Gravity is love (About Nisargadatta) door Wouter van Oord

There are a lot of weird translations of what nonduality is supposed to entail. 

They're all over the internet. 

If you are curious, just look em up! 

It entirely depends on your eagerness to spot them, or not! 

Some messages smell nice, others have bad odours. 

I personally have always been and still am a big fan of Shri Nisargadatta's communicative skills. 

I like to call him Niz, is sounds like Wizz. 

A Hero! 

Like Mickey Mouse. 

His wonderful communicationskills exell in audibility and loudness. 

No truer mutter ever sounded across the Milky Way! 

Niz has profound gravity! 

Whatever parameters that would possibly set for readers of my mutter?! 

Nisargadatta has been widely misunderstood as a teacher. 

He actually wasn't a teacher at all. 

Those who came to see him in the early days of his Bombay years have experienced a fresh taste of his vigorous presence, which however have never really been transmitted to random audiences of seekers beyond the first waves of Western sniffers who were attracted to the profound traces of spiritual teaching in terms of Advaita Vedanta, later als known as radical

nonduality. 

Westerners actually never got the feel of what Advaita Vedanta tastes like for rural Indians! 

There's no romantics in Nisargadatta's communication. 

Most Westerners don't get that! 

I'm not saying he was right or wrong in his statements.

I just love him for what he left us as his legacy. 

The sheer beauty of it! 

Much has flowered beyond his murmer ever since he passed away. 

Much confusion about what he really tried to convey lingers on as well after his demise. 

There are many teachers in his lineage that kept and still keep hammering on about what he has essentially been talking on. 

Many Advaita teachers have turned his statements into a rigid conceptual impediment to the hearing of what he actually spoke of!

Seekers therefore keep bumping into the unfathomable black wall of the Absolute! 

Most attendees in the audiences of spiritual meetings seem to have these notions, these expectations and biases towards the significance of his communications on nonduality. 

The average communications on nonduality are not the same as conversations on 'the soul' of man! 

Basically such conversation are not void of prejudices! 

To have an open mind and deeply listen to what has been been communicated by Niz is as hard as trying to breath under water.

Especially when no pointers were supplied or conveyed as a roadmap towards truth.

All notions of truth are an impediment to a profound hearing of what is spoken of. 

Nisargadatta often points accordingly to his teacher who told him that he IS without attributes, timeless and spaceless!

Believing those words was for Niz the instant cessation of fear.

Death is inevitable and cannot affect That what you are!

According to Niz the trick is in dissociating yourself from every time-bound-isness. 

It's all illusion. 

Now, here comes the massive confusion! 

It is however just a simple matter!

The inevitable has to be accepted unconditionally beyond doubt! 

You cannot cling to any concept whatsoever! 

It's like standing on the edge of a bottomless abyss, about to jump off, tacitly, and in that instant drop all fear of dying. 

This is what Niz invites you to! 

A most radical act! 

A suicidal move that goes against the wiring of your brain! 

The one that must dissappear and cease to be doesn't exist! 

It's illusion! 

To die before you die in order to live?! 

That has been the spiritual ace up the sleeve op to now! 

It's the comfort we are prone to seek and hope to find the key the highway that takes us home where we assume to belong. 

There is however no home to return to. 

That has never been in the playing. 

Reality dies in every instant and leaves us no choice to resurrect it again. 

What apparently came first will be the last!

There is no ending in the dream. 

The box is empty. 

There's no priority. 

No final truth or right direction. 

There never is! 

There is no past. 

There is no next! 

There are no edges. 

No coordinates. 

No reference points! 

Yet there's no none to be lost! 

Wouter van Oord.

The Lost satsang, Nisargadatta Maharaj, archival film 1979 (in het Engels ondertiteld)

An old document. Makers unknown. Translation checked. 

Enjoy (click here).

Milo Clark, A Day with Maharaj

"A Day with Maharaj," by Milo Clark

"Maharaj," to me, was just a temporal title of an Indian potentate until I met this lineage holder of a spiritual title [in the Navnath sampradaya], which, in this man's case suggests nothing regal, encompassing no estates, grants no domain. His physical circumstances are very simple yet apparently lacking nothing to him. The bulk of his being is entrusted to a small room, perhaps 10 by 15 feet in size, and filled with objects related to his being there as Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. The entitlement brought no affectations, only some objects related to the linkage which he did not seek. Along with the other tenants of Vanmali Bhavan (the name of the building on Tenth Lane in the Khetwadi district of Bombay, where Maharaj lives with his family), he walks down the long hall to the far end of the building to use the communal toilet faculties. With a mischievous twinkle rarely absent from his unusually bright eyes, he scoffs at all the guru business and trappings. With a sweeping wave of his hands, he says that when he goes about he is just an old man out for a walk so nobody bothers him and he can go as he pleases.

