TA

 

did Nisargadatta Maharaj mean when he said, "The clearer you understand that on the level of the mind you can be described in negative terms only, the quicker you will come to the end of your search and realize your limitless being."?

It’s the same message as Ramana Maharshi’s neti-neti self-inquiry.

‘Mind” only knows how to assess anything from a subject-object viewpoint. Therefore ‘mind’ is absolutely incapable of knowing the Self or non-dual Singularity. It cannot know what “we” are…only what “we” are not.

So both Nisargadatta and Ramana advocated eliminating all we are not.

Ramana recommended asking “What am “I?” and then systematically eliminating the obvious: “I cannot be body, mind, emotions, moods, desires, etc. because these are all impermanent, constantly-shifting things, and there is obviously something permanent that just watches and observes. The never-changing Pure Awareness.

Nisargadatta’s guru told him to get the same result by starting from the obvious, irrefutable answer, I am That and only That. None of these shifting rising-&-falling phenomena. So he advocated Nisargadatta dwell on one thought only, Aham Brahmasmi, (I am Brahman or pure Being) rejecting all other thoughts.

By reminding his disciples that on the level of the mind “you” can only be described in negative terms, he was reinforcing this total rejection and mistrust of mental chatter & conclusions. He’s saying, “Since every thought & feeling that arises in your mind is negative and therefore quite inconclusive, reject all of it. Ignore whatever answers the mind offers and fixate on the only true answer, I Am That.

Can you do that? Can “you” rigorously and without fail, reject every thought & desire your mind offers - literally give up the world you knew entirely - in favor of just one persistent truth, I Am That? Are you ready to label even your most near-&-dear thoughts as untrue distraction, not to be followed even for a second?

Most cannot.

Nisargadatta did. That’s all he did, while wandering for 3 years. There was much for him to give up. He had a thriving tobacco business, a wife and family, many upsetting thoughts about a deceased daughter, and all the usual tempting desires of any man in this world.

Yet as he travelled, he persistently rejected every thought, repeating, believing and dwelling exclusively in Aham Brahmasmi.

He claims this was his pathway to complete and utter dissolution of the false self.

“You” are That….and nothing else.💜🙏