teachers and different paths - from the engaged Buddhism of Thich Nhat Hanh and Michael Stone to Tantra and esoteric Christian and Islamic poets. I resonate with different practices from different traditions, I don’t have just one teacher, I have many, so where does that leave me?
This deep dive into Vedanta/Advaita was incredibly valuable in my understanding of this philosophy but I am not 100% sure this path is for me. In my heart, I feel I am a Bhakti yogi in the the broadest sense of that.. my way in (if that is even the right way to put it ) is through mantra music and heart focused devotional practices not through self enquiry.
So for now, I continue to be comfortable sitting in the question - ‘Who Am I’ with no need for my mind to conceptualise or to answer.
Please comment with your own thoughts if you’d like to share.
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