"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

Saturday, July 9, 2016

"I" - One Perfect Being

Master:

The paramahamsa order which is so efficient, is again of two grades.

A paramahamsa may be one who desires to know the Truth or is a realized being. The former is an intelligent practiser in the first three planes. The latter is a remarkable and pure sage who is liberated here and now.

The former class of paramahamsa is of two kinds. Hear me speak of them also.

Of these, one will give up the ties of home (according to ritual), formally enter the order of sannyas and gain supreme knowledge. The other kind remaining as brahmins, kshatriyas, vaishyas and sudras gains supreme knowledge.

Knowing it from the shastras and in actual practice, why do you still get confused? You must clear yourself by the authority of the srutis, your own reasoning and immediate experience.

If birth be a fact, then death is inevitable. But I am Brahman who is never born. If I be that which is born, this "I" cannot surely be Brahman. Therefore I am that "I" which is birthless and deathless as brahman.

Q: If I am brahman, how does it happen that I do not know this "I"?

A: Who says "I" now?

Q: The intellect.

A: The intellect gets lost in a swoon. That which remains is never lost, as perfect Consciousness is "I".

Q: This state of perfection is not clear to me. How can I experience it?

A: There is the experience of happiness in deep sleep and it is That. No happiness can be experienced anywhere when a want is felt. Therefore the Self must be this perfection. This is the source of all.

The cosmos originated in the imagination of the mind. Reason shows that these worlds have their being in that Consciousness. If the enquiry is pursued into the self as transcending all this and extending limitless, "I" remains as the one perfect Being.

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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