Nisargadatta Maharaj - Photo 84

I am experiencing the manifest world but prior to it I experience the ‘Bindu’, the point. When I am that Bindu, everything is, the world also is. The Bindu and the world are not two. ‘Bin’ means without and ‘du’ means two, so, no duality. Bindu – the point of ‘I amness’, I experience that. What is it? It is the very experience of the five elements and the three gunas – the whole universe. That is my intimate relationship with that ‘I am’ only – Bindu only.

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Nisargadatta Maharaj with Siddhakadeshwar Maharaj - Photo 83

Whatever activities happen, happen only because of your ‘I amness’. They make no impression on the ‘I amness’. Judgements like good or bad are aspects of the mind, but if you are one with that ‘I amness’, then at that stage the mind is not there.

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Nisargadatta Maharaj - Photo 82

The ‘I amness’ together with the vital breath appear spontaneously when the body is created. The vital breath and food body are necessary to sustain the ‘I amness’. When the food body is dropped by the vital breath the ‘I amness’ disappears. Where does the flame go when it is extinguished? The same thing applies to the ‘I amness’.

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Nisargadatta Maharaj - at a railway station - Photo 81

This knowledge is anciemt (’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.

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The talks of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj - Photo 80

Who is it that needs to understand this the most, the knowledge that ‘I am’? If you listen carefully and imbibe the principles, you will get rid of this body-mind sense and dwell only in the ‘I amness’ (Beingness). In order to know the link between ‘I am’ and ‘I am not’, hold on only to the ‘I amness’ without words, ‘just be’. When hailed, you respond, there is somebody within you that becomes aware of the call and the need to respond. That being is the ‘I am’ and he has been there even before that awareness appeared.

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The gathering to hear the talks of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj - Photo 79

There is nothing for you to do, everything just comes into being and happens. Why are you concerned with what to do? You deal with the world only after having Consciousness, when the ‘I am’ is there. Once it is gone everything ends, it is all spontaneous.

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Nisargadatta Maharaj - Photo 78

The knowledge that is prior to thought – ‘I am’ – is covered by a human body which food with the vital breath and knowledge of the Self (Prana and Jnana). This means that you are only covered by a human body. Once you reach that state of ‘I am’ through your attention you will only be aware of ‘That’ and you will no longer be affected by all of these tendencies (Vasanas). You will have transcended them.

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Nisargadatta Maharaj - Photo 77

For meditation you should sit with identification with the knowledge ‘I am’ only and have confirmed to yourself that you are not the body. You must dwell only in that knowledge ‘I am’ – not merely the words ‘I am’. And the indwelling knowledge that you are, without words, that itself you are. In that identity you must stabilize yourself. And then whatever doubts you have will be cleared by that very knowledge, and everything will be opened up to you.

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Nisargadatta Maharaj - Photo 76

You must have a firm conviction that ‘I am’ is only that ‘I am’  without body-mind form – the knowledge ‘I am’ purely. You say all these things, but has the knowledge come within the purview of the knowledge? You must have that full conviction, whatever you may have said, that is the truth and that is ‘I am’. There are no techniques, except the technique that ‘I am’ the firm conviction that ‘I am’ means ‘I am’ only, abidance in ‘I’. Don’t practice this thing, only develop your conviction.

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Nisargadatta Maharaj and Bhainath Maharaj - Photo 75

This knowledge ‘I am’ has dawned on you, since then whatever other knowledge you have acquired, whatever experiences you have had, whatever you have seen of the world, has all been witnessed. But that one to whom the witnessing takes place is entirely separate from that which is witnessed.

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Bhajans at Siddharameswar Maharaj Samadhi - Photo 74

How did I get this birth? That is the point on which I persist in finding the answer; I ‘must’ know this. When I was told ‘sattva’, then what is ‘sattva’? ‘Sattva’ is the essence of the five elements. In that essence, in that juice, lies the knowledge ‘I am’; but all that is still of the five elements. Then how did this come about? My guru told me the whole story. Thus I came to know it is ignorance, and I know from experience, that everybody is starting from there. Thus whatever has come about is sheer ignorance, and we are nothing more, that is what my guru told me.

