The sense 'I am'

[Guest guest]

When I met my Guru, he told me: " You are not what you take yourself

to be. Find out what you are. Watch the sense 'I am', find your real

Self. " I obeyed him, because I trusted him. I did as he told me. All

my spare time I would spend looking at myself in silence. And what a

difference it made, and how soon!

 

My teacher told me to hold on to the sense 'I am' tenaciously and not

to swerve from it even for a moment. I did my best to follow his

advice and in a comparatively short time I realized within myself the

truth of his teaching. All I did was to remember his teaching, his

face, his words constantly. This brought an end to the mind; in the

stillness of the mind I saw myself as I am -- unbound.

 

I simply followed (my teacher's) instruction which was to focus the

mind on pure being 'I am', and stay in it. I used to sit for hours

together, with nothing but the 'I am' in my mind and soon peace and

joy and a deep all-embracing love became my normal state. In it all

disappeared -- myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world around

me. Only peace remained and unfathomable silence.

 

My Guru ordered me to attend to the sense 'I am' and to give

attention to nothing else. I just obeyed. I did not follow any

particular course of breathing, or meditation, or study of

scriptures. Whatever happened, I would turn away my attention from it

and remain with the sense 'I am', it may look too simple, even crude.

My only reason for doing it was that my Guru told me so. Yet it

worked! Obedience is a powerful solvent of all desires and fears.

(From Nisargadatta's book " I am That. " )

[Guest guest]

Hur,

 

The quote from Nisargadatta which you posted as the first post on

this list is one of my favorites. Some followers of Advaita are fond

of saying that all effort is useless, and they make it a point to

disparage all spiritual practice. Yet Nisagardatta is telling us in

this quote about a very powerful practice he himself undertook.

 

I had a conversation once with a student of Ramesh who was so much

into " non-doing " that he would lie up front at Ramesh's talks and

purposely fall asleep! He said he had heard it all before anyway.

Pretty rude, in my opinion, but his attitude about practice is not

that uncommon in Advaita.

 

Mark

 

In Nisargadatta , " Hur " <HurG> wrote:

> When I met my Guru, he told me: " You are not what you take yourself

> to be. Find out what you are. Watch the sense 'I am', find your

real

> Self. " I obeyed him, because I trusted him. I did as he told me.

All

> my spare time I would spend looking at myself in silence. And what

a

> difference it made, and how soon!

>

> My teacher told me to hold on to the sense 'I am' tenaciously and

not

> to swerve from it even for a moment. I did my best to follow his

> advice and in a comparatively short time I realized within myself

the

> truth of his teaching. All I did was to remember his teaching, his

> face, his words constantly. This brought an end to the mind; in the

> stillness of the mind I saw myself as I am -- unbound.

>

> I simply followed (my teacher's) instruction which was to focus the

> mind on pure being 'I am', and stay in it. I used to sit for hours

> together, with nothing but the 'I am' in my mind and soon peace and

> joy and a deep all-embracing love became my normal state. In it all

> disappeared -- myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world around

> me. Only peace remained and unfathomable silence.

>

> My Guru ordered me to attend to the sense 'I am' and to give

> attention to nothing else. I just obeyed. I did not follow any

> particular course of breathing, or meditation, or study of

> scriptures. Whatever happened, I would turn away my attention from

it

> and remain with the sense 'I am', it may look too simple, even

crude.

> My only reason for doing it was that my Guru told me so. Yet it

> worked! Obedience is a powerful solvent of all desires and fears.

> (From Nisargadatta's book " I am That. " )

[Guest guest]

Hiya Mark,

 

-

Mark Hovila <hovila

<Nisargadatta >

Tuesday, January 16, 2001 03:42 PM

Re: The sense 'I am'

 

 

> Hur,

>

> The quote from Nisargadatta which you posted as the first post on

> this list is one of my favorites. Some followers of Advaita are fond

> of saying that all effort is useless, and they make it a point to

> disparage all spiritual practice.

 

To me, they have not apperceived anything.

 

It is not the " doing " or " non-doing " per se, (spiritual or mundane).

