Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981), Life & Teachins
Every great once in a while, Absolute Awareness manifests within Its fascinating dream-play a powerful dream-figure to talk about the nature of the dream and to indicate the transcendent Absolute. Such a figure was Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, a sage of the highest order, a tremendously gifted teacher who spoke directly from Absolute “pure Awareness, unborn Reality,” and thus from real spiritual authority.
The Maharaj was quite clear that all personalities, including his own, and all memories of personal history, are ultimately an illusion, devoid of any real, lasting substance, for there is only the one transpersonal Divine Self. When asked about his past, the Maharaj declared that there is no such thing as the past—nothing has ever really happened!
Bearing this in mind, we shall speak on the conventional level, the level of historical events within the dream of life, to note something of the sage Nisargadatta's earth-side history. His biography, which he himself once dismissed as a “dead matter,” is nevertheless useful in displaying or modeling for us the shining virtues of total dedication, one-pointedness, faith in and obedience to the Inner Guru and outer Guru, self-sacrifice, simplicity, loving-kindness, and all-embracing compassion.
The body of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (née Maruti Sivrampant Kambli) was born near dawn on the full-moon day of Saturday, April 17, 1897. His deeply religious parents named him Maruti in honor of the festival that day honoring the birth of Hanuman, the fabled monkey-king hero of the Ramayana epic poem, selfless helper of Lord Rama, and son of wind-god Marut. (Older accounts put Maruti's birth in March, but we now know that the Hanuman Jayanti that year was on April 17.)
Though born in Bombay, second eldest of six children, Maruti was raised on a family farm in Kandalgaon, a rural village to the south in Maharashtra’s Ratnagiri District. This was because his father Sivrampant, who had been employed by a merchant in Bombay, had moved the family to the countryside in 1896 when a plague-epidemic broke out in that bustling port city. We learn from a biographical booklet that "Maharaj's father Shivrampant Kambli and mother Parvatibai were both ardent devotees.... [They] observed very rigorously the traditional fasts and holy days. They made no distinction as between Siva and Vishnu. His father loved to sing bhajans [devotional songs], especially loudly as do the followers of [the] Varkari system. [The Varkaris are mystics and devotees of India's Maharashtra state, founded by the sage Jnanesvar (1275-96) and invigorated by the last leading historical figure of the movement, poet-saint-sage Tukaram (1607-49).] ... [Sivrampant] had in his possession a number of traditional holy books which he read regularly and devoutly." (S. Gogate & P.T. Phadol, Meet the Sage: Shri Nisargadatta, p. 5)
In his youth, Maruti performed all the hard labors required by life on a farm. Though he received little or no formal education, he was exposed to spiritual ideas by quietly listening to and absorbing the conversations between his father Sivramprant and the latter's friend, Visnu Haribhau Gore, a pious brahman.
Sivrampant died in 1915, and in 1920, a 23-year-old Maruti came to Bombay (after his older brother) to find work to help support the family back home. At first he landed a job as an office clerk, but then he took the initiative to move out on his own, eventually becoming prosperous in business as the owner of a chain of small retail shops with 30-40 employees, selling sundry items like cutlery and garments, but primarily tobacco and bidis, hand-rolled leaf cigarettes. In 1924, Maruti married a young woman named Sumatibai. Their family came to include a son and three daughters.
At the continuing behest of his friend Yasvantrao Bagkar, in late 1933 Maruti finally visited Sri Siddharamesvar Maharaj (1888-1936), a sage of the Navnath Sampradaya, a line of householder gurus tracing its origins to legendary avataras (Divine incarnations) Gorakhnatha (also sometimes traced further back to Lord Dattatreya). The Navnath lineage taught the sublime philosophy and direct, nondual realization of Absolute Being-Awareness. On Maruti’s third visit to Sri Siddharamesvar (or Siddharameshwar), he received instruction in meditation and formal initiation into the Navnath line (Inchegeri branch). He was given a mantra, and, upon receiving it, began to recite it diligently. Within minutes, he inwardly experienced a dazzling illumination of varied colors and fell into samadhi, complete absorption into the unitary state of non-dual awareness.
Eventually Maruti became Siddharamesvar’s leading disciple. He totally obeyed his guru, doing or giving up whatever Siddharamesvar commanded, since the Guru’s word was law unto him. The transformation in his character was so great that all of Maruti’s employees also became initiates of Siddharamesvar. After more than a year of association with Siddharamesvar, Maruti was asked to give spiritual discourses on numerous occasions. We learn, for instance, that he gave a series of 12 discourse-commentaries on spiritual books at the hometown of his friend Bagkar in 1935. Maruti began to impress people, not only with his cognitive understanding of spirituality but also his radiant exemplification of Truth. In those days, he gave spontaneous talks to anyone coming to his shop seeking his spiritual wisdom. Some brought their sick relatives to him, hoping for cures. He sent the afflicted to a cafe at the street corner, telling them to drink a glass of water therein—and in doing so, they were often healed. Siddharamesvar learned of this and asked Maruti to stop intending such healings, which are trivial in light of the need for spiritual awakening from the ultimate "dis-ease" of identifying with the body-mind personality. Nevertheless, over the years, many miracles and synchronicities still occurred.
