Preetom

That is more or less inevitable. In order to run any coherrent group, it must rest on a set of explicit and implicit values. In other words, the whole dynamics of collective ego. No platform anywhere is like your personal diary where you can communicate anything you want without retaliation.

Indeed~

Declaring a flat world as round is the root of all insanity -medieval Christians

describe this sense of I. Where is it located? Is it fixed in one place like somewhere in head or chest? Or are you kind of chasing it around but can't really grasp it?

Is it something already and always the case and yet i am somehow missing it? Or is it something i need to train myself into?

Start from where you are.

The 700 page long book called "Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi"

I see what you did there snoop Dogg

people that rub you in the wrong way are some of the best teachers you'll ever have

Lmao!

and of course these confusions are never for the Jnani. They are only a topic of debate and confusion for Ajnanis. After all, ajnanis are confused and deluded about everything so no love lost here hehe

Now we are just running in circle and deconstructing language. We cant really utter a True statement. I am, existence, absolute, silence etc every word gets it's interpretation from its opposite. And yet Reality remains as it is no matter how we verbalize it or not

What you are referring as the feeling of 'i', grab onto it keenly. Dont bother about any thought or content of experience. Just attend to that i feeling. Now find out if that i feeling was present during deep sleep. If not, then that i feeling is only another subtle sensation. Existence remains unbroken in deep sleep even in the absence of that i feeling, so existence has nothing to do with that i feeling just like existence has nothing to with anything that comes and goes. Then investigate the i feeling again. Is that something you are? Or is it something you know or focus on? You can never 'know' yourself. You can only be yourself and that is already the case. You can only know something alien or other than yourself. What you are mentioning as the i feeling here is indeed the ego or the i thought. And by investigating and keenly staying with it, it will make that conceptual feeling of i vanish along with the identification mechanism.

this is where a lot intellectual nitpicking can take place but they are rarely helpful for a sincere seeker. There are teachers like Nisargadatta who made distintions like abiding as the ''i am" and going beyond the "i am" into the absolute which he marked as prior to Consciousness. There are teachers like winternight who talk about the Self, but it doesn't feel like a conventional I - and yet, you are still you! You haven't become a new thing all of the sudden or your substance hasn't vanished. In fact you are now more really you than you've ever been! And on the other hand there are statements like "i am that i am", i am is all there is, Consciousness is the sole Reality etc. This also boils down to Consciousness vs Unconsciousness debate. Like, is Consciousness really the Absolute or is the Absolute prior to consciousness? Basically we can see that these people are really talking about the same thing. It just seems flat out contradictory due to how these words like i, i am, consciousness, absolute etc are defined in those particular contexts. So a seeker engaged in self inquiry doesn't have to entangle in that confusing debate. The investigation will end in seeing the rope clearly. Then it doesn't matter if you call it a rope or fooking lion lol. And I agree with you on this one. Bliss or one's own subjective realization is the only test of enlightenment. Thats why it's impossible to really know if other beings exist or not, let alone deciding if they are enlightened or not haha

that is the case! every single person in all situation and at all time experiences ''i am". But the problem is even though people experience ''i am", they have a seriously confused and deluded knowledge about that "i am". It's like a bug or virus that continuously mistranslates a signal and thus distorting it constantly. Its like looking at a mirage which is nothing but a play of light but always mistakenly translating that sight as 'water'. And the consequence of that perpetual error is suffering. The essence of Sri Ramana's teaching is that self-realization is not a new event to be had. It is always and already the case. That is why the technique of self-inquiry becomes relevant. It instructs us to keenly scrutinize that "i am" or that which we feel as 'i'. Through focused and deliberate scrutiny, our delusion about the "i am" ceases and we directly realize the real truth of "i am"-just like upon scrutiny, the deluded knowledge of the snake goes and the rope is clearly seen as it really is. This is exactly why self-inquiry is and only is about scrutinizing and attending to the "i am"- NOT watching or dissecting thoughts, emotions or contents of experience. If we watch/attend to/scrutinize thoughts, we will have psychological insights about thoughts, but never about ''i am''. If we wanna know the truth of ''i am'', we need to watch/investigate/scrutinize only ''i am" and not something else other than ''i am'' e.g. objects of experience. And BTW I've read TSRM and its a great book

Can you specify a point or two how Godman misinterprets the actual technique of self inquiry?

"Happiness and the art of being" by Michael James. Throughout this book he surgically explains self inquiry by breaking down many sayings to find out what Sri Ramana actually wanted to convey with the technique self inquiry. You can download a PDF of that book free from the authors website. That being said, "be as you are" explains self inquiry really well too. Perhaps read that whole 2nd section/chapter 10 more times, take notes and you'll eventually start to have a hang of it. And the good news is, it'll be far more clear and effective than reading 10 more books because you worked it out yourself. All the best.

By asking this question we are making an anthropomorphic or POV conflating error, and at the same time not willing to see beyond this error. Every value projection is in the eye of the beholder. A 3 headed baby seems imperfect when the beholder is a human mind. But when the beholder is a mosquito, will it label a single headed baby as normal and a 3 headed baby as abnormal? No. For the mosquito, both babies are perfect flesh for sucking out tonight's dinner. Seeing things like this virtually breaks down all questions and pet theories as we start to see how much each question depends on infinite number of assumptions in the background like time, space, context, distance, causality etc.

He meant how you see your own face directly without a mirror or any kind of reflection lol

He might have an unusually long neck lol i dont know if he is joking or not

Omg reading this reminded me of a funny story from scriptures lol. A greatly devoted man prayed to God for many years. But as he was getting old, he was getting more frustrated and sad because he never had any vision of God in spite of praying so much. So one night he prayed really hard and begged to have a vision of God before he dies. That night he hears a voice in the dream " look for the headless man. Once you find him, you'll find god" So next day that man frantically searches everywhere in the streets. But alas! Every man has a head. After a whole day of frantic search he sits by the river disheartened. Everyone heading for home after evening, while the man sits alone. Then all of a sudden the direct realization dawns on him that everyone has a head...Expect for him! He is the headless man! He is the God he was searching all along. And thus the headless man got enlightened. So as the story goes

There is profound truth to this statement. Conventional 'life' as we know it is 100% ignorance and delusion. Yet the paradox is when one wakes up, it is realized there was no veiling in the first place. Such a sick joke ? be Echart tolle and wonder at the middle of the night "wait a minute. How many me are there? Am i one or many?" While listening to the distant passing train. Then sleep while being sucked into a vortex without resisting. Next morning, wake up enlightened as fuck. Seeing oneness in everything and wandering in the streets. Then spend 2 years in a park bench in bliss while occasionally people poking you about the secret of your happiness. Then write a bestseller book regarding power of now and all that good shit, make millions and spend the rest of your life in affluence while living the game of a successful guru in the satsang circuits

Finally someone said it! Thank you. This whole notion of i am you and you are me is having ass backwards of this whole thing. This statement contains a huge epistemic error. In exodus god said to Moses "i am that i am". "I am" is another name of God. Infact "I am" IS god. God didn't say " my name is i am. But you can also call me you are, he is or they are". That would be a deluded God if that was the case

"Just be/remain you" is synonymous with "stop defining yourself". And yes, there is no effort being oneself. Effort is only required to be something alien or other

Sounds interesting. I have more questions. Do you feel yourself as One unified whole or something that has divisions, something that increases and decreases? Do you experience yourself in 1/3, 2/3 portions?