That every atom proclaims

‘I exist' is the only permanent self-evident experience of everyone. Nothing else is so self-evident as 'I am'. What people call self-evident, that is, the experience they get through the senses is far from self-evident. The Self-alone is that. So to do self-enquiry and be that 'I am' is the only thing to do. 'I am' is reality. I am this or that is unreal. 'I am' is truth, another name for Self.’---Sri Ramana Maharshi 


By these gracious words, Maharshi Ramana is proclaiming the greatest of all mysteries of existence; i.e. the only existing phenomenon of the universe, ‘I’!


‘I’ is the basic sensation, or rather the fundamental state, of all-- living and non-living creatures of this world. A mountain with its gigantism is proclaiming to the world that ‘I’ exist. A tree with its shoot, roots, seeds and leaves declares to the world ‘here I exist’. A lion with its majestic roar is pronouncing ‘beware of my existence’. All human beings are trying to prove their ‘I’ with their existence. We wake up, bath, move, eat, play, travel and sleep; befriend with the inner voice ‘I am still alive’.


‘I’ is our ever companion, not leaving us in misery or merriment.

And when we mix ‘imaginations’ with ‘I’ it becomes impure. It will transform into a ‘complex’ identify; like I’m a writer, I’m a father, a husband, a friend, an enemy, a communist or a socialist. Any imaginations we are adding to the ‘I’ will make it ‘impure’ and ‘complex’.

The imaginations are deriving from the ‘senses’. ‘Senses’ make you ‘complex’. They will tend you to forget your real identity.

‘The Self-alone is that’—says Maharshi. ‘I am this or that is unreal’. The unreal imaginations you projected into your ‘I’ are what are taking you away from the base. It is a hurricane hitting at your base.

So we need to always remember our ‘Self’, which is impure, immortal and unaffected.

Remembering ‘self’ and distinguishing the ‘self’ from other false identities is the need of the hour. Yes, many a time, we are tempted to live life making others believe in our ‘false identities’. But, if we are able to do it with a ‘strong self surveillance’ that ‘pure self’ is the only existing phenomenon in this world, then the deal is done.