Maharaj, as most of the Westerners in attendance called him, holds court in his little room much of the day and evening. The room is reached by a small, steep ladder which looks like a fold-up attic ladder from the Indian equivalent of Sears Roebuck. He will be found near the top—to the right side in the morning and to the left later in the day. On approaching a spiritual master of a Hindu tradition, one customarily touches head to floor in respect for the tradition bearer. Given the space involved and the immediate proximity of Maharaj to the top of the ladder, a rather adept maneuver is required to bring this off with some sense of grace and proportion. A visitor learns to keep legs in the stairwell and to execute the bow on emerging. Any alternative method requires a suppleness of spine worthy of an inchworm.

The space is no more than six feet high and was created many years ago by dividing the front room of this two-room suite in half vertically. There are numerous opportunities to impale one's head. A heavy central beam, at least six by six inches, has three heavy books for hanging large bells during ceremonies. On the side of the beam facing Tenth Lane, there is a metal rod, perhaps half an inch in diameter, extending from one side of the room to another. From this rod, at its easternmost end toward the outside wall of Vanmali Bhavan, hangs a heavy brass with a base diameter of about six inches. This bell would swell the chest of any respectable yachtsman. We shall hear more about this later.

I do not know how long Maharaj has been in this space, but it feels like a very long time. Maybe as long as 50 years, since this is also the location of his beedie shop, now boarded up below, which was his business before his spiritual enlightenment and, I understand, for some years afterwards. Beedies are very potent Indian cigarettes with an acrid, quite vile-smelling smoke. They are made by rolling some crumbled tobacco in a small leaf finished off with a wisp of colored string which also clues the addict as to which end to light while holding the whole thing together. In honor of his former trade or, perhaps more accurately, in testimony to the addictive powers of the beedie, Maharaj chain-smokes the little devils. It was hinted that Maharaj still helps out on beedie rolling now and then. His son carries on the family trade in a tiny alcove shop just down the alley to the east before the tea shop on the corner.

Maharaj states his age (at the time of my visit) as 82 years of suffering in this body. He says so or, more correctly, is translated as having said so in his native Marathi, with a wry smile and toss of his eyebrows, hinting that it may not have been all that bad.

The room has a patina and shine coming from much rubbing and wiping on its objects and surfaces. The floor is covered with a collection of rugs and carpets typical of the "as-is" section of a Goodwill store. My guess, nevertheless, is that a shrewd rug merchant would be delighted with some of them.

There are two low windows, one to the south facing Tenth Lane and the other in the eastern wall about two thirds back into the room. This latter opening is to a narrow space between buildings. The view includes a bit of rusted-through, corrugated roofing fallen from the adjacent building, some crumbling masonry, and various metal-reinforcing rods festooned with bits of cloth of indeterminate ancestry and circumstance. The windows are masked on the inside by heavy wire mesh. Both walls, what little is uncovered, and wire mesh were painted the same bilious green once dear to American hospitals. On opposite sides of the room about three feet or so back from the front wall along the longer side walls are two quite old appearing but once fine mirrors now losing their silvering here and there. By carefully placing oneself, there are reflections of a multitude of self-images.

At the far interior end of the room is a wooden case and chest of drawers laden with important-looking articles and secret recesses containing items for ceremonies and Maharaj's personal needs. Toward the side and above the low windows can be found a set of cushions, a backrest and two folded animal skins lined with velvet cloth. I have not seen this group of articles used during my visits, and sense that these were used during the late-night sessions, which were attended primarily by Maharaj's Indian devotees and conducted in Marathi with no translation offered.

By the center of the wall, also on top of the case mentioned above, is an elaborate (for these circumstances) altar arrangement backed by a large, silver-framed picture or a stern-visaged Indian of apparent importance garbed in a richly decorated uniform of Western cut. My impression was that this was a previous lineage holder of the Maharaj title now held by Nisargadatta. The altar itself has many silver pieces of differing sizes and shapes. A small flame burns continuously in a tall stand centered on the picture. There are two impressive lions on duty flanking the altar and heavy drapings along the edges of the frame. The base and panels are deeply embossed silver of complex designs and reliefs. There is no doubt that this altar arrangement holds significance to those who regularly attend Maharaj in this space.

Around the perimeter, in those areas not occupied by mirrors, altar and throne cushions, a wainscoting runs along about four feet above the floor. Oh, yes, I must also mention two formidable oil paintings of the current Maharaj. One is placed to the interior side of the altar arrangement mentioned. Under this portrait and between the altar case and a big dark wooden armoire is a tiny square of floor that became my refuge and support during the painful hours spent on that hard floor. The second portrait hangs on the interior (western) wall between the mirror and the front wall. Against the opposite wall lies a pile of cushions. Upon and above the wainscoting is a collection of framed representations of human faces and bodies, mostly photographs of various vintages. I recognized several that would be of Maharaj, and one of Ramana Maharshi. Another, more a drawing than a photograph (but who is to know?), conveys the impression of Babaji, the Avatar dear to Yogananda (Founder of the Self-Realization Fellowship). The others were unknown to me and ranged from additional figures in fancy dress similar to the distinguished gentleman over the altar to those in simple dhoti or loincloth pictured in various yogic poses with faces composed in samadhi or spiritual rest. When, during a slack moment, I ventured to ask the translator whom some of these visages may represent, Maharaj (who purports to know no English) sternly wagged his finger at me, fixed me with one of his dark looks of great import and let lose a torrent of words which were translated as, "When you know who you are, you will know who they are!" That was followed instantly, if not simultaneously—so quick are his changes—by the kind of merry twinkle old Saint Nick is supposed to have given before laying finger to nose and disappearing up the chimney with a "Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night."

