Nisargadatta

Spent the late afternoon and early evening with a wonderful guest — Nisargadatta Maharaj. I find his thoughts so in common with my own. He says that our spiritual growth takes place in four stages:

- At the lowest level is our normal everyday conditioned existence. We live our days with our hopes, fears, desires, beliefs, book knowledge, and the countless other beliefs that we have been taught, actively and passively, to be "true." We live our days believing that this body and mind are who we are.

- With some amount of meditation we can see above this falsehood. We can see that above and beyond all those conditioned beliefs, what is really "true" is that "I Am." I am; no more, no less, but the old conditioned beliefs are now seen to be false, to not be who we are. Everything we believed before is seen to be impermanent, constantly changing, coming and going, so it can not be used to define who we are. We are above all that.

- With more meditation we are able to reach that place where we see that even this "I Am" is temporary. Just by saying "I Am," you still have one foot in the old objective world. Therefore, even this, too, can not be who we are. In meditation, you can crawl between any two thoughts (my analogy, not his) and come to that place where you see that simple consciousness is the holder of even that "I Am." "I Am" can come and go, but this consciousness remains. We are this consciousness and it begins at the moment of conception, even though "I Am" may take a year to develop after birth.

- With dedication, perseverance, and a relentless drive to go further, though, you can get to where you can see that even this consciousness is changeable and temporary. If you go mad, or use drugs, or get unbelievably angry (etc.), your consciousness takes a different appearance. It manifests differently. Therefore, being temporary, being changeable, it too can not be who you are.

- You come to See that above this consciousness that manifests as your physical body/mind, that manifests as the physical world, there is simple, all encompassing, ever present Awareness. Absolute awareness. That manifests as your consciousness, my consciousness, as everyone and everything. This unchanging omnipresent Awareness is who we are, and we have reached the end of our search.

Does this Awareness know itself? No, it simply Is. It can only know itself through a manifested consciousness. This awareness always is, whether or not there is a conditioned being, a non-conditioned I Am-ness, or even a manifested consciousness.

Our goal is to focus on the awareness, and nothing else. Seek it, not the conditioned experience that many people call enlightenment, which can come and go, can change — hence can not be the ultimate state.

Seek this ultimate awareness.