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#3617 -
Friday, August 7, 2009 - Editor: Jerry Katz
The Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
Dear Friends
I hope you like this small book:
The Core of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj's Teaching
It is along with some 23 Netlogues at:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/the-core-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajs-teaching/7466516
Love
Pradeep
Selection from
SRI NISARGADATTA MAHARAJ: THE CORE OF HIS TEACHING
By
PRADEEP APTE (aptep@yahoo.com)
1.
Understanding the ‘I am’, your sense
of ‘being’ or just ‘presence’ is
extremely important as on it rests
the entire outcome of the teaching.
2.
You have ‘to be’ before anything else
can be, your sense of ‘presence’ or
the feeling ‘I am’ is really
fundamental to anything that has to
follow.
3.
This sense of ‘being’ or the feeling ‘I
am’, was it not the very first event or
happening before any of your living
experiences could begin?
4.
Apply your mind, go back in time
and try to recollect the moment
when for the first time it dawned on
you that ‘you are’ or ‘I am’. This
nascent ‘I am’ is without words or
non-verbal.
5.
This ‘I am’ is still there with you,
ever present, ever available, it was
and still is the first thought, refuse
all other thoughts and come back
there and stay there.
6.
Establish yourself firmly in the ‘I
am’ and reject all that does not go
with it.
7.
Only the ‘I am’ is certain, it’s
impersonal, all knowledge stems
from it, it’s the root, hold on to it and
let all else go.
8.
When the ‘I am’ goes all that
remains is the Absolute, give all your
attention to the ‘I am’.
9.
The ‘I am’ is the sum total of all that
you perceive, it’s time-bound, the
‘I am’ itself is an illusion, you are not
the ‘I am’ you are prior to it.
10.
Immortality is freedom from the
feeling ‘I am’, to have that freedom
remain in the sense ‘I am’.
11.
The beginning and the end of
knowledge is the ‘I am’, be attentive
to the ‘I am’, once you understand it,
you are apart from it.
12.
You must meditate on the ‘I am’
without holding on to the body-mind,
the ‘I am’ is the first ignorance,
persist on it and you will go beyond
it.
13.
Your Guru, your God is the ‘I am’,
with its coming came duality and all
activity, stay on the ‘I am’, you are
before the ‘I am’ appeared.
14.
Remain focused on the ‘I am’ till it
goes into oblivion, then the eternal is,
the Absolute is, Parabrahman is.
15.
Remember the knowledge ‘I am’
only and give up the rest, staying in
the ‘I am’ you will realize that it is
unreal.
16.
Understand that the knowledge ‘I
am’ has dawned on you and all are
its manifestations, in this
understanding you realize you are
not the ‘I am’.
17.
When this concept ‘I am’ departs
there will be no memory left that ‘I
was’ and ‘I had’ those experiences,
the very memory will be erased.
18.
With the arrival of the primary
concept ‘I am’, time began, with its
departure time will end; you the
Absolute are not the primary
concept ‘I am’.
19.
Appearance and disappearance,
birth and death these are qualities of
‘I am’, they do not belong to you, the
Absolute.
20.
Out of the nothingness, the ‘I am’ or
beingness has come, there is no
individual, the knowledge ‘I am’- not
the individual – has to go back to its
source.
21.
By meditating on the knowledge ‘I
am’ it gradually settles down at its
source and disappears, then you are
the Absolute.
22.
Go on to know the ‘I am’ without
words, you must be that and not
deviate from it for even a moment,
and then it will disappear.
23.
Get stabilized in the primary concept
‘I am’ in order to loose it and be free
from all concepts. In understanding
the unreality of ‘I am’ you are totally
free from it.
24.
Sitting quietly, being one with the
knowledge ‘I am’, you will lose all
concern with the world, then the ‘I
am’ will also go, leaving you as the
Absolute.
25.
Putting aside everything, stabilize in
the ‘I am’. As you continue with this
practice, in the process you will
transcend the ‘I am’.
26.
The very core of this consciousness is
the quality ‘I am’, there is no
personality or individual there,
reside there and transcend it.
27.
Keep focused on the ‘I am’ till you
become a witness to it, then you
stand apart, you have reached the
highest.
28.
When you remain in the ‘I am’ you
will realize everything else is useless,
and then you are Parabrahman, the
Absolute.
29.
The One who abides in that principle
by which he knows ‘I am’ knows all
and does not require anything.
30.
Just sit and know that ‘you are’ the
‘I am’ without words, nothing else
has to be done; shortly you will
arrive to your natural Absolute state.
31.
You have to realize that you are not
the body or the knowledge ‘I am’.
