Pradeep Apte - The Nisargadatta Gita

29. In the absence of ‘I am’ nothing is
required, the ‘I am’ will go with the
body, what remains is the Absolute.
Before the ‘I am’ appeared did you have any
requirements or did you have any demands? None
whatsoever, all demands began with the arrival of
the ‘I am’. What is this ‘I am’? It is nothing but the
essence of the five elements that make up the body.
The ‘I am’ depends on the body, is as transient as
it and will go together with it, so neither of them
are true. What remains then? It is only the
Absolute.
30. You must not only have the
conviction that ‘I am’ but also that you
are free from the ‘I am’.
Clearly you can envisage two steps in the process
of self-discovery, the first one being the
understanding of the knowledge ‘I am’ and abiding
in it. You must develop the strong conviction that
‘you are’ and stay there. What will happen then?
By and by as you abide in the ‘I am’ the second
step will be to realize that you stand apart from the
‘I am’, you are free from it! You are not the ‘I am’
but its witness. Thus abidance in the ‘I am’ and its