I AM
The complete ‘I am’ quotes of Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj
By
Pradeep
Dedicated
to my Guru Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Introduction
These quotes
have been compiled from seven books that cover almost all the dialogues of Shri
Nisargadatta Maharaj: I Am That edited by Maurice Frydman, Seeds of
Consciousness, Prior to Consciousness and Consciousness and the
Absolute edited by Jean Dunn and The Experience of Nothingness, The
Nectar of Immortality and The Ultimate Medicine edited by Robert
Powell.
Other
works that are mostly expositions of his teachings like: The Blissful life
by Robert Powell, Pointers from Nisargadatta Maharaj by Ramesh
Balsekar, I Am That I Am by Stephen Wolinsky, Song of I Am edited
by Jerry Katz and the ASMI – I Am That excerpts compiled and
edited by Miguel-Angel Carrasco have not been referred to.
Apart
from his teachings, all these texts give a lot of information on Shri Nisragadatta
Maharaj. Some other books that may also be of interest are: The Wisdom
teachings of Nisargatta Maharaj: A visual journey published by
Innerdirections, The Last days of Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj
published by Yogi impressions and Self Knowledge and Self Realization by
Nisargadatta Maharaj, edited by Jean Dunn.
A very
useful book is a small one called, Master Key to Self-Realization by
Siddharameshwar Maharaj (Nisargadatta Maharaj’s Guru). This is now available as
a part of the book, Master of Self-Realization published by Shri Sadguru
Trust. The Master Key is an amazing and extremely potent book that lays
the foundation of Shri Nisargadattta Maharaj’s teaching. His Guru,
Siddharameshwar Maharaj describes in explicit detail the four bodies: Gross body,
Subtle body, Causal body and the Supra-Causal body. A step-by-step procedure is
described for going through all these bodies and finally transcending them all
to reach the final destination, that is the ‘Parabrahman’ or the Absolute. As I
understand it, Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj’s primary teaching is to focus on the
‘I am’ which is the root of the Subtle body, after abiding here for a
sufficiently long time one just rolls over into ‘I am not’ which is the
experience in the Causal body. On this happening, one automatically, without
any effort, ‘is’ in the Supra-causal body (‘Turiya’). Now, it is only a step
away from the Absolute.
This
collection of all the ‘I am’ quotes of Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj have been
prepared to be used as device to get focused on the ‘I am’. Most of these
quotes are as such, while some have been prepared by resorting to
concatenations for maintaining the ‘I am’ theme during a dialogue session.
According to me, none of Maharaj’s dialogues
require any exposition, anyone with a reasonable amount of intelligence and of
course, a deep interest in the subject can understand what he is trying to say.
I assume that most of those who use this text have already read all the seven
books (or should I say ‘scriptures’) used for these quotes, and if not all at
least, I Am That, which is the primary book (scripture).
Let us now, lay aside expositions, and move
ahead with execution, which is what Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj wanted us all to
do – just abide in the ‘I am’
*******
Quote Source Sequence: 1 to 79 : I Am That
80 to 149 : Seeds Of Consciousness
150 to 220 : Prior To Consciousness
221 to 259 : Consciousness and the Absolute
260 to 295 : The Experience of Nothingness
296 to 341 : The Nectar of Immortality
342 to 396 : The Ultimate Medicine
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, enquiring, 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 experiencer 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 perceivables and conceivables – I believed. I gave my heart and soul, my entire attention and the whole of my spare time (I had to work to keep 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 endeavour.
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 enquiring, not examining, of mental weakness or lethargy. Practice (sadhana) consists of reminding oneself forcibly of one’s pure ‘beingness’, 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.
26 The one witness reflects itself in the countless bodies as ‘I am’. As long as the bodies, however subtle, last, the ‘I am’ appears as many. Beyond the body there is only the One.
27. When I say ‘I am’, I do not mean a separate entity with a body as its nucleus, I mean the totality of being, the ocean of consciousness, the entire universe of all that is known. I have nothing to desire for I am complete forever.
28. Words betray their hollowness. The real cannot be described, it must be experienced. I cannot find better words for what I know. What I say may sound ridiculous. But what the words try to convey is the highest truth. All is one, however much we quibble. And all is done to please the one source and goal of every desire, whom we all know as the ‘I am’.
29. When I repeat: ‘I am’, ‘I am’, I merely assert and re-assert an ever-present fact. You get tired of my words because you do not see the living truth behind them. Contact it and you will find the full meaning of words and of silence- both.
30. Self-remembrance, awareness of “I am’ ripens man powerfully and speedily. Give up all ideas about yourself and simply be. Stop making use of your mind and see what happens. Do this one thing thoroughly. That is all.
31.The fact is you. The only thing you know for sure is: ‘here and now I am’. Remove the ‘here and now’, the ‘I am’ remains unassailable.
32. All I can say is ‘I am’, all else is inference. But the inference has become a habit. Destroy all habits of thinking and sleeping. The sense ‘I am’ is a manifestation of a deeper cause, which you may call self, God, Reality or by any other name. The ‘I am’ is in the world but it is the key which can open the door out of the world.
33.Only your sense ‘I am’ though in the world, is not of the world. By no effort of logic you can 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 imagination.
34.The sense ‘I am’ is composed of 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.
35.’I am’ is ever fresh. You do need to remember in order to ‘be’ As a matter of fact, before you can experience anything, there must be the sense of being. At present your being is mixed up with experiencing. All you need to do is to unravel being from the tangle of experiences. Once you have known pure being, without being this or that, you will discern it among experiences, and you will no longer be misled by names and forms.
36. All talk of ‘gnana’ is a sign of ignorance. It is the mind that imagines that it does not know and then comes to know. Reality knows nothing of these contortions. Even the idea of God as the Creator is false. Do I owe my being to another being? Because ‘I am” all ‘is’.
37. 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.
38.One has to understand that the search for reality, God, Guru and the search for the self are the same, when one is found all are found. When ‘I am’ and ‘God is’ become in your mind indistinguishable, then something will happen and you will know without a trace of doubt that God is because you are, you are because God is. The two are one.
39.When ‘I am myself’ goes the ‘I am all’ comes. When the ‘I am all’ goes, ‘I am’ comes. When even ‘I am’ goes, reality alone is, and in it every ‘I am’ is preserved and glorified.
40. I am now 74 years old. And yet I feel that I am an infant. I feel clearly that in spite of all the changes I am a child. My Guru told me that the child, which is you even now, is your real self (‘swarupa’). Go back to that state of pure being, where the ‘I am’ is still in its purity before it gets contaminated with ‘this I am’ or ‘that I am’. Your burden is of false self-identification – abandon them all. My Guru told me – ‘Trust me. I tell you, you are divine. Take it as the absolute truth. Your joy is divine; your suffering is divine too. All comes from God. Remember it always. You are God, your will alone is done.’ I did believe him and soon realized how wonderfully true and accurate were his words. I did not condition my mind by thinking: ‘I am God, I am wonderful, I am beyond.’ I simply followed his 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.
41.Don’t you see that it is your very search for happiness that makes you feel miserable? Try the other way: indifferent to pain and pleasure, neither seeking, nor refusing, give all your attention to the level on which ‘I am’ is timelessly present. Soon you will realize that peace and happiness are in your very nature and it is only seeking them through some particular channels that disturbs. Avoid the disturbance, that is all. To seek there is no need, you would not seek what you already have. You yourself are God, the Supreme Reality. To begin with, trust me, trust the teacher. It enables you to make the first step - and then your trust is justified by your own experience.
42. The best is the simple feeling ‘I am’. Dwell on it patiently. Here patience is wisdom; don’t think of failure. There can be no failure in this undertaking.
43. No use rebelling against the very pattern of life. If you seek the immutable, go beyond experience. When I say remember ‘I am’ all the time, I mean come back to it repeatedly. No particular thought can be mind’s natural state, only silence. Not the idea of silence but silence itself. When the mind is in its natural state, it reverts to silence spontaneously after every experience, or rather, every experience happens against a background of silence. Now, what you have learnt here becomes the seed. You may forget it – apparently. But it will live and in due season sprout and grow and bring forth flowers and fruits. All will happen by itself. You need not do anything, only don’t prevent it.
44.First know your own mind and you will find that the question of other minds does not arise at all, for there are no other people. You are the common factor, the only link between the minds, Being is consciousness; ‘I am’ applies to all.
45.The ‘I am’ is a thought, while awareness is not a thought; there is no ‘I am aware’ in awareness. Consciousness is an attribute while awareness is not, one can be aware of being conscious, but not conscious of awareness. God is the totality of consciousness, but awareness is beyond all – being as well as non-being.
46. When you follow my advice and try to keep the mind on the notion of ‘I am’ only, you become fully aware of your mind and its vagaries. Awareness being lucid harmony (‘sattwa’) in action dissolves dullness and quietens the restlessness of the mind and gently but steadily changes its very substance. This change need not be spectacular; it maybe hardly noticeable; and yet it is a deep and fundamental shift from darkness to light from inadvertence to awareness.
47.There is the body and there is the Self, between them is the mind, in which the Self is reflected as ‘I am’. Because of the imperfections of the mind, its crudity and restlessness, lack of discernment and insight, it takes itself to be the body and not the Self. All that is needed is to purify the mind so that it can realize its identity with the Self. When the mind merges in the Self, the body presents no problems. It remains what it is, an instrument of cognition and action, the tool and the expression of the creative fire within.
48.The tangle which is entirely below the level of consciousness can be set right by being with yourself, the ‘I am’, by watching yourself in your daily life with alert interest with the intention to understand rather than to judge, in full acceptance of whatever may emerge, because it is there, you encourage the deep to come to the surface and enrich your life and consciousness with its captive energies. This is the great work of awareness; it removes obstacles and releases energies by understanding the nature of life and mind. Intelligence is the door to freedom and alert attention is the mother of intelligence.
49.There must be love in the relation between the person who says ‘I am’ and the observer of the ‘I am’. As long as the observer, the inner self; the ‘higher’ self considers himself apart from the observed, the ‘lower’ self, despises it and condemns it, the situation is hopeless. It is only when the observer (‘vyakta’) accepts the person (‘vyakti’) as a projection or manifestation of himself, and so to say, takes the self into the Self, the duality of ‘I’ and ‘this’ goes and the identity of the outer and the inner, the Supreme Reality manifests itself.
50.There is no ‘I’ apart from the body nor the world. The three appear and disappear together. At the root is the sense ‘I am’. Go beyond it. The idea ‘I-am-not-body’ is merely an antidote to the idea ‘I-am-the-body’, which is false. What is that ‘I am’? Unless you know yourself, what else can you know?
51.All hangs on the idea ‘I am’. Examine it very thoroughly. It lies at the root of every trouble. This ‘I am’ idea was not born with you. You could have lived very well without it. It came later due to your self-identification with the body. It created an illusion of separation where there was none. It made you a stranger in your own world alien and inimical. Without the sense of ‘I am’ life goes on. There are moments when we are without the sense of ‘I am’, at peace and happy. With the return of ‘I am’, trouble starts.
52.It is because the ‘I am’ is false that it wants to continue. Reality need not continue – knowing itself indestructible, it is indifferent to the destruction of forms and expressions. To strengthen and stabilize the ‘I am’ we do all sorts of things – all in vain for the ‘I am’ is being rebuilt from moment to moment. No ambition is spiritual. All ambitions are for the sake of ‘I am’. If you want to make real progress you must give up all ideas of personal attainment.
53.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 you 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. It took me only three years to realize my true nature. My Guru died soon after I met him, but it made no difference. I remembered what he told me and persevered. The fruit of it is here, with me.
54.All directions are within the mind. I am not asking you to look in any particular direction. Just look away from all that happens in your mind and bring it to the feeling ‘I am’. The ‘I am’ is not a direction. It is the negation of all directions. Ultimately even the ‘I am’ will have to go for you need not keep asserting what is obvious. Bringing the mind to the feeling ‘I am’ merely helps turning the mind away from everything else.
55 Tirelessly I draw your attention to the one incontrovertible factor – that of being. Being needs no proofs – it proves itself. If only you go deep into the fact of being and discover the vastness and the glory, to which the ‘I am’ is the door, and cross the door and go beyond, your life will be full of happiness and light. Believe me, the effort needed is as nothing when compared with the discoveries arrived at.
56.Hold on to the sense ‘I am’ to the exclusion of everything else. When this mind becomes completely silent, it shines with a new light and vibrates with new knowledge. It all comes spontaneously; you need only to hold on to the ‘I am’.
57.Begin with feeling ‘I am’. All else is neither true nor false, it seems real when it appears, it disappears when it is denied. A transient thing is a mystery. The real is simple, open, clear and kind, beautiful and joyous. It is completely free of contradictions. It is ever-new, ever-fresh, and endlessly creative. Being and non-being, life and death, all distinctions merge in it.
58.The teacher tells the watcher you are not this, there is nothing yours in this, except the point of ‘I am’, which is the bridge between the watcher and his dream. ‘I am this’, ‘I am that’ is a dream, while pure ‘I am’ has the stamp of reality on it. You have tasted so many things – all came to naught. Only the sense ‘I am’ persisted – unchanged. Stay with the changeless among the changeful, until you are able to go beyond.
59.First you create a world, then the ‘I am’ becomes a person, who is not happy for various reasons. He goes out in search of happiness, meets a Guru who tells him’ You are not a person, find out who you are’. He does it and goes beyond.
60.He who is beyond time – is the un-nameable. A glowing ember moved round and round quickly enough, appears as a glowing circle. When the movement ceases, the ember remains. Similarly, the ‘I am’ in movement creates the world. The ‘I am’ at peace becomes the Absolute.
61.Immortality is freedom from the feeling: ‘I am’. Yet it is not extinction. On the contrary, it is a state infinitely more real, aware and happy than you can possibly think of. Only self-consciousness is no more. Who would remain even to say ‘I am the witness’? When there is no ‘I am’, where is the witness? In the timeless state there no self to take refuge in.
