Be aware

What you need is to be aware of being aware.

Being-awareness is the true guru

The Self, the Being-Awareness, shining
As all things and in all things
Is the true guru.

-- The Garland of Guru's Sayings

Examine the person

There is no point in fighting desires and fears which may be perfectly natural and justified; it is the person who is swayed by them, that is the cause of mistakes, past and future. This person should be carefully examined and its falseness seen; then its power over you will end. After all, it subsides each time you go to sleep.

All your preoccupations with yourself are only during waking hours and
partly in your dreams; in sleep all is put aside and forgotten. It shows
how little important is your waking life, even to yourself, that merely
lying down and closing the eyes can end it.

Each time you go to sleep, you do so without the least certainty of waking up and yet you accept
the risk.

-- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Stop imagining yourself to be mind or body

To know that you are neither body nor mind, watch yourself steadily and live unaffected by your body and mind, completely aloof, as if you were dead. It means you have no vested interests, either in the body or in the mind.

Just remain unaffected. This complete aloofness, unconcern with mind and body is the best proof that at the core of your being you are neither mind nor body.

What happens to the body and the mind may not be within your power to change, but you can always, put an end to your imagining yourself to be body and mind. Whatever happens, remind yourself that only your body and mind are affected, not yourself.

Keep trying

Try to be, only to be.

The all-important word is "try". Allot enough time daily for sitting quietly and trying, just trying, to go beyond the personality with its addictions and obsessions.

Don't ask how, it cannot be explained. You just keep on trying until you succeed. If you persevere, there can be no failure. What matters supremely is sincerity, earnestness; you must really have had surfeit of being the person you are; now see the urgent need of being free of this unnecessary self-identification with a bundle of memories and habits. This steady resistance against the unnecessary is the secret of success.

You must be aware continuously

Discover all you are not. Body, feelings, thoughts, ideas, time, space, being and not-being, this or that - nothing concrete or abstract you can point out to is you.

A mere verbal statement will not do - you may repeat a formula endlessly without any result whatsoever. You must watch yourself continuously - particularly your mind - moment by moment, missing nothing. This witnessing is essential for the separation of the self from the not-self.

You shall never be a person

You are not what you think yourself to be, I assure you. The image you have of yourself is made up from memories and is purely accidental.

You have never been, nor shall ever be, a person.

Refuse to consider yourself as one. But as long as you do not even doubt yourself to be Mr So-and-so, there is little hope.

Not you that suffers

It is the person you imagine yourself to be that suffers, not you. Dissolve it in awareness. It is merely a bundle of memories and habits.

To be a person

To be a person, is to be asleep.

Thought is suffering

Realizing that suffering arises from nothing other than thought,
dropping all desires one rids oneself of it, and is happy and at peace
everywhere.

First of all I was averse to physical activity, then to lengthy
speech, and finally to thought itself, which is why I am now established.

-- from the Ashtavakra Gita (Song of Ashtavakra)

You are not the person

The person is merely the result of a misunderstanding. In reality, there is no such thing. Feelings, thoughts and actions race before the watcher in endless succession, leaving traces in the brain and creating an illusion of continuity.

A reflection of the watcher in the mind creates the sense of "I", and the person acquires an apparently independent existence. In reality there is no person, only the watcher identifying himself with the "I" and the "mine".

Give up the sense of "I"

Give up the sense of "I", in the gross body, and all attachment
due to the mind, attachments to name and form, tribe and
family, caste and social order. Give up also the attachment to
the subtle body, and its nature and sense of being the doer.

Find the feeling of "I" in the Self, which is Truth, knowledge,
and eternity.

from Vivekachudamani (Collected works of Sri Ramana Maharshi)

All that is separate from me, is myself

All that appears as form apart from the sea, that is the bubble and the wave, is the sea.

All that is seen in a dream, is seen in him who sees the dream.

Similarly, in me as in the ocean or the man who dreams, all that seems separate from me, is myself.

--Vivekachudamani, Collected Works of Sri Ramana Maharshi.

I am not this person

I am not this person, this body-mind or anything.

The person is never the subject. You can see a person, but you are not the person.

Give up all thought

Remain indifferent to the body and senses, and outer things that follow
you like a shadow. Be one who discriminates, free from the stain of samsara,
and from tendencies and sense objects. Retain consciousness without
thought. Retain form, though formless.

Have no likes and dislikes in what is experienced at the moment, and no thought
of what may happen in the future. Give up all thought of inner and outer, and
concentrate permanently on the blissful experience of Brumm-hun. Through the
power of knowledge, maintain perfect equanimity in the face of all opposites
such as vice and virtue, likes and dislikes, or praise and blame, whether by
sadhus, or by the wicked.

--Vivekachudamani, Collected Works of Sri Ramana Maharshi.

Give no more thought to the body

Just as the cow does not care about the garland round its neck, so too
he (the yogi) does not care whether the body, bound by the strings of
past karma, lives or dies. So you too reject this inert, impure
body, and realize the pure and eternal Self of wisdom.

Give no more thought to the body.

--Vivekachudamani, Collected Works of Sri Ramana Maharshi.

I am not the body

The perfection of knowledge is when the "I-sense" no longer
pertains to the body.

Do not harm any living thing

69. Listen to me, Lady! Know that only the wise man
who never does anything which leads to the destruction of
any form of life, such as insects, worms, birds or plants, is a
person who is seeking true knowledge.

70. He (the true aspirant) should not pull out tender roots
(of fragrant plants, which is often done for worship); he
should not even pluck the leaves; he should not harm any
living thing out of anger; he should not heartlessly pluck
even flowers.

From Devikalottara - Collected Works of Sri Ramana Maharshi

Just be aware that you are

Just be aware that you are, and remain aware.

What is it that makes me conscious

Give all your attention to the question: "What is it that makes me conscious?", until your mind becomes the question itself and cannot think of anything else.