'SELF-INQUIRY' - RAMANA MAHARSHI: Self-Inquiry is the one, infallible means, the only direct one, to realize the unconditioned, absolute Being that you really are.

D. But is it not funny that the ‘I’ should be searching for the ‘I’? Does not the inquiry, ‘Who am I?’ turn out in the end an empty formula? Or, am I put the question to myself endlessly, repeating it like some mantra?
M. Self-Inquiry is certainly not an empty formula; it is more than repetition of any mantra. If the inquiry, “Who am I?” were a mere mental questioning, it would not be of much value. The very purpose of Self-Inquiry is to focus the entire mind at its Source. It is not, therefore, a case of one ‘I’ searching for another ‘I’.

Much less is Self-Inquiry an empty formula, for it involves an intense activity of the entire mind to keep it steadily poised in pure Self-awareness.
  Self-Inquiry is the one, infallible means, the only direct one, to realize the unconditioned, absolute Being that you really are.
-Maharshi's Gospel