Maruti eventually took on the name Nisargadatta, meaning “naturally (nisarga) given (datta)” or, more loosely, “one dwelling in the natural state.” “Nis-arga” literally means “without parts,” and suggests the unfragmented, seamless, solid Awareness of a sage. As he later told a dear disciple and successor, Jean Dunn: “At one time I was composing poems. Poems used to flow out of me and, in this flow, I just added ‘Nisargadatta.’ I was reveling in composing poems until my Guru cautioned me, ‘You are enjoying composing these poems too much; give them up!’ What was he driving at? His objective was for me to merge in the Absolute instead of reveling in my beingness.” (Consciousness and the Absolute: The Final Talks of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, pp. 7-8.)
Nisargadatta became primarily interested only in practicing the meditation as prescribed by his Guru and singing devotional bhajan songs. In his meditations, Nisargadatta experienced strange and colorful divine lights, various divine forms of God and saints, visions of beautiful landscapes never seen before, and deep trance states of samadhi. These manifestations of initial “imbalance” ceased after a while, giving way to absorptions–later, final absorption—in the utterly natural absorptive state of nisarga samadhi, or sahaja samadhi. This “extraordinarily ordinary,” “unconditioned condition” is formless Awareness abiding unto ItSelf while a form-full world of changing appearances arises. It has been likened to “waking sleep” by the illustrious sage, Sri Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950), wherein one experiences the utter peace and care-free bliss of formless deep sleep while clearly aware of arising forms of experience. This nisarga or sahaja samadhi transcends all dramatic, flashy “experiences”—for such experiences are changing and transient, and rooted in the dualistic, subject-object split. Nisargadatta himself tells of his time with his Guru, and what transpired in the more mature phase of his spiritual practice (sadhana):
My association with my Guru was scarcely for two and a half years. He was staying some 200 kilometers [120 miles] away, and he would come here once every four months, for fifteen days. This [realization] is the fruit of that. The words he gave me touched me very deeply. I abided in one thing only: the words of my Guru are the truth, and he said, "You are the Parabrahman [Absolute Reality]." No more doubts and no more questions on that. Once my Guru conveyed to me what he had to say I never bothered about other things— I hung on to the words of the Guru. (Prior to Consciousness, pp. 1-2, April 4, 1980)
My Guru told me: “...Go back to that state of pure being, where the ‘I am’ is still in its purity before it got contaminated with ‘I am this’ or ‘I am that.’ Your burden is of false self-identifications—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 the peace and joy and 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. (I Am That, Dialogue 51, April 16, 1971)
Sri Siddharamesvar Maharaj passed away on November 9, 1936, just before the Divali festival commenced. Nisargadatta had traveled a bit with Siddharamesvar, such as to his Guru's home town of Patri, and "he did not miss, during those days, even a single traditional function [e.g., celebrations of birthdays and mahasamadhi passing days of the Gurus of recent lineage holders of the Navnath sampradaya] held at Inchgeri, Bagewadi and Siddhagiri (Kolhapur) [in Maharashtra]." (Meet the Sage, p. 15)
A year later, during the Divali celebrations in Fall, 1937, Nisargadatta left home, taking up the life of a renunciate, an acceptable thing in India for someone who is genuinely called to spiritual freedom. He was inspired by a remark his guru had once made: “Is there anyone ready to renounce material life completely for the sake of his Sadguru’s word?” Without informing anyone, Nisargadatta left Bombay, travelling on foot southeast to Maharashtra's holy temple town of Pandharpur (a main center for the Varkari movement). There, he gave up his costly clothes, put on a simple garment, and with only two small pieces of loincloth and a coarse woollen covering, he began the life of a penniless wanderer. Under the scorching sun, Nisargadatta walked to Gangapur, then turned south and roamed on foot through Tamil Nadu in India's deep south, visiting more shrines, temples, and holy places. Through the Grace of his discarnate Guru, Nisargadatta was never without food. On one occasion, an old man and a house miraculously materialized themselves out of nowhere in a barren place to provide the hungry, tired Nisargadatta with food, water and a brief resting place. When he departed, on a whim he looked back after taking several steps: the place had completely vanished! It was evidently a yogic mental creation inter-dimensionally dreamed up by Siddharamesvar to assist his dedicated successor on his path of utter renunciation.
After visiting the pilgrimage town Ramesvaram, at the southern tip of India, Nisargadatta traveled northward, coming back through the eastern part of Maharashtra state, where a fellow disciple gave him a photo of Sri Siddharamesvar, some saffron cloth for a sannyasin's robe, and a copy of the nondually-oriented wisdom text, Dasbodh, by Samartha Ramdas, a 17th century Marathi sage. Nisargadatta then walked north as far as Agra, Mathura-Brindavan and Delhi, intending to continue on up into the Himalayas and there adopt the life of total renunciation and austerities. However, meeting and conversing with another fellow disciple of Siddharamesvar in Delhi convinced Nisargadatta that returning to live with his family in Bombay would not impede the spirit of renunciation—for true renunciation is an inward unattachment having nothing to do with one’s external situation. On the return journey he evidently opened up in an irreversible, unbroken realization of the Atma or transcendent-immanent Divine Self. His spiritual practices had exhausted all samskaras, the problematic likes and dislikes inherited from past karma. He had spontaneously, finally awakened to Absolute Self, Absolute Reality. All attachment, aversion, and delusion had ended. Nisargadatta was now totally free in the Freedom of the jivanmukta, one liberated while still functioning with a body. As he put it, “Nothing was wrong anymore.”
