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.
The Way to Self-Realization: Part Six
Meditation, Witness attitude, Awareness.
Meditation
With deep and quiet breathing, vitality will improve, which will
influence the brain and help the mind to grow pure and stable and
fit for meditation. Without vitality, little can be done, hence
the importance of its protection and increase. Posture and
breathing are a part of yoga, for the body must be healthy and
well under control, but too much concentration on the body
defeats its own purpose, for it is the mind that is primary in
the beginning. When the mind has been put to rest and disturbs no
longer the inner space (chidakash), the body acquires a new
meaning and its transformation becomes both necessary and
possible. (496-7)
Whatever you may have to do, watch your mind. Also you must have
moments of complete inner peace and quiet, when your mind is
absolutely still. If you miss it, you miss the entire thing. If
you do not, the silence of the mind will dissolve and absorb all
else. (215)
Keep quiet. Do your work in the world, but inwardly keep quiet.
Then all will come to you. Do not rely on your work for
realization. It may profit others, but not you. Your hope lies in
keeping silent in your mind and quiet in your heart. Realized
people are very quiet. (402)
Give all your attention to the question: "What is it that
makes me conscious?", until your mind becomes the question
itself and cannot think of anything else. (447)
Try to be, only to be. The all-important word is "try".
Allot enough time daily for sitting quietly and trying, just
trying, to go beyond the personality with its addictions and
obsessions. Don't ask how, it cannot be explained. You just keep
on trying until you succeed. If you persevere, there can be no
failure. What matters supremely is sincerity, earnestness; you
must really have had surfeit of being the person you are; now see
the urgent need of being free of this unnecessary
self-identification with a bundle of memories and habits. This
steady resistance against the unnecessary is the secret of
success. (509)
The value of regular meditation is that it takes you away from
the humdrum of daily routine and reminds you that your not what
you believe yourself to be. (492)
Meditation is a deliberate attempt to pierce into the higher
states of consciousness and finally go beyond it. The art of
meditation is the art of shifting the focus of attention to ever
subtler levels, without losing one's grip on the levels left
behind. The final stage of meditation is reached when the sense
of identity goes beyond the "I-am-so-and-so", beyond
"so-I-am", beyond "I-am-the-witness-only",
beyond "there-is", beyond all ideas into the
impersonally personal pure being. But you must be energetic when
you take to meditation. It is definitely not a part-time
occupation. Limit your interests and activities to what is needed
for you and your dependents' barest needs. Save all your energies
and time for breaking the wall your mind had built around you.
Believe me, you will not regret. (413)
It has nothing to do with effort. Just turn away, look between
the thoughts, rather than at the thoughts. When you happen to
walk in a crowd, you do not fight every man you meet, you just
find your way between. When you fight, you invite a fight. But
when you do not resist, you meet no resistance. When you refuse
to play the game, you are out of it. (349)
No particular thought can be mind's natural state, only silence.
Not the idea of silence, but silence itself. When the mind is in
its natural state, it reverts to silence spontaneously after
every experience, or, rather, every experience happens against
the background of silence. (242)
Keep quiet, undisturbed, and the wisdom and the power will come
on their own. You need not hanker. Wait in silence of the heart
and mind. It is very easy to be quiet, but willingness is rare.
(494)
To go beyond the mind, you must be silent and quiet. Peace and
silence, silence and peace - this is the way beyond. Stop asking
questions. (450)
To go beyond, you need alert immobility, quiet attention. (217)
These moments of inner quiet will burn out all obstacles without
fail. Don't doubt its efficacy. Try it. (217)
Meditation will help you to find your bonds, loosen them, untie
them and cast your moorings. When you are no longer attached to
anything, you have done your share. The rest will be done for
you. (54)
When you are not in a hurry and the mind is free from anxieties,
it becomes quiet and in the silence something may be heard which
is ordinarily too fine and subtle for perception. The mind must
be open and quiet to see. You need not worry about your worries.
Just be. Do not try to be quiet; do not make "being
quiet" into a task to be performed. Don't be restless about
"being quiet", miserable about "being happy".
Just be aware that you are, and remain aware. Don't say
"Yes, I am. What next?" There is no "next" in
"I am". It is a timeless state. (508)
When you sit quiet and watch yourself, all kinds of things may
come to the surface. Do nothing about them, don't react to them;
as they have come so will they go, by themselves. All that
matters is mindfulness, total awareness of oneself, or rather of
one's mind.
(219)
Silence is the main factor. In peace and silence you grow. (375)
In peace and silence, the skin of the "I" dissolves and
the inner and the outer become one. (483)
Witness attitude
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. (226)
There is the identity of what you are, and there is the person
superimposed on it. All you know is the person. The identity,
which is not a person, you do not know, for you never doubted,
never asked yourself the crucial question: "Who am I".
