The Advaita Teaching of Nisargadatta Maharaj: A Synopsis by Alfred McGuire

From Issue #2955 of The Nondual Highlights, the following entry is taken from this post in California psychotherapist and social worker Alfred McGuire's blog at theopendimension.blogspot.com. It is an excellent summary of the key nondual teachings of Nisargadatta as laid out in the seminal nondual text, I Am That. I have also made an 11-minute MP3 recording of this teaching synopsis, should you wish to hear it spoken instead of reading it in text format.

All you need is to get rid of the tendency to define yourself. You will revert to your natural state spontaneously and effortlessly. You will reach the Source of being, life and consciousness. Shift the focus of consciousness beyond the mind. Refuse all thoughts except one: Who am I? Just live your life as it comes. Keep quietly alert, inquiring into the real nature of yourself. Perception is based on memory and is only imagination. The world can be said to appear but not to be. Only that which makes perception possible is real. You agree to be guided from within and life becomes a journey into the unknown. Give up all names and forms, and the Real is with you. Know yourself as you are. Distrust your mind and go beyond. Do not think of the Real in terms of consciousness and unconsciousness. It is utterly beyond both. It gives birth to consciousness. All else is in consciousness. Nothing you can see, feel or think is so. Go beyond the personal and see. Stop imagining that you were born. You are utterly beyond all existence and non-existence, utterly beyond all that the mind conceives. Question yourself: Who am I? What is behind and beyond all this? Soon you will see that thinking yourself to be a person is mere habit built on memory. Inquire ceaselessly.

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(x-posted to nonduality)