What is Liberation?

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Visitor: What about sins and merits after abidance in my self?

Maharaj: These are qualities related to the body-mind. So the moment you are no longer the body-mind, these qualities have no further scope with you. 

First of all, we condition ourselves into the body; we indoctrinate ourselves with the idea "I am the body." An example is the air. When the air comes into the body, it is called prana. It is conditioned by the body and confined to the body. Once it is disassociated from the body, that vital breath or prana becomes manifest; it is the universal air. Not only universal air, it becomes the universal space also. So the space is not conditioned by the body. That air is not conditioned by the body. Similarly, your identity is not associated and limited by the body; therefore none of the conditionings of the body is binding on you. By your very nature, you are that dynamic, manifest consciousness only.

No doubt it depends on this quality of "I am ness," on the vital breath. The latter means air only - air functioning in the body. This air and the knowingness cause the "I am ness." Out of prana grows the world; and world means the mind. All that construes "you." So when the vital breath quits, there is no more "I am ness," but the "I am ness" does not die off and remain like a dead body.

Visitor: What is liberation?

When you are liberated from the body-mind sense, so that you are not the body-mind, that itself is liberation. My language may not satisfy you, but don't get upset by that. You should try to understand the meaning behind my words.

When you are really liberated, when you firmly come to the conclusion that "I am not the body, nor the vital breath," the illumination is perfect.

Are you the vital breath? Pay attention to the vital breath. Are you the language, because you can voice the language? Can you be the language? Similarly, I lead you to consciousness. You are in a position to watch consciousness; therefore, you cannot be the consciousness. You must fully employ your faculty of discrimination and investigate.

Before we are caught up with this body-mind sense, we are the parabrahman only. But the moment this "I am ness" appears, we embrace this body-mind as ourself and then we are involved with all the concepts and all the problems of the world.

That knowingness, that realization, has no color. For one who has realized all this, there is brahman, the godly state, and the one who knows this godly state is the parabrahman state.

V: To one who knows the brahman state, does the world still appear?

M: When it is a qualitative "I am ness" state, the world is. Once this state is transcended, there is no world. In the "I am ness", in the consciousness, the manifest world is there. In the "No I am ness" state there is no world.

The Knower of this "I am ness" state and the world - within that "Knower state", there is no world. But in the "I am ness" state there is a world.

V: But the Knower then knows the world, the parabrahman knows the world?

M: [Pointing to his cigarette lighter] You see, that flame is like "I am ness." When the "I am ness" appears, the world also appears. You, like parabrahman, is watching that. When there is no flame, you see nothing. When the flame is there, "I am ness" has appeared, therefore the world has appeared.