Awakening to Who You Really Are!

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

Freedom from Bondage

“Then, the question is what are ‘we’ – all of us? Each one of us, as phenomenon, is merely an appearance in the consciousness of those who perceive us, and, therefore, what we appear to be is a phenomenon – temporal, finite and perceptible to the senses, whereas what we are, what we have always been and what we shall always be, without name and form, is the noumenon – timeless, spaceless, imperceptible being.

However convincingly you may think you have ‘understood’ this basic fact, you will find it almost impossible to dis-associate yourself from the identification with your name and form as an entity. This can happen only when that which you have been thinking of as a separate entity has been totally annihilated. This is the second fundamental, the power of Maya. what is merely a phenomenon, without any independent existence of its own is considered to be ‘real’ and efforts are made by this phantom to ‘become’ something – a shadow chasing its substance. Whereas actually you have all along been the substance and never the shadow in bondage wanting liberation. How very amusing, but then that is Maya!”

Pointers from Nisargadatta Maharaj by Ramesh Balsekar

Sandcastle

"I" as this sandcastle
feel so clever to have become this
standing so tall and proud
only to be knocked down
and to become a mere grain of sand
in the beach once more
where I am nothing
yet I am all.

Your True Self

Your true self


An exert from “I am that” by Nisargadatta Maharaj

“That which you are, your true self, you love it, and whatever you do, you do for your own happiness. To find it, to know it, to cherish it is your basic urge. Since time immemorial you loved yourself, but not wisely. Use your body and mind wisely in the service of the self, that is all. Be true to your own self, love your self absolutely. Do not pretend that you love others as yourself. Unless you have realised them as one with yourself, you cannot love them. Don’t pretend to be what you are not, don’t refuse to be what you are. Your love of others is the result of self-knowledge, not its cause. Without self realisation, no virtue is genuine. When you know beyond all doubting that the same life flows through all that is, and you are that life, you will love all naturally and spontaneously.

When you realise that depth and fullness of your love for yourself, you know that every living being and the entire universe are included in your affection. But when you look at any thing as separate from you, you cannot love it for you are afraid of it. Alienation causes fear and fear deepens alienation. It is a vicious circle. Only self realisation can break it. Go for it resolutely.”

One of the most simple ways to discover who you really are is an experiment, called the pointing experiment. Truly wonderful and so simple.

Visit http://www.headless.org/experiments.htm

Your True Nature ...

Your true nature is beyond description.
It cannot be known by the mind, yet it exists.
It is the source of everything.

--- Nisargadatta Maharaj

Who am I?

The Sense of "I am" (Consciousness)

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 a
difference it made, and how soon!

My teacher told me to hold on to the sense 'I am' tenaciously and not
to swerve from it even for a moment. I did my best to follow his
advice and in a comparatively short time I realized within myself the
truth of his teaching. All I did was to remember his teaching, his
face, his words constantly. This brought an end to the mind; in the
stillness of the mind I saw myself as I am -- unbound.

I simply followed (my teacher's) instruction which was to focus the
mind on pure being 'I am', and stay in it. I used to sit for hours
together, with nothing but the 'I am' in my mind and soon peace and
joy and a deep all-embracing love became my normal state. In it all
disappeared -- myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world around
me. Only peace remained and unfathomable silence.

--- Nisargadatta Maharaj

... The lineage of nine gurus ... Navnath Sampradaya:

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj belongs to the Navnath Sampradaya, the lineage which originated from the nine gurus. Nisargadatta himself did not stress his lineage with most of his western devotees

External Links

DVD"S about Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

http://www.maharajnisargadatta.com/

http://www.nisargadatta.net/

Remembering Nisargadatta Maharaj, reflections of David Godman

Various articles on Sri Nisargadatta

Videos about Sri Nisargadatta

Who am I?

"You are not what
you take yourself to be.

Find out what you are.

Watch the sense 'I am',
find your real Self."