After his eight months of wandering, pilgrimage and full awakening from the dream of “me,” Nisargadatta came once again to Bombay in 1938. His business virtually wiped out, he lived in the family apartment (Vanmali Bhavan building) on 10th Lane in the hectic downtown Khetwadi area, just one block from a busy boulevard, maintaining one nearby tiny alcove street-front shop as an income-source for his family. He himself reduced all bodily needs to a minimum, and spent almost all his free time in the little mezzanine loft he had built in the high-ceiling apartment. Here he could be found absorbed in meditative samadhi or singing bhajans or reading great Hindu scriptures of nondual wisdom and devotion: Yoga-Vasishtha, Eknatha’s Bhagavat, Ramdas' Dasbodha, Jnanesvar's Amritanubhava and Jnanesvari (Gita Commentary), Tukaram's poems, Sankara's treatises, and some major Upanishads, and, last but not least, the words of his Guru, Sri Siddharamesvar, whose teachings had been collected by several disciples, including Nisargadatta (see, for instance, the two volumes of Amrut Laya: The Stateless State, available for purchase on the Internet at www.sadguru.com). Nisargadatta fathomed the highest meaning of these texts through the deep spiritual insight gained from quality time with both the Inner Guru and the outer Guru, Siddharamesvar, though he’d never received any formal higher-education or training.
Nisargadatta's sharpness as a spiritual teacher was honed through intense conversations with his brother disciple K.A. Sabnis, better known as Sri Bhainath Maharaj. "From 1941 onwards he came in close contact with [Bhainath].... Everyday they usually used to go to Girgaum Chaupati for a walk after the shop hours. They were engrossed for hours together in their [entirely spiritual] discussion.... In those days of the Second World War there used to be a black-out every night. Sometimes even curfew hours were on, due to communal riots and house-fires. Close by, country bombs used to explode on the open streets. Braving such tense atmosphere and unmindful of the rain or the cold winds, these two Gurubandhus were engrossed for hours together in spiritual discussions on the Chaupati sands or the Chaupati bandstand or sitting on the footsteps of a closed shop or standing at the corner of N. Powell [Rd.]. It was not uncommon that when they reached home it was two or three hours past midnight. Their daily routine mundane duties, however, did not suffer on that account.... These long and subtle talks on spiritual matters helped both. This nightly spiritual fire was continuously on for 25 years." (Meet the Sage, pp. 24-5) Nisargadatta did most of the talking, once telling Bhainath, "You are very cool like Lord Vishnu. Look at me! I am like the fiery Lord Rudra [Siva]."
Pushing his body to its limits of endurance, Nisargadatta’s physical health broke down; he contracted tuberculosis at one point, and cancer at another time. But in each case, faith in his Guru and regular exercise, such as 500 daily prostrations in front of the picture of his Guru, restored his body to health.
(Photo of a young Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj seated in his shrine room by the altar featuring a framed, garlanded image of his Guru, Sri Siddharamesvar Maharaj (1888-1936)
During the years 1942 to 1948, the passing away of a dear daughter, his devoted (if somewhat "bossy") and beloved wife, and his revered mother, and the horrible violence and turbulence of India’s independence and subsequent partition, could not shake Maharaj’s enlightened equanimity, which treats all happenings as the dream-drama of an unborn, undying, universal consciousness. Fully awake, nothing can disturb one who abides as transcendental, absolute Awareness beyond its play of consciousness.
Ever since his return to Bombay in 1938, Nisargadatta had been sought out by those desiring his counsel on spiritual matters. Many wanted to become his disciples and get formal mantra-initiation from him, reverentially calling him “Maharaj,” “Great (Spiritual) King.” Yet he was reluctant to have disciples and serve as a guru. Finally, in 1951, after receiving an inner revelation from Siddharamesvar, he began to initiate students into discipleship. In 1966, Nisargadatta finally made a complete retirement from any further business-work and let his married son, Chittaranjan, take over full operation of the tiny shop selling bidis and various goods. But long before this, Nisargadatta was allowing devotees to gather in his 8x12-foot mezzanine room for twice-daily open sessions of meditation, bhajan-singing, and inquiry into spiritual truth. This room was later expanded to 8x18 feet to accommodate the larger groups that began to visit him after Maharaj was introduced to the wider world of spiritual aspirants by the several pages on him in Peter Brent's 1972 book, Godmen of India, and, especially, by the December 1973 publication in Marathi and English of the amazing book, I Am That: Conversations with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.
This landmark book of searing nondual truth was edited and translated by Maharaj's longtime sagely friend and interlocutor, Maurice Frydman, an illustrious Polish Jew turned Indian citizen, a brilliant engineer, tireless humanitarian and activist in Gandhi's justice movement, and a great mystic himself who had studied under Ramana Maharshi and J. Krishnamurti from the late 1930s onward. Maharaj regularly referred to his friend Maurice as a true gnostic-sage, a jnani, and the Maharaj was at Maurice's bedside when the latter "dropped the body" in 1976. Incidentally, the book-title I Am That is somewhat confusing. The Maharaj always taught that one must stand prior to all identifications with "I am this" or "I am that" and dwell in the basic "I am" sense until the Divine Grace of one's Real Nature awakens one to the Absolute Awareness beyond even the "I am"-sense. Thus, the word "That" in the book-title I Am That refers only to the Absolute prior to and beyond the "I Am."
