The Practice of self-inquiry.

• The need for self-inquiry in daily life.

Everybody needs sleep for his survival. If a man does not have sleep adequately

he will go insane and his life will be in disorder. Similarly everybody needs

meditation in waking state, otherwise his mind and life will be in disorder. This

disorder is quite obvious both inside the mind and so outside in the present world

where majority humanity have no idea or time to do meditation.

Meditation is to go beyond thought and establish ourselves in the being. But we

cannot go beyond thought the mechanics of the working of the "me" which is an

isolating and destructive factor. At present thought is dominating and directing our

way of life.

Thought is a reaction of past memories and experiences and if it is face the

Challenge in the present which is always new, it encounters it partially which

results in conflict. So thought as our master of life brings disaster and ego is

nothing but thought.

So thought subsides when activity of "me" subsides which is the result of

understanding born out of awareness, watchfulness in a state of observation in

which

there is not a trace of condemnation or justification of what is being observed.

In that passive alertness we listen to the noise of the "me" with relaxed attention

beyond the noise of words without intervening screen

of thoughts, conclusions, prejudices

.
Mind is simply a combination of all the thoughts, of all the clouds. Mind has no

independent nature of its own. When all the thoughts are gone and the sky is clean

and clear, you will see that everything that you have paid so much attention to is

nothing but emptiness. Your thoughts were all empty. They contained nothing, they

were void. Whatever you thought they contained was your own energy. You have

withdrawn your energy -- just the empty shell of the thought falls down. You have

withdrawn your identity and immediately the thought is no longer alive. It was

your identity that was giving it life force. And strangely enough, you thought that

your thoughts were very strong and it was difficult to get rid of them! You were

making them strong, you were cultivating them. Just by forcing them, you were

getting into a fix.

The search for truth is individual and is not possible in religious congregations.

All this is possible in self-inquiry in which we go beyond thought and establish in

The being and we respond to the challenge in a holistic way and we attend to the

present instead of getting lost in imagination of day dreaming and we relax totally

in being in full awareness.