Atma-Vichara

Vichara is the process and the goal also. "I am" is the goal and the final reality. To hold to it with effort is vichara. When spontaneous and natural it is realization.

If one leaves aside vichara, the most efficacious sadhana, there are no other adequate means whatsoever to make the mind subside. If made to subside by other means, it will remain as if subsided but will rise again. Self-enquiry is the one infallible means, the only direct one, to realize the unconditioned, absolute being that you really are.

-- Sri Ramana Maharshi, from "Be As You are", Edited by David Godman