Excerpts from Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj's - I AM THAT.doc

ASMI 

Excerpts from Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj's I AM THAT

compiled and edited by Miguel-Angel Carrasco

with

The Nisargadatta Song of I Am and The Nisargadatta Song of Beyond I Am
compiled and edited by Jerry Katz

CONTENTS

1. I am not this person, this body-mind, or any thing. ....................................... 4

As I can't be what I perceive, I am not this body-mind or any thing that I am conscious of.

As there must be something unchanging to register discontinuity, I am not this body-mind, which is neither continuous nor permanent.

As the person is a changing stream of mental objects that I as the subject take to be my body-mind, I cannot be a person. I am, but I can't be this or that.

As it is my presence, which is always here and now, that gives the quality of actual to any event, I must be beyond time and space. I was never born, nor will ever die.

2. I am the Self, the Witness of Consciousness, pure Awareness. ...................... 8

I am only the Self , which is universal and imagines itself to be the outer self, a person.

I am not an object in Consciousness but its source, its Witness, pure shapeless Awareness.

Only the feeling "I am", though in the World, is not of the World nor can be denied.

3. The World exists only as a dream in my Consciousness: Part One ............... 12

As I only know the contents of my consciousness, and as an outside world is unprovable, all perceivables are only in my mind.

Transient things only appear and have no substance.

What changes has no reality. Time and space are imagined, ways of thinking, modes of perception. Only timeless reality is, and it is here and now.

4. The World exists only as a dream in my Consciousness: Part Two ................ 17

Whatever has a form is only limitations imagined in my consciousness.

The World is but a show, a make-belief.

The World I perceive is entirely private, a dream.

Desire and fear come from seeing the World as separate from my-Self.

While I see the dream as real, I'll suffer being its slave.

Nothing in the dream is done by me.

5. There is only one dreamer, the one Self, dreaming many dreams. ....................... 22

In every body there is a dream, but the dreamer is the same, the one Self, which reflects itself in each body as "I am".

All the dreams are of a common imaginary World and influence each other.

Love is seeing the unity under the imaginary diversity.

6. I alone am, the One, the Supreme. ........................................................................... 24

Not only the multiplicity of selves is false: even the duality of I/World, Subject/Object, is a transient appearance in my
Consciousness.

There is only my-Self, Consciousness.

I am not even Consciousness, which is dual and perceivable: I am the unknown Reality beyond.

Though unknown and unknowable, my real being is concrete and solid like a rock.

I am the light that makes Consciousness possible, pure Awareness, the non-dualSelf, the Supreme Reality, the Absolute, the Beingness of being, the Awareness of consciousness.

7. The big cycle: part one .............................................................................................. 32

The alternation of manifested (existence, becoming) - unmanifested
(pure being).

The manifestation of the Absolute.

8. The big cycle: part two .............................................................................................. 35

The return to the Absolute.

There are no real differences. Only the One is.

9. The goal: Liberation through Self-Realization ...................................................... 43

The gospel of self-realization

The enlightened one (gnani)

10. The way to Self-Realization: Part One ................................................................ 49

Not through activity. No effort is necessary, but there is a precondition: earnestness now

11. The way to Self-Realization: Part Two ............................................................ 55

Not through knowledge of things or experiences, but through self-knowledge.

12. The way to Self-Realization: Part Three ......................................................... 61

Not through the mind.

See everything as a dream, a show, a film.

13. The way to Self-Realization: Part Four ........................................................... 67

See that happiness is not pleasure; see that desires and fears create bondage; and be free and happy through detachment.

14. The way to Self-Realization: Part Five ............................................................ 75

As self-identification with the body-mind is the poison that causes bondage, seek liberation by seeing that oneself is not any thing personal or perceivable.

15. The way to Self-Realization: Part Six .............................................................. 83

Meditation, Witness attitude, Awareness.

No thought but "I am".

