Nisargadatta: "understand the taste of it"

I repeat again and again, please listen; understand what it is because of which we feel alive, understand the nature of it, understand the taste of it, then the body identification will go.

This Atman Prem (Self love), this beingness, has come about with no effort on your part. What is its nature, its taste, what is it? That you must find out.

Fix your identity firmly in this beingness, do not give it limbs, shape or form, for once you give it form you have limited it.

Understand this energy which is behind the entire manifestation of the universe.

You ask many questions, you look for the answers in books and words, not in intuitive experience. This is not knowledge. Knowledge springs from the consciousness without effort, of its own accord.

Various names have been given to this energy which is the source of all manifestation. People pray to these names and forms, they do not pray to that beingness, that substance, which these names represent. Pray to that beingness only.

As there is no separateness between two genuine friends, as a genuine friend knows the needs of the other without speaking, who cares for him and does it spontaneously, so you should develop such a deep friendship with that substance, not in the attitude of praying for favors, but as a friend seeking a friend. Be one with the knowledge "I Am," the source of sentience, the beingness itself.

People think and talk about everything else except this basic thing which I have told them. They are interested in scientific miracles, they make science a God, they concern themselves with these shapes which are already manifest. They are not interested in the original miracle, this body and its life force.

We ignore this miracle. If there is no consciousness there is no God. The existence and essence of God are both in this consciousness, and therefore in this body.

How did these temples and churches come about? Because of the inspiration of the consciousness within the body. The consciousness is the seed of Brahman, God, of everything, events only happen and manifest when consciousness is there, and in the body is the consciousness.

Nothing I say will benefit you in this world, I only tell you what you are. If you are seeking that kind of peace which is priceless, it can only be in establishing yourself in the consciousness with steadfast conviction. By conviction I mean never doubted, firm, unshakeable, never wavering – have that kind of conviction in your beingness. Think of nothing else, pray to nothing else. Atman Prem, because of it everything is.

That about which nothing can be said, I have said. Accept that drop, taste it and swallow it.

~Nisargadatta Maharaj "Prior to Consciousness" 10-January-1981