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."

Allowing What Is To Be

Have you ever considered how life would be different if you allowed what is in this moment to be rather than resisting what is?

It is a topic that has come to my attention many times in life, and at times I thought I would understand and do my best to let go. Then I became aware that yes it is easier to let go than to hold on, and it is totally effortless to allow and observe what unfolds. And the funny this is, what is - IS in this moment, whether you allow it or not.

How do tall palms resist the wind? We often resist situations that arise in our lives, because we don’t like them or they don’t fit into our plans, yet the truth is, what is in this moment- IS! No amount of not liking it will change what IS in this moment, though our attitude towards what is can have a dramatic impact on our experience of what we are experiencing.

A recent experience has reinforced this truth in my life experience. I became suddenly very tired, though with workshops to run and speaking events approaching, I ignored these signs and pushing against them. Until the tiredness became so overwhelming that a blood test result revealed an autoimmune disorder. When I finally stopped, the stopping resulting in 2 months of sleeping 14 – 20 hours a day, still with some resistance.

The interesting part of this experience is that it was not until I stopped struggling with the illness, and my beliefs around what illness meant, that my body began to show signs of healing.

By opening to the experience of physical illness, there has been so many learning’s revealed to me, that otherwise I would not have seen. It reminded me that;

I am not the mind
I am not the body
I am not my emotions
I am not my thoughts

So who am I?

Who is it that observes the body, mind, thoughts and emotions?

The more that you become aware of that which observes all in this gift called life, the greater the experience of this life as a gift.
Just for this moment, stop and turn awareness to awareness itself. That which is aware of deep sleep, that which is aware of the coming and goings of thoughts and emotions.

What is - IS!

What is - IS! There is no effort involved in what is, the only effort is the resistance. The resistance can come in many forms, including comparisons.

As humans we are gifted with intellect yet that gift we often turn against ourselves and compare ourselves to others and where we think we should or could be, rather than accepting and loving where we are now, allowing that to unfold and reveal to us the magic of the moment.

The infinite moment

There is only this moment, the infinite moment. Allow yourself to experience it fully by allowing the emotions to rise and fall as they do. Stop, even for just a 1/4 of a second and welcome the emotions as the rise. Be still. Observe the emotion, even take the name of emotions off it and observe the energy moving. It will take less than a second, and in such a brief moment, such wonderment can be revealed to those whom are watching.

A battery is charged with both a positive negative energy, both equally important. As we humans have both positive and negative emotions, both have significant importance also. Though as a culture, we do our very best to push away our negative emotions and slap on a happy face. Negative emotions play an important role within this experience of life; they are wonderful indicators of what is happening at a subconscious level. The key is to allow the emotions to be here and pass through without the attachment to the story of why the emotions came about.

Allow judgements to fall away

Observe judgements and let them drop away. When you find yourself saying this is right or wrong, allow it to simply BE as it is, neither right nor wrong.

What is - IS in this moment. Allowing it to be here, without judgement, simply observing opens your experience of life to wonderful new understandings of this gift called the present moment.

The Direct Path

The Direct Path

According the great Indian sage of Arununchala, Ramana Maharshi the only way SELF realization can be achieved is by the complete quietening of the mind.

... Ramana Maharshi


The mind, which causes all thoughts to arise, keeps us believing the world and ourselves are real, when in reality every single object appearing in the universe is an ephemeral, transient, cluster of vibrating energy animated by the ONE consciousness and has no fixed independent life of its own.

It is our attachment to this ephemeral dream state and the desire to keep it changeless and permanent that causes all our suffering. This illusory reality we cling so tightly to has no solidity, and is perpetually rearranging itself through the process of birth and death of all objects, giving meaning to the play of consciousness known as Lila.

Questions asked of him in the book “The Spiritual Teachings of Ramana Maharshi” reveal through the continual practice of SELF- INQUIRY we can take the “Direct path to Realization”

Question: How will the mind become Quiescent?



Ramana: By the inquiry “Who am I?” the thought “Who am I?” will destroy all other thoughts, and, like, the stick used for stirring the burning pyre, it will in the end get destroyed. Then there will arise Self-Realization.

Question: What is the means for constantly holding onto the thought ‘Who am I”

Ramana: “When other thoughts arise, one should not pursue them, but should enquire “TO WHOM DID THEY ARISE”?
It does not matter how many thoughts arise. As each thought arises, one should inquire with diligence, “TO WHOM HAS THIS THOUGHT ARISEN”?
The answer that would emerge would be “TO ME”

Thereupon, if one inquires, “WHO AM I”, the mind will become quiescent. With repeated practice in this manner, the mind will develop the skill to stay in its source.

When we ask “Who am I”?, the “I” he is referring to is the “I” we believe ourselves to be , the little ‘I’, the ME, the ego, a unique individual entity with our own separate soul, and separate from all the rest.

Through the practice of continually questioning “WHO AM I”, in this manner it is eventually recognised that this ‘I’ or ‘Me’ we thought ourselves to be cannot be located within, and no matter how hard we search no fixed ME or I can be found..

With no ME to be found, a great spaciousness or emptiness is experienced in which all objects including our own bodies appear and disappear in. Those objects also include mountains, rivers, animals, plants, trees, birds , rocks, fish, oceans, stars , planets, atoms, molecules, all life as we know it.



As the object known as a human being, we have since birth been programmed much like a computer.

Beliefs are formed in us through familial, religious, educational, and cultural conditioning creating memories and concepts that form our own personal computer chip. And it is through this ‘unique’ chip the ONE Consciousness expresses itself as billions of vastly different human beings. (Only through contrast is Lila possible, try to imagine a play in which every person played the same role and had the same physical appearance and character traits, how boring would that be, and who would show up to see it anyway?!)

In all other objects consciousness equally expresses itself through that objects particular evolutionary program.

To accept this concept is true liberation from birth and death, right and wrong, good and evil, pride and blame, attachment and desire, and believing we are a unique fixed entity with a soul that lives on and on reincarnating from one hellish life to the next.

Instead we see through our dream state and accept we are all a part of consciousness at play, Lila expressing itself.



Real peace can only happen to the mind that is free of all thought and freedom from thought can only come about by enquiring into and letting go of the false identity we have thought ourselves to be.

That a quiet mind ensures equanimity is known and accepted by most. The mystery of why and how life is played is way beyond our ability to comprehend and in the end the mystery just has to be accepted for being just that ,a mystery.

And the only way we can really enjoy life as part of this mystery is to inquire deeply into whom we really are which can only, with perseverance, reveal all we are truly not.