Mind at rest is Self. Mind in movement is ego. Empty mind is free. Mind with contents feels that it is in bondage. Action without motive brings freedom. Action with intention is limited and so binding. Humanity is caught up in self ignorance. Every human feels that he is a separate entity not only biologically but psychologically. It is this feeling of being a separate entity that is causing havoc in human society. So one starts accumulating things for himself and his family and is not bothered about the rest of mankind. The concept of community and country has its seeds in family. Because one feels insecure with family he identifies with community and country and accumulates armaments in case there is a war. Armaments are meant to kill fellow human being and we fight war just for ideals thinking that humans of other country are different from us. The concept of nationality is just a glorified tribalism. Every country is spending almost 50% of its income to acquire armaments. See the insanity involved in the concept of nationality. Humanity is one and its problems are same wherever they live. Self centred activity is based on the thesis that one is a "separate" entity and so whatever activity is done will end up in conflict. The contents of mind like comparison, ambition, desire, violence, fear, possession, pleasure, anxiety, hatred, misery, and these are common to all wherever they live and every human is caught in this stream. But if one can observe this self centred activity without the interference of conditioned observer he is free from this stream. The very observation, perception has got its own activity. Awareness is a cleansing agent just as identity is a contaminating agent. Identity with anything limits the consciousness and therefore any activity born out of limited consciousness is bound to be limited and so results in conflict and contradiction. We are free not to be self centred. That happens when you see the danger involved in being self centred. "What is" is the result of evolution. We cannot change it with another part of evolution. But if we observe "what is", it is changed by the action of pure awareness. It helps you not to identify from the contents of "what is" and so cleanses you. Ego process appears only when the mind is occupied be it daily activity or with psychological activity. In still mind there is no ego. Because attraction towards things is continuous ego appears as an existential entity. When a fire ball is revolved there is an illusion that there is a circle of fire. If we slow the resolution of fire ball we will know the truth. If that hot iron ball is completely cooled the illusion is gone forever. When we see a cinema the phenomena in the reel appears to be true, we are involved in it, sometimes we cry, some times we laugh, we like some characters in it and we hate some characters in it, all this because they appearnto be true when reel that is projected is run with certain speed. If we slow down the reel or completely stop it then only we are aware of the background screen which is unaffected by events in phenomena. So ego is born and dies each moment (Vritti Jnana). There is a gap between appearance and disappearance of ego during which we can find the background of pure consciousness. Ego consciousness is associated consciousness. In self-inquiry we dissociate the consciousness from outer and inner things. Then awareness of mind is freed from all conditioning, organized beliefs, dogmas, all systems of philosophy, of all preconceptions of what reality or god is. Then mind becomes still. Problems exist only when the mind is occupied. Some how humanity is frightened when the mind is not occupied and so there is perpetuation of problems with occupied mind. Motivated action strengthens the ego and so binds the mind. Motivated action is incomplete and there is the residue of non-understanding stored as experience in memory cells and it adds to the already existing ego.
About the Author: The author is a pediatrician from Narsapur, west Godavari district, AP, India. He is working on the subject of self-inquiry for the past 30 years. He had a major divine experience on September 9th 1987 at 10-30 am.Since then he started writing books on self-inquiry in English and Telugu.His printed books are available in Amazon.com, Create space.c