Asking 'Who am I' is honesty in face of falseness || Acharya Prashant, on Raman Maharishi (2015)

Question: Sir, Ramana Maharshi has talked about the ‘I’. He has always asked the seekers to observe this ‘I’, and this has always been the basis of his teachings. What exactly does Ramana Maharshi mean, when he asks us to constantly observe this ‘I’? How does one witness this ‘I’? In short, what is the basis of his teachings?

Speaker: See, appearances are deceptive; not only sometimes, but always. You look at these faces here (pointing towards a photo of Ramana Maharshi and other Saints hanging on the wall). Shubhankar, why not point the camera there for a while.

Ramana here would be the last one, with whom you would probably want to attach the word ‘rebel’. But, Ramana is – absolute rebellion. Absolute Rebellion. Do you know what ‘absolute’ means? ‘Absolute’ means pure. All his life, Ramana had only one answer, “What is pure, is One.”

Do you get this?

What is Pure, is One. ‘Purity’ means Oneness. All his life, Ramana had only one answer to anything that you would ask him. He might use many words, but if you look closely at the words, he had just one thing to say, “Find out who is asking the question.” He actually never had any other response to give. Never any other response.

There was a certain Oneness in his response to life.