62.The witness is both unreal and real. The last remnant of the illusion, the first touch of the real. To say: I am only the witness is both false and true, false because of the ‘I am’, true because of the witness. It is better to say: ‘there is witnessing’. The moment you say ‘I am’, the entire universe comes into being along with its creator.
63.Trust the teacher. Take my case. My Guru ordered me to attend to the sense ‘I am’ and to give attention to nothing else. I just obeyed. I did not follow any particular course of breathing or meditation, or study of scriptures. Whatever happened I would turn away my attention from it and remain with the sense ‘I am’, it may look too simple, even crude. My only reason for doing it was that my Guru told me so. Yet it worked! Obedience is a powerful solvent of all desires and fears.
64.Look at the ‘I am’ as a sign of love between the inner and the outer, the real and the appearance. Just like in a dream all is different, except the sense of ‘I’, which enables you to say ‘I dreamt’, so does the sense of ‘I am’ enable you to say, ‘I am my real Self again. I do nothing nor is anything done to me. I am what I am and nothing can affect me. I appear to depend on everything, but in fact all depends on me’.
65. In the immensity of consciousness a light appears, a tiny point that moves rapidly and traces shapes, thoughts and feelings, concepts and ideas, like a pen writing on paper. And the ink that leaves a trace is memory. You are that tiny point and by your movement the world is ever re-created. Stop moving and there will be no world. Look within and you will find that the point of light is the reflection of the immensity of light in the body as the sense ‘I am’. There is only light all else appears.
66.To be the point of light (reflected as the sense ‘I am’) tracing the world is ‘turiya’. To be the light itself is ‘turiyatita’. But of what use are names when reality is so near?
67.The sense of ‘I am’ is both unreal and real. Unreal when I say ‘I am this or that’. It is real when we mean ‘I am not this nor that’. The ‘I am’ and the witness are not one, but without one the other cannot be.
68.Give your heart and mind to brooding over the ‘I am’, what is it, how is it, what is its source, its life, its meaning. It is very much like digging a well. You reject all that is not water, till you reach the life-giving spring.
69 The witness and consciousness appear and disappear together. The witness or the sense ‘I am’ too is transient but is given importance to break the spell of the known; the illusion that only the perceivable is real. Presently for you perception is primary and witnessing secondary, revert it to make witnessing primary and perception secondary (The ‘I am’ is just a device to revert).
70.Look at yourself steadily – it is enough. The door that locks you in is also the door that lets you out. The ‘I am’ is the door. Stay at it until it opens. As a matter of fact, it is open, only you are not at it. You are waiting at the non-existent painted doors, which will never open.
71.Keep the ‘I am’ in the focus of awareness, remember that you ‘are’, watch yourself ceaselessly and the unconscious will flow into the conscious without any special effort on your part. The person merges into the witness, the witness into awareness, awareness into pure being, yet identity is not lost, only its limitations are lost. It is transfigured and becomes the real Self, the ‘sadguru’, the eternal friend and guide. To go deeper, meditation is essential, the striving to go beyond the states of sleep, dream and waking. In the beginning the attempts are irregular, then recur more often, become regular, then continuous and intense, until all obstacles are conquered.
72.All that happens, happens in and to the mind, not to the source of the ‘I am’. Once you realize that all happens by itself (call it destiny, or the will of God or mere accident), you remain as witness only, understanding and enjoying, but not perturbed.
73.Before you can say ‘I am’, you must be there to say it. Being need not be self-conscious. You need not know to be, but you must ‘be’ to know.
74. The subtle body is created with the emergence of the ‘I am’ idea. The two are one. It is momentary. Real when present, unreal when over. Call it empirical, or actual, or factual. It is the reality of immediate experience, here and now, which cannot be denied.
You can question the description and the meaning, but not the event itself. Being and non-being alternate and their reality is momentary. The immutable reality lies beyond space and time. Realize the momentariness of being and non-being and be free from both.
75.The ‘I am’ is at the root of all appearance and the permanent link in the succession of events that we call life; but I am beyond the ‘I am’.
76. All the glories will come with mere dwelling on the feeling ‘I am’. It is the simple that is certain, not the complicated. Somehow, people do not trust the simple, the easy, the always available. Why not give a honest trial to what I say? It may look very small and insignificant, but it is like a seed that grows into a mighty tree. Give yourself a chance.
77.I was taught to give attention to my sense of ‘I am’ and I found it supremely effective. Therefore, I can speak of it with full confidence. But often people come with bodies, brains and minds so mishandled, perverted and weak that the state of formless attention is beyond them. In such cases some simpler token of earnestness (like repeating a ‘mantra’) is appropriate. After all it is the earnestness that is indispensable, the crucial factor. ‘Sadhana’ is only a vessel and it must be filled to be brim with earnestness, which is but love in action. For nothing can be done without love.
78.Delve deeply into the sense ‘I am’ and you surely discover that the perceiving center is universal, as universal as the light that illumines the world. All that happens in the universe happens to you, the silent witness. On the other hand, whatever is done, is done by you, the universal and inexhaustible energy.
79.Theoretically you always have a chance for self-realization. In practice a situation must arise, when all the factors necessary for self-realization are present. This need not discourage you. Your dwelling on the fact of ‘I am’ will soon create another chance. For attitude attracts opportunity. All you know is second-hand. Only ‘I am’ is first-hand and needs no proofs. Stay with it.
80.You have to go within. Whatever great things have happened in nature, however powerful, still they disappear right here. These situations appear and disappear. This is actually abstract, what is solid here is the knowledge ’I am’. The seen and seeing disappear. I tell this only to those who are prepared to listen. Whatever appears is bound to disappear.
81.The greatest appearance is the knowledge ‘I am’. It is invisible before the birth and after the death of the body, and while it is visible it is a solid thing. Many great sages have appeared and disappeared because of the powerful seed ‘I am’.
82 The knowledge ‘I am’ is time bound, all your knowledge sprouts from the concept that you are. This infinitesimal seed contains the universe. You miss the point; you do not understand me properly. This principle ‘I am’ I am telling you about again and again. All questions will be over once you solve the riddle of ‘I am’.
83.The knowledge ‘I am’ is the soul of the entire world. The witness of the knowledge ‘I am’ is prior to the knowledge ‘I am’. Try to understand yourself as you are, do not add any qualifications.
84.The ‘I am’ is the sum total of everything you perceive. It appears spontaneously and disappears, it has no dwelling place. It is like a dream world. Do not try to be something, even a spiritual person. You are the manifested. The tree is already there in the seed. Such is the ‘I am’. Just see it as it is.
85.You are separate from ‘I am’. ‘I am’ is itself an illusion. The knowledge ‘I am’ and the world are tricks of Maya. There is no substance in them. There are no words actually; you speak words for your satisfaction.
86.The ‘I amness’ is pulsating ‘I am, I am’. The feeling of ‘I amness’ is there because of the essence of the food body and vital breath, when these are gone the pulsation of ‘I amness’ will not be there. Beingness goes into no-beingness.
87.Because of the knowledge ‘I am’ we conduct all activities. In the morning when you wake up you get the first guaranty, that conviction of ‘I am’. Then because you are not in a position to sustain or tolerate that ‘I amness’ you bestir yourself. You get up and move around here and there and the activity starts.
88.That attention of ‘I amness’ is always there in the waking state, but we are not alert to watch it. There is no other attention to be followed. Be attentive to that attention ‘I am’.
89.Deal with the knowledge ‘I am’. This ‘I amness’ is there first, isn’t it? – primary. That ‘I’ must be there before you receive this sickness of ‘samskara’ (obstacles). Initially you have to understand that the knowledge ‘I am’ is a product of the food essence. When you know that you are, the world also is.
90.The Guru, God, your own knowledge – these three are one. If you know that, you become quiet Guru means knowledge and knowledge means ‘I am’. The ‘I amness’ is itself the Guru.
91.That state in which you were before you acquired this knowledge ‘I am’ is the real state. Only after you got this knowledge you identified with the body-mind. Whatever you have acquired, including the body-mind, that will go, and it is useless, and that is that. But your original state, before you acquired the body, is the Truth, is the Real state, and it will remain.
92.The beginning and the end of this understanding is the knowledge ‘I am’. The beginning of concepts started with the primary concept ‘I am’. Having wandered through all the concepts, and rejected them, you have to get rid of this last or the first concept.
93. To start with you have to be in that beingness or ‘I am’ without the body sense. You feel that you are the body now but when you abide in that beingness you will know then how you are without the body sense.. But don’t forget, at the same time; that body and the vital breath are very necessary. Once you understand these three entities correctly (body, vital breath and the message ‘I am’), then you are apart.
94.This knowledge ‘I am’ comes to you after your body is born, after that the body of childhood grows on its own and becomes old. What remains in the end is only one thing ‘I am’. So all through life you have to remember to investigate who is this ‘I am’. Otherwise birth and death will have no meaning for your beingness, because that beingness will also be dissolved after the death of the body.
95.To understand more clearly take the example of the dream world. You are in deep sleep and suddenly you feel ‘I am’ and that ‘I amness’ creates a dream world. Similarly this manifest world is created by that ‘I amness’. You will realize this later in the search for truth. The last progress will be for you to transcend this ‘I amness’ and get stabilized in the ultimate.
96.The knowledge ‘I am’ is the first ignorance and whatever knowledge you acquire with it is ignorance. Go back to the source of your ignorance.
97 Whatever is called God or Self is because there is the beingness, the feeling that ‘I am’. That is the fundamental principle, the basis of all your knowledge, but you are identifying yourself with the body.
98. With greatest interest you get absorbed in your Self. By giving attention only to your ‘I’ consciousness you can reach it. Without giving attention to the body but to the sense ‘I am’.
99.The consciousness that has come out of the five elements, through the body, is the quality of beingness, the knowledge that ‘I am’. That state of beingness will perish. There is no necessity for following any particular path, everything is the same. Think of that which is the center of the cosmos, don’t let your attention stray in any way from the knowledge of beingness, ‘I am’. Keep on knowing that ‘I am’ and through this insistence you will know the state you want to reach.
100.Before this knowledge ‘I am’ appeared on you, you were absolutely unattached. As soon as this knowledge dawned on you became attached to everything around you. Only that false ‘I’ is attached. Everything is just happening and that false ‘I’ is taking the credit for doing things.
101 All this conceptual cycle is created by you because you have the concept ‘I am’, which you must eradicate yourself. When you are in deep sleep is there any experience of pleasure and pain or birth and death? What does that mean? It means that concept ‘I am’
has vanished.
102. You must meditate on that ‘I am’ without holding on to the body and mind. As you nursed at your mother’s breast when you were a baby, so must you nurse at this ‘I am’, the knowledge of your beingness. Remember and meditate on this also ‘ I have no fear, I am beyond fear’. I am telling you that this fear will gradually lessen and will go completely, because I say so. The medicine for that fear is my word.
103. The Absolute state does not know itself, but the Absolute is offered and opportunity to understand itself through the food product, the ‘I am’. The very core of all atoms is permeated by that knowledge ‘I am’. Embrace all the atoms of the universe with the feeling that all of them have come inside us in the form of the knowledge ‘I am’.
104.You are so used to support of concepts that when your concepts leave you, although it is your true state, you get frightened and try to cling to them again. This is the meeting point of that immanent principle and the Eternal, the borderland. Why is the intellect puzzled here? That beingness which you are experiencing is melting away. When the concept of ‘I am’ goes, intellect also goes. So the intellect gets that frightening experience of ‘I am going’.
105.When you become one with that knowledge you will realize that the knowledge ‘I am’ is the very Guru of the universe. Don’t make use of anything except the knowledge ‘I am’. Forget everything else. Consider a magnificent tree with many branches and leaves. Go to the root and not the branches.
106. The ‘I am’ connotes the three states, waking, dream and deep sleep. ‘I am’ means that you are these three states, when these are gone the memory is also gone.
107. The appearance of the primary concept ‘I am’ is the beginning of duality. I started counting with myself, before this counting starts. That has no number. That is the Absolute. With that little movement ‘I am’ this counting started.
108. What you must witness is not your thoughts but the consciousness ‘I am’. Everything is an expression of the ‘I am,’ but you are not that; you are prior to the ‘I am’.
109.There is the true Awareness, from which comes consciousness, which is your feeling ‘I am’, be one with your consciousness and that is all that you can do, the Ultimate must come to you. You can only watch what happens – there is nothing you can do to get it.
110. The Guru is the same all-pervading consciousness ‘I am’. The Sat-Guru has gone beyond all these concepts, including the primary concept ‘I am’.
111.There is no proprietor behind that feeling of awareness. It only is, it is beyond description, and words cannot be of any use. That is the permanent state and this manifestation is only its movement. Nobody becomes a ‘Parabrahman’, nobody ‘can’ become a ‘Parabrahman’: It is. Before the knowledge ‘I am’ appeared on you, that is ‘Parabrahman’. If you revert properly, the consciousness ‘I am’ will disappear. There is no movement.
112. When you feel that you are separate from the feeling ‘I am’ isn’t there something or someone who knows that there is a difference? Find out, are you separate unknowingly?
Are we all here because of our volition to be born or has this knowingness appeared in us unknowingly? This beingness has come to you without your knowledge, but you are using it according to your own volition. I want to sentence that inviduality to death. Is it not justice that I pronounce this sentence? So think carefully. The individuality must go. ‘Parabrahman’ is purest justice and Truth.
113.There are various types of charity, but the greatest charity is the renunciation of the knowledge ‘I am’. When you give that up you escape birth and death. Waking state represents activity; deep sleep represents peace, quiet. When these two are present it means ‘I am’ is there, but you the Absolute are neither the waking state, deep sleep nor
‘I amness’.
114.What else is there except the touch of ‘I am’? Why do you worry about discovering Maya and Brahma and all that? Understand what this principle ‘I am’ is and you are finished. That ‘I am’ is in bondage because of concepts.