16. Miscellaneous ..................................................................................................... 92

Why the ignorance and the illusion? What is the purpose of it all?

Violence, Evil, Sin.

Progress.

Karma.

Death, Suicide, Reincarnation.

Religions, God.

The real Guru.

Yoga.

Love.

Numbers after quotations refer to pages of the edition by Chetana (P) Ltd, Bombay, 1992.

17. The Nisargadatta Song of I Am, edited by Jerry Katz .................................... 104

18. The Nisargadatta Song of Beyond I Am, edited by Jerry Katz ...................... 110

1. I am not this person, this body-mind or any thing

As I can't be what I perceive, I am not this body-mind or any thing that I am conscious of.

As body, you are in space. As mind, you are in time. But are you a mere body with a mind in it? Have you ever investigated? (252)

Why not investigate the very idea of body? Does the mind appear in the body or the body in the mind? Surely there must be a mind to conceive the "I-am-the-body" idea. A body without a mind cannot be 'my body'. 'My body' is invariably absent when the mind is in abeyance. It is also absent when the mind is deeply engaged in thoughts and feelings. (434)

You observe the heart feeling, the mind thinking, the body acting; the very act of perceiving shows that you are not what you perceive. (2)

The perceived cannot be the perceiver. Whatever you see, hear or think of, remember - you are not what happens, you are he to whom it happens. (519)

Desire, fear, trouble, joy, they cannot appear unless you are there to appear to. Yet, whatever happens points to your existence as a perceiving centre. Disregard the pointers and be aware of what they are pointing to. (220)

Realize that every mode of perception is subjective, that what is seen or heard, touched or smelt, felt or thought, expected or imagined, is in the mind and not in reality, and you will experience peace and freedom from fear. (201)

When you realize that the distinction between inner and outer is in the mind only, you are no longer afraid. (464)

You are neither the body nor in the body. There is no such thing as body. You have grievously misunderstood yourself. To understand rightly, investigate. (253)

You are not in the body, the body is in you! The mind is in you. They happen to you. They are there because you find them interesting.
(212)

You only know that you react. Who reacts and to what, you do not know. You know on contact that you exist: "I am". The "I am this", "I
am that" are imaginary. (337)

To myself, I am neither perceivable nor conceivable; there is nothing I can point out to and say: "this I am". You identify yourself with everything so easily; I find it impossible. The feeling "I am not this or that, nor is anything mine" is so strong in me that as soon as a thing or a thought appears, there comes at once the sense "this I am not". (268)

Whatever you may hear, see or think of, I am not that. I am free from being a percept or a concept. (152)

As you cannot see your face, but only its reflection in the mirror, so you can know only your image reflected in the stainless mirror of pure awareness. See the stains and remove them. The nature of the perfect mirror is such that you cannot see it. Whatever you can see is bound to be a stain. Turn away from it, give it up, know it as unwanted. All perceivables are stains. (126)

Having perfected the mirror so that it reflects correctly, truly, you can turn the mirror round and see in it a reflection of yourself -true as far as the mirror can reflect. But the reflection is not yourself - you are the seer of the reflection. Do understand it clearly - whatever you may perceive, you are not what you perceive. You can see both the image and the mirror. You are neither. (330)

Remember, nothing you perceive is your own. (510)

What is really your own, you are not conscious of. (445)

You are nothing that you are conscious of. (458)

As there must be something unchanging to register discontinuity, I am not this body-mind, which is neither continuous nor permanent.

