The Practice of Self-inquiry. (Volume 1) Lrg edition

? 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 You have withdrawn your energy -- just the empty shell of the thought falls down. You have withdrawn your identity and immediately the thought is no longer alive.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.