You as the Absolute are neither, nor
do you require them.
32.
The Absolute or the Parabrahman
is prior to the ‘I am’, it’s the unborn
state, so how can it have or even
require the knowledge ‘I am’?
33.
You have to transcend the ‘I am’ to
enter the concept-free Parabrahman
state, where you do not even know
you are!
34.
One who has realized the knowledge
‘I am’, which means transcending it
as well, for him there is no birth or
death nor any karma.
35.
Witnessing happens to the state prior
to your saying the words ‘I am’.
Right now, right here, you are the
Absolute, the Parabrahman. Hold on
to the ‘I am’ very firmly, ever abide
in it and it’ll dissolve, then you are as
you are.
36.
You are neither the ‘I am’ nor its
activities, you as the Absolute are
none of these. Be a true devotee, by
abiding in the knowledge ‘I am’
thereby transcending the experience
of death to attain immortality.
37.
What is it in you that understands
this knowledge ‘I am’ without a
name, title or word? Sink in that
innermost center and witness the
knowledge ‘I am’.
38.
Totally accept the knowledge ‘I am’
as oneself, and with full conviction
and faith firmly believe in the dictum
‘I am that by which I know I am’.
39.
Catch hold of the knowledge ‘I am’
in meditation and the realization will
occur that ‘I’, the Absolute, am not
the quality ‘I am’.
40.
Do nothing but stay in the knowledge
‘I am’, the ‘moolmaya’ or primary
illusion, and then it will release its
stranglehold on you and get lost.
41.
In deep meditation, infused only with
the knowledge ‘I am’, it will be
intuitively revealed to you as to how
this ‘I amness’ came to be.
42.
To do away with body-mind sense or
identity, imbibe or dwell in the ‘I
am’. Later the ‘I am’ will merge into
the ultimate nature.
43.
Having acquired and understood the
knowledge ‘I am’ stay there in
seclusion and don’t wander around
here and there. Once you stabilize in
the ‘I am’, you will realize that it is
not the eternal state, but ‘you’ are
eternal and ancient.
44.
The teaching is simple, when the ‘I
am’ arises, everything appears, when
‘I am’ subsides everything
disappears. Onto your Absoluteness,
which is without form or shape,
came this knowledge ‘I am’, which is
also without shape and form.
45.
This knowledge ‘I am’ has
spontaneously ‘appeared’ on your
Absolute state, therefore it is an
illusion. The feeling ‘I am’ is itself an
illusion, therefore whatever is seen
through this illusion cannot be real.
46.
When you meditate on the
knowledge ‘I am’, which is the
beginning of knowledge, how can
there be any questions? It is not with
the body identification that you
should sit for meditation. It is the
knowledge ‘I am’ that is meditating
on itself.
47.
You should identify yourself only
with this indwelling knowledge ‘I
am’. That is all. Sit in meditation by
identifying with the ‘I am’, dwell
only on the ‘I am’- not merely the
words ‘I am’.
48.
Forget all about physical disciplines
in this connection and just be with
the knowledge ‘I am’. When you are
established in the ‘I am’ there are no
thoughts or words.
49.
It is the ‘I am’ that investigates the ‘I
am’ and on realizing its falsehood it
disappears and merges into eternity.
50.
Along with the knowledge ‘I am’
appears space and the world. When
the knowledge ‘I am’ departs the
world is liquidated.
51.
My Guru taught me what ‘I am’, I
pondered only on that. My original
state is to be in that state where there
is no ‘I am’.
52.
Catch hold of the ‘I am’ and all
obstacles will evaporate, you will be
beyond the realm of body-mind.
53.
The ‘I am’ in body form can reach
the highest state only if you
understand, accept it and dwell
there. Then you escape birth and
death.
54.
The body identity cannot get this
knowledge, the knowledge ‘I am’
must get this knowledge; when
knowledge abides in knowledge there
is transcendence of knowledge.
55.
The ‘I am’ has great potency, the
entire manifestation has come from
it. When you dwell in the ‘I am’ as
your destiny you realize that your
destiny is not death but the
disappearance of ‘I am’.
56.
Go to the ‘I am’ state, remain there,
merge, and go beyond. If you were to
dwell in the ‘I am’ and firmly abide
in it, all external things will lose their
grip on you.
57.
You are the Reality beyond the ‘I
am’, you are the ‘Parabrahma’.
Meditate on this and remember this,
finally this idea, too, shall leave you.
Understand the ‘I am’, transcend it
and realize the Absolute.
~ ~ ~
The rest of this book consists of dialogues with Pradeep Apte
related to the I Am and the Absolute:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/the-core-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajs-teaching/7466516