Minor details abound. There is a trap door with counter-weight which folds up to the interior wall. Above the trap door is a small railing to warn the unwary. At the head of the ladder, high on the wall right under the central beam, is a round, brass-cased doorbell button. This button, when pushed, rings a buzzer down in the living quarters below. Maharaj, at the start of bhajans (the chanting ceremonies), would stalk about the room banging cymbals mightily and glaring at the head of the ladder in expectation of the desired attendance of his family. They would hardly ever put in an appearance, but Maharaj would scowl and go over to push many times upon the button. Sometimes his [last surviving] daughter would come up and join in and, satisfied, Maharaj would go back to intent concentration on his cymbals.

To the front left are some small shelves with items related to housekeeping. You should also know that Maharaj sleeps in this room. The pile of cushions in the eastern corner conceals the bedding and frame which are brought out and assembled by his daughter for the afternoon nap and nighttime sleep. And, on the two window sills, both about eight inches deep (the thickness of the walls), are flower vases, water pitchers, metal stands, trays, and ashtrays. Yes, holy ashtrays (sounds like something from "L'il Orphan Annie" or "Batman" comics). Maharaj's endless succession of beedies comes out of a silver box kept by his side. The silver looks almost worn through to the wood of the box. He seemingly is involved with lighting a beedie or new stick of incense almost all the time. He used one of those Ronson type coffee-table butane lighters (given to him by some admirer) with a childlike fascination in its workings yet carried off with a casual aplomb. 

I was there during a better part of the year, I was told, yet the air in Bombay, at least during my visit, averaged a stage-two smog alert by Los Angeles standards. Maharaj carefully keeps ten or more sticks of incense burning from his seven incense holders. His favorites seemed to be "pacholi" and "Everest." At times other than discourses—i.e., bhajans, readings, puja (worship)— additional incense would be lit before the altar and at other places in the room. As though that were not enough, ritual camphor was burned at least three times daily. All of this contributes richly to the patina constantly applied and dutifully rubbed. Needless to say, the reek of Maharaj's omnipresent beedies was well camouflaged.

- Milo Clark, A Day with Maharaj

Nieuwe vertaling naar Nederlands van Prior to Consciousness van Nisargadatta Maharaj

Hier een nieuw gratis boek in het Nederlands vertaalt van Nisargadatta Maharaj! De Godfather van de Nederlandse Advaita. 

Vertaling vanuit het Engels naar de Nederlandse taal, van Prior To Conciousness van Nisargadatta Maharaj, door W. Simmers

Wij zijn hem verschrikkelijk dankbaar. 

Speciaal voor u. En gelijk maar de gratis vertaling van I Am That, het wereldboek toegevoegd, vertaalt door Wolter Keers.

En een aantal voorgelezen hoofdstukken voor mensen die niet goed meer kunnen lezen. 

Klik hier om de bestanden te kiezen.

Voorbeeld tekst:

4 april 1980 

Bezoeker: Zou Maharaj willen praten over de zegen van de goeroe? 

Maharaj: Het is de intensiteit van het geloof dat je hebt in de woorden van de goeroe, die het belangrijkst is. Als dat er eenmaal is, stroomt de zegen automatisch. Het geloof in de goeroe is gebaseerd op het bewustzijn dat je met je meedraagt, het geloof in je Zelf. De liefde voor het Zijn probeer ik naar een hoger niveau te brengen. Wat blijvend is, is deze liefde voor het Zelf waarop tempels zijn gebouwd. Dit Christus bewustzijn, is dit geloof in een persoon? Als mens werd Christus gekruisigd, maar het univer 

sele bewustzijn dat hem eigen was leeft voort.

Vertalers 

Hoewel Maharaj me (W.S.) buitenom de dagelijkste sessies met toehoorders weleens in het Engels heeft aangesproken, moet als laatste nog worden vermeld dat hij tijdens de bijeenkomsten enkel sprak in zijn eigen taal, Marathi. Hij had vaste vertalers die de vragen van de buitenlanders voor hem vertaalden en vice versa. In de gesprekken die hieronder volgen merk je dat soms aan de manier waarop sommige vragen worden gesteld (zou Maharaj iets kunnen vertellen over…) en hoe de antwoorden zijn geformu 

leerd. 

