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According to Bhagavan "I am" is not the first illusion, that would be rather the first thought "I" which is ego. "I am" does not point to an I (as an individual) but to the formless sense of existence being. It is *not* initially adjunct awareness, only ego is that and not "I am". Nisargadatta's concepts are confusing (and frankly make no sense for me) and it is not advised to compare his teachings with Bhagavan. Bhagavan's teaching is complete, why the necessity of agreement of concepts? Bad idea. Bhagavan taught that we have conflated awareness and that is the awareness of "I am" or pure awareness and ego-awareness or objectified awareness. Thus attending to "I am" is the path and the goal since attending to "I am" is not changing anything of "I am" since it is immutable, all what happens is that ego-awareness loses its power and efficacy. Thus "I am" is *always,* that what changes/vanishes is only the fictitious ego-awareness of phenomena/adjuncts.

Bhagavan wrote in verse 28 of Ulladu Narpadu: "Like sinking wanting to see something that has fallen in water, sinking within restraining speech and breath by a sharpened mind it is necessary to know the place where the rising ego rises. Know." Notice the words "sinking wanting" because sinking is passive and wanting implies will. We must be willing to do nothing and sink into our own self.

Namaskar, Michael is there a way to contact you. If you have some spare time to discuss bhagavan teaching ?

@@soulmusica8232 sriramanateachings.org/contact.html

@@SriRamanaTeachings thank you for your reply, I understand keep these precious time for deep translation of askamanamalai. Mano Sri arunachala ramanaya as bhagavan Will 🙏❤️

​Namaskar dear Michael, only to tell you how grateful I am for your tirelessly repeating every teaching of Bhagavan Ramana. I, with this body, brain, and ears, look forward for every satsang group in which you are talking, your talks and words are never enough for me to hear. 🙏 And then, I practice. Thank you, thank you!!🎉❤

I am not Michael but I will try to answer you. Everything is Brahman but our arising as "I am the body" consciousness creates a subject and object division because we desire to experience things that we are not. In "I am the body" consciousness only "I am" is real and we must want to experience this consciousness in isolation from all phenomena. The ego is not some cataclysm that "happened" to us because we ourselves arise as the ego and it is our desires that create the external world. We are not victims but the cause. We are tired of this world but the truth is that instead of wanting to wake up we simply desire a better dream. As for why there is no explanation for the arising of the ego, it is that the ego does not really exist but appears to exist when we desire to experience things that we are not. When we try to turn our attention to ourselves it turns out that the ego does not exist. If you really want to know the answer to the question why this snake appeared the only answer is "it appeared because you did not look at it carefully". This is why on the path of self-investigation we do not ask "why does it exist?" but "does it even exist?". It is called "investigation" for a reason.

Namaskaram. What he means is that what we actually are does not know itself by any act of knowing, as we know objects, because it knows itself just by being itself, as he points out in verse 26 of Upadēśa Undiyār: blog.sriramanateachings.org/2024/09/how-to-know-and-to-be-what-we-actually.html#uu26 Self-knowledge (ātma-jñāna) is therefore a completely different type of knowing than what we generally take to be ‘knowing’. Namo Ramanaya 🙏🙏🙏

@@SriRamanaTeachings while existing in blissful awareness being nothing other. The i-thought, the I am the knower of things, imagines reality within its imaginary self. The ego self appearance, is concealment of reality. Unknowing the identity appearing falsely as human you is investigation of oneself. cx

It is not really something we have to take on faith. In deep sleep, all that exists is ourselves and nothing else. In deep sleep, we do not direct our attention inward or outward, we simply exist. However, we do not only exist because we are also aware of our existence. This means that consciousness and existence are the same because only we exist in deep sleep as awareness of our existence. There is no "way" in which the self knows itself because knowledge is the substance of existence. To know anything else we have to direct our attention to something we are not, so knowledge of phenomena is fundamentally different from self-knowledge. When we direct our attention to something we are not, the first thing that arises is the consciousness "I am the body" and all other phenomena derive their existence from this limited consciousness and are not conscious in themselves, so they do not exist when we are not conscious of them. Only our own consciousness is self-shining. Anyway, that's how I understand it.

