The I-question

Ramana says ask yourself Who am I?
It is a fabulous question because if you remain at it, you can come to a state of void. For instance, let us take the case of someone who wants to go on stage and give a speech but is fearful and anxious. If he asks himself, `who am I?' how will he answer this?
This way?
Am I the one who is afraid I will make a fool of myself? Or am I the one who wants to break this loop of fear? Am I the one who is conscious of both these sides to myself? O am I the one who is unaware of these two sides to myself? Am I the one who is doing something to break this pattern (attend speech-giving workshops), or am I the one who has been evading this responsibility. Am I the one who evaluates this `cowardice'?Am I the one who pities this person who is unable to break this loop because of his past conditions(poverty, lack of opportunity, critical parents, elders)? Am I the one who pretends I don't care, but still somewhere deep down, not even aware, that I am constantly evaluating and criticising my inability to give the speech? Am I the one who is unaware of these different layerings even to this simple act of giving speech? Who am I?

If I become conscious of these various swirling `I's' within, then I realise that the illusion of a single `I' suddenly shatters. Then, the illusion of yourself as a solid entity disappers. This means you have been succesful at holding on to this vichara jnana (self-inquiry) steadily. When this steady awareness surfaces, you become aware of something else. That something else is where we must head!

Ramana puts it very neatly: He says when you watch an animated movie, you don't realise that it is actually a stringing together of different individual images. But when you become aware of the individual images, then u realise there is no movie but just individual pictures. And after this awareness, you must evolve to another state of awareness where, if you keep staring at these fast moving images, you suddenly become aware of the space behind these images. Just like that, if you watch the constant movement of the `I', the ego, or jiva, constantly engaged in recreating itself, you become keenly aware of the incandescent Self behind.