W. S. 

Nog meer kerstaanbiedingen van uitgeverij Advaita

 Klik hier voor een overzicht van alle aanbiedingen

Heerlijk. De kerst komt er weer aan. Met vele aanbiedingen tussen de 4 en 10 euro. En een  bestseller van Nisargadatta Maharaj voor slechts 20 euro. En ons best verkopende boek Pranayama speciaal voor u onder de 30 euro gehouden. 

Nisargadatta over dualiteit en non-dualiteit

Er is vaak discussie over. Sommige zeggen er is alleen non-dualiteit. Anderen zeggen, nee, er is alleen dualiteit. Wat zegt de grote meester Nisargadatta Maharaj?

   

Film with Nisargadatta Maharaj

Nisargadatta was leraar van Douwe Tiemersma, Alexander Smit, Jan van de Oever en gedeeltelijk Wolter Keers. Hier een lange film uit 2007. Wie hem gemaakt heeft is onduidelijk.

Nisargadatta was a teacher of Douwe Tiemersma, Alexander Smit, Jan van de Oever and partly Wolter Keers. Here a long film from 2007. Who made it is unclear.

Click here to start the film. Klik hier om de fim te starten

Nisargadatta Maharaj: 'Ik Ben' voorgelezen en te lezen!

Het boek 'Ik Ben' en 'Zijn' is een vertaling van het boek 'I Am That'. Nu voorgelezen voor iedereen die niet wil zelf wil of kan lezen. Maar ook als gewoon te lezen als tekst. Elke week komt er een hoofdstuk bij met een pauze in april, mei, juni en juli het lopen van de Camino van de voorlezer. 

Nisargadatta Maharaj is een van de grootste op gebied van Advaita. Deze leraar was leraar van mijn leraar Douwe Tiemersma. Maar ook van Alexander Smit. Ook Wolter Keers kwam naar hem toe en Jan van de Oever.

Luister of lees:

  https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BzovmiS98d2ycjlRZFJITmZVQ2s

Goed is .... (Nisargadatta Maharaj)

Goed is wat je Gelukkig achterlaat.

Nisargadatta Maharaj

Pas op voor de volmaakte Goeroe.
Wanneer je hem eenmaal hebt ontmoet blijf je nergens,
met je volledig weggevaagd ik-gevoel.
(Nisargadatta Maharaj)

http://uitgeverij-advaita.vrijeboeken.com/book/9789077194072-de-bron-van-het-zijn.html

Wijsheid en Liefde (Victor Hooftman)

Wijsheid en Liefde moeten allebei aanwezig zijn anders wordt het niets in het leven. Geluk is afhankelijk van die twee factoren. Zijn ze in balans dan Ananda mogelijk.

Rays of the Absolute (the Legacy of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj)

het ENE, Nisargadatta Maharaj

Enkel ‘het Ene’ verlicht het verstand, het intellect en alle zintuigen en hun objecten. Het is slechts een valse notie dat men ‘iemand’ is. Als men het idee koestert dat men een ‘lichaam’ is, dan lijkt het zo te zijn dat het lichaam alles doet: het eet, het drinkt, etc. Dit is Onwetendheid.

Siddharameshwar Maharaj – opgetekend door Nisargadatta Maharaj

5. What is Born must Die, Nisargadaata Maharaj, uit 'I am That'.

Questioner: Is the witness-consciousness permanent or not?
Maharaj: It is not permanent. The knower rises and sets with the known. That in which both the
knower and the known arise and set, is beyond time. The words permanent or eternal do not apply.
Q: In sleep there is neither the known, nor the knower. What keeps the body sensitive and
receptive?
M: Surely you cannot say the knower was absent. The experience of things and thoughts was not
there, that is all. But the absence of experience too is experience. It is like entering a dark room and
saying: 'I see nothing'. A man blind from birth knows not what darkness means. Similarly, only the
knower knows that he does not know. Sleep is merely a lapse in memory. Life goes on.
Q: And what is death?
M: It is the change in the living process of a particular body. Integration ends and disintegration
sets in.
Q: But what about the knower. With the disappearance of the body, does the knower disappear?
M: Just as the knower of the body appears at birth, so he disappears at death.
Q: And nothing remains?
M: Life remains. Consciousness needs a vehicle and an instrument for its manifestation. When life
produces another body, another knower comes into being,
Q: Is there a causal link between the successive bodyknowers,
or body-minds?
M: Yes, there is something that may be called the memory body, or causal body, a record of all that
was thought, wanted and done. It is like a cloud of images held together
Q: What is this sense of a separate existence?
M: It is a reflection in a separate body of the one reality. In this reflection the unlimited and the
limited are confused and taken to be the same. To undo this confusion is the purpose of Yoga.
Q: Does not death undo this confusion?
M: In death only the body dies. Life does not, consciousness does not, reality does not. And the life
is never so alive as after death.
Q: But does one get reborn?
M: What was born must die. Only the unborn is deathless. Find what is it that never sleeps and
never wakes, and whose pale reflection is our sense of 'I'.
Q: How am I to go about this finding out?
M: How do you go about finding anything? By keeping your mind and heart in it. Interest there must
be and steady remembrance. To remember what needs to be remembered is the secret of success.
You come to it through earnestness.
Q: Do you mean to say that mere wanting to find out is enough? Surely, both qualifications and
opportunities are needed.
M: These will come with earnestness. What is supremely important is to be free from
contradictions: the goal and the way must not be on different levels; life and light must not quarrel;
behaviour must not betray belief. Call it honesty, integrity, wholeness; you must not go back, undo,
uproot, abandon the conquered ground. Tenacity of purpose and honesty in pursuit will bring you to
your goal.
Q: Tenacity and honesty are endowments, surely! Not a trace of them I have.
M: All will come as you go on. Take the first step first. All blessings come from within. Turn within. 'l
am' you know. Be with it all the time you can spare, until you revert to it spontaneously. There is no
simpler and easier way.

