"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

Sunday, March 20, 2011

The dream-like state

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

In this process of functioning that becomes manifest, if you accept something as an individual event then it affects you as an individual. If you do not take delivery as an individual but as total functioning, then you are free of whatever is happening. The knowledge of the Self is this dream-like feeling of "I Amness". By assuming a separate identity one taints that which is taint-less; that is the original sin.



Go to the very root: who are you, what are you? You are the product of the five elements, you have taken the support of the five elements. Your feeling of "I Amness" emanates from the five elements. Focus your attention at that point. What change should occur in you so that you realize your Self? What change could happen to you? When you come here, you must be expecting something to happen. What change do you expect in yourself so that you may say, "I have now attained what I sought. I need not go to Maharaj any more." With reference to what state are you speaking? What is that state? In that dream-like state, I am not keeping a record of anyone coming here, nor of any conversations among us.

March 13, 1981.

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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