 

It is the gestalt in which whether there is a sense of personal doership

attached to the doing.

 

Or,

 

All " actioning " is seen to be the functioning of that Impersonality.

 

Spiritual practices, which enables the ego to pronounce that IT has done,

standing on one leg for a 1000 hours or pranayam for 6 days continuosly, or

mantained still point awareness for 24 hours or whatever, is worth nothing.

 

 

> Yet Nisagardatta is telling us in

> this quote about a very powerful practice he himself undertook.

>

> I had a conversation once with a student of Ramesh who was so much

> into " non-doing " that he would lie up front at Ramesh's talks and

> purposely fall asleep!

 

LOL.

This student remains a student.

If falling asleep, occurred, it was a happening.

 

Non-doing is as much a doing, an occurrence in phenomenality.

 

 

> He said he had heard it all before anyway.

 

<s>

 

> Pretty rude, in my opinion, but his attitude about practice is not

> that uncommon in Advaita.

>

> Mark

 

 

Nisargadatta talks about the hours and hours of sitting in contemplation of

the 'I AM " .

That was the " doing " which occurred through the body-mind complex named

Nisargadatta.

 

Unfortunately the world knows much about Nisargadatta, only through the book

" I AM THAT " which often misses the essence of what Nisargadatta spoke.

 

That is not surprising as I AM THAT is writen by a Westener, Maurice

Freydman, and Nisargadatta spoke in Marathi a local Indian dialect.

 

Hence Nisargadatta's Marathi answers was translated into English by one of

the students with it's accompanying distortion and the Maurice Freydman,

'got " from that translated version, " his " version of what finally appeared

in the book.

 

The key for me, is to investigate the entity which is seeking and whether it

has the volition to seek in the first place.

 

How it seeks, what particular path it takes, what " practice " it shops for,

from the spiritual bazaar, is all linked to the basic question of volition.

 

In short, for me, all " doings " , if they get to occur through the

psycho-somatic apparatus, through the biological computer, is appropriate.

 

All non-doing, if that is what is happening, in the moment is also

appropriate.

 

And the flip-flop between doing and non-doing is also appropriate.

 

For the simple reason, that " doings " and " non-doings " , are occurrences, are

happenings, are movements, in phenomenality.

 

And phenomenality is only perfect appropriateness, moment to moment to

moment.

 

Doings and non-doings are both the functioning of that which-IS, through the

billions of conceptual body-mind complexes, each which has a unique

conditioning.

It is the specific and unique conditioning which enables a specific response

to occur, to a non-volitional input viz a thought.

 

The neuro-surgeon, Dr Benjamin Libet experiments, known as the Libet's

experiments, show the " time-lag " between a thought occurring, (described as

a collapse of a wave function from the field of infinite possibilities,

characterized by wave functions in Quantum Mechanics) and the taking

delivery of this non-volitional thought by the self, to become as " my "

thought.

 

With the taking of ownership, the body-mind complex produces secondary

thoughts, strictly as per the conditioning of the body-mind complex.

Some of these secondary thoughts gets externally actualized into actions and

a series of actions constitue behaviour.

 

The start, being that non-volitional thought which acted a " trigger thought "

for the whole process of a behaviour, to be initiated.

 

Conditioning at work is always the latest conditioning in the moment, which

is the original DNA-gene structure inherited from the parents sperm-ova,

which is continuosuly " impacted " by inputs from the environ throughout the

life-span of the body-mind complex.

 

My conceptual two cents, anyway...

 

 

Cheers

 

Sandeep

[Guest guest]

Nisargadatta , " Sandeep Chatterjee " <sandeepc@b...>

wrote:

 

> Unfortunately the world knows much about Nisargadatta, only through

the book

> " I AM THAT " which often misses the essence of what Nisargadatta

spoke.

> That is not surprising as I AM THAT is writen by a Westener, Maurice

> Freydman, and Nisargadatta spoke in Marathi a local Indian dialect.

