Most seekers embark on the search through the desire is be free of suffering and abide in the freedom of the natural state. At the initial stages, when identified with the person, the desire may be at a personal level -- to become enlightened, change the world, become a successful and famous spiritual teacher, to be free from the problems of the relative. In other words, the desire is to gain something at a personal level. When the seeker is ripe or ready, these personal desires drop away. Instead, there is simply the burning and earnest desire to know the Self and be free of suffering. This series will offer the direct path pointers on how to be free from suffering -- permanently . Questioner: "What is the real cause of suffering?" Nisargadatta: "Self-identification with the limited. Sensations as such, do not cause suffering. It is the mind, bewildered by wrong ideas, addicted to thinking: 'I am this', 'I am that', that fears...
This series is a collection of pointers or teaching aphorisms by Nisargadatta Maharaj on realizing Yourself beyond the sense “I Am”. If the sense "I Am" can be perceived, it cannot be Who You Are. What perceives? Who or what are You? Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words. Without the intake of food, there is no opportunity to say ‘I am’, out of the essence of the earth sprouts vegetation and out of that sprouts the ‘I am’, realize this without eyesight or intellect. That principle likes to cry, enjoy, and laugh, but you are not that, realize this only. Become one with the ‘I am’, then you can transcend it, then ‘I the Absolute’ am not the ‘I am’. – Nisargadatta Maharaj
Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words. With the practice of self-enquiry, seekers often have experiences of profound peace and silence. However, these peaceful experiences are not stable. Sooner or later seekers will experience some type of stress or drama in everyday life, and then they will feel that they have lost this sense of peace and stillness. The series will share pointers that reveal the pattern of attraction and aversion that create "heaven" and "hell" and keep seekers trapped on the roller coaster of pleasure and pain. Like water is shaped by the container, so is everything determined by conditions (gunas). But as light remains itself regardless of the colours it brings out, so does the real remain real, regardless of conditions in which it is reflected. – Nisargadatta Maharaj