Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

[gus]

The seeker is he who is in search of himself. Give up all questions
except one: ‘Who am I?’ After all, the only fact you are sure of is
that you are. The ‘I am’ is certain. The ‘I am this’ is not. Struggle
to find out what you are in reality. To know what you are, you must
first investigate and know what you are not. Discover all that you are
not -- body, feelings thoughts, time, space, this or that -- nothing,
concrete or abstract, which you perceive can be you. The very act of
perceiving shows that you are not what you perceive. The clearer you
understand on the level of mind you can be described in negative terms
only, the quicker will you come to the end of your search and realise
that you are the limitless being. - Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Excerpts from Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj's I AM THAT:

I am not this person, this body-mind, or any thing.

As I can't be what I perceive, I am not this body-mind or any thing
that I am conscious of.

As there must be something unchanging to register discontinuity, I am
not this body-mind, which is neither continuous nor permanent.

As the person is a changing stream of mental objects that I as the
subject take to be my body-mind, I cannot be a person. I am, but I
can't be this or that.

As it is my presence, which is always here and now, that gives the
quality of actual to any event, I must be beyond time and space. I was
never born, nor will ever die.

I am only the Self , which is universal and imagines itself to be the
outer self, a person.

I am not an object in Consciousness but its source, its Witness, pure
shapeless Awareness.

Only the feeling "I am", though in the World, is not of the World nor
can be denied.

As I only know the contents of my consciousness, and as an outside
world is unprovable, all perceivables are only in my mind.

Transient things only appear and have no substance.

What changes has no reality. Time and space are imagined, ways of
thinking, modes of perception. Only timeless reality is, and it is
here and now.

Whatever has a form is only limitations imagined in my consciousness.

The World is but a show, a make-belief.

The World I perceive is entirely private, a dream.

Desire and fear come from seeing the World as separate from my-Self.

While I see the dream as real, I'll suffer being its slave.

Nothing in the dream is done by me.

There is only one dreamer, the one Self, dreaming many dreams.

In every body there is a dream, but the dreamer is the same, the one
Self, which reflects itself in each body as "I am".

All the dreams are of a common imaginary World and influence each
other.

Love is seeing the unity under the imaginary diversity.

I alone am, the One, the Supreme.

Not only the multiplicity of selves is false: even the duality of I/
World, Subject/Object, is a transient appearance in my
Consciousness.

There is only my-Self, Consciousness.

I am not even Consciousness, which is dual and perceivable: I am the
unknown Reality beyond.

Though unknown and unknowable, my real being is concrete and solid
like a rock.

I am the light that makes Consciousness possible, pure Awareness, the
non-dualSelf, the Supreme Reality, the Absolute, the Beingness of
being, the Awareness of consciousness.

[berlake]

Thanks, gus. Your post reminded me that I've been meaning to get on
these boards and post somethng about Nisargadatta...

I've been reading I AM THAT recently, and have been struck by how
mutually supportive Wolff's and Nisargadatta's teachings are. They
really are consonant. In fact, I found it really useful to read I AM
THAT in support of Wolff's books because it adds even more power and
authority to the words of both men.

Nisargadatta's teaching was simple and most of his written works seem
to take the form of transcriptions of Q&A sessions, which means that
there's quite a bit of repetition and contradiction, both of which are
no doubt unavoidable in situ. Nonetheless, his words are extremely
clear and powerful at times, and I, for one, would heartily recommend
giving him a go if you haven't already. Here's a link to an online
(and free) archive of I AM THAT: http://www.sankaracharya.org/i_am_that.php
The discussions about Self and how it is dependent upon the Supreme
are completely in line with Wolff's position. The Supreme is evidently
the High Indifference. There's also an archive of Shankara's works,
too, amongst others.

One other writer whom I've found to be supportive of Wolff's ultimate
philosophical perspective is Douglas Harding. It took me a while to
realize this, as most of his books are written in a way that makes
them seem much less profound than they actually are! However, his
"magnus opus" was "The Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth". And it's
wonderful. It's also truly unique in its style and delivery. It took
me a while to realize that he's saying the same thing as Wolff (and
others), but it's well worth a look, in my opinion. The only trouble
is getting hold if it....