In this teaching, liberation is understood to arise when attention is turned away from the changing field of thoughts, sensations, and roles, and directed instead toward the very sense of “I” that claims them. The practice of Self-Inquiry consists in asking, whenever a thought or emotion appears, “To whom has this arisen?” and then, upon the recognition “to me,” pursuing the deeper question, “Who am I?” This is not meant as an intellectual puzzle but as a steady, experiential tracing of the “I”-thought back to its source. As this inward turning becomes continuous, the basic identification “I am the body–mind” is exposed as a mere assumption rather than a discovered fact. The ego, or personal “I,” is seen as a thought-construct that depends on constant reinforcement through attention and belief. When that reinforcement is withdrawn, the ego cannot stand on its own and begins to subside, much like a flame deprived of fuel.

What remains when this false center loses its grip is the Self, pure awareness or consciousness, which was never absent but had been obscured by misidentification. In this recognition, awareness is no longer experienced as a subject opposed to objects, but as the non-dual ground in which both the sense of “I” and the world-appearance arise and subside. The practitioner comes to see that the true “I” is not the body, mind, or any particular state, but the ever-present knowing in which all of these appear. Liberation is thus not the acquisition of a new state, but the clear, stable recognition that one’s real nature is this limitless, self-luminous consciousness. As the tendencies that give rise to the ego are weakened through persistent inquiry, the oscillation between clarity and confusion comes to an end. Abidance as the Self, free from the notion of a separate individual, is what is meant by liberation.