Questioner: As I listen to you I find that it is useless to ask you questions.

Whatever the question, you invariably turn it upon itself and bring me to the basic fact that I am living in an illusion of my own making and that reality is inexpressible in words.

Words merely add to the confusion and the only wise course is the silent search within.

Maharaj: After all, it is the mind that creates illusion and it is the mind that gets free of it.

Words may aggravate illusion, words may also help dispel it.

Then you go beyond the witness.

Do not ask how it happens.

Just search within yourself.

Q: What makes the difference between the person and the witness?

M: Both are modes of consciousness.

The world is full of contradictions, hence your search for harmony and peace.

These you cannot find in the world, for the world is the child of chaos.

To find order you must search within.

The world comes into being only when you are born in a body.

No body -- no world.

Q: I know nothing about being the cause of the universe.

M: Because you do not investigate.

Enquire, search within and you will know.

Q: How can a speck like me create the vast universe?

M: When you are infected with the 'I-am-the-body' virus; a whole universe springs into being.

M: If you believe so, go on.

To me, all delay is a waste of time.

You can skip all the preparation and go directly for the ultimate search within.

Of all the Yogas it is the simplest and the shortest.

72: What is Pure, Unalloyed, Unattached is Real.

You know everything, but you do not know yourself.

For the self is not known through words -- only direct insight will reveal it.

Look within, search within.

Q: It is very difficult to abandon words.

Our mental life is one continuous stream of words.

They are different, but not separate.

Q: People talk of seeing God.

M: When you see the world you see God.

There is no seeing God, apart from the world.

Beyond the world to see God is to be God.

M: When you see the world you see God.

There is no seeing God, apart from the world.

Beyond the world to see God is to be God.

The light by which you see the world, which is God is the tiny little spark: 'I am', apparently so small, yet the first and the last in every act of knowing and loving.

Q: Must I see the world to see God?

Beyond the world to see God is to be God.

The light by which you see the world, which is God is the tiny little spark: 'I am', apparently so small, yet the first and the last in every act of knowing and loving.

Q: Must I see the world to see God?

M: How else?

No world, no God.

M: What is your happiness worth when you have to strive and labour for it?

True happiness is spontaneous and effortless.

Q: All beings seek happiness.

The means only differ.

Some seek it within and are therefore called Yogis; some seek it without and are condemned as Bhogis.

But when you are concerned with truth, with reality, you must question every thing, your very life.

By asserting the necessity of sensory and intellectual experience you narrow down your enquiry to search for comfort.

Q: I seek happiness, not comfort.

M: Beyond comfort of mind and body what happiness do you know?

Q: Is there any other?

Q: But, is it true that all existence is painful?

M: What else can be the cause of this universal search for pleasure?

Does a happy man seek happiness?

How restless people are, how constantly on the move!

It is because they are in pain that they seek relief in pleasure.

I am not talking of giving up distinctions, for without them there is no manifestation.

Q: When I do not separate, I am happily at peace.

But somehow I lose my bearings again and again and begin to seek happiness in outer things.

Why is my inner peace not steady, I cannot understand.

M: Peace, after all, is also a condition of the mind.

It is because you are not happy that you want to be happy.

Find out why you are unhappy.

Because you are not happy you seek happiness in pleasure; pleasure brings in pain and therefore you call it worldly; you then long for some other pleasure, without pain, which you call divine.

In reality, pleasure is but a respite from pain.

Happiness is both worldly and unworldly, within and beyond all that happens.

M: Trusting Bhagavan is trusting yourself.

Be aware that whatever happens, happens to you, by you, through you, that you are the creator, enjoyer and destroyer of all you perceive and you will not be afraid.

Unafraid, you will not be unhappy, nor will you seek happiness.

In the mirror of your mind all kinds of pictures appear and disappear.

Knowing that they are entirely your own creations, watch them silently come and go, be alert, but not perturbed.

Q: Who is to say what is a full life?

It depends on my cultural background.

M: If you seek reality you must set yourself free of all backgrounds, of all cultures, of all patterns of thinking and feeling.

Even the idea of being man or woman, or even human, should be discarded.

The ocean of life contains all, not only humans.

M: You can do nothing.

What time has brought about, time will take away.

Q: Why then all these exhortations to practice Yoga and seek reality?

They make me feel empowered and responsible, while in fact it is time that does all.

M: This is the end of Yoga -- to realise independence.

Your dreams of glory will land you in more trouble.

Q: It is not glory that I seek.

I seek Reality.

M: For this you need a well-ordered and quiet life, peace of mind and immense earnestness.

At every moment whatever comes to you unasked, comes from God and will surely help you, if you make the fullest use of it.

M: Noble friendship (satsang) is the supreme remedy for all ills, physical and mental.

Q: Generally one cannot find such friendship.

M: Seek within.

Your own self is your best friend.

Q: Why is life so full of contradictions?

M: Mistrust all, until you are convinced.

The true Guru will never humiliate you, nor will he estrange you from yourself.

He will constantly bring you back to the fact of your inherent perfection and encourage you to seek within.

He knows you need nothing, not even him, and is never tired of reminding you.

But the self appointed Guru is more concerned with himself than with his disciples.

Of what use are small miracles to me when the greatest of miracles is happening all the time?

Whatever you see it is always your own being that you see.

Go ever deeper into yourself, seek within, there is neither violence nor non- violence in self-discovery.

The destruction of the false is not violence.

Q: When I practice self-enquiry, or go within with the idea that it will profit me in some way or other, I am still escaping from what I am.

Q: How does one go beyond the mind?

M: There are many starting points -- they all lead to the same goal.

You may begin with selfless work, abandoning the fruits of action; you may then give up thinking and end in giving up all desires.

Here, giving up (tyaga) is the operational factor.

Or, you may not bother about any thing you want, or think, or do and just stay put in the thought and feeling 'I am', focussing 'I am' firmly in your mind.

They came to see their Guru who was lecturing in Bombay.

I met him -- a very pleasant looking young man is he -- apparently very matter-of-fact and efficient, but with an atmosphere of peace and silence about him.

His teaching is traditional with stress on karma Yoga, selfless work, service of the Guru etc.

Like the Gita, he says that selfless work will result in salvation.

He is full of ambitious plans: training workers who will start spiritual centres in many countries.

I met him -- a very pleasant looking young man is he -- apparently very matter-of-fact and efficient, but with an atmosphere of peace and silence about him.

His teaching is traditional with stress on karma Yoga, selfless work, service of the Guru etc.

Like the Gita, he says that selfless work will result in salvation.

He is full of ambitious plans: training workers who will start spiritual centres in many countries.

It seems he gives them not only the authority, but also the power to do the work in his name.

M: You must deal with the 'I'-sense if you want to be free of it.

Watch it in operation and at peace, how it starts and when it ceases, what it wants and how it gets it, till you see clearly and understand fully.

After all, all the Yogas, whatever their source and character, have only one aim: to save you from the calamity of separate existence, of being a meaningless dot in a vast and beautiful picture.

You suffer because you have alienated yourself from reality and now you seek an escape from this alienation.

You cannot escape from your own obsessions.

You imagine reality to stand apart from names and forms, while to me names and forms are the ever changing expressions of reality and not apart from it.

You ask for the proof of truth while to me all existence is the proof.

