Dear Devotees,
Enquiry is as old as the Great Vedanta. It is said that the whole Vedanta can be summed up into the four words, deham, naham, koham, soham. The first two lines of the V. 10 of the Supplement, Reality in Forty Verses explains why deham is naham. This deham is insentient like the log of wood. It cannot say ‘I’. If one enquires ‘koham?’, i.e. ‘Who am I ?’, ‘Whence am I ?’, then in the Heart Omnipresent Sri Arunachala shines as ‘I’, Sri Arunachala Himself will shine as ‘soham’, and such a one will know ‘That I Am’. Such a one will know “I” is “THAT”.
Sri Bhagwan, while explaining the V. !0 of the Supplement, Reality in Forty Verses, cites two verses ,one from Sri Thayumanavar and the other from Sri Nammalvar. I feel it is appropriate to cite them here as follows:
“ Searching who this ‘I’ was,
Soon I found
You only standing as the heaven of bliss,
You only blessed Lord !”
Thyumanavar
“ Not knowing who I was,
I used to speak of ‘I’ and ‘mine’
But I am You and mine is You,
Lord whom all the gods adore.
Nammalvar
Therefore, ‘I’ and ‘mine’ appear so long as thinking and appearing and disappearing ‘I’ thinks it is an independent separate entity. But when I began to enquire about this very ‘I’, I soon found that He only stands as the Heaven of Bliss.
Yes. All shows are due to lack of enquiry. How strange is it that the imagined ego-I feels so secure although, in truth, it is not ! Apparent ‘I’ must be enquired into to be True ‘I’ and stand as the Heaven of Bliss.
Dear devotees, I wish to add here that the Self-enquiry, as taught by Sri Bhagwan, has been so elaborately crafted and delivered to us, out of Infinite Compassion, by He Himself, that nothing is left for the imagination. All we need do is to follow It sincerely with best, best of our capacity. WHAT USE FOR OTHER THINGS IN LIFE WHEN ‘I’ ITSELF IS UNKONWN, LIFE ITSELF IS IN THE REALM OF THE UNKNOWN.
Thank you,
Anil