"The very first step in understanding what this is all about is giving up the concept of an active, volitional 'I' as a separate entity and accepting the passive role of perceiving and functioning as a process." - Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Friday, November 20, 2009

What about my presence?


Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj:

What you are is 'presence' only so long as the body, a manifested phenomenon, is there. What were you before the body and consciousness came upon you spontaneously? I say spontaneously, because you were neither consulted about being presented with a body, nor did your parents specifically expect to have 'you' as their son. Before the body-consciousness state arose on whatever it was that 'you', were you not relatively 'absence' rather than 'presence'?

Are you clear about one thing - that you are prior to all conceptualizing? What you appear to be as a phenomenon is nothing but conceptual. What you really are cannot be comprehended, for the simple reason that in the state of non-conceptuality there cannot be any one to comprehend what one is!

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सर्वभूताधिवासं यद्भूतेषु च वसत्यपि।
सर्वानुग्राहकत्वेन तद्स्म्यहं वासुदेवः॥

That in whom reside all beings and who resides in all beings,
who is the giver of grace to all, the Supreme Soul of the universe, the limitless being:
I AM THAT. -- Amritabindu Upanishad