Theory and Practice of self-inquiry.

Bhagawan never advised accumulation of information in the name of spirituality. His method is self-inquiry which is a process of de-learning and throwing contents of the mind through understanding. Every other spiritual methods require the “me” to do it. Majority of spiritual techniques involve doing in some form or the other. But Realization of Self is not an outcome of any “doing”. In self-inquiry we don’t depend on the “me” and on the contrary we question the very integrity of the “me”. So a serious seeker of self-inquiry does not indulge in accumulation of information in the name of spirituality. But average devotee cannot help but reading some spiritual books. Bhagawan advised Rubhu Gita,Yoga Vasistam,Kaivalya Navaneetam and Tripura Rahasya.I have gone through all these books and Rhubhu gita is fully devoted to self-inquiry,Kaivalya Navaneetam and Tripura Rahasya are extremely useful in deepening our understanding in self-inquiry. Unlike them Yoga Vasista is not fully devoted to self-inquiry because it conveys Vedanta in story form. That is their way of presentation. But Vasista allotted 300 pages fully to highlight the importance of self-inquiry if one want to get released from body identity, identity to dogmas and beliefs, caste, race, nationality, family, gender, profession, wealth etc.It is quite surprising that genius of India opted to inquire into the self rather than running for material gains. In this book what is said in Yoga vasista about self-inquiry is being conveyed. There are two kinds of learning:1) Accumulation of knowledge, of experience, of technology, of a skill, of a language. It is time bound.2) Psychological learning—learning through experience either through the immediate experiences of life which leave a certain residue of non-understanding, of tradition, of race, of the society. There is no line of demarcation between the two types of learning, they overlap.What we are concerned in self-inquiry is psychological learning that we have acquired through centuries or inherited as tradition, as knowledge, as experience. This we call learning, is it learning at all? Mind has learned and with what it has learned it meets the challenge of life in the active present. It is always translating the life or the new challenge according to what it has learned. This is what we are doing in the name of learning. Is that learning? Does not learning imply something new, something I don’t know and am I learning if I am merely adding to what I already know, then it is no longer learning. If you are to discover for yourself what is the new, it is no good carrying the burden of the old, especially the knowledge of scriptures or a great master.A man protecting himself constantly through such knowledge is obviously not a truth seeker.When you want to find something new, the mind must be quiet. If the mind is crowded, filled with the facts and borrowed knowledge they act as the impediment to the new.The difficulty for most of us is that the mind i. e thought has become so important, so predominantly significant that it interferes constantly with anything that may be new, with anything that may exist simultaneously with the known. Thus borrowed knowledge and learning are impediments for those who would seek, for those who would try to understand that which is beyond thought and so timeless and eternal.