The True Nature of Reality

Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words. The fruition of your spirituality is to fully understand your own true nature, to stabilize in your true identity. Ultimately, everything merges in the Self. You will transcend that beingness, and you, the Absolute, will know that you are also not that beingness, that consciousness. Beingness is transcended, but beingness will still be available. In the deep sleep state the beingness, the 'I amness' goes into oblivion, you forget yourself. The 'I amness' comes and goes in the waking and deep sleep states, but the Absolute remains unaffected by that. The true state, which is whole, undifferentiated, is beyond birth and death. Be friendly with your undifferentiated state, your true Self. There was never any division, but you are under the delusion that you are not one with it. You are never bound by body and mind. You are limitless. You, the Absolute are aloof, you are beyond any experience. In the...

This series is a collection of pointers or teaching aphorisms by Nisargadatta Maharaj on resting in the sense “I Am” without attributes. Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words. In the body there is already that self-accomplished principle ‘I am’ which is witnessing mind and body, it is neither mind, body nor the vital breath. It has to be gradually realized that this principle has no form; it is subtler than the mind. By mistake the ‘I am’ accepts the body as itself, it is an exclusive principle apart from the body, mind and vital breath.  –       Nisargadatta Maharaj Notes on this preliminary stage can be found  here .

This series is a collection of pointers or teaching aphorisms by Nisargadatta Maharaj on resting in the sense “I Am” without attributes. Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words. All hangs on the idea ‘I am’. Examine it very thoroughly. It lies at the root of every trouble. This ‘I am’ idea was not born with you. You could have lived very well without it. It came later due to your self-identification with the body. It created an illusion of separation where there was none. It made you a stranger in your own world alien and inimical. Without the sense of ‘I am’ life goes on. There are moments when we are without the sense of ‘I am’, at peace and happy. With the return of ‘I am’, trouble starts.  –       Nisargadatta Maharaj Notes on this preliminary stage can be found  here .

This series is a collection of pointers or teaching aphorisms by Nisargadatta Maharaj on resting in the sense “I Am” without attributes. Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words. To establish oneself firmly in the awareness ‘I am’, it is not necessary to think ‘I am’, ‘I am’. Is it necessary to think you are sitting here? You know that you are sitting here. Whatever name and form there is belongs to that material and that material is not you. Do you analyze the problem and with the firm conviction decide that you are not the material? When the material disintegrates what does the name refer to? Does it have any significance? Only one in ten million goes to the crux of the matter, analyzes what it is, comes to a conclusion, and gets liberated, all by himself. The one who gets liberated is the consciousness, there is no entity.  –       Nisargadatta Maharaj Notes on this preliminary stage can be found...

This series is a collection of pointers or teaching aphorisms by Nisargadatta Maharaj on resting in the sense “I Am” without attributes. Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words. The capital we have is the knowledge ‘I am’. But what have we done? We have handed over that knowledge to the body and we say ‘I am the body’. Thereby we have reduced the totality, the limitless, to the limited – a specified insignificant body. And that is why, being unable to give up this association with the body, we are afraid of dying..  –       Nisargadatta Maharaj Notes on this preliminary stage can be found  here .

This series is a collection of pointers or teaching aphorisms by Nisargadatta Maharaj on resting in the sense “I Am” without attributes. Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words. One must be in the ‘I am’ continuously and effortlessly with the idea- ‘I am not the body’. All unhappiness is caused by claiming ‘doership’ of actions, do not claim ‘doership’ and unhappiness will vanish. Even the ‘I am’ is a mirage, time-bound and would disappear.  –       Nisargadatta Maharaj Notes on this preliminary stage can be found  here .

This series is a collection of pointers or teaching aphorisms by Nisargadatta Maharaj on resting in the sense “I Am” without attributes. Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words. There are millions of visions and experiences present in the seed of the ‘I am’, but being aloof and unconcerned about them is the key to go beyond. The most relaxed state is this ‘I am’ state – free from all fear and anxiety.  –       Nisargadatta Maharaj Notes on this preliminary stage can be found  here .

This series is a collection of pointers or teaching aphorisms by Nisargadatta Maharaj on resting in the sense “I Am” without attributes. Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words. What is wrong is that you consider yourself to be limited to this body and shape. What knowledge I try to give is given to the knowledge ‘I am’ in each of you, which is the same. If you try to get the knowledge as an individual you will never get it.  –       Nisargadatta Maharaj Notes on this preliminary stage can be found  here .

This series is a collection of pointers or teaching aphorisms by Nisargadatta Maharaj on resting in the sense “I Am” without attributes. Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words. This knowledge is ancient ("Sanatan"), it has come from Eternity. From the eternal Absolute, which is ever there, a seed appears, that seed is the ‘I amness’. It appears spontaneously, its remnant is in us. This little seed (‘I am’) sprouts and the whole world is created.  –       Nisargadatta Maharaj Notes on this preliminary stage can be found  here .

This series is a collection of pointers or teaching aphorisms by Nisargadatta Maharaj on resting in the sense “I Am” without attributes. Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words. This body is like an instrument that says ‘I am’, like an announcer. Presently you think you are the body-mind, and whatever concepts you have gathered are flowing out. When you begin spirituality, you reject the body-mind with ‘I am not that’. Then you come to the ‘I am’ only, without words. Then you are everything; you are not confined to the body.  –       Nisargadatta Maharaj Notes on this preliminary stage can be found  here .

