Nisargadatta Maharaj and the teaching of the Self – who we really are (film)

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj was an Indian yoga teacher, well versed in Advaita Vedanta.

He is considered the best known teacher of Advaita Vedanta since Ramana Maharshi.

His direct and minimalist and effective exposition of non-dualism,

as well as the publication of the most famous and widespread book

“I AM THAT” in 1973,

It brought him worldwide recognition and followers.

He taught Jnana austere, minimalist yoga,

based on your own experience.

His philosophy is set forth in this first volume,

Considered a modern classic.

 

According to Sri Nisargadatta,

The purpose of spirituality

is to feel who you are.

It is known that he could trigger

Radical transformations in people

just listening to him or reading his books.

He spoke of the “direct way” of knowing the Ultimate Reality,

in which one becomes aware of one’s original nature through mental discrimination,

breaking the false identification of mind with ego,

knowing that

“You are already Like That. “

 

His life

When asked about his date of birth, Master replied that he was never born!

However, 1897 is the year he came into the world one day

which coincided with the great feast of Hanuman,

the ape-god from the famous Ramayana epic.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj was born in Bombay (Mumbai) in March 1897,

in a poor family without spiritual concerns.

As a child, he worked on the family’s small farm

and came into contact with spirituality

through discussions with a friend of his father.

His parents, who gave him the name Maruti,

they had a small farm at Kandalgaon village in Mahrashtra’s Ratnagiri district.

His father, Shivrampant, was a poor man who had been a servant in Bombay

before turning to agriculture.

At the age of 18, after the death of his father,

Maruti left home to work in Mumbai.

The boy opened a clothing and cigarette shop

And after a while, he found a wife with whom he had 4 children.

When Maruti was 34 years old, a friend of his, Yashwantrao Baagkar,

introduced him to his guru, Sri Siddharameshwar Maharaj,

head of the Inchagiri branch in Navanath Sampradaya.

The guru gave Maruti a mantra and some instructions

and died shortly thereafter.

Sri Nismargadatta later recalled:

Guru-ul meu mi-a ordonat să particip la sensul „eu sunt”

și să nu acord atenția la nimic altceva.

Întocmai l-am ascultat.

Nu am urmat vreun curs anume de respirație, nici meditație sau studiu de scripturi.

Orice s-ar întâmpla, mi-aș îndepărta atenția de la ea și aș rămâne cu sensul „sunt”.

Poate arata prea simplu, chiar brut.

Singurul meu motiv pentru a o face a fost că Guru-ul meu mi-a spus acest lucru.

Totuși, a funcționat!

I Am That , capitolul 75

Three years later, Maruti

had his first enlightening experience

and took the name Nisargadatta

He then made the decision to leave his family

and go to the Himalayas.

After a few months, however, he returned to Mumbai with his family.

realizing that he has already found eternal life

and that he has everything he wants at hand,

no matter where they are.

He remained in Mumbai, where he lived for the rest of his life,

working as a cigarette salesman

and giving spiritual instructions in his home.

He lived in a small apartment in Khetwadi,

where he did his spiritual practice and where he also received his followers.

He died at the age of 84 in 1981.

 

His teachings

He recommended the practice that led to his own realization in less than three years:

Doar ține cont de simtirea „Eu sunt”,

scontopește-te cu ea,

până când mintea și sentimentul tău devin unul.

Prin încercări repetate

te vei ajuta de echilibrul corect de atenție și afecțiune,

iar mintea ta va fi ferm stabilită

în gândirea „Eu sunt”.

I Am That, Chapter 16

In his landmark book, I Am That,

widely regarded as one of the greatest spiritual books of the twentieth century,

Answer one of the most important questions:

Question: Is there any danger of following Yoga at any cost?

Maharaj: Is there a danger of inadequacy when the house is in fire?

The search for reality is the most dangerous of all businesses,

Because it will destroy the world you live in.

But if your motive is love of truth and life,

You don’t have to be afraid. (I am this, chapter 96.)