The mind is discontinuous. Again and again it blanks out, like in sleep or swoon or distraction. There must be something continuous to register discontinuity. Memory is always partial, unreliable and > evanescent. It does not explain the strong sense of identity pervading consciousness, the sense "I am". Find out what is at the root of it. (307)

You cannot be conscious of what does not change. All consciousness is consciousness of change. But the very perception of change - does it not necessitate a changeless background? (516)

Changes are inevitable in the changeful, but you are not subject to them. You are the changeless background, against which changes are perceived. (333)

The self based on memory is momentary. But such self demands unbroken continuity behind it. You know from experience that there are gaps when your self is forgotten. What brings it back to life? What wakes you up in the morning? There must be some constant factor bridging the gaps in consciousness. If you watch carefully, you will find that even your daily consciousness is in flashes, with gaps intervening all the time. What is in the gaps? What can there be but your real being, that is timeless? Mind and mindlessness are one to it. (333)

Realize that whatever you think yourself to be is just a stream of events; that while all happens, comes and goes, you alone are, the changeless among the changeful, the self-evident among the inferred. Separate the observed from the observer and abandon false identifications. (215)

The succession of transient moments creates the illusion of time, but the timeless reality of pure being is not in movement, for all movement requires a motionless background. It is itself the background. Once you have found it in yourself, you know that you had never lost that independent being. (409)

What changes is not real, what is real does not change. Now, what is it in you that does not change? As long as there is food, there is body and mind. When the food is stopped, the body dies and the mind dissolves. But does the observer perish? It is a matter of actual experience that the self has being independent of mind and body. It is being-awareness-bliss. Awareness of being is bliss. (210)

You must realize yourself as the immovable behind and beyond the movable, the silent witness of all that happens. (319)

As the person is a changing stream of mental objects that I as the subject take to be my body-mind, I cannot be a person. I am, but I can't be this or that.

Nothing is wrong with you, but the ideas you have of yourself are altogether wrong. It is not you who desires, fears and suffers, it is the person built on the foundation of your body by circumstances and influences. You are not that person. (424)

The person is never the subject. You can see a person, but you are not the person. (64)

Your being a person is due to the illusion of space and time; you imagine yourself to be at a certain point occupying a certain volume; your personality is due to your self-identification with the body.
(205)

How does personality come into being? By identifying the present with the past and projecting it into the future. (206)

The body-mind is like a room. It is there, but I need not live in it all the time. (153)

The person is merely the result of a misunderstanding. In reality, there is no such thing. Feelings, thoughts and actions race before the watcher in endless succession, leaving traces in the brain and creating an illusion of continuity. A reflection of the watcher in the mind creates the sense of "I" and the person acquires an apparently independent existence. In reality there is no person, only the watcher identifying himself with the "I" and the "mine". (343)

It is because the "I am" is false that it wants to continue. Reality need not continue - knowing itself indestructible, it is indifferent of forms and expressions. To strengthen and stabilize the "I am", we do all sorts of things - all in vain, for the "I am" is being rebuilt from moment to moment. It is unceasing work, and the only radical solution is to dissolve the separative sense of "I am such and such <person" once="" and="" for="" good.="" being="" remains,="" but="" not="" self-being.="" (299)="">

It is not the "I am" that is false, but what you take yourself to be. I can see, beyond the least shadow of doubt, that you are not what you believe yourself to be. (458)

What is really your own, you are not conscious of. What you are conscious of is neither you nor yours. Yours is the power of perception, not what you perceive. It is a mistake to take the conscious to be the whole of man. Man is the unconscious, the conscious and the superconscious, but you are not the man. Yours is the cinema screen, the light as well as the seeing power, but the picture is not you. (445) </person">

As it is my presence, which is always here and now, that gives the quality of actual to any event, I must be beyond time and space. I was never born, nor will ever die.

Take the idea "I was born". You may take it to be true. It is not. You were not born, nor will you ever die. It is the idea that was born and shall die, not you. By identifying yourself with it you became mortal. (392)

Your mistake lies in your belief that you were born. You were never born nor will you ever die. (83)

Between the remembered and the actual there is a basic difference which can be observed from moment to moment. At no point of time is the actual the remembered. Between the two there is a difference in kind, not merely in intensity. The actual is unmistakably so. By no effort of will or imagination can you interchange the two. Now, what is it that gives this unique quality to the actual? A moment back, the remembered was actual, in a moment the actual will be the remembered. What makes the actual unique?

