Some say that everything the ‘ego-me’ does simply perpetuates the ego-me, and thus the sense of separation and suffering that comes with the ego-me continues. If this is true, then there is nothing you can do to for ‘liberation to occur’ and for suffering to end. Note that this is a belief. Note that this is a conceptual view. Ask yourself: how do you even know this is true?
In order to know this is true, one would have to try every single practice in the world. It is a bit like saying no action can ever take you to the moon, as no action I’ve done so far has ever taken me to the moon. But it is possible to go to the moon!
Saying everything the ego does simply perpetuates the ego, is a bit like saying everything the body does simply perpetuates the body.
Just as there is a certain action the body can do that ends the body (ie. suicide), there is a certain effort of the ego-me that ends the ego-me (ie. self-enquiry).
Self-enquiry is ego suicide!
This is why Bhagavan Sri Ramana emphasised the need for practice and self-enquiry; see these teachings from Sri Ramana taken from Guru Vachaka Kovai (the second verse quoted summarises my points above, namely that there is a practise the ego can undertake that ends the ego):
385 When with the keen, unceasing quest
Of “Who am I?” one penetrates
The centre of oneself, the body-bound
Ego fades away, true Being
Rises clear as I, as I,
And puts an end to all diversity,
Illusive as the blueness of the sky.
388 The jiva searching “Who in truth am I?”
Subsides as the true Self without an ‘I’.
[Tom: jiva means the (conceiving of oneself as a) separate body-mind entity. Jiva essentially refers to the ego ie. the false sense of being a body-mind entity]
391 Those who do not dive into the Heart
And there confront the Self in the five sheaths hid
Are only students answering out of books
Clever questions raised by books,
And not true seekers of the Self.
402 Delusive thought now like a cloud
Conceals the boundless bright awareness
Of the Self. Enquiring “Who am I?”
Dispels the darkness and the splendour
Of the sky of Self shines clear.
403 As a ball of iron heated in the fire
Glows like a ball of fire, the jiva
Once impure is now ennobled
By self-enquiry and acquires
The very nature of the Self.
404 When the suffering fool turns inward,
Enquiring “Who am I?” the radiant
Truth is seen, confusion cleared,
And silence wells up as the bliss of peace.
405 The jiva’s terrible suffering is
The turbid folly of the mind
Unschooled and ignorant of the Self.
Practise unceasingly within the wise
Enquiry, “Whose is this dire suffering?
Who am I?”
406 By the transmuting touch of daily,
Methodical, untiring self-enquiry,
The base metal jiva shines forth clear
As Siva, freed from the mental rust,
The demon ego.
407 The jiva, son of God, forgetting
His real Being, cries “Alas” in anguish.
Then when he searches yearning inwards
He by experience knows the glory
Of oneness with the Self, his Father.
Please read the above verses carefully and slowly in order to fully gain their benefit.
Let us therefore first understand the proper technique of self-enquiry, and then let us be inspired and devoted to its practice.
Om Namo Bhagavate Sri Ramanaya Om
🙏🙏🙏
Tom Das 