You separate existence from being and being from reality, while to me it is all one.

However much you are convinced of the truth of your waking state, you do not claim it to be permanent and changeless, as I do when I talk of mine.

Yet I see no difference between us, except that you are imagining things, while I do not.

All is one -- this is the ultimate solution of every conflict.

Q: How is it that in spite of so much instruction and assistance we make no progress?

M: As long as we imagine ourselves to be separate personalities, one quite apart from another, we cannot grasp reality which is essentially impersonal.

First we must know ourselves as witnesses only, dimensionless and timeless centres of observation, and then realise that immense ocean of pure awareness, which is both mind and matter and beyond both.

Q: Whatever I may be in reality, yet I feel myself to be a small and separate person, one amongst many.

M: As long as we imagine ourselves to be separate personalities, one quite apart from another, we cannot grasp reality which is essentially impersonal.

First we must know ourselves as witnesses only, dimensionless and timeless centres of observation, and then realise that immense ocean of pure awareness, which is both mind and matter and beyond both.

Q: Whatever I may be in reality, yet I feel myself to be a small and separate person, one amongst many.

M: 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.

Your thoughts and feelings exist in succession, they have their span in time and make you imagine yourself, because of memory, as having duration.

Q: What is the cause of personification, of self-limitation in time and space?

M: That which does not exist cannot have a cause.

There is no such thing as a separate person.

Even taking the empirical point of view, it is obvious that everything is the cause of everything, that everything is as it is, because the entire universe is as it is.

Q: Yet personality must have a cause.

This work of mental self-purification, the cleansing of the psyche, is essential.

Just as a speck in the eye, by causing inflammation, may wipe out the world, so the mistaken idea: 'I am the body-mind' causes the self-concern, which obscures the universe.

It is useless to fight the sense of being a limited and separate person unless the roots of it are laid bare.

Selfishness is rooted in the mistaken ideas of oneself.

Clarification of the mind is Yoga.

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.

Q: What comes first: consciousness or awareness?

He knows that if the disciples do not learn from his words, they will learn from their own mistakes.

Inwardly he remains quiet and silent.

He has no sense of being a separate person.

The entire universe is his own, including his disciples with their petty plans.

Nothing in particular affects him, or, which comes to the same, the entire universe affects him in equal measure.

You need not set it right -- it will set itself right, as soon as you give up all concern with the past and the future and live entirely in the now.

Q: But the now has no dimension.

I shall become a nobody, a nothing !

M: Exactly.

As nothing and nobody you are safe and happy.

If you can, it is not the real thing.

Be silent and watch it expressing itself in action.

Q: If you could tell me what I shall become, it may help me to watch over my development.

M: How can anybody tell you what you shall become when there is no becoming?

You merely discover what you are.

Be silent and watch it expressing itself in action.

Q: If you could tell me what I shall become, it may help me to watch over my development.

M: How can anybody tell you what you shall become when there is no becoming?

You merely discover what you are.

All moulding oneself to a pattern is a grievous waste of time.

Q: I long for permanency, but I find it nowhere.

M: Are you, yourself, not permanent?

Q: I was born, I shall die.

M: Can you truly say you were not before you were born and can you possibly say when dead: 'Now I am no more'?

You cannot say from your own experience that you are not.

I am told I was born.

I do not remember.

I am told I shall die I do not expect it.

You tell me I have forgotten, or I lack imagination.

But I just cannot remember what never happened, nor expect the patently impossible.

Everybody dies as he lives.

I am not afraid of death, because I am not afraid of life.

I live a happy life and shall die a happy death.

Misery is to be born, not to die.

All depends how you look at it.

M: Where is your childhood now?

And what is your future?

Q: I was born, I have grown, I shall die.

M: You mean your body, of course.

And your mind.

M: 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.

Q: But I was born as a body, in a body and shall die with the body, as a body.

M: This is your misconception.

Enquire, investigate, doubt yourself and others.

It is not.

You were never 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.

Just like in a cinema all is light, so does consciousness become the vast world.

Such is our nature.

For me the moment of death will be a moment of jubilation, not of fear.

I cried when I was born and I shall die laughing.

Q: What is the change in consciousness at the moment of death?

M: What change do you expect?

Q: One more question.

You said that before I was born I was one with the pure being of reality; if so, who decided that I should be born?

M: In reality you were never born and never shall die.

But now you imagine that you are, or have a body and you ask what has brought about this state.

Within the limits of illusion the answer is: desire born from memory attracts you to a body and makes you think as one with it.

M: They don't.

The sense of identity pervades the universal.

Search and you shall discover the Universal Person, who is yourself and infinitely more.

Anyhow, begin by realising that the world is in you, not you in the world.

Q: How can it be?

Love and will shall have their turn, but the ground must be prepared.

The sun of awareness must rise first -- all else will follow.

87: Keep the Mind Silent and You shall Discover.

Questioner: Once I had a strange experience.

I was not, nor was the world, there was only light -- within and without -- and immense peace.

Cease from looking for happiness and reality in a dream and you will wake up.

You need not know 'why' and 'how', there is no end to questions.

Abandon all desires, keep your mind silent and you shall discover.

88: Knowledge by the Mind, is not True Knowledge.

Questioner: Do you experience the three states of waking, dreaming and sleeping just as we do, or otherwise?

During this period he got married and had a son and three daughters.

Childhood, youth, marriage, progeny -- Maruti lived the usual humdrum and eventless life of a common man till his middle age, with no inkling at all of the sainthood that was to follow.

Among his friends during this period was one Yashwantrao Baagkar, who was a devotee of Sri Siddharameshwar Maharaj, a spiritual teacher of the Navnath Sampradaya, a sect of Hinduism.

One evening Baagkar took Maruti to his Guru and that evening proved to be the turning point in his life.

The Guru gave him a mantra and instructions in meditation.

The latter initiated Lingajangam Maharaj and Bhausahib Maharaj and entrusted to their care his Ashram and the propagation of his teaching.

Bhausahib Maharaj later established what came to be known as Inchegeri Sampradaya, a new movement within the traditional fold.

Among his disciples were Amburao Maharaj, Girimalleshwar Maharaj, Siddharameshwar Maharaj and the noted philosopher Dr. R. D. Renade.

It may be mentioned here that, though officially the current Guru of the Inchegeri branch of the Navnath Sampradaya, Sri Nisargadatta does not seem to attach much importance to sects, cults and creeds, including his own.

In answer to a questioner whi wished to join the Navnath Sampradaya he said: "The Navnath Sampradaya is only a tradition, a way of teaching and practice.

M: You must give yourself time to brood over these things.

The old grooves must be erased in your brain, without forming new ones.

You must realise yourself as the immovable, behind and beyond the movable, the silent witness of all that happens.

Q: Does it mean that I must give up all idea of an active life?

M: Not at all.

Unless we revolt against this craving for experience and let go the manifested altogether, there can be no relief.

We shall remain trapped.

Q: You say you are the silent witness and also you are beyond consciousness.

Is there no contradiction in it?

If you are beyond consciousness, what are you witnessing to?

Both are tools, use them but don't misuse them.

Words can bring you only unto their own limit; to go beyond, you must abandon them.

Remain as the silent witness only.

Q: How can I?

The world disturbs me greatly.

