Identifying who you really are, is awakening to great peace and harmony within. There is relief in knowing that you are not the body, or the mind, that you are in fact the consciousness that animates the body/mind. You are that which came before the consciousness animation of the body/mind!
It is rare for Nisargadatta Maharaj to offer exercises to assist us in this awakening to who you are, though in Pointers from Nisargatta Maharaj, he suggests the following;
“a) Make it a habit to think and speak in the passive tense. Instead of saying ‘I see something’ or ‘I hear something’, why not think the passive way; ‘something is seen’ or ‘something is heard’? The perception will then be not on the basis of an event or occurrence. In due course, the pseudo-entity ‘I’ will recede into the background.
b) Before going to sleep at night, spend about ten minutes sitting relaxed both in body and mind, taking your stand that ‘you’ are not the body-mind construct but the animating consciousness, so that this idea will impregnate your being throughout the period of your sleep.” (p 103-104)
An awakening happens, that you are not doing anything. The body is functioning by itself. Hearing happens by itself. Tiredness may appear, though it is simply an appearance, rather than ‘I am tired’, tension may appear though again it is simply appearance instead of associating yourself as ‘being stressed.’
“I am giving you nothing and taking away nothing, only pointing to that which you already are.” Papaji
