Lien: Qui suis-je Identité Speech de Nisargadatta Maharaj Source
Amritbindu Upanishad
”That in whom reside all beings and who resides in all beings,
who is the giver of grace to all, the Supreme soul of the universe, the limitless being: ‘I AM THAT.‘”
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
“I AM ONLY THE SELF.”
Maharaj:
“There is absolutely no difference between me and others, except in my knowing myself as I am: I am all.
I know it for certain, and you do not.
In reality, I’m neither hearing nor answering.
In the world of events, the question happens, and the answer happens.
Nothing happens to me. Everything just happens.
My destiny was to be born a simple man, a humble tradesman with little formal education.
My life was of the common kind, with desires and fears.
Then, through faith in my teacher and obedience to his words, I realized my true being.
I left behind my human nature to look after itself until its destiny is exhausted.
Occasionally, an old reaction—emotional or mental—happens in the mind, but it is at once noticed and discarded.
As long as one is burdened with a personality, one is exposed to its idiosyncrasies and habits.
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.
All my spare time, I would spend looking at myself in silence.
And what a difference it made—and how soon.
It took me only three years to realize my true nature.
My guru died soon after I met him, but it made no difference.
I remembered what he told me and persevered. The fruit of it is here with me.”
A Visitor Asked Maharaj:
“Why is realization of one’s true nature so important?”
Maharaj:
“Without realization, you will be consumed by desires and fears, repeating themselves meaninglessly in endless suffering.
Most people do not know that there can be an end to pain, but once they have heard the good news—obviously—going beyond all strife and struggle is the most urgent task there can be.
You know that you can be free, and now it is up to you.
Either you remain forever hungry and thirsty, ever losing and sorrowing, or go out wholeheartedly in search of the state of timeless perfection, to which nothing can be added, from which nothing can be taken away.
In it, all desires and fears are absent—not because they were given up, but because they have lost their meaning.”
On Seeking Awareness
Maharaj:
“How do you go about finding anything?
By keeping your mind and heart on 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.
Seek a clear mind and a clean heart.
All you need is to keep quietly alert, inquiring into the real nature of yourself. This is the only way to peace.
All happens by itself.
Neither the seeker nor the guru does anything. Things happen as they happen.
Blame or praise are apportioned later, after the sense of doership appears.”
On Effort and Effortlessness
Maharaj:
“When effort is needed, effort will appear; when effortlessness becomes essential, it will assert itself.
You need not push life about. Just flow with it and give yourself completely to this task of the present moment,
which is to die now to the now, for living is dying. Without death, life cannot be.
Ultimately, one must go beyond knowledge. But the knowledge must come.
And knowledge can come by constant meditation.
By meditating, the knowledge ‘I Am’ gradually settles down and merges with universal knowledge,
and thereby becomes totally free—like the sky or space.”
The Seeker Must Disappear
Maharaj:
“Those who come here with the idea of getting knowledge—even spiritual knowledge—come here as individuals aspiring to get something.
That is the real difficulty: the ‘seeker’ must disappear. When you know your real nature, the knowledge ‘I Am’ remains, but that knowledge is unlimited.
It is not possible for you to acquire knowledge: you ARE knowledge. You are what you are seeking.
Your True Being exists prior to the arising of any concept. Dive deep within yourself, and you will find it easily and simply. Go in the direction of ‘I Am.’
All exists in the mind. Both mind and body are intermittent states; the sum total of these flashes creates the illusion of existence.
Inquire what is permanent in the transient; real in the unreal.
This is sadhana or spiritual practice.”
On the Guru and Inner Guidance
Maharaj:
“The greatest guru is your Inner Self. Truly, He is the Supreme Teacher.
He alone can take you to your goal, and He alone meets you at the end of the road.
Confide in Him, and you need no outer guru. But again, you must have the strong desire to find Him,
and do nothing that will create obstacles and delays.
You are never without a guru, for He is timelessly present in your Heart.
What He wants you to do is simply learn self-awareness, self-control, and self-surrender.
It may seem arduous, but it is easy if you are earnest, and quite impossible if you are not.
Everything yields to earnestness.”
Key Teachings
Maharaj:
“When I see I am nothing, that is Wisdom. When I see I am everything, that is Love.
And between those two, my life moves.”
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That in whom reside all beings and who resides in all beings, who is the giver of grace to all;
0:04
the Supreme soul of the universe; the limitless being: ’ I AM THAT ’ - Amritbindu Upanishad
0:07
I AM ONLY THE SELF Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
0:13
[Maharaj:] There is absolutely no difference between me and others,
0:17
except in my knowing myself as I am:
0:20
I am all.