Whatever you see, hear or think of, remember -- you are not what happens, you are he to whom it happens.

Delve deeply into the sense 'I am' and you will surely discover that the perceiving centre is universal, as universal as the light that illumines the world.

All that happens in the universe happens to you, the silent witness.

On the other hand, whatever is done, is done by you, the universal and inexhaustible energy.

Q: It is, no doubt, very gratifying to hear that one is the silent witness as well as the universal energy.

All that happens in the universe happens to you, the silent witness.

On the other hand, whatever is done, is done by you, the universal and inexhaustible energy.

Q: It is, no doubt, very gratifying to hear that one is the silent witness as well as the universal energy.

But how is one to cross over from a verbal statement to direct knowledge?

Hearing is not knowing.

M: The real remains.

But don't be mislead by words!

Q: Since immemorial time, during innumerable births, I build and improve and beautify my world.

It is neither perfect, nor unreal.

It is a process.

Life makes you conscious, but the teacher makes you aware.

Q: Sir, you are neither the first nor the last.

Since immemorial times people were breaking into reality.

Yet how little it affected our lives!

The Ramas and the Krishnas, the Buddhas and the Christs have come and gone and we are as we were; wallowing in sweat and tears.

Desires and thoughts are also things.

Disregard them.

Since immemorial time the dust of events was covering the clear mirror of your mind, so that only memories you could see.

Brush off the dust before it has time to settle; this will lay bare the old layers until the true nature of your mind is discovered.

It is all very simple and comparatively easy; be earnest and patient, that is all.

Is it hot or raining there?

M: How can I tell you?

Such things need special training.

Or, just travelling to New York.

I may be quite certain that I am beyond time and space, and yet unable to locate myself at will at some point of time and space.

Can you suffer and rejoice with me, or you only infer what I feel from observation and analogy?

M: All beings are in me.

But bringing down into the brain the content of another brain requires special training.

There is nothing that cannot be achieved by training.

Q: I am not your projection, nor are you mine.

Maharaj: A state of non-experiencing.

M: No.

Such things require special training.

I am like a dealer In wheat.

I know little about breads and cakes.

When ignorance becomes obstinate and hard and the character gets perverted, effort and the pain of it become inevitable.

In complete obedience to nature there is no effort.

The seed of spiritual life grows in silence and in darkness until its appointed hour.

Q: We come across some great people, who, in their old age, become childish, petty, quarrelsome and spiteful.

How could they deteriorate so much?

What you truly have you cannot lose.

Were you well-grounded in your self, change of place would not affect it.

Q: In India spiritual life is easy.

It is not so in the West.

One has to conform to environment to a much greater extent.

Q: I can see your point.

Again, you have robbed me of my question!

89: Progress in Spiritual Life.

Questioner: We are two girls from England, visiting India.

We know little about Yoga and we are here because we were told that spiritual teachers play an important role in Indian life.

If your desires are strong and true, they will mould your life for their fulfilment.

Sow you seed and leave it to the seasons.

Q: What are the signs of progress in spiritual life?

M: Freedom from anxiety; a sense of ease and joy; deep peace within and abundant energy without.

Q: How did you get it?

Such is his nature.

Q: We can observe what may be called spiritual progress.

A selfish man turns religious, controls himself, refines his thoughts and feelings, takes to spiritual practice, realises his true being.

Is such progress ruled by causality, or is it accidental?

M: From my point of view everything happens by itself, quite spontaneously.

As long as you believe only the particular to be real, conscious and happy and reject the non-dual reality as something imagined, an abstract concept, you will find me doling out concepts and abstractions.

But once you have touched the real within your own being, you will find me describing what for you is the nearest and the dearest.

38: Spiritual Practice is Will Asserted and Re-asserted.

Questioner: The Westerners who occasionally come to see you are faced with a peculiar difficulty.

The very notion of a liberated man, a realised man, a self-knower, a God-knower, a man beyond the world, is unknown to them.

M: None whatsoever.

But there is a connection between the word and its meaning, between the action and its motive.

Spiritual practice is will asserted and re-asserted.

Who has not the daring will not accept the real even when offered.

Unwillingness born out of fear is the only obstacle.

Faith is not blind.

It is the willingness to try.

Q: We were told that of all forms of spiritual practices the practice of the attitude of a mere witness is the most efficacious.

How does it compare with faith?

M: The witness attitude is also faith; it is faith in oneself.

My words are true and they will do their work.

This is the beauty of noble company (satsang).

Q: Just sitting near you can it be considered spiritual practice?

M: Of course.

The river of life is flowing.

Questioner: My friend is a German and I was born in England from French parents.

I am in India since over a year wandering from Ashram to Ashram.

Maharaj: Any spiritual practices (sadhanas)?

Q: Studies and meditation.

M: What did you meditate on?

The known is accidental, the unknown is the home of the real.

To live in the known is bondage, to live in the unknown is liberation.

Q: I have understood that all spiritual practice consists in the elimination of the personal self.

Such practice demands iron determination and relentless application.

Where to find the integrity and energy for such work?

M: If your motives are pure, if you seek truth and nothing else, you will find the right people.

Finding them is easy, what is difficult is to trust them and take full advantage of their advice and guidance.

Q: Is the waking state more important for spiritual practice than sleep?

M: On the whole we attach too much importance, to the waking state.

Without sleep the waking state would be impossible; without sleep one goes mad or dies; why attach so much importance to waking consciousness, which is obviously dependent on the unconscious?

M: On the whole we attach too much importance, to the waking state.

Without sleep the waking state would be impossible; without sleep one goes mad or dies; why attach so much importance to waking consciousness, which is obviously dependent on the unconscious?

Not only the conscious but the unconscious as well should be taken care of in our spiritual practice.

Q: How does one attend to the unconscious?

M: Keep the 'I am' in the focus of awareness, remember that you are, watch yourself ceaselessly and the unconscious will flow into the conscious without any special effort on your part.

The very act of perceiving shows that you are not what you perceive.

The clearer you understand on the level of mind you can be described in negative terms only, the quicker will you come to the end of your search and realise that you are the limitless being.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Foreword.

That there should be yet another addition of I AM THAT is not surprising, for the sublimity of the words spoken by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, their directness and the lucidity with which they refer to the Highest have already made this book a literature of paramount importance.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Foreword.

That there should be yet another addition of I AM THAT is not surprising, for the sublimity of the words spoken by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, their directness and the lucidity with which they refer to the Highest have already made this book a literature of paramount importance.

In fact, many regard it as the only book of spiritual teaching really worth studying.

There are various religions and systems of philosophy which claim to endow human life with meaning.

Sometimes, however, though rarely, scepticism gives rise to an intuition of a basic reality, more fundamental than that of words, religions or philosophic systems.

Strangely, it is a positive aspect of scepticism.

It was in such a state of scepticism, but also having an intuition of the basic reality, that I happened to read Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj's I AM THAT.

I was at once struck by the finality and unassailable certitude of his words.

Limited by their very nature though words are, I found the utterances of Maharaj transparent, polished windows, as it were.

Only the words spoken directly to you by the Guru shed their opacity completely.

In a Guru's presence the last boundaries drawn by the mind vanish.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj is indeed such a Guru.

He is not a preacher, but he provides precisely those indications which the seeker needs.

The reality which emanates from him is inalienable and Absolute.

