Self-Abidance ātma-niṣṭha

Just short of & continuously identical with moksha Liberation is said to be the practice & state that is the endpoint of both ātma vichāra Self-Inquiry & also supreme Non-Dual Devotion & Surrender to God and/or Guru. That in-common practice & state ātma niṣṭha Self-Abidance.

Concentrated penetration to the core Reality with Self-Inquiry & giving up attachment to all that is considered as “me” & “mine” in renunciation of individual will [not my will, but thine] – both or either of these paths to Egoless Enlightenment will ultimately require abandoning identity with a Mind, that poor objective substitute for subjective Pure Consciousness.

Ego reference-identity on the one hand [vs. inquiry], & Desire–Attachment on the other hand [vs. devotion] are inherent in the Mind. They are the very fabric of which the Mind is made. So long as one self-identifies as an Individual “I”, there will also be a sense of Attachment to what is “mine”, all the way down to the Life of the Body. Surrender of individual will & relinquishment of Attachment necessitates inquiry into the nature of Mind or surrender the mind that has an individual will & feels attachment to the Body & other possessions. Individual identity – feeling “I am a Person, a separate

Individual, a Mind living in the Waking State inside a Body” – all that is merely False & distorted & the root cause of all Desire & all Suffering. Equivalent to Surrender of Ego is close examination & Discrimination through Self-Inquiry. So along with scrutiny of Ego being:

(1) the correct “inward direction” for Self-Abidance as the Self, &

(2) the way to strip Ego of its objects so that it vanishes, &

(3) Discriminating-Knowledge that dissolve supporting vasana Tendencies, the also –

(4) recognition & abandonment of false Ego as false compares to:

giving up the false notion that mistakes a wayside Rope for an hallucinated Snake in the dim light of dusk. Looking closely at the Snake, we discover that it is in fact nothing but a Rope. So too, if we examine or surrender Ego–“I”, we discover that it is in fact nothing but the Real & unlimited Pure Consciousness. Such is Self-Abidance.

[The above themes & 1600 pages more are freely available as perused or downloaded PDF’s, the sole occupants of a Public Microsoft Skydrive “Public Folder” accessible through  www.jpstiga.com ]