Ramana Maharshi talks on the ultimate method of meditation: Roy Dobson liberated firefighter

http://www.onesteppath.com is the website of Roy Dobson, firefighter, author of a free book on meditation - with links to his interviews online

Just as [movie] pictures can be made visible by a reflected light, and only in darkness, so also the world pictures are perceptible only by the light of the Self reflected in the darkness of avidya (ignorance). The world can be seen neither in the utter darkness of ignorance, as in deep sleep, nor in the utter light of the Self, as in Self-realization or samadhi. (Ramana Maharshi, GR, 57.) 

 In a cinema-show you can see pictures only in a very dim light or in darkness. But when all lights are switched on, all pictures disappear. So also in the flood-light of the Supreme Atman all objects disappear. The Real is ever-present, like the screen on which all the [movie] pictures move. While the pictures appear on it, it remains invisible. Stop the pictures, and the screen, which has all along been present, in fact the only object that has existed throughout, will become clear. (Ramana Maharshi, GR, 46.) 

People want to see the Self as something. They desire to see it as a blazing light, etc. But how could that be? The Self is not light, not darkness, not any observed thing. The Self is ever the Witness. It is eternal and remains the same all along….Sages say that the state [or place] in which the thought ‘I’ [the ego] does not rise even in the least, alone is Silence [mouna] or Self [swarupa]. [That] silent Self alone is God; Self alone is the jiva; Self alone is this ancient world….Attending unceasingly and with a fully [concentrated] mind to Self, which is the non-dual perfect reality, alone is the pure supreme Silence; —Ramana Maharshi 

 Poonjaji: Let this I face the Source and facing the Source is called inquiry, when the I is facing, there is the inquiry. As mirror, in front of the mirror, is reflecting. When you see the mirror? See your face, a reflection. When you keep aside the mirror, where does the reflection go? Back to the face. So this I is inquiring from its own source, which was a reflection in the mind; mind to the senses; senses to the body; body to the senses; senses to the object. This universe is this thing. This is the method of maharshi. Striking at the root of the mind. Everything else, all the methods, ways described by others, people who teach any kind of sadhana, any kind of practice, are WITH the mind, and the result will be mental or like yoga, physical, the result will be physical. This is striking at the root of the mind, instantly. This reflection of the I ...here ends the inquiry." yes only by studying the deepest levels of science is what they are describing understood.