Pradeep Apte - The Nisargadatta Gita

sustains the body using the vital breath. The ‘I am’
is the very essence of the food body, which is a
composite of the elements and qualities. Since this
is nothing but an assembly that will disintegrate
one day, it is dependent and transient and hence
does not qualify as the real or truth. But to
understand the unreality of all this, especially the
‘I am’, you have to meditate on it, then you will
know that you are none of these. In fact you were
never any of these; it was the deceptive game of ‘I
am’ that made you believe what you are not.
72. One who has realized the knowledge
‘I am’, which means transcending it as
well, for him there is no birth or death
nor any karma.
This is something very important to understand -
that is, the verbal understanding of the knowledge
‘I am’ is altogether different from its actual
realization. There are many who will verbally or
theoretically understand the ‘I am’, yet the rarest
of the rare will realize it. Why so? Because
realizing it means transcending it as well, the
‘realized one’ is no longer an individual, that’s
why the Guru is not an individual. The ‘realized
one’ knows that ‘I am unborn’, so there is no
question of birth or death for him. How can any