If you are seeking truth, reality, God or whatever you like to call it, I suggest that you start with the only reality you are absolutely certain of - that is the fact of your own being. There is no one sitting here who can say 'I am not'. Each one of us knows 'I am'. But that thought 'I am' is not the reality. It is the closest you will ever get to it with the mind.
That 'I am' is just a translation by the mind of that sense of presence, the awareness of presence or the presence of that awareness.
That is the only reality we are absolutely certain of. Nobody under any circumstances can say 'I am not'. That knowing is constantly and ever with us. And that is why we say that what you are seeking you already are.
~ Maharaj Nisargadatta
I AM Sense!
Why it is said that there is an experience?
What is experience if not accumulated concepts.
Why can't the accumulated concepts be let go in a split second?
They can.
Why aren't they?
Because they are being defended by the force of your beliefs, your deep
understanding.
Why can't all beliefs and concepts be released right now if I understand
that they are not true?
They can but you need new understanding of “things as they are”. Do you
want new understanding?
Yes.
Could you let that be stronger than the need to be right? Just answer
from your heart. Could you let the longing to know Knowledge be stronger
than the need to be right about that knowledge?
Yes.
So as you are reading this, faced with this imagined conversation,
noticing what is occurring, who is noticing these written lines? Just look
back into yourself and do not even try to find out "Who am I?" Just be the
place from where thoughts arise. Go in that place of your sense of
existence that is beyond or before the thoughts. Stay a minute there with
complete inner awareness.
I go blank.
Very good, that is right direction. Just stay there, in that “I go blank”
psychological place. So when you ask yourself, "What form my “I” has now"
in that place what is found?
Nothing.
Nothing. Excellent. Now, just rest as this. From here, was there ever
anything that answered to question “Who am I”?
No.
No “I”? OK. Now, could you just relax a little more into what is been
seen. Relax for a moment into the actuality that there is nothing there
called "I" but there is “I” sense anyway. Could you just for a moment
relax into the recognition that there is nobody experiencing this? There
is “experience” which is just existence, just “I” or “I am” sense, nothing
else.
I cannot believe this.
It doesn't matter. You don’t need to believe it. It has been seen, hasn't
it? You've asked, Who am I, and nothing has been found. Now just in flash
of understanding, could you see the truth that intellect or mind is not
really required to be what you are… just awareness.
Nothing changes. I'm looking for something to feel different. But no.
There are thoughts but they are not “important” as before.
Exactly. What did Buddha say? Nothing happened to me under the Bodhi
Tree. Waiting for something to happen is what you've been doing all your
life. There is nothing to be understood. Your entire life, you've been
waiting for an experience, and this is called “seeking”. Now tell me,
could you, just for a moment, stop waiting for something to happen?
I don't know.
This is not request to do it. See clearly. Who is really “I” that has to
stop waiting? If you try to “stop” then “stopping I” is created as an
experience but if you just see that there is nothing to be stopped then
you stay in that “no-time, no-place” place.
My mind goes so blank when I try this.
Exactly, of course it goes blank; there is nothing there except the
firmness of “I” sense. Right now you are in the place of Infinity. Could
you relax into that Infinity of “your” “I”?
That is what is called I AM sense. It is Infinity or “pure knowledge”
because it is “pure” of all objective things; there is nothing else there
except “I”.
If you're waiting for another experience, another thought display then
the falseness of the experience is fully exposed. The experience is false
because it is always changing on the background of something True which is
"I"nfinity.
Right now you are in that place and you understand that there is no
experience at all, and it's unfamiliar place. This state is called
Existence or Being and it is background of the mind.
If mind wants to know this state it falls apart. It’s not what the mind
is expecting. The mind's got this whole thing set up about spiritual paths
and practice. What do you really “feel” there?
Well, a kind of unusual freedom, it feels pretty good, but does really
Infinity feels like this?
Yes, but you're going to have to be a little patient, because you have to
go deeper into that first.
I’m not there yet? So this is another experience?
No. You're there; you haven't relaxed into Infinity yet, you see? It's
like, you're in parking spot, but as long as you're still craving for the
journey you haven't quite realized that the parking spot is a final
place. It's like you've been journeying and journeying and finally
get to place and you park the car, but you're so in the habit of
journeying that it's takes a moment to relax and realize, "You've
arrived!"
OK. So, this is it?
This has always been it.
Yes, but this can't be it. It's nothing.
That's right, it's nothing.
But so what!
Exactly.
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