SRI RAMANA MAHARSHI AND SELF-INQUIRY

Sri Ramana's teachings about Self-Inquiry, the practice he is most widely associated with, have been classified as the path of knowledge, or jnana marga.

Though his teaching is consistent with and generally associated with Vedanta, with the Upanishads, and particularly with Advaita Vedanta, he gave his approval to a variety of paths and practices from various religions.

Although he advocated Self-Inquiry as the fastest means to realization, he also recommended the path of bhakti, or devotion.  This would be devotion to one's deity or guru, either concurrently or as an adequate alternative to Self-Inquiry, which would ultimately converge with Self-Inquiry.

What is Self-Inquiry?  It is a method for recognizing not the body and the mind but that which experiences the body and the mind.  It is awareness, that awareness that is aware of itself.

Sri Ramana's method of teaching was characterized by the following:

He urged people who came to him to practice Self-Inquiry.

He directed people to look inward rather than seeking outside themselves for realization.  He said that the true bhagavan i.e. the supreme one, Brahman, resides in the heart as the Atman.  This is who a person truly is.

He viewed all who came to him as the Atman rather than as lesser beings.  The jnani, a self-realized person, sees no one as an ajnani or non self-realized person.  All are the Atman.

Sri Ramana charged no money for his teachings and was adamant that no one ever ask for money, or anything else, in his name.  He never promoted or called attention to himself.  Instead, he remained in one place for 54 years, offering spiritual guidance to anyone of any background who came to him. 

The deep sense of peace one felt around a jnani was, he said, the surest indicator of that jnani's spiritual state, no doubt why so many sought him out.