The search for Truth is yours alone

In your spiritual search, you might have read a lot, met a few Gurus or attended several satsangs. You may have discussed these ideas with friends or family members. If you believe in a God, you might be praying each day. You might try yoga, meditation, chanting of mantras. You might have read about chakras, kundalini or mystic powers that one can achieve through such practices.

Whether you realize or not, your effort becomes coloured with ideas and beliefs that have stuck in your mind during your search. At some point, you have to realize that the search is entirely yours and that the discovery of Truth will also be yours alone. A Guru can provide guidance, but you have to discover and experience it for yourself.

Why not step back, for a moment leave aside all that you have learnt and begin with the basics, starting from what is your personal, direct experience.

• You know you exist or 'I am' without requiring any external proof.
• You know 'I'm aware', again without any proof required.

Now do this quick exercise, focusing on your own experience and yours alone.

• Close your eyes. You see nothing, no objects, shapes not even your own body. A person might stand besides you and tell you what things look like, but you can neither see the person nor any thing else. This is your direct experience.
• Close your ears as well. All external sounds disappear. Now, neither are there any visible forms nor any external sounds. The person who was standing besides you is neither visible nor audible.
  
• Notice you are still aware when two of your senses are closed. Is it inconceivable that if all your senses were shutdown, nothing physical would exist for you, but you would, and so would your awareness ? Would you be aware of the existence of the chair or bed you are sitting on if your sense of touch was shutdown as well?
  
• Through all this, don't you have awareness of your thoughts and the very strong belief that when you open your eyes and ears, all things will come back into your awareness?

Now pause and think for a moment. When your senses shutdown, there is still 'I am', there is still awareness, there is still a mind as known by awareness of your thoughts. However, the physical world, all people and objects with it, and your own body are non existent. This is your direct experience.

This should make you wonder that the 'I am' is in no way dependent on the physical world or your body. This 'I am' is witness to the the physical world when it appears, i.e. when your senses are active. People, objects and places appear in awareness when the senses are active and disappear when the senses are shutdown.

Does this not give you a sense of 'I alone am' and that everything appears and disappears in Awareness, which always is ?

If 'I am' is not the body, it could be the mind. Now, you conclude you have a mind by its nature, that is thoughts. Thoughts are not continuous, but come one by one with gaps in between. But your sense of 'I am' is quite constant and continuous, even when your mind is still. 'I am' is there when your breath stops for a while between inhaling and exhaling. It is there between heartbeats.

What exists as 'I am' between thoughts ? Or between heartbeats or between breaths? Self-enquiry is the path to discovering the true Self by focusing on what is always there with you for most part, the sense of 'I am' and Awareness. Everything else appears and disappears from Awareness.

Self-enquiry is to focus on what you always are - Awareness, and not the objects in your perception. Instead of focusing on objects that you see, hear, touch, taste or smell, turn inwards and stay in awareness. Instead of focusing on thoughts, turn inwards and focus on awareness of the thoughts.

This is the shortest path to what you seek.