> Hence Nisargadatta's Marathi answers was translated into English by

one of

> the students with it's accompanying distortion and the Maurice

Freydman,

> 'got " from that translated version, " his " version of what finally

appeared

> in the book.

 

 

Dear Sandeep,

 

I found the parts of your email regarding the issues in non-duality

to be insightful and no doubt you have a good handle on the subject

matter but shall we discuss strictly the *translation* issue since

you made claims that I'd heard before and I'd like to get to the

bottom of it.

 

In my first posting, Nisargadatta talks how the process of his

awakening took place after he met his Guru by focusing on the sense

of " I am. " Since that particular section is a straightforward

autobiographical account, not a subtle abstract concept, what part of

the story do you disagree with? You claim that M.F. distorted the

translation of the translation. Since the Marathi version of " I am

That " was verified by Nisargadatta himself and separately published,

have you translated the Marathi version yourself or are you using a

trusted source as a reference to make that claim? Please don't think

that I am being harsh on you. I am also a student of Rumi and all

too familiar with translation problems but usually Rumi students

quote their sources and make comparisons based on scholarly data

before throwing accusations like that.

 

If you or anyone has any research data on this issue to share, I'd

love to hear. Again, this particular issue is strictly about the

accuracy of Nisargadatta's talks' translation, not whether

Nisargadatta's ideas in " I am That " are in sync with Advaita

philosophy or in disagreement with another disciple's version.

 

Best regards,

 

Hur

[Guest guest]

Hi Hur,

 

<SNIP>

 

> Dear Sandeep,

>

> I found the parts of your email regarding the issues in non-duality

> to be insightful and no doubt you have a good handle on the subject

> matter but shall we discuss strictly the *translation* issue since

> you made claims that I'd heard before and I'd like to get to the

> bottom of it.

>

> In my first posting, Nisargadatta talks how the process of his

> awakening took place after he met his Guru by focusing on the sense

> of " I am. " Since that particular section is a straightforward

> autobiographical account, not a subtle abstract concept, what part of

> the story do you disagree with?

 

 

First of all Hur, there is no accusation.

Whoever draws whatever water from the well is appropriate for the " drawer " .

 

Sitting in a live situation in front of a Master, most seekers listen to

what they want to hear, and when there is an issue of cross languages and

translations, there is distortion.

 

The big debate that has gone on for years after Nisargadatta moved on is

whether as per the dude, the self had the volition to do anything,

including the very act of contemplating on the " I AM " .

 

That is where the inferences that MF draws in the book " I AM THAT " are

somewhat in abberation.

 

You ask, what source, what research data do I have to state so.

 

I have none.<s>

And I have no interest to prove or disprove either way.

 

So Hur, relax, no accusation, no affirmation, just an invitation to

investigate oneself what is the truth of the matter.

 

In the discovery from that investigation, Nisargadatta and the entire

lineage uptil Dattetreya is discovered in it's original essence, not through

the filters of another entity.

 

Now whether this invitation will be taken up, or even if taken up, will it

go deep enough, guess what, it is not upto the volition of the invitee.

 

 

 

> You claim that M.F. distorted the

> translation of the translation. Since the Marathi version of " I am

> That " was verified by Nisargadatta himself and separately published,

> have you translated the Marathi version yourself or are you using a

> trusted source as a reference to make that claim?

 

 

There is only one reference and it is that reference which prattles.

 

 

 

> Please don't think

> that I am being harsh on you.

 

Not at all.<s>

 

 

> I am also a student of Rumi and all

> too familiar with translation problems but usually Rumi students

> quote their sources and make comparisons based on scholarly data

> before throwing accusations like that.

 

 

As I said, no accusations.

 

" I AM THAT " has occurred in phenomenality, and hence can only be

appropriate.

 

 

> If you or anyone has any research data on this issue to share, I'd

> love to hear. Again, this particular issue is strictly about the

> accuracy of Nisargadatta's talks' translation, not whether

> Nisargadatta's ideas in " I am That " are in sync with Advaita

> philosophy or in disagreement with another disciple's version.

 

Very true.

And it is just the translation that I was talking about.

 

Cheers

 

Sandeep