4. Real World is Beyond the Mind uit 'I am That' van Nisargadatta Maharaj

Questioner: On several occasions the question was raised as to whether the universe is subject to the law of causation, or does it exist and function outside the law. You seem to hold the view that it is uncaused, that everything, however small, is uncaused, arising and disappearing for no known reason whatsoever.
Maharaj: Causation means succession in time of events in space, the space being physical or mental. Time, space, causation are mental categories, arising and subsiding with the mind.
Q: As long as the mind operates, causation is a valid law.
M: Like everything mental, the so-called law of causation contradicts itself. No thing in existence has a particular cause; the entire universe contributes to the existence of even the smallest thing; nothing could be as it is without the universe being what it is. When the source and ground of everything is the only cause of everything, to speak of causality as a universal law is wrong. The universe is not bound by its content, because its potentialities are infinite; besides it is a manifestation, or expression of a principle fundamentally and totally free.
Q: Yes, one can see that ultimately to speak of one thing being the only cause of another thing is altogether wrong. Yet, in actual life we invariably initiate action with a view to a result.
M: Yes, there is a lot of such activity going on, because of ignorance. 'Would people know that nothing can happen unless the entire universe makes it happen, they would achieve much more with less expenditure of energy.
Q: If everything is an expression of the totality of causes, how can we talk of a purposeful action towards an achievement?
M: The very urge to achieve is also an expression of the total universe. It merely shows that the energy potential has risen at a particular point. It is the illusion of time that makes you talk of causality. When the past and the future are seen in the timeless now, as parts of a common pattern, the idea of cause-effect loses its validity and creative freedom takes its place.
Q: Yet, I cannot see how can anything come to be without a cause.
M: When I say a thing is without a cause, I mean it can be without a particular cause. Your own mother was needed to give you birth; But you could not have been born without the sun and the earth. Even these could not have caused your birth without your own desire to be born. It is desire that gives birth, that gives name and form. The desirable is imagined and wanted and manifests itself as something tangible or conceivable. Thus is created the world in which we live, our personal world. The real world is beyond the mind's ken; we see it through the net of our desires, divided into pleasure and pain, right and wrong, inner and outer. To see the universe as it is, you must step beyond the net. It is not hard to do so, for the net is full of holes.
Q: What do you mean by holes? And how to find them?
M: Look at the net and its many contradictions. You do and undo at every step. You want peace, love, happiness and work hard to create pain, hatred and war. You want longevity and overeat, you want friendship and exploit. See your net as made of such contradictions and remove them -- your very seeing them will make them go.
Q: Since my seeing the contradiction makes it go, is there no causal link between my seeing and its going?
M: Causality, even as a concept, does not apply to chaos.
Q: To what extent is desire a causal factor?
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 try to trace how a thing happens, but you cannot find out why a thing is as it is. A thing is as it is, because the universe is as it is.