0:22
I know it for certain and you do not.
0:25
In reality, I’m neither hearing nor answering.
0:29
In the world of events, the question happens and the answer happens.
0:34
Nothing happens to me.
0:36
Everything just happens.
0:41
My destiny was to be born a simple man,
0:44
a humble tradesman with little formal education.
0:48
My life was of the common kind with desires and fears.
0:53
Then, through faith in my teacher and obedience to his words,
0:58
I realized my true being.
1:00
I left behind my human nature to look after itself
1:04
until its destiny is exhausted.
1:08
Occasionally, an old reaction -
1:11
emotional or mental -
1:13
happens in the mind,
1:15
but it is at once noticed and discarded.
1:19
After all, as long as one is burdened with a personality,
1:24
one is exposed to its idiosyncrasies and habits.
1:30
When I met my guru, he told me,
1:33
“You are not what you take yourself to be.
1:36
Find out what you are:
1:39
watch the sense ‘I am,’
1:41
find your real self.”
1:44
I obeyed him because I trusted him.
1:47
I did as he told me.
1:50
All my spare time I would spend looking at myself in silence.
1:55
And what a difference it made, and how soon.
1:59
It took me only three years to realize my true nature.
2:04
My guru died soon after I met him
2:07
but it made no difference.
2:09
I remembered what he told me, and persevered.
2:13
The fruit of it is here with me.
2:17
[Narrator:] A visitor asked Maharaj why realization of one’s true nature is so important.
2:24
[SNM:] Without realization, you will be consumed by desires and fears,
2:29
repeating themselves meaninglessly in endless suffering.
2:34
Most of the people do not know that there can be an end to pain,
2:38
but once they have heard the good news
2:41
- obviously -
2:43
going beyond all strife and struggle is the most urgent task there can be.
2:49
You know that you can be free, and now it is up to you.
2:53
Either you remain forever hungry and thirsty,
2:57
ever losing and sorrowing,
3:00
or go out wholeheartedly
3:02
in search of the state of timeless perfection,
3:05
to which nothing can be added,
3:08
from which nothing can be taken away.
3:11
In it, all desires and fears are absent,
3:15
not because they were given up,
3:18
but because they have lost their meaning.
3:22
[Narrator:] Seekers who visited Maharaj wanted to know how they too, could come to this awareness.
3:30
[SNM:] How do you go about finding anything?
3:33
By keeping your mind and heart on it.
3:37
Interest there must be, and steady remembrance.
3:41
To remember what needs to be remembered
3:44
is the secret of success.
3:46
You come to it through earnestness.
3:49
Seek a clear mind and a clean heart.
3:54
All you need is to keep quietly alert,
3:57
inquiring into the real nature of yourself.
4:01
This is the only way to peace.
4:05
All happens by itself.
4:08
Neither the seeker nor the guru does anything.
4:12
Things happen as they happen.
4:15
Blame or praise are apportioned later,
4:18
after the sense of doership appears.
4:21
[N:] Visitors would ask Nisargadatta about effort,
4:24
and the role that spiritual disciplines play
4:27
in helping one awaken from the dream of ignorance.
4:32
[SNM:] When effort is needed, effort will appear;
4:36
when effortlessness becomes essential,
4:38
it will assert itself.
4:40
You need not push life about.
4:43
Just flow with it
4:45
and give yourself completely to this task of the present moment
4:49
which is to die now to the now,
4:52
for living is dying.
4:55
Without death, life cannot be.
4:59
Ultimately, one must go beyond knowledge.
5:02
But the knowledge must come.
5:05
And knowledge can come by constant meditation.
5:09
By meditating, the knowledge ‘I Am’
5:12
gradually settles down and merges with universal knowledge,
5:16
and thereby becomes totally free
5:19
like the sky or space.
5:24
Those who come here with the idea of getting knowledge - even spiritual knowledge -
5:30
come here as individuals aspiring to get something.
5:34
That is the real difficulty: the ‘seeker’ must disappear.
5:41
When you know your real nature, the knowledge ‘I Am’ remains, but that knowledge is unlimited.
5:50
It is not possible for you to acquire knowledge: you ARE knowledge.
5:56
You are what you are seeking.
6:01
Your True Being exists prior to the arising of any concept.
6:09
Dive deep within yourself and you will find it easily and simply.
