Today I ran across a great passage in I am That that I thought was worth sharing.
Questioner: All teachers advise to meditate. What is the purpose of meditation?
Maharaj: We know the outer world of sensations and actions, but of our inner world of thoughts and feelings we know very little. The primary purpose of meditation is to become conscious of, and familiar with, our inner life. The ultimate purpose is to reach the source of life and consciousness.
Incidentally practice of meditation affects deeply our character. We are slaves to what we do not know; of what we know we are masters. Whatever vice or weakness in ourselves we discover and understand its causes and its workings, we overcome it by the very knowing; the unconscious dissolves when brought into the conscious. The dissolution of the unconscious releases energy; the mind feels adequate and becomes quiet. – I Am That, Nisargadatta Maharaj, 16-17
Notice the two sentences I placed in italics. Nisargadatta indicates meditation is about familiarity with our inner life. From this familiarity we are enabled to investigate the truth of our essential nature. Meditation is no more than this. It is preparation for the only thing important in life, recognition of Awareness.
Whether you’re sitting in meditation or going about your day look inward, what do you see? There are thoughts and feelings. Whose thoughts and feelings are they? “They are mine” you say. Okay then, who is this “mine”?
I, me, mine, my are identifications with mental objects. They are as illusory as the transitory experiences that compose your life.
What is experience? Nothing more that what is arising, appearing for a time, and passing back again into nothingness. The ego-self is of the same nature. Yet we get confused by thinking this thought “I” is an experiencer enjoying experiences.
Ignorance, delusion, avidya is the belief that “you” are an entity which is separate from everything else that arises and somehow permanent. The self-assertion has no more reality than the illusory world. We say the ego-self is an assertion since it is a thought with a strong conviction concerning its reality.
Since the self-assertion is merely a thought about one’s identity continuous effort must arise to give itself validity. Investigation of this assertion reveals its unreality.
The self-assertion won’t give up its tireless work to assert itself. Therefore you must repeatedly confront this fundamental thought (belief) and look into its nature.
What is “I”?
Where does it come from?
Who possesses it?
Ask yourself these questions continually. When the self-assertion poses another argument investigate that to. The ego-self can not tolerate scrutiny in the light of truth. When the fiction of separate identity falls apart recognize what remains. You are That!