Nisargadatta Maharaj; 3. The Living Present

Questioner: As I can see, there is nothing wrong with my body nor with my real being. Both are not of my making and need not be improved upon. What has gone wrong is the ‘inner body’, call it mind, consciousness, antahkarana, whatever the name.
Maharaj: What do you consider to be wrong with your mind?
Q: It is restless, greedy of the pleasant and afraid of the unpleasant.
M: What is wrong with its seeking the pleasant and shirking the unpleasant? Between the banks of pain and pleasure the river of life flows. It is only when the mind refuses to flow with life, and gets stuck at the banks, that it becomes a problem. By flowing with life I mean acceptance -- letting come what comes and go what goes. Desire not, fear not, observe the actual, as and when it happens, for you are not what happens, you are to whom it happens. Ultimately even the observer you are not. You are the ultimate potentiality of which the all-embracing consciousness is the manifestation and expression.
Q: Yet, between the body and the self there lies a cloud of thoughts and feelings, which neither server the body nor the self. These thoughts and feelings are flimsy, transient and meaningless, mere mental dust that blinds and chokes, yet they are there, obscuring and destroying.
M: Surely, the memory of an event cannot pass for the event itself. Nor can the anticipation. There is something exceptional, unique, about the present event, which the previous, or the coming do not have. There is a livingness about it, an actuality; it stands out as if illuminated. There is the ‘stamp of reality’ on the actual, which the past and the future do not have.
Q: What gives the present that 'stamp of reality’?
M: There is nothing peculiar in the present event to make it different from the past and future. For a moment the past was actual and the future will become so. What makes the present so different? Obviously, my presence. I am real for I am always now, in the present, and what is with me now shares in my reality. The past is in memory, the future -- in imagination. There is nothing in the present event itself that makes it stand out as real. It may be some simple, periodical occurrence, like the striking of the clock. In spite of our knowing that the successive strokes are identical, the present stroke is quite different from the previous one and the next -- as remembered, or expected. A thing focussed in the now is with me, for I am ever present; it is my own reality that I impart to the present event.
Q: But we deal with things remembered as if they were real.
M: We consider memories, only when they come into the present The forgotten is not counted until one is reminded -- which implies, bringing into the now.
Q: Yes, I can see there is in the now some unknown factor that gives momentary reality to the transient actuality.
M: You need not say it is unknown, for you see it in constant operation. Since you were born, has it ever changed? Things and thoughts have been changing all the time. But the feeling that what is now is real has never changed, even in dream.
Q: In deep sleep there is no experience of the present reality.
M: The blankness of deep sleep is due entirely to the lack of specific memories. But a general memory of well-being is there. There is a difference in feeling when we say ‘I was deeply asleep’ from ‘I was absent’.
Q: We shall repeat the question we began with: between life’s source and life’s expression (which is the body), there is the mind and its ever-changeful states. The stream of mental states is endless, meaningless and painful. Pain is the constant factor. What we call pleasure is but a gap, an interval between two painful states. Desire and fear are the weft and warp of living, and both are made of pain. Our question is: can there be a happy mind?
M: Desire is the memory of pleasure and fear is the memory of pain. Both make the mind restless. Moments of pleasure are merely gaps in the stream of pain. How can the mind be happy?
Q: That is true when we desire pleasure or expect pain. But there are moments of unexpected, unanticipated joy. Pure joy, uncontaminated by desire -- unsought, undeserved, God-given.
M: Still, joy is joy only against a background of pain.
Q: Is pain a cosmic fact, or purely mental?
M: The universe is complete and where there is completeness, where nothing lacks, what can give pain?
Q: The Universe may be complete as a whole, but incomplete in details.
M: A part of the whole seen in relation to the whole is also complete. Only when seen in isolation it becomes deficient and thus a seat of pain. What makes for isolation?
Q: Limitations of the mind, of course. The mind cannot see the whole for the part.
M: Good enough. The mind, by its very nature, divides and opposes. Can there be some other mind, which unites and harmonises, which sees the whole in the part and the part as totally related to the whole?
Q: The other mind -- where to look for it?
M: In the going beyond the limiting, dividing and opposing mind. In ending the mental process as we know it. When this comes to an end, that mind is born.
Q: In that mind, the problem of joy and sorrow exist no longer?
M: Not as we know them, as desirable or repugnant. It becomes rather a question of love seeking expression and meeting with obstacles. The inclusive mind is love in action, battling against circumstances, initially frustrated, ultimately victorious.
Q: Between the spirit and the body, is it love that provides the bridge?
M: What else? Mind creates the abyss, the heart crosses it.

2. Obsession with the body; Nisargadatta Maharaj

Questioner: Maharaj, you are sitting in front of me and I am here at your feet. What is the basic difference between us? Maharaj: There is no basic difference. Q: Still there must be some real difference, I come to you, you do not come to me. M: Because you imagine differences, you go here and there in search of ‘superior’ people. Q: You too are a superior person. You claim to know the real, while I do not. M: Did I ever tell you that you do not know and, therefore, you are inferior? Let those who invented such distinctions prove them. I do not claim to know what you do not. In fact, I know much less than you do. Q: Your words are wise, your behaviour noble, your grace all-powerful. M: I know nothing about it all and see no difference between you and me. My life is a succession of events, just like yours. Only I am detached and see the passing show as a passing show, while you stick to things and move along with them. Q: What made you so dispassionate? M: Nothing in particular. It so happened that I trusted my Guru. He told me I am nothing but my self and I believed him. Trusting him, I behaved accordingly and ceased caring for what was not me, nor mine. Q: Why were you lucky to trust your teacher fully, while our trust is nominal and verbal? M: Who can say? It happened so. Things happen without cause and reason and, after all, what does it matter, who is who? Your high opinion of me is your opinion only. Any moment you may change it. Why attach importance to opinions, even your own? Q: Still, you are different. Your mind seems to be always quiet and happy. And miracles happen round you. M: I know nothing about miracles, and I wonder whether nature admits exceptions to her laws, unless we agree that everything is a miracle. As to my mind, there is no such thing. There is consciousness in which everything happens. It is quite obvious and within the experience of everybody. You just do not look carefully enough. Look well, and see what I see. Q: What do you see? M: I see what you too could see, here and now, but for the wrong focus of your attention. You give no attention to your self. Your mind is all with things, people and ideas, never with your self. Bring your self into focus, become aware of your own existence. See how you function, watch the motives and the results of your actions. Study the prison you have built around yourself by inadvertence. By knowing what you are not, you come to know your self. The way back to your self is through refusal and rejection. One thing is certain: the real is not imaginary, it is not a product of the mind. Even the sense ‘I am’ is not continuous, though it is a useful pointer; it shows where to seek, but not what to seek. Just have a good look at it. Once you are convinced that you cannot say truthfully about your self anything except ‘I am’, and that nothing that can be pointed at, can be your self, the need for the ‘I am’ is over -- you are no longer intent on verbalising what you are. All you need is to get rid of the tendency to define your self. All definitions apply to your body only and to its expressions. Once this obsession with the body goes, you will revert to your natural state, spontaneously and effortlessly. The only difference between us is that I am aware of my natural state, while you are bemused. Just like gold made into ornaments has no advantage over gold dust, except when the mind makes it so, so are we one in being -- we differ only in appearance. We discover it by being earnest, by searching, enquiring, questioning daily and hourly, by giving one's life to this discovery.

