On Nisargadatta Maharaj: What is the ‘I am’ mantra?

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Questioner: Acharya Ji, When Nisargadatta Maharaj says Dwell in the ‘I-am-ness’, is he saying, ‘Just be in the silence?’

Acharya Prashant: He’s asking you to look at yourself a little deeper. We never say, “I am.” We say, “I am somebody, I am a male, I am X, I am Y, I am Z.” Nisargadatta Maharaj would say, “His Guru gave him just the ‘I am’ mantra. Just dwell in I am.”

What is this ‘I am’?

This ‘I am’ is the subject sans the object.

‘I am’ and nothing after that.

To begin with, this subject is nothing but ‘Ego’.

‘I am’ is nothing but ‘Ego’.

But when ‘I am’ does not get anything to associate itself with,

then it’s dualistic nature disappears.

Ego needs two – ‘I am’ and then something else ‘an object.’ When the object is kept aside, then the dualistic nature is gone. And then the ego almost climbs up a dimension and dissolves.

The ‘I am’ method is a way to check the tendency of the mind to create separations, to create dualistic separations.

So you look at something, and you find it attractive.

If you abide in ‘I am’, you will immediately know that the attractiveness lies not in the object that you are seeing but in the seer of the object.

The moment you see that, the object loses much of its charm.

You come back to yourself.

You come back to yourself even as the senses, the mind all were eager to rush out and embrace that object. That’s the ‘I am’ thing. It takes you to the root of your consciousness.

‘I am’ is the hungry subject always craving to get engaged with an object.

Therefore, it says, “I am this, I am that.”

The more you keep honestly looking at it,

the more it’s hunger keeps getting exposed.

Miraculously, exposure is liberation. After that, you require no treatment. Just seeing what is going on is freedom from what is going on.

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