Even before the 1972 release of Brent's book and the first edition of I Am That the following year, Maharaj had become widely known through word of mouth and through some small booklets of his talks, teachings and writing, and the fact that he was the leading disciple of Sri Siddharamesvar. Biographers Gogate and Phadol wrote of Sri Nisargadatta in 1972: "Averse to publicity, he is well-known to many earnest aspirants of Truth.... The great Saint Shree Nisargadatta Maharaj personifies a continuous flow of ecstatic bliss of Self. His saintly life itself is an auspicious living message providing inspiration and guidance to all.... He speaks out what he himself experiences within.... Shree Maharaj reveals, through his daily discourses and talks, the essence of Reality through his own conviction with exceptional vigor and clarity. Knowledge flows through his talks everyday for hours on end. It pours freely like the rain and is addressed to all who are present. Narrow distinctions of male and female, high and low, caste and creed, isms or schools make no sense here. His sublime and Saintly looks pour peace and love equally on all.... His audience includes seekers from different walks of life. Professors, pleaders [lawyers], judges, high executives, political and social [and spiritual] leaders often visit the Ashram [his mezzanine loft] to seek spiritual guidance from him. Seekers of Truth from the West like Shri Maurice Frydman often visit him for discussion and spiritual guidance. Since he has no expectations from others, he is, as in his day-to-day practical life, exceptionally plain and uninhibitive in his spiritual teachings as well. Worldly matters have no room with him. Shree Maharaj is against making use of spiritual powers (siddhis) to seek worldly ends though his faithful devotees do experience his powers in their daily life.... On the holy days like the birthdays and anniversaries of Sadgurus in the tradition, Guru Purnima, Deepavali, Deevali, etc., celebrations are held in specially rented big halls with great enthusiasm. On these occasions Shree Maharaj himself loudly sings devotional songs and dances to the tune. It is a lovely scene to witness. Shri Maharaj does not at all like the idea of celebrating his own birthday, but he had to acquiesce in the importunities of his devotees. In the recent past [late 1960s, early 1970s] the number of disciples of Shree Maharaj in the city of Bombay and in other places has considerably increased. He undertakes tours four or five times a year to visit, along with some disciples, holy places like Bagewadi, Inchgeri, [and] Siddhagiri, which are the birth places of Sadgurus in the [Navnath] Sampradaya. He also visits, though rarely, the places of disciples who stay out of Bombay." (Meet the Sage, pp. 32, 30, 29-30)
By the latter 1970s, the Maharaj's traveling had largely dropped off due to old age and illness, a throat cancer diagnosed in 1980. Roughly 20 visitors daily, now including a disproportionately greater number of Westerners, were coming to Sri Nisargadatta's talks for gaining spiritual clarity, the number of persons expanding to about 30 persons on Sundays and holidays. Except for a throng of long-standing devotees, these visitors were frequently new faces, since the Maharaj was not interested in collecting a following, but preferred that his students hear, understand, meditate upon and then go live the teaching. Thus, he never allowed any separate spacious ashram to be built, though, as mentioned, he did allow large halls to sometimes be rented for bhajans and discourses on certain holy days, and for this purpose and a few small publishing and charitable projects the "Sri Nisargadatta Adhyatma Kendra" organization was registered in 1976. Because the I Am That book in the latter 1970s began to draw a greater number of people than could be squeezed into his little mezzanine loft, the Maharaj generally allowed people to stay for only a few weeks or even just a few days. Many persons would come for up to two weeks, then clear out, go elsewhere, and come back several months later for another short period before leaving, usually to return once again at a later date.
The Maharaj's mezzanine loft was marked by a strong, strangely beautiful peace, despite the fact that the ensuing years saw this particular Bombay neighborhood, like many other urban areas of the developing world, grow increasingly in density, din, odor and squalor. There, in that little room up the narrow, steep stairs, a little bit above and away from the outside noise and smell (from a public urinal across the street and other urban odors), one encountered Maharaj in the vastness of consciousness disguised as the little Indian man in the tiny urban loft. On the loft's south end was a fairly large window overlooking 10th Lane, on the other end to the north, next to the stairs, stood the rather regal wood-and-silver altar to Sri Siddharamesvar and the Navnath line of Gurus. Completing the configuration were one long wall with a window to the east and a facing wall on the west side, without windows, along which the stairs descended. Numerous framed photos and images, including not just Sri Siddharameshvar and the Navnath line of gurus, but other sages like the illustrious Sri Ramana Maharshi, J. Krishnamurti, Maurice Frydman, and even a painting of Maharaj himself, gazed down beneficently from their position high along the walls.
