"I AM" - 'The complete ‘I am’ quotes of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj' by 'Pradeep Apte' - Be content with what you are sure of. And the only thing you can be sure of is ‘I am’. Stay with it and reject everything else. This is Yoga.

 THE QUOTES

 

1

Was it not the sense of ‘I am’ that came first? Some seed consciousness must be existing even during sleep, or swoon. On waking up the experience runs: ‘I am-the body- in the world’. It may appear to arise in succession but in fact it is all simultaneous, a single idea of having a body in a world. Can there be the sense of ‘I am’ without being somebody or other? 

 

2 

 

Go deep into the sense of ‘I am’ and you will find. How do you find a thing you have mislaid or forgotten? You keep it in your mind until you recall it. The sense of being, of ‘I am’ is the first to emerge. Ask yourself whence it comes or just watch it quietly.When the mind stays in the ‘I am’, without moving, you enter a state, which cannot be verbalized, but which can be experienced.All you need to do is to try and try again. After all the sense of ‘I am’ is always with you, only you have attached all kinds of things to it- body, feelings, thoughts, ideas, possessions and so on. All these self-identifications are misleading, because of these you take yourself to be what you are not. 

 

3 

 

The ‘I am’ is a useful pointer; it shows where to seek, but not what to seek. Just have a good look at it. Once you are convinced that you cannot say truthfully about yourself anything except ‘I am’, and that nothing can be pointed at, can be your self, the need for the ‘I am’ is over- you are no longer intent on verbalizing what you are. All definitions apply to your body only and to its expressions. Once this obsession with the body goes, you will revert to your natural state. We discover the natural state by being earnest, by searching, inquiring, questioning daily and hourly, by giving one’s life to this discovery. 

 

4 

 

What makes the present so different? Obviously, my presence, I am real for I am always ‘now’, in the present, and what is with me now shares in my reality. The past is in memory, the future – in imagination. There is nothing in the present event itself that makes it stand out as real. A thing focused in the now is with me, for I am ever present, it is my own reality that I impart to the present event. 

 

5 

 

Refuse all thoughts except one: the thought ‘I am’. The mind will rebel in the beginning, but with patience and perseverance it will yield and keep quiet. Once you are quiet, things will begin to happen spontaneously and quite naturally, without any interference on your part.

 

6 

 

To know the self as the only reality and all else as temporal and transient is freedom, peace and joy. It is all very simple. Instead of  seeing things as imagined, learn to see them as they are. When you can see everything as it is, you will also see yourself as you are. It is like cleansing a mirror. The same mirror that shows you the world as it is will also show you your own face. The thought ‘I am’ is the polishing cloth. Use it. 

 

7

 

Why not turn away from the experience to the experience r and realize the full import of the only true statement you can make: ‘I am’. Just keep in mind the feeling ‘I am’, merge in it, till your mind and feeling become one. By repeated attempts you will stumble on the right balance of attention and affection and your mind will be firmly established in the thought-feeling ‘I am’. Whatever you think, say or do, this sense of immutable and affectionate being remains as the ever-present background of the mind. 

 

8 

 

Do not bother about anything you want, or think, or do, just stay put in the thought and feeling, ‘I am’, focusing ‘I am’ firmly in your mind. All kinds of experience may come to you – remain unmoved in the knowledge that all perceivable is transient and only the ‘I am’ endures. 

 

9 

 

No way to self-realization is short or long, but some people are more in earnest and some are less. I can tell you about myself. I was a simple man, but I trusted my Guru. What he told me to do, I did. He told me to concentrate on ‘I am’ – I did. He told me that I am beyond all perceivable s and conceivable s – I believed. I gave my heart and soul, my entire attention and the whole of my spare time (I had to work to keep my family alive). As a result of faith and earnest application, I realized my self (‘swarupa’) within three years. You may choose any way that suits you; your earnestness will determine the rate of progress. Establish yourself firmly in the awareness of ‘I am’. This is the beginning and also the end of all endeavor. 

 

10 

 

To know what you are you must first investigate and know what you are not. And to know what you are not, you must watch yourself carefully, rejecting all that does not necessarily go with basic fact ‘I am’. The ideas: I am born at a given place, at a given time, from my parents and now I am so-and-so, living at, married to, father of, employed by, and so on, are not inherent in the sense ‘I am’. Our usual attitude is ‘I am this’ or ‘that’. Separate consistently and   perseveringly the ‘I am’ from ‘this’ or ‘that’ and try to feel what it means to be, just to ‘be’, without being ‘this’ or ‘that’. All our habits go against it and the task of fighting them is long and hard sometimes, but clear understanding helps a lot. The clearer you understand that on the level of the mind you can be described in negative terms only, the quicker you will come to the end of your search and realize your limitless being. 

