find your real being

There will be marriage, there will be children, 

there will be earning money to maintain a family; 

all this will happen in the natural course of events, 

for destiny must fulfill itself; you will go through it without resistance, 

facing tasks as they come, attentive and thorough, 

both in small things and big. 

But the general attitude will be of affectionate detachment, 

enormous goodwill, without expectation of return, 

constant giving without asking. 

In marriage you are neither the husband nor the wife; 

you are the love between the two. 

You are the clarity and kindness that makes everything orderly and happy. 

It may seem vague to you, but if you think a little, 

you will find that the mystical is most practical, 

for it makes your life creatively happy. 

Your consciousness is raised to a higher dimension, 
from which you see everything much clearer and with greater intensity. 

You realize that the person you became at birth 
and will cease to be at death is temporary and false. 

You are not the sensual, emotional and intellectual person, 
gripped by desires and fears. Find out your real being. 

What am I? 
is the fundamental question of all philosophy and psychology. 
Go into it deeply.

~ Nisargadatta

with thanks to ragavairagya

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by looking tirelessly

By looking tirelessly, I became quite empty 

and with that emptiness all came back to me except the mind. 

I find I have lost the mind irretrievably. 

I am neither conscious nor unconscious, 

I am beyond the mind and its various states and conditions.

Distinctions are created by the mind and apply to the mind only. 

I am pure Consciousness itself, unbroken awareness of all that is. 

I am in a more real state than yours. 

I am undistracted by the distinctions and separations which constitute a person. 

As long as the body lasts, it has its needs like any other, 

but my mental process has come to an end. 

My thinking, like my digestion, is unconscious and purposeful. 

I am not a person in your sense of the word, 

though I may appear a person to you. 

I am that infinite ocean of consciousness in which all happens. 

I am also beyond all existence and cognition, pure bliss of being. 

There is nothing I feel separate from, hence I am all. 

No thing is me, so I am nothing. 

Life will escape, the body will die, but it will not affect me in the least. 

Beyond space and time I am, uncaused, uncausing, yet the very matrix of existence.

~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

with thanks to http://ashramof1.tumblr.com/

photo by Bea Garth

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a colorful show

The world is but a show, glittering and empty. It is, and yet it is not.

 It is there as long as I want to see it and take part in it. 

When I cease caring, it dissolves. It has no cause and serves no purpose. 

It just happens when we are absent-minded. 

It appears exactly as it looks, but there is no depth in it, nor meaning. 

Only the onlooker is real, call him Self or Atma. 

To the Self, the world is but a colorful show, 

which he enjoys as long as it lasts and forgets when it is over. 

Whatever happens on the stage makes him shudder in terror or roll with laughter, 

yet all the time he is aware that it is but a show. 

Without desire or fear, he enjoys it, as it happens.

~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

with thanks to noornalini

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the same life flows through all that is

.

When you know beyond all doubting that  and you are that life, you will love all naturally and spontaneously. When you realize the depth and fullness of your love of yourself, you know that every living being and the entire universe are included in your affection. But when you look at anything as separate from you, you cannot love it for you are afraid of it. Alienation causes fear and fear deepens alienation. It is a vicious circle. Only self - realization can break it. Go for it resolutely. 

In dream you love some and not others. On waking up you find you are love itself, embracing all. Personal love, however intense and genuine, invariably binds; love in freedom is love of all....When you are love itself, you are beyond time and numbers. In loving one you love all, in loving all, you love each. One and all are not exclusive. 

All the universe will be your concern; every living thing you will love and help most tenderly and wisely.

~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

from I am that 

photo: heart and veins

thanks to reality creation

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you need not push life about

.

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When effort is needed, effort will appear. 

When effortlessness becomes essential, it will assert itself. 

You need not push life about. 

Just flow with it and give yourself completely to the task of the present moment, 

which is the dying now to the now. For living is dying. 

Without death life cannot be.

~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

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You are not what you take yourself to be

.

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 your 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! 

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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. 

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I simply followed (my teacher's) 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.

.

~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

from Nonduality Highlights

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somehow

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I find that somehow, by shifting the focus of attention, 

I become the very thing I look at, 

and experience the kind of consciousness it has; 

.

I become the inner witness of the thing. 

I call this capacity of entering other focal points of consciousness,

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love; 

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you may give it any name you like. 

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Love says "I am everything". 

Wisdom says "I am nothing". 

Between the two, my life flows. 

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Since at any point of time and space 

I can be both the subject and the object of experience, 

I express it by saying that 

I am both, and neither, and beyond both.

.

~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

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seeing reality? true ideas?

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There's no state in which one is seeing reality. 

WHO is seeing WHAT? 

You can only BE real. 

