By A.R. Natarajan / Light of the Teachings of Ramana Maharshi

  Though the Self alone exists, one is unaware of it as a fact of one’s own experience, until ignorance is removed. The effort referred to by Ramana is not for attaining the Self but for removing the obstructions to one’s awareness of it. We first hold forth the false notion of “I am so and so,” then continue this error through a series of identifications with people, ideas, relationships, and so on. One is caught in the constant movement of the mind and the varying identification of one’s being with the multifarious thoughts. These all depend on the external stimuli of objects and the internal thrust of latent tendencies and residual memories. Movement of thought is faster than the wind. The vast storehouse of memories related to actions keep externalizing the mind with their outward thrust. Effort is needed to check this flow of thought, otherwise one will always be “running with the mind.”