The state in which the ego does not rise is the state in which we are that, but without investigating the place where it rises, how can one annihilate it and stand as that?
Sri Ramana Maharshi - Ulladu Narpadu - Reality In Forty Verses, V.27
Explanatory paraphrase:
The state in which one exists without ‘I’ [the ego] rising is the state in which we exist as that [brahman, the ultimate reality and infinite whole, the nature of which is pure self-awareness, uncontaminated by the appearance of anything else].
Without investigating the place [namely one’s fundamental self-awareness] where [from which or in which] ‘I’ rises, how to reach [achieve or take refuge in] the annihilation of oneself [the ego], [the state] in which ‘I’ does not rise?
[In other words, the only way to annihilate the ego is to investigate oneself, the source from which it rises, because only when one investigates oneself will one see oneself as one actually is, and only when one sees oneself as one actually is will one forever cease mistaking oneself to be the ego, the false rising and subsiding ‘I’.]
[And] without reaching [or taking refuge in the annihilation of one’s ego], say, how to stand [stop, stay or abide] in the [real] state of oneself, in which oneself is that?
http://happinessofbeing.blogspot.com/2017/10/ulladu-narpadu-tamil-text.html - Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu: Tamil text, transliteration and translation
https://shinymoonbird.tumblr.com/tagged/UN-v.27 - Verse 27