The 'I am' and the universe are mere reflections of it.

It is this reality which a jnani has realised.

The best that you can do is listen attentively to the jnani -- of whom Sri Nisargadatta is a living example -- and to trust and believe him.

By such listening you will realise that his reality is your reality.

He helps you in seeing the nature of the world and of the 'I am'.

It is for the seeker to regard them with the utmost seriousness, because they indicate the Highest Reality.

No better concepts are available to shed all concepts.

I am thankful to Sudhakar S. Dikshit, the editor, for inviting me to write the Foreword to this new edition of I AM THAT and thus giving me an opportunity to pay my homage to Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, who has expounded highest knowledge in the simplest, clearest and the most convincing words.

Douwe TiemersmaPhilosophical Faculty.

Erasmus Universiteit.

Erasmus Universiteit.

When asked about the date of his birth the Master replied blandly that he was never born!

Writing a biographical note on Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj is a frustrating and unrewarding task.

For, not only the exact date of his birth is unknown, but no verified facts concerning the early years of his life are available.

However, some of his elderly relatives and friends say that he was born in the month of March 1897 on a full moon day, which coincided with the festival of Hanuman Jayanti, when Hindus pay their homage to Hanuman, also named Maruti, the monkey-god of Ramayana fame.

Early in his practice he started having visions and occasionally even fell into trances.

Something exploded within him, as it were, giving birth to a cosmic consciousness, a sense of eternal life.

The identity of Maruti, the petty shopkeeper, dissolved and the illuminating personality of Sri Nisargadatta emerged.

Most people live in the world of self-consciousness and do not have the desire or power to leave it.

They exist only for themselves; all their effort is directed towards achievement of self-satisfaction and self-glorification.

They exist only for themselves; all their effort is directed towards achievement of self-satisfaction and self-glorification.

There are, however, seers, teachers and revealers who, while apparently living in the same world, live simultaneously in another world also -- the world of cosmic consciousness, effulgent with infinite knowledge.

After his illuminating experience Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj started living such a dual life.

He conducted his shop, but ceased to be a profit-minded merchant.

He walked barefooted on his way to the Himalayas where he planned to pass the rest of his years in quest of a eternal life.

He is the self that has become all things.

Translators Note.

I met Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj some years back and was impressed with the spontaneous simplicity of his appearance and behaviour and his deep and genuine earnestness in expounding his experience.

However humble and difficult to discover his little tenement in the back lanes of Bombay, many have found their way there.

Most of them are Indians, conversing freely in their native language, but there were also many foreigners who needed a translator.

It was not easy to translate verbatim and at the same time avoid tedious repetitions and reiterations.

It is hoped that the present translation of the tape-recordings will not reduce the impact of this clear- minded, generous and in many ways an unusual human being.

A Marathi version of these talks, verified by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj himself, has been separately published.

Maurice FrydmanTranslatorBombayOctober 16, 1973.

Editors Note.

Maurice FrydmanTranslatorBombayOctober 16, 1973.

Editors Note.

Not only the matter has now been re-set in a more readable typeface and with chapter headings, but new pictures of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj have been included and the appendices contain some hitherto unpublished valuable material.

I draw special attention to the reader to the contribution entitled 'Nisarga Yoga', in which my esteemed friend, the late Maurice Frydman, has succinctly presented the teaching of Maharaj.

Simplicity and humility are the keynotes of his teachings, as Maurice observes.

The Master does not propound any intellectual concept or doctrine.

He does not put forward any pre-conditions before the seekers and is happy with them as they are.

In fact Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj is peculiarly free from all disparagement and condemnation; the sinner and the saint are merely exchanging notes; the saint has sinned, the sinner can be sanctified.

It is time that divides them; it is time that will bring them together.

The teacher does not evaluate; his sole concern is with 'suffering and the ending of suffering'.

He knows from his personal and abiding experience that the roots of sorrow are in the mind and it is the mind that must be freed from its distorting and destructive habits.

Of these the identification of the self with its projections is most fatal.

By precept and example Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj shows a short-cut, a-logical but empirically sound.

It operates, when understood.

Revising and editing of I AM THAT has been for me a pilgrimage to my inner self -- at once ennobling and enlightening.

Bhausahib Maharaj later established what came to be known as Inchegeri Sampradaya, a new movement within the traditional fold.

Among his disciples were Amburao Maharaj, Girimalleshwar Maharaj, Siddharameshwar Maharaj and the noted philosopher Dr. R. D. Renade.

It may be mentioned here that, though officially the current Guru of the Inchegeri branch of the Navnath Sampradaya, Sri Nisargadatta does not seem to attach much importance to sects, cults and creeds, including his own.

In answer to a questioner whi wished to join the Navnath Sampradaya he said: "The Navnath Sampradaya is only a tradition, a way of teaching and practice.

It does not denote a level of consciousness.

Only a fully ripened jnani can allow himself complete spontaneity.

Q: It seems there are schools of Yoga where the student, after illumination, is obliged to keep silent for 7 or 12 or 15 or even 25 years.

Even Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi imposed on himself 20 years of silence before he began to teach.

M: Yes, the inner fruit must ripen.

Until then the discipline, the living in awareness, must go on.

It is one life, after all.

M: How did you come to your present state?

Q: Sri Ramana Maharshi's teachings have put me on my way.

Then I met one Douglas Harding who helped me by showing me how to work on the 'Who am I ?

Q: It was quite sudden.

M: The Creator is a person whose body is the world.

The Nameless one is beyond all gods.

Q: Sri Ramana Maharshi died.

What difference did it make to him?

M: None.

I am also against all killing of animals for flesh or fur, but I refuse to give it first place.

Vegetarianism is a worthy cause, but not the most urgent; all causes are served best by the man who has returned to his source.

Q: When I was at Sri Ramanashram, I felt Bhagwan all over the place, all-pervading, all-perceiving.

M: You had the necessary faith.

Those who have true faith in him will see him everywhere and at all times.

Find yourself and be free.

48: Awareness is Free.

Questioner: I have just arrived from Sri Ramanashram.

I have spent seven months there.

Maharaj: What practice were you following at the Ashram?

63: Notion of Doership is Bondage.

Questioner: We have been staying at the Satya Sai Baba Ashram for some time.

We have also spent two months at Sri Ramanashram at Tiruvannamalai.

Now we are on our way back to the United States.

Maharaj: Did India cause any change in you?

Sri Satya Sai Baba told us to leave everything to him and just live from day to day as righteously as possible.

'Be good and leave the rest to me', he used to tell us.

M: What were you doing at the Sri Ramanashram?

Q: We were going on with the mantra given to us by the Guru.

We also did some meditation.

My friend came on his own.

M: What have you seen?

Q: I have been at Sri Ramanashram and also I have visited Rishikesh.

Can I ask you what is your opinion of Sri Ramana Maharshi?

M: We are both in the same ancient state.

M: What have you seen?

Q: I have been at Sri Ramanashram and also I have visited Rishikesh.

Can I ask you what is your opinion of Sri Ramana Maharshi?

M: We are both in the same ancient state.

But what do you know of Maharshi?

Everything comes in time.

The Guru is always ready to share, but there are no takers.

Q: Yes, Sri Ramana Maharshi used to say: Gurus there are many, but where are the disciples?

