SELF-RESEARCH MEDITATION (ATMA-HIVAR)

“This is the result and essence of everything that the aspirant to the Truth needs to know.

The categorical demand for it is to conduct a zealous and unidirectional search for the source of aham-vritti ” Sri Ramana Maharishi.

The practice of self-study. Atma-vichara meditation is the maintenance of continuous mindfulness of awareness of the inner sense of “I” (aham-vritti). Seated Meditation Pose: let the pose be natural, but motionless.

You are sitting cross-legged, with your back straight, with your hands on your knees.

Tongue pressed to the palate.

Breath: let it flow freely.

Look: eyes half closed.

Consciousness: relaxed, liberated, but alert, it does not follow thoughts.

Method: directing our attention inward, we fully focus on the sense of “I”.

“Chitta (consciousness), direct inward, into the very heart of the“ I ”, connect it with him (this feeling). After binding, dissolve without residue.

Become who you are and who you always have been - one without the other, the Supreme Lord, Parama Shiva, timeless.

” “Yoga Sadhana Hridaya Sutra” (101) Sit in the correct position.

Having straightened your back, concentrate on the inner sense of self. If you can’t catch it, then to call it, ask yourself the question: “Who am I?” After asking a question, try to feel the subtle vibration inside your consciousness.

It is called aham-vritti.

Hold on to it without being distracted by anything.

Long practice of holding “aham-vritti”, i.e. the inner sense of “I,” leads to a connection with superconsciousness.



When extraneous thoughts come, you should not be seized by them, asking yourself: “Who thinks this?” If you have images, you should also ask yourself the question: “Who is watching these images?” When asked, you will get the answer: “I” or "for me." After receiving the answer, you need to ask: “And who am I?”, Again returning to the original vibration “aham-vritti”.

Try not to think “Who am I?” Or “I” at the level of thoughts, but to realize the “I” without thoughts.

This is the most important moment in meditation. When doing Atma Vichara correctly, you experience changes in consciousness, pressure in the brahmarandra, or light. Vritti are modifications of the mind, i.e. movements of your consciousness.

They arise due to our false identifications with external objects.

Of these, "Aham-vritti" ("I-thought") is the most important, because she is associated with the True Self.

Hold on to it until extraneous thoughts come. Then start the process again.

Deepen this condition.

Taking a motionless pose of the body, we examine the "I", closing our eyes, concentrating on the feeling of "I". Suddenly we discover the void nature of the "I", and all our passions and thoughts have no foundation.

Investigating the mind again and again in meditation, we discover the voidness of the Self.

In an instant, we lose all illusions at once.

When vision or hearing arises, we examine: “Who hears? Who sees Who experiences joy and sorrow? ” The answer will be: “I”. If we peer at the “I”, trying to find a certain separate self-existing “I”, we are convinced that the “I” does not have its own existence.

The mind is in connection with objects.

An object is only when there is a mind perceiving it. Everything exists depending on the mind.

Nothing exists independently of the mind.

Demons, good deities and evil spirits, people and mountains - these are only visible manifestations of the mind, they only seem to truly exist.

However, besides deceptive projections, our "I" was never here. When, thus exploring the "I" in meditation, we find nothing at all, as if looking into the empty space.

Inexpressible, void, serene awareness awakens without subject and object.

It is self-radiant, radiant, filled with peace.

This natural state is initially pure and free, it is the Creator of Everything.

Stars, earth and sky, trees and mountains, everything visible is its manifestation.

It all depends on him. “You must distinguish between“ I, ”pure in yourself, and“ I, ”meaning.

The latter, being just a thought (vritti), sees the subject and object, sleeps, wakes up, eats and drinks, dies and is reborn.

But the pure “I” is pure Being, eternal existence, free from ignorance and thought-illusion.

If you remain that “I”, your only being, without a thought, then the “I” thought will disappear and the error will disappear forever.

” Sri Ramana Maharishi.

Theory of self-study. Variant of doing meditation in motion “Let the mind be like the sky without clouds.

Do not look for anything, just hold on to the subtlest vibration of the ego.

So hold her back no matter what.

From her ecstasy, great joy, peace and expansion. This is a great way, oh king: you walk, eat, speak or sit, remember only yourself.

Feel (do not think): “I am”, let nothing else bother your mind. Undoubtedly, in three months you will become aware of your “I” in a dream with dreams, then in another three months in a dream without dreams.

” “Yoga Sadhana Hridaya Sutra” (197, 199, 200) It is necessary to constantly focus on the sense of "I" while walking, as well as in all other situations.

