Who Am I? Ramana Maharshi’s Guide to Self-Enquiry

Ask someone who they are and the answer usually arrives quickly. A name. A profession. A relationship. Perhaps a story about where they came from and what they have survived.

All of these answers tell us something. Yet each can change. A career ends. A belief loosens. A role that once organised an entire life becomes less central.

Who Am I? by Ramana Maharshi asks us to examine the person to whom those descriptions belong. His practice of self-enquiry, also called atma-vichara, directs attention towards the sense of being “I”. This article offers a reading of that invitation, followed by a gentle way to approach it.

What is Who Am I? by Ramana Maharshi?

The Tamil text Nan Yar? grew from questions Sivaprakasam Pillai put to Ramana around 1902. Pillai’s record was first published in 1923; the teaching exists in question-and-answer and essay versions. The Sri Ramanasramam edition, translated by T. M. P. Mahadevan, provides the historical introduction and the text itself.

Its central claim is that our deepest identity is awareness, rather than the body or thinking mind. In Ramana’s teaching, investigating the source of the “I”-thought reveals the Self. These are statements within his spiritual teaching, rather than scientific conclusions about consciousness.