Question : Is soham (the affirmation `I am he’) the same as `Who am I?’
\nRamana Maharshi :\u00a0\u00a0Aham [`I’] alone is common to them. One is soham. The other is koham [Who am I?]. They are different. Why should we go on saying soham? One must find out the real `I’. In the Question `Who am I?’, `I’ refers to the ego. Trying to trace it and find its source, we see it has no separate existence but merges in the real `I’.<\/p>\n
You see the difficulty. Vichara is different in method from the meditation sivoham or soham [`I am Siva’ or `I am he’]. I rather lay stress upon Self-knowledge, for you are first concerned with yourself before you proceed to know the world and its Lord. The soham meditation or `I am Brahman’ meditation is more or less a mental thought. But the quest for the Self I speak of is a direct method, indeed superior to the other meditation. The moment you start looking for the self and go deeper and deeper, the real Self is waiting there to take you in. Then whatever is done is done by something else and you have no hand in it. In this process, all doubts and discussions are automatically given up just as one who sleeps forgets, for the time being, all his cares.<\/p>\n
Note:\u00a0this excerpt is\u00a0 taken from the chapter \u201cSelf-enquiry \u2013 practice\u201d.\u00a0 David Godman has given introduction in beginning of every chapter.<\/p>\n
Part of introduction for this chapter is: \u201cSelf-enquiry should not be regarded as a meditation practice that takes place at certain hours and in certain positions; it should continue throughout one’s waking hours, irrespective of what one is doing. Sri Ramana saw no conflict between working and self-enquiry and he maintained that with a little practice it could be done under any circumstances. He did sometimes say that regular periods of formal practice were good for beginners, but he never advocated long periods of sitting meditation and he always showed his disapproval when any of his devotees expressed a desire to give up their mundane activities in favour of a meditative life\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[595,171,164],"tags":[686,421,138],"class_list":["post-7503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-god","category-questions","category-ramana-maharshi","tag-affirmation","tag-questions","tag-ramana-maharshi"],"yoast_head":"\n