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Mingyur Meditation

Self-inquiry Diary

Mingyur Yeshe

Mingyur Yeshe

Self-enquiry (also spelled self-inquiry) 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-realization 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 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."

Relevant links for more information:

Self-realization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-realization

Self-awareness: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_awareness

Enlightenment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moksha

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Ramana Maharshi

Beginners in self-enquiry were advised by Sri Ramana Maharshi to put their attention on the inner feeling of "I" and to hold that feeling as long as possible. They were told that if their attention was distracted by other thoughts, they should revert to awareness of the "I"-thought whenever they became aware that their attention had wandered. He suggested various aids to assist this process — one could ask oneself "Who am I?" or "Where does this 'I' come from?" — but the ultimate aim was to be continuously aware of the "I" which assumes that it is responsible for all the activities of the body and the mind.

In the early stages of practice, attention to the feeling "I" is a mental activity that takes the form of a thought or a perception. As the practice develops, the thought "I" gives way to a subjectively experienced feeling of "I," and when this feeling ceases to connect and identify with thoughts and objects, it completely vanishes. What remains is an experience of being in which the sense of individuality has temporarily ceased to operate. The experience may be intermittent at first, but with repeated practice, it becomes easier and easier to reach and maintain. When self-enquiry reaches this level, there is an effortless awareness of being in which individual effort is no longer possible since the "I" who makes the effort has temporarily ceased to exist. It is not Self-realization since the "I"-thought periodically reasserts itself, but it is the highest level of practice. Repeated experience of this state of being weakens and destroys the Vasanas (mental tendencies) that cause the "I"-thought to rise, and, when their hold has been sufficiently weakened, the power of the Self destroys the residual tendencies so completely that the "I"-thought never rises again. This is the final and irreversible state of Self-realization.

Below are my personal self-inquiry notes. These notes started about a year after reading the book Silence of the Heart by 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 laid out in this book and would only be a repetition if inserted 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 understand that you are not the body nor the mind. This can happen because you have read books about non-duality where it states that the self 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 boils down to sensing (that which has form — physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, etc.) who you believe you are and holding that feeling until it dissolves.

- Ramana Maharshi

Identification Layers:

  • I
  • Me, my, mine
  • Self
  • Be
  • I am
  • Yourself
  • Name
  • I am the body
  • I am this or that
  • Awareness
  • Existence
  • Space, time, energy
  • Nothingness, void, don't know (knowingness layer)
  • Perceptions, physical and other
  • Who you are, including the observer
  • Emotions (including memory of pain and unconsciousness)
  • Memory, including the ability to register
  • Reality (considerations)
  • Basic charges: trust, help, fear, loneliness, guilt, pain, desires, survival, etc.
  • Thoughts, thinking
  • Advanced charges: breathing, biological fears, food, sleep, hot/cold, etc.
  • 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.

The Diary:

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

2011 - 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.
  • There is no such thing as trust.
  • There is no such thing as help.
  • 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 fades away once fully experienced, and yet there is nobody there to experience it.
  • 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.
  • Existence happens when the body wakes up from deep sleep, be it a dream or the wakeful world.
  • Existence 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.

Key Realizations:

  • 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 ego. The truth cannot talk.
  • Helping people out seems to make self-realization easy to attain, but recognizing that there is no "I" thought anymore is more difficult, which in fact are one and the same.

Self-Inquiry Pointers

  • Who reacts to my name?
  • Is there any belief in a title, like father, work, etc.? Yet another layer.
  • Are you awake or dreaming?
  • Can you feel anybody — not 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 a tangible "I" are 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. What remains is the truth and cannot be viewed, understood, or approached. An absolute nothingness without attributes.

Key Insights

  • 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 he does not have a focal point to reflect his truth.
  • I amness is consciousness, spreading like sound around the absolute.
  • Self-realization is the same as "I do not exist" realization, without anything or anyone 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 no 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, and it has nothing to do with you because there is no "you."
  • Thinking about it has no use. Living it cannot be completely done as some reflection will remain for interchange.
  • Moksha: The end of all — nothing will remain, neither time, space, energy, feeling, knowing, nor being.
  • 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 the "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 until the whole universe disappears and the rats feast on the body, there is still someone there being separate.

I Layers and Reflections:

  • Feeling proud of accomplishments — an "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 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.

Surrender Practices:

  • Just like satsang, surrender the compression or cylinder that is being used to view through.
  • Moksha: No separation, recognition that all is source without anything recognizing it.
  • Enter the total nothingness in self-inquiry, and then stop compressing or making a focus, which creates the "I am" feeling.
  • "I am the flashlight, the source of light."
  • Drink the moment.

Flow and Receiving:

  • All charge is the inability to receive fully — not somebody to receive it, but cylinders through which it flows 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 the heartbeat, charges, etc. The mind mistakes the heartbeat as another "I" layer in a beating form.

Key Realizations:

  • Keep quiet and stop all effort, including self-inquiry.
  • Just like holding your breath to try to dissolve the "I" — it is a contradiction.
  • In self-inquiry, you need a focal point, hence the same contradiction.
  • If you just are, the mind is gone.
  • There is no need for any practice to swallow up the mind in the heart, as you are the heart already.
  • Fully experience everything until it disappears.

Fear and Control:

  • Fear of losing total body/mind control is the fear of losing the awareness of life.
  • Remain as the pure witness until even witnessing dissolves into the supreme.

Inquiry Questions:

  • Who experiences something or 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.

Reflections on Consciousness:

  • 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 one "I" holds the breath, and another "I" feels the charge.
  • There is no individuality in oneness. Nothing is experiencing the oneness but is oneness.

Metaphors and Teachings:

  • Learn to look at consciousness as a sort of fever, personal and private, in which you are enclosed like a chick in its 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 to the subject.

No Separation:

  • There is no separation between "me" and the universe.
  • Let the mind and everything else 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?

Advanced Realizations:

  • The source of the personal "I" thought seems to be a specific chakra.
  • When the core of kundalini burns through a specific chakra, that onion layer of "I" thought does not return.
  • There seem to be 365 chakras above the Sahasrara, but this is sometimes referred to as 365 dimensions.
  • There are also three big knots (granthis), and the Rudra Granthi seems to be the biggest "I am" layer onion that is burned through all the chakras and granthis.
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Granthi's

Surrender Everything:

  • Behind the third eye, surrender everything that is left inside being and existence.
  • Surrender the third eye. Let it die, never to be used again. Say goodbye to it.
  • Existence is before awareness.

Final Thoughts:

  • 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 inside the air.
  • Observe awareness, consciousness, and 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."