Link to the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3BRh6Gm3i4

(All quotes in video are included below)

There are certain teachers with immense clarity and an uncanny ability to point towards -through words and energy- Ultimate Truth. Nisargadatta Maharaj (Mumbai, India 1897-1981) is one of these.

Through his razor sharp insight, he guides us to step towards (or more accurately, back into) knowing that we are NOT what we actually take ourselves to be, opening up the possibility for actual Being, actual Love and actual Life to be embodied as consciousness itself, without the confines of the idea of the personal “I”. (And then to go even beyond and prior to that…into what no words could never begin to describe).

As Jesus of Nazareth said: “Be in the world, but not of the world”.

It seems Nisargadatta was pointing there too.

“Wisdom is knowing I am nothing,
Love is knowing I am everything,
and between the two my life moves.” – Nisagardatta Maharaj

Making this video has been a deep meditation for me and I share it in case it can be of benefit to you. Who knows, perhaps it will touch a chord of deep familiarity within you that is already being lived or that is ready to be awakened. Perhaps it’ll just be really groovy to hang out in the amazing vibration of Nisargadatta’s words, and the sounds of some really awesome (very old) Tibetan singing bowls that I have the honour of being the custodian of.

Love, Brenda

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The Following is a collection of short quotes taken from “The Nisargadatta Ultimatum” which was compiled by Pradeep Apte. The quotes are from the books “I Am That”, “Prior to Consciousness” and “Consciousness and the Absolute”

As Apte has written: “These short quotes have the power to take you straight to the Parabrahman or the Absolute.”
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj has himself said: “Take one sentence of what has been said here, and stay with it. That is enough; that will lead you to your source.”
“The sentence could be a question or a statement; either, if closely observed and pondered over, have the ability of right away catapulting you into the Parabrahman or the Absolute, which you actually are”

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From “I Am That” 

Before all beginnings, after all endings – I am.

What you are, you already are.

Everything is local and temporary, except you. Don’t forget what you are.

Ultimately I am beyond being and non-being.

Find that which was present at your birth and will witness your death.

You were never born nor will you ever die.

There is a state beyond forgetting and remembering.

Find what is it that you have never lost.

Overlook the movable and you will find yourself to be the ever-present.

Whatever happens, I remain.

I am neither born nor can I die. I have nothing to remember or to forget.

You are beyond the experiencer, ever unborn and deathless.

Reality is not an event, it cannot be experienced, for reality neither comes nor goes.

There is no such thing as experience of reality.

There was no coming. It was so – always.

You can only be what you are in reality; you can only appear to be what you are not.

What changes is not real, what is real does not change.

Don’t pretend to be what you are not, don’t refuse to be what you are.

You are neither the body nor in the body – there is no such thing as body.

The Absolute precedes time. The Absolute – is.

Your body is short of time, not you. Just understand yourself – that itself is eternity.

I know for myself. I was never born.

Both the subject and the object exist in you, but you are neither.

You are complete here and now, you need absolutely nothing.

That which makes you think you are human is not human.

The real is always with you; you need not wait to be what you are.

You are not what you perceive.

You are yourself without knowing.

Transiency is the best proof of unreality.

You cannot know your real being. You can only be what you are.

To Know that You do not Know, is True Knowledge.

In reality you were never born and shall never die.

One can only be it, without knowing.

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From “Prior to Consciousness”

Prior to this identification with the body, you must recede into that.

Before the beingness was there, look at that, be in that state.

As the eternal principle you prevail in spite of all happenings.

Not-knowing is perfection, knowing is imperfection, fraudulent.

When the ‘I am’ goes into oblivion, that is the eternal state, no form, no beingness.

It is quite simple: all that which is time-bound is untrue.

What was your state before the ‘I am’ arose? Go back to the source.

In the Absolute there is no need of any kind, even the need to know oneself.

Sat Guru (Parabrahman) is your true nature.

In the Absolute the ‘I am’ comes, they are not two.

You just stumble on the knowledge that the individual was never there.

You are prior to the idea ‘I am’, camp yourself there, prior to the words ‘I am’.

