The stick and pyre analogy of Bhagavan Ramana

This I-feeling, or simple, silent, self-awareness, is the stick that Bhagavan Ramana said is used to stir the burning pyre and in the end itself gets destroyed.

Pay attention to the awareness reading this. This is the I-feeling.

Or close your eyes, and notice your consciousness. This is the I-feeling or self-awareness.

Or, keep your mind still. This is self-awareness.

Or, be totally in the Now. Not a moment before or after. Is this not "me" ?

Or, focus on a plant, or object, or your hand. Now bring focus back to the awareness that is looking. Is this not yourself ? And yet not your mind or body! This is the "I" or  I-feeling - a thoughtless feeling.

This has very often been experienced by us, everyday, every hour, even every minute, but overlooked since we (the mind) wanted something grander, something tangible, concrete. But now the mind is tired of things and experiences, it is open to observing this awareness that is just there.

The more we return to this awareness, the sweeter and more intimate it becomes, but that is not to say that anything has got added to it. It is still the same clear, unassociated awareness, but since the association with the mind is weakening, so our taste for this silence or stillness is increasing. Even this is just a mental way of trying to express it.

The beauty of being in this awareness without any story or weighty identity -- cannot be matched by any experience. No doubt, there still could be and must be a mental aspect judging this as beautiful, or pretending there is very little identity left. And yet none of this silence or stillness is new or created or manufactured. Its just as though (again mind trying to explain) this silence was never noticed, it was always there but I ignored it.

The reason I log this, is only to share the ease of Bhagavan's direct path, this is the easiest and most natural way. No prerequisites. We are only using what was always there, to take us to --- what was always there!