“- You have achieved your own achievement through effort

or by the grace of the guru (spiritual master)?
Maharaj:-His was the teaching,

Mine was trust.
My trust in him made me accept his words as true,

to penetrate deep into them,

to live them and that’s how I came to realize who I am.

The person and words of the guru (spiritual master) made me trust him,

and my confidence made them fruitful.”

Question: You stand there in front of me, and I am at your feet.

What is the fundamental difference between us?
Maharaj: There is no fundamental difference.
Q: There must be some real difference, though;

I come to you, not you come to me.
M: Because you imagine differences.

You go around looking for “superior” people.
Q: You’re a “superior” person too.

You claim to know the real as long as I don’t know it.
M: Did I ever tell you that you don’t know and therefore you are inferior?

Let those who have coined such distinctions prove them.

I don’t claim to know what you don’t.

I don’t see any difference between you and me.

My life is a sequence of events, just like yours.

It’s just that I’m detached and I see the fleeting spectacle as a passing spectacle,

while you cling firmly to things and move forward with them.
There is something exceptional, unique about the present event,

something that the previous or future event doesn’t have.

There is a vitality, a brightness around him, a reality;

He looms as if illuminated.

On what is current there is the “seal of reality”, which the past and future do not have.

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 participates in my reality.

The past is in memory, the future – in the imagination.

One thing focused in now is with me,

for I am eternally present;

My own reality is what I share with the present event.
Q: Between spirit and body, is it love that provides the bridge?
M: What else could it be? The mind creates the abyss, the heart crosses it. All blessings come from within. Turn inward. You know “I Am.”

Be with him all the time you have, until you spontaneously turn to him.

There is no easier and simpler way.
I see the world appearing in consciousness that is the totality of the known

in the vastness of the unknown.

What begins and ends is mere appearance.

You could say the world shows up, but not that it is.

Appearance can last a very long time on one time scale and be very short on another,

But ultimately it’s the same thing.

Everything related to time is momentary and has no reality.

Past and future are only in the mind – I am now.
Q: And the world is now.
M: Which world?
Q: The world around us.
M: She’s your world that you have in mind, not mine.

What do you know about me, when even my conversation with you is only in your world?

You have no reason to believe that my world is identical to yours.

My world is real, true, as it is perceived, while yours appears and disappears,

depending on your state of mind.

Your world is something foreign, and you fear it.

My world is myself. I’m home.
Your world is a subjective creation of the mind, embedded within the mind,

fragmented, temporary, personal, hanging by the thread of memory.

I live in a world of realities, while yours is a world of imaginings.

Your world is personal, private, unshareable, intimately yours.

No one can enter it, see as you see, hear as you hear,

to feel your emotions and think your thoughts.

In your world you are truly alone, closed in your ever-changing dream,

that you take for life.
My world is an open world, common to all, accessible to all.

In my world there is communion, penetrating power, love, real quality;

The individual is the total, the totality – in the individual.

All is One and One is All.

It may seem that I hear and see, that I speak and act, but for me everything happens naturally,

Just like digestion takes place with you.

Just as you don’t worry about hair growth,

In the same way, I don’t worry about my words or actions.

They just happen and leave me undisturbed,

for in my world nothing ever goes awry.
Q: Is it possible to make my mind stable?
M: How can an unstable mind make itself stable?

Of course you can’t.

It is in the nature of the mind to wander around.

All you can do is move the focus of consciousness beyond the mind.
Q: How do you do that?
M: Refuse all thoughts except one: the thought “I am.”

The mind will rebel at first, but with patience and perseverance it will give in and remain quiet.