The living, breathing Nisargadatta Maharaj, about 5'4" tall, was usually dressed in a simple white cotton short-sleeved shirt or long-sleeved white kurta, sometimes going bare-chested in the heat or, in the cooler periods, wearing over his white shirt a beige kurta or an old orange sweater vest, sometimes including a dark wool jacket. Instead of modern trousers, he preferred the traditional white dhoti worn long down to the ankles and/or folded under and between the legs. When walking outside, he often donned, not just sunglasses, but also the white "freedom cap" worn by so many of the older Indian men. He wore no special robes, regalia or paraphernalia. His only concession to tradition was a dab of red vermillion powder between the eyebrows. His few physical props were his lighter, his incense sticks, and his cigarettes. Even when the doctors finally succeeded in getting him to stop smoking bidis around late 1980, he wryly confessed to some of us in early 1981 that he was still often chewing tobacco. When teaching, the Maharaj usually sat cross-legged on a cushion on the floor, or sometimes on a low folding chair, with a small towel over his lap. He varied where he sat, from the windowed end of the room, to a position near the stairs, to a spot against the long wall. (For an even more vivid and extensive description of the environs and happenings around Maharaj, see Milo Clark's delightful essay "A Day with Maharaj", linked in the Resources section below.)
Maharaj declared: "I speak every day on the same subject." (Seeds of Consciousness, p. 165) That subject was our real Identity as the birthless-deathless, infinite-eternal Absolute Awareness or Parabrahman, and Its play of emanated universal consciousness. For Maharaj, our only "problem" (an imagined one!) is a case of mistaken identity: we presume to be an individual, and, originally and fundamentally, we are not an individual, we are intrinsically always and only the Absolute. The play of consciousness as an individual, a person, a "me," is fleeting, insubstantial and thus a playful dream of maya-illusion. Insofar as we, the formless Absolute (Parabrahman, Nirguna Brahman, Shiva) have any "relatively real" manifestation, we are the entire play of Universal Consciousness (Saguna Brahman, Shakti, Caitanya, Cidakash). Which is why the Maharaj would often state, on the matter of our "relative level" identity, "Look upon all as your Self," "Consciousness is the same in all," "It is the same Consciousness in Lord Krishna, a human being, a donkey, or an ant," "There is only one Consciousness," "You are I only, I am you," "my real nature is your real nature," and so forth.
The Maharaj's quintessential spiritual way for any visitors and disciples ripe enough to fathom was awakening to this Universal Consciousness and even beyond that unto the Absolute Awareness or Open Divine Reality. The specific method was a radical disidentification from the dream of "me and my world" via intensely meditative self-inquiry (atma-vicara) and supreme Wisdom-Knowledge (vijñana or jñana). "I know only Atma-yoga, which is 'Self-Knowledge,' and nothing else.... My process is Atma-yoga, which means abidance in the Self." (The Nectar of Immortality, pp. 22, 25)
Operationally, this is the classic threefold practice of hearing the Truth of our Absolute Nature, pondering/contemplating this Truth, and meditating deeply on this Truth (sravana, manana and nididhyasana) until we are fully, unshakeably established in this conviction that we are not the body-mind-soul ego personality or individual, no, our real nature or identity is the supra-personal or trans-egoic Reality-Awareness. This threefold practice of hearing-pondering-meditating is identified as the classic way of awakening in the ancient Upanishads (e.g., Brhadaranyaka iv.5.6, Paingala, iii.2) and later scriptures, and in the works of Sankara (c.700 CE) and other advaita (nondual) sages. The eminent Mahayana Buddhist forefather Nagarjuna (c.110-200) likewise had advocated this triple method of hearing-pondering-meditating (sruti-cinta-bhavana) on the Truth of Sunyata-Absolute Openness-Emptiness.
Maharaj often emphasized the need for deeply hearing, pondering and meditating upon—and firmly stabilizing in—his teaching about the "I Am" consciousness and the Absolute Awareness beyond. But he frequently summarized for his listeners this classic triple method in an even pithier formulation of the way: "Just be what you hear"—i.e., be the truth of Awareness, the Source-Reality denoted by these words of wisdom.
In slightly more elaborate form, as Maharaj himself so often put it, you clearly and intuitively know or apperceive that you are. No one has any real doubts about this fundamental fact of their consciousness, beingness, knowingness, presence or "I-Am-ness." Maharaj would say, meditate on and remain as this "I-Am-ness," fervently focus on and ponder this fundamental experience or fact of "I Am," free of all limiting identifications with "I am this" or "I am that." Notice the chronic tendency to identify with "this" or "that" as me—"me" in the form of "my mind," "my body," my being a "man" or a "woman," my being "good" or "bad," my being a devotee of this religion or that, this political party or that. Said Maharaj: "Just be, and don't get restless 'trying' to be, just be." "Just be in your beingness." Simply and clearly dwelling as the unidentified, undefined "I Am" sense of sheer presence (what Sri Ramana Maharshi always called "the I-thought"), the Grace of One's Real Nature as Absolute Reality or Parabrahman takes over and finally even merges that basic "I Am" presence into Pure, Absolute Awareness, our Infinite, Eternal, Ever-Abiding Identity. This Awareness is more "no-knowingness" than "knowingness," more Absence (of anything or anyone) than presence. Yet this "Absence" is no mere "vacuous emptiness" but is the Stupendous Reality, the Nirguna Parabrahman (quality-less Divine Reality) beyond saguna Brahman (Divine Reality with qualities, manifestation, beingness), as sage Sankara, Nisargadatta and other Indian sages distinguish.