Obviously, it is the sense of being present. In memory and anticipation, there is a clear feeling that it is a mental state under observation, while in the actual the feeling is primarily of being present and aware. Wherever you go, the sense of here and now you carry with you all the time. It means that you are independent of space and time, that space and time are in you, not you in them. It is your self-identification with the body, which, of course, is limited in space and time, that gives you the feeling of finiteness. In reality you are infinite and eternal. (516)

2. I am the Self, the Witness of Consciousness, pure Awareness.

I am only the Self , which is universal and imagines itself to be the outer self, a person.

Somebody, anybody, will tell you that you are pure consciousness, not a body-mind. Accept it as a possibility and investigate earnestly. You may discover that it is not so, that you are not a person bound in space and time. Think of the difference it would make! (441-2)

The personality (vyakti) is but a product of imagination. The self (vyakta) is the victim of this imagination. It is the taking yourself to be what you are not that binds you. The person cannot be said to exist on its own rights; it is the self that believes there is a person and is conscious of being it. (143)

How can there be two selves in one body? The "I am" is one. There is no "higher I-am" and "lower I-am". All kinds of states of consciousness are presented to awareness and there is self-identification with them. The objects of observation are not what they appear to be, and the attitudes they are met with are not what they need to be. If you think that Buddha, Christ of Krishnamurti speak to the person, you are mistaken. They know well that the vyakti , the outer self, is but a shadow of the vyakta , the inner self, and they address and admonish the vyakta only. They tell him to give attention to the outer self, to guide it and help it, to feel responsible for it; in short, to be fully aware of it. Awareness comes from the Supreme and pervades the inner self; the so-called outer self is only that part of one's being of which one is not aware. One may be conscious, for every being is conscious, but one is not aware. What is included in awareness becomes the inner and partakes of the inner. (294)

The self you want to know, is it some second self? Are you made of several selves? Surely, there is only one self and you are that self. The self you are is the only self there is. Remove and abandon your wrong ideas about yourself and there it is, in all its glory. (516-7)

There is no second, or higher self to search for. You are the highest self, only give up the false ideas you have about your self. (517)

Your own self is your ultimate teacher (sadguru). The outer teacher (guru) is merely a milestone. It is only your inner teacher that will walk with you to the goal, for it is the goal. (51)

Yoga is the work of the inner self (vyakta) on the outer self (vyakti). All that the outer does is merely in response to the inner. It [the outer self] has some control over the body and can improve its posture and breathing. Over the mind's thoughts and feelings it has little mastery, for it is itself the mind. It is the inner that can control the outer. The outer will be wise to obey. The inner is the source of inspiration, the outer is moved by memory. The source is untraceable, while all memory begins somewhere. Thus the outer is always determined, while the inner cannot be held in words. The mistake of students consists in their imagining the inner to be something to get hold of, and forgetting that all perceivables are transient and therefore unreal. Only that which makes perception possible, call it Life or Brahman, or what you like, is real. (74-5)

The self by its nature knows itself only. For lack of experience whatever it perceives it takes to be itself. Battered, it learns to look out (viveka) and to live alone (vairagya). When right behaviour (uparati) becomes normal, a powerful inner urge (mukmukshutva) makes it seek its source. The candle of the body is lighted and all becomes clear and bright. (110)

You can observe the observation, but not the observer. You know you are the ultimate observer by direct insight, not by a logical process based on observation. You are what you are, but you know what you are not. The self is known as being, the not-self is known as transient. But in reality all is in the mind. The observed, observation and observer are mental constructs. The self alone is. (219)

The self is universal and its aims are universal. There is nothing personal about the self. (212)

I am not an object in Consciousness but its source, its Witness, pure shapeless Awareness.

