On Spiritual Realization

This entry quotes from a marvellous and inspiring site called www.realization.org I highly recommend it, especially the pages on Nisargadatta Maharaj and (here) Ramana Maharishi, the two saintly sages of the twentieth century who also calibrated at 700 on the Hawkins scale, the level of enlightenment. Most of the other teachers here calibrate in the high 400s and in the 500s.
About Ramana Maharishi's self-inquiry:

From David Godman:
"[Ramana Maharshi] said that if one can keep one's y on this inner feeling of 'I', and if one can exclude all other thoughts, then the 'I'-thought will start to subside into the Heart-centre."


As this sentence suggests, self-inquiry is basically about keeping the attention fixed on the I-thought — that is, on the feeling of me.

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Some distinctions on inquiry:
The word inquiry leads many people to think, wrongly, that the technique has more to do with asking questions than with focusing attention. Since the technique does involve questions, the misunderstanding is natural.

One of these questions, "Who Am I?", is the name of Ramana Maharshi's first written work. He meant to suggest that self-inquiry reveals the answer to this question, not that a seeker should ask the question over and over.

Self-inquiry also involves a second question, "To whom does this thought arise?" Ramana Maharshi advised meditators to ask this question whenever their concentration is interrupted by a thought, because the answer causes the attention to return to the feeling of me where it belongs.

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Ramana Maharshi summed up his technique as follows:

What is essential in any sadhana [practice] is to try to bring back the running mind and fix it on one thing only. Why then should it not be brought back and fixed in Self-attention? That alone is Self-enquiry (atma-vicara). That is all that is to be done!"

A QUOTATION ABOUT SELF-INQUIRY:

"Devotee: If I go on rejecting thoughts can I call it Vichara?

"Maharshi: It may be a stepping stone. But really Vichara begins when you cling to your Self and are already off the mental movement, the thought-waves."