Once you have calmed your mind, things will begin to happen spontaneously and naturally.

without any intervention on your part.
Q: I’m anxious. How can I win the peace?
M: What do you need peace for?
Q: To be happy.
M: Aren’t you happy now?
Q: No, I’m not.
M: What makes you unhappy?
Q: I have what I don’t want and I want what I don’t have.
M: Why don’t you reverse it: wanting what you have and not wanting what you don’t have?
Q: Intellectually, I realize that everything is fleeting. However, the heart wants permanence. I want to create something that lasts.
M: Then you have to build from something sustainable. What exactly do you have that’s sustainable? Neither your body nor your mind will last. You have to look somewhere else.
Q: I crave permanence, but I can’t find it anywhere.
M: Aren’t you permanently?
Q: I was born, I will die.
M: Can you accurately say you weren’t before you were born, and can you somehow say when you’re dead, “now I’m gone”? You can’t say from your own experience that you’re not. You can only say “I am.” Others, too, can’t tell you “you’re not.”
Q: During sleep, there is no “I am”.
M: Before making such categorical statements, carefully examine your waking state. You will soon discover that it is full of emptiness when the mind becomes empty. Notice how little you remember, even when you’re fully awake. You can’t say you’re not conscious during sleep. You just don’t remember. A void in memory is not necessarily a void in consciousness.
Q: I don’t crave much knowledge. All I want is peace.
M: You can have all the peace you want if you ask for it.
Q: I’m asking for it.
M: You must ask with an undivided heart and live an integrated life.
Q: How?
M: Detach yourself from everything that makes your mind restless. He renounces everything that disturbs his peace. If you want peace, I deserve it.
Q: Surely everyone deserves peace.
M: It is only those who do not disturb it.
Q: How do I disturb peace?
M: By being a slave to your desires and fears.
Q: Even when they are justified?
M: Emotional reactions, born of ignorance and inadvertence, are never justified. Seek to have a clear mind and a pure heart. All it takes is to keep yourself calm and vigilant, researching your real nature. This is the only way to peace.
To know the Self as the only reality and all others as temporary and ephemeral means freedom, peace and joy. It’s all very simple. Instead of seeing things as you imagine them, learn to see them as they are. When you can see everything as it is, you will also be able to see yourself as you are. It’s like polishing a mirror. The same mirror that shows you the world as it is will also show you your own face. The thought of “I am” is the polishing cloth. Use it.
Q: Tell me, please, how you came to the realization of Yourself.
M: I met my master at 34 and realized my Self at 37.
Q: What happened? What was the change?
M: Pleasure and pain have lost their grip on me. I was free from desire and fear. I found myself completely, not needing anything. We have seen that in the ocean of pure consciousness, on the surface of universal consciousness, the countless waves of phenomenal worlds rise and fall, without beginning or end. As consciousness, they are all myself. As events, they’re all mine. There is a mysterious power watching over them. That power is God, Consciousness, Self, Life, whatever name you give it. It is the foundation, the ultimate support of all that is, just as gold is the basic material for all gold jewelry. And she’s so intimately ours! Ignore the name and shape of the jewelry, and the gold becomes obvious. Be free of name and form, of the desires and fears they create – what’s left?
My destiny was to be born a simple man, a commoner, a humble merchant with little formal education. My life has been as ordinary as possible, with ordinary desires and fears. When, through faith in my spiritual guide and listening to his words, I realized my true being, I left behind my human nature to take care of itself until its fate was sealed.
Because you are the only source and foundation of the world, it is entirely in your power to change it. What is created can always be destroyed and not created. Everything will happen as you want, provided you really want to. Your goals are small and modest. They don’t need much energy. Only God’s energy is infinite, for He wants nothing for Himself. Be like Him and all your desires will come true. The higher your goals and the broader your desires, the more energy you will have to fulfill them. Wish everyone well and the universe will work with you. But if you pursue your own pleasure, then you will have to earn it on the rough path with a lot of perseverance and toil. Before you want to, it’s worth it.
Q: What can make me love?
M: You are love itself – when you are not afraid.
It’s not what you live, but how you live that matters. The idea of lighting is of utmost importance. Just knowing that this possibility exists changes your whole perspective. It acts like a lit match in a pile of sawdust. All the great teachers did nothing else. A spark of truth can ignite a mountain of lies.