In other words, one's life and the life of every sentient being is the play of consciousness (caitanya) and its vital force (prana). Identified as an individual, one's consciousness is somatic- or body-based (i.e., the body comprised of food-essence). But one's real, trans-individual, transpersonal Being is the Absolute Awareness that is bodiless, mindless, spaceless, timeless, birthless, deathless, and Vastness beyond vastness, Aliveness beyond aliveness, Intelligence beyond intelligence, the one and only unmanifest Self beyond all apparent manifest selves. Says Maharaj, one must deploy all one's consciousness and life-force to investigate how this consciousness is the root of all experiences of the jiva or individual—bodily, mental and psychic. Going further, however, one must find out: what is the transcendent Source of this all-manifesting consciousness? As Maharaj stated the two stages of disidentification via witnessing: "There are two witnessing stages; beingness [consciousness] witnesses all this manifestation. [And] witnessing of this beingness, consciousness, happens to that eternal principle, the Absolute." (Prior to Consciousness, p. 4) He also declared: "There is only one consciousness [manifesting all beings-events]. You must become one with and stabilize in that consciousness, then you transcend it." (Consciousness and the Absolute, p. 12)
Beyond mere conceptualizing or intellectualizing about this on the level of individual consciousness, there must be authentic establishment or stabilizing in/as this transcendental Source, the Ultimate. Because Absolute Awareness can never be seen, perceived, thought of or grasped as an object (just as the fingertip cannot touch itself), the only "task" is to simply, magnificently abide, remain, "stay put" or "keep quiet" as this Absolute Awareness or Parabrahman, the No-thing which dreams up everything as Its wild, wonderful, pleasurable, painful play of consciousness and its objects.
I once heard the Maharaj declare, in typical parlance, "Presently we are one with 'I am-ness.' This is delusion. You as the Absolute must get out of that. Were you concerned about this 'I am' before you came into it? Because it came into being spontaneously, without any of your doing, so it will disappear, spontaneously, without your doing, and the Absolute which you are will remain."
Thus, paradoxically, you can't "try" to abide as Absolute Awareness, for you always already are THIS Awareness, prior to the universal consciousness and any sense of individuality. As he sometimes clarified: "What you ARE you cannot become. You can only be That." Likewise, one can't even "try" to witness, for one's real nature as the Absolute is already witnessing the consciousness, and, in turn, consciousness is already witnessing the world, sensations, thoughts, emotions, etc. of the apparent individual. Nisargadatta Maharaj made the most of this paradox, giving lots of imperatives to be utterly earnest (an oft-used word!) in disidentifying, witnessing, letting go, constantly meditating, stabilizing and remaining as Awareness, yet he also often said that there is "nothing to do," and "don't make efforts." Thereby, the sage created in his listeners a sense of paralyzing paradox of "effortless effort" which wondrously leads to a profound awakening to What We Already Are as Absolute Awareness. And yes, one must paradoxically get "established" or "stabilized" in THIS Reality, not just settle for fleeting glimpses. Which is why the Maharaj so often urged, "You must meditate!" And meditation must mature or ripen into the deepest and firmest possible intuitive conviction that we are not consciousness and the "I Am-ness," but are the Absolute always spacelessly right HERE, timelessly right NOW. This Reality is immediately our very Truth, "nearer" than the either the bodymind complex or the "I Am-ness."
In case there is any confusion on this point, consider the following. When people, faced with the Maharaj’s teaching on the Absolute beyond the sense of “I-Am-ness,” responded with any expressed intention to get rid of or suppress or terminate the “I Am,” the sage would clearly tell them that this is not needed. He would say that, just as one’s Absolute Eternal Nature is spontaneously Real, so also the “I-Am-ness,” though only temporally, relatively real (and hence ultimately false, destined to disappear), is spontaneously present, albeit as a superimposition on our Real Nature. It is the spontaneous play of the unlimited, changeless Absolute which sports as the ever-changing creative “I Am” consciousness, which in turn has whimsically or mischievously conjured up the limited individual sense of personality. So, says the Maharaj, there is nothing to do about the “I-Am-ness” but just penetrate it by deeply meditating upon it. This is “meditating on the meditator,” “contemplating the contemplator,” as he sometimes said. Such profound meditation on the root-sense of individuality and personal presence results in a paradoxical combination of complete witnessing of the “I Am” along with being completely one with the Consciousness that is “I Am.” Upon fully seeing-being this “I Am,” by the Divine Grace of one’s Real Nature this root of all individuality is transcended, and What remains is only the inconceivable, unimaginable Ultimate, the Alone (All-One), the Absolute Freedom, Fullness and Felicity.