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Residence of Nisargadatta Maharaj at Vanmali building in early 70's - Photo 73

There is no explanation for how this seed, this consciousness or knowledge ‘I am’ has arisen. But once it is in existence, it cannot stand still – that is, consciousness is tantamount to ‘movement’. And all movement takes place through the ‘gunas’, which are inherent in the knowledge ‘I am’. This consciousness keeps on ‘humming’ – (Maharaj uses the Marathi word ‘gun-gun’, which means the humming sound or the humming of the ‘gunas’) – and expresses itself through the three ‘gunas’.

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Nisargadatta Maharaj - Photo 72

This is to be understood and realized that the ‘I am’ is even before the arising of any words and questions in me. People always want a name or concept to indicate the state of ‘I am’ prior to words. When this is done by giving it a name, like for example Brahman, they feel satisfied.

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Nisargadatta Maharaj - Photo 71

The primary occurrence is the reminder ‘I am’ and out of which springs the language and the talk. So, what is this ‘I amness’? Remember that it is in the primary reminder ‘I am’ that the whole cosmos and your body exist. Who and from where is this sense of being? This has to be thoroughly investigated. When this is done, while abiding necessarily in the knowledge ‘I am’ – the sense of beingness – an amazing revelation will be made, namely that from your own seed-beingness the whole manifest universe is projected including your body. This supreme and powerful principle, though being itself without form and name, upon sensing ‘I am’ instantly embraces the body and mistakenly accepts this as its own. It clings to the body-identity so quickly that the fact of its own independent existence is easily missed.

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Nisargadatta Maharaj - younger days - Photo 70

‘Jnana-yoga’ means to inquire how this ‘I amness’ and the world came about. To realize that ‘I amness’ and the world are the same is ‘jnana-yoga’. Here the knowledge ‘I am’ should subside in itself.

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Nisargadatta Maharaj - younger days - Photo 69

If one obtains and relishes the nectar of the Lord’s feet, the ‘charan-amrita’, the mind can be conquered. This is called ‘manojaya’ – victory over the mind. However, only a true devotee, a ‘bhakta’, a god, can obtain the ‘charan-amrita’. But what is its relationship with all beings? It dwells in the core of all beings as the knowledge ‘I am’, the love ‘to be’, the ‘charan-amrita’.

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Nisargadatta Maharaj - younger days - Photo 68

You must analyze ‘death’, the meaning of this common parlance. At the time that death occurs, the vital breath quits the body, gradually leaves the body. At the same time as the vital breath, the mind and the language also go out. Simultaneously, this quality of ‘I am’, this ‘sattva-guna’, the quality of beingness, also departs or goes into oblivion. Only I, the Absolute remains. Stay put there only; nothing happens to I, the Absolute.

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Part of Guru worship, gifts are presented to Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj - Photo 67

This primary concept, ‘I amness’ is dishonest, because it is still a concept only. Finally one has to transcend that also and be in the ‘nirvikalpa’ state, which means the concept-free state. Then you have no concept at all, not even of ‘I am’. In that state one does not know that one is. This state is known as ‘Parabrahman’: ‘Brahman’ transcended. ‘Brahman’ is manifest; ‘Parabrahman’ is beyond that, prior to that; the Absolute. Do you understand what I am driving at? Whatever you caught in your attention, that attention should eventually turn into no-attention. The state that is finally left over is Awareness, ‘Parabrahman’.

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The small room upstairs where the talks used to take place everyday - Photo 66

From the no-knowing state, the first veil I took was that of ‘I am’, that was formless, nameless. But I embraced the body: I got a form for myself; I got a name for myself. This was the fall. Therefore all sages advise: Give up the shackles of the body! ‘I am the body’ – these are the shackles. Give them up.

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Nisargadatta Maharaj - Photo 65

It is very simple. The body and in the body…it is like a coin. On one side, you have the vital breath for making possible all activity; and on the other side is the knowledge ‘I am’. Only when the vital breath is there, the knowledge ‘I am’ is present. When the vital breath leaves the body, the knowledge ‘I am’ also disappears. And both of these are the product of the food essence body. I am not that; this entire composite I am not. This you have to realize.

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