The identity is the witness of the person, and sadhana consists
in shifting the emphasis from the superficial and changeful
person to the immutable and ever-present witness. (442)
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'm this, I'm that",
continues, but only as a part of the objective world. Its
identification with the witness snaps. (14)
[For a Westerner] the right procedure is to adhere to the thought
that he is the ground of all knowledge, the immutable and
perennial awareness of all that happens to the senses and the
mind. If he keeps it in mind all the time, aware and alert, he is
bound to break the bounds of non-awareness and emerge into pure
life, light and love. The idea "I am the witness only"
will purify the body and the mind and open the eye of wisdom.
Then man goes beyond illusion and his heart is free of all
desires. (76)
Words can bring you only up to their own limit; to go beyond, you
must abandon them. Remain as the silent witness only. (451)
If you are angry or in pain, separate yourself from anger and
pain and watch them. Externalization is the first step to
liberation. Step away and look. The physical events will go on
happenig, but by themselves they have no importance. It is the
mind alone that matters. If you could only keep quiet, clear of
memories and expectations, you would be able to discern the
beautiful pattern of events. It is your restlessness that causes
chaos. (247)
Watch your thoughts as you watch the street traffic. People come
and go; you register without response. It may not be easy in the
beginning, but with some practice you will find that your mind
can function on many levels at the same time and you can be aware
of them all. It is only when you have a vested interest in any
particular level that your attention gets caught in it and you
black out on other levels. (240)
You need not stop thinking. Just cease being interested. It is
disinterestedness that liberates. Don't hold on, that is all.
(241)
Refuse attention [to things], let things come and go. 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.
Dispassion, detachment, freedom from desire and fear, from all
self-concern, mere awareness, free from memory and expectation,
this is the state of mind to which discovery can happen. After
all, liberation is but the freedom to discover. (494)
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.
This attitude of silent observation is the very foundation of
yoga. You see the picture, but you are not the picture. (469)
Witnessing is natural and no problem. The problem is excessive
interest, leading to self-identification. Whatever you are
engrossed in, you take to be real. (351)
The real exists and is of the nature of witness-consciousness. Of
course it is beyond the witness, but to enter it one must first
realize the state of pure witnesssing. The awareness of
conditions brings one to the unconditioned. We can talk only of
the unreal, the illusory, the transient, the conditioned. To go
beyond, we must pass through total negation of everything as
having independent existence. All things depend on consciousness.
And consciousness depends on the witness. (176)
Develop the witness attitude and you will find in your own
experience that detachment brings control. The state of
witnessing is full of power, there is nothing passive about it.
(186)
The witness is not indifferent. He is the fulness of
understanding and compassion. Only as the witness you can help
another. (451)
The outer world neither can help nor hinder. No system, no
pattern of action will take you to your goal. Give up all working
for a future, concentrate totally on the now, be concerned only
with your respose to every movement of life as it happens. (333)
Know yourself to be the changeless witness of the changeful mind.
That is enough. (507)
Just remember what you are. Use every incident of the day to
remind you that without you as the witness there would be neither
animal nor God. Understand that you are both, the essence and the
surface of all there is, and remain firm in your understanding.
(476)
The witness attitude is also faith; it is faith in oneself. You
believe that you are not what you experience, and you look at
everything as from a distace. There is no effort in witnessing.
You understand that you are the witness only, and the
understanding acts. You need nothing more, just remember that you
are the witness only. If in the state of witnessing you ask
yourself 'Who am I?', the answer comes at once, though it is
wordless and silent. Cease to be the object and become the
subject of all that happens; once having turned within, you will
find yourself beyond the subject. When you
have found yourself, you will find that you are also beyond the
object, that both the subject and the object exist in you, but
you are neither. (303)
[The witness-consciousness] is the reflection of the real in the
mind (buddhi). The witness is the door through which you pass
beyond. (52)
Awareness
First we must know ourselves as witnesses only, dimensionless and
timeless centres of observation, and then realize that immense
ocean of pure awareness, which is both mind and matter and beyond
both. (205)
The person merges into the witness, the witness into awareness,
awareness into pure being, yet identity is not lost, only its
limitations are lost. It is transfigured and becomes the real
Self, the sadguru, the eternal friend and guide. You cannot
approach it in worship. No external activity can reach the inner
self; worship and prayers remain on the surface only; to do
deeper meditation is essential, the striving to go beyond the
states of sleep, dream and waking. In the beginning the attempts
are irregular, then they recur more often, become regular, then
continuous and intense, until all obstacles are conquered. (447)
For reality to be, the ideas of "me" and
"mine" must go. They will go if you let them. Then your
normal natural state reappears, in which you are neither the body
nor the mind, neither the "me" nor the
"mine", but in a different state of being altogether.