1. The Sense of ‘I am’

1. The Sense of ‘I am’

Q: It is a matter of daily experience that on waking up the world suddenly appears. Where does it come from?
M: Before anything can come into being there must be somebody to whom it comes. All
appearance and disappearance presupposes a change against some changeless background.
Q: Before waking up I was unconscious.
M: In what sense? Having forgotten, or not having experienced? Don’t you experience even when unconscious? C: is it a proof of non-existence?
And can you validly talk about your own non-existence as an actual experience? You cannot even say that your mind did not exist. Did you not wake up on being called? And on waking up, was it not the sense ‘I am’ that came first? Some seed consciousness must be existing even during sleep, or swoon. O: ‘I am -- the body -- in the world.’ It may appear to arise in succession but in fact it is all simultaneous, a single idea of having a body in a world. Can there
be the sense of ‘I am’ without being somebody or other?
Q: I am always somebody with its memories and habits. I know no other ‘I am’.
M: Maybe something prevents you from knowing? When you do not know something which others know, what do you do?
Q: I seek the source of their knowledge under their instruction.
M: Is it not important to you to know whether you are a mere body, or something else? Or, maybe nothing at all? Don’t you see that all your problems are your body’s problems -- food, clothing, shelter, family, friends, name, fame, security, survival -- all these lose their meaning the moment you realise that you may not be a mere body.
Q: What benefit is there in knowing that I am not the body?
M: Even to say that you are not the body is not quite true. In a way you are all the bodies, hearts and minds and much more. Go deep into the sense of ‘I am’ and you will find. How do you find a thing you have mislaid or forgotten? You keep it in your mind until you recall it. The sense of being, of 'I am' is the first to emerge. Ask yourself whence it comes, or just watch it quietly. When the mindstays in the 'I am' without moving, you enter a state which cannot be verbalised but can be experienced. All you need to do is try and try again. After all the sense ‘I am’ is always with you, only you have attached all kinds of things to it -- body, feelings, thoughts, ideas, possessions etc. All these self-identifications are misleading. Because of them you take yourself to be what you are not.
Q: Then what am I?
M: It is enough to know what you are not. You need not know what you are. For as long as knowledge means description in terms of what is already known, perceptual, or conceptual, there can be no such thing as self-knowledge, for what you are cannot be described, except as except as total negation. A: ‘I am not this, I am not that’. You cannot meaningfully say ‘this is what I am’. It just makes no sense. What you can point out as 'this' or 'that' cannot be yourself.
Surely, you can not be 'something' else. You are nothing perceivable, or imaginable. Yet, without you there can be neither perception nor imagination. You observe the heart feeling, the mind thinking, the body acting; the very act of perceiving shows that you are not what you perceive. Can there be perception, experience without you? An experience must ‘belong'. Somebody must come and declare it as his own. Without an experiencer the experience is not real. It is the experiencer
that imparts reality to experience. An experience which you cannot have, of what value is it to you?
Q: The sense of being an experiencer, the sense of ‘I am’, is it not also an experience?
M: Obviously, every thing experienced is an experience. And in every experience there arises the experiencer of it. Memory creates the illusion of continuity. In reality each experience has its own experiencer and the sense of identity is due to the common factor at the root of all experiencerexperience relations. Identity and continuity are not the same. Just as each flower has its own colour, but all colours are caused by the same light, so do many experiences appear in the undivided and indivisible awareness, each separate in memory, identical in essence. This essence is the root, the foundation, the timeless and spaceless 'possibility' of all experience.
Q: How do I get at it?
M: You need not get at it, for you are it. 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.

