Post by nobodyishome on Jan 15, 2012 0:11:18 GMT -5
Our True Nature
Nisargadatta Maharaj
on Seeing the True as True ....
“You can only know your self by being yourself without any attempt at self-definition and self-description."
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.
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.
’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.
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.
Before you conceptualize anything, you are, even before the knowingness, you are.
Awareness is ever there.
It need not be realized.
You observe the heart feeling, the mind thinking, the body acting; the very act of perceiving shows that you are not what you perceive.
The perceived cannot be the perceiver.
Whatever you see, hear or think of, remember - you are not what happens, you are (s)he to whom it happens.
What is really your own, you are not conscious of.
What you are conscious of is neither you nor yours. Yours is the power of perception, not what you perceive.
Realize that whatever you think yourself to be is just a stream of events; that while all happens, comes and goes, you alone are, the changeless among the changeful, the self-evident among the inferred.
Separate the observed from the observer and abandon false identifications.
What changes is not real, what is real does not change. Now, what is it in you that does not change?
You must realize yourself as the immovable behind and beyond the movable, the silent witness of all that happens.
As the person is a changing stream of mental objects that I as the subject take to be my body-mind, I cannot be a person. I am, but I can't be this or that.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Our True Nature
Nisargadatta Maharaj
on Seeing the False as False ....
"To know what you are, you must first investigate and know what you are not.
"Seeing the false as false, is meditation. This must go on all the time."
The seeker is he who is in search of himself...
To know what you are, you must first investigate and know what you are not.
The way to truth lies through the destruction of the false. p.302
“See that you are not what you believe yourself to be.
It is useless to search for the truth, when the mind is blind to the false.
It must be purged of the false completely before truth can dawn on it.
What you see as false, dissolves.
It is the very nature of illusion to dissolve on investigation.
Investigate - that is all.
You cannot destroy the false, for you are creating it all the time.
Withdraw from it, ignore it, go beyond, and it will cease to be.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It is not the "I am" that is false, but what you take yourself to be.
I can see, beyond the least shadow of doubt, that you are not what you believe yourself to be.
"There are many persons who have a great attachment to their own individuality.
They want first and foremost to remain as an individual and then search, for they are not prepared to lose that individuality.
While retaining their identity, they want to find out what is the truth.
But in this process, you must get rid of the identity itself.
If you really find out what you are, you will see that you are not an individual, you are not a person, you are not a body.
And people who cling to their body identity are not fit for this knowledge."
The person is never the subject. You can see a person, but you are not the person.
The person is merely the result of a misunderstanding.
In reality, there is no such thing.
Nisargadatta Maharaj
on Seeing the True as True ....
“You can only know your self by being yourself without any attempt at self-definition and self-description."
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.
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.
’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.
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.
Before you conceptualize anything, you are, even before the knowingness, you are.
Awareness is ever there.
It need not be realized.
You observe the heart feeling, the mind thinking, the body acting; the very act of perceiving shows that you are not what you perceive.
The perceived cannot be the perceiver.
Whatever you see, hear or think of, remember - you are not what happens, you are (s)he to whom it happens.
What is really your own, you are not conscious of.
What you are conscious of is neither you nor yours. Yours is the power of perception, not what you perceive.
Realize that whatever you think yourself to be is just a stream of events; that while all happens, comes and goes, you alone are, the changeless among the changeful, the self-evident among the inferred.
Separate the observed from the observer and abandon false identifications.
What changes is not real, what is real does not change. Now, what is it in you that does not change?
You must realize yourself as the immovable behind and beyond the movable, the silent witness of all that happens.
As the person is a changing stream of mental objects that I as the subject take to be my body-mind, I cannot be a person. I am, but I can't be this or that.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Our True Nature
Nisargadatta Maharaj
on Seeing the False as False ....
"To know what you are, you must first investigate and know what you are not.
"Seeing the false as false, is meditation. This must go on all the time."
The seeker is he who is in search of himself...
To know what you are, you must first investigate and know what you are not.
The way to truth lies through the destruction of the false. p.302
“See that you are not what you believe yourself to be.
It is useless to search for the truth, when the mind is blind to the false.
It must be purged of the false completely before truth can dawn on it.
What you see as false, dissolves.
It is the very nature of illusion to dissolve on investigation.
Investigate - that is all.
You cannot destroy the false, for you are creating it all the time.
Withdraw from it, ignore it, go beyond, and it will cease to be.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It is not the "I am" that is false, but what you take yourself to be.
I can see, beyond the least shadow of doubt, that you are not what you believe yourself to be.
"There are many persons who have a great attachment to their own individuality.
They want first and foremost to remain as an individual and then search, for they are not prepared to lose that individuality.
While retaining their identity, they want to find out what is the truth.
But in this process, you must get rid of the identity itself.
If you really find out what you are, you will see that you are not an individual, you are not a person, you are not a body.
And people who cling to their body identity are not fit for this knowledge."
The person is never the subject. You can see a person, but you are not the person.
The person is merely the result of a misunderstanding.
In reality, there is no such thing.
