Nisargadatta Maharaj - I Am That (1973)

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You are confused, because you believe that you are in the world, not the world in you. Who came first – you or your parents? You imagine that you were born at a certain time and place, that you have a father and a mother, a body and a name. This is your sin and your calamity!

Nisargadatta Maharaj
A weak mind cannot control its own projections. Be aware, therefore, of your mind and its projections. You cannot control what you do not know. On the other hand, knowledge gives power. In practice it is very simple. To control yourself – know yourself.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
Desire what is worth desiring and desire it well. Just like you pick your way in a crowd, passing between people, so you find your way between events, without missing your general direction. It is easy, if you are earnest.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
As long as you cling to the idea that only what has name and shape exists, the Supreme will appear to you non-existing. When you understand that names and shapes are hollow shells without any content whatsoever, and what is real is nameless and formless, pure energy of life and light of consciousness, you will be at peace – immersed in the deep silence of reality.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
Reality can neither be proved nor disproved. Within the mind you cannot, beyond the mind you need not. In the real, the question 'what is real?' does not arise.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
The world and the mind are states of being. The supreme is not a state. It pervades all states, but it is not a state of something else. It is entirely uncaused, independent, complete in itself, beyond time and space, mind and matter. (…) it leaves no traces. There is nothing to recognize it by. It must be seen directly, by giving up all search for signs and approaches. When all names and forms have been given up, the real is with you. You need not seek it. Plurality and diversity are the play of the mind only. Reality is one.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
Everything is subjective, but the real is objective. (…) It does not depend on memories and expectations, desires and fears, likes and dislikes. All is seen as it is. (…) It is solid, steady, changeless, beginningless and endless, ever new, ever fresh. (…) Desirelessness and fearlessness will take you there.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
Pain and suffering are only the body and the mind screaming for attention. To go beyond the body you must be healthy; to go beyond the mind, you must have your mind in perfect order.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
The source of consciousness cannot be the object in consciousness. To know the source is to be the source. When you realize that you are not the person, but the pure and calm witness, and that fearless awareness is your very being, you are the being.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
When I say I am free, I merely state a fact. If you are an adult, you are free from infancy. I am free from all description and identification.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
All suffering is born of desire. True love is never frustrated. How can the sense of unity be frustrated? (…) Love is a state of being. Sex is energy. Love is wise, sex is blind. Once the true nature of love and sex is understood there will be no conflict or confusion.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
A liberated man is extremely law-abiding. But his laws are the laws of his real self, not of his society. These he observes, or breaks, according to circumstances and necessity. But he will never be fanciful and disorderly.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
In pure being consciousness arises; in consciousness the world appears and disappears. All there is is me, all there is is mine. Before all beginnings, after all endings – I am. All has its being in me, in the "I am," which shines in every living being.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
What has been attained may be lost again. Only when you realize the true peace, the peace you have never lost, that peace will remain with you, for it was never away. Instead of searching for what you do not have, find out what it is that you have never lost? That which is there before the beginning and after the ending of everything; that to which there is no birth, nor death.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
The entire purpose of a clean and well-ordered life is to liberate man from the thralldom of chaos and the burden of sorrow. (…) What is wrong with a life which is free from problems? Personality is merely a reflection of the real. (…) Once you realize that the person is merely a shadow of the reality, but not reality itself, you cease to fret and worry. You agree to be guided from within and life becomes a journey into the unknown.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
When you are free of the world, you can do something about it. As long as you are a prisoner of it, you are helpless to change it. On the contrary, whatever you do will aggravate the situation.

Nisargadatta Maharaj
Just know that you are above and beyond all things and thoughts. What you want to be, you are it already. (…) desire nothing, for you lack nothing. The very seeking prevents you from finding.

Nisargadatta Maharaj