"The Ultimate Truth is so simple"- Ramana Maharishi. This great sage did his best in simplifying the essence of the teachings of the ancient sages. The teachings in all great traditions have been very similar. After all, the Truth is only one and yet there are a million ways to point to the Truth. The more one thinks about the various concepts, the more deeper one gets into a quagmire of concepts. So much so that the Truth actually gets more and more covered over by the mental concepts. Therefore, it is essential to keep it simple and to avoid getting involved in the mental concepts. Remember, the mind is not independent of awareness or consciousness. Therefore, any concept that arises in the mind is precisely that, a concept. But prior to the mind, the awareness is already there. The shadow is dependent on the object, just like a reflection in the mirror is dependent on the object creating the reflection. The mind(which is nothing but a bundle of thoughts) is an object of your awareness. You are aware of the thoughts currently going on in the mind. One cannot say "I am not aware" and yet say that "I am so-and-so". At this very moment, can the reader deny with certainty his/her existence or awareness of being? Can you say "I am not"? Absolutely not!! Next question is why not? Ponder over this.
The simple way of analyzing one's state of mind in deep dreamless sleep, the dream sleep state and the waking state, can be of great help in pointing one to his/her true nature. In deep dreamless sleep, there is no ego( the I-thought, or the body-consciousness), no world and no unhappiness. Yet, you cannot deny you exist in deep sleep, for upon waking you know you slept and you know that you are same entity that was sleeping and is now awake. Upon waking up, the world, the ego and the varying emotions including unhappiness all appear simultaneously. What comes and goes cannot be real. In this case, the ego, the world and the emotion of unhappiness. What exists through all three states of deep sleep, dream sleep and wakefulness is your true nature. Hence, your true nature, is the Awareness, which is present through all three states and remains unmodified, unaltered and unaffected by the various states of the mind, emotions, and the world of objects.
The problem arises in the mind trying to objectify this Awareness through concepts. This Awareness is non-conceptual and therefore the mind can never grasp it. Just relax into your True Nature and abide as That!
