Maharaj - on suffering

Question:
How is it that the question 'Who am I' attracts me little?

Maharaj:
If you have no problem of suffering and release from suffering, you will not find the energy and persistence needed for self-enquiry.  You cannot manufacture a crisis.  It must be genuine.

Question:
How does a genuine crisis happen?

Maharaj:
It happens every moment, but you are not alert enough.  A shadow on your neighbor's face, the immense and all-pervading sorrow of existence is a constant factor in your life, but you refuse to take notice.  You suffer and see others suffer, but you don't respond.

Question:
What you say is true, but what can I do about it?  Such indeed is the situation.  My helplessness and dullness are a part of it.

Maharaj:
Good enough.  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.

From ""I am That"



Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj,

"I am"

The Sense "I am"

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!


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.


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.


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.

          - Nisargadatta Maharaj


"I am That"

Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj,

Published by Acorn Press