Printed February 5, 2026 03:01PM
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj was “born” in Bombay as Maruti Shivrampani Kampli, in March, 1897. His birthday coincided with the auspicious day of Hanuman Jayanti; therefore the title Maruti. Younger Maruti’s childhood was spent at Kandalagaon, a village far from Bombay, to which his father had moved in “the 12 months of the plague.” I keep in mind Maharaj saying that maybe his earliest private recollection is being carried on his father’s shoulders, heading towards a hill simply because the solar was peeping excessive.
After their father’s demise in 1915, first the eldest son, after which Maruti himself, had to return to Bombay to earn the household livelihood. Maruti began his profession as a clerk with a non-public agency, however together with his impartial and adventurous temperament, he quickly took to buying and selling on his personal. Maruti Kampli began his enterprise enterprise with one store making and promoting bidis (handmade native cigarettes), and in a relatively quick interval grew to become the proprietor of eight such outlets.
In 1924 he married. There have been 4 kids—one son and three daughters. His mere materials prosperity couldn’t deliver Maruti a lot contentment. A deeply spiritual environment and ritualistic custom within the household, and his early affiliation at Kandalgaon with a discovered Brahmin named Vishnu Gore specifically, had kindled in him, fairly early in life, the inevitable questions relating to the connection between Man, the World exterior, and God. It was to a pal of his, one Yeshwantrao Bagkar, that Maruti owed his introduction to Sri Siddharameshwar Maharaj of the Navanath Sampradaya. Quickly thereafter, Maruti acquired his initiation from his Guru and pursued religious actions together with his native zeal and dedication till they culminated in his attaining realization. This occurred between 1933 and 1936.
In 1937, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj immediately determined to desert his household and his affluent enterprise and wander concerning the nation. After visiting a number of holy locations and temples in Southern India, when he was on his strategy to the North to spend the remainder of his life within the Himalayas, he occurred to satisfy a fellow disciple. After a dialogue with him, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj got here to the conclusion that such wanderings had been actually not vital and that an lively lifetime of dispassionate motion was much more significant. When he returned to Bombay, he discovered all his outlets however one had been misplaced, however calmly determined that it sufficed for his worldly wants.
As he would sit at his bidi store transacting his enterprise quietly and effectively, some pal would come to see him and the discuss would all the time be on the identical topic, Paramartha—the final word that means. Such talks acquired a lot publicity by phrase of mouth that there would all the time be a small crowd exterior the little store listening to the pearls of knowledge. So when his son was in a position to take cost of the store, Maharaj retired to the loft he had constructed in his residence for his private use, and which has since quietly assumed the holiness of an Ashram.
Maharaj repeatedly sums up his instructing by asking his listeners to transcend his phrases “BACK TO THE SOURCE” and abide there—the Supply being REALITY, one’s true state, previous to the arrival of Consciousness, when there have been no wants of any type, the state previous to the phantasm of the stream of occasions (like an sickness in a usually wholesome physique)—conception, beginning of the physique, a lifetime, and at last the demise of the physique.
To know with particular conviction, says Maharaj, that you’re neither within the physique nor within the thoughts, although conscious of each, is already self-knowledge. Liberation isn’t a matter of acquisition, however a matter of religion and conviction that you’ve ALWAYS been FREE, and a matter of braveness to behave on this conviction. There’s nothing to vary; it’s only when the very concept of fixing is seen as false that the changeless can come into its personal!
Overcoming Worry: An Interview With Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Questioner: I don’t know what I’m, I solely know I’m in ache—that a lot I do know.
Maharaj: These are the opposites of ache and pleasure.
Q: That is barely totally different from peculiar ache.
M: Some liking of yours has been contaminated; due to this fact you expertise that feeling.
Q: How did Maharaj know this?
M: That can’t be defined. I can not say how I awakened or went to sleep.
Q: Are you able to assist me in my ache?
M: Neglect physique consciousness. You needn’t be after pleasure. No matter you name pleasure isn’t the Final.
Q: I’m not after pleasure, or happiness, however this factor which is troubling me ought to go.
M: It’s not there. It’s only your creativeness, your idea that you’ve that ache. There’s nothing purer than you might be. That ache is just your creativeness, an phantasm, an idea.
Q: Find out how to throw away that idea?
M: What’s there to throw away? That you just had been born—how did you get that idea?
Q: I ought to ignore it?
M: Solely know, solely observe, be the witness—nothing else is to be executed. Don’t try something. Solely know what you might be.
Q: So I’ve no salvation, I have to witness all this bother?
M: Sure. You might be to look straight on the face of it, the origin of it, the entire of it, and discover out from the place it’s. Take a look at that middle from the place this data has appeared on you. Focus on that solely. Whenever you attain that core you will see rays of sunshine emanating from it. No matter you see is just the play of sunshine. Merge into that middle, be one with it.