115 I want to take you to that ‘I am’ concept which is the last outpost of illusion and get rid of it. Understand the quality of these concepts.
116. What capital is available to you? Only that ‘I am’, it is a product of this five-elemental food essence. First you become the consciousness, then you realize that you are manifestation.
117.The Bhagavad-Gita says that we have five senses of knowledge; these are very subtle. More subtle than the senses is the mind, subtler than the mind is the intelligence, and subtler than these is the vital breath. And yet more subtle is ‘He’, the beingness, the ‘I am’.
118. You know you are sitting here. Be attentive to that knowledge only. Just be in your beingness. That knowingness ‘I am’ has created the entire universe. Hold on to that; nothing has to be done. Once you recognize that principle it becomes tranquil. Become one with that and all your needs will be satisfied.
119.I have been very open, very explicit. I’ve been telling you that you are not the body, you are that knowledge only and that vital breath is your conveyance, a tool by which you carry out your activities, and the knowledge ‘I am’ is very subtle. Because of your knowledge, you are and world is.
120. Don’t get involved in anything stay in the consciousness ‘I am’ and don’t go on a intellectual binge again. Consciousness indicates to the consciousness, expounds the knowledge; but you will not dwell there, you embrace the body. The knowledge ‘I am’ tells the knowledge about itself to the ‘I am’ only.
121.You are worrying because of the intellect, but you have only to continue in that ‘I am’ with faith, you have nothing else to do. You are likely to miss that incident if you try to use your intellect. Just let it happen. Hold on to the feeling ‘I am’, don’t pollute that state by holding on to the body sense.
122. Maya is the primary source of illusion. At that point, love for the Self begins: ‘I am’, the love to be. Its expression is all this manifestation.
123. After deep sleep, as soon as consciousness dawns on you of ‘I am’ – that is the witness. Before that moment you did not know that you are, there was no witness, no knowledge of ‘I am’.
124. As long as you identify with the body-mind you are conditioned. Once you stabilize in the knowledge ‘I am’ unconditionally you are the manifest ‘I amness’ – no more an individual. In the manifested state of ‘I amness’ there is no question of your doing, because you are no more an individual. Whatever happens, happens in your consciousness. Whatever happens through this, you also know it will happen, but there is no question of doing or being anything.
125.In the womb that knowingness is ignorant of its existence, the ‘I am’ is not present but the ‘I am’ principle is started there. All things happen unknowingly, but even to understand that is very difficult, it is beyond our comprehension.
126.The first film is when that knowingness appears on you. In that knowledge ‘I am’ all is contained. Only in that film when the film started knowing itself, ‘I am’; then you came to know all this. Did you know anything before?
127.That knowledge ‘I am’ is born out of love, but the illusion has taken such hold of it that love for the ‘I amness’ has gone into the background. To stay with it has become increasingly difficult. Without the manifestation the love was total.
128 You are a man because you identify with the body. If you do not identify with the body, what sex are you? After leaving the body, the vital breath and the ‘I am’ merge into the substratum. Then where is man or woman?
129. In my original true state I have no form and no thoughts. I didn’t know I was, but suddenly another state appeared in which I had a form and thought, ‘I am’. How did this appear? The one who explains how these appearances have come about is the Sat-Guru.
130 Your first step is beingness: embrace the knowledge ‘I am’ be that. I am trying to speak of my most intimate secrets. Just as the dream world, uncalled for, has appeared and you observe it, similarly this world, uncalled for, has appeared and you are compelled to observe it. Just observe. Spontaneously, unknowingly, your beingness has appeared. Knowingly you don’t know ‘ Now I am going to be’; only after the formation of ‘I amness’ do you know ‘I am’.
131.The knowledge ‘I am’ is the film, the destiny. Finally what is our destiny? It is that birth chemical, that film in which everything is recorded and everything is happening. Where are ‘you’ in this?
132.What do you mean by study? That means you are only trying to remember the concepts. What I am saying is that you become concept-free. Put an ax to the concepts, including the concept ‘I am’.
133.This knowledge ‘I am’ has appeared out of love and that love comes out of existence. When this knowledge has dawned on the Self it is absolutely happy but after the child is two or three years old, gradually it gets involved in ‘I’ and ‘mine’, and gradually he loses hold of the joy ‘I am’. The result of this involvement is that he comes to the conclusion that he was born and is going to die.
134.There is no separate God to propitiate and get things done according to our will. Without doing anything you have the knowledge ‘I am’. Immense courage, heroism and conviction that you are – that is ‘ishwara, that is you. I am giving you instructions regarding your beginningless being but you prefer to be that monkey form. You are not prepared to leave that form.
135.The manifestation of the dynamic immanent Spirit is in the form of the guna (quality) ‘I am’, it understands itself as ‘I am’. Then this guna involves itself in the activities in the world through the three gunas. That is the quality.
136. ‘I am’ is a quality, an attribute, indicating beingness, but the Self is not a quality. For that Ultimate Self no worldly knowledge is necessary. Words are not called for. But for the sustenance of this beingness, these words and worldly knowledge is necessary.
137.You are dependant for your living on the strength of your body that it gets from the food you eat and the essence of this food and food body is this consciousness ‘I am’. Your beingness is within you not somewhere else.
138. In the traditional view Brahman is supposed to have created the world, Vishnu to maintain it and Shiva to destroy it. Is not this Brahman who creates the world the same as the Brahma-randhra out of which the sense of ‘I am’ comes? Who is this Brahman other than the ‘I amness’.
139.The sense of ‘I am’ is always there; only when it identifies with the body it is called the ego.
140.The message ‘I am’ does not have any form, design, or color. So long as ‘I am’is, this experience of manifestation is, once that ‘I amness’ disappears there is no experience. Once this message ‘I am’ appears in insect, animal, or human being, immediately the manifestation occurs with that beingness. Inside and outside is full of manifestation. These talks are not for general consumption, for the masses.
141. The message ‘I am’ has no form, it is only a food container. It is there, it has meaning, you cannot perceive it, observe it. The message ‘I am’ is time-bound. The principle to which ‘I am’ refers is beyond time, timeless, eternal.
142.The knowledge ‘I am’ is the same, whether it is an insect, worm, human being or an avatar (being of the highest order); the basic consciousness is the same in all of these.
143. There is no reason why this consciousness came about, but once it comes about, it cannot stand still, consciousness is the same as movement. That movement takes place through the three gunas, which are inherent in this knowledge ‘I am’. All movement takes place through these gunas and this consciousness keeps on humming.
144. Satva is only the essence of the five elements and in that is the knowledge ‘I am’. All that is still of the five elements, so how did this come about? Then my Guru told me, ‘this is what you are’, the whole story; so from my own experience I know that it is all ignorance.
145.My Guru pointed out to me that originally I had nothing to do with all this and all I have with which to solve this mystery of life is the knowledge ‘I am’; without that there is nothing. So I got hold of it, as my Guru told me, and then I wanted to find out how this body aspect came about without my knowledge and how alone on that any other knowledge come about, and that again is a result of five elements. Therefore, whatever anybody thinks he has is sheer ignorance, and I know it from my own experience.
146. If this is ignorance, then where is my beingness? My beingness is in a town which is no-town, in a place which is no-place. How did this come about? Because of this knowledge ‘I am’, which is ignorance. Maya, which came about suddenly, without my asking. Once having come about, this Maya liked what it had created and it wanted that beingness to last for all time. Maya embraced it with such fierceness, that, at any cost, it wants to prolong the existence of that beingness as long as it can.
147.The beingness, the ‘I am’, is merely an instrument, it is not you. It is an instrument of knowledge, and that great instrument of knowledge is called God, which is the quality of the food essence. Out of that alone you will be able to see everything else.
148.One who is completely rid of coming and going, and finally, one who is completely rid of one’s very own concept that ‘I am’, is completely liberated.
149.Brahman means the emanation of the world, simultaneously confirming that ‘I am’. In this Brahman everything is illusion, but who understands that? The principle that understands, realizes, and witnesses is the ‘Parabrahman’. Witnessing happens to the ‘Parabrahman’. In this manifest state everything is ever changing, nothing is permanent, and all is illusion.
150.When you are in deep sleep and you feel that you are awake, the dream world appears simultaneously. With the ‘I am’, the world appears in the waking and dream states.
151.Concepts come into the sense of being ‘I am’ because of the vital breath that causes the mind flow. Mind means words, so thoughts are there – they are the concepts. Look at your root, the child consciousness, and finish it off.
152.It is only during the duration of the beingness that the world and creation is. This power is the faith in the primordial concept ‘I am’, and that is the concept that weaves the web of creation. The entire manifestation is an appearance in this concept.
153. You must come to a firm decision. You must forget the thought that you are the body and be only the knowledge ‘I am’, which has no form, no name. Just be. When you stabilize in that beingness it will give all the knowledge and all the secrets to you, and when the secrets are given to you, you transcend the beingness, and you, the Absolute will know that you are also not the consciousness. Having gained all this knowledge, having understood what is what, a kind of quietude prevails, a tranquility. Beingness is transcended, but beingness is available.
154. On my true, whole, homogenous state just a small ripple appeared, the news came, ‘I am’. That news made all the difference, and I started knowing this; but now I have known my true state, so I understand my true state first, and then I understand that this ripple is coming and going on my true state. While in your case, you take interest in the ripple and don’t take interest in your true state.
155. The consciousness that ‘I am’ has created, and sustains, all the wonders in the world for which men take credit; on the other hand this consciousness has no control over itself. The principle out of which you have sprouted has tremendous powers. Lord Krishna has said, ‘You worship me, be devoted to me’, this means what? The knowledge ‘I am’ which is indwelling in you worship that only.
156. Lord Krishna said ‘All are my expressions’. This knowledge ‘I am’ in each species is myself. The very life force – luminous, bright, radiant, indwelling principle is myself.
157.When you got yourself separated from the Absolute with this identity ‘I am’, you felt fragmented, isolated, and that is why your demands started. In the Absolute there are no needs, Only the Absolute prevails. The truth is total Brahman only, nothing else but Brahman. In a total Brahman state arose the touch of beingness, ‘I am’, and with that, separation started, otherness has come. But this ‘I amness’ is not just a small principle, that itself is the ‘moolmaya’, the primary illusion.
158.If you want to remember this visit, if you have love for me, remember this ‘I am’ principle and without the command or direction of this principle, do nothing.
159.The ‘Maya’ is so powerful that it gets you completely wrapped up in it. ‘Maya’ means ‘I am’, ‘I love to be’, It has no identity except love. That knowledge of ‘I am’ is the greatest foe and the greatest friend. Although it might be your greatest enemy, if you propitiate it properly, it will turn around and lead you to the highest state.
160. Death is considered to be a traumatic experience, but understand what happens. That which has been born, the knowledge ‘I am’, will end. That knowledge, which was limited by this body, will then become unlimited, so what is to be feared?
161.That feeling of love must be understood and then love will unfold itself. Love for the Self, this consciousness, ‘I am’, those who have understood this as the true love, have themselves become love. All has merged in them.
162.This illness that I have got is not separate from what exists as the body, breath and the knowledge ‘I am’. This is one bundle, which has been created; whatever happens is contained in that bundle. I have been separate from it before conception, and will continue to be separate from what has been created.
163.What was conceived has grown physically, and some of the expressions of this knowledge ‘I am’ have achieved tremendous things. At the end of the time span the magnificent personalities, and whatever they have achieved – both have disappeared, however long the time, there is an end to it.
164.What is wrong is that you consider yourself to be limited to this body and shape. What knowledge I try to give is given to the knowledge ‘I am’ in each of you, which is the same. If you try to get the knowledge as an individual you will never get it.
165. That ‘I am’ is a concept is to be understood while the concept is there. Once it merges in the original state, who (or what) is there who wants to know? The illusory entity has disappeared.
166.Whatever I am telling you is not the truth, because it has come out of this ‘I am’. The truth is beyond expression. I am taking you again and again to the source of the spring. Once you go to the source you will come to know there is no water, water is the news ‘I am’.
167.Understand that it is not the individual that has consciousness; it is the consciousness which assumes innumerable forms. That something which is born or which will die is purely imaginary. It is the child of a barren woman. In the absence of this basic concept ‘I am’, there is no thought, there is no consciousness.
168.Any embodied person with the knowledge ‘I am’ carries on his activities in the world with the name only. That inner core, the ‘I am’ has no shackles. Once it is understood that I am that ‘I am’ only, and not this shackled form, then no liberation is called for, that itself is liberation.
169.In this spiritual hierarchy, from the grossest to the subtlest, you are the subtlest. How can this be realized? The very base is that you don’t know you are, and suddenly the feeling of ‘I amness’ appears. The moment it appears you see space, mental space; that subtle sky-like space, stabilize there. You are that. When you are able to stabilize in that space, you are space only. When this space-like identity ‘I am’ disappears, the space will also disappear, there is no space. When that space-like ‘I am’ goes into oblivion, that is the eternal state, ‘nirguna’, no form, no beingness. Actually, what did happen there? This message ‘I am’ was no message. Dealing with this aspect, I cannot talk much because there is no scope to put it in words.
170.Most essential is that knowledge ‘I am’. Claim it, appropriate it as your own. If that is not there, nothing is. Knowledge of all stages will be obtained only with the aid of this knowledge ‘I am’ From the Absolute no-knowing state, spontaneously this consciousness ‘I am’ has appeared – no reason, no cause.
171.This passing show maybe likened to the following situation: suppose I was well all along, then suddenly I was sick and the doctor gave me medicine. After three days my fever was gone. So this stage of fever for three days is the ‘I am’ consciousness. Exactly like that – a passing show, a time-bound state.
172. The knowledge ‘I am’ is not a thought but observes thought. The innermost, subtlest principle is that gnawing principle ‘I am, I am’ without words, by which you know you are. It has no form or image; it is only beingness, the love to be.