It is pure awareness of being, without being this or that,
without any self-identification with anything in particular or in
general. In that pure light of consciousness there is nothing,
not even the idea of nothing. There is only light. (387)
The body and the mind are only symptoms of ignorance, of
misapprehension: Behave as if you were pure awareness, bodiless
and mindless, spaceless and timeless, beyond "where"
and "when" and "how". Make your mind and body
express the real which is all and beyond all. (255)
Awareness is unattached and unshaken. It is lucid, silent,
peaceful, alert and unafraid, without desire and fear. Meditate
on it as your true being and try to be it in your daily life, and
you shall realize it in its fullness. (221)
True awareness (samvid) is a state of pure witnessing, without
the least attempt to do anything about the event witnessed. Your
thoughts and feelings, words and actions may also be a part of
the event; you watch all unconcerned, in the full light of
clarity and understanding. You understand precisely what is going
on, because it does not affect you. It may seem to be an attitude
of cold aloofness, but it is not really so. Once you are in it,
you will find that you love what you see, whatever may be its
nature. This choiceless love is the touchstone of awareness. If
it is not there, you are merely interested, for some personal
reasons. (382)
There is little difference between the conscious and the
unconscious - they are essentially the same. The waking state
differs from deep sleep in the presence of the witness. A ray of
awareness illumines a part of our mind and that part becomes our
dream or waking consciousness, while awareness appears as the
witness. The witness usually knows only consciousness. Sadhana
connsists in the witness turning back first on his conscious,
then upon himself in his own awareness. Self-awareness is Yoga.
(532)
Don't fight with what you take to be obstacles on your way. Just
be interested in them, watch them, observe, enquire. Let anything
happen - good or bad. But don't let yourself be submerged by what
happens. The mind must learn that beyond the moving mind there is
the background of awareness, which does not change. The mind must
come to know the true self and respect it and cease covering it
up, like the moon which obscures the sun during solar eclipse.
Just realize that nothing observable, or experienceable is you,
or binds you. Take no notice of what is not yourself. You are
aware anyhow, you need not try to be. What you need is to be
aware of being aware. Be aware deliberately and consciously,
broaden and deepen the field of awareness. You are always
conscious of the mind, but you are not aware of yourself as being
conscious. (220)
Be aware of being conscious and seek the source of consciousness.
That is all. (328)
No thought but "I am".
When I met my guru, he told me: 'You are not what
you take yourself to be. Find out what you are. Watch the sense
"I am", find your real self'. I obeyed him, because I
trusted him. I did as he told me. All my spare time I would spend
looking at myself in silence. And what difference it made, and
how soon! It took me only three years to realize my true nature.
(301)
If you trust me, believe when I tell you that you are the pure
awareness that illumines consciousness and its infinite content.
Realize this and live accordingly. If you do not believe me, then
go within, enquiring "What am I?", or focus your mind
on "I am", which is pure and simple being. (26-7)
Distrust your mind and go beyond. [Then you will find] the direct
experience of being, knowing and loving. 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 is
the operational factor. Or you may not bother about any thing you
want, or think, or do, and just stay in the thought and feeling
"I am", focusing "I am" firmly in your mind.
All kinds of experience may come to you -remain unmoved in the
knowledge that all perceivable is transient and only the "I
am" endures. (50)
You have tasted so many things - all came to naught. Only the
sense "I am" persisted, unchanged. Stay with the
changeless among the changeful, until you are able to go beyond.
(343)
Just look away from all that happens in your mind and bring it to
the feeling "I am". The "I am" is not a
direction. It is the negation of all direction. Ultimately even
the "I am" will have to go, for you need not keep on
asserting what is obvious. Bringing the mind to the feeling
"I am" merely helps in turning the mind away from
everyting else. When the mind is kept away from its
preoccupations, it becomes quiet. If you do not disturb this
quiet and stay in it, you find that it is permeated with a light
and a love you have never known; and yet you recognize it at one
as your own nature. Once you have passed through this experience,
you will never be the same man again; the unruly mind may break
its peace and obliterate its vision; but it is bound to return,
provided the effort is sustained; until the day when
all bonds are broken, delusions and attachments end, and life
becomes supremely concentrated in the present. (308)
What prevents the insight into one's true nature is the weakness
and obtuseness of the mind and its tendency to skip the subtle
and focus the gross only. When you follow my advice and try to
keep your mind on the notion of "I am" only, you become
fully aware of your mind and its vagaries. Awareness, being lucid
harmony (satva) in action, dissolves dullness and quietens the
restlessness of the mind, and gently but steadily changes its
very substance. This change need not be spectacular; it may be
hardly noticeable; yet it is a deep and fundamental shift from
darkness into light, from inadvertence to awarenesss. For this,
keep steadily in the focus of consciousness the only clue you
have: your certainty of being. Be with it, play with it, ponder
over it, delve deeply into it, till the shell of ignorance
breaks open and you emerge into the realm of reality. (272)
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". (12)
All I can say truly is: "I am", all else is inference.
