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The nature of the mind is to attend always to things other than itself; that is, to know only second and third persons. If the mind in this way attends to a thing, it means that it is attending (attaching itself) to that thing. Attention itself is attachment! Since the mind is to think about the body and breath – though with the intention of deciding "this is not I, this is not I" – such attention is only a means of becoming attached to them and it cannot be a means of negating them! This is what is experienced by any true aspirant in his practice. Then what is the secret hidden in this? Since, whether we know it or not, Self, which is now wrongly considered by us to be unknown, is verily our reality; the very nature of our (the Supreme Self's) awareness itself is Grace. This means that whatever thing we attend to, witness, observe or look at, that thing is nourished and will flourish, being blessed by Grace. Though one now thinks that one is an individual soul, since one's power of awareness is in fact nothing but a reflection of the "knowing-power" of Self, that on which it falls or is fixed is nourished by Grace and flourishes more and more! Hence, when the power of attention of the mind is directed more and more towards second and third person objects, both the strength to attend to those objects, and the ignorance of the knowledge of the five senses in the form of thoughts about them – will grow more and more, and will never subside! Have we not already said that all our thoughts are nothing but attention paid to second and third person objects? Accordingly, the more we attend to the mind, the thoughts which are the forms (the second and third person objects) of the world, the more they will multiply and be nourished. This is indeed an obstacle. The more our attention – the glance of Grace - falls on it, the more the mind's wavering nature and its ascendancy will increase. That is why it is impossible for the mind to negate anything by thinking "I am not this, I am not this". - from "The Path of Sri Ramana, Part One", written in Tamil by Sri Sadhu Om, translated by Michael James.