173.The ‘I am’ and the Absolute are not two. In the Absolute the ‘I amness’ comes and then the experience takes place. Whatever is happening, from the Absolute standpoint, without the knowledge ‘I am’, is very profound, unlimited, and expansive
174. Investigate that concept ‘I am.’ In the process of trying to find out your identity or this spiritual search, all will happen in the realm of this consciousness. You finally stumble on, or culminate into the Absolute ‘Parabrahman’ state, which is desireless.
175.Before the idea ‘I am’ sprouted, you are, but you don’t know you are. Subsequent to that there have been many happenings with which you have started decorating yourself. You try to derive the meaning of yourself out of subsequent words, happenings, and the meaning of words…that is not you…give it up. You are prior to the idea ‘I am’. Camp yourself there, prior to the words ‘I am’.
176.From deep sleep to the waking state, what is it? It is the ‘I am’ state with no words, later the words start flowing and you get involved with the meaning of the words and carry out your worldly life with the meaning of those words – that is the mind. But before the ‘I am’ and waking state, that borderline, there you have to be.
177. At most I would say ‘ you worship that ‘I am’ principle, be one with it and that would disclose all the knowledge’ That’s all I will say, but the subtlest part is this, from deep sleep to waking state. To abide in that you must have an intensely peaceful state. In that state witnessing of the waking state happens. You must go to that limit, but it is very difficult.
178.If you have regard for me remember my words. The knowledge ‘I am’ is the greatest God, the Guru, be one with that, be intimate with it. That itself will bless you with all the knowledge relevant for you in the proliferation of that knowledge, it will lead you to the state which is eternal.
179. What is this knowingness? It is the stamp or registration of the booking ‘I am’. You are booking a flat, which is under construction but where is the flat? It is only the booking. Similarly this ‘I am’ is only booking, it represents your Absolute state.
180. Discrimination is very necessary to understand what I am saying. It is only after the arrival of consciousness that we try to understand ourselves. Consciousness is the so-called birth, birth means the three aspects: waking state, deep sleep and the knowledge ‘I am’. Once I understand what this birth is, then the whole mystery is solved. Since I have thoroughly known what this birth principle is, I will know very well at that happening of so-called death. I shall observe the departure of the vital breath, the language and the ‘ I amness”, there is no question of death.
181.Who is going to give you eternal peace? It is only the sun, that ‘I am’. If you embrace that Self-effulgent sun everything else will go, but you will prevail eternally.
182.All your experiences and visions depend on your knowledge ‘I am’ and this itself is going to dissolve. For this knowledge there are no customers, no devotees, because they want something concrete in their hand, but when your knowingness itself is going to dissolve, is it possible to hold on to something?
183. You live in the house but the house is not yourself. Similarly the knowledge ‘I am’ is in the body, but it is not the body. When the knowledge ‘I am’ is not there do you perceive or observe anything?. Knowingness is knowledge and no-knowingness is also knowledge, but it has no form. Call that knowledge ‘I am’ as your Self; don’t call the body as knowledge. The knowledge ‘I am’ is the primary God, meditate on that only.
184.All those praises sung by the ‘Vedas’ are only for that tiny little pinch ‘I am’. The moment you start making a design of that ‘ I amness’ you are getting into deep waters. This incense holder is silver; you have the knowledge that it is silver. What is the shape, color, or design of that knowledge? If all knowledge is formless, could there be a form, design or color to the knowledge ‘I am’? Could it be subject to sin or merit?
185.I never seek anything from anybody else. Whatever I want to get, I want to get out of my own being, I worship that very principle ‘I am’ and demand what I want out of that; because of that all these things are coming.
186 In this process you, as an individual, are not left at all. Try to understand that ‘I am’ is a product of the ‘satwa guna’, food essence product. When you throw out all the concepts, including your primary concept (‘I am’), then whatever is, is. Stay put in quietude.
187. All this profound talk is nothing but mental entertainment. As you go further into spirituality you will realize that ‘I am’ is the very God or soul of an infinite number of universes, but the ‘I am’ is again entertainment. All my talks are conceptual entertainment.
188.In the first few years the primary concept ‘I am’ was there, but in a dormant condition. Later on it started knowing itself. The ‘jnani’ state is like the child, when the child was not knowing itself. The apparatus through which that knowingness expresses itself is now quite different, but the principle is the same.
189.The world of ‘Maya’ is built up of concepts only. I cannot charge the world with giving me the pain; the whole cause of the pain is the knowingness ‘I am’. When this knowledge was not there was there any pain or pleasure?
190.All your moments of spirituality are based on the ‘I am the body’ idea. This knowledge ‘I am’ is going to remain for a short period. This will be very clear to you when you remain in your real position. Until then accept whatever concepts of spirituality you like. Until you know your true state you will accept all the hearsays because you don’t know the truth.
191 You must maintain this knowledge ‘I am’ in proper order. All the dirt, which is not the towel, should be removed. Similarly ‘I am’ is the tool through which you get all the knowledge. You worship that ‘I am’, remove all the adulteration, the dirt.
192. That knowingness alone points out all the dirt which is imposed on it. Even the space is not as pure as the knowledge ‘I am’. Innately the world is very pure, it is rendered dirty because you identify with the body. Since you do not recognize your ‘I amness’ in its purity, you refer to various books and saints to get an identity.
193. To know these senses, to understand these secrets, you surrender to that very principle ‘I am’, and that consciousness alone will lead you to this. Presently stabilize in the consciousness. If you don’t do that, your very concepts will be very dangerous to you – they will throttle you to death. The knowledge you are the is very source of all energy, the source of all Gods, of all types of knowledge. This is the simplest method, you know you are, just be there.
194.You came here and I talk to you but I am not concerned whether you come or go. I am totally independent. I, as the Absolute, do not need the consciousness. Total independence is merely to apprehend and understand. My apparent dependence is on this consciousness which says ‘I am’. It is this sentience which enables me to perceive you. This concept I did not have but even then I existed. I was there before this consciousness appeared.
195. When did this process of observing start? It started with the arrival of the waking state, deep sleep state and the knowledge ‘I am’, all rolled into one ‘I am’. This is known as birth. With the so-called birth this triad has come, and with its arrival observation started. Everyday it is going on. The moment the ‘I amness’ comes it is being used for experiencing, observing etc. Prior to the happening of this birth, where was the ‘I amness’? It was not there.
196.You know you are. Because you know you are, everything is happening. Go to that knowledge ‘I am’. When you understand what that ‘I amness’ is, then the shell of mystery is broken.
197.Pose the question from the standpoint that you are only the knowledge ‘I am’. The primary ignorance is about our ‘I amness’; we have taken it as the Ultimate, that is ignorance. We presume that this consciousness is the eternal, the Ultimate, that is the mistake. This ‘I am’ principle is there provided the waking state and deep sleep are there. I am not the waking state, I am not the deep sleep – therefore I, the Absolute, am not that ‘I am’. Leave aside this triad, what are you? Understand clearly, when you keep aside the very instrument of questioning, where is the question? Which you? You have removed the ‘you’.
198. I repeatedly tell you that there is nothing save this consciousness, the knowledge ‘I am’ – if you feel like worshipping something, worship that. I am giving blessings. Blessings mean what? I am giving confidence and courage.
199.Can any of your concepts grasp the total, the Ultimate? Have you understood that knowledge itself is ignorance? If it were real it would have been there eternally – it would not have had a beginning and an end. Now the experience ‘I am’ is felt, earlier that experience was not. When it was not, no proof was called for, but once it is, lots of proof is required.
200. One is the Absolute, two is consciousness, three is space. Where there was no knowledge ‘I am’ that is number one, later on there is the sense ‘I am’ that is number two, then there is space – number three.
201.Increase the conviction that you are the formless consciousness. You develop your firm conviction that you are the total manifesting universal consciousness. There is nobody who can have the knowledge of the Truth, the Eternal. It is one’s eternal true state, but is not a knowledgeable state – you cannot know It. So-called knowledge is boundless and plenty in the state of attributes, ‘I am’. In this body is the knowledge ‘I am’. When the body drops down, the knowledge ‘I am’ will subside there only – what remains is the Absolute.
202.Be one with the knowledge ‘I am’, the source of sentience, the beingness itself. If you are seeking that peace which is priceless, it can only be in establishing yourself in the consciousness with steadfast conviction. By conviction I mean never doubted, firm, unshakable, never wavering – have that kind of conviction in your beingness. Think of nothing else, pray to nothing else, ‘Atma Prem’, because of it everything is.
203.In that body the ‘I am’ is ticking – that is the Guru. You worship that ‘I am’ principle and surrender to that Guru and that Guru will give all the grace. What you call ‘I am’ and birth, you are not that, it is material. The Ultimate knowledge does not have any knowledge. This knowledge ‘I am’ has appeared spontaneously, as a result of the body. See it as it is, understand it as it is.
204.This ‘I am’ is a concept also, is it not? And you want to hang on to this concept also. This ‘I amness’ is not going to remain in your association, and when it goes, everything relating to that ‘I amness’ goes. When this is the state of affairs, what is the use of trying to gain or assimilate knowledge? You are standing on a concept ‘I am’ and trying to paint that with another concept.
205.I have experienced all four kinds of speech and transcended them. Rarely will anybody follow this hierarchy to stabilize in the consciousness and transcend consciousness. Starting from ‘Vaikhari’ (word), normally we listen to words; from ‘Vaikhari’ we go to ‘Madhyama’ (mind-thought); in watching the mind we are in ‘Pashayanti’ where the concept formation takes place and from there to ‘Para’ (‘I am’ – without words), and finally from ‘Para’ to prior to consciousness. This is the line to follow, but only a rare one follows it – receding, reversing.
206. You must possess that confirmation that you are formless, designless and not only rely on meditation. Always insist on that you are formless, free and not conditioned. You must hammer on this constantly, that is the practice. You must have a strong conviction that conviction means practicing. That conviction means not only ‘I am’ but it means I am free from the ‘I am’ also.
207.Normally in the name of spirituality, knowledge is expounded. Knowledge is in the realm of five elements and it is talked about as real or unreal so long as the knowledge ‘I am’ is there, it is a product of the knowledge ‘I am’. A ‘jnani’ is that state from which the witnessing of the knowledge ‘I am’ takes place. In that ‘jnani’ state there is no touch of ‘I amness’ (it is a quality-less state) and it is not knowledge – knowledge means ‘I amness’.
208. ‘I am’ is only a few letters. Has anyone been able to keep this ‘I am’ in his pocket for all time? If whoever feels that ‘I am’ had knowledge, would he have cared to become this ‘I am’? No, he would have said ‘I don’t want this consciousness’. You are unreal – you know that you are – that is also unreal. This sense of presence is an untruth, it is like a dream.
209. The ‘Linga-deha’ is the seed, the chemical, the product of the five elemental essences which give rise to and sustain the consciousness ‘I am’. Just like the seed of a tree, that seed latently contains all future manifestations and expressions of the tree that will sprout out of the seed. You take a fountain pen and on the paper you put a drop of ink, so that drop is the ‘Linga-deha’. That drop is the moment of conception; its expression is the thought-free state, like space, in the knowingness state. That ‘Linga-deha’, that little drop, and the knowledge ‘I am’ is the same.
210.It is not important where you are, once you are established in the ‘I am’. It is like space – it neither comes nor goes; just as when you demolish the walls of a building only space remains.
211.If you do not have the knowledge ‘I am’ who is going to seek? You must be, only then the search can begin. Remember the knowledge ‘ I am’ – that alone pervades everything – be only that and give up the rest.
212.At the moment of death it is the culmination or termination of the Self-experience, ‘I am’. After the termination of ‘I amness’ there is no experience of knowingness or not knowingness, the knowingness is a quality of the material stuff.
213.All this knowledge has dawned on me, I am not the knowledge. The knowledge ‘I am’, and all its manifestations, are understood. In understanding, I am not That.
214.To establish oneself firmly in the awareness ‘ I am’, it is not necessary to think ‘ I am’, ‘I am’. Is it necessary to think you are sitting here? You know that you are sitting here. Whatever name and form there is belongs to that material and that material is not you. Do you analyze the problem and with the firm conviction decide that you are not the material? When the material disintegrates what does the name refer to? Does it have any significance? Only one in ten million goes to the crux of the matter, analyzes what it is, comes to a conclusion, and gets liberated, all by himself. The one who gets liberated is the consciousness, there is no entity.
215. As long as you are wearing this concept ‘I am’ you will be involved with all the concepts. When this concept ‘I am’ departs there will be no memory left that ‘I was’ and ‘I had’ those experiences; the very memory will be erased.
216. All this process of communication, expounding, etc., will go on so long as this conscious presence is available, and all this is to merely satisfy the concept ‘I am’, and you the Absolute, are not the primary concept ‘I am’.
217.That which you like most – that itself is ‘I am’, the conscious presence – but that is not going to last forever. When the body drops off and the consciousness is extinguished, you need to do nothing. With this understanding do what you like in the world.
218.The only spiritual way to understanding you true nature is to find out the source of this concept ‘I am’. Before the sense of presence arrived I was in that state in which the concept of time was never there. So what is born? It is the concept of time, and that event which is birth, living, and death together constitute nothing but time, duration.
219.When you are the space you are no more the body, but whatever is contained in that space you are. You are now manifest – whatever is known – the space. This space is known as ‘chidakash’. In ‘chidakash this knowingness is ‘I am’. In the highest ‘Paramakash’ there is no is or is not, It transcends everything.
220.The Guru tells you ‘Get rid of concepts, just be yourself’. The seeker having understood what the Guru said, gets rid of the concepts, and now, as the first step, the seeker dwells in the state ‘I am’, just being. First of all there is the knowingness ‘I am’, without words, with that knowingness the world is. Now when the seeker goes into meditation that knowingness goes into no-knowingness. This is the highest state in the hierarchy when the body aspect is there because this knowing and no-knowing are aspects of the body, and body means consciousness, and in the realm of consciousness, knowingness and no-knowingness exist. The Absolute transcends knowingness and no-knowingness. So, no-knowingness is the highest in the hierarchy of spirituality, and the destination is the transcendence of knowingness and no-knowingness.
