Who am I? What is my purpose? Why am I here? Why are we here? What are we here to do? These are common questions for human beings and we have been puzzling over them for millenia. I too have struggled to find meaningful answers to these questions, so for the past decade I have been on an intense quest to seek out experiences, teachings and practices that can help to uncover deep truths about the fundamental nature of reality and our place within it.
For the next several episodes, I will be presenting my findings and recommendations for ways to get at the answers to these questions. I believe it is in answering these questions and living from the answers that we can avert existential crises in the human story. I believe we sit at a critical point in the human story, a precipice of sorts, where our next decisions and actions will determine the trajectory of our story as a species. We have the power to destroy ourselves and we lack the wisdom to wield that power. What wisdom do we need? I believe it is the wisdom of ourselves...it is coming into direct contact with that part of ourselves that cannot be removed. It is the part of us that makes us uniquely human...our consciousness...our awareness of our awareness.
In this episode, we explore the teachings of Ramana Maharshi, an Indian guru who lived and taught in southern India in the early to mid-1900s. His teachings have become popularized in the west as more people begin to ask these questions about who we are and why we are here. He encourages a practice called self-inquiry, where we deeply explore the awareness that precedes and remains before and after experiences (thoughts, emotions, sensations, perceptions). I share a number of quotes from Ramana Maharshi and talk about ways to access the unchanging and irreducible awareness that is our true self.
To learn more about Ramana Maharshi and his teachings, visit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramana_Maharshi
