David Godman’s presentation of Ramana Maharshi’s teaching revolves around the recognition that one’s true nature is the Self: pure, formless awareness, identical with Brahman, the unchanging reality underlying all experience. What is ordinarily taken to be “I” is a misidentification with body, mind, and roles; this ego or “I‑thought” is described as an illusion that borrows its seeming existence from the Self. Suffering arises precisely from this false identification and the attendant sense of doership and bondage. When this misidentification is seen through, the Self is recognized as existence‑consciousness‑bliss, ever-present and not something newly produced by practice. From this standpoint, body, mind, and world are appearances within awareness, without independent, absolute reality.

Within this framework, *atma‑vichara* or Self‑inquiry is presented as the direct and central means to realization. The inquiry “Who am I?” is not intended as an intellectual puzzle but as a sustained turning of attention toward the felt sense of “I,” tracing all thoughts back to their source in the “I‑thought.” Rather than analyzing the content of thoughts, attention is repeatedly brought back to the subject who experiences them, until the ego-sense subsides into its origin. As the mind becomes still in this way, the Self shines by itself, and the natural state of effortless awareness is revealed. This is sometimes described as the mind merging in the Heart, the inner center of being from which the “I‑thought” arises and in which the Self is realized.

Alongside inquiry, surrender is upheld as a complementary or alternative path. True surrender means relinquishing the sense of personal doership and ownership, yielding everything to God or the Self and accepting events as expressions of a higher will. When surrender is complete, the ego’s claims fall away, and what remains is the same egoless abidance that inquiry reveals. In both approaches, the practical work consists in allowing thoughts and identifications to subside, so that the underlying awareness can stand revealed without obstruction. Silence and inner stillness are thus not ends in themselves but the natural atmosphere in which the Self is most clearly known.

The culmination of this teaching is the extinction of the ego-mind (*manonāśa*), not by violent suppression but by clear seeing of its insubstantial nature. As the “I‑thought” is repeatedly examined and traced back to its source, it loses its hold, and the apparent separation between self, others, and world dissolves in non‑dual consciousness. What remains is the recognition that reality is only this timeless, present awareness, free from past and future, requiring no effort to maintain. Liberation is therefore not a future attainment but the removal of ignorance about what has always been the case, an abiding as the Self that is simultaneously the highest knowledge and the truest devotion.