Inleiding Douwe Tiemersma in het beroemde boek 'I am That' van Nisargadatta Maharaj

There are various religions and systems of philosophy which claim to endow human life with meaning. But they suffer from certain inherent limitations. They couch into fine-sounding words their
traditional beliefs and ideologies, theological or philosophical. Believers, however, discover the limited range of meaning and applicability of these words, sooner or later. They get disillusioned
and tend to abandon the systems, in the same way as scientific theories are abandoned, when they are called in question by too much contradictory empirical data.


When a system of spiritual interpretation turns out to be unconvincing and not capable of being rationally justified, many people allow themselves to be converted to some other system. After a while, however, they find limitations and contradictions in the other system also. In this unrewarding pursuit of acceptance and rejection what remains for them is only scepticism and agnosticism, leading to a fatuous way of living, engrossed in mere gross utilities of life, just consuming material goods. 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.


No book of spiritual teachings, however, can replace the presence of the teacher himself. 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. It is authentic. Having experienced the verity of his words in the pages of I AM THAT, and being inspired by it, many from the West have found their way to Maharaj to seek enlightenment.


Maharaj’s interpretation of truth is not different from that of Jnana Yoga/Advaita Vedanta. But, he has a way of his own. The multifarious forms around us, says he, are constituted of the five elements. They are transient, and in a state of perpetual flux. Also they are governed by the law of causation. All this applies to the body and the mind also, both of which are transient and subject to birth and death. We know that only by means of the bodily senses and the mind can the world be known. As in the Kantian view, it is a correlate of the human knowing subject, and, therefore, has the fundamental structure of our way of knowing. This means that time, space and causality are not ‘objective’, or extraneous entities, but mental categories in which everything is moulded. The existence and form of all things depend upon the mind. Cognition is a mental product. And the world as seen from the mind is a subjective and private world, which changes continuously in accordance with the restlessness of the mind itself.


In opposition to the restless mind, with its limited categories -- intentionality, subjectivity, duality etc.
-- stands supreme the limitless sense of ‘I am’. The only thing I can be sure about is that ‘I am’; not as a thinking ‘I am’ in the Cartesian sense, but without any predicates. Again and again Maharaj draws our attention to this basic fact in order to make us realise our ‘I am-ness’ and thus get rid of all self-made prisons. He says: The only true statement is ‘I am’. All else is mere inference. By no effort can you change the ‘I am’ into ‘I am-not’.


Behold, the real experiencer is not the mind, but myself, the light in which everything appears. Self is the common factor at the root of all experience, the awareness in which everything happens. The entire field of consciousness is only as a film, or a speck, in ‘I am’. This ‘I am-ness’ is, being conscious of consciousness, being aware of itself. And it is indescribable, because it has no attributes. It is only being my self, and being my self is all that there is. Everything that exists, exists as my self. There is nothing which is different from me. There is no duality and, therefore, no pain. There are no problems. It is the sphere of love, in which everything is perfect. What happens, happens spontaneously, without intentions -- like digestion, or the growth of the hair. Realise this, and be free from the limitations of the mind.


Behold, the deep sleep in which there is no notion of being this or that. Yet ‘I am’ remains. And behold the eternal now. Memory seems to being things to the present out of the past, but all that happens does happen in the present only. It is only in the timeless now that phenomena manifest themselves. Thus, time and causality do not apply in reality. I am prior to the world, body and mind.
I am the sphere in which they appear and disappear. I am the source of them all, the universal power by which the world with its bewildering diversity becomes manifest.


In spite of its primevality, however, the sense of ‘I am’ is not the Highest. It is not the Absolute. The sense, or taste of ‘I am-ness’ is not absolutely beyond time. Being the essence of the five elements, it, in a way, depends upon the world. It arises from the body, which, in its turn, is built by food, consisting of the elements. It disappears when the body dies, like the spark extinguishes when the incense stick burns out. When pure awareness is attained, no need exists any more, not even for ‘I am’, which is but a useful pointer, a direction-indicator towards the Absolute. The awareness ‘I am’ then easily ceases. What prevails is that which cannot be described, that which is beyond words. It is this ‘state’ which is most real, a state of pure potentiality, which is prior to everything. 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’. He urges you to study the workings of the body and the mind with solemn and intense concentration, to recognise that you are neither of them and to cast them off. He suggests that you return again and again to ‘I am’ until it is your only abode, outside of which nothing exists; until the ego as a limitation of ‘I am’, has disappeared. It is then that the highest realisation will just happen effortlessly.


Mark the words of the jnani, which cut across all concepts and dogmas. Maharaj says: “until once becomes self-realised, attains to knowledge of the self, transcends the self, until then, all these cock-and-bull stories are provided, all these concepts.” Yes, they are concepts, even ‘I am’ is, but surely there are no concepts more precious. 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 Tiemersma
Philosophical Faculty
Erasmus Universiteit
Rotterdam, Holland


June, 1981