Constantly remembering oneself, a natural state is revealed. The student performs the practice of self-examination, analyzing the mind and concentrating on the sense of “I” while walking, standing, sitting, working, eating and talking.



In the process of such self-examination, he answers the questions: “Where do thoughts come from? Where do they disappear? Does the “I” have color and shape? Does it exist or not? ”We are trying to trace the source of thoughts, that single center from which they appear, in order to discover our“ I ”at its core.



Asking ourselves the question: "Where do thoughts come from?", We get the answer: "from" I ". When we ask ourselves: “Who is the“ I ”? and focus on this "I", we can not find neither "I" nor the one who is looking for him.

When we continue to research again and again, we come to recognize the emptiness of our Mind.

The mind is empty and like space. "Truly, the mind is like space, it seems directed in all directions, it seems to be superior to everything, it seems to everyone, but, in reality, the mind does not exist." Avadhuta Dattatreya, Avadhuta Gita (chap.

1, 9) At more advanced stages of contemplation, the practitioner uses various sankalpas - attitudes in the mind, for example, “This is a dream,” “Pure vision,” and others.

But no matter what sankalpa is used, the principle of mindfulness is important, which is developed at the initial stages of practice when observing the body and mind.

You can read more about the practices of contemplation in movement based on sankalpas in the books “The Path of Divine Consciousness” (“Prajnana Divya Marga”) and “Fundamental Practices of Laya Yoga”.

Atma Vichara - This is the Process of Identification of "I Am" With Whatever It Is.

In the search for “who am I?” There is a rejection of all self-images, and not a rejection of the thought “I am”. It is fundamentally important to understand!

Only an idiot can hope to get rid of himself!

You need to get rid not of yourself, but of all images of yourself, i.e. all identifications of oneself with anything.

And now, when all self-identifications cease, when you cannot think of anything but “I am” to yourself, then this first and last thought will disappear, and with it the entire Manifestation.

And you “see your face before birth”, i.e. worthless consciousness without self-awareness.

You must very clearly understand that the “I” thought arises first, but disappears last!

It contains the entire Manifestation, and therefore it cannot be discarded by any actions, because all actions are in the Manifestation, i.e. against the background of "I am."

But she can be left “naked without everything” (without images and identifications with anything), and this is the meaning of atma-vicara.

Nisargadatta Maharaj says: "Imagine yourself without everything."

Siddharameshvar says: "Return to the state of the child when you did not know who you were."

It is like a state where you have no memory of yourself, there is not even a memory that you have a body or even a form.

Ramana Maharshi says: "The True Self is experienced between two consecutive thoughts."

This means “naked”, without identification, “I” meaning.

For a long time you will not keep it in its pure form, nirvikalpa samadhi will almost immediately follow, but before that there is a panic fear of extinction.

The caterpillar "I am" must come off any support, only then it will "collapse to the ground."

The “I” can only be described in terms of denial, so do not even call yourself the mind!

Just understand that any concept is a form.

The word is in itself a form (image).

Therefore, saying “mind”, you gave yourself an image.

Only the naked “I” has no image, because in itself it does not mean anything.

"Atma-vicara" is the search for the Atman, i.e. of your true face, because you do not accept yourself for who you are, so you are afraid to live and afraid to die!

We can say that “atma-vicara” is the “exfoliation” of everything that is not the Atman.

But this "exfoliation" is carried out not by literal subtraction of everything that is not the Atman, but by fixing attention on the perceiver.

Everything perceived gradually disappears by itself, and only the Atman remains, but this is already beyond the limits of consciousness. Who perceives in you? This is where you fix your attention.

You need to survive the “naked” perceiver, without the perceived, i.e. its pure nature without the admixture of the perceived.

Because having survived it, you will no longer be afraid for yourself, because you are nothing that can be harmed.

This state is outside of consciousness, although not unconscious, it is between states of consciousness, it is not a state at all, therefore it is called “turiya-atita” (turyatita) - outside of states.

To “reach out” to the Pure Atman, at your disposal is only your self-awareness, which is a reflection of the Atman in the mind.

The Atman, as it were, looks into its intellect and sees its reflection there.

You need a noumenon of perception, because it is you yourself!

You are looking for the noume of perception, which is your true, originally, infinite nature.

Seek the perceiver, seek the unchanging!

You must ignore everything perceived and fix attention on self-awareness, because the Reality is right behind it!

What is self-awareness is simply “I” thought, so the Self is reflected in the mind.

But the whole point is that there is nobody behind the “I” thought, it does not mean anyone!

For example, when they ring the doorbell and answer your question “who is there?”, They answer “it's me”.

