You Are Unreal

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Q: Is the I AM a concept or the only reality?

M: I AM is a only a few letters. Has anyone been able to keep this I AM in his pocket for all time?

Q: I am - but without words?

M: Yes. If whoever feels this I AM had knowledge, would he have cared to become this I AM? No, he would have said, "I don't want this consciousness."

Q: I understand.

M: You are unreal - you know that you are - that is also unreal. This sense of presence is an untruth; it is like a dream.

Q: How can this I AMness be the source of misery?

M: Try to find out when this concept of happiness and unhappiness arose. It was not there until I had this consciousness. Everybody loves this sense of presence and wants it to continue for all time but they don't go further into the past and find out whose ecstasy created this sense of presence. Because of some physical ecstasy, lasting only for an instant, this speck of consciousness in which the entire universe is contained has come into existence.

Q: I don't feel the misery of I AMness, I feel that everything is right. Does it mean that I don't want to look at the misery?

M: You cannot do anything - you have to enjoy what is - is it not not so? To suffer or to enjoy, you have no choice.

Nevertheless, experiences will be there. You may not be involved in the experiences, but so long as the I AM is there, experiences will be there. The magic, the art, of this consciousness is that it has not only hidden the fact that it is the source of all misery, but has made itself the source of all apparent happiness.