With reference to your true Parabrahman state Maya does not exist.

You know what you are not – what you are you cannot know.

Death is inevitable so why not accept it right now that it cannot affect you?

You are changeless and permanent.

You have no beginning and no end, you are eternal.

Parabrahman is your eternal state; you cannot remember it because you have never forgotten it.

I as the Absolute do not need this consciousness.

Where is the question when the instrument of questioning is kept aside?

On your no-knowing state suddenly the knowingness has appeared and created all the mischief.

I am before anything can happen.

Knowledge is ignorance, it has a beginning and an end, had it been real it would be eternal.

Sat Guru means the eternal state, which will never change, what you are.

To know you are nothing is real liberation.

When all your knowledge including yourself is liquidated – then you are liberated.

The unknown is the truth.

You are prior to consciousness. In that state there is no pleasure or pain.

The ultimate knowledge does not have any knowledge.

If you have really understood, no questions can arise; questions arise only to an entity.

As an entity you want to know the Absolute, it’s not possible, because you are the Absolute.

You true state was there before the body and consciousness arose, is there now and will be after the body and consciousness go.

Even when the consciousness goes you prevail – you always are – as the Absolute.

It is the consciousness that gets liberated – there is no entity.

No-knowing is highest in the hierarchy of spirituality; the Absolute transcends both knowing and no-knowing.

 

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From “Consciousness and the Absolute” 

Everything is beingness, but I, the Absolute, am not that.

The body-form is merely an opportunity to experience time.

I am the principle which survives all the creations, all the dissolutions.

Attain that state which is and was prior to the body.

When beingness forgets itself, that state is Parabrahman.

How did I come about? That is the question which needs investigation.

It is only the consciousness that is going to disappear, the Absolute is always there.

The uniform (‘I amness’ known through the body) is available to you, by all means use it but understand that you are not the uniform.

Once you discard this ‘I amness’ uniform, what remains is the Parabrahman.

Feeling that I am present depends on having a body; I am neither the body nor the conscious presence.

You should not get involved in what has appeared.

Consciousness alone feels the expanse of consciousness, but I, the Absolute, am not that
The Absolute always remains.

There is only one thing to be understood, and that is that you are the formless, timeless unborn.

Nobody is dying, because nobody was born.

I was possessed by the five-elemental ghost, but having stabilized in the Parabrahman, I know what it is and I am out of it.

Prior to your birth and receiving the message ‘I am’ how did you function, what were you?

When the body and mind drop off, nothing happens, only I, the Absolute, prevail always.

Be what you were prior to the label or title, be that.

Give up all that you have read and just be. Even the experience that you are is not your true nature.

Whatever you are prior to the appearance of ‘I am’, that is your true nature.

It is sufficient to understand, without the slightest doubt, with great conviction, that there is a state prior to the arising of consciousness.

Waking, sleeping and the sense of presence are all temporary states that have come upon me, I am not the states.

Whatever is temporary and time-bound cannot be the truth.

All this play is going on in the flash of your consciousness and it will come to an end.

When you finally know that there is no individual there will be no questions to ask.

What is, is the Absolute unmanifested. What appears, as if in a dream, is the manifested.

If you do not take delivery as an individual but as total functioning, then you are free of whatever is happening.

The Ultimate is prior to any experience. ‘I amness’ is the beginning of experience.

You are the Absolute, you swallow the entire universe.

When nothing is, you still are.

I am the total functioning every moment, millions of years ago or now.

The Ultimate principle which knows this beingness cannot be named at all.

When one subsides in one’s true identity, nothing matters, because nothing is.

You are not that ‘I am’. You are, as the Absolute, prior to this ‘I am’.

Without the feeling of ‘I am’, still you are.

When your individuality is dissolved you will not see individuals anywhere, it is just a functioning in consciousness.

A sound is emanating out of the body, just words, it is not somebody talking, just happening, not doing.

Consciousness has not happened at all. When it tries to understand itself it gets stabilized in due course in the Absolute.

Stabilize in the knowledge “I Am” and in the process, transcend it.