Self-Inquiry, and how to practise the question "Who am I?"

Self-Inquiry is much more than a meditation practice. It is the very quest to find the Truth of our own being, which implies a profound change in our attitude and in the direction of our attention. In Self-Inquiry meditation, the attention turns back on itself and looks for the one who is aware. Instead of attending to the breath, or to sensation, or to a mantra, we follow the simple sense of being back to its source, held in the question "Who am I?". Cave of the Heart Retreats teaches it as part of Hridaya meditation on our silent retreats at Karuna Retreat Center in Monchique, in the Algarve, Portugal. Self-Inquiry is practised in all our retreats, however, in our longer programmes, like the 10-day Hridaya Silent Meditation Retreat, participants have the chance to explore more nuances of it.

What Self-Inquiry actually is

Ramana Maharshi, who lived at the foot of Arunachala in southern India until 1950, called it the most sacred of sacred. In Sanskrit it is atma-vichara: atman, the Self, and vichara, investigation or inquiry. Literally, the investigation into what we are.

When he was sixteen, after a sudden and intense feeling that he was about to die, he decided to examine this fear of death and spontaneously inquired into his own nature. The question "Who am I?" arose naturally for him. In his own account of what happened:

"I" was something very real, the only real thing in that state, and all the conscious activity that was connected with my body was centred on that. The "I" or my "self" was holding the focus of attention by a powerful fascination from that time forwards. Fear of death had vanished once and forever. Absorption in the Self has continued from that moment right up to this time.

Years later, when others came to Ramana Maharshi asking for advice, he recommended strongly to practise Self-Inquiry and to keep the question "Who am I?".

Every other meditation involves two things: a subject who attends, and an object attended to. The breath, a chakra, a sound, a feeling. Self-Inquiry is unusual because it removes the second one. The object becomes the subject. We are not looking at anything; we are looking for the one who looks. In this movement of awareness, subject and object become one and it opens us to a domain beyond conceptualisation, to the ineffable.

Ramana Maharshi was asked what the question is actually reaching for, and his answer was simple:

In the inquiry "Who am I?", "I" is the ego. The question really means, what is the source of this ego? You need not have any attitude in the mind. All that is required is that you must give up the attitude that you are the body, of such and such description, with such and such name. There is no need to have an attitude about your true nature. It exists as it always does. It is real and no bhavana [not a mental attitude you construct].

As Self-Inquiry guides us deeper, beyond identifications, we open to our natural state, beyond conceptualisation. Ramana Maharshi again:

By the inquiry "Who am I?", the thought "Who am I?" will destroy all other thoughts, and like the stick used for stirring the burning pyre, it will itself in the end get destroyed. Then, there will arise Self-realization.

Bringing the pure I-feeling (aham-vritti) back to its source

Before any thought about yourself arrives, there is a bare feeling of being present, of existing. The tradition calls this the aham-vritti, the "I" thought, or pure I feeling, the first movement out of which every other thought about ourselves is built. Self-Inquiry follows this I feeling back to its source.

In the words of Ramana Maharshi:

Self-enquiry, by following the clue of aham-vritti, is just like the dog tracing its master by his scent. The master may be at some distant, unknown place, but that does not at all stand in the way of the dog tracing him. The master's scent is an infallible clue for the animal, and nothing else, such as the dress he wears or his build and stature, etc., counts. The dog holds on to that scent undistractedly while searching for him, and finally it succeeds in tracing him.

There is no need to know where the Inquiry will take you, the mind can never know. You need only keep hold of the scent, which is the simple feeling of being, and refuse to be distracted by everything that is not it.

And the destination is not a better version of the person doing the tracing:

So then, the search for the source of the aham-vritti is not merely the search for the basis of one of the forms of the ego but for the very Source itself from which arises the "I-am"-ness.

This is also why the method is described as direct. Other approaches leave the questioner in place and work on what the questioner is experiencing. Here the questioner is the subject of the investigation from the first minute. As Ramana Maharshi put it: in this method the final question is the only one, and it is raised from the very beginning.

Why it is not a question the mind can answer

The first thing to understand is that there is no rational answer, and looking for one keeps you out. Keeps you in your thinking mind. Nisargadatta Maharaj said it from the other side:

The clearer you understand on the level of mind you can be described in negative terms only, the quicker will you come to the end of your search and realise that you are the limitless being.

If you say "I understand, I know who I am", you have made a concept of something that has no edges. The mind answers with what it already holds: a name, a history, a job, a diagnosis, a set of preferences. All of that is true about the person and none of it is what the question is asking. The question points towards the Source. When the mind offers an answer, the practice is not to argue with it but to notice that an answer has appeared and understand that any conceptual answer is limited and therefore not fully truthful. If you wish, you can let the answers go the way the Vedantic tradition does, with neti neti, not this, not that.

