Nonduality Presents
ASMI
Excerpts from Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj's I AM THAT
compiled and edited by Miguel-Angel Carrasco
Numbers after quotations refer to pages of the edition by Chetana (P) Ltd, Bombay, 1992.
I am the Self, the
Witness of Consciousness,
pure Awareness.
I am only the Self ,
which is universal and
imagines itself to be the outer self, a person.
Somebody, anybody, will tell you that you are pure
consciousness, not a body-mind. Accept it as a possibility and
investigate earnestly. You may discover that it is not so, that
you are not a person bound in space and time. Think of the
difference it would make! (441-2)
The personality (vyakti) is but a product of imagination. The
self (vyakta) is the victim of this imagination. It is the taking
yourself to be what you are not that binds you. The person cannot
be said to exist on its own rights; it is the self that believes
there is a person and is conscious of being it. (143)
How can there be two selves in one body? The "I am" is
one. There is no "higher I-am" and "lower
I-am". All kinds of states of consciousness are presented to
awareness and there is self-identification with them. The objects
of observation are not what they appear to be, and the attitudes
they are met with are not what they need to be. If you think that
Buddha, Christ of Krishnamurti speak to the person, you are
mistaken. They know well that the vyakti , the outer self, is but
a shadow of the vyakta , the inner self, and they address and
admonish the vyakta only. They tell him to give attention to the
outer self, to guide it and help it, to feel responsible for it;
in short, to be fully aware of it. Awareness comes from the
Supreme and pervades the inner self; the so-called outer self is
only that part of one's being of which one is not aware. One may
be conscious, for every being is conscious, but one is not aware.
What is included in awareness becomes the inner and partakes of
the inner. (294)
The self you want to know, is it some second self? Are you made
of several selves? Surely, there is only one self and you are
that self. The self you are is the only self there is. Remove and
abandon your wrong ideas about yourself and there it is, in all
its glory. (516-7)
There is no second, or higher self to search for. You are the
highest self, only give up the false ideas you have about your
self. (517)
Your own self is your ultimate teacher (sadguru). The outer
teacher (guru) is merely a milestone. It is only your inner
teacher that will walk with you to the goal, for it is the goal.
(51)
Yoga is the work of the inner self (vyakta) on the outer self
(vyakti). All that the outer does is merely in response to the
inner. It [the outer self] has some control over the body and can
improve its posture and breathing. Over the mind's thoughts and
feelings it has little mastery, for it is itself the mind. It is
the inner that can control the outer. The outer will be wise to
obey. The inner is the source of inspiration, the outer is moved
by memory. The source is untraceable, while all memory begins
somewhere. Thus the outer is always determined, while the inner
cannot be held in words. The mistake of students consists in
their imagining the inner to be something to get hold of, and
forgetting that all perceivables are transient and therefore
unreal. Only that which makes perception possible, call it Life
or Brahman, or what you like, is real. (74-5)
The self by its nature knows itself only. For lack of experience
whatever it perceives it takes to be itself. Battered, it learns
to look out (viveka) and to live alone (vairagya). When right
behaviour (uparati) becomes normal, a powerful inner urge
(mukmukshutva) makes it seek its source. The candle of the body
is lighted and all becomes clear and bright. (110)
You can observe the observation, but not the observer. You know
you are the ultimate observer by direct insight, not by a logical
process based on observation. You are what you are, but you know
what you are not. The self is known as being, the not-self is
known as transient. But in reality all is in the mind. The
observed, observation and observer are mental constructs. The
self alone is. (219)
The self is universal and its aims are universal. There is
nothing personal about the self. (212)
I am not an object in Consciousness
but its source,
its Witness, pure shapeless Awareness.
You are and I am. But only as points in consciousness; we are
nothing apart from consciousness. (92)
You are not the body. You are the immensity and infinity of
consciousness. (264)
The source of consciousness cannot be an 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. It is
the source, the inexhaustible Possibility. (65)
Discard all you are not and go ever deeper. Just as a man digging
a well discards what is not water, until he reaches the
water-bearing strata, so must you discard what is not your own,
till nothing is left which you can disown. You will find that
what is left is nothing which the mind can hook on to. You are
not even a human being. You just are - a point of awareness,
co-extensive with time and space and beyond both, the ultimate
cause, itself uncaused. If you ask me "Who are you?",
my answer would be: "Nothing in particular. Yet, I am."
(318)
I am not my body, nor do I need it. I am the witness only. I have
no shape of my own. You are so accustomed to think of yourself as
bodies having consciousness that you just cannot imagine
consciousness as having bodies. Once you realize that bodily
existence is but a state of mind, a movement in consciousness,
that the ocean of consciousness is infinite and eternal, and
that, when in touch with consciousness, you are the witness only,
you will be able to withdraw beyond consciousness altogether.
(327)
Do realize that it is not you who moves from dream to dream, but
the dreams flow before you, and you are the immutable witness. No
happening affects your real being - that is the absolute truth.
(333)
The witness is not a person. The person comes into being when
there is a basis for it, an organism, a body. In it, the absolute
is reflected as awareness. Pure awareness becomes self-awareness.
When there is a self, self-awareness is the witness. 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. Awareness
becomes consciousness when it has an object. The object changes
all the time. In consciousness there is movement; awareness by
itself is motionless and timeless, here and now. (233)
The difference between the person and the witness is as between
not knowing and knowing oneself. The person is in unrest and
resistance to the very end. It is the witness that works on the
person, on the totality of its illusions, past, present and
future. (358)
[The person and the witness] both are modes of consciousness. In
one, you desire and fear; in the other, you are unaffected by
pleasure and pain, and are not ruffled by events. You let them
come and go. (190)
The pleasure to be is the simplest form of self-love, which later
grows into love of the self. Be like an infant with nothing
standing between the body and the self. The constant noise of the
psychic life is absent. In deep silence, the self contemplates
the body. It is like the white paper on which nothing is written
yet. Be like that infant, instead of trying to be this or that,
be happy to be. You will be a fully awakened witness of the field
of consciousness. But there should be no feelings and ideas to
stand between you and the field. (216)
Only the feeling "I am",
though in the World,
is not of the World nor can be denied.
A reflection of the watcher in the mind creates the sense of
"I" and the person acquires an apparently independent
existence. In reality there is no person, only the watcher
identifying himself with the "I" and the
"mine". The teacher tells the watcher: you are not
this, there is nothing of yours in this, except the little point
of "I am", which is the bridge between the watcher and
his dream. "I am this, I am that" is dream, while pure
"I am" has the stamp of reality on it. (343)
That which makes you think that you are a human is not human. It
is but a dimensionless point of consciousness, a conscious
nothing. All you can say about yourself is "I am". You
are pure being-awareness-bliss. To realize 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.
(316)
Only your sense "I am", though in the world, is not of
the world. By no effort of logic or imagination can you change
the "I am" into "I am not". In the very
denial of your being you assert it. (200)
It [the "I am"] is unreal when we say: "I am this,
I am that". It is real when we mean "I am not this, nor
that". (395)
To identify oneself with the particular is all the sin there is.
The impersonal is real, the personal appears and disappears.
"I am" is the impersonal Being. "I am this"
is the person. The person is relative, and the pure Being
fundamental. (71)