Why Can't I See the Self?

Question: You say that everything is the Self, even māyā. If this is so, why can't I see the Self clearly? Why is it hidden from me?

Annamali Swami: Because you are looking in the wrong direction. You have the idea that the Self is something that you see or experience. This is not so. The Self is the awareness or the consciousness in which the seeing and the experiencing take place.

Even if you don't see the Self, the Self is still there. Bhagavan [Ramana Maharshi] sometimes remarked humorously: “People just open a newspaper and glance through it. Then they say, ‘I have seen the paper.’ But really they haven't seen the paper, they have only seen the letters and pictures that are on it. There can be no words or pictures without the paper, but people always forget the paper while they are reading the words.”

Bhagavan would then use this analogy to show that while people see the names and forms that appear on the screen of consciousness, they ignore the screen itself. With this kind of partial vision it is easy to come to the conclusion that all forms are unconnected with each other and separate from the person who sees them. If people were to be aware of the consciousness instead of the forms that appear in it, they would realize that all forms are just appearances which manifest within the one indivisible consciousness.

That consciousness is the Self that you are looking for. You can be that consciousness but you can never see it because it is not something that is separate from you. 🕉