Nisargadatta Maharaj - The happiness and misery in his life

 

Photo 184

Self-realization had made Sri Maharaj cool towards the ups and downs, the happiness and misery in his life. The loss of a dear daughter, devoted wife and a revered mother during the years 1942 to 1948 and the severe loss in his business did not ruffle him. On the contrary, these shocks hardened his vairagya [dispassion]. Owing to lack of attention, his landed property in the Konkan was literally thrown to the winds. Braving great miseries one after other, he once coolly exclaimed, "Fortunate shall I be, if miseries do befall me."

Experiencing his spiritual height and powers, his well wishers and devotees started gathering around him. To avoid distraction he used to avoid them. If someone persisted, he cut him short by giving him a short shrift.

How long, however, a sweetly smelling flower can keep off the bees? They shall hover round it whatever the obstacles. The well-wishers and the devotees were, likewise, irresistibly attracted towards him. They used to get their spiritual doubts and difficulties cleared by him. Mundane matters were a taboo with him.

He was against using spiritual powers [siddhis] for performing miracles. Most of his time of the day being spent in his shop, the spiritual discussions used to be in front of his shop. Some aspirant or other was always seen standing in front of his shop. To avoid encumbrances he never used to invite others to him or to go to them. His devotion to his Satguru, as said earlier, was so singular that he never so much even as crossed any other sadhu.

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Nisargadatta Maharaj - Photo 183

 

God is only an idea in your mind. The fact is you. The only thing you know for sure is: 'here and now I am'. Remove, the 'here and now' the 'I am' remains, unassailable. The world exists in memory, memory comes into consciousness; consciousness exists in awareness and awareness is the reflection of the light on the waters of existence.

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Nisargadatta Maharaj - Photo 182

 

Once you reject what you are not, whatever finally remains, the leftover, is yourself – your true nature. Presently, whatever you know is ‘I am’, this ‘I am’ is the product of the five elements. Out of the elements comes the food body and because of the food body, that ‘I amness’ is sustained. And you are also not that ‘I am’. ‘I am’ is the taste, the fragrance of this food body. The ultimate ‘you’ has no fragrance, no taste, no touch of ‘I amness’.

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Nisargadatta Maharaj - Photo 181

 

Fearlessness comes by itself, when you see that there is nothing to be afraid of. When you walk in a crowded street, you just bypass people. Some you see, some you just glance at, but you do not stop. It is the stopping that creates the bottleneck. Keep moving! Disregard names and shapes, don't be attached to them; your attachment is your bondage

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Nisargadatta Maharaj - Photo 180

Experience, however sublime, is not the real thing. By its very nature it comes and goes. Self-realisation is not an acquisition. It is more of the nature of understanding. Once arrived at, it cannot be lost. On the other hand, consciousness is changeful, flowing, undergoing transformation from moment to moment. Do not hold on to consciousness and its contents. Consciousness held, ceases. To try to perpetuate a flash of insight, or a burst of happiness is destructive of what it wants to preserve. What comes must go. The permanent is beyond all comings and goings. Go to the root of all experience, to the sense of being. Beyond being and not-being lies the immensity of the real. Try and try again

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Present view of Vanmali building, Maharaj's residence

Photo 179

God is only an idea in your mind. The fact is you. The only thing you know for sure is: 'here and now I am'. Remove, the 'here and now' the 'I am' remains, unassailable. The word exists in memory, memory comes into consciousness; consciousness exists in awareness and awareness is the reflection of the light on the waters of existence

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Present view of Vanmali building, Maharaj's residence - Photo 178

But how can such a state be attained? Only if one totally accepts the knowledge ‘I am’ as oneself with full conviction and faith and firmly believes in the dictum ‘I am that by which I know I am’. This knowledge ‘I am’ is the ‘charan-amrita’. Why is it called ‘amrita’ – the nectar? Because it is said, by drinking nectar one becomes immortal. Thus a true devotee, by abiding in the knowledge ‘I am’ transcends the experience of death and attains immortality.

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Nisargadatta Maharaj - Photo 177

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.

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Nisargadatta Adhyatma Kendra, Mumbai

  

Maharaj's Samadhi, located in Mumbai is a place where people worship daily. Every Saturday 6pm to 8pm, traditional bhajans and ceremonies of worship are conducted, attended by 10 to 15 people. Discourses by Maharaj's devotees, playing of audio tapes of Maharaj, reading Dasbodh etc. happen here. Every year Maharaj's birthdays according to lunar and solar calendars are celebrated and a few other programs are given. These events will be attended by more devotees.  Literature related to Maharaj is available here for purchase. The place being a little far from the central part of Mumbai, is usually not attended by many. The Samadhi of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj’s Guru, Sri Siddharameshwar Maharaj, is located at a crematorium in Banganga, Malabar Hill, which has a large number of visitors.


Address :
"Siddhashram" , Shree Nisargadatta Maharaj Samaadhi Mandir,
Nisarga Society, Pathare Wadi, Bapu Bagve Marg,
Dahisar (West), Mumbai-400068, India

Contact Persons :
Shri Vijay Sawant        - ☎ +91 9869 44 6250
Shri Nilambar Tawade - ☎ +91 99875 33798

Books : https://www.nisargadattamaharajofficialcenter.com/shop/

 

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Nisargadatta Bhakti-Jnyan Kendra at Kandalgaon (Centre for Devotion and Knowledge) - Photo 175

This is located in Kandalgaon, where Maharaj spent his boyhood, about 530 Km from Mumbai. You can take the Konkan Railway upto Kankavli station and from there by connecting transport to Kandalgaon. Holi Purnima  (a spring festival in India) is celebrated at a greater scale here. Birth and death anniversaries of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, Siddharamewar Maharaj, Ranjeet Maharaj, Bhainath Maharaj, Bhausaheb Maharaj are also celebrated here.

