AWARENESS

The issue of "I" or "I am" or "Who am I?" is called Self-Enquiry in Vedanta.  It was brought forth by Sri Ramana Maharshi.

The answer to Who am I? is found in the Sanskrit expression Tat Tvam Asi which is translated as That Art Thou.  In order to attain salvation (liberation), a human being must acquire precisely this self-knowledge, which is that the true self, who one really is, is the Atman, which in turn is identical with the transcendent self, Brahman.

But now what exactly is the Atman, what is the experience of it?  Ramana Maharshi said that the Atman is awareness, and to know this awareness is not to analyze it intellectually but to simply be it.  He said, "You are awareness.  Awareness is another name for you.  Since you are awareness there is no need to attain or to cultivate it."

There are many ways to focus on awareness, not the least of which is by way of these lines, presented earlier in this blog, from the Bhagavad Gita:

The illumined soul . . . knows always, "I am doing nothing."  No matter what he sees, hears, touches, smells, eats... this he knows always, "I am not seeing, I am not hearing.  It is the senses that see and hear and touch the things of the senses."

By setting aside however briefly all that the senses present to the mind, one is left with just plain awareness.  This is the true self, who one really is, the Atman.