Your Essential Condition Ramana’s teaching was that the Self (Absolute) alone is. There is not anything which that is not, therefore it is in no way apart from anything. Though this is so, we do not automatically recognize that our fundamental condition is that we are in essence none other than That. It is this Absolute of which “all that is,” is manifest. Among the manifestations are the human organism, its brain, its sense organs, the thoughts which arise, the mind which is comprised of these thoughts, and the ego by which the organism declares “I see.” It is this ego—self identification—which constructs the subject-object duality: me, and that which I do not perceive as me. Though this separative bias seemingly causes us to view the subject I as dissociated from anything which is not recognized as the body-brain-mind-ego, it is in fact nothing more than another manifested product of the omnipresent Self. You—all elements and aspects of you, including the ego which posits otherwise—are only the Self. When this is clearly realized, it is realized that there is no individual ego (all egos, as is everything else, are the same Self), and the subject-object bias disintegrates. There is then recognized to be but one thing—the seer which sees no “other,” separate object. This Self-realization has been the condition of the jnani throughout the ages, expressed at least 3,500 years ago as Tat Tvam Asi: That Thou Art. (Whatever “that” is.) Ramana focuses on the self-awareness, which each seeker has, of his/her own existence. That very existence is essential to the Self. Our true nature, or identity, can be
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