What is left when everything knowable has been set aside is both nothingness and fullness, purnam. Nisargadatta again:

Love says "I am everything." Wisdom says "I am nothing." Between the two, my life flows.

Calming the mind first, because it makes seeing more available

In Hridaya meditation, we do not usually start a session directly with Self-Inquiry. We start by settling, calming down the mind and opening the Heart.

Almost every tradition has this pair in some form; in Buddhism it is samatha and vipassana, the calming and the clear seeing. The calming is not the point, but it makes the seeing possible.

We say it plainly on retreat: meditation is not about calming the mind. Calming the mind creates the conditions for us to recognise a deeper dimension of our being. The Self is always there.

Hridaya meditation, along with other practices that we share in our retreats, creates the conditions for this natural recognition of our true nature to happen. We describe the method in full on our Hridaya meditation page.

The attitudes that allow us to open to the question

The attitude is everything.

Wonderment rather than effort. Searching for what we really are gives rise to a kind of sacred astonishment, because it escapes rational understanding. Open yourself to an ineffable Stillness.

It is not a mantra. Repeating "Who am I?" for an hour will not do it on its own. The most important element is a real longing to know. Let this question be the most important one for you, even for a single moment.

Fall in love with the question. Keep the fascination for the essence of your being, make the question your closest companion, until there is neither a question nor anyone to ask the question. Rumi knew this state from the inside:

All day I think about it, then at night I say it.Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?I have no idea.

As Sahajananda, the founder of Hridaya Yoga, says:

To raise your eyes to the sky you don't need a schedule, don't require a time frame. Self-Inquiry is not a matter of technical details, but of the intensity of Being. Touch the string that vibrates in eternity.

What Self-Inquiry is not

It is not self-analysis. Nothing here asks you to examine your history, your motivations or your patterns. That work is valuable and it is a different thing, and if you are in therapy this practice sits alongside it rather than replacing it.

It is not an affirmation. We are not installing a better story about who you are. We are looking at what is there when the stories are not running.

It is a diving into the unknown. Through the practice we learn how to be comfortable with the unknown, and even to love the unknown.

It is not mindfulness, which attends carefully to experience. Here attention goes the other way, towards the one experiencing. Nor is it the body-scanning insight practice of a Vipassana retreat.

And it is not a technique that produces a result on a schedule. What it opens is closer to understanding or recognition than to achievement or gain. The yogic tradition calls that jnana, wisdom born of direct experience, and it is the heart of the message of Sri Ramana Maharshi.

Why it goes better in silence

Self-Inquiry is meant to be happening constantly in daily life.

On retreat, we create the conditions to recognise it, to become more familiar with it, or to deepen in our understanding of it. There is noble silence from the first morning to the last, no small talk to prepare for or recover from, and roughly five and a half hours of sitting a day, with an hour and a half of Hridaya Hatha Yoga, in which Self-Inquiry is incorporated into the practice of Hatha Yoga itself. A full day is described hour by hour in what to expect on a silent meditation retreat.

Everything is taught on the retreat itself and no previous experience is needed. If it would be your first, our honest guide for beginners covers the worries people actually have, and every length we run is open to beginners.

To try the practice before committing to anything, our free weekly online meditation is guided live, and there are recorded meditations you can sit with at home.

Dates are on our silent meditation retreats in Portugal page.

Frequently asked questions

What is Self-Inquiry?

Self-Inquiry, atma-vichara in Sanskrit, is more than a meditation technique. It is the quest to find the Truth of our own being, and it asks for a change in the direction of our attention: instead of attending to an object, such as the breath or a sensation, attention turns back on itself and follows the simple feeling of being to its source, held in the question "Who am I?". It was the central teaching of Ramana Maharshi, and it is an essential part of Hridaya meditation.

Am I supposed to answer the question with my mind?

No. If answers or thoughts come, they are fine, but do not encourage them. Any answer the mind produces is a concept, not the Truth of our being. The question is by definition not looking for a new concept or idea about ourselves. If an answer appears, notice it and let it go.

Is Self-Inquiry suitable for beginners?

Yes, and it is taught to beginners on every retreat we run. It asks you to adopt no belief and it uses no forceful techniques. If you are currently in treatment for a mental health condition, please read our note on meditation and mental health and write to us before booking, as an intensive silent retreat is not right for every situation.

How is Self-Inquiry different from mindfulness?

Mindfulness attends to experience: sensations, sounds, thoughts, the breath, observed without being added to. Self-Inquiry turns in the opposite direction and looks for the one to whom the experience is happening. They are compatible, and a mindfulness practice is a good preparation, but the movement of attention is different.

Can I practise it at home, or do I need a retreat?

You can certainly practise it at home, and what is described above is enough to begin. What a retreat changes is the condition of the mind: days of continuous silence quiet the noise to a degree that is difficult to reach in ordinary life.

With Love, the Cave of the Heart Team