In addition to the Maharaj’s well-known and much-discussed cognitive-intuitive way of awakening to the Absolute via the preliminary step of contemplating the “I Am-ness” or consciousness, Sri Nisargadatta also sometimes outlined (especially during some talks in mid-July 1980) a much less-known preliminary path: what might be termed an energetic-intuitive way of awakening based on contemplating and fully feeling and unfolding the prana or sakti, the life force, life breath or vital energy. Ancient Indian texts speak of this life force, subdividing it into the pañcapranas or “five breaths / vital forces”: prana, samana, apana, vyana, and udana, the energies that govern breathing, digestion, excretion, circulation, and regulation of the three basic cyclic states (waking, dream, sleep). The Maharaj did not delve into particularities but instead simply pointed out the obvious—that without the prana or sakti vital energy, we cannot live, think, feel, move or do anything. Whereas consciousness is the “static” sentience principle in our lives, the prana-sakti life force is the “dynamic” working, acting, kinetic principle, said the Maharaj, though ultimately “[they] are not really two... they are really one.... Consciousness and life force are two components, inextricably woven together, of one principle.” “Life force, love and consciousness are all one in essence.” (The Ultimate Medicine, pp. 124, 161, 165.) Therefore, this vital force is really Pranesvar, the Lord of Energy, the effective God of our lives and world, “the highest principle,” the “Great Power or Great Energy without which there cannot be consciousness” (ibid., p. 170.) “This life force is God and God is this life force.” (ibid., p. 121.)
Accordingly, Sri Nisargadatta said (as he would often likewise say of consciousness or the “I Am-sense”), make this life-force power your friend and your highest God—meditate upon, pray to and worship this God, “your constant companion,” instead of praying to some mere abstract image or heavenly concept of “God” as is done in most devotional religious paths. Now, the Maharaj did not teach or recommend the two traditional ways of working with the prana-sakti: the complicated tantra of kundalini yoga (working with the cakra energy centers along the spine, balancing the ida and pingala energy currents, etc.), or the even more ancient eight-part Yoga of Patañjali with its breath-regulation (pranayama), postures (asanas) and so on. No, the Maharaj simply made a general but very subtle recommendation to befriend, focus on, fathom, worship, abide in and just be this vital force, and be careful not to “dissipate” or “demote” or “sully” the life energy by identifying it merely with the body and its urges. By “unconditioning” the life force, one allows this prana-sakti to spontaneously “purify,” to transcend any fixation on the individual person and selfish desires. The vital energy then can “unfold” or open up freely to its true vast and potent nature as the transpersonal, universal life force. Finally, “this life force... merges with the light of the Atman/Self.” (ibid., p. 121) Thus does one transcend death, for the universal life-force cannot perish.
There is tremendous austerity in what the Maharaj is teaching, whether in his intuitive way of self-inquiry into universal consciousness or his way of abiding as the universal life-force. He is, after all, speaking of the deepest possible renunciation—renunciation of being a bodymind individual, a “me.” And yet, of course, this is no actual “renunciation,” since one is only remaining or abiding as What One truly IS, in all the glorious majesty and empty-fullness of One’s Reality: Absolute Awareness-Bliss-Grace.
Meanwhile, on the conventional, mundane level of the play of consciousness as an apparent individual, one is not to become a zombie, sociopath, or idle simpleton! The Maharaj insisted that one must allow the body-mind and vital force to appropriately fulfill its destined duties and relationships. "You must not keep yourself idle; so do go on working. [However,] whether working for the poor, the community or for progress, whatever it is that you do, be at that stage of knowledge, of real consciousness." (The Ultimate Medicine, pp. 132-3) He also remarked: "Understand that the total manifestation is the child of a barren woman [i.e., not real, only dream-like], but having understood this, give full attention to your work, and let that work be done as efficiently as possible.... It does not mean that you should neglect your worldly duties; carry these out with full zest." (Consciousness and the Absolute, pp. 43, 12) Clearly, this attention to one's duties does not mean falling into worldliness, selfishness, and ego-based attachments and aversions, the entangling realm of desires and fears. Sri Nisargadatta in his own way would often echo the well-known counsels of his Guru, Sri Siddharmamesvar, "Realize the Self and behave accordingly!" "Use this Self-Power in the right way." Over the years, Nisargadatta himself issued frequent warnings in his conversations not to succumb to pride, body-based desires, exploitation of others, hypocrisy, ambition, needless complications in one's lifestyle and relationships, and so forth.
And why? Because these things entangle one in the felt-sense of egoic individuality and this, in turn, produces the big, long, miserable dream of the egoic rebirth cycle, samsara. The Maharaj, speaking purely on the Absolute Truth-level (paramarthika-satya), would usually deny the doctrines of karma, life after death, and rebirth—for these presume the existence of a separate individual being or person, which he ultimately denied. But the records we have of the Maharaj's conversations also display with about the same frequency his brief mentions and even explicit warnings on the conventional truth-level (vyavaharika-satya) about getting karmically enmeshed in the rebirth cycle. So if one is still identified with being an individual bodymind, and fueling this delusion with unvirtuous, unskillful attitudes and behavior, welcome to the confused, conflicted dream of samsara! If one has abandoned selfishness through wisdom, devotion, dedication and virtue, and thereby allowed the authentic transcendence of egoic individuality, one easily stands Free and Clear as Absolute Awareness, the always-Unborn Reality.
Much has been made about Sri Nisargadatta’s forcefully electric style in presenting and teaching the Truth of What We Are for his listeners—a style that could quickly turn explosive and blazing—with severely pointed words, coarse speech (even untranslated cusswords), personally challenging "impolite" remarks, outrageous statements, and those famously fierce gazes and dramatic movements and extravagant gestures performed like a great thespian orator—hands loudly clapping or slapping down onto his thighs, a finger suddenly extended upward or sideward or jabbed toward the listener.