But the inference has become a habit. Destroy all habits of
thinking and seeing. The sense "I am" is the
manifestation of a deeper cause, which you may call self, God,
Reality or by any other name. The "I am" is in the
world, but it is the key which can open the door out of the
world. (199)
All you have to do is to understand that you love the self and
the self loves you, and that the sense "I am" is the
link between you both, a token of identity in spite of apparent
diversity. Look at the "I am" as a sign of love between
the inner and the outer, the real and the appearance. Just like
in a dream all is different, except the sense of "I",
which enables you to say "I dreamt", so does the sense
of "I am" enables you to say "I am my real Self
again. I do nothing, nor is anything done to me. I am what I am
and nothing can affect me. I appear to depend on everything, but
in fact all depends on me." (388)
You are always the Supreme. But your attention is fixed on
things, physical or mental. When your attention is off a thing
and not yet fixed on another, in the interval you are pure being.
When through the practice of discrimination and detachment
(viveka-vairagya), you lose sight of sensory and mental states,
pure being emerges as the natural state. By focusing the mind on
"I am", on the sense of being, "I am
so-and-so" dissolves; "am a witness only" remains
and that too submerges in "I am all". Then the all
becomes the One, and the One yourself. (90)
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.
Wrong desires and fears, false ideas, social inhibitions are
blocking and preventing its free interplay with the conscious.
Once free to mingle, the two become one and the one becomes all.
(447)
"I am" is the ultimate fact. "Who am I?" is
the ultimate question to which everybody must find an answer; the
same in essence, varied in expression. (477)
Give up all questions except one: "Who am I?" After
all, the only fact you are sure of is that you are. The "I
am" is certain. The "I am this" is not. Struggle
to find out what you are in reality. (70)
Your dwelling on the fact "I am" will soon create
another chance [of self-realization]. For attitude attracts
opportunity. All you know is second-hand. Only "I am"
is first-hand and needs no proofs. Stay with it. (522)
Realization is but the opposite of ignorance. To take the world
as real and one's self as unreal is ignorance, the cause of
sorrow. To know the self as the only reality and all else as
temporal and transient is freedom, peace and joy. It is all very
simple. Instead of seeing things as imagined, learn to see them
as they are. When you can see everything as it is, you will also
see yourself as you are. It is like cleansing a mirror. The same
mirror that shows you the world as it is, will also show you your
own face. The thought "I am" is the polishing cloth.
Use it. (29)
First of all, establish a constant contact with your self, be
with yourself all the time. Into self-awareness all blessings
flow. Begin as a centre of observation, deliberate cognizance,
and grow into a centre of love in action. "I am" is a
tiny seed which will grow into a mighty tree - quite naturally,
without a trace of effort. (510)
Just keep in mind the feeling "I am", merge in it, till
your mind and feeling become one. By repeated attempts, you will
stumble on the right balance of attention and affection, and your
mind will be firmly established in the thought-feeling "I
am". Whatever you think, say or do, this sense of immutable
and affectionate being remains as the ever-present background of
the mind. (48)
Relax and watch the "I am". Reality is just behind it.
Keep quiet, keep silent; it will emerge, or, rather, it will take
you in. (520-1)
Look at yourself steadily - it is enough. The door that locks you
in is also the door that lets you out. The "I am" is
the door. Stay at it until it opens. As a matter of fact, it is
open, only you are not at it. You are waiting at the non-existing
painted doors, which will never open. (442)
Refuse all thoughts except one: the thought "I am". The
mind will rebel in the beginning, but with patience and
perseverance it will yield and keep quiet. Once you are quiet,
things will begin to happen spontaneously and quite naturally,
without any interference on your part. (18-19)
When I say: 'remember "I am" all the time', I mean:
'come back to it repeatedly'. (242)
Hold on to the sense "I am" to the exclusion of
everything else. When thus the mind becomes completely silent, it
shines with a new light and vibrates with a new knowledge. It all
comes spontaneously, you need only hold on to the "I
am". (332)