True Living

It is not uncommon to hear people say that "my life is good" or " my life is miserable" or " I am living the good life" and so on and so forth. However, one rarely questions as to whether they are living a life or is it the other way around -that life is living them. To answer this, one must inquire into whether the "Life" comes and goes or does the mental mode "I" (the cognition of the form "I am the body") come and go. Why so, you may ask? Simply because what comes and goes is not real. What is real is that which does not come and go, that which has no beginning or end, is formless, shapeless, changeless, timeless, unmoving, and not dependent on any other entity. 

Through the practice of Self Inquiry, when one has reached a firm conviction about the true nature of the Self, it will become evident that this mental mode of "I", or the body identification or "I am the body", does not exist apart from the Self or Consciousness. The "I-thought" or the ego, comes and goes in a single 24 hour cycle of waking, dream sleep and deep sleep. The ego is dependent on the Consciousness or the Self for its existence. The ego arises and subsides in Consciousness. Whereas the Consciousness (Self) is not dependent on the ego. Consciousness always IS, regardless of the state of the ego. 

When one thus inquires into the nature of the ego and the Self, it will become evident that the ego is the false entity. During the practice of Self Inquiry, the ego dies and the real Self shines through wordlessly. To put it another way, when the ego dies, then true living happens. True living can only be experienced in the absence of the first person thought or "I" - That state of pure awareness or beingness that is readily accessible to all, is right here and right now. This ego-less state of living is true living. 

🙏Om namo bhagavate Sri Ramanaaya namah