The Remaining Awareness is What I Am

A precious string of words formed in me while meditating this evening:

After negating all that I am not, the remaining Awareness is what I am.

Afterwards, contemplating about the ego mind, I turned to the teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi (1879 – 1950) and was reminded of this: that it is useless to destroy doubts in the mind. When one doubt is destroyed, another arises to replace it, and so on, in an endless chain. But if you deeply inquire Who Am I?, then soon all doubts will cease. Who is the Doubter? Who is doubting? Follow this inquiry and you will discover that the Doubter does not exist. It is bogus. So the doubts cannot exist either. As Maharshi says, “Doubter ceasing, doubts will cease.”

But what about the slip ups during our practice? What is to be done when the ego reasserts itself and we follow its shrill voice and tempting allusions?

"There is the steady impulse of your determination that sets you on your feet again after every downfall and breakdown,” Maharshi notes. “Gradually the obstacles are all overcome and your current becomes stronger. Everything comes right in the end. Steady determination is what is required.”