6:15
Go in the direction of ‘I Am.’
6:21
All exists in the mind.
6:24
Both mind and body are intermittent states; the sum total of these flashes creates the illusion of existence.
6:35
Inquire what is permanent in the transient;
6:38
real in the unreal.
6:41
This is sadhana or spiritual practice.
6:48
All those who have realized on the spot,
6:51
by mere touch, look, or thought, have been ripe for it;
6:58
but such are very few.
7:01
The majority needs some time for ripening.
7:05
Sadhana is accelerated ripening.
7:09
[N:] How is one to approach this awareness, of which Maharaj speaks, from the point of view of being one with it?
7:16
[SNM:] You must realize first of all, that you are the proof of everything, including yourself.
7:23
None can prove your existence because his existence must be confirmed by yours first.
7:30
Your being and knowing are your own.
7:34
You do not come from somewhere; you do not go anywhere.
7:39
You are timeless Being and Awareness.
7:44
Develop the witness attitude and you will find in your own experience that detachment brings control.
7:54
The state of witnessing is full of power; there is nothing passive about it.
8:02
Just keep in mind the feeling ‘I Am.’
8:05
Merge in it ‘til your mind and feeling become one.
8:10
By repeated attempts you will stumble on the right balance of attention,
8:15
and your mind will be firmly established in the thought-feeling ‘I Am.’
8:22
Whatever you think, say, or do,
8:26
the sense of immutable and affectionate Being remains as the ever present background.
8:38
[N:] Maharaj often spoke of his guru and the role of the teacher in spiritual life.
8:44
Every morning he reverently decorated the photos of his guru that hung in the upstairs room.
8:50
He often said that the true teacher was one’s own self.
8:56
[SNM:] The greatest guru is your Inner Self.
9:00
Truly, He is the Supreme Teacher.
9:03
He alone can take you to your goal,
9:06
and He alone meets you at the end of the road.
9:10
Confide in Him, and you need no outer guru.
9:14
But again, you must have the strong desire to find Him,
9:19
and do nothing that will create obstacles and delays.
9:25
You are never without a guru
9:28
for He is timelessly present in your Heart.
9:31
What He wants you to do is simply learn self-awareness,
9:36
self-control,
9:38
and self-surrender.
9:40
It may seem arduous, but it is easy if you are earnest, and quite impossible if you are not.
9:49
Everything yields to earnestness.
9:53
The True Guru will never humiliate you nor will he estrange you from yourself.
10:00
He will constantly bring you back to the fact of your inherent perfection,
10:06
and encourage you to seek within.
10:10
[N:] Nisargadatta referred to the illusory sense of being
10:14
- traditionally called the ego - as the ‘I am-ness.’
10:19
He says that to find the source of this ‘I am-ness’
10:24
and fully understand that it is nothing more than the conceptual idea of oneself
10:30
is the way to Self-Realization and wholeness.
10:34
Maharaj asked the seeker to be in the state which is prior to the experience of ‘I Am-ness.’
10:42
[SNM:] The concept ‘I am’ comes spontaneously and goes spontaneously.
10:50
Amazingly, when it appears, it is accepted as real.
10:56
All subsequent misconceptions arise from that feeling of reality in the ‘I am-ness.’
11:04
The moment the feeling ‘I am’ appears, the world also appears.
11:12
Any image you have of yourself is not true.
11:17
True knowledge is to abide in your own Self.
11:21
[N:] The teachings of Maharaj move our awareness from the ‘I am-ness’ - the sense of separate identity -
11:29
to a non-dualistic state of oneness with the Absolute which is our Real Nature.
11:36
Visitors asked for clarification concerning the state of emptiness.
11:41
[SNM:] I mean, free of all content.
11:44
To myself, I am neither perceivable nor conceivable.
11:49
There is nothing I can point out and say: This I am.
11:53
You identify yourself with everything so easily;
11:57
I find it impossible.
12:00
The feeling, ‘I’m not this or that nor is anything mine’ is so strong in me
12:08
that as soon as a thing or a thought appears, there comes at once the sense, ‘This I am not.’
12:17
I find that somehow by shifting the focus of attention,
12:21
I become the very thing I look at, and experience the kind of consciousness it has.
12:28
I become the inner witness of the thing.
12:32
I call this capacity of entering other focal points of consciousness ‘love.’
12:38
You may give it any name you like.
12:42
Since at any point of time and space, I can be both the subject and object of experience,
12:49
I express it by saying that I’m both and neither and beyond both.
