' Self Inquiry '...

Sri Sadhu Om spent many years in the company of Sri Ramana Maharshi and decades in the company of Sri Muruganar. The Sri Sadhu Om quotes in The Seven Steps to Awakening come from the book The Path of Sri Ramana, Part One. The Path of Sri Ramana, Part One is available as a free e-book at happinessofbeing.com.


Many pages in The Path of Sri Ramana, Part One are devoted to explaining why Self-inquiry is really Self-attention. Here is a quote by Sri Sadhu Om: "In Sanskrit, the terms 'atman' and 'aham' both mean 'I'. Hence, 'atma-vichara' means an attention seeking 'Who is this I?' It may rather be called 'I-attention', 'Self-attention' or 'Self-abidance.'"


Often English translations of these teachings have so many non-English words that the book becomes a foreign language course instead of a spiritual teaching. The quotes in The Seven Steps to Awakening contain almost no non-English words. This was accomplished by selecting quotes that contain only English words, with a few exceptions such as the words Guru and Yoga which are already familiar to most English readers.


In the book The Supreme Yoga Swami Venkatesananda writes the following two definitions of the word vichara:


1. "Vicara or inquiry is not reasoning nor analysis: it is directly looking into oneself."


2. "Vicara, usually translated 'inquiry' is direct observation."


The spiritual meaning of the term "Self-inquiry" is directly looking into one's Self, which can also be described as Self-attention. Since the true Self is awareness, this can also be described as attention to Awareness or Awareness aware of itself. This is not two awarenesses, one watching the other. This is just one Awareness aware of itself. And what is itself? Itself is Awareness. Thus, Awareness of Awareness. Directly looking into one's Self is directly looking into Awareness because the Self is Awareness.


Sometimes the quotes refer to "Self-knowledge." "Self-knowledge" in these teachings does not mean conceptual knowledge. "Self-Awareness" or "Self-Experience" are closer to the spiritual meaning.


When the quotes are warning against false knowledge, the word "knowledge" does mean conceptual knowledge.




The above quotes are from the introduction to the book
The Seven Steps to Awakening.