221.You must know what this ‘I am’ principle is. It appears spontaneously and with its appearance begins the riddle of conceptual life.
222.In deep sleep, consciousness was in a dormant condition, there were no bodies, no concepts, no encumbrances. Upon the arrival of this apparently wakeful state, with the arrival of the concept ‘I am’, the love of ‘I am’ woke up. That itself is ‘Maya’, illusion.
223.The emergence of this beingness itself constitutes time. Everything is beingness, but I, the Absolute, am not that. In meditation there was space, when suddenly two forms appeared out of no-form, ‘Prakriti’ and ‘Purusha’ and the quintessence of these forms was the knowledge ‘I am’.
224.There are no individuals; there are only food bodies with the knowledge ‘I am’. There is no difference between and ant, human being and ‘Iswara’ they are of the same quality. The body of an ant is small; an elephant’s is large. The strength is different, because of size, but the life-force is the same. For knowledge the body is necessary.
225.When this beingness goes, the Absolute will not know ‘I am’. Appearance and disappearance, birth and death, these are qualities of beingness; they are not your qualities.
226.Who is talking?, who is walking?, who is sitting? These are the expressions of the chemical ‘I am’. Are you that chemical? You talk about heaven and hell, this Mahatma or that one, but how about you? Who are you? You are not this chemical ‘I am’.
227. Not an individual but the knowledge ‘I am’ must go to its source. Out of the no-being state comes the beingness. It comes as quietly as twilight, just a feel of ‘I am’ and then suddenly the space is there. In the space, the movement starts with the air, the fire, the water, and the earth. All these five elements are you only. Out of your consciousness all this has happened. There is no individual. There is only you, the total functioning is you, the consciousness is you.
228.Ultimately one must go beyond knowledge, but the knowledge must come, and knowledge can come by constant meditation. By meditating, the knowledge ‘I am’ gradually settles down and merges with universal knowledge, and thereby becomes totally free, like the sky or the space. It is not possible for you to acquire knowledge, you ‘are’ knowledge. You are what you are seeking.
229. How amusing it is to see someone who thinks of himself as an individual, who thinks of himself as a doer or achiever. Whatever is happening and the experiencing of the happening, takes place in this consciousness when the ‘I am’ arises.
230.Get to know that ‘I am’ without words, which arises in the morning. Knowing the Self, abiding in the Self-knowledge, is not a mere intellectual knowing. You must be that, and you should not move away from it. Remain firm.
231.In the body the indwelling principle is the consciousness. Abiding in the consciousness, it became all manifestation. Now transcendence of the consciousness has also occurred. With the appearance of consciousness, the Absolute knows it is, ‘I am’. This is the experience. There are other experiences now, in this time factor, but experiences are gradually dropping off, including this primary experience ‘I am’. It is only the consciousness that is going to disappear; the Absolute is always there.
232.Because the ‘I am’ principle is there, it is moving all over. To recognize it, you put on various uniforms in order to give it identity, but the principle is already there, and because of that principle you are engaging in various activities. Unless you wear the uniform (the body) you will not be able to conduct any activities. Once you discard this ‘I amness’ uniform, what remains is the ‘Parabrahman”. That which is eternally current is the ‘Parabrahman’.
233.In this body is the subtle principle ‘I am’, that principle witnesses all this. You are not the words. Words are the expression of space, they are not yours. Still further you are not that ‘I am’
234. When you began knowing that you are, you did a lot of mischief, but when the ‘I am’ is not there, there is no question of mischief.
235. The ‘I am’ is absent only in the state of ‘samadhi’, when the self merges in the Self. Otherwise it will be there. In the state of a realized person the ‘I am’ is there, he just doesn’t give much importance to it. A ‘jnani’ is not guided by a concept.
236.This body is like an instrument that says ‘I am’, like an announcer. Presently you think you are the body-mind, and whatever concepts you have gathered are flowing out. When you begin spirituality, you reject the body-mind with ‘I am not that’. Then you come to the ‘I am’ only, without words. Then you are everything; you are not confined to the body.
237.The riddle of spirituality cannot be solved by the intellect. At the most, your intellect can provide you with livelihood. Whatever you try to become, that is not you. Before the words come out, before you say ‘I am’, that is you. You must be concerned with only yourself. Don’t worry about anybody else. What are you?
238.The capacity of consciousness is something astounding. I didn’t know I was, and then suddenly I knew ‘I am’. This ‘I amness’ is the power of ‘Maya’.
239.What is the most ingrained habit you have? It is to say ‘I am’. This is the root habit. Words and experiences are unworthy of you. This habit of experiencing will not go until you realize that all this is the domain of five elements, and the experiences in the five elements, are unreal. This ‘I amness’ itself is unreal.
240.You must give up the identity with the body. Abidance in that knowledge ‘I am’ which does not identify with the body-mind is the spiritual light. Self-love and ‘I am’ without words are the same. The sickness may come and go, but the self-love does not go.
241.Until you recognize and completely identify yourself with the knowledge ‘I am’, you will identify with the body. When one disidentifies with the body, one transcends not only the body but consciousness as well, since consciousness is a product of the body. The consciousness no longer says ‘I am’, ‘I am’.
242. When you were unaware of this message of ‘I am’ how did you function? The question I put, nobody can answer. All of your great scholars, people with a lot of knowledge, have gone into quietude.
243.That state of being is common to all, that is the message ‘I am’ without words. Change is only in the mind-flow. All the studies you are doing are in the realm of mind-flow. The sense of ‘I am’ is present because of your birth, through which you encounter many thoughts and concepts, always changing. Presently the message ‘I am’ is constant.
244. The body is not you, the name is not you. The body is the food you have consumed; the taste of it is the knowledge ‘I am’. That is Self, the feeling ‘I am’, that is the love to be. How amazing, how incredible, it has no name, but you give many names to it. It is the Self, the love to be. That love to be is all pervading. Before you conceptualize anything, you are, even before the knowingness, you are.
245. You are afraid because you have assumed something as ‘I am’, which actually you are not. Suppose you find a diamond ring on the road and you pocket it. Since it is not yours, a fear overcomes you. When you put on an identity that is not yours, you are afraid. When you are the pure ‘I amness’ only, there is no fear. Presently you are this ‘I am’, but this ‘I am’ is not the truth. Whatever you are prior to the appearance of ‘I am’, that is your real nature.
246. Don’t roam about, don’t come here either. Abide in quietude, peace, stability. Here we are not engaged in any buying or selling. That knowledge ‘I am’, without concepts, is evoked or stimulated by the consciousness and peace which emanate from this place.
247.You did not have the concept ‘I am’ in the course of the nine months in the womb. Understanding this state of affairs, the concept ‘I am’ comes spontaneously and goes spontaneously. Amazingly, when it appears, it is accepted as real. All subsequent misconceptions arise from the feeling of reality in the ‘I amness’. Try to stabilize in the primary concept ‘I am’, in order to lose that and with it all other concepts. Why am I totally free? Because I have understood the unreality of that ‘I am’.
248. If you sit here quietly, being one with the knowledge ‘I am’, then you are not concerned with the world or what goes on in the world. It is only when the consciousness starts operating and there are various movements in the consciousness that the behavior in the world takes place. When I am not conscious of the existence of the body, experiences are not registered.
249.The ‘mumukshu, is in kindergarten, spiritually inclined, but identifying with the body-mind. The ‘sadhaka’ is one who has dis-identified with the body-mind. A ‘siddha’ is one who has stabilized in the knowledge ‘I am’, and in the process, has transcended it. In this journey you very well know where you are.
250.The core of this consciousness is knowingness, to know ‘I am’. It is not a personality, not an individual. It is total manifestation. Beingness is there, it fills everything. Nevertheless, this quality ‘I am’ is the result of the material, objective body. In the seed the whole tree is latent. In the droplet ‘I am’ all three worlds are squeezed in.
251. The highest state is the state of a ‘jnani’. The first step is to be that droplet (‘I am’). In the process of knowing that droplet, you are out of it, and that is a ‘jnani’. A ‘jnani’ is not obsessed by any calamities or any problems, because he has transcended the ‘I am’ principle. He watches the play as a witness.
252. The whole universe is experienced in the consciousness ‘I am’. If that is not there, what else can ever exist? This consciousness is beating a drum; everyone is carried away by the noise of the drum. Who looks for the drummer? Who is sounding and beating the drum? It is so amazing that no one casts even a glance at this speck of consciousness.
253. The habit of considering Self as body has influenced everybody too much. The knowledge ‘I am’ is your Guru. Be in it.
254. The letters ‘I am’ are written spontaneously with a certain ink. What is that ink which was used to write that which you are? In that ink with which the letters ‘I am’ were written, in that ink of the title of ‘Tej Sesh Bhagavan’ is confirmed by the ‘Vedas’. ‘Sesh’ means the leftover, the remains. That ‘Tej Sesh Bhagavan’ has come spontaneously and will spontaneously go. The firm conviction that I am this, the three states – waking state, deep sleep and the knowledge ‘I am’ – are the aspects of that ‘Tej Sesh Bhagavan’. You are not that.
254.Worship the knowledge ‘I am’ as God, as your Guru. Do you see the image of yourself in the mirror first, or do you know you are prior to that? Which is first? If you are not, can you see your image in the mirror? Give up trying to evaluate the real I or the counterfeit I, but associate with the ‘Brahman’, I am the ‘Brahman’.
255.The message ‘I am’ is there. The mind flow is also there; it is not a personality, it is the consciousness. The very idea that you are the body is ridiculous; the consciousness is experiencing its manifestation. A rare being will realize this.
256.The Ultimate you can never be lost; whatever you have lost, you have lost only words. The Ultimate you knows or feels ‘I am’ without words. Through this ‘I am’ comes the world knowledge. You are not in isolation, you are part and parcel of the world knowledge.
257. Presently the feeling that you are is also memory. To sustain that memory of ‘I am’, all these raw materials are necessary. You are not that ‘I am’. You are as the Absolute, prior to this ‘I am’.
258. One cannot see rays of light, as such; they reflect only when they encounter another object. Similarly ‘I amness’ is the interruption because of these five elements and three ‘gunas’. That is why the feeling ‘I am’ is felt; but without the feeling of ‘I am’, still you are.
259. Start with the body. From the body you get the knowledge ‘I am’. In this process you become more and more subtle. When you are in a position to witness the knowledge ‘I am’, you have reached the highest. In this way you must try to understand, and the seeds of knowledge will sprout in you.
260.Now what is it that we are concerned with? We are dealing with the physical form, which is made up of, and fed by, the five elements. In that form are operating the life force (the vital breath) and this consciousness that is, the knowledge ‘I am’ or the sense of being, the sense of existence. The latter is the ‘sentience’, which is the gift of the consciousness.
261. Each of must say ‘I am’ and realize it. There is no ‘you’, and there is no ‘me’, as individual entities. Until the ‘I am’ thought was there, there was no manifestation; both came about simultaneously.
262.This knowledge ‘I am’, this consciousness, has come out of the prior state when there was no consciousness. The consciousness is a state which is now with us and because of which we suffer; and before this consciousness came, a state prevailed when we were not conscious and which was a happy state.
263. Guru means the ‘I amness’ itself, which always reminds you ‘I am’, ‘I am’, ‘I am’ – that is guru-guru-guru, like the sound of a motorcar starting. It is a continuous reminder that you are.
264.Is it necessary that you should remember that you are (‘I am’)? Spontaneously you know and remember that you are. That is why you have come here, have you not? Because you are. Stay put there.
265. In order to not mistakenly hold on to something as ‘I am’ don’t say I am this, I am that; just hold on to yourself, you are, just be. Just be ‘you are’. Do you follow?
266.You are the knowledge ‘ I am’. So if you want to worship, worship that knowledge ‘I am’. Be devoted to that ‘I amness’ only. When you do that, all other rituals become redundant, useless. Finally when you realize that everything is useless, everything is ‘Brahman’, it means you are at the ‘Parabrahman’ level, the absolute level. When at that level, you will envision everything as useless, including the ‘Brahman’ because the ‘Brahman’ is also reduced to illusion. Therefore all these talks, including my own will be reduced to illusion when you reach the highest.
267.The one who abides in that principle by which he knows ‘I am’, he is the manifest. He abides in that manifest ‘Brahman’ all the twenty-four hours. Whether the body remains or not, that manifest self-principle always remains. You must continually remember, ‘chew the cud’, that the knowledge ‘I am’ signifies knowing all gods, all the ‘Vedas’ it is the ‘Brahman’ only. You must continually think about it. And should in the course of such reminiscing, the body drop off, then that consciousness will definitely be the highest.
268. You are sitting here: ‘you are’. Prior to words. Now the hearsay goes ‘I am’, ‘I am’ means the flow of the mind has started. Now whatever you say with that ‘I amness’ through the mind about ‘you’, you have represented as yourself. But that is not so.
269.The capital we have is the knowledge ‘I am’. But what have we done? We have handed over that knowledge to the body and we say ‘I am the body’. Thereby we have reduced the totality, the limitless, to the limited – a specified insignificant body. And that is why, being unable to give up this association with the body, we are afraid of dying.
270.The vital force carries out all the activities. The mind communicates, and the knowledge ‘I am’ is merely a witness; this is the actual state of affairs. But all these – that is, food body quintessence, and the knowledge ‘I am’, the vital breath and the mind – these are all a temporary phase only; so long as the food essence is available, the knowingness will last.
271.The knowledge ‘I am’ is the product of interaction within the five elemental state, You are not that! You as the Absolute, are not the knowledge ‘I am’.