12:56
[N:] From the point of view of Self-Realization or enlightenment, there are no individuals.
13:04
The Self, or God, exists as all manifestation.
13:10
A visitor asked Maharaj how this individuality arose and why we think of ourselves as separate individuals.
13:21
[SNM:] Your thoughts about individuality are really not your own thoughts.
13:26
They are all collective thoughts.
13:29
You think that you are the one that has the thoughts.
13:33
In fact, thoughts arise in consciousness.
13:39
As our spiritual knowledge grows, our identification with the individual body-mind diminishes
13:47
and our consciousness expands into universal consciousness.
13:52
A life force continuous to act but its thoughts and actions are no longer limited to an individual;
14:00
they become the total manifestation.
14:03
It is like the action of the wind:
14:06
the wind doesn’t blow for any individual but for the entire manifestation.
14:15
[N:] To questions concerning daily work and how one should conduct oneself in the world, Maharaj replied.
14:24
[SNM:] Why do you worry about the world before taking care of yourself?
14:29
You want to save the world, don’t you?
14:33
Can you save the world before saving yourself?
14:36
And what means ‘being saved’?
14:38
From what?
14:40
From illusion.
14:41
Salvation is to see things as they already are.
14:47
Keep quiet.
14:49
Do your work in the world but inwardly keep quiet.
14:55
Then all will come to you.
14:58
Do not rely on your word for realization.
15:01
It may profit others but not you.
15:05
Your hope lies in keeping silent in your mind and quiet in your heart.
15:12
By all means, attend to your duties.
15:15
Action in which you are not emotionally involved
15:20
and which is beneficial and does not cause suffering will not bind you.
15:26
You may be engaged in several directions and work with enormous zest
15:32
yet remain inwardly free and quiet with a mirror-like mind which reflects all without being affected.
15:42
The unexpected is bound to happen, while the anticipated may never come.
15:49
All IS because you ARE.
15:53
Grasp this point firmly and deeply and dwell on it repeatedly.
16:00
To realize this as absolutely true is liberation.
16:07
The one who has fully investigated himself,
16:10
the one who has come to understand,
16:14
will never try to interfere in the play of consciousness.
16:19
There is no creator with a vast intellect as such; all this play is going on spontaneously.
16:27
There is no intellect behind it.
16:29
So, don’t try to impose yours to bring about any change.
16:33
Leave it alone.
16:36
Your intellect is a subsequent product of this process,
16:40
so how can your intellect take charge of or even evaluate the whole creation?
16:47
Investigate yourself. This is the purpose of your being.
16:54
Spirituality is nothing more than understanding this play of consciousness.
17:00
Try to find out what this illusion is by seeking its source.
17:08
There can be no Consciousness without Awareness.
17:13
There can be Awareness without Consciousness, as in deep sleep.
17:19
AWARENESS is ABSOLUTE.
17:22
Consciousness is relative to its content;
17:26
consciousness is always of something;
17:30
consciousness is partial and changeful.
17:34
AWARENESS is TOTAL, CHANGELESS, CALM, and SILENT.
17:41
And, It is the common matrix of every experience.
17:45
What you are, you already are.
17:49
By knowing what you are not, you are free of it
17:54
and remain in your own natural state.
17:57
It all happens quite spontaneously and without effort.
18:07
[Maharaj speaks without translation]
18:16
[Translator for Maharaj:] Before the appearance of this beingness-
18:20
before that state is- that state is prior to or rather beyond beingness and no beingness also.
18:30
I prevail in that state… before the arrival of beingness or before the arrival of no beingness also.
18:39
And with the waking state, all this world is manifest…
18:43
because of my beingness, my world is manifest.
18:46
That also is observed by that state which is prior to beingness.
18:58
And you are THAT.
19:08
[music playing]
19:20
[Narrator:] The essential point of his teaching is that we already are absolutely free,
19:27
and that there is nothing that we have to do, or make, or become, or change ourselves into;
19:33
we simply have to see the Truth of life
19:36
which is that we are not this body nor this mind, but they are play of elements, if you will,
19:42
and that, when we understand that, there comes this extraordinary happiness and freedom.
19:48
Maharaj put it this way, he said,
19:50
‘When I see I am nothing, that is Wisdom,
19:54
and when I see I am everything, that is Love.
19:58
And between those two, my life moves.’
20:07
Maharaj passed away on September 8, 1981.
20:13
He remains present as the Consciousness within each one of us.
20:19
Give up all questions except one:
20:24
Who am I?