Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
indischer hinduistischer Heiliger und Weiser (*1897, †1981) Bewusstseinswert 720 nach D. Hawkins

I am that

• Why push the Truth down unwilling throats? It cannot be done, anyhow. Without a receiver what can the giver do? Givers there are many; where are the takers? Sharing is a two-way street. Two are needed in sharing. Who is willing to take what I am willing to give? What can I do beyond showing you the way to improve your vision?
• 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! Am That, Kapitel 75, S. 375

Dialogues

• Nisargadatta: To go beyond the mind, you must have your mind in perfect order. You cannot leave a mess behind and go beyond. He who seeks Liberation must examine his mind by his own efforts, and once the mind is purified by such introspection Liberation is obtained and appears obvious and natural.
  Question: "Then why are sadhanas prescribed?"
  Nisargadatta: Freedom to do what one likes is really bondage, while being free to do what one must, what is right, is real freedom.
  Question: How can the absolute be the result of a process?
  Nisargadatta: You are right, the relative cannot result in the absolute. But the relative can block the absolute, just as the non-churning of the cream may prevent butter from separating. It is the real that creates the urge; the inner prompts the outer and the outer responds in interest and effort. - You seem to want instant insight, forgetting that the instant is always preceded by a long preparation. The fruit falls suddenly, but the ripening takes time.
  The way to truth lies through the destruction of the false. To destroy the false, you must question your most inveterate beliefs.
• How to find the right Guru?
  Questioner: How will I find a Guru whom I can trust?
  Maharaj: Your own heart will tell you.
  Questioner: Must I not examine the teacher before I put myself entirely into his hands?
  Maharaj: By all means examine! But what can you find out? Only as he appears to you on your own level.
  Questioner: I shall watch whether he is consistent, whether there is harmony between his life and his teaching.
  Maharaj: You may find plenty of disharmony – so what? It proves nothing. Only motives matter. How will you know his motives?
  Questioner: I should at least expect him to be a man of self-control who lives a righteous life.
  Maharaj: Such you will find many – and of no use to you. A Guru can show the way back home, to your real self. What has this to do with the character, or temperament of the person he appears to be? Does he not clearly tell you that he is not the person? The only way you can judge is by the change in yourself when you are in his company. If you feel more at peace and happy, if you understand yourself with more than usual clarity and depth, it means you have met the right man (or woman).

The Sense of "I am" (Consciousness)

• 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.

• The Real does not die, the unreal never lived. Once you know death happens to the body and not to you, you just watch your body falling off like a discarded garment. The real you is beyond birth and death. The body will survive as long as it is needed. It is not important that it should live long.
• Anyone who thinks he knows what's good for another is dangerous.
• Spiritual maturity is being ready to let go everything. Giving up is a first step, but real giving-up is the insight that there's nothing to be given up, since nothing is your property.
• The true Guru will never humiliate you, nor will he estrange you from yourself. He will constantly bring you back to the fact of your inherent perfection and encourage you to seek within. He knows you need nothing, not even him, and is never tired of reminding you. But the self-appointed Guru is more concerned with himself than with his disciples.
• Your own self is your ultimate teacher. The outer teacher is merely a milestone. It is only your inner teacher that will walk with you to the goal, for he is the goal.
• Truth can be experienced, but it is not mere experience. I know it and I can convey it, but only if you are open to it. To be open means to want nothing else.
• Truth is not a reward for good behaviour, nor a prize for passing some tests. It cannot be brought about. It is the primary, the unborn, the ancient source of all that is. You are eligible because you are. You need not merit truth. It is your own. Just stop running away by running after. Stand still, be quiet.
• Pleasure puts you to sleep and pain wakes you up. If you do not want to suffer don't go to sleep.
• In marriage you are neither the husband nor the wife; you are the love between the two.
• Noble friendship is the supreme remedy for all ills, physical and mental.
• It's better to know what NOT to do than to know what to do.
• What we seek is what we already are. Enlightenment needs no effort, in fact any effort is only a hindrance to it.
• To be a living being is not the ultimate state; there is something beyond, much more wonderful, which is neither being nor non-being, neither living nor not-living. It is a state of pure awareness, beyond the limitations of space and time. Once the illusion that the body-mind is oneself is abandoned, death loses its terror, it becomes a part of living.
• Anyone who thinks he knows what is good for someone else is dangerous.
• Most of our karma is collective. We suffer for the sins of others, as others suffer for ours. Humanity is one. Ignorance of this fact does not change it. We would have been much happier people ourselves, but for our indifference to the suffering of others we cause our own suffering.