I Am That — The Teaching of Pure Being
The teaching of 'I Am That' — identifying with the pure sense of existence (I am) rather than with any particular content of experience (I am this body, this name, this story) — is the core of Nisargadatta's path.
Nisargadatta's teaching centers on the distinction between 'I am' and 'I am this.' 'I am' — the pure sense of existence, awareness, presence — is what you actually know and are beyond any doubt. 'I am this body, this name, this person with this history' — these are what you have been told and have believed, but they are not what you know directly. The practice: rest in and as the pure 'I am' — not the 'I am this' but the naked sense of existing, the open awareness before any thought or story. When this 'I am' is investigated, it is found to be without boundaries, without a fixed location, without a beginning or end — it is what is sometimes called pure consciousness, or awareness, or Brahman. Nisargadatta's breakthrough teaching: what you truly are is not the consciousness-that-knows-objects but the consciousness-that-IS-being — the very ground of existence itself. 'I am That' means: the 'I am' that I am is identical with the Brahman (That) of the Upanishads.
You are not what you think you are. Find out what you are. You are prior to mind and body. You are the eternal witness.
Nisargadatta Maharaj, whose talks are collected in 'I Am That' (recorded and translated by Maurice Frydman), taught on the instruction of his guru Siddharameshwar Maharaj to hold attention on the bare sense 'I Am' — dropping every 'I am this or that' until only pure being remains, which he identified with the Absolute.
I Am That