And you have no idea who is standing there, because the concept of “I” does not mean anyone!

Self-awareness is actually a pure subject, it is a self reflected in the mind;

in other words, your self-awareness does not belong to your person, but to the Atman.

And you see, it turns out that there is no one in your body, that your body (psychosomatic organism) is just like a mirror that the Atman looks into.

There is no Atman in the body.

In the body, only your self-consciousness in the form of an “I” thought.

This “trick” with the self-consciousness of the Atman reflected in the body is the cause of all your fears, it misleads you that you are in the body, and therefore depend on the body.

And in order for you to get rid of this fear, you must “find yourself” between the saguna and nirguna.

Moreover, not somewhere half in the sagoon - half in the nirgun, namely between them. Your self-awareness will disappear there, and you will no longer be afraid of death, and therefore life. In meditation it is necessary to achieve a state where no thought, except the "I", can arise.

This is a calm, stress-free experience of a “naked” feeling of self without everything.

It is achieved not by an effort to stop thoughts, but by understanding,

that everything except the “I” thought itself describes not reality, but an imaginary illusion,

that no thought except “I am” describes reality.

Your understanding should be the result of experience, and, moreover, negative experience! This means that before embarking on meditation, you must experience extreme loneliness, as if you were betrayed: the world, being a deception, and even your image of yourself.

As if you didn’t have a single true answer, everything turned out to be a fraud and a fiction, and you have no choice but to remain from this abyss of emptiness of yourself, which causes nothing but boredom, bordering on longing.

And you need to endure this alone with yourself, the only way you can "look" inside yourself.

Nisargadatta Maharaj also talks about this.

“Before you can accept God, you must accept yourself, which is even worse.

The first steps in accepting yourself are not too pleasant, because what you see is not very joyful.

It takes all the courage to move on. Only inner silence will help you.

Observe yourself in complete silence; do not describe yourself.

Observe the being that you consider yourself to be, and remember that you are not what you see.

“I am not this - what am I?” Is the self-inquiry movement. Beginners of the practice of self-study, Sri Ramana advised to focus on the inner sense of "I" and keep this feeling for as long as possible.

If their attention is distracted by other thoughts, then one should return to the awareness of the “I” thought as soon as they notice it.

To facilitate this process, the seeker may ask himself: “Who am I?” Or “Where does this I come from?”, But the ultimate goal should be continuous awareness of the “I”, which believes that it is it that is responsible for all the activities of the body and mind.

In the early stages of practice, attention to the “I” feeling is mental activity that takes the form of a thought or sensation.

As practice develops, the thought of “I” gives way to the subjective experience of the feeling of “I,” and when this feeling ceases to be associated and identified with thoughts and objects, it completely disappears.

What remains is the experience of being in which the sense of individuality temporarily ceases to function.

The experience may be intermittent at first, but with the repetition of practice it becomes more and more easy to achieve and maintain.

When self-investigation reaches this level, there is a consciousness of being without effort, in which individual effort is no longer possible, since the "I" who is making efforts temporarily ceases to exist.

This state is not Self-realization, since the “I” -mind periodically manifests itself, but here it is already the highest level of practice.



A repeated experience of this state of being weakens and destroys the mental tendencies that cause the appearance of “I” thoughts, and when their power is already sufficiently weakened, the power of the Atman destroys the residual tendencies so completely that the “I” thought never appears again.



This is the final and irreversible state of Self-realization.

The practice of self-attention, or self-awareness of self, is a soft technique that bypasses the usual repressive methods of controlling the mind.

It is not an exercise in concentration and does not set as its goal the suppression of thoughts; it simply causes awareness of the source from which the mind arises.

The method and purpose of self-inquiry is to remain at the source of the mind and recognize the true nature of man, removing attention and interest from what he is not.

In the early stages of practice, the effort in the form of shifting attention from thoughts to the thinker is very significant, but as soon as the awareness of the “I” sense is firmly established, further effort impedes progress.

After this, practice is already more a process of being than doing, being without effort is sooner than the effort to be.

The being that man is already is free from effort, for beingness is always present and always experienced.

On the other hand, trying to be what a person is not really (that is, the body and the mind) requires continuous effort, even if almost always at a subconscious level.

It follows that at the highest stages of self-investigation, effort distracts attention from the experience of being, while the cessation of mental effort opens this experience.

Ultimately, the Atman ("Higher Self") opens as a result of being, and not doing anything.

As Sri Ramana himself once remarked:

“Do not meditate - be!

Do not think that you are - be!

Do not think about being - you are! ”