THE SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS

The search for happiness or fulfilment is the driving force for all we do. When we find ourselves on a spiritual or healing path, the unconscious search for happiness in day-to-day activities starts to become a more conscious and deliberate seeking for a fulfilment that transcends the pleasure/pain cycle of our lives. This state of permanent fulfilment is often referred to as enlightenment or Self-realisation. However, the great sages throughout history all tell us that this is the natural state - it is simply our own being.

"The Heart's vast space, the love-filled ocean of Bliss supreme, is the true I." 

— Sri Ramana Maharshi

SELF-ENQUIRY

This phrase has different meanings for different people, but the sage Ramana Maharshi used it to refer to the enquiry into the true nature of our being. He gave seekers the question “Who am I?” or, “What am I?” as the key to unravelling the illusory ego and revealing the true Self.

This was never about asking someone to describe their identity as a person. It was instead a way of pointing the seeker inwards, to ask themselves, “What is this thing I call ‘I’?” This has often been called the “direct path” to enlightenment because it points to the very heart of the issue - the question of our identity.

To put it another way: I am aware of my body - the collection of physical sensations and the mental image of my body; I am aware of my thoughts; I am aware of my feelings, emotions and moods. All these experiences are registered or observed by this “I”. If I am the one observing all this, then I am not the body, the thoughts or the feelings. So what am I? What is it that is aware of all this?

“You want to know yourself. For this keep steadily in the focus of consciousness, the only clue you have: your certainty of being. Be with it, play with it, ponder over it, delve deeply into it, till the shell of ignorance breaks open and you emerge into the realm of reality.”

— Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj