THINK, "WHO AM I?"

One day the 12-year-old Ramana Maharshi had an odd experience.  He felt like he was dying.  He lay down, picturing himself dying, only to have a question suddenly occur to him:  "If I am dying, then who is the one watching me die?  I am watching me die.  How can it be that the one who is dying and the one who is watching are one and the same?  No, they must be two different entities," he concluded.

At the age of 17, he left his home and traveled to a sacred place in south India known as Tiruvannamalai, where he lived all the rest of his life.  His notion of self-inquiry, "Who am I?" as a means of liberation, awakening, traveled with him.  He would not take disciples, but always saw whoever came to visit him.  He would ask only one thing of those who came to him:  "Think, 'Who am I'" because the answer to that question was the Atman, the eternal witness, the true self.