The Limits Of Self-inquiry

[JKG]

I recently have been doing a lot of self-inquiry with writing my questions and answers down. But almost every session I come to the same conclusion from which I cannot go any further. The self-inquiry process becomes useless in a sense because I already know the conclusion.

In every session I realize that everything is just a concept, belief, perception... And I am non of these things. I get the sense of being this constant thing behind all of this, like Leo describes in the neti-neti meditation. So I am this thing beyond perception but also within perception. I am everything, nothing, infinity.

At the end of a session I feel this connection with the constant thing I am. And I have the feeling that I cannot go any further. It seems like Enlightenment is just being connected with the constant me and letting go of all beliefs. Therefore the key to Enlightenment is mindfulness and I don't need to do any self-inquiry anymore. The only thing I would have to work on is being mindful and connected with the constant me.

 

Is this the right approach? Or am I doing something wrong? Am I deluding myself?

(here are some of my self-inquiry sessions)

 

[Telepresent]

51 minutes ago, quantum said:

So I am this thing beyond perception but also within perception. I am everything, nothing, infinity.

Do you experience this, or does it come as a conclusion to a series of rational/logical thought-processes?  If you don't experience it, then you're thinking it.  Conceptualising it.  The wall exists because your mind has decided it 'knows' what everything, nothing, infinity mean.  Question those: open them up.  What are they?  Does the conceptual understanding of them hold up to deep dark scrutiny?  Question everything, and don't accept any pre-packaged answers.  When you reach a new conclusion, rip that one apart: find out what it's made of, and whether or not those building blocks are true.

The posts you link to show a good approach to questioning things - just don't accept your first answer.  PROVE your answer to yourself.

[Prabhaker]

@quantum

1 hour ago, quantum said:

I recently have been doing a lot of self-inquiry with writing my questions and answers down.

Ramana Maharshi’s whole system of meditation was based on self inquiry.

He used to say, “There is only one form of meditation, and that is to ask yourself, ‘Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?’’’ He would say, “Put all the energy that you possess, put your whole life’s energy at stake in asking just this one question, ‘Who am I?’ Ask this question as if your life depended on it. Let each and every cell of your body cry out for this answer.

And go on asking this question, but don’t give any answers, because all the answers you give will be false. Let the answer come by itself, don’t give the answer. You are always in such a hurry to supply the answer, and all your answers born out of your hurry are false – because such answers are already present in your head even before the question has been asked.”

Ask, “Who am I?” but don’t give any answer. Use all your energy in asking the question, and don’t save any of it for answering – because your answer does not have any value. Your answer will be something which you have heard somewhere or the sayings of some sages or from your social conditioning. It will be like dust which has gathered on you from the outside: it will have no value. Ask as if you do not have any answer left to give. In your process of asking the question, all your answers should have dropped away and only the question should be left. And the day that only your question remains, your question will shoot like an arrow into your innermost self – because then there aren’t any answers on the periphery to stop it. Then, you will travel inwards, then you know. But that knowing is not an answer: it is an existential experience.

 

Edited November 1, 2016 by Prabhaker

[askdfjnak]

1 hour ago, quantum said:

I get the sense of being this constant thing behind all of this, like Leo describes in the neti-neti meditation. So I am this thing beyond perception but also within perception.

Start inquiring into this "thing". Keep dissecting this "thing" using inquiry as your tool (like a magnifying glass zooming in on it). If you find another "thing" start dissecting that. Keep going until there is no "thing" - nothing.

It sounds like you're doing inquiry as a mental exercise rather than as an experiential exercise. 
If you are, remember you're not looking for an answer to pop up at the end of your questions.
The answer you want is already there, even before you begin questioning.

To use an analogy, it sounds like you're trying to figure out what 2+2 is, when the number 4 is already in front of you.
Your job isn't to solve 2+2, your job is to just see 4 without calculating.
 

[Prabhaker]

5 hours ago, quantum said:

Is this the right approach?

Self-inquiry is mainly known today through the teachings of Ramana Maharshi. It is an ancient method of meditation, but full of dangers. Unless you are alert, the greater possibility is that you will be led astray by the method rather than to the right goal.

Raman used to give a technique to his disciples: they were just to enquire, “Who am I?”