M: Well, in the course of time everything happens.

All will come through, not a single soul (jiva) shall be lost.

M: The motive matters supremely.

90: Surrender to Your Own Self.

Questioner: I was born in the United States, and the last fourteen months I have spent in Sri Ramanashram; now I am on my way back to the States where my mother is expecting me.

Maharaj: What are your plans?

Q: I may qualify as a nurse, or just marry and have babies.

But, of course, life may shape otherwise.

I am ready for whatever comes.

M: These fourteen months at Sri Ramanashram, what did they give you?

In what way are you different from what you were when you arrived there?

Q: I am no longer afraid.

How each acted on me, I cannot say.

Maharaj: Good results will come, sooner or later.

At Sri Ramanashram did you get some instructions?

Q: Yes, some English people were teaching me and also an Indian follower of jnana yoga, residing there permanently, was giving me lessons.

M: What are your plans?

I am also against all killing of animals for flesh or fur, but I refuse to give it first place.

Vegetarianism is a worthy cause, but not the most urgent; all causes are served best by the man who has returned to his source.

Q: When I was at Sri Ramanashram, I felt Bhagwan all over the place, all-pervading, all-perceiving.

M: You had the necessary faith.

Those who have true faith in him will see him everywhere and at all times.

Find yourself and be free.

48: Awareness is Free.

Questioner: I have just arrived from Sri Ramanashram.

I have spent seven months there.

Maharaj: What practice were you following at the Ashram?

63: Notion of Doership is Bondage.

Questioner: We have been staying at the Satya Sai Baba Ashram for some time.

We have also spent two months at Sri Ramanashram at Tiruvannamalai.

Now we are on our way back to the United States.

Maharaj: Did India cause any change in you?

Sri Satya Sai Baba told us to leave everything to him and just live from day to day as righteously as possible.

'Be good and leave the rest to me', he used to tell us.

M: What were you doing at the Sri Ramanashram?

Q: We were going on with the mantra given to us by the Guru.

We also did some meditation.

My friend came on his own.

M: What have you seen?

Q: I have been at Sri Ramanashram and also I have visited Rishikesh.

Can I ask you what is your opinion of Sri Ramana Maharshi?

M: We are both in the same ancient state.

M: The motive matters supremely.

90: Surrender to Your Own Self.

Questioner: I was born in the United States, and the last fourteen months I have spent in Sri Ramanashram; now I am on my way back to the States where my mother is expecting me.

Maharaj: What are your plans?

Q: I may qualify as a nurse, or just marry and have babies.

But, of course, life may shape otherwise.

I am ready for whatever comes.

M: These fourteen months at Sri Ramanashram, what did they give you?

In what way are you different from what you were when you arrived there?

Q: I am no longer afraid.

How each acted on me, I cannot say.

Maharaj: Good results will come, sooner or later.

At Sri Ramanashram did you get some instructions?

Q: Yes, some English people were teaching me and also an Indian follower of jnana yoga, residing there permanently, was giving me lessons.

M: What are your plans?

' You are pure being -- awareness -- bliss.

To realise 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.

It is not at all difficult, but detachment is needed.

It is the clinging to the false that makes the true so difficult to see.

Its slave rather.

M: Be neither master, nor slave.

Stand aloof.

Q: Does it imply avoidance of action?

M: You cannot avoid action.

Q: It all sounds very beautiful, but does not answer my question.

Why is there so much suffering in the world?

M: If you stand aloof as observer only, you will not suffer.

You will see the world as a show.

a most entertaining show indeed.

Q: What is the use of a quiet mind?

M: When the mind is quiet, we come to know ourselves as the pure witness.

We withdraw from the experience and its experiencer and stand apart in pure awareness, which is between and beyond the two.

The personality, based on self-identification, on imagining oneself to be something: 'I am this, I am that', continues, but only as a part of the objective world.

Its identification with the witness snaps.

It is all a play of gunas (qualities of cosmic matter).

When I identify myself with them, I am their slave.

When I stand apart, I am their master.

Q: Can you influence the world by your attitude?

By separating yourself from the world you lose all hope of helping it.

You are contacting your sensory and mental states in consciousness, at the point of 'I am', while reality is not mediated, not contacted, not experienced.

You are taking duality so much for granted, that you do not even notice it, while to me variety and diversity do not create separation.

You imagine reality to stand apart from names and forms, while to me names and forms are the ever changing expressions of reality and not apart from it.

You ask for the proof of truth while to me all existence is the proof.

You separate existence from being and being from reality, while to me it is all one.

Just as you do not need to worry about growing hair, so I need not worry about words and actions.

They just happen and leave me unconcerned, for in my world nothing ever goes wrong.

8: The Self Stands Beyond Mind.

Questioner: As a child fairly often I experienced states of complete happiness, verging on ecstasy: later, they ceased, but since I came to India they reappeared, particularly after I met you.

Yet these states, however wonderful, are not lasting.

The wind of desire stirs the mind and the 'me', which is but a reflection of the Self in the mind, appears changeful.

But these ideas of movement, of restlessness, of pleasure and pain are all in the mind.

The Self stands beyond the mind, aware, but unconcerned.

Q: How to reach it?

M: You are the Self, here and now Leave the mind alone, stand aware and unconcerned and you will realise that to stand alert but detached, watching events come and go, is an aspect of your real nature.

Q: You seem to take for granted that there can be a dream without a dreamer and that I identify myself with the dream of my own sweet will.

But I am the dreamer and the dream too.

Who is to stop dreaming?

M: Let the dream unroll itself to its very end.

You cannot help it.

Your world, of desires and their fulfilments, of fears and their escapes, is definitely not my world.

I do not even perceive it, except through what you tell me about it.

It is your private dream world and my only reaction to it is to ask you to stop dreaming.

Q: Surely, wars and revolutions are not dreams.

Sick mothers and starving children are not dreams.

Don't give them the nourishment of interest and attention.

Q: If I turn my attention from what happens, what am I to live by?

M: Again it is like asking: 'What shall I do, if I stop dreaming?

' Stop and see.

You need not be anxious: 'What next?

It will get at you, if you give it a chance.

Let go your attachment to the unreal and the real will swiftly and smoothly step into its own.

Stop imagining yourself being or doing this or that and the realisation that you are the source and heart of all will dawn upon you.

With this will come great love which is not choice or predilection, nor attachment, but a power which makes all things love-worthy and lovable.

2: Obsession with the body.

Q: What exactly do you mean when you ask me to stop being a person?

M: I do not ask you to stop being -- that you cannot.

I ask you only to stop imagining that you were born, have parents, are a body, will die and so on.

Just try, make a beginning -- it is not as hard as you think.

Q: To think oneself as the personal is the sin of the impersonal.

It is your desire to hold on to it, that creates the problem.

Let go.

Stop imagining that the dream is yours.

Q: You seem to take for granted that there can be a dream without a dreamer and that I identify myself with the dream of my own sweet will.

But I am the dreamer and the dream too.

Enough for me to know that you must wake up.

You need not bring your dream to a definite conclusion, or make it noble, or happy, or beautiful; all you need is to realise that you are dreaming.

Stop imagining, stop believing.

See the contradictions, the incongruities, the falsehood and the sorrow of the human state, the need to go beyond.

Within the immensity of space floats a tiny atom of consciousness and in it the entire universe is contained.

