It is said that we should spend up to 75% of our time in self-inquiry. Even those who take sanyas are encourage to mingle in society and observe their reactions. This is self inquiry. When you travel in a carriage, do you take the carriage as ‘I’? Look at the Sun. It gets reflected in a small pot filled with water, in a broad river, in a mirror, or a polished pot. For this reason does the Sun feel that all these things are ‘He’? Does it get sad when the pot breaks, or the river gets dry? This is exactly like that. If you take ‘I’ to be the body, then it is all bother! If you don’t take it so, you will shine like the sun, independent of anything else.
atma abhyas
Question 29: When the mind is at rest
When the mind is at rest – quiescence – we have the capacity to experience who we truly are. When the mind is at rest, we might say ‘neti, neti‘(not this, not this) to all that phenomena that threatens to impinge upon us from the exterior. When the mind is at rest, and the time is ripe, that which is may emerge and reveal our true selves.