If you want to go rightly into the method, then the question has not to be verbally asked. “Who am I?” has not to be repeated verbally. Because as long as it remains a verbal question, you will supply a verbal answer from the head. You have to drop the verbal question. It has to remain just a vague idea, just like a thirst. Not that “I am thirsty,”—can you see the difference? When you are thirsty, you feel the thirst. And if you are in a desert, you feel the thirst in every fiber of your body. You don’t say, “I am thirsty, I am thirsty.” It is no longer a linguistic question, it is existential.

If “Who am I?” is an existential question, if you are not asking it in language but instead the feeling of the question is settling inside your center, then there is no need for any answer. Then it is none of the mind’s business.The mind will not hear that which is non-verbal, and the mind will not answer that which is non-verbal.

Raman Maharshi, used only this method for his disciples: “Who am I?” But they are nowhere near the ultimate experience. And the reason is because they know the answer already.

 

[FindingPeace]

5 hours ago, quantum said:

I recently have been doing a lot of self-inquiry with writing my questions and answers down. But almost every session I come to the same conclusion from which I cannot go any further. The self-inquiry process becomes useless in a sense because I already know the conclusion.

I have the same problem with this. I'm interested to hear how others overcome it.

I can sit and self-enquire all I like, asking questions like "Who am I?". But no answer arises and no experience. I already have an intellectual understanding of the truth of no self. I often find that once I have an intellectual understanding of something, the 'experience' becomes difficult if not impossible to achieve.

This applies also to experiences I have already had in the past, that came from sudden and profound realisations and enquiries. However, once the experience has happened and the 'knowledge' of this new truth is integrated, I seem to lose the ability to ever recreate the experience again. As though the intellectual knowledge inhibits a repeat of the enquiry that initially led to it.

It's an interesting problem. The thing I now try is to use a different line of self-enquiry. Instead of "Who am I?" I try "Who am I not?".

[JKG]

8 hours ago, Telepresent said:

Do you experience this, or does it come as a conclusion to a series of rational/logical thought-processes?

Most of the times I experience it due to a little awakening experience a few weeks ago. But it also comes from questioning but rather logical. Its a mix of both.

 

8 hours ago, Telepresent said:

Question everything, and don't accept any pre-packaged answers.

Before my awakening experience I often just came to the conclusion that I am beyond experience because of logical thinking. But at that day I wanted to actually look what that is. So the awakening happened.

 

8 hours ago, Telepresent said:

When you reach a new conclusion, rip that one apart: find out what it's made of, and whether or not those building blocks are true.

@Telepresent Thanks for the advice

[JKG]

8 hours ago, Prabhaker said:

Ramana Maharshi’s whole system of meditation was based on self inquiry.

He used to say, “There is only one form of meditation, and that is to ask yourself, ‘Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?’’’ He would say, “Put all the energy that you possess, put your whole life’s energy at stake in asking just this one question, ‘Who am I?’ Ask this question as if your life depended on it. Let each and every cell of your body cry out for this answer.

And go on asking this question, but don’t give any answers, because all the answers you give will be false. Let the answer come by itself, don’t give the answer. You are always in such a hurry to supply the answer, and all your answers born out of your hurry are false – because such answers are already present in your head even before the question has been asked.”

@Prabhaker Where exactly did you found that quote from him?

I should definitively learn more about him. Everything you are writing seems so beautiful, wise and profound.

[JKG]

7 hours ago, Marc Schinkel said:

To use an analogy, it sounds like you're trying to figure out what 2+2 is, when the number 4 is already in front of you.
Your job isn't to solve 2+2, your job is to just see 4 without calculating.

@Marc Schinkel great analogy

[JKG]

4 hours ago, FindingPeace said:

The thing I now try is to use a different line of self-enquiry. Instead of "Who am I?" I try "Who am I not?".

Yeah, I have also used this question, and it might take you a while... You can come up with anything.

I think through questioning "Who/what am I not" you can loosen the identification with the ego well.

[Dodo]

I am is always going to be and you are that. If I am is dead, it's not I am. But the ultimate truth is I Am. God is I Am, don't know what you have to be experiencing or how blissed out you have to be to realise you always are. You are always true. 

When someone ask you, do you just know that intellectually or are you really experiencing god, you should say loudly and proudly - yeah, i am. Because You Are. Always.

