Opening pages

“a modern spiritual classic”

THAT

Talks with

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

The real does not die, the unreal never lived.

Once you know that death happens to the body

and not to you, you just watch your body falling off

like a discarded garment.

The real you is timeless and beyond birth and death.

The body will survive as long as it is needed. It is

not important that it should live long.

THAT

Talks with

SRI NISARGADATTA MAHARAJ

Translated

from the Marathi taperecordings by

MAURICE FRYDMAN

Revised and edited by

SUDHAKAR S. DIKSHIT

THE ACORN PRESS

Durham, North Carolina

retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, including

mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without

the prior written permission of the publisher.

Originally published by Chetana Pvt. Ltd., Bombay, India, 1973, 3d ed.

1981, reprinted 1983. Published by arrangement with Chetana in the

U.S.A. and Canada by The Acorn Press, P.O. Box 4007, Duke Station,

Durham, North Carolina . Published in hardcover 1982, reprinted

1984,1985, 1986.

First American Paperback 1988

Third printing 1992

ISBN: 0-89385-022-0

Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 81-66800

Photographs by Jitendra Arya

Printed in the United States of America

That in whom reside all beings and who

resides in all beings, who is the giver of

grace to all, the Supreme Soul of the

universe, the limitless being — I am that.

Amritbindu Upanishad

That which permeates all, which

nothing transcends and which, like the

universal space around us, fills

everything completely from within and

without, that Supreme non-dual Brahman

— that thou art.

Sankaracharya

The seeker is he who is in search of himself.

Give up all questions except one: ‘Who am

I?’ After all, the only fact you are sure of is that

you are. The ‘I am’ is certain. The ‘I am this’ is

not. Struggle to find out what you are in reality.

To know what you are, you must first

investigate and know what you are not.

Discover all that you are not — body,

feelings, thoughts, time, space, this or that —

nothing, concrete or abstract, which you

perceive can be you. The very act of

perceiving shows that you are not what you

perceive.

The clearer you understand that on the level

of mind you can be described in negative

terms only, the quicker will you come to the

end of your search and realize that you are the

limitless being.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

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