Q: What is going to occur to the universe throughout me that I’ve rejected?
M: You’re the middle, and whenever you flip inside you will see that each one the universe you see is just via that.
Q: I see that Maharaj has regulated his personal life. Why does he not inform us what we should always do from morning to nighttime?
M: Give no consideration to what it’s best to do from morning to nighttime. Simply pay no consideration to this: you aren’t the body-mind.
Q: Then how is it that Maharaj has regulated his life?
M: I’m past time and life. The lifetime of the universe relies on me; I don’t rely upon the universe.
Q: Possibly so, however what we see is a well-regulated life.
M: I’m untouched by the 5 components. Apparently evidently I could be rolling in actions, however there is no such thing as a motion for me. When you get a glimpse of your true state you should stabilize there for eternity.
My mom advised me that I’m a boy; she by no means requested me to memorize it, to repeat “I’m a boy.” She advised me solely as soon as, and I remembered it. You needn’t repeat, “I’m not the physique.” When you perceive it, it’s completed. You have to be firmly satisfied.
Q: What ought to I meditate on?
M: Meditate on the truth that you might be, in your beingness.
Q: Why do you name this “I Amness” the meals essence?
M: This “I Amness” is just a signboard indicative of the Absolute, however the signboard isn’t you.
The physique is a doll made out of the uncooked materials of this manifest universe. It’s repeatedly altering and evaporating into the manifest universe.
When this will get exhausted, it solely transforms itself into area. When this physique is totally remodeled into area there is no such thing as a mind. That intelligence is there solely with the physique. Out of the area it will get shaped once more. Within the means of that formation there is no such thing as a intelligence.
Q: Your one and internet “I Amness” defines the time.
M (to a different): Have you ever introduced any questions?
Q: Final 12 months I got here to India to discover a Guru who could lead on me to Self-Realization. I got here with the concept of discovering a type who would give me detailed directions, step-by-step. Once I met Maharaj, as a substitute of discovering a Guru with a type, all I walked away with was an empty body or a mirror. I discovered I didn’t have any type, something. Simply pure area that adjustments on a regular basis.
Once I consider Maharaj, generally I see him as myself, generally I see him as nothing. The individual that I see in entrance of me adjustments on a regular basis. There’s nothing I can level at and say, “That’s he.” It’s horrifying, and the worry has been rising.
M: What you might have mentioned is kind of acceptable, fairly right. No matter you observe is nothing else however your Self solely. Eliminate the physique picture as your self. No matter you might have seen is your Self.
Q: Typically the ideas, the concepts which can be within the books, or which can be mentioned right here, come to my thoughts, or his picture involves my thoughts. Instantly after, not earlier than, the sensation comes that there’s nothing there, that what I’m listening to isn’t what it’s, but it surely’s solely after considering of him that I really feel this area.
M: Who realizes that nothing is, that every thing is gone? And when every thing is gone, what stays?
Q: That’s what’s horrifying.
M: When every thing goes, you’re the Actual.
Q: As an idea I perceive that. For a second I notice, after which I am going again to the unreal. I connect myself to my household, my spouse, my kids. It’s a behavior.
M: You might be so used to the assist of ideas that when your ideas depart you, though it’s your true state, you get frightened and attempt to cling to them once more. That’s the assembly level of that immanent precept and the Everlasting, the borderland. Why is the mind puzzled then? That beingness which you might be experiencing is melting away. When that idea of “I Am” goes, mind additionally goes. So the mind will get that horrifying expertise of “I Am going.”
Q: Find out how to overcome the fright?
M: Simply watch that second. One who feels “I’m dying”” isn’t a Jnani. Your true state is past the first idea of “I Am.” Consciousness is the first idea, however this “I Amness” or consciousness is the product of the meals physique. You, the Absolute, will not be that.
Demise involves the standard of “I Amness,” which is a product of the meals. however the Absolute prevails all the time. That is the Final data. This information was expounded by Lord Krishna to Arjuna on the battlefield, the horses poised, on the purpose of battle. He by no means advocated to Arjuna that he ought to shave his head and go into the forest and carry out tapas. Nothing of the type. When you perceive this final data, then do what you want. Lord Krishna mentioned, “With true dynamism you struggle this battle”; and I say, when you perceive this, you perform your worldly life with full enthusiasm, filled with zest, however perceive that your true identification is past this high quality of “I Amness.”
For a Jnani the second of so-called demise is probably the most blissful, as a result of he’s going to the very supply of bliss. Eternity is bliss, the very ocean of nectar, immortal.
This text was excerpted from Seeds of Consciousness: The Knowledge of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj by Nisargadatta Maharaj. Reprinted with permission of Grove Press, Inc. Copyright 1982 by Imogene Dunn.