272.It is very simple. The body and in the body…it is like a coin. On one side, you have the vital breath for making possible all activity; and on the other side is the knowledge ‘I am’. Only when the vital breath is there, the knowledge ‘I am’ is present. When the vital breath leaves the body, the knowledge ‘I am’ also disappears. And both of these are the product of the food essence body. I am not that; this entire composite I am not. This you have to realize.
273.Find out why you are, what is the cause of your being ‘I am’? Actually you had no knowledge that you are or you were. But at this moment, you know you are. Why is that? Understand its cause. You alone know why you are; why is it offered to you that you are, you alone know. Don’t ask anyone else about it, but inquire by yourself. Don’t bother about others, worry only about yourself. That knowledge ‘I am’ is the product of what, is due to what? How and why? Inquire only into this matter.
274. Only that individual who has lost his individuality has merged with the ‘Parabrahman’. So the individuality must go. The entire world moves on the basis of one concept, and that is ‘I am’ – the fundamental concept of one’s individuality.
275. Ultimately all these concepts can and must be understood to be false, but the difficulty and the essential thing is to be convinced that the original basic concept ‘I am’ itself is false.
276.The aim is to awaken yourself to the faith in the self, ‘I am’. That is the entire purpose. So whatever is inducive to that development you may accept. Suppose you have faith in a living guru, then accept a living guru. If you have faith in a guru who has left his body, accept that guru.
277.First of all, this knowingness appeared, the knowingness ‘I am’; later on you embraced the body. Hold on to this only, and don’t ask any questions. You came to know yourself, ‘I am’, to abide in that itself is ‘bhakti’, the devotion.
278. Before you occurred to yourself as ‘I am’; you were in the highest state – the guru of the gurus – the ‘Parabrahman’ state. Later on you started filling up with all kinds of grosser matter and you came down to the body sense – I am the body. So all these impurities have to be removed. Until then, you have to stay put in the quietude.
279. Your fall started with the appearance of that beingness, ‘I am’. With the appearance of this knowingness ‘I am’, the next fall was embracing the body as ‘I am’. And then you gathered so many things onto yourself. Hold on to the state of knowing yourself as ‘I am’ as the truth. All other things you have gathered to yourself are unreal.
280.From the no-knowing state, the first veil I took was that of ‘I am’, That was formless, nameless. But I embraced the body: I got a form for myself; I got a name for myself. This was the fall. Therefore all sages advise: Give up the shackles of the body! ‘I am the body’ – these are the shackles. Give them up.
281. This is no joke, but you can become ‘Parabrahman’ right now. Only it is not a commodity that you can acquire. You, a hundred years ago, were the ‘Parabrahman’. Give me all the information about that state of a hundred years back. Focus your attention only on that consciousness ‘I am’. Don’t be led astray by all the so-called spiritual disciplines and rigmaroles.
282.Who has the knowledge ‘I am’? Somebody in you knows the knowledge ‘I am’, Who is it? It is very obvious that you know you are, but what or who is it that knows you are?
283.It is pure awareness that knows ‘I am’. Who can understand that illusory state? ‘I amness’ is illusory only. It is not a perfect state, it is illusion. Who knows the illusion? A non-illusory state only can know the illusory state. But what is the necessity to say pure awareness? ‘Awareness’ means pure. Since awareness knows ‘I am’, it is other; it is more than ‘I am’. That is the highest; there are no gradations in awareness. In the Absolute, the ‘Parabrahman’ state, there is no question of impure or pure awareness.
284.You are not the personality or the individual. The quintessence of this food, which in turn is the outcome of the five-elemental play, is the taste ‘I am’. ‘I am’ is not a personality or an individual. I am addressing that principle, that touch of ‘I am’, that consciousness which is the product of the food essence body.
285.How can you speak or develop any concept unless the primary concept ‘I am’ is available? This primary concept begets further concepts, that is all other concepts occur to it. However, whatever concept occurs to you, including the primary concept ‘I am’, is not the eternal state.
286.This primary concept, ‘I amness’ is dishonest, because it is still a concept only. Finally one has to transcend that also and be in the ‘nirvikalpa’ state, which means the concept-free state. Then you have no concept at all, not even of ‘I am’. In that state one does not know that one is. This state is known as ‘Parabrahman’: ‘Brahman’ transcended. ‘Brahman’ is manifest; ‘Parabrahman’ is beyond that, prior to that; the Absolute. Do you understand what I am driving at? Whatever you caught in your attention, that attention should eventually turn into no-attention. The state that is finally left over is Awareness, ‘Parabrahman’.
287.With the arrival of the consciousness, it occurs to you that you are; simultaneously, ‘I am’ occurs to you or in your attention. So when the consciousness is not there, attention is also not there. Subsequent to the arrival of consciousness and attention, everything else crept in. The Absolute state is prior to consciousness; it means the unborn state. Since the ‘Parabrahman’ is the unborn state, prior to consciousness, can it have an iota of knowledge?
288.How can you retain the pride that I am like this? This ‘I am’ business depends entirely on the food essence. So how can you retain it perpetually – that I shall remain like this only? To extract any essence, water is very necessary, and the water quality is bound to dry up.
289.The knowledge ‘I am’ is a primary concept, and is also non-eternal. The One, the Absolute, which is eternal and aware, why should he worry about anybody else?
290.Once you reject what you are not, whatever finally remains, the leftover, is yourself – your true nature. Presently, whatever you know is ‘I am’, this ‘I am’ is the product of the five elements. Out of the elements comes the food body and because of the food body, that ‘I amness’ is sustained. And you are also not that ‘I am’. ‘I am’ is the taste, the fragrance of this food body. The ultimate ‘you’ has no fragrance, no taste, no touch of ‘I amness’.
291.The scriptures say that we have our ‘karma’ and our sin and that is why we are here, but this is for the ignorant masses. One who has realized the self-knowledge ‘I am’ for him these stories are of no use.
292.The primary illusion is only this knowingness ‘I am’, prior to that there was no illusion. This very consciousness is the source of illusion. This illusion or consciousness or ‘I amness’ does not remain as something eternal. It is liberated; this non-eternal consciousness is liberated, when the knowingness is transformed into non-knowingness, that is liberation.
293.To produce the source of the mind, ‘I am’, you must have the ingredient of the five-elemental juice. If that is available, the sprouting of the mind can begin with ‘I am’. You know you are before even speaking the words ‘I am’. Subsequent to the knowingness ‘I am’, you say ‘I am’ by words.
294.Are you not even before you have spoken the words ‘I am’? Stay put there only. There begins your spirituality, the foremost ‘you’, ‘I am’ without words, before the beginning of words. Be there; out of that grows the experience ‘I am’.Witnessing happens to that principle which prior to your saying the words ‘I am’. There is no such thing as deliberate witnessing. Witnessing just happens, by itself.
295.You must analyze ‘death’, the meaning of this common parlance. At the time that death occurs, the vital breath quits the body, gradually leaves the body. At the same time as the vital breath, the mind and the language also go out. Simultaneously, this quality of ‘I am’, this ‘sattva-guna’, the quality of beingness, also departs or goes into oblivion. Only I, the Absolute, remains. Stay put there only, nothing happens to I, the Absolute.
296.Here is an article before it came into existence, what was its name? From non-being into the being state, how was it observed? You just felt that touch. Before observing anything we feel the touch of ‘I am’. To realize that state prior to conception, that eternal state, whatever that state is, to abide in that is the highest. Now, for your sake, I attach a name to it, the ‘Parabrahman’ state – the Absolute.
297.A ‘jnani’ knows that he has realized when he recognizes his knowingness, which is the sense of ‘I am’. Right here and now you are in the realized state. But you try to judge it through desires and mind-concepts, hence your inability to apperceive it and abide in it. In the ‘jnani’ state, there is no need for anything, not even to know oneself. You are attached to the body-senses, therefore even though you may attain an age of hundred years, you still would crave for more years.
298. On the state of ‘non-beingness’, the beingness appeared together with manifestation, creating a feeling as if ‘I am’; who that is, is not important, only ‘I am’ is important. The initial humming of the beingness as ‘I am, I am’ is the duality. But who accepts the duality? The ‘non-beingness’ accepts duality with the beingness. The Absolute ‘non-being’ state, by assuming the being state, becomes dual in manifestation.
299. First you have what is called ‘atma-bhava’ – that is the ‘I am’ sense. Later, this sense identifies with the form of a body, when it is called ‘aham-akar’, the ‘I am’ form, this is ego. Ego is never a title or name, but just a sense of ‘I am’ prior to words. The waking state, the sleep state and the knowingness ‘I am’ constitute an ego. In the absence of these three states what do you think you are? What would be the evidence of your existence?
300. The knowledge ‘I am’ is nothing. That knowledge is like a guest; it comes and goes. You have come here; you are very clever. Now what did happen? All the knowledge, which you had collected elsewhere and brought here, is rendered useless and redundant. So long as beingness is there, all worldly activities will go on. But you now realize that ‘You’ are neither the activities in the beingness nor the beingness. ‘You’ as the Absolute, are none of these.
301.With the transcendence of the knowledge ‘I am’, the Absolute prevails. The state is called ‘Parabrahman’, while the knowledge ‘I am’ is termed Brahman. This knowledge ‘I am’ or the beingness is illusion only. Therefore, when Brahman is transcended, only the ‘Parabrahman’ is, in which there is not even a trace of the knowledge ‘I am’.
302. First there was no message ‘I am’ and also there was no world. Instantly, the message ‘I am’ and this magnificent world materialized out of ‘nothingness’! How amazing! This message ‘I am’ is nothing other that the advertisement of the Eternal Truth.
303.How was I in the absence of the message ‘I am’ – that is, prior to beingness? I provided you with the name tags for that state. These titles are ‘Parabrahman’, ‘Paramatman’ etc.; they are only pointers to the state, but not the state itself. In the Ultimate they are redundant, extraneous and bogus.
304. The primary miracle is that I experience ‘I am’ and the world. Prior to this experiencing, I abided in myself, in my eternal Absolute state. Without my beingness – that is, without the message ‘I am’ – my eternal Absolute state only prevails.
305.The eternal Absolute state of mine prior to the beingness, when the message ‘I am’ was not, is supremely significant. Who would have witnessed the message ‘I am’, if my priormost state of the ‘non-beingness’ was not?
306. If one obtains and relishes the nectar of the Lord’s feet, the ‘charan-amrita’, the mind can be conquered. This is called ‘manojaya’ – victory over the mind. However, only a true devotee, a ‘bhakta’, a god, can obtain the ‘charan-amrita’. But what is its relationship with all beings? It dwells in the core of all beings as the knowledge ‘I am’, the love ‘to be’, the ‘charan-amrita’.
307.But how can such a state be attained? Only if one totally accepts the knowledge ‘I am’ as oneself with full conviction and faith and firmly believes in the dictum ‘I am that by which I know I am’. This knowledge ‘I am’ is the ‘charan-amrita’. Why is it called ‘amrita’ – the nectar? Because it is said, by drinking nectar one becomes immortal. Thus a true devotee, by abiding in the knowledge ‘I am’ transcends the experience of death and attains immortality.
308. Once you subside into the consciousness, the factual state of Reality shall be revealed to you with the knowledge that will emanate out of you intuitively, like spring water. This will enable you to discern not what is real and unreal, but, most importantly, to realize what ‘I am’. And who could be that one? Surely not an individual who is trapped in the mind-shell, but that one is the knowledge ‘I am’ – the consciousness.
309.Consciousness is the sense of knowingness ‘I am’ without words, and it appeared unknowingly and unsolicited. Only in the realm of knowingness ‘I am’ – the consciousness – can a world be, and so also an experience. Hold on to this knowingness ‘I am’ and the fount of knowledge will well up within you, revealing the mystery of the Universe; of your body and psyche; of the play of the five elements, the three ‘gunas’ and ‘prakriti-purusha’; and of everything else. In the process of this revelation, your individualistic personality confined to the body shall expand into the manifested universe, and it will be realized that you permeate and embrace the entire cosmos as your ‘body’ only. This is known as the ‘Pure Superknowledge’ – ‘Shuddhavijnana’.
310.Now coming to a very subtle situation, what is it in you that understands this knowledge ‘you are’ – or from your standpoint ‘I am’ without a name, title or word? Subside in that innermost center and witness the knowledge ‘I am’ and ‘just be’; this is the bliss of being – the ‘swarupananda’.
311.Paths and movements cannot transport you into Reality, because their function is to enmesh you within the dimensions of knowledge, while the Reality prevails prior to it. To apprehend this, you must stay put at the source of your creation, at the beginning of the knowledge ‘I am’. So long as you do not achieve this, you will be entangled in the chains forged by your mind and get enmeshed in those of others.
312. This true knowledge, the knowledge ‘I am’, is also rendered the status of ‘non-knowledge’ in the final Absolute state. When one is established in this final free state, the knowledge ‘I am’ becomes ‘non-knowledge’.
313. For all beings it is the same experience. Early morning, immediately after waking, just the feeling ‘I am’ is felt inside or the beingness happens, and therefore further witnessing of all else happens. The first witnessing is that of ‘I am’, this primary witnessing is the prerequisite for all further witnessing. But to whom is the witnessing occurring? One that ever is, even without waking, to that ever-present substratum the witnessing of the waking state happens.
314. At present, ‘I am’ is in the beingness state. But when I do not have the knowingness of the ‘I am’ illusion, then the ‘Poornabrahman’ or ‘Parabrahman’ state prevails. In the absence of the touch of ‘I amness’ I am the total complete, ‘Poornabrahman’ state, the permanent state. The borderline of beingness and non-beingness is intellect-boggling, because the intellect subsides at that precise location. This borderline is the ‘maha-yoga’. You must be at that borderline, that ‘maha-yoga’ state’. You descend into the ‘godown’ of that state which has the title ‘birth’.