You are and I am. But only as points in consciousness; we are nothing apart from consciousness. (92)

You are not the body. You are the immensity and infinity of consciousness. (264)

The source of consciousness cannot be an object in consciousness. To know the source is to be the source. When you realize that you are not the person, but the pure and calm witness, and that fearless awareness is your very being, you are the being. It is the source, the inexhaustible Possibility. (65)

Discard all you are not and go ever deeper. Just as a man digging a well discards what is not water, until he reaches the water-bearing strata, so must you discard what is not your own, till nothing is left which you can disown. You will find that what is left is nothing which the mind can hook on to. You are not even a human being. You just are - a point of awareness, co-extensive with time and space and beyond both, the ultimate cause, itself uncaused. If you ask me "Who are you?", my answer would be: "Nothing in particular. Yet, I am." (318)

I am not my body, nor do I need it. I am the witness only. I have no shape of my own. You are so accustomed to think of yourself as bodies having consciousness that you just cannot imagine consciousness as having bodies. Once you realize that bodily existence is but a state of mind, a movement in consciousness, that the ocean of consciousness is infinite and eternal, and that, when in touch with consciousness, you are the witness only, you will be able to withdraw beyond consciousness altogether. (327)

Do realize that it is not you who moves from dream to dream, but the dreams flow before you, and you are the immutable witness. No happening affects your real being - that is the absolute truth. (333)

The witness is not a person. The person comes into being when there is a basis for it, an organism, a body. In it, the absolute is reflected as awareness. Pure awareness becomes self-awareness. When there is a self, self-awareness is the witness. When there is no self to witness, there is no witnessing either. It is all very simple; it is the presence of the person that complicates. See that there is no such thing as a permanently separate person and all becomes clear. Awareness, mind, matter - they are one reality in its two aspects as immovable and movable, and the three attributes of inertia, energy and harmony. Awareness becomes consciousness when it has an object. The object changes all the time. In consciousness there is movement; awareness by itself is motionless and timeless, here and now. (233)

The difference between the person and the witness is as between not knowing and knowing oneself. The person is in unrest and resistance to the very end. It is the witness that works on the person, on the totality of its illusions, past, present and future. (358)

[The person and the witness] both are modes of consciousness. In one, you desire and fear; in the other, you are unaffected by pleasure and pain, and are not ruffled by events. You let them come and go. (190)

The pleasure to be is the simplest form of self-love, which later grows into love of the self. Be like an infant with nothing standing between the body and the self. The constant noise of the psychic life is absent. In deep silence, the self contemplates the body. It is like the white paper on which nothing is written yet. Be like that infant, instead of trying to be this or that, be happy to be. You will be a fully awakened witness of the field of consciousness. But there should be no feelings and ideas to stand between you and the field. (216)

Only the feeling "I am", though in the World, is not of the World nor can be denied.

A reflection of the watcher in the mind creates the sense of "I" and the person acquires an apparently independent existence. In reality there is no person, only the watcher identifying himself with the "I" and the "mine". The teacher tells the watcher: you are not this, there is nothing of yours in this, except the little point of "I am", which is the bridge between the watcher and his dream. "I am this, I am that" is dream, while pure "I am" has the stamp of reality on it. (343)

That which makes you think that you are a human is not human. It is but a dimensionless point of consciousness, a conscious nothing. All you can say about yourself is "I am". You are pure being-awareness-bliss. To realize that is the end of all seeking. You come to it when you see all you think yourself to be as mere imagination, and stand aloof in pure awareness of the transient as transient, imaginary as imaginary, unreal as unreal. (316)

Only your sense "I am", though in the world, is not of the world. By no effort of logic or imagination can you change the "I am" into "I am not". In the very denial of your being you assert it. (200)

It [the "I am"] is unreal when we say: "I am this, I am that". It is real when we mean "I am not this, nor that". (395)

To identify oneself with the particular is all the sin there is. The impersonal is real, the personal appears and disappears. "I am" is the impersonal Being. "I am this" is the person. The person is relative, and the pure Being fundamental. (71)

3. The World exists only as a dream in my Consciousness: Part One

As I only know the contents of my consciousness, and an outside world is unprovable, all perceivables are only in my mind.

