One of Nisargadatta Maharaj’s most radical teachings can be condensed into a sentence:
I am the Absolute.
But immediately a question arises:
Who is this “I”?
If the “I” means the person — this body, this biography, this personality, this collection of memories, fears, desires and experiences — then the statement becomes merely another form of spiritual ego.
The person is not the Absolute.
The person appears and disappears. The body changes. Thoughts come and go. Feelings arise and vanish. The personality has been shaped by time and circumstance.
All of these things are known.
And whatever is known cannot be the ultimate knower.
So the investigation begins:
Am I the body?
The body is perceived.
Am I the mind?
Thoughts are perceived.
Am I my memories?
Memories appear in consciousness.
Am I the sense of being a person?
Even the feeling “I am this particular individual” can be observed.
Then perhaps we arrive at the simple sense:
I Am.
Before “I am Clovis,” “I am happy,” “I am afraid,” “I am spiritual,” there is simply the naked feeling of existence:
I am.
For Nisargadatta, this pure sense of being is extraordinarily important. He repeatedly directs the seeker to remain with the feeling I Am, without attaching anything to it.
But even here the investigation does not end.
The “I Am” itself appears.
There was a time, before waking in the morning, when this sense was absent. In deep sleep there is no personal knowledge of “I am.” Consciousness appears, remains for some time, and disappears again.
Therefore Nisargadatta makes his most radical move:
The Absolute is prior even to consciousness.
This creates a strange paradox.
When I say:
“I am the Absolute,”
who is speaking?
If the person says it, the statement is false.
If consciousness says it, the statement is still provisional.
The Absolute itself does not need to announce:
“I am the Absolute.”
It simply is.
This is why the sentence should perhaps not be treated merely as an affirmation.
It can become an inquiry:
I am the Absolute.
Who is this “I”?
The body?
No.
The personality?
No.
The mind?
No.
The spiritual seeker?
No.
The witness?
Even the witness must finally be questioned.
For the witness still belongs to the structure of experience: there is something witnessed and someone witnessing.
Nisargadatta pushes us beyond even this subtle position.
Do not create a final spiritual identity called “the Witness.”
Do not replace the ordinary ego with a metaphysical ego.
The inquiry must consume even the one who is conducting the inquiry.
This is where Nisargadatta unexpectedly approaches a central movement in A Course in Miracles.
The Course also repeatedly dismantles the identity we have made for ourselves.
I am not merely the body I see.
I am not the history I defend.
I am not the victim I believe myself to be.
I am not the guilty self the ego says I am.
And ultimately, salvation does not consist in improving this separate identity.
It consists in awakening from it.
The languages of Nisargadatta and Jesus in A Course in Miracles are not identical.
Nisargadatta speaks of the Absolute, prior to consciousness.
The Course speaks of God and His Son, whose reality has never actually been altered by the dream of separation.
Yet both teachings point toward a devastatingly simple recognition:
what I ordinarily call “myself” cannot be what I truly am.
And this recognition should not become another belief.
It should become a looking.
When anger appears:
Who is angry?
When fear appears:
Who is afraid?
When guilt appears:
Who is guilty?
When pride appears:
Who wants to be spiritually advanced?
And even when peace appears:
Who claims this peace as “mine”?
We do not need to force an intellectual answer.
Perhaps the deepest practice is to allow every answer to fall away.
“I am the body.”
Seen.
“I am the mind.”
Seen.
“I am consciousness.”
Seen.
“I am the witness.”
Seen.
“I am the Absolute.”
And finally even this sentence is released.
What remains cannot be turned into an object.
It cannot be possessed.
It cannot become an achievement.
The seeker cannot take it home as a trophy because the seeker itself belonged to what was being questioned.
Perhaps this is the final irony:
We begin by saying,
“I want to discover the Absolute.”
Later we say,
“I am the Absolute.”
And finally there is no need to say anything at all.
The Absolute never forgot itself.
Only the imagined person believed there was something to find.
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