315. The sense that ‘you are’ is a big thing. What is most significant is the fact that you remember your sense of being, subsequently all other things appear. Earlier this memory ‘I am’ was not and suddenly it appeared. Now I expound on the spiritual talk called ‘niroopana’. In Marathi the word ‘niroopana’ is derived from the word ‘niroopa’ (nirope), which means ‘message’. Therefore, to deliver any spiritual talk that is ‘niroopana’, the primary message ‘I am’ must first be present, then whatever ensues from this primary message will be the spiritual talk.
316. This little container of food essence is being sucked by that beingness, ‘I am’ day and night. The principle that sucks that container is not the body; it is apart from the body. This beingness principle dwells in that food body itself. Just as the child sucks on the mother’s breast, the beingness consumes the body.
317. Just as the salty taste is present in the entire ocean, the beingness or the sense of ‘I am’ in the human form has the inherent capacity to be all-pervading, but having conditioned – and thereby limited – itself to the body form, it interested only in protecting and preserving the body.
318. How does one recognize this ‘atman’? It is by understanding the knowledge ‘I am’ – the ‘atma-jnana’. Just as space is all-pervading, so the knowledge ‘I am’ is all-pervading, limitless and infinite. How strange, such a supreme principle is treated as though it is a body! All the sufferings are due to this mistaken identity. If you give the highest honor due to it, you will not undergo either suffering or death.
319. To abide in the knowledge ‘I am’ is one’s true religion – the ‘svadharma’. But instead of following it, you opted to be irreligious by submitting to the dictates of your concepts, which led you to believe that you are a body. This misconception ensured only the fear of death.
320. The fragrance or sweetness of the food-essence body is the knowledge ‘I am’. It has no name and form; it is the ‘I love’ state, the ‘I-taste’. But from your body-mind state, you will go to pilgrimages and various gurus. So long as the consciousness is there, that humming goes on, and who does the humming? The principle which is humming and saying, ‘I am, I am’ is itself your guru.
321. ‘Jnana-yoga’ means to inquire how this ‘I amness’ and the world came about. To realize that ‘I amness’ and the world are the same is ‘jnana-yoga’. Here the knowledge ‘I am’ should subside in itself.
322. The primary occurrence is the reminder ‘I am’ and out of which springs the language and the talk. So, what is this ‘I amness’? Remember that it is in the primary reminder ‘I am’ that the whole cosmos and your body exist. Who and from where is this sense of being? This has to be thoroughly investigated. When this is done, while abiding necessarily in the knowledge ‘I am’ – the sense of beingness – an amazing revelation will be made, namely that from your own seed-beingness the whole manifest universe is projected including your body. This supreme and powerful principle, though being itself without form and name, upon sensing ‘I am’ instantly embraces the body and mistakenly accepts this as its own. It clings to the body-identity so quickly that the fact of its own independent existence is easily missed.
323. You are quite knowledgeable; now understand this; if you think you are dying, it shows that you still identify with your body and that your knowledge ‘I am’ has not merged in itself, which also indicates that you have not attained ‘jnana-yoga’. Your spiritual knowledge therefore smacks of impurity. While you are actually the manifest knowledge ‘I am’, you cling to a body as yourself; this is the impurity.’
324. Suppose a question is asked of you, what were you a hundred years back? You would reply ‘I was not’. That means, I was not like ‘this’, that is not like this present ‘I am’. Who (and how) could (he) say ‘I was not like this’? The one who says this, was he not there? The one who was prior to a hundred years was not like this present ‘I am’, but he was and is now.
325. Do nothing, absolutely nothing! Just be, be the knowledge ‘I am’ only and abide there. To imbibe this meditate on beingness only. Catch hold of the knowledge ‘I am’ in meditation. In this process, the realization occurs that ‘I’ the Absolute am not the ‘guna’ ‘I am’; therefore in meditation nothing is to be retained in memory. Nevertheless something will appear on the memory screen, but be unconcerned, just be, do nothing. Refrain from grasping anything in meditation; the moment you do, otherness begins, and so does duality. Nothing is to be done. Then all your riddles will be solved and dissolved. ‘Moolmaya’ – that is, the primary illusion – will release her stranglehold on you and will get lost.
326. At first ‘no one’ is. Instantly, one is, and then two. The subject of the talk is: How did these two reduce to one, and finally to nothing? Out of nothingness spontaneously the sense of beingness is felt - this is one. Later, when the sense of beingness knows ‘I am’ duality begins. Then after the duality has arisen, the sense of being identifies with the form, and so on. Actually to refer to the sense of being as ‘one’, is not quite correct. Since in this state only the sense of being prevails, where is the need to say even ‘one’? With the appearance of otherness (duality), both no.1 and no.2 appear simultaneously. To say ‘something is’, ‘I’ must be there first. If ‘I’ am not, I cannot say ‘something is’. So the fundamental principle of spirituality is that ‘I must be there, before anything else can be. This ‘I’ is the beingness which if first.
327.When you sit in deep meditation, your sense of being is totally infused with the knowledge ‘I am’ only. In such a state it will be revealed to you intuitively as to how and why your sense of ‘I amness’ emerged. Consciousness, beingness, sense of being, ‘I amness’, all are the same in you, prior to emanation of any words.
328. This is a subtle point, so try to understand it clearly. When I say ‘I was not’ prior to conception, then what I actually mean is that I was not like this present ‘I am’. But that ‘I’ which could discern this must be there to judge the absence of the present ‘I am’.
329. Shall we call the knowledge ‘I am’ the guru? But even that knowledge you are not! Knowledge ‘I am’ means consciousness, God, ‘Ishwara’, guru etc. but you the Absolute are not that.
330. This is to be understood and realized, that ‘I am’ is even before the arising of any words and questions in me. People always want a name or concept to indicate the state of ‘I am’ prior to words. When this is done by giving it a name, like for example Brahman, they feel satisfied.
331.Beingness can act in the world only with the aid of the body. This body is the quintessence of the five elements, and the quintessence of the body-essence is the knowledge ‘I am’. The presiding principle of the whole functioning is the knowledge ‘I am’. This knowledge ‘I am’ has to be correctly understood.
332. A body maybe dark, fair, tall or short, but the indwelling principle – which is the knowledge ‘I am’ – has no color or dimension, just like the vital breath and mind. It is merely a ‘sense of presence’ a feeling of effulgence. And mind functions like its vehicle or medium for executing worldly activities.
333. You should understand this clearly. If one thinks one is the body, one becomes a slave of mind and suffers accordingly. Therefore, you should completely identify yourself with the highest principle in you, which is the knowledge ‘I am’. This will elevate you to the status of ‘brihaspati’ – the guru of gods.
334.When the meditator forgets himself totally in meditation, it is ‘vishranti’ which means complete relaxation ending total forgetfulness. This is the blissful state, where there is no need for words, concepts or even the sense of ‘I am’. The state does not know ‘it is’ and is beyond happiness and suffering and altogether beyond words; it is called the ‘Parabrahman’ – a non-experiential state.
335. Before the emanation of any words, ‘I’ already exist; later I say mentally ‘I am’. The word-free and thought-free state is the ‘atman’.
336. The knowingness ‘I am’ is gradually felt by the child and this is followed by the mind. This ‘I amness’ feeling before the formation of the mind is the ignorant-child-principle, termed the ‘balkrishna’ state. This ‘balkrishna’ principle has great potential. Here ‘bal’ means the food essence, child-body, and ‘krishna’ means ‘non-knowing’, that is, ignorance. But it has the potential to receive, respond and react. I am not in this state, the child principle, ‘balkrishna’, as I abide in the Absolute.
337. At present you identify yourself with your body and mind. Therefore, in the initial stages of your spiritual practice, you should reject the identity by imbibing the principle that ‘I am’ is the vital breath and the consciousness only and not the body and mind. In the later stages, the vital breath and the consciousness – that is the knowledge ‘I am’ – merge in one’s ultimate nature.
338. That ultimate state is known as ‘vishranti’, which means total rest, complete relaxation, utter quietude etc. The other meaning, by splitting the word, would be, ‘vishara (visra)-anti’ – forget yourself in the end. That means in the ultimate state, ‘you-areness’ is totally forgotten. Whether ‘I am’ or ‘I am not’ both are forgotten. This is the highest type of rest – ‘parama-vishranti’.
339. When I pleased my ‘I amness’ by understanding it, only then did I come to know this ‘I amness’ and in the process also discovered that ‘I’ the Absolute, am not that ‘I am’. Stay put at one place. Having collected all the knowledge, ponder over it in seclusion.
340. You abide in that knowledge ‘I am’. You should understand that your destination is your own self, the ‘I am’. It is the very source of everything; That ‘I am’ is to be realized. Because ‘you are’, the consciousness is. Before you say ‘I am’ you already are. ‘I am’ – the word or the ‘I am’ feeling that you get inside you – is not eternal. But you are eternal and ancient.
341. You have to stabilize in your present true nature, ‘I am’. All other secondary and redundant objects should be got rid of. Do not focus you attention on any of these things. The whole process is to be in your source. At present, what is your source? ‘I am’. Catch hold of that ‘I amness’ and be in it. You have to realize your own self. You must be at the borderline between ‘I am’ and ‘Not-‘I am’’.
342. When that witness itself, which is ‘I am’, subsides, what remains? With the witness gone, all other things have disappeared too. By the same token, upon the arising of the ‘ I am’, the whole manifestation takes place; these two are not separate, they are one, ‘I am’ is the witness, the entire manifest world is because of this.
343.When ‘I am’ arises, everything appears; when ‘I am’ subsides everything subsides. Now this what I am trying to tell you, but you want something else. You want something about your future, something which is part of manifestation, but I am trying to hit at it.
344. This ‘I am’ is an announcement, it is not the real, it has come out of something else. What the real is, I am not trying to tell you, because words negate that. Whatever I am telling you, is not the truth, because it has come out of the ‘I am’.
345. While I am talking about it (‘I am’) I take you to the source of the spring. There, water is coming out in a trickle now. This trickle subsequently becomes a river, an estuary, and finally the sea, I take you to the source again and again. Once you arrive at the source, you come to know that actually there is no water, the water is purely the taste, the news that ‘I am’.
346. There is no explanation for how this seed, this consciousness or knowledge ‘I am’ has arisen. But once it is in existence, it cannot stand still – that is, consciousness is tantamount to ‘movement’. And all movement takes place through the ‘gunas’, which are inherent in the knowledge ‘I am’. This consciousness keeps on ‘humming’ – (Maharaj uses the Marathi word ‘gun-gun’) – and expresses itself through the three ‘gunas’.
347. This ‘gun-gun’ is within the knowledge ‘I am’, which includes the physical form. The ‘gun-gun’ entity and the knowledge ‘I am’ and the physical form – that whole bundle – has been created out of the five elements. So up to this point, the whole thing can be said to be entirely mechanistic and therefore pure ignorance.
348. How did I get this birth? That is the point on which I persist in finding the answer; I ‘must’ know this. When I was told ‘sattva’, then what is ‘sattva’? ‘Sattva’ is the essence of the five elements. In that essence, in that juice, lies the knowledge ‘I am’; but all that is still of the five elements. Then how did this come about? My guru told me the whole story. Thus I came to know it is ignorance, and I know from experience, that everybody is starting from there. Thus whatever has come about is sheer ignorance, and we are nothing more, that is what my guru told me.
349. My guru further pointed out to me the fact that the only thing you have and which you can utilize to unravel the mystery of life, is this knowledge ‘I am’. Without that there is absolutely nothing, so I got hold of it, as my guru advised me, and then I wanted to find out how the spiritual aspect of ‘me’ came about without my knowledge. On my pure Absoluteness, which has no place, and no shape or form, this knowledge ‘I am’ came, which also has no shape or form. Therefore, it appears; and it is only an illusion.
350.This beingness, the knowledge ‘I am’, which I call ‘upadro’, is the source of trouble. In this ‘upadro’, in this primary essence, lies the knowledge ‘I am’ – you know that you are. This quality of beingness (‘sattvaguna’), the knowledge ‘I am’ cannot tolerate itself. It cannot stand itself, alone, just knowing itself. Therefore that ‘rajoguna’ is there… it takes the beingness for a ride in various activities, so that it does not dwell on itself; it is very difficult to sustain that state. And ‘tamoguna’ is the basest quality, it claims authorship or doership for all those activities conducted through ‘rajoguna’. This is the play happening in these three gunas (qualities). Again understand, you are experiencing this ‘sattvaguna’, the knowledge ‘I am. This ‘I amness’ is experienced by you, the Absolute, but you are not the ‘I amness’.
351. ‘Sadhana’, the discipline, is only this: The knowledge which is dwelling in this body, the quintessence of these three ‘gunas’ – the knowledge ‘I am’, ‘I am that’ – this is the initial step. You must be one with it; you must abide in that only. You have to think ‘ I am not the body but I am that formless, nameless knowledge indwelling in this body’; that (is) ‘I am’. When you abide sufficiently long in this state, whatever doubts you may have, that knowledge ‘I am’ itself will sprout out with life and meaning for you, intended for you only, and everything will become clear. No external knowledge will be necessary.
352. Conviction! That is the only technique for the ‘sadhana’ if you are thinking of any initiation…only the words of the guru that you are not the body! That is the initiation. Stay put there, in that state. It is spontaneous, natural, that ‘shraddha’ (faith). What is that faith? ‘I am’ without words, whatever you are that is the faith. Now you have to elevate yourself to the state of ‘Brahman’; this is the condition you have to develop.
353. What exactly is born? What is born are three states: the waking state, the sleep state, and the knowledge ‘I am’, this consciousness. The body and the vital breath would not be able to function if this consciousness were not present. These three states work through the three attributes (‘gunas’). I very clearly see that which has been born. And I also know that I am not that which is born. And that is why I am totally fearless. So this knowledge ‘I am’, this consciousness, this feeling or sense of being, is the quintessence of the body. And if that body essence is gone, this feeling, the sense of being, will also have gone.
