Spirituality Studies 9-2 Fall 2023 5 Martin Dojčár investigation, so his teachings encourage us to consider many deep and subtle questions, particularly questions about things that we generally take for granted, such as the questions I refer to above in the first paragraph of my answer to this set of questions, so these teachings are designed perfectly for those of us who are of a sceptical frame of mind. However, many sceptics are only superficially sceptical, and their scepticism is often a means by which they defend their own firmly held and dogmatic beliefs, such as belief in materialistic metaphysics, so unless such sceptics are willing to question their own beliefs and assumptions and to consider deeper and subtler questions about what we ourself actually are and about the nature of existence, awareness and happiness, these teachings will not appeal to them, and no arguments will be sufficient to make them willing to seriously question their own dogmatic beliefs. Therefore, these teachings will appeal only to those sceptics who are genuinely open-minded, eager to learn and willing to seriously and carefully consider the very deepest and subtlest metaphysical and epistemological questions that can be asked. What is the purpose of ātma-vicāra (self-investigation) in a broader sense, i.e., how can it help us in our daily lives? What can make it a recommended practice for contemporary man? Why is there so much emphasis on the “I” and its investigation? Could you perhaps give an argument that sceptics might consider in this regard? The purpose of self-investigation is for us to know and to be what we actually are, but this requires willingness on our part to surrender our identification with and attachment to whatever we may now take ourself to be but is not what we actually are. Our “daily life” means the daily life of the person we now take ourself to be, but is this person what we actually are? If this person is not what we actually are, its “daily life” is not our real life, so we should not be concerned about it, but should seek to be aware of ourself as we actually are. However, this is not to say that we will not experience any benefits in our daily life by practising self-investigation, because the deeper we go in this practice, the more detached we will become from the person we now take ourself to be and therefore from all the concerns of this person’s daily life, and the more detached we thereby become, the less we will be affected by all the problems, joys and sorrows that life inevitably throws at us so long as we experience ourself as if we were a person. This detachment occurs because to the extent to which we investigate ourself deeply, our identification gradually shifts from whatever we mistake ourself to be to what we actually are, namely Sat-Cit, pure existence (Sa. Sat), which is pure awareness (Sa. Cit), which is what always shines within us as our fundamental awareness, namely our awareness of our own existence, “I am”. Our false identification, “I am this body” or “I am this person”, will not be eradicated completely and forever until we become aware of ourself as nothing other than Sat-Cit, but it will gradually be weakened and will eventually dissolve entirely by patient and persistent practice of self-investigation. Self-investigation is therefore a practice that is recommended not only for contemporary man but for all people at all times and in all circumstances, because the root cause of all problems, limitations and suffering is ego, which is a false awareness of ourself, namely awareness of ourself as “I am this body”, in which the term “body” does not refer just to the physical body but to the entire person consisting of the “five sheaths” (Sa. pañca-kōśa) that I mentioned earlier, as Bhagavan points out in verse 5 of Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu: “The body is a form of five sheaths. Therefore, all five are included in the term ‘body’.” [2] That is, whenever we rise and stand as ego, namely throughout the states of waking and dream, we always experience ourself as “I am this body” (in which “this body” refers to whatever body we currently mistake ourself to be, which is not the same body in both waking and dream), but we never experience ourself as a dead body or as a sleeping body, so since it is a living body, body and life (Sa. prāṇa,
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