Nonduality | Ramana Maharshi | True Self
Too Many Problems? Try Turning Inward
The problems in our life and world are there to encourage us to return to our True Self.
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Pure Awareness
Nonduality (Advaita Vedanta) suggests the problems we encounter in the world are there to get us to look inward to realize our True Self (self-realization) *. Our True Self is pure awareness (or pure consciousness), without a subject (an “I” or “me”) that is being aware. In pure awareness, there is no thing that is aware of itself. And it is not “awareness being aware of itself”, as some like to say, because that phrase implies a subject.
Everything that we can know arises in pure awareness. But none of it is awareness (our True Self). Everything we know is entirely outside of who we truly are. “Everything” includes our body, our mind, and our ego sense of self, as well as worlds beyond our body/mind/ego-self.
As all these things arise and are experienced in awareness, their sole purpose spiritually is to get us to stop looking outward and to look inward — to reconnect with our True Self. Connecting to our True Self puts the world in proper perspective…