354. Once the body and the sense of being(‘I am’) goes what remains is the Original, which is unconditioned, without attributes, and without identity; that on which this temporary state of the consciousness and the three states and the three ‘gunas’ have come and gone. It is called ‘Parabrahman’, the Absolute.
355. In that ‘Parabrahman’, which unconditioned,, without attributes, without identity – the identity comes only when there is the knowledge ‘I am’ – so if that itself is not there, who is there to ask? This is to understood not by ‘someone’ (with a body-mind identity), but it must be experienced, and in such a manner that the experiencer and experience are one.
356. When the truth came out, it was found that in a certain atom the entire Universe is contained. And what is that atom? It is the beingness, the knowledge ‘I am’. That contains the whole Universe.
357. The atomic consciousness contains the whole Universe, but yet he (the ‘jnani’) knows that he is not that consciousness. So in that case what pride can he have? He is the Absolute state, in which the ‘I am’ consciousness is absent. If you meet any ‘jnanis, you will find it easy to recognize them, for they will not have any pride in their Self-knowledge, since they have transcended that knowledge also. They say ‘I am not this knowledge or this consciousness’.
358. My statement, and that of my guru, is that childhood is a cheat, it is false. The knowledge ‘I am’ itself is a cheat. When the beingness appears, that love for existence is a result of the primary illusion, that ‘maya’. Once you come to know that you exist, you feel like enduring eternally, you always want to be, to exist, to survive. And so the struggle begins, all because of ‘maya’.
359. This knowledge ‘I am’ has dawned on you, since then whatever other knowledge you have acquired, whatever experiences you have had, whatever you have seen of the world has all been witnessed. But that one to whom the witnessing takes place is entirely separate from that which is witnessed.
360. You base yourself on the body that you are now, and don’t understand its root. That is why we think we are this body, and for that you must do meditation. What is meditation? Meditation is not this body-mind meditating as an individual, but it is this knowledge ‘I am’, this consciousness, meditating on itself. Then the consciousness will unfold its own meaning.
361.This itself is the greatest miracle, that I got the news ‘I am’, have you any doubts that you are? It is self-evident. Prior to knowing that you are, what knowledge did you have? ‘Dhyana’ means to have an objective. You want to consider something. You ‘are’ that something, just to be, you are. Just being the being ‘I am’. You meditate on something; that knowledge ‘I am’ is yourself. Abide only there. How can you ask any questions at this point? Because that is the beginning of knowledge.
362. By reading various books and listening to everything else, you cannot become a ‘mahatma’, but only through that knowledge ‘I am’. Don’t concentrate on the body; because of a body you call yourself male or female. Just hold on to that knowledge ‘I am’ only without body sense – beyond name and form or design. But you have to employ name, form and design for the sake of worldly activities.
363. You must have a firm conviction that ‘I am’ is only that ‘I am’ without body-mind form – the knowledge ‘I am’ purely. You say all these things, but has the knowledge come within the purview of the knowledge? You must have that full conviction, whatever you may have said, that is the truth and that is ‘I am’. There are no techniques, except the technique that ‘I am’ the firm conviction that ‘I am’ means ‘I am’ only, abidance in ‘I’. Don’t practice this thing, only develop your conviction.
364.This conviction can be strengthened by meditation, like ‘dhyana’. And ‘dhyana’ means the knowledge must remain in meditation with the knowledge. Now, what is meditation? Meditation is the knowledge ‘I am’ remaining in that knowledge. There is the waking state and the sleep state, and the knowledge that you are, I exist, I know that I exist. Other than that what capital does anyone have than merely knowledge ‘I am’? ‘Dhyana’ is when this knowledge, this consciousness that I am, meditates on itself and not on something other than itself.
365.When you say you sit for meditation, the first thing to be done is understand that it is not this body identification that is sitting for meditation, but this knowledge ‘I am’, this consciousness, which is sitting in meditation and is meditating on itself. When this is finally understood, then it becomes easy. When this consciousness, this conscious presence, merges in itself, the state of ‘samadhi’ ensues. It is the conceptual feeling that I exist that disappears and merges into the beingness itself. So this conscious presence also gets merged into that knowledge, that beingness – that is ‘samadhi’.
366. There is that nine-month period in the womb. So what is the content of the womb? It is that knowledge ‘I am’ in dormant condition. This is being developed slowly, so within the birth principle everything is contained. That which is called birth, the birth principle is ‘turiya’; the experience that you exist itself is ‘turiya’. ‘Turiya’ means where the consciousness is. One who knows ‘turiya’ is ‘turiyatita’. That is my state. ‘Turiya’ is within the consciousness, which is the product of the five elements. And one who transcends that, who knows the ‘turiya’, is ‘turiyatita’. In order to stabilize in ‘turiya’, you must know the birth principle. ‘Turiya’ is always described as the witness state that see through waking, dreaming and sleeping. And ‘turiyatita’ is even beyond that.
367.This ‘I am’ concept was not there prior to what you call ‘birth’. So as this concept has appeared, it will also go away. How am I affected? In no way whatsoever, because it is not true. This applies to all concepts. Prior to birth and after birth, whatever knowledge I have, my own, without hearing it from any one, that is the only true knowledge I accept. And the proof lies in my guru’s words.
368. The body dies. This means what? It means only the thought ‘I am’, that concept, has disappeared. Nothing has happened to the knower of the whole happening. So long as the basic concept ‘I am’ is there, the conceptual element cannot disappear. It is the concept itself that has given various names to itself, but it is still the same concept. Before this concept of ‘I am’ came on you, were you happy or unhappy? Was there even any feeling of happiness or unhappiness? Any of the dualities? In the absence of the basic concept ‘I am’, there is no thought, no awareness, and no consciousness of one’s existence.
369.Originally, I am untainted – uncovered by anything, without stigma – since nobody existed prior to me. Nor do I entertain any concepts about somebody existing, before me. Everything is in the form of the manifested world, after the appearance of the knowledge ‘I am’ with the body. Together with the body and the indwelling ‘ I amness’ everything is. Prior to the appearance of this body and the knowledge ‘I am’, what was there?
370. The feeling ‘I am’ is the quintessence of everything, but I the Absolute am not that. That ‘I amness’ is the highest knowledge. And this is surrendered here by the abidance in the action.
371. So long as the concept ‘I am’ is still there, they (people who contact maharaj) have not gone beyond or prior to it; they have not gone beyond the total manifestation. So now when people come here, I talk with them, from what level am I talking? I am talking from the level that you are consciousness and not the body-mind. In my state whatever comes out is from the total manifestation, not from the point of view of the Absolute. Hang on to that consciousness, which is your only capital, and do ‘dhyana’ and let that unfold whatever knowledge has to be unfolded.
372. At present you wrongly identify yourself as the body. Body is given a certain name; that is ‘you’; you consider it to be like that. But I say that in this body, consciousness is present, or the knowledge ‘I am’ as I call it, is there. You should identify yourself as this knowledge. That is all.
373. For meditation you should sit with identification with the knowledge ‘I am’ only and have confirmed to yourself that you are not the body. You must dwell only in that knowledge ‘I am’ – not merely the words ‘I am’. And the indwelling knowledge that you are, without words, that itself you are. In that identity you must stabilize yourself. And then whatever doubts you have will be cleared by that very knowledge, and everything will be opened up to you.
374. Forget all about physical disciplines in this connection. I am telling you that the indwelling principle ‘I am’, the knowledge that you are, you have to ‘be’ that. Just be that, with that knowledge ‘ I am’, hold on to the knowledge ‘I am’.
375. You know you are sitting here; you know you are, do you require any special effort to hold on to that ‘you are’? You know you are; abide only in that. The ‘I am’ principle without words, that itself is the God of all ‘Ishwaras’.
376. If you identify yourself as the body, such an identity must be let go of, sacrificed. Your real identity has no body and no thought. And that self, the spontaneous knowledge ‘ I am’ you are. Since the self is not the body, the self is neither male nor female. You must fulfill the vow that you are not the body but solely the indwelling principle ‘I am’.
377. With firm conviction, you abide in this knowledge ‘I am’ only; bereft of body-mind sense, only ‘I am’. If you dwell therein, if you be that only, in due course it will get mature. And it will reveal to you all the knowledge. And you need not go to anybody else.
378.The concept ‘I am’ is the primordial ‘maya’. And that ‘maya’, that primordial concept ‘I am’ requires support and therefore God and ‘Ishwara’ have been born. Along with that the whole manifestation, the entire Universe, has come upon it. Otherwise, there is absolutely nothing. And out of many ‘jnanis’, there will only be a rare one who knows the real nature of this primary concept.
379. First, the knowingness knows itself, knowing that ‘I am’. And in the illumination by that ‘I amness’, or that consciousness, everything else observed. I have had to repeat the same thing again and again, and I do not want to run kindergarten classes of spirituality.
380. All this is the play of concepts. The primary concept ‘I am’ appears spontaneously. It likes ‘I am’; it loves that ‘I am’ state. Devouring ever more concepts, it gets totally enmeshed in them. And what is the source of all concepts? This primary feeling ‘I am’. But never forget the fact that it itself is a concept, time-bound. And so it is all mental entertainment.
381. What equipment you are having is that ‘prana’. ‘Upasana’ means worship, worship of ‘prana’ itself. For doing that what equipment do you possess? It is ‘prana’ itself. Along with ‘prana’ there is that knowledge ‘I am’, or consciousness. These two things are available to you to do anything, nothing more than that.
382. In the absence of beingness, when you did not know about your existence? Nothing was of any value to you. This memory ‘I am’ is neither true nor false; it is without these two attributes. That memory of beingness only appears to exist.
383. For eternal peace you must dwell in yourself, know how this touch of ‘I am’ has appeared. All other knowledge is of no use in this connection.
384.Where there is the vital breath, the knowledge ‘I am’ is present. There being no vital breath, the knowledge of ‘I amness’ is absent. Take full advantage of the naturally available capital with you – that is, your life force and the knowledge ‘I am’; they always go hand in hand. Right now, exploit it to the utmost. All worldly activities are going on only because of the knowledge ‘I am’ together with that motive force which is the life force, the vital breath. And that is not something apart from you; you are that only. Investigate and study this exclusively, abide in that, worship that only.
385. What is this state before this knowledge ‘I am’ came upon me? When the knowledge ‘ I am’ came, the one who is satisfied with that will reach the state where he considers himself God and ‘Brahman’. But he does not go beyond it or prior to it. In the ultimate state lies the prior state; that is, the state before this knowledge ‘I am’ ever dawned on me – the highest state, the best state, the original state.
386. I call a ‘siddha’ one who has attained the ultimate, in that ultimate state, the devotee and God, the ‘maya’ (primary illusion) and the ‘Brahman’ have disappeared. And, there is no beneficiary or experiencer of all that, because he is without the concept ‘I am’. He does not know ‘I am’, he does not know that he exists in that state, that knowingness is completely obliterated.
387. This primary concept is the knowledge ‘I am’, it is the mother of all other concepts. In order to get that satisfaction, you must find the source of this primary concept ‘I am’. You should give attention to the knowledge ‘I am’ and meditate on that itself. Knowledge is to be got hold of knowledge only. This will produce the seed, which, through this process of meditation, slowly grows into a big tree, and that itself will give you all the knowledge. It will not be necessary for you to ask anyone what is what.
388. These two entities are available to you, the vital force and the knowledge ‘I am’, the consciousness. They appear without any effort; they are there. Now, in order to be one with ‘Ishwara’, to understand the non-duality you must worship the vital force. Then that knowledge, which is in seed form, slowly grows. And the seeker becomes full of knowledge; in the process he transcends that, and the ultimate state is achieved.
389. ‘I am’ itself is the world; it contains the entire world, that should be your conviction. Just as in a dream, when you feel that you are awake, but actually you are not and your world at that time is the dream world. Similarly this knowingness (in the waking state) contains this so-called real world; that conviction must come. The truth is that there is no difference between (dream) consciousness and (waking) consciousness, although they appear to be greatly different; all consciousness is one.
390. The conviction that this world never existed can happen only to ‘Parabrahman’. If this is indeed your conviction then you are the ‘Parabrahman’. This thing aside, you should discover how this news ‘I am’ – the knowledge of your existence – appeared and at what moment. Go to the source of it and find out.
391. The words of ‘prana’ signify mind. So how could there be mind without vital force? This vital force and the consciousness (that is, the knowledge ‘I am’ or the beingness and the mind) appear simultaneously and always exist together.
392. Before descending into this ‘avatar’, this knowledge quality was not present; knowingness was not there. The ‘I am’ was absent, not available. It is a non-knowing state, but afterwards, the state comprises all conceptual titles and names, and they are a person’s shackles. Any person, any embodied person with that knowledge ‘I am’ carries on his activities in the world with shackles of name only.
393. Once it is understood that ‘I am’ is purely ‘I am’, formless and not that shackled body form – then no liberation is called for. To be stabilized in that beingness, which has no name and form, that itself is liberation.
394. Understanding what that ‘avatar’ is, Lord Krishna avatar, means in essence abiding in that only. Then one is not the body. And what is the body? It is a mere aid for the sustenance or endurance of that ‘I am’ principle.
395. The vital breath gets conditioned or manacled by the bondage of name. It accepts the name as ‘ I am’; this is the mistake. That which is deconditioned from name and form is ‘Paramatman’. That which conditioned by the body, mind, name and form is called ‘jiva’. The language of the vital breath is mind, and the mind is the motive force for all activities.
396. If you are able to establish yourself in the vital breath as you are, you become manifest. The vital breath, when it is conditioned by the body, you call it personality. But as a matter the vital breath is spread all over, it is manifest; it is universal. If you establish in the vital breath as ‘I am’, that in itself will get you there. Don’t be dishonest to your vital breath, worship it, and when you do so, it can lead you anywhere, to any heights – this is the quintessence of my talks. In such simplified fashion, nobody has expounded this profound teaching.