 

11 

 

When you see the world you see God. There is no seeing God apart from the world. Beyond the world to see God is to be God. The light by which you see the world, which is God is the tiny little spark: ‘I am’, apparently so small and yet the first and the last in every act of knowing and loving. 

 

12 

 

All is secondary to the tiny little thing which is the ‘I am’. Without the ‘I am’ there is nothing. All knowledge is about the ‘I am’. False ideas about this ‘I am’ lead to bondage, right knowledge leads to freedom and happiness. The ‘I am’ denotes the inner while ‘there is’ denotes the outer; both are based on the sense of being.

 

13 

 

The sense of ‘I am’ is your own. You cannot part with it, but you can impart it to anything, as in saying, I am young; I am rich, and so on. But such self-identifications are patently false and the cause of bondage. 

 

14

 

Give up all questions except one ‘who am I?’ After all the only fact you are sure of is that you ‘are’. The ‘I am’ is certain, the ‘I am this’ is not. Struggle to find out what you are in reality. 

 

15 

 

‘I am’ itself is God, the seeking itself is God. In seeking you discover that you are neither the body nor the mind, and the love of the self in you is for the self in all. The two are one. The consciousness in you and the consciousness in me, apparently two, really one, seek unity and that is love. What do you love now? The ‘I am’. Give your heart and mind to it, think of nothing else. This when effortless and natural, is the highest state. In it love itself is the lover and the beloved. 

 

16 

 

The impersonal is real, the personal appears and disappears. ‘I am’ is the impersonal being. ‘I am this’ is the person. The person is relative and the pure being – the fundamental. 

 

17

 

By focusing the mind on ‘I am’, on the sense of being, ‘I am so and-so’ dissolves; ‘am a witness only’ remains and that too submerges in ‘I am all’. Then the all becomes the One and the One– yourself, not to be separate from me. Abandon the idea of a separate ‘I’ and the question of ‘whose experience?’ will not arise. On a deeper level my experience is your experience. Dive deep within yourself and you will find it easily and simply. Go in the direction of ‘I am’. 

 

 18

Cling to the one thing that matters, hold on to ‘I am’ and let go all else. This is ‘sadhana’. In realization there is nothing to hold on to and nothing to forget. Everything is known, nothing is
remembered.

19

At the root of everything is the feeling ‘I am’. The state of mind ‘there is a world’ is secondary, for to be, I do not need the world, the world needs me.

20

Beyond the mind there is no such thing as experience. Experience is a dual state. You cannot talk of reality as an experience. Once this is understood, you will no longer look for being and becoming  as separate and opposite. In reality they are one and separable, like roots and branches of the same tree.Both can only exist in the light of consciousness, which again arises in the wake of the sense ‘I am’. This is the primary fact. If you miss it you miss all.

21

Everything is a play of ideas. In the state free from ideation (nirvikalpa samadhi) nothing is perceived. The root idea is ‘I am’. It shatters the state of pure consciousness and is followed by the innumerable sensations and perceptions, feelings and ideas, which in their totality constitute God and His world. The ‘I am’ remains as the witness, but it is by the will of God that everything happens.

22

The concentration on ‘I am’ is a form of attention. Give your undivided attention to the most important thing in your life – yourself. Of your personal universe you are the center – without
knowing the center what else can you know?

23

My advice to you is very simple – just remember yourself, ‘I am’, it is enough to heal your mind and take you beyond, just have some trust. I don’t mislead you. Why should I? Do I want anything from you? I wish you well – such is my nature. Why should I mislead you? Commonsense too will tell you that to fulfill a desire you must keep your mind on it. If you want to know your true nature, you must have yourself in mind all the time, until the secret of your being stands revealed.

24

It is right to say ‘I am’, but to say ‘I am this’, ‘I am that’, is a sign of not inquiring, not examining, of mental weakness or lethargy. Practice (sadhana) consists of reminding oneself forcibly of one’s pure ‘being ness’, of not being anything in particular, not a sum of particulars, not even the totality of all particulars, which make up a universe.

25

Be content with what you are sure of. And the only thing you can be sure of is ‘I am’. Stay with it and reject everything else. This is Yoga.