You know only what is in your consciousness. What you claim exists outside conscious experience is inferred. (449)

Is there a world outside your knowledge? Can you go beyond what you know? You may postulate a world beyond the mind, but it will remain a concept, unproved and unprovable. Your experience is your proof, and it is valid for you only. Who else can have your experience, when the other person is only as real as he appears in your experience? (533)

Whatever happens, happens to you, by you, through you; you are the creator, enjoyer and destroyer of all you perceive. (468)

You are the maker of the world in which you live, you alone can change it, or unmake it. (380)

The world appears to you so overwhelmingly real because you think of it all the time; cease thinking of it and it will dissolve into thin mist. (505)

All perceivables are stains. The entire universe is a stain. (126)

That you hear is a fact. What you hear is not. The fact can be experienced, and in that sense the sound of the word and the mental ripples it causes are experienced. There is no other reality behind it. (450)

All happens in consciousness. The world is but a succession of experiences. (404)

Your conviction that you are conscious of a world is the world. The world you perceive is made of consciousness; what you call matter is consciousness itself. (286)

As all waves are in the ocean, so are all things physical and mental in awareness. Hence awareness itself is all-important, not the content of it. (261)

There is only one mistake you are making: you take the inner for the outer, and the outer for the inner. What is in you, you take to be outside you, and what is outside you take to be in you. The mind and feelings are external, but you take them to be intimate. You believe the world to be objective, while it is entirely a projection of your psyche. That is the basic confusion. (240)

You have projected onto yourself a world of your own imagination, based on memories, on desires and fears, and you have imprisoned yourself in it. Break the spell and be free. (200)

The idea of responsibility is in your mind. You think there must be something or somebody solely responsible for all that happens. There is a contradiction between a multiple universe and a single cause. Either one or the other must be false. Or both. As I see it, it is all day-dreaming. There is no reality in ideas. The fact is that without you, neither the universe nor its cause could have come into being. (502)

Before the world was, consciousness was. In consciousness it comes into being, in consciousness it lasts and into pure consciousness it dissolves. At the root of everything is the feeling "I am". The state of mind "there is a world" is secondary, for to be, I do not need the world, the world needs me. (98)

The world comes into being only when you are born in a body. No body - no world. (207)

All the universe of experience is born with the body and dies with the body; it has its beginning and end in awareness, but awareness knows no beginning, nor end. (262)

To be born means to create a world round yourself as the centre. (208)

Your own little body too is full of mysteries and dangers, yet you are not afraid of it, for you take it as your own. What you do not know is that the entire universe is your body, and you need not be afraid of it. You may say you have two bodies: the personal and the universal. The personal comes and goes, the universal is always with you. The entire creation is your universal body. You are so blinded by what is personal, that you do not see the universal. This blindness will not end by itself - it must be undone skilfully and deliberately. When all illusions are understood and abandoned, you reach the error-free and perfect state in which all distinctions between the personal and the universal are no more. (308)

Who was born first, you or the world? As long as you give first place to the world, you are bound by it; once you realize, beyond all trace of doubt, that the world is in you and not you in the world, you are out of it. Of course your body remains in the world and of the world, but you are not deluded by it. (207)

The pure mind sees things as they are - bubbles in consciousness. These bubbles are appearing, disappearing and reappearing - without having real being. Each bubble is a body and all these bodies are mine. (138)

You see yourself in the world, while I see the world in myself. To you, you get born and die, while to me the world appears and disappears. Our world is real, but your view of it is not. There is no wall between us, except the one built by you. There is nothing wrong with the senses, it is your imagination that misleads you. It covers up the world as it is with what you imagine it to be - something existing independently of ...