Swami Annamalai

You can start with the people you know. Bhagavan taught by example that we should only see good in other people. Virtually all people are a mixture of good and bad. It is very rare to find someone who is wholly good or wholly bad. If you have to come into contact with a lot of people try to make yourself aware of their good points and don’t dwell on their bad points. If you see good in people you radiate a harmonious, loving energy which uplifts those who are around you. If you can maintain this habit, this energy will soon turn into a steady flow of love.

Try to be aware at all times that everything you see and perceive is the Self. If you see the Self in other people, your love automatically flows towards them.

You gain nothing by thinking that someone is a bad person. If negative thoughts arise each time you see or think of a particular person, these thoughts will draw you away from the Self. Try to radiate your love equally to all people instead of just a few. Try to feel that the whole world is your Self, your God. Try to see the Self in all people. Spread your love in all directions as an act of worship and surrender, because everything in the world is a manifestation of God.

Q: What is the correct way to pursue self-enquiry?

AS: Bhagavan has said: ‘When thoughts arise stop them from developing by enquiring, ‘’To whom is this thought coming?’’ as soon as the thought appears. What does it matter if many thoughts keep coming up? Enquire into their origin or find out who has the thoughts and sooner or later the flow of thoughts will stop’

This is how Self-enquiry should be practiced.

When Bhagavan spoke like this he sometimes used the analogy of a besieged fort. If one systematically closes off all the entrances to such a fort and then picks off the occupants one by one as they try to come out, sooner or later the fort will be empty.

Bhagavan said that we should apply these same tactics to the mind. How to go about doing this? Seal off the entrances and exits to the mind by not reacting to rising thoughts or sense impressions. Don’t let new ideas, judgments, likes, dislikes, ect.

Enter the mind, and don’t let rising thoughts flourish and escape your attention. When you have sealed off the mind in this way, challenge each emerging thought as it appears by asking, ‘where have you come from?’ or ‘who is the person who is having this thought?’

If you can do this continuously, with full attention, new thoughts will appear momentarily and then disappear. If you can maintain the siege for long enough, a time will come when no more thoughts arise; or if they do, they will only be fleeting, undistracting images on the periphery of consciousness. In that thought-free state you will begin to experience yourself as consciousness, not as mind or body.

However, if you relax your vigilance even for a few seconds and allow new thoughts to escape and develop unchallenged, the siege will be lifted and the mind will regain some or all of its former strength.

In a real fort the occupants need a continuous supply of food and water to hold out during a siege. When the supplies run out, the occupants must surrender or die.

In the fort of the mind the occupants, which are thoughts, need a thinker to pay attention to them and indulge in them. If the thinker withholds his attention from rising thoughts or challenges them before they have a chance to develop, the thoughts will all die of starvation.

You challenge them by repeatedly asking yourself ‘Who am I?’ Who is the person who is having these thoughts?’ If the challenge is to be effective you must make it before the rising thought has had a chance to develop into a stream of thoughts.

Mind is only a collection of thoughts and the thinker who thinks them. The thinker is the ‘I’-thought, the primal thought which rises from the Self before all others, which identifies with all other thoughts and says, ‘I am this body’.

When you have eradicated all thoughts except for the thinker himself by ceaseless enquiry or by refusing to give them any attention, the ‘I’-thought sinks into the Heart and surrenders, leaving behind it only an awareness of consciousness.

This surrender will only take place when the ‘I’thought has ceased to identify with rising thoughts. While there is still stray thoughts which attract or evade your attention, the ‘I’-thought will always be directing its attention outwards rather than inwards.

The purpose of Self-enquiry is to make the ‘I’-thought move inwards, towards the Self. This will happen automatically as soon as you cease to be interested in any of your rising thoughts.

-Annamalai Swami