CONVERSATIONS WITH ANNAMALAI SWAMI
Question: What is the easiest way to be free of the 'little self?
Annamalai Swami: Stop identifying with it. If you can convince yourself This "little self” is not really me’ it will just disappear.
Q: But how to do this?
AS: The 'little self’ is something which only appears to be real. If
you understand that it has no real existence it will disappear,
leaving behind it the experience of the real and only Self.
Understand that it has no real existence and it will stop troubling you.
Consciousness is universal. There is no limitation or 'little self’
in it. It is only when we identify with and limit ourselves to the body and the mind that this false self is ‘born’. If through enquiry, you go to the source of this 'little self’, you find that it dissolves into nothingness.
Q: But I am very accustomed to feel ‘I am this "little self”’.
I cannot break this habit merely by thinking ‘I am not this "little self “’.
AS: This 'little self will only give way to the real Self if you meditate constantly. You cannot wish it away with a few stray thoughts. Try to remember the analogy of the rope which looks like a snake in the twilight. If you see the rope as a snake, the real nature of the rope is hidden from you. If you only see the rope, the snake is not there. Not only that, you know that there never was a snake there. When you have that clear and correct perception that the snake never at any time existed, the question of how to kill the snake disappears.
- LWB p 264
