The source of thought, and the utility of knowledge || On Vivekachudamani (2018)

Questioner (Q): I want to know the source of thought. I remember Ramana Maharshi’s words: “‘I’ is the root of all the thoughts because in the end, every thought occurs to the ‘I’. So, first try to get hold of who this ‘I’ is, which will lead the enquirer to dissolve and merge in the Source.” Whenever I enquire, I cannot dig deep; there is no intensity in the digging. How to get that intensity in the enquiry?

Acharya Prashant (AP): What enquiry do you want to do? Why do you want to know the source of thought? And why is an enquiry needed at all? Don’t you directly see where your thoughts are coming from? Don’t you know desire? Don’t you know anger? Don’t you know jealousy? Don’t you know competition? Where else are your thoughts coming from? That which is directly available to be known must not be unnecessarily made mysterious.

You are saying, “When I enquire, I cannot dig deep; there is no intensity in the digging.” You cannot dig deep because there is nothing to dig at. Only the Truth is deep, and you cannot dig your way down to the Truth. When you will dig, you will come to your own personal center, and that’s all. And that center is quite shallow, so how deep can you dig?

Your digging will not take you to Ātman or Truth. Please. As long as the digger is there as someone separate from the Ātman, as long as there is someone doing the digging, how are you going to reach the Ātman? The very act of digging will keep the digger intact. The very act of trying to know the source of thought will keep the striving one, the effortful one intact.