Just Be Your Self

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

January 2, 1981

Q: It seems that I am more and more busy, and I don't have much time anymore for meditation. I want instruction from Maharaj on how to come to self-realization.

M: Carry on your work in the world but your work can only take place if you are there - the sense of being must be there. That is enough.

Q: Is it necessary for me to constantly remind myself of that, to be aware of that?

M: Who can be conscious of consciousness other than consciousness itself? Is there any other entity? It is there, the consciousness is always aware of itself. The trouble is that consciousness has identifies with the body. Do nothing else except this: do not identify the consciousness with the body. 

By doing something or not doing something, is there any change in the consciousness? There is no need of any sadhana except being aware of the fact that it is only in this consciousness that everything takes place. Relatively you are the consciousness and the consciousness has no form. You can only sense consciousness, you cannot see it. You know it; you know that you are.

Who directs the body to do what it does? It can only be the consciousness, there is no entity. Consciousness does whatever is to be done through the various bodies. You are that consciousness and the love that consciousness has for itself.

Q: Then there is really nothing in particular that you can do to realize this and you can't try to do nothing. It just is. That's the way it is and that's all.

M: Yes. Just understand. Just be your Self.

Q: Should one have faith in the Self?

M: Once you are your Self, where is the question of faith? Just be your Self. Operation is brought to a standstill. When you are that, it is finished - the circle is closed, you are your Self.

That Self-realization is God, the Self itself is God. Religion teaches that a God is made in the form of a body because people identify themselves with a body; the image of God is also made in the form of a body. What I am teaching you is that you are the God; to abide in the Self is Godly. Presently you understand a Krishna, Christ, Buddha or a prophet as a God, but as a personality they are not Gods. God means that consciousness I AM - it has no form, no name. Because Christ, or Buddha or Krishna realized themselves, their consciousness, the became Godly. For the people to understand, they are indicated as Gods, but God cannot be named, cannot be conditioned into a body. To abide in the Self, stabilize in the Self, that is God. My Guru delivered me into Godliness.