Bhagavan [Ramana Maharshi] has said: 'When thoughts arise stop them from developing
by enquiring, "To whom is this thought coming?" as soon as the thought
appears. What does it matter if many thoughts keep coming up? Enquire into their
origin or find out who has the thoughts and sooner or later the flow of thoughts will stop.'
This is how self-enquiry should be practiced.
When Bhagavan spoke like this he sometimes used the
analogy of a besieged fort. If one systematically loses off all the
entrances to such a fort and then picks off the occupants one by one as
they try to come out, sooner or later the fort willl be be empty.
Bhagavan said that we should apply these same tactics to the mind. How
to go about doing this? Seal off the entrances and exits to the mind by
not reacting to rising thoughts or sense impressions. Don't let new
ideas, judgements, likes, dislikes, etc. enter the mind, and don't let
rising thoughts flourish and escape your attention. When you have sealed
off the mind in this way, challenge each emerging thought as it appears
by asking, 'Where have you come from?' or 'Who is the person who is
having this thought?' If you can do this continuously, with full
attention, new thoughts will appear momentarily and then disappear. If
you can maintain the siege for long enough, a time will come when no
more thoughts arise; or if they do, they will only be fleeting,
undistracting images on the periphery of consciousness. In that
thought-free state you wlil begin to experience yourself as
consciousness, not as mind or body.
However, if you relax your vigilance even for a few
seconds and allow new thoughts to escape and develop unchallenged, the
siege will be lifted and the mind will regain some or all of its former
strength.
In a real fort the occupants need a continuous supply of
food and water to hold out during a siege. When the supplies run out,
the occupants must surrender or die. In the fort of the mind the
occupants, which are thoughts, need a thinker to pay attention to them
and indulge in them. If the thinker witholds his attention from rising
thoughts or challenges them before they have a chance to develop, the
thoughts will all die of starvation. You challenge them by repeatedly
asking yourself 'Who am I? Who is the person who is having these
thoughts?' If the challenge is to be effective you must make it before
the rising thought has had a chance to develop into a stream of
thoughts.
Mind is only a collection of thoughts and the thinker who
thinks them. The thinker is the 'I'-thought, the primal thought which
rises from the Self before all others, which identifies with all other
thoughts and says, 'I am this body'. When you have eradicated all
thoughts except for the thinker himself by ceaseless enquiry or by
refusing to give them any attention, the 'I'-thought sinks into the
Heart and surrenders, leaving behind it only an awareness of
consciousness. This surrender will only take place when the 'I'-thought
has ceased to identify with rising thoughts. While there are still stray
thoughts which attract or evade your attentoin, the 'I'-thought will
always be directing its attention outwards rather than inwards. The
purpose of self-enquiry is to make the 'I'-thought move inwards, towards
the Self. This will happen automatically as soon as you cease to be
interested in any of your rising thoughts.
— Annamalai Swami in David Godman, Living by the Words of Bhagavan, pages 272–73.
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