Pradeep Apte - The Nisargadatta Gita

verbal ‘I am’. Through your senses you perceive
the body which requires food and vital breath for
sustenance. The ‘I am’ identifies with the body and
you say ‘I am so-and-so’. Despite all these
coverings, the indwelling knowledge of the Self or
the pure ‘I am’ is always there. It is only a question
of putting aside everything, uncovering it and
getting stabilized in it - which is the ‘Sadhana’
(practice) that is being prescribed.
157. Once you reach the state of ‘I am’
and are aware of that only, you will have
transcended all the tendencies
(‘Vasanas’).
‘Vasanas’, tendencies or desires have a very
strong pull and act as very potent hindrances in
the ‘Sadhana’ (practice). The obvious desires
are easy to identify but the subtle ones enter
through the back door or are always stubbornly
there in the background. The desire ‘to be’ is at
the very root and often missed, it has developed
gradually over the years as the verbal ‘I am’
with the ‘I am so-and-so’. But, if you recollect
and are observant enough, it will be clear that
when the pure non-verbal ‘I am’, or sense of
‘presence’, arrived it had no traces of desire in
it, although it was dormant. This pure ‘I am’