M: There is nothing to practise.

To know yourself, be yourself.

To be yourself, stop imagining yourself to be this or that.

Just be.

Let your true nature emerge.

How do you know that what you say is true?

M: It is not of myself that I am sure, I am sure of you.

All you need is to stop searching outside what can be found only within.

Set your vision right before you operate.

You are suffering from acute misapprehension.

The self is neither, between nor beyond.

To look for it on the mental level is futile.

Stop searching, and see -- it is here and now -- it is that 'I am' you know so well.

All you need to do is to cease taking yourself to be within the field of consciousness.

Unless you have already considered these matters carefully, listening to me once will not do.

M: What was never lost can never be found.

Your very search for safety and joy keeps you away from them.

Stop searching, cease losing.

The disease is simple and the remedy equally simple.

It is your mind only that makes you insecure and unhappy.

M: Oh, no.

The Supreme is the easiest to reach for it is your very being.

It is enough to stop thinking and desiring anything, but the Supreme.

Q: And if I desire nothing, not even the Supreme?

M: Then you are as good as dead, or you are the Supreme.

A problem is created and you start looking for books on continence, or enjoyment.

Were you a baby, both of you could be naked and together without any problem arising.

Just stop thinking you are the bodies and the problems of love and sex will lose their meaning.

With all sense of limitation gone, fear, pain and the search for pleasure -- all cease.

Only awareness remains.

All reminds you that you are.

Take full advantage of the fact that to experience you must be.

You need not stop thinking.

Just cease being interested.

It is disinterestedness that liberates.

Even the idea of being man or woman, or even human, should be discarded.

The ocean of life contains all, not only humans.

So, first of all abandon all self-identification, stop thinking of yourself as such-and-such, so-and-so, this or that.

Abandon all self-concern, worry not about your welfare, material or spiritual, abandon every desire, gross or subtle, stop thinking of achievement of any kind.

You are complete here and now, you need absolutely nothing.

The ocean of life contains all, not only humans.

So, first of all abandon all self-identification, stop thinking of yourself as such-and-such, so-and-so, this or that.

Abandon all self-concern, worry not about your welfare, material or spiritual, abandon every desire, gross or subtle, stop thinking of achievement of any kind.

You are complete here and now, you need absolutely nothing.

It does not mean that you must be brainless and foolhardy, improvident or indifferent; only the basic anxiety for oneself must go.

Stay beyond all thoughts, in silent being-awareness.

It is not progress, for what you come to is already there in you, waiting for you.

Q: So you say I should try to stop thinking and stay steady in the idea: 'I am'.

M: Yes, and whatever thoughts come to you in connection with the 'I am', empty them of all meaning, pay them no attention.

Q: I happen to meet many young people coming from the West and I find that there is a basic difference when I compare them to the Indians.

Do this one thing thoroughly.

That is all.

Q: When I was younger, I had strange experiences, short but memorable, of being nothing, just nothing, yet fully conscious.

But the danger is that one has the desire to recreate from memory the moments that have passed.

M: This is all imagination.

M: Nobody came to tell me.

Nor was I told so inwardly.

In fact, it was only in the beginning when I was making efforts, that I was passing through some strange experiences; seeing lights, hearing voices, meeting gods and goddesses and conversing with them.

Once the Guru told me: 'You are the Supreme Reality', I ceased having visions and trances and became very quiet and simple.

I found myself desiring and knowing less and less, until I could say in utter astonishment: 'I know nothing, I want nothing.

Others advised us to have abundant sex for the same purpose.

What is your opinion in the matter?

M: No doubt, a drug that can affect your brain can also affect your mind, and give you all the strange experiences promised.

But what are all the drugs compared to the drug that gave you this most unusual experience of being born and living in sorrow and fear, in search of happiness, which does not come, or does not last.

You should enquire into the nature of this drug and find an antidote.

The mighty 'I am', the creator of the universe, can be wiped out by a drug temporarily, or a drop of poison -- permanently.

M: Again, you take yourself to be the body.

Q: Even if I dismiss this body of bones, flesh and blood as not-me, still I remain with the subtle body made up of thoughts and feelings, memories and imaginations.

If I dismiss these also as not- me, I still remain with consciousness, which also is a kind of body.

M: You are quite right, but you need not stop there.

In your case it is distorted by desire and fear, by memories and hopes; in mine it is as it is -- normal.

To be a person is to be asleep.

Q: Between the body and pure awareness stands the 'inner organ', antahkarana, the 'subtle body', the 'mental body', whatever the name.

Just as a whirling mirror converts sunlight into a manifold pattern of streaks and colours, so does the subtle body convert the simple light of the shining Self into a diversified world.

Thus I have understood your teaching.

To be a person is to be asleep.

Q: Between the body and pure awareness stands the 'inner organ', antahkarana, the 'subtle body', the 'mental body', whatever the name.

Just as a whirling mirror converts sunlight into a manifold pattern of streaks and colours, so does the subtle body convert the simple light of the shining Self into a diversified world.

Thus I have understood your teaching.

What I cannot grasp is how did this subtle body arise in the first instance?

Just as a whirling mirror converts sunlight into a manifold pattern of streaks and colours, so does the subtle body convert the simple light of the shining Self into a diversified world.

Thus I have understood your teaching.

What I cannot grasp is how did this subtle body arise in the first instance?

M: It is created with the emergence of the 'I am' idea.

The two are one.

In my view there is no such thing as beginning or end -- these are all related to time.

Timeless being is entirely in the now.

Q: The antahkarana, or the 'subtle body', is it real or unreal?

M: It is momentary.

Real when present, unreal when over.

Maharaj: It is all a matter of focus.

Your mind is focussed in the world, mine is focussed in reality.

It is like the moon in daylight -- when the sun shines, the moon is hardly visible.

Or, watch how you take your food.

As long as it is in your mouth, you are conscious of it; once swallowed, it does not concern you any longer.

M: The mirror can do nothing to attract the sun.

It can only keep bright.

As soon as the mind is ready, the sun shines in it.

Q: The light is of the Self, or of the mind?

M: Both.

The sun is the source.

Similarly, matter is like the dark room; consciousness -- the window -- flooding matter with sensations and perceptions, and the Supreme is the sun the source both of matter and of light.

The window may be closed, or open, the sun shines all the time.

It makes all the difference to the room, but none to the sun.

Yet all this is secondary to the tiny little thing which is the 'I am'.

M: Yes, the reality you impart to it by taking it to be real.

Having convinced yourself, you are bound by your conviction.

When the sun shines, colours appear.

When it sets, they disappear.

Where are the colours without the light?

M: .

And I am telling you exactly this: find a foothold beyond and all will be clear and easy.

32: Life is the Supreme Guru.

Questioner: We two came from far off countries; one of us is British, the other American.

The world in which we were born is falling apart and, being young, we are concerned.

This does not make you my Guru.

M: it is not the worship of a person that is crucial, but the steadiness and depth of your devotion to the task.

Life itself is the Supreme Guru; be attentive to its lessons and obedient to its commands.

When you personalise their source, you have an outer Guru; when you take them from life directly, the Guru is within.

Remember, wonder, ponder, live with it, love it, grow into it, grow with it, make it your own -- the word of your Guru, outer or inner.