@@LieutenantBoreyko Its amazing that when we lay our heads down to sleep every night, we have to let go of all of our thoughts dreams, desires and everything else we’ve held onto in order to gain the bliss of a few hours sleep. If while trying to fall asleep any room is given to any random thoughts, then sleep seems far off and futile. In the same way self enquiry is similar to falling asleep. The reason people breathe is to have a life signs. If not for the breathing a sleeping body may look like a dead one. If you were dead or asleep how would you ever know ? You know when you wake up that you never were asleep awake or dreaming, it had all been a wonderful illusion and interesting figment of imagination. Sleep well, wake up soon. Be grace be still. cx

@@LieutenantBoreyko who has knowledge of phenomena? Phenomena only happen in the imagination of the i thought. The thought I am phenomena is falsely identifying as a person. A person can see phenomena only after identifying itself as phenomena. Which came first The phenomena that saw or The phenomena that was seen? You are not the phenomena you take yourself to be. You are that one pure self awareness conscious bliss. cx

Namaskaram. As Bhagavan Krishna explained in the Bhagavad Gita, and as Bhagavan Ramana clarified, in each life we start off in terms of spiritual progress from wherever we left off in our previous life, so whatever spiritual progress we have made is not lost. That is, what we as ego take from one life to the next is our vāsanās, so if we strengthen our sat-vāsanā and weaken our viṣaya-vāsanās in this life, this will be carried over to our next life, so you need not fear about this. Death and rebirth are just like changing our clothes, so however much sat-vāsanā we earn while wearing this set of clothes will remain with us when we put on a new set of clothes. Namo Ramanaya 🙏🙏🙏

@@SriRamanaTeachings Thank you very much for the kind reply.

The only thing that really exists is the fundamental consciousness "I Am" so everything we experience cannot be anything other than that but when we identify with the body this one indivisible reality is experienced by us in a false way because together with the ego there is a division into subject and object, "I" and "not-I". The world is not real as the world but it is real as God. Ulladu Narpadu, verse 1: English translation: Because we see the world, accepting one fundamental that has a power that becomes many is certainly the one best option. The picture of names and forms, the one who sees, the cohesive screen, and the pervading light - all these are he, who is oneself. Explanatory paraphrase: Because we [as ego] see the world, accepting one mudaḷ [first thing, origin, source, base or fundamental reality] that has a power that becomes many [appearances, namely ourself as ego, the seer or perceiver, and all the manifold phenomena that constitute this or any other world that we may see or perceive] is certainly the one best option. The picture of names and forms [namely the world and whatever other phenomena appear in the mind], the one who sees [this picture] [namely ego], the cohesive screen [namely the mind as the background on which it appears], and the pervading light [namely the mind as the reflected light of awareness, which is what illumines its appearance] - all these are he [the one original thing], who is oneself [one’s real nature].

During a really gnarly mushroom trip, I was being shown past versions of myself that I had outgrown, but I could experience that past version so vividly and clearly, I suddenly became petrified at the idea that I could forget this, and become trapped in that past version of myself all over again.

Investigating the "snake" and attending to "I am" are descriptions of the same thing. However these are conceptual terms which can never describe reality. Silence can have many meanings for people and only very few understand what Bhagavan meant with "silence" or summa iru. It is not just not speaking or a phase of not thinking, it's much deeper than that and it takes maturity to fully grasp it. We never attend to silence, we attend to "I am". If we try to attend to "silence" we automatically attend to an imagination of how we imagine what that silence would be. That does not lead anywhere but stays in the realm of the imaginations of mind. Instead we attend to ourself, our sense of being. It is very simple, so simple that most overlook it. Attending to "I am" does not lead to anything, there is no such thing as enlightenment. That what we truly are does not change and is not attained. If it does not change then we must be already That! The problem is that we ignore what we truly are and that needs the attentiveness to "I am". If we truly "realize" that ego does not exist then that what we truly are will swallow that what we now believe to be and *we will die!* Our so-called personality will vanish forever. Is that realization immediately? No, it will take many lifetimes of practice since we need to wean us off our many addictions like our liking of seeing a "world" and our many likes and dislikes. That must go before there can be any realization.

