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

Nisargadatta - work on

Work on, and the universe will work with you. After all the very idea of doing the right thing comes to you from the unknown. Leave it to the unknown as far as the results go, just go through the necessary movements. You are merely one of the links in the long chain of causation.

Fundamentally, all happens in the mind only. When you work for something whole-heartedly and steadily, it happens, for it is the function of the mind to make things happen. In reality nothing is lacking and nothing is needed, all work is on the surface only. In the depths there is perfect peace.

All your problems arise because you have defined and therefore limited yourself. When you do not think yourself to be this or that, all conflict ceases. Any attempt to do something about your problems is bound to fail, for what is caused by desire can be undone only in freedom from desire.

You have enclosed yourself in time and space, squeezed yourself into the span of a lifetime and the volume of a body and thus created the innumerable conflicts of life and death, pleasure and pain, hope and fear. You cannot be rid of problems without abandoning illusions.

Nisargadatta - pure light

Primary is the infinite expanse of consciousness, the eternal possibility, the immeasurable potential of all that was, is, and will be. When you look at anything, it is the ultimate you see, but you imagine that you see a cloud or a tree.

Learn to look without imagination, to listen without distortion: that is all. Stop attributing names and shapes to the essentially nameless and formless, realize that every mode of perception is subjective, that what is seen or heard, touched or smelt, felt or thought, expected or imagined, is in the mind and not in reality, and you will experience peace and freedom from fear.

Even the sense of 'I am' is composed of the pure light and the sense of being. The 'I' is there even without the 'am'. So is the pure light there whether you say 'I' or not. Become aware of that pure light and you will never lose it. The beingness in being, the awareness in consciousness, the interest in every experience—that is not describable, yet perfectly accessible, for there is nothing else.


~Nisargadatta

Nisargadatta - see the imaginary

Assert your independence in thought and action. After all, all hangs on your faith in yourself, on the conviction that what you see and hear, think and feel is real. Why not question your faith?

No doubt, this world is painted by you on the screen of consciousness and is entirely your own private world. Only your sense 'I am', though in the world, is not of the world. By no effort of logic or imagination can you change the 'I am' into 'I am not'. In the very denial of your being you assert it.

Once you realize that the world is your own projection, you are free of it. You need not free yourself of a world that does not exist, except in your own imagination!

However is the picture, beautiful or ugly, you are painting it and you are not bound by it. Realize that there is nobody to force it on you, that it is due to the habit of taking the imaginary to be real.

See the Imaginary as imaginary and be free of fear.


~Nisargadatta Maharaj