(And that you are always.) 

The problem exists only in thinking.

Let all false ideas go, 

that's all. 

There's no need for true ideas. 

(Since there are none.)

.

 Nisargadatta Maharaj

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Meet your own self

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Meet your own self. Be with your own self, 

listen to it, obey it, cherish it, keep it in mind ceaselessly. 
.

You need no other guide. 

As long as your urge for truth affects your daily life, 

all is well with you. 

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Live your life without hurting anybody. 

Harmlessness is a most powerful form of Yoga and it will take you speedily to your goal. 

This is what I call nisarga yoga, the Natural yoga. 

It is the art of living in peace and harmony, 

in friendliness and love. 

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The fruit of it is happiness, uncaused and endless.

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~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

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The memory of the past

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The memory of the past unfulfilled desires traps energy,

 which manifests itself as a person. 

When its charge gets exhausted, 

the person dies.
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 Unfulfilled desires are carried over into the birth. 

Self-identification with body creates ever-fresh desires 

and there is no end to them unless 

this mechanism of bondage is clearly seen.
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 It is clarity that is liberating,

 for you cannot abandon desire unless 

its causes and effects are clearly seen.
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I do not say that the same person is reborn.

 It dies, 

and dies for good. 
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But its memories remain 

and their desires and fears. 

They supply the energy for a new person.

.

~  Nisargadatta Maharaj

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look without imagination

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Learn to look without imagination, 

to listen without distortion:

 that is all.

 Stop attributing names and shapes to the essentially nameless and formless,

 realize that every mode of perception is subjective,

 that what is seen or heard,

 touched or smelled, 

felt or thought, 

expected or imagined,

 is in the mind and not in reality,

 and you will experience peace and freedom from fear.

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~  Nisargadatta Maharaj

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As long as you do not see

.

.

As long as you do not see that it is mere habit,

 built on memory,

 prompted by desire,

 you will think yourself to be a person -

 living, feeling, thinking, active, passive, pleased or pained. 

Question yourself, ask yourself.

 'Is it so?'

 'Who am I'?

 'What is behind and beyond all things?'

 And soon you will see your mistake.

 And it is in the very nature of a mistake to cease to be, when seen.

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~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

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all states of mind

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All states of mind, 

all names and forms of existence are rooted in non-enquiry, 

non-investigation, in imagination and credulity. 

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.

.

~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

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If you could only keep quiet

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If you could only keep quiet,

 clear of memories and expectations, 

you would be able to discern the beautiful pattern of events. 

Its your restlessness that causes chaos.

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~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

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all existence, in separation and limitation, is painful

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When you have understood that all existence, in separation and limitation, is painful,

and when you are willing and able to live integrally, in oneness with all life, as pure being,

you have gone beyond all need of help.

You can help another by precept and example and, above all, by your being.

You cannot give what you do not have and you don't have what you are not.

You can only give what you are - and of that you can give limitlessly.

.

- Nisargadatta Maharaj

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Watch your thoughts as you watch the street traffic

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Watch your thoughts as you watch the street traffic,  People come and go:  you register without response.  It may not be easy in the beginning,  but with some practice you will find that your mind can function on many levels at the same time and you can be aware of the all.  It is only when you have a vested interest in any particular level, that your attention gets caught in it and you black out on other levels.  Even then the work on the blacked out levels goes on, outside the field of consciousness.

Do not struggle with your memories and thoughts;  try only to include in your field of attention the other,  more important questions like, "Who am I?", "How did I happen to be born?", "Whence this universe around me?", What is real and what is momentary?".  No memory will persist, if you lose interest in it;  always seeking pleasure, avoiding pain, always after happiness and peace.  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 asking, nor refusing, give all your attention to the level on which "I am" is timeless and 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.

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~Nisargaddatta Maharaj

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Words indicate, but do not explain

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Words indicate, but do not explain.  What I teach is the ancient and simple way of liberation through understanding.  Understand your own mind and its hold on you will snap.  The mind misunderstands, misunderstanding is its very nature.  Right understanding is the only remedy, whatever name you give it.  It is the earliest and also the latest,  for it deals with the mind as it is.
Nothing you do will change you, for you need no change.  You may change your mind or your body, but it is always something external to you that has changed, not yourself.  Why bother at all to change?  Realize once and for all that neither your body nor your mind, nor even your consciousness is yourself and stand alone in your true nature beyond consciousness and unconsciousness.  No effort can take you there, only the clarity of understanding.  Trace your misunderstandings and abandon them, that is all.  There is nothing to seek and find, for there is nothing lost.  Relax and watch the 'I am'.  Reality is just behind it.  Keep quiet, keep silent;  it will emerge, or, rather, it will take you in.
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~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
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