The conceptual answer to who am I is : I am. People' egos wouldnt be satisfied by this answer and would not realise how powerful it is. 

What more do you want than immortality? To be or not to be is not the question here. You always are and always will be.

Ofcourse this realization should be just the start of your journey. Lets go deeper. Beyond I am. I am still packing...

Edited November 1, 2016 by Dodoster

[ajasatya]

@quantum are you truly sincere about giving up on your avatar/costume/character on this dream?

if you think so, lead yourself to that question. your heart should pump the fuck up and you should feel a cold sensation in your viscera. it feels like you know you're going to die and this can be quite disturbing.

do you really accept leaving your parents behind? your house, your friends, school? don't lie to yourself. why are you doing all this?

it's your universe. there's nobody else here. you're on your own. that's how it's always been and that's how it will always be.

[Leo Gura]

The problem is that true not-knowing isn't happening. You're just doing a mental circle jerk.

You gotta really doubt what you think of as reality!

You gotta really doubt that you are that body.

Get serious! Right fucking now! What are you?!!!

Do you know?

Look at whatever you immediately identify as. Cut all the shit. Cut all the theory or answers you've heard. That's not what you actually identify with. You identify with that meaty body and monkey mind. So be honest about that and start your inquiry there, not in theory-land.

You have to inquiry from a place of what actually feels true in your direct experience, not what you've heard is the right answer.

When you ask yourself "What am I?", make sure you force a concrete experiential answer, not some vague idea like, "Oh, I'm everything." No! That's not true for you. In fact you identify with a body sensation or a mental image of yourself. So that's your answer. It's wrong, but an honest wrong answer is better than a dishonest right answer.

You have to answer honestly, otherwise self-inquiry cannot work.

This is why good spiritual teaches are loathe to give you any information or answers. Because they know it will put you in the current trap you're in. Now you gotta be wise enough to avoid the trap.

How? Force honest answers. Then question them to see why you hold them and how they're ultimately false.

Why do you identify with being a mental image or a body sensation? Who told you that's actually you?

Question, question, question until you start to get a dawning sense that your self-image is totally arbitrary. There is absolutely zero proof that you are who you think you are. It's like a case of mistaken identity. The man who mistook himself for a coffee table

If you get even 5 seconds of TRUE not-knowing of who you are, enlightenment is a hair's width away! But it has to be REA not-knowing, not pretend. Like -- REALLY -- you have no idea what you are! When you gonna admit it to yourself?

[Baul]

@quantum
Adopt self-inquiry as a mindset, or in other words, have it become your nature. Let it consume you, and ultimately make that urgency define you. Afterwards, recognize that you are doing this only for your own sake, not anyone else's, and that no one else will bring you to where you want to go except you.  You'll know your self-inquiry practice has taken off when you incrementally being seeking less and less guidance from others (including your own mind). You will progressively feel an increasing comfort in your unknowing of the contents of experience. Keep going further after that, as the comfort is a distraction. Do not settle for anything that is said by anything in your experience (including your mind). Live your life while doing so. Also, don't misconstrue what self-inquiry is. You're not really "inquiring" about anything, you are looking in your experience for something that is definite. If you have be told to believe this, then you're not really being productive with your self-inquiry.

[JKG]

17 hours ago, ajasatya said:

@quantum are you truly sincere about giving up on your avatar/costume/character on this dream?

if you think so, lead yourself to that question. your heart should pump the fuck up and you should feel a cold sensation in your viscera. it feels like you know you're going to die and this can be quite disturbing.

do you really accept leaving your parents behind? your house, your friends, school? don't lie to yourself. why are you doing all this?

it's your universe. there's nobody else here. you're on your own. that's how it's always been and that's how it will always be.

Is there any choice? Probably not.

My intuition is telling me to do this. At least I think so. Maybe I have already gone to far on this path to leave it.

I often hear the ego trying to hold onto stupid things. But that's just this little voice inside the head.

"it's your universe. there's nobody else here." - an interesting thought

[Dragallur]

@quantum There is book about Ramana Maharshi's teachings called Be As Your Are. It is really cool and as Prabhaker said, he is basically the "founder" of todays self-inquiry so there is really nice description of the process. (I think it is available even for free as pdf.)