How Enquiry Is Conducted

You say that you don’t know how the enquiry ‘Who am I?’ is conducted. If you are not with a teacher, you cannot conduct the enquiry properly. It is easy to say ‘Who am I? Who am I’ and go on chanting like this for a whole day. This is not the way. ‘Who am I?’ is a question that you ask to your own mind. It is a search, a genuine inquiry. You are asking, ‘Mind, who are you?’ Where have you come from? What is your source? And while you are enquiring in this way you have to accompany your mind to see where it goes when you ask these questions. You have to reach out to that place where the question itself arises. Have you done this? Have you found out where the question itself arises from? And if you have done it, what have you seen there? What is the atmosphere there at the source where all thoughts vanish, and where all subjects, objects, names and forms, disappear. This is how the enquiry should be conducted, and if you do it properly, once alone is enough.

If your enquiry is successful you discover who you are, what the world is, and what is the true nature of all relationships you have. Make this enquiry very, very seriously.

Don’t concern yourself with finding an answer to your question. That is not the purpose of self-enquiry, What you are really asking is, ‘Where does this question arise from?’ Go back to that place our of which every question arises. Go back to that place where the world itself arises. Go back to that source where the creator of the world arises. If you find that place you will discover that it is total silence. You have to go there and discharge yourself in the same way that a river discharges itself into the ocean. Pour yourself into the place and lose forever your name, your form and your sense of separate identity. Once there, don’t try to come out to understand this question, Get lost there, and the question will be lost along with you.

Start from today. Ask yourself this question and see what the result is. 

You must have a determination to succeed. Don’t worry about whether you are going to succeed or not. Have the conviction, ‘I am going to succeed with this quest,’ and don’t waver in your determination to get to the source of your thoughts. If you have this determination, no obstacle can stop you, It’s in your hands. If you really want to succeed, you will do it.