Not only did the Maharaj sometimes insult his own Hindu tradition (e.g., irreverent humorous puns on the names of the gods and goddesses), he often insulted or testily confronted his own students and visitors. David Godman, author of valuable books on Ramana Maharshi and his disciples, recalls in his colorful and insightful memoir of visits with Maharaj [see Resources section below]: "We all got shouted at on various occasions, and we all got told off from time to time because of things we did or said. We were all a little fearful of him because we never knew when the next eruption would come. We had all come to have the dirt beaten out of us, in the same way that the dhobis [washer-folk] clean clothes by smashing them on rocks. Maharaj smashed our egos, our minds and our concepts on the immovable rock of the Self because he knew that in most cases that was the only way to help us."
Switching metaphors, we might say that Maharaj functioned as just the right kind of "irritant" to get inside our egoic shell, thenceforth to begin his work of making out of us a big, beautiful, bursting-forth Pearl of Enlightenment.
Not infrequently the Maharaj demanded that certain people just leave, usually if he detected in them a lack of respect for the tradition, an over-intellectualizing of spiritual Truth, or a disobedience to one of his commands—e.g., still making comments or asking questions after Maharaj had told that person to "be still" and "be what you have heard." And yet he let the courageous, sincere ones return to subsequent talks. Alexander Smit (d.1998), a leading Dutch disciple, recalls: "He sent many people away, and these really went and mostly didn't come back. Then he would say: 'They are cowards. I didn't send them away, I sent away the part of them that was not acceptable here.' And if they then returned, completely open, then he would say nothing about it." It seems that the Maharaj picked on particular "ripe" persons just to provoke them into an even more profound disidentification from the ego-mind. Smit reports his own turbulent clash with Maharaj on Sept. 21, 1978: he threw a little tantrum and provocatively, rudely insulted the Maharaj as "crazy" when the sage told him he could no longer attend; the Maharaj then loudly, angrily cursed Smit, demanded he leave, and then completely avoided him for two days, only to reinstate Smit after the young man wrote a long sincere letter of apology. Said Maharaj, in part: "I am very happy with your letter and nothing happened." Smit was endlessly grateful that the Maharaj, already in advanced age, had expended so much energy (and risked a heart attack) to courageously confront Smit's stubborn intellectualism and "cunning resistance" to fully living the Truth. On another occasion, when Smit called Maharaj a "killer" of the ego, Nisargadatta responded: "I am not a killer. I am a diamond cutter. You are also a diamond. But you are a raw diamond and you can only be cut by a pure diamond. And that is very precise work, because if that is not done properly then you fall apart into a hundred pieces, and then there is nothing left for you."
Unlike his Guru Sri Siddharamesvar, who mainly taught by delivering informal, spontaneous discourses and laid-back commentaries on text verses, Nisargadatta, who had done some of the same earlier in life, for most of the last few decades preferred to engage his visitors in rigorous, often quite confrontational, question and answer sessions concerning our Real Identity as the Absolute and the ultimate falsity of the manifest play of consciousness. And when not soliciting and getting questions, Maharaj himself was often the one blasting away with questions, probing people's level of spiritual understanding, provoking them into awakening, and modeling for them what it means to engage in profound enquiry and self-enquiry.
He was indeed a formidable tiger in Bombay’s urban jungle, roaring of the Self’s Freedom. He frequently deployed koan-questions like a Zen master—e.g., "What were you before you were born, before the 'I Am-ness' came to be?" "How did this consciousness come about?" "How did you happen to be?" "Have you any idea when all this began?... What did actually happen?" "Are you an entity? What are you?" "What makes you consider yourself a person?" "With what do you identify?" "What is this body, what is it?" "What is there prior to the mind?" "What are you using to be aware right now?" "You talk about this sage or that one—but how about you? Who are you?" And he wielded a slashing, smashing Siva-mode of deconstructive verbiage to take away people's postures and self-concepts—e.g., "You are not the body, you are not the mind, you are not the 'I am' or beingness or even the universal consciousness and its life force, you are not any 'thing' or 'process' or 'individual' at all." Nisargadatta's natural Freedom wanted us entirely Free of all that might experientially obscure our true Identity as the Absolute Reality, the Parabrahman.
Sudhakar Dikshit, an editor and publisher of the Maharaj’s I Am That teachings, and disciple as well, provides a fine image of the sage: “Think of a tall granite cliff on the seashore, buffeted day and night by turbulent waves and winds, yet majestically standing erect in its sheer height, its top enveloped in the clouds. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, the supreme master, is such a cliff of spiritual granite in human form. He is stern and unbending. He speaks bluntly and upbraids sharply, but with his powerful words he sweeps away the mental debris of his visitors—moral cant, ritualistic religion and philosophic pretentions of various sorts. He is brutally straightforward, completely devoid of sugarcoated civility, but in reality he has no desire to assert or dominate. He is what he is, because he is steeped in jnana [Wisdom-Knowledge] and he talks from the plane of true awareness where the human soul is merged into the Oversoul, the Brahman.” (“Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj: The Man and His Teaching,” in Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj Presentation Volume: 1980, p. 2).
Source http://www.enlightened-spirituality.org/Nisargadatta_Maharaj.html
