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Nsargadatts - admin - 11-15-2025
AI generated, sorry.
Nisargadatta Maharaj's teaching is largely apophatic in nature, using statements that describe the ultimate reality (Brahman or the Self) by what it is not, rather than what it is. His apophatic examples focus on transcending the conceptual self to realize the true, formless Self.
"You are not the body or the mind": This is a central apophatic teaching. Nisargadatta repeatedly asks seekers to abandon the identification with the physical body and the stream of thoughts, memories, and emotions that constitute the "personal 'me'". By negating what you are not, you approach the realization of what you are.
"The 'I am' has great potency... your destiny is not death but the disappearance of 'I am'": He differentiates the feeling of "I am" (consciousness) from the ultimate, formless Absolute. The goal is not to preserve the "I am" but to go beyond it to its source, which is prior to all concepts, including "being" itself. This disappearance of the personal "I am" points to a reality that cannot be conceptualized.
Describing the Self as "untouched," "unmoved," and "unaffected": He uses negative adjectives to describe the true Self/awareness because it is beyond all dualities and attributes that arise within consciousness. It is not a "thing" with qualities, but the light in which all things appear.
"Awareness by Itself is motionless and timeless, here and now": When contrasting awareness with consciousness (which has objects and movement), he describes awareness using terms that deny change or location. It is beyond time and space, qualities that apply only to the phenomenal world.
Focus on the "prior" state: He often directs the seeker to inquire into their state before the sense of "I am" arose or before conception, a state which is inherently devoid of any positive description because it precedes all form and knowledge.
Nisargadatta's method is to systematically dismantle all ideas and beliefs about the self and reality, thereby leading the seeker into a direct, non-conceptual experience of the Absolute. The apophatic way is the path of negation, where the failure of language and concepts points to a truth that is beyond all description. As he noted, "It is always the false that makes you suffer...
Abandon the false and you are free".
Illustrative videos:
Living Without the Personal 'Me' – Nisargadatta Maharaj https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AAJhRS17Sc
How To Practice Living Without The Personal "I" - Nisargadatta Maharaj https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xINtMz4G2Hs