Who Says the I-Thought is the Ego or Self?
Robert Adams and Ramana both said follow the ‘I’
thought. Nisargadatta said focus on and love the ‘I Am’
sensation, the sense of existence.
“Part” of what is revealed to us through such an
inner searching is that there is no inner “entity,” no
inner object, no apparent phenomenal nucleus towards
which the ‘I-thought’ points.
(Much later we will find there is still “something”
there which is not a thing, it is the knowing subject
which is conducting the self-inquiry, which cannot be
objectified as an observed entity, or known by the
mind. At first it is only known by inference, then as an
intuition, and then as an utter certainty, a deep
conviction after long pondering about the relationship
between the perceived and the perceiver.)
I think in most of us there is a feeling, and the
unquestioned understanding, that there is some
nucleus, the personal self, an ego to which the ‘I-
thought’ points, such that when we practice self
inquiry, looking at or for the ‘I-thought,’ we finally
understand there is no entity anywhere to which the
‘I- thought’ points, thus the entire conceptual system
collapses.