M: It means life -- at last.

86: The Unknown is the Home of the Real.

Questioner: Who is the Guru and who is the supreme Guru?

Maharaj: All that happens in your consciousness is your Guru.

And pure awareness beyond consciousness is the supreme Guru.

Questioner: Who is the Guru and who is the supreme Guru?

Maharaj: All that happens in your consciousness is your Guru.

And pure awareness beyond consciousness is the supreme Guru.

Q: My Guru is Sri Babaji.

What is your opinion of him?

M: One of the many.

For everything there are innumerable causal factors.

But the source of all that is, is the Infinite Possibility, the Supreme Reality, which is in you and which throws its power and light and love on every experience.

But, this source is not a cause and no cause is a source.

Because of that, I say everything is uncaused.

You may leave your home and give trouble to your family, but attachments are in the mind and will not leave you until you know your mind in and out.

First thing first -- know yourself, all else will come with it.

Q: But you already told me that I am the Supreme Reality.

Is it not self-knowledge?

M: Of course you are the Supreme Reality!

Q: But you already told me that I am the Supreme Reality.

Is it not self-knowledge?

M: Of course you are the Supreme Reality!

But what of it?

Every grain of sand is God; to know it is important, but that is only the beginning.

But what of it?

Every grain of sand is God; to know it is important, but that is only the beginning.

Q: Well, you told me that I am the Supreme Reality.

I believe you.

What next is there for me to do?

Whoever goes there, disappears.

It is unreachable by words, or mind.

You may call it God, or Parabrahman, or Supreme Reality, but these are names given by the mind.

It is the nameless, contentless, effortless and spontaneous state, beyond being and not being.

Q: But does one remain conscious?

Whom to be afraid of?

There is no separation, we are not separate selves.

There is only one Self, the Supreme Reality, in which the personal and the impersonal are one.

Q: All I want is to be able to help the world.

M: Who says you cannot help?

M: He told me what is true.

Q: What did he tell you?

M: He told me I am the Supreme Reality.

Q: What did you do about it?

M: I trusted him and remembered it.

Encouraged, you proceed and arrive in the end at substantially identical results.

Q: The Indian mind was made ready for metaphysical experiments by culture and nurture.

To the Indian words like 'direct perception of the Supreme Reality' make sense and bring out responses from the very depths of his being.

They mean little to a Westerner; even when brought up in his own variety of Christianity, he does not think beyond conformity with God's commandments and Christ's injunctions.

First-hand knowledge of reality is not only beyond ambition, but also beyond conceiving.

Let them be as they are.

I am as I am, for no merit of mine and they are as they are, for no fault of theirs.

The Supreme Reality manifests itself in innumerable ways.

Infinite in number are its names and shapes.

All arise, all merge in the same ocean, the source of all is one.

Man becomes what he believes himself to be.

Abandon all ideas about yourself and you will find yourself to be the pure witness, beyond all that can happen to the body or the mind.

Q: If I become anything I think myself to be, and I start thinking that I am the Supreme Reality, will not my Supreme Reality remain a mere idea?

M: First reach that state and then ask the question.

49: Mind Causes Insecurity.

Avoid the disturbance, that is all.

To seek there is no need; you would not seek what you already have.

You yourself are God, the Supreme Reality.

To begin with, trust me, trust the Teacher.

It enables you to make the first step -- and then your trust is justified by your own experience.

I sought solace in my work and found much; but I could not move from the pit of infancy.

Finally, I turned to spiritual search and I am on this line steadily for many years.

But, in a way it is the same old search for mother's love, call it God or Atma or Supreme Reality.

Basically I want to love and be loved; unfortunately the so-called religious people are against life and all for the mind.

When faced with life's needs and urges, they begin by classifying, abstracting and conceptualising and then make the classification more important than life itself.

You are the common factor, the only link between the minds.

Being is consciousness; 'I am' applies to all.

Q: The Supreme Reality (Parabrahman) may be present in all of us.

But of what use is it to us?

M: You are like a man who says: 'I need a place where to keep my things, but of what use is space to me?

M: You are like a man who says: 'I need a place where to keep my things, but of what use is space to me?

' or 'I need milk, tea, coffee or soda, but for water I have no use'.

Don't you see that the Supreme Reality is what makes everything possible?

But if you ask of what use is it to you, I must answer: 'None'.

In matters of daily life the knower of the real has no advantage: he may be at a disadvantage rather: being free from greed and fear, he does not protect himself.

There must be love in the relation between the person who says 'I am' and the observer of that 'I am'.

As long as the observer, the inner self, the 'higher' self, considers himself apart from the observed, the 'lower' self, despises it and condemns it, the situation is hopeless.

It is only when the observer (vyakta) accepts the person (vyakti) as a projection or manifestation of himself, and, so to say, takes the self into the Self, the duality of 'I' and 'this' goes and in the identity of the outer and the inner the Supreme Reality manifests itself.

This union of the seer and the seen happens when the seer becomes conscious of himself as the seer, he is not merely interested in the seen, which he is anyhow, but also interested in being interested, giving attention to attention, aware of being aware.

Affectionate awareness is the crucial factor that brings Reality into focus.

When it happens you cannot say why it happens and you merely cover up your ignorance by calling it karma or Grace, or the Will of God.

Q: Krishnamurti says that Guru is not needed.

M: Somebody must tell you about the Supreme Reality and the way that leads to it.

Krishnamurti is doing nothing else.

In a way he is right -- most of the so-called disciples do not trust their Gurus; they disobey them and finally abandon them.

All the endless arguments about the mind are produced by the mind itself, for its own protection, continuation and expansion.

It is the blank refusal to consider the convolutions and convulsions of the mind that can take you beyond it.

Q: Sir, I am an humble seeker, while you are the Supreme Reality itself.

Now the seeker approaches the Supreme in order to be enlightened.

What does the Supreme do?

Questioner: Are we permitted to request you to tell us the manner of your realisation?

Maharaj: Somehow it was very simple and easy in my case.

My Guru, before he died, told me: Believe me, you are the Supreme Reality.

Don't doubt my words, don't disbelieve me.

I am telling you the truth -- act on it.

Nor was I told so inwardly.

In fact, it was only in the beginning when I was making efforts, that I was passing through some strange experiences; seeing lights, hearing voices, meeting gods and goddesses and conversing with them.

Once the Guru told me: 'You are the Supreme Reality', I ceased having visions and trances and became very quiet and simple.

I found myself desiring and knowing less and less, until I could say in utter astonishment: 'I know nothing, I want nothing.

M: I was not given any image, nor did I have one.

M: There was never any journey.

I am, as I always was.

Q: What was the Supreme Reality you were supposed to reach?

M: I was undeceived, that is all.

I used to create a world and populate it -- now I don't do it any more.

Q: Well, what are we all after?

Some truth, some inner certainty, some real happiness.

In the various schools of self-realisation there is so much talk of awareness, that one ends with the impression that awareness itself is the supreme reality.

Is it so?

The body is looked after by the brain, the brain is illumined by consciousness; awareness watches over consciousness; is there anything beyond awareness?

Just trust me and live by trusting me.

I shall not mislead you.

You are the Supreme Reality beyond the world and its creator, beyond consciousness and its witness, beyond all assertions and denials.

Remember it, think of it, act on it.

