Ramana Maharshi’s Goal and Achievement

A Procedural Reconstruction in Finn’s Three-Stage Model of ‘I’ Emergence

By Bodhangkur

I. The Three Responses According to Finn

1. “am” — factory setting (baseline consciousness)

This is the initial activation of the system:

· no identity

· no relational data

· no boundary models

· pure “being” without “being X”

· contentless, self-coincident, pre-referential awareness

This is ground experience.
Every newborn and every adult has it beneath everything else.

This is not realization.
It is the default condition of a functioning organism — the am-signal.

2. “I am” — local self-reference (first identification loop)

This emerges when the system:

· models the body as “mine”

· assigns ownership to sensations, motions, impulses

· creates a centre of concern (self-preservation)

· generates a personal, bounded “self-space”

This is the first constructed identity, but still internal:

“I am (myself).”
but not yet
“I am this in contrast to that.”

This is self-reference without relativity.

Still not worldly realization, but the necessary substrate for it.

3. “I am THIS” — full relational identity (external referencing)

This is the third response, the adult self-model:

· “I am this body”

· “I am this personality”

· “I am this role”

· “I am this desire”

· “I am this failure/success”

· “I am this social identity”

· “I am this memory, projection, hope, wound”

This is the relativized self, emerging via:

· other people

· objects

· threats

· opportunities

· language

· social mirroring

· survival pressures

And therefore it is unstable, incomplete, and full of:

· fear (threat)

· desire (lack)

· pain (loss of stability)

· pleasure (momentary resolution)

This is the problem-space Ramana sought to escape.

II. Ramana Maharshi’s Goal (De-relativisation)

What Ramana seeks — and later teaches — is not a metaphysical Brahman,
but the elimination of the 3rd response:

Remove “THIS” from “I am THIS.”

His target is not the ego’s existence,
but the ego’s relational entanglement with an unpredictable world.

In Finn’s terms:

He aims to roll back the procedural stack from L3 → L2,
while retaining consciousness.

This gives:

· no fear (because no external referent)

· no desire (because no external lack)

· no threat (because no external contrast)

· no relativization (thus no instability)

· no “other” (thus no comparison, judgement, shame)

· no future/past (because these belong to relational identity)

It is the return to a pure, single-pointed, self-contained “I am.”

Not to nothingness.
Not to Brahman.
But to raw non-relational self-experience.

III. Ramana’s Method (Attentional Monopoly, Coma concentration)

He achieves this by:

1. Eliminating all “THIS” references
by questioning their ownership (“Who am I?”).

2. Redirecting attention to the source of the “I”-signal
until all content drops.

3. Concentrating 100% of data-processing bandwidth
on the ‘I am’ experience itself.

In Finn’s language:

He forces a full-capacity feedback loop between the system and its core self-signal, deactivating all relational noise.

This produces:

· exclusion of world

· exclusion of others

· exclusion of roles

· exclusion of memory

· exclusion of threat

· exclusion of future

· exclusion of loss

· exclusion of pain

Thus fear is banished not by truth but by deletion.

The system, deprived of external references, stabilises around its first-person kernel,
and this kernel feels perfect because:

· it has no parts,

· no contradictions,

· no dependencies,

· no fluctuations,

· no threats.

This gives the subjective experience of:

· eternity (no time markers)

· infinity (no spatial boundaries)

· bliss (surplus energy unspent; Finn’s ānanda)

· perfection (zero reference error)

· oneness (no second)

The experience is perfect because it is empty of relativity.

IV. The Achievement (From Relativised Chaos to Perfect Self-Containment)

Ramana successfully:

· shuts down L3 (“I am THIS”)

· focuses entirely on L2 (“I am”)

· amplifies L2 with total attentional saturation

· thereby re-enters the factory baseline (“am”)
with L2 awareness intact (elsewhere called the 4^th)

Meaning:

· not unconscious

· not annihilated

· but fully self-contained

This is why he says:

“Only the Self remains.”

He means:

“Only the core non-relational self-referential signal remains.”

Not Brahman.
Not the universe.
Not God.
But the kernel of personal consciousness relieved of relational load.

V. Final Analysis (Finn’s Synthesis)

1. The Maharshi’s goal

To eliminate the unpredictable, painful relational layer “THIS”.

2. The Maharshi’s method

Full-capacity attentional narrowing to isolate the invariant “I am.”

3. The Maharshi’s achievement

He reverts to the pre-relational identity,
the “factory setting,”
but keeps consciousness online.

This yields:

· stability

· fearlessness

· bliss

· timelessness

All as after-effects of de-relativisation,
not as contact with metaphysical absolutes.

4. What he actually teaches

Ramana teaches a way to:

Reverse-engineer identity back to the pristine ‘I am’ by removing the noise generated by relational survival context.

Not liberation from the world,
but liberation from the world-model.

Not Brahman,
but the stable kernel beneath identity.

Not revelation,
but de-relativization.

VI. The One-Sentence Essence

Ramana Maharshi achieved a perfectly self-contained “I am” state by eliminating the entire relational identity-stack (“I am THIS”), thereby freeing the system from fear and allowing surplus affect to manifest as bliss.

Ramana Maharshi versus the Buddha

Reframing Ramana Maharshi’s goal

The Maharshi’s unverified self

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