'I am that by which I know"I am"'... In this collection of talks between master and devotee, the final discourses of Sri Nisargadatta before his death, we can recognise the voice of a truly original teacher. His way is that of atma yoga, the essential yoga of self-inquiry/ His words are simple, direct and yet subtle, charged with a powerful energy they cut through the self-imposed barriers of the mind to reach the borderline between Beingness and Non-Beingness. In language clear and astringent as water from a deep well Sri Nisargadatta demands nothing less than the complete abandonment of desire, even for spiritual experience, and offers in return nothing less than the pure awareness of Self which is beyond desire - the true bliss of Transcendence. For those who are earnest in their search for Self these discourses are a precious gift. --- from book's back cover
A simple man, Nisargadatta Maharaj, was a householder and petty shopkeeper in Bombay where he lived, and died in 1981 at the age of 84. He had not been educated formally, but came to be respected and loved for his insights into the crux of human pain and the extraordinary usidity of his direct discourse. Hundreds of diverse seekers traveled the globe and sought him out in his unpretentious home to hear him. To all of them he gave hope that "beyond the real experience is not the mind, but the self, the light in which everything appears...the awareness in which everything happens."