Address :
Sri Nisargadatta Bhakti-Jnyan Kendr
Kandalgaon Post, Kazar Wadi, Malvan Taluka,
Sindhudurg District, Maharashtra, India

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Holi saptah at Kandalgaon Math - Photo 174

From deep sleep to the waking state, what is it? It is the ‘I am’ state with no words, later the words start flowing and you get involved with the meaning of the words and carry out your worldly life with the meaning of those words – that is the mind. But before the ‘I am’ and waking state, that borderline, there you have to be.

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Mahasamadhi of Nisargadatta Maharaj - Photo 173

You live in the house but the house is not yourself. Similarly the knowledge ‘I am’ is in the body, but it is not the body. When the knowledge ‘I am’ is not there do you perceive or observe anything? Knowingness is knowledge and no-knowingness is also knowledge, but it has no form. Call that knowledge ‘I am’ as your Self; don’t call the body as knowledge. The knowledge ‘I am’ is the primary God, meditate on that only.

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Mahasamadhi of Nisargadatta Maharaj - Photo 172

In the first few years the primary concept ‘I am’ was there, but in a dormant condition. Later on it started knowing itself. The ‘jnani’ state is like the child, when the child did not know itself. The apparatus through which that knowingness expresses itself is now quite different, but the principle is the same.

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Mahasamadhi of Nisargadatta Maharaj - Photo 171

To know these senses, to understand these secrets, you surrender to that very principle ‘I am’, and that consciousness alone will lead you to this. Presently stabilize in the consciousness. If you don’t do that, your very concepts will be very dangerous to you – they will throttle you to death. The knowledge you are, is the very source of all energy, the source of all Gods, of all types of knowledge. This is the simplest method, you know you are, just be there.

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Mahasamadhi of Nisargadatta Maharaj - Photo 170

Pose the question from the standpoint that you are only the knowledge ‘I am’. The primary ignorance is about our ‘I amness’; we have taken it as the Ultimate, which is ignorance. We presume that this consciousness is the eternal, the Ultimate, which is the mistake. This ‘I am’ principle is there provided the waking state and deep sleep are there. I am not the waking state, I am not the deep sleep – therefore I, the Absolute, am not that ‘I am’. Leave aside this triad what are you? Understand clearly, when you keep aside the very instrument of questioning, where is the question? Which you? You have removed the ‘you’.

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Mahasamadhi of Nisargadatta Maharaj - Photo 169

Increase the conviction that you are the formless consciousness. You develop your firm conviction that you are the total manifesting universal consciousness. There is nobody who can have the knowledge of the Truth, the Eternal. It is one’s eternal true state, but is not a knowledgeable state – you cannot know It. So-called knowledge is boundless and plenty in the state of attributes, ‘I am’. In this body is the knowledge ‘I am’. When the body drops down, the knowledge ‘I am’ will subside there only – what remains is the Absolute.

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Mahasamadhi of Nisargadatta Maharaj - Photo 168

I have experienced all four kinds of speech and transcended them. Rarely will anybody follow this hierarchy to stabilize in the consciousness and transcend consciousness. Starting from ‘Vaikhari’ (word), normally we listen to words; from ‘Vaikhari’ we go to ‘Madhyama’ (mind-thought); in watching the mind we are in ‘Pashayanti’ where the concept formation takes place and from there to ‘Para’ (‘I am’ without words), and finally from ‘Para’ to prior to consciousness. This is the line to follow, but only a rare one follows it – receding, reversing.

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Mahasamadhi of Nisargadatta Maharaj - Photo 167

The ‘Linga-deha’ is the seed, the chemical, the product of the five elemental essences which give rise to and sustain the consciousness ‘I am’. Just like the seed of a tree, that seed latently contains all future manifestations and expressions of the tree that will sprout out of the seed. You take a fountain pen and on the paper you put a drop of ink, so that drop is the ‘Linga-deha’. That drop is the moment of conception; its expression is the thought-free state, like space, in the knowingness state. That ‘Linga-deha’, that little drop, and the knowledge ‘I am’ is the same.

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The gathering at Mahasamadhi of Nisargadatta Maharaj - Photo 166

The Guru tells you ‘Get rid of concepts, just be yourself’. The seeker having understood what the Guru said gets rid of the concepts, and now, as the first step, the seeker dwells in the state ‘I am’, just being. First of all there is the knowingness ‘I am’, without words, with that knowingness the world is. Now when the seeker goes into meditation, that knowingness goes into no-knowingness. This is the highest state in the hierarchy when the body aspect is there because this knowing and no-knowing are aspects of the body, and body means consciousness, and in the realm of consciousness, knowingness and no-knowingness exist. The Absolute transcends knowingness and no-knowingness. So, no-knowingness is the highest in the hierarchy of spirituality, and the destination is the transcendence of knowingness and no-knowingness.

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Mahasamadhi of Nisargadatta Maharaj - Photo 165

The emergence of this beingness itself constitutes time. Everything is beingness, but I, the Absolute, am not that. In meditation there was space, when suddenly two forms appeared out of no-form, ‘Prakriti’ and ‘Purusha’ and the quintessence of these forms was the knowledge ‘I am’.

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