This series is a collection of pointers or teaching aphorisms by Nisargadatta Maharaj on resting in the sense “I Am” without attributes. Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words. To know what you are you must first investigate and know what you are not. And to know what you are not, you must watch yourself carefully, rejecting all that does not necessarily go with basic fact ‘I am’. The ideas: I am born at a given place, at a given time, from my parents and now I am so-and-so, living at, married to, father of, employed by, and so on, are not inherent in the sense ‘I am’. Our usual attitude is ‘I am this’ or ‘that’. Separate consistently and perseveringly the ‘I am’ from ‘this’ or ‘that’ and try to feel what it means to be, just to ‘be’, without being ‘this’ or ‘that’. All our habits go against it and the task of fighting them is long and hard sometimes, but clear understanding helps a lot. The clearer you understand that on the level of the mind you can b...

This series is a collection of pointers or teaching aphorisms by Nisargadatta Maharaj on resting in the sense “I Am” without attributes. Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words. Do not bother about anything you want, or think, or do, just stay put in the thought and feeling, ‘I am’, focusing ‘I am’ firmly in your mind. All kinds of experience may come to you – remain unmoved in the knowledge that all perceivable is tr ansient and  only the ‘I am’ endures.  –       Nisargadatta Maharaj Notes on this preliminary stage can be found  here .

This series is a collection of pointers or teaching aphorisms by Nisargadatta Maharaj on resting in the sense “I Am” without attributes. Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words. You must pay attention to the ‘I  am’, being constantly alert and  focused on the ‘I am’ only. The five elements are only an extension of your own Self, you must be fully acquainted with the  ‘I am’ in order to go inwards. –       Nisargadatta Maharaj Notes on this preliminary stage can be found  here .

This series is a collection of pointers or teaching aphorisms by Nisargadatta Maharaj on resting in the sense “I Am” without attributes. Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words. Go to the ‘I am’ level and dwell there. Because you are at the body level you revel in all these objective things. But if you were to go to the ‘I am’ and firmly abide in that, then all these external things will lose grip on you. –       Nisargadatta Maharaj Notes on this preliminary stage can be found  here .

This series is a collection of pointers or teaching aphorisms by Nisargadatta Maharaj on resting in the sense “I Am” without attributes. Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words. My guru ordered me to attend to the sense 'I Am' and to give attention to nothing else. I just obeyed, I did not follow any particular course of breathing or meditation, or study of scriptures. Whatever happened, I would turn my attention from it and remain with the sense 'I Am'....Keep empty, keep available, resist not what comes uninvited. In the end you reach a state of non-grasping, of joyful non-attachment, of inner ease and freedom, indescribable, yet wonderfully real.  –       Nisargadatta Maharaj Notes on this preliminary stage can be found  here .

This series is a collection of pointers or teaching aphorisms by Nisargadatta Maharaj on resting in the sense “I Am” without attributes. Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words. The sense of 'I am' is your own. You cannot part with it, but you can impart it to anything, as in saying: I am young, I am rich etc. But such self-identifications are patently false and the cause of bondage. –       Nisargadatta Maharaj Notes on this preliminary stage can be found  here .

This series is a collection of pointers or teaching aphorisms by Nisargadatta Maharaj on stabilizing the view on the sense “I Am” without attributes. Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words. The illusion of being the body-mind is there, only because it is not investigated. Non investigation is the thread on which all the states of mind are strung. All states of mind, all names and forms of existence are rooted in non-inquiry, non-investigation, in imagination and credulity. It is right to say 'I am', but to say 'I am this', 'I am that' is a sign of not inquiring, not examining, of mental weakness or lethargy. –       Nisargadatta Maharaj Notes on this preliminary stage can be found  here .

This series is a collection of pointers or teaching aphorisms by Nisargadatta Maharaj on the theme of separation - uncluttered with words and explanations. Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words. When you got yourself separated from the Absolute with this identity ‘I am’, you felt fragmented, isolated, and that is why your demands started. In the Absolute there are no needs, Only the Absolute prevails. The truth is total Brahman only, nothing else but Brahman. In a total Brahman state arose the touch of beingness, ‘I am’, and with that, separation started, otherness has come. But this ‘I amness’ is not just a small principle, that itself is the ‘moolmaya’, the primary illusion. –       Nisargadatta Maharaj

This series is a collection of pointers or teaching aphorisms by Nisargadatta Maharaj on the theme of separation - uncluttered with words and explanations. Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words. There is no such thing as a person. There are only restrictions and limitations. The sum total of these defines the person. The person merely appears to be, like the space within the pot appears to have the shape and volume and smell of the pot. –       Nisargadatta Maharaj

This series is a collection of pointers or teaching aphorisms by Nisargadatta Maharaj on the theme of separation - uncluttered with words and explanations. Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words. It is enough if you do not imagine yourself to be the body. It is the “I am the body” idea that is so calamitous. It blinds you completely to your real nature. Even for a moment do not think that you are the body. Give yourself no name, no shape. In the darkness and the silence reality is found. –       Nisargadatta Maharaj