Seeker: You say that I am the consciousness and not the body. Should I keep repeating "I am the consciousness" or should I keep saying to myself " Who am I"?
Advaitin: There are many paths to the essentially path-less Truth. If you have complete and earnest faith in the sayings of the Guru, then nothing else need be done other than accepting his/her sayings. With this acceptance comes automatic surrender of the ego. With the surrender of the ego, the Truth shines forth spontaneously. Do not forget that the Truth is self-shining and always present. It is only the ignorance of the ego-mind that hides or covers up the obvious Truth. Once the ego has surrendered completely and wholly to the Guru, then nothing else need be done. The Grace takes over from where the seeker has full faith in the teachings of the Guru.
However, many a seeker will not be satisfied with the above methodology. The ego being so heavily conditioned over the years, a lot of questions and doubts keep popping up in the mind. For such a seeker, self inquiry is the only way to sort out the false from the Truth. One can only know objectively the false. You can only know what you are not. The Truth is known only as an intuitive knowledge. Questioning "who am I" is not a mantra to be repeated endlessly. It is a process of elimination of the false- the elimination of what you are not! Once, all the false has been eliminated, the Truth is laid bare. It is like removing the contamination from cloudy water and immediately the reflection of your self is visible in the pure water. Once the mind has been cleared of all impurities (the false identifications and false concepts), the Truth/ Self shines in it spontaneously. Once the Knowledge is clearly apperceived, where is the need to go on investigating? Once the culprit is found, the police does not keep the investigation open, does it? You know you are a man or a woman. Do you keep repeating to yourself, " I am a man" or "I am a woman"? So, where is the question of repeating " I am the consciousness" to yourself? Such repetition is nothing but another form of mental conditioning. It defeats the whole purpose which is to destroy mental conditioning and mental concepts. Yes, an apparent process of continued self- investigation must be continued until firm conviction of the nature of the Self is established and the realization of one's True Nature is firm.
In the absence of any concepts, you ARE. Stay as you ARE.