This becomes immediate the moment the last inclination to experience things that we are not disappears and overcoming these inclinations may take a long or short time depending on how much we want to experience only ourselves. Usually our love is almost non-existent so the best option is to prepare for a long and arduous process and not expect immediate enlightenment. Self-investigation is not the investigation of silence but the investigation of our experience of "I Am". The purpose of self-investigation is not to experience peace of mind although peace of mind is a side effect of focusing only on ourselves. Metaphorically we can say that "silence is the highest teaching" but in a literal sense the teaching of Ramana is contained in his original writings. To experience this silence we have to investigate who we are and to investigate who we are we have to understand what Bhagavan taught. When people talk about silence as the "true teaching" they are talking about it to justify their spiritual laziness and unwillingness to study and practice.

@@johnmcdonald260 Directing attention to ourselves leads to becoming able to experience our consciousness in isolation from all the things we are not. This is a skill we must acquire. If self-investigation does not lead to anything, then the practice is pointless and we can simply lie down and tell ourselves "I am already That". Self-investigation does not lead to any specific objective experience, but it is a mistake to say that there is no specific goal. Our goal is to experience ourselves as we really are, and self-investigation is necessary because now we do not experience who we really are.

@@LieutenantBoreyko You are misunderstanding me, of course is atma-vichara absolutely necessary but it is not proper if practiced with a goal in mind. Who has a goal? That what has a goal does not truly exist. Therefore how can we transcend duality when we assume that there is an ego, the subject, who pursues an object, attending to “THE” self or trying to experience self? We can never experience self! We *ARE* [our]self. That what is trying to experience self will try forever and never succeed, it needs to surrender with nothing in mind, especially any goals. We already experience ourself as we are. However we need to ATTENTIVELY be “I am”, just for the sake of being itself without any goals and hopes for happiness and so on. That requires total surrender, we cannot care if we have any results or if we ever realize self, nonetheless we attend to “I am”. Only that is proper atma-vichara and only in that way we can realize self.

@@johnmcdonald260 "If one clings fast to uninterrupted svarūpa-smaraṇa [self-remembrance] until one attains svarūpa [one’s own real nature, namely oneself as one actually is], that alone is sufficient." Nan Ar, paragraph 11 "When the form of the mind is annihilated, for the great yōgi who remains permanently as the reality, there is not a single doing. He has attained his nature." Upadesa Undiyar, verse 15 "Being [as one actually is] knowing poruḷ [the one real substance, which is oneself], which exists as siddham [what is always accomplished], is [real] siddhi [accomplishment]." Ulladu Narpadu, verse 35 "Like sinking wanting to see something that has fallen in water, sinking within restraining speech and breath by a sharpened mind it is necessary to know the place where the rising ego rises. Know." Ulladu Narpadu, verse 28 Bhagavan claimed that experiencing who we really are is an "attainment." Although the ego does not exist from the perspective of pure awareness, the ego does exist from its own perspective, so the ego must investigate itself to discover that it does not really exist. When the ego knows itself, it is no longer the ego. As the ego, we must try to know ourselves, and this does not imply that the ego exists, because our goal is to find out whether the ego exists. The way you describe it leads to spiritual lethargy and does not motivate one to undertake the practice. If you say that the "I am the body" consciousness is what we really are, then you are right that we have no goal. However, if we are not satisfied with being the body, then we must want to attain the goal of being aware of ourselves as we really are.