Abandon all sense of separation, see yourself in all and act accordingly.

Some Gurus of the Sampradaya lay stress on bhakti, devotion; others on jnana, knowledge; still others on yoga, the union with the ultimate.

In the fourteenth century we find Svatmarama Svami, the great Hathayogin, bemoaning 'the darkness arising out of multiplicity of opinions' to displel which he lit the lamp of his famous work Hathayogapradipika.

According to some learned commentators, the Nath Gurus propound that the entire creation is born out of nada (sound), the divine principle, and bindu (light), the physical principle and the Supreme Reality from which these two principles emanate is Shiva.

Liberation according to them is merging of the soul into Shiva through the process of laya, dissolution of the human ego, the sense of I-ness.

In the day-to-day instructions to their devotees, however, the Nath Gurus seldom refer to the metaphysics discovered by the scholars in their teachings.

In the day-to-day instructions to their devotees, however, the Nath Gurus seldom refer to the metaphysics discovered by the scholars in their teachings.

In fact their approach is totally non- metaphysical, simple and direct.

While the chanting of sacred hyms and devotional songs as well as the worship of the idols is a traditional feature of the sect, its teaching emphasises that the Supreme Reality can be realised only within the heart.

The Nath Sampradaya came to be known as Navnath Sampradaya when sometime in the remote past, the followers of the sect chose nine of their early Gurus as examplars of their creed.

Bur there is no unanimity regarding the names of these nine Masters.

But there will not be the least flaw in his understanding and compassion.

Q: I may come across a beggar, naked and hungry and ask him 'Who are you?

' He may answer: 'I am the Supreme Self'.

'Well', I say, 'suffice you are the Supreme, change your present state'.

What will he do?

Q: A day must come when the show is wound up; a man must die, a universe come to an end.

M: Just as a sleeping man forgets all and wakes up for another day, or he dies and emerges into another life, so do the worlds of desire and fear dissolve and disappear.

But the universal witness, the Supreme Self never sleeps and never dies.

Eternally the Great Heart beats and at each beat a new universe comes into being.

Q: Is he conscious?

M: How can there be relation when they are one?

All talk of separation and relation is due to the distorting and corrupting influence of 'I-am-the-body' idea.

The outer self (vyakti) is merely a projection on the body-mind of the inner self (vyakta), which again is only an expression of the Supreme Self (avyakta) which is all and none.

Q: There are teachers who will not talk of the higher self and lower self.

They address the man as if only the lower self existed.

Q: Is then your 'absolute being' (paramakash) un-consciousness?

M: The idea of un-consciousness exists in consciousness only.

Q: Then, how do you know you are in the supreme state?

M: Because I am in it.

It is the only natural state.

M: That which cannot be given name and form, for it is without quality and beyond consciousness.

You may say it is a point in consciousness, which is beyond consciousness.

Like a hole in the paper is both in the paper and yet not of paper, so is the supreme state in the very centre of consciousness, and yet beyond consciousness.

It is as if an opening in the mind through which the mind is flooded with light.

The opening is not even the light.

I know it rained, but I am not affected.

I just witnessed the rain.

Q: The fully realised man, spontaneously abiding in the supreme state, appears to eat, drink and so on.

Is he aware of it, or not?

M: That in which consciousness happens, the universal consciousness or mind, we call the ether of consciousness.

M: That in which consciousness happens, the universal consciousness or mind, we call the ether of consciousness.

All the objects of consciousness form the universe.

What is beyond both, supporting both, is the supreme state, a state of utter stillness and silence.

Whoever goes there, disappears.

It is unreachable by words, or mind.

Does not the same happens to a jnani, but more so?

M: On the level of consciousness -- yes.

In the supreme state, no.

This state is entirely one and indivisible, a single solid block of reality.

The only way of knowing it is to be it.

Is the second the supreme?

M: There are the two -- the person and the witness, the observer.

When you see them as one, and go beyond, you are in the supreme state.

It is not perceivable, because it is what makes perception possible.

It is beyond being and not being.

Q: Can I say that I am not what I am conscious of, nor am I consciousness itself?

M: As long as you are a seeker, better cling to the idea that you are pure consciousness, free from all content.

To go beyond consciousness is the supreme state.

Q: The desire for realisation, does it originate in consciousness or beyond?

M: In consciousness, of course.

It is a grievous mistake to attribute to mental constructs absolute existence.

Nothing exists by itself.

Q: You seem to identify rest with the Supreme State?

M: There is rest as a state of mind (chidaram) and there is rest as a state of being (atmaram).

The former comes and goes, while the true rest is the very heart of action.

Can I have it?

M: Of course you can, provided you are really fed up with everything, including your sadhanas.

When you demand nothing of the world, nor of God, when you want nothing, seek nothing, expect nothing then the Supreme State will come to you uninvited and unexpected!

Q: If a man engrossed in family life and in the affairs of the world does his sadhana strictly as prescribed by his scriptures, will he get results?

M: Results he will get, but he will be wrapped up in them like in a cocoon.

Q: Why should there be seeking at all.

M: Life is seeking, one cannot help seeking.

When all search ceases, it is the Supreme State.

Q: Why does the Supreme State come and go?

M: It neither comes nor goes.

M: Life is seeking, one cannot help seeking.

When all search ceases, it is the Supreme State.

Q: Why does the Supreme State come and go?

M: It neither comes nor goes.

It is.

Diversity without separateness is the Ultimate that the mind can touch.

Beyond that all activity ceases, because in it all goals are reached and all purposes fulfilled.

Q: Once the Supreme State is reached, can it be shared with others?

M: The Supreme State is universal, here and now; everybody already shares in it.

It is the state of being -- knowing and liking.

Beyond that all activity ceases, because in it all goals are reached and all purposes fulfilled.

Q: Once the Supreme State is reached, can it be shared with others?

M: The Supreme State is universal, here and now; everybody already shares in it.

It is the state of being -- knowing and liking.

Who does not like to be, or does not know his own existence?

The Supreme is both the source and the fruit of such harmony.

As I talk to you, I am in the state of detached but affectionate awareness (turiya).

When this awareness turns upon itself, you may call it the Supreme State, (turiyatita).

But the fundamental reality is beyond awareness, beyond the three states of becoming, being and not-being.

Q: How is it that here my mind is engaged in high topics and finds dwelling on them easy and pleasant.

realise that whatever there is true, noble and beautiful in the universe, it all comes from you, that you yourself are at the source of it.

The gods and goddesses that supervise the world may be most wonderful and glorious beings; yet they are like the gorgeously dressed servants who proclaim the power and the riches of their master.

Q: How does one reach the Supreme State?

M: By renouncing all lesser desires.

As long as you are pleased with the lesser, you cannot have the highest.

M: Yet I repeat -- you know it.

Do it.

Go beyond, back to your normal, natural, supreme state.

Q: I'm puzzled.

M: A speck in the eye makes you think you are blind.

He says that each has his own way to reality, and that there can be no general rule.

But, for all the gateway to reality, by whatever road one arrives to it, is the sense of 'I am'.

It is through grasping the full import of the 'I am', and going beyond it to its source, that one can realise the supreme state, which is also the primordial and the ultimate.

The difference between the beginning and the end lies only in the mind.

When the mind is dark or turbulent, the source is not perceived.