The question “Who am I?” is presented as the central instrument of self-inquiry, not as a philosophical puzzle to be solved by the mind. It is defined as a practical method of atma-vichara, a disciplined turning of attention back upon the very sense of “I.” Rather than encouraging new concepts or identities, this inquiry strips away all habitual identifications such as body, mind, or role, and refuses any formulation like “I am this” or “I am that.” In this way, it functions as a radical examination of the “I”-sense itself, rather than of its changing attributes.

A key feature of this method is the way it engages with thoughts as they arise. When any thought appears, one is instructed to ask, “To whom has this thought arisen?” The spontaneous answer, “To me,” is then followed by the deeper inquiry, “Who is this ‘me’?” By persistently tracing the “I”-thought in this manner, attention is led back to its source, described as the Heart, understood as the spiritual center rather than the physical organ. Thus, the question serves as a means of returning again and again to the origin of the ego-sense.

This inquiry is repeatedly clarified as not being an intellectual exercise that yields a verbal answer. The question is meant to be lived as a continuous, inward-turning attention to the pure feeling of “I am,” free of all adjuncts and descriptions. As this attention becomes steady, the illusory, individual “I” is seen to have no independent reality, and its apparent solidity begins to dissolve. What remains, when this false “I” subsides, is the Self—pure awareness, or pure consciousness and bliss, identical with the unconditioned “I AM.”

In this light, “Who am I?” may be understood as both path and pointer: it is the direct means by which all that is not truly oneself is relinquished, and it is the indication of that non-dual Self which is ever-present. By refusing to settle for conceptual answers and by relentlessly turning back to the source of the “I”-thought, this inquiry undermines the ego at its root. The fruit of such sustained practice is the recognition that the seeker, the seeking, and the sought are not ultimately separate, and that the true Self alone shines when all false identifications have fallen away.