Devotee: Why should Self-enquiry alone be considered the direct path to Realisation.?
Bhagavan: Because every kind of path except Self-enquiry presupposes the retention of the mind as the instrument for following it, and cannot be followed without the mind. The ego may take different and more subtle forms at different stages of one’s practice but it is never destroyed. The attempt to destroy the ego or the mind by methods other than Self-enquiry is like a thief turning policeman to catch the thief that is himself. Self-enquiry alone can reveal the truth that neither the ego not the mind really exists and enable one to realize the pure, undifferentiated being of the Self or the Absolute.
Source: Maharshi’s Gospel p.38.
Bhagavan: To ask the mind to kill the mind is like making the thief the policeman. He will go with you and pretend to catch the thief, but nothing will be gained. So, you must turn inward and see where the mind rises and from then it will cease to exist.
[ In reference to this answer, Sri Thorai of jaffna, who has been living as a sadhu in Pelakothu for over a year, asked me whether asking the mind to turn inward and seek its source is not also employing the mind. I put the doubt before Bhagavan]
Bhagavan: Of course, we are employing the mind. It is well known and admitted that only with the help of the mind, can the mind be killed. But instead of setting about saying there is a mind and I want to kill it, you begin to seek its source and then find it does not exist at all. The mind turned outwards results in thoughts and objects. Turned inwards it becomes itself the Self.
From: Printed page 111 – The Teachings of Bhagavan by Arthur Osborne 2005 edition;
Day by Day with Bhagavan by A.Davaraja Mudaliar [ 5th edition, 2002] - page 37
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