For more information about this project, please listen to the Introductory Episode, or read the text for that episode which can be found here: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
"Don't be anxious about your future - be quiet now and all will fall into place. The unexpected is bound to happen, while the anticipated may never come. Don't tell me you cannot control your nature. You need not control it. Throw it overboard. Have no nature to fight, or submit to. No experience will hurt you, provided you don't make it into a habit. Of the entire universe you are the subtle cause. All is because you are. Grasp this point firmly and deeply and dwell on it repeatedly. To realize this as absolutely true, is liberation."
Life: In your search for love what exactly are you searching for? Questioner: Simply this: to love and to be loved.
“Watch your thoughts as you watch the street traffic. People come and go; you register without response. It may not be easy in the beginning, but with some practice you will find that your mind can function on many levels at the same time and you can be aware of them all. It is only when you have a vested interest in any particular level, that your attention gets caught in it and you black out on other levels. Even then the work on the blacked out levels goes on, outside the field of consciousness. Do not struggle with your memories and thoughts; try only to include in your field of attention the other, more important questions, like 'Who am l?' 'How did I happen to be born?' 'Whence this universe around me?'. 'What is real and what is momentary?' "No memory will persist, if you lose interest in it, it is the emotional link that perpetuates the bondage. You are always seeking pleasure, avoiding pain, always after happiness and peace. Don't you see that it is your very search for happiness that makes you feel miserable? Try the other way: indifferent to pain and pleasure, neither asking, nor refusing, give all your attention to the level on which 'I am' is timelessly present. Soon you will realise that peace and happiness are in your very nature and it is only seeking them through some particular channels, that disturbs. Avoid the disturbance, that is all. To seek there is no need; you would not seek what you already have. You yourself are God, the Supreme Reality. To begin with, trust me, trust the Teacher. It enables you to make the first step — and then your trust is justified by your own experience. In every walk of life initial trust is essential; without it little can be done. Every undertaking is an act of faith. Even your daily bread you eat on trust! By remembering what I told you you will achieve everything. I am telling you again: You are the all-pervading, all transcending reality. Behave accordingly: think, feel and act in harmony with the whole and the actual experience of what I say will dawn upon you in no time. No effort is needed. Have faith and act on it. Please see that I want nothing from you. It is in your own interest that l speak, because above all you love yourself, you want yourself secure and happy. Don't be ashamed of it, don't deny it. It is natural and good to love oneself. Only you should know what exactly do you love. It is not the body that you love, it is Life —perceiving, feeling, thinking, doing, loving, striving, creating. It is that Life you love, which is you, which is all. realise it in its totality, beyond all divisions and limitations, and all your desires will merge in it, for the greater contains the smaller. Therefore find yourself, for in finding that you find all. Everybody is glad to be. But few know the fullness of it. You come to know by dwelling in your mind on 'I am', 'I know', 'I love' — with the will of reaching the deepest meaning of these words.”
You say: You tell us that we can be considered under three aspects, and you then use three sanskrit terms for these aspects which, as far as I can tell, comes from a root verb meaning to smear (as in pigment or make-up). So when smeared around a self, we get a personal, or identity-focused human consciousness (vyakti). Another mode of being is that of the non-personal (vyakta): the smear suggesting that which the senses perceive as some thing, or object, or some kind of boundary. Finally there is a smear that doesn't define or contain any one distinct entity, the Ultimate Smear, the Universal, the Real, pure I. The non-personal is the Ultimate Smear's reflection in consciousness as ‘I am'. The personal is also the totality of physical and vital processes. Within the narrow confines of the present moment, person-focused states of consciousness are aware of themselves both in space and time; not only as individual people, but as a long series of people strung together on the thread of karma. The personal is a witnessing consciousness as well as the residue of these accumulated experiences, the seat of memory, the connecting link. It is part of our character which life builds and shapes from birth to birth. The Universal, however, the Ultimate Smear, is beyond all name and shape, other than what it imparts to consciousness as an echo. But it is ultimately beyond consciousness and character: pure unselfconscious being. Have I summarised your views as you see them? Life answers: On the level of the mind — yes. Beyond the mental level not a word applies. You say: I can understand that the person is a mental construct, a collective noun for a set of memories and habits. But, this consciousness to whom “the person” happens, the witnessing centre, is it mental too? Life answers:The personalised being needs a base, a body to identify itself with, just as a colour needs a surface to appear on. The seeing of the colour is independent of the colour — it is the same whatever the colour. One needs an eye to see a colour. The colours are many, the eye is single. The personalised being is like the light in the colour and also in the eye, yet simple, single, indivisible and unperceivable, except in its manifestations. Not unknowable, but unperceivable, un-objectival, inseparable. Neither material nor mental, neither objective nor subjective, it is the root of matter and the source of consciousness. Beyond mere living and dying, it is the all-inclusive, all-exclusive Life, in which birth is death and death is birth. You say: The Absolute or Life you talk about, is it real, or a mere theory to cover up our ignorance? Life answers:Both. To the mind, a theory; in itself — a reality. It is reality in its spontaneous and total rejection of the false. Just as light destroys darkness by its very presence, so does the absolute destroy imagination. To see that all knowledge is a form of ignorance is itself a movement of reality. The witness is not a person. The person comes into being when there is a basis for it, an organism, a body. In it the absolute is reflected as awareness. Pure awareness becomes self-awareness. When there is a self, self-awareness is the witness. When there is no self to witness, there is no witnessing either. It is all very simple; it is the presence of the person that complicates matters. See that there is no such thing as a permanently separate person and all becomes clear. Awareness — mind — matter — they are one reality in its two aspects, immovable and movable, with three attributes of inertia, energy and harmony. You say: What comes first: consciousness or awareness? Life answers:Awareness becomes consciousness when it has an object. The object changes all the time. In consciousness there is movement; awareness by itself is motionless and timeless, here and now. You say: There is suffering and bloodshed in Ukraine at the present moment. How do you look at it? How does it appear to you, how do y
"But when the part of us that say 'I am me, I am myself' leaves us be, what follows is often an 'I am all'. And again: when the 'I am all' goes, then we might experience the 'I am'. And when even an 'I am' consciousness goes, reality alone is and in it every 'I am' is preserved held dear. Diversity without separateness is the Ultimate that the mind can touch. Beyond that all activity ceases, because in it all goals are reached and all purposes fulfilled."
Hello! Very excited to share a new episode of this podcast with you, and another chapter of "I Am That". In forthcoming episodes, Vimla Gulabani has kindly agreed to read the other part of the dialogue with me, as well as chat a bit about the text together. Also check out Vimla's podcast Coaching Confidential if that sounds like something that might interest you. -- This is the next episode in my/our here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/ -- Wanna say hi? stevewasserman AT gmail DOT com
This is the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is an the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is an the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is an the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is an the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is an the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is an the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is an the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is an the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is an the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is an the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is an the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is an the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is an the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is an the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is an the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is an the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is an the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is an the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is an the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is an the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is an the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is an the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is an the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/
This is an the next episode in my here-and-now, complete audiobook reading of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah's “I Am That” Info about this project: http://stevewasserman.co.uk/life-answers-a-complete-audiobook-reading-of-sri-nisargadatta-maharajahs-i-am-that/