*Glimpses of Self-Realization* - "Where there is 'Athma Vichara', 'KOHAM ?' ( WHO AM I? ); there is 'SOHAM' (I am pure consciousness) and then there is 'Self-Realization', 'Sahaja Samadhi' and 'Liberation-in Life'. -SWAATHMAA RAAMAN.

"ATMA VICHARA"- BY 'BHAGWAN RAMANA MAHARSHI'

The mind should discontinue its habit of perpetually moving outwards in an unlimited way, pointlessly enquiring ‘Who are you?’ and ‘Who is he?’ It should turn within, holding itself as the object [of attention] and without interruption zealously enquire ‘Who am I?’ This alone will confer the ultimate benefit.
Guru Vachaka Kovai v 384

When one unceasingly enquires ‘Who am I?’ with an acute intellect, the body-ego completely perishes through the attention that penetrates to the centre of oneself. There, reality will rise and flourish as ‘I-I’, terminating the differences that, like the azure blue of the sky, are mere appearances.
Guru Vachaka Kovai v 385


By means of the question, ‘Who is the one who questions?, all the questions that one asks, which arise through duality, will die at their very source. That question, ‘Who is the questioner?’, becoming the invincible Brahmastram, will obliterate the appearance of ‘otherness’ that manifests in the darkness of ignorance.
Guru Vachaka Kovai v386

The word ‘Brahmastram’, meaning a divine weapon of the gods, was a phrase used by some devotees to describe Bhagavan’s habit of responding to questions by saying, ‘Who is asking the question?’ The name originated with Ganapati Muni and Kapali Sastri:
Kapali Sastri: Whenever a question is put to you, you say ‘Know first who it is to whom the doubt occurs’, ‘Does anybody doubt the doubter?’, ‘Know yourself before you proceed to speak of others’, etc. This is a veritable Brahmastra [supreme weapon] at your hands to deal with the questioner…
[Sat Darshana Bhashya, p. xiii]

Instead of directly experiencing the supreme reality that shines in the Heart as consciousness through an inward inquiry performed in solitude, with calm deliberation, to seek it externally, excitedly inquiring everywhere else, is like using a lighted candle to search for someone sunk deep in water.
Guru Vachaka Kovai v390

BHAGAVAN : Without turning inwards and merging in the Lord – he who shines within the mind and lends it all its light - how can we know the light of lights with the borrowed light of the mind?
[Ulladu Narpadu, v.22]


This Guru Vachaka Kovai verse stresses two points: the futility of searching for reality in the external world and the uselessness of the tools that are generally used to make such searches. The lighted candle is suttarivu, the divided consciousness in which a perceiver perceives mental or physical objects. However, though the tool itself is defective, through the act of attempting to discover reality through self-enquiry, suttarivu is extinguished.


While Ishwara continuously abides in the Heart, bestowing his grace, without form, as not different from oneself, and as a directly experienced entity, how can he be seen if one assumes that he is with form, different from oneself and mediated through the senses, even if one searches and wanders for aeons in the outside world?
[Sadhu Natanananda in his commentary, ‘Upadesa Ratnavali, v.11’]