The complete 'I am' quotes of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj Pradeep Apte

459
The five elements disintegrate but I don’t disappear. For instance, I
am invited to some place to stay. The room in which I stay
becomes my room, but does it belong to me? All belongs to the
five elements. The essential contribution of the five elements is the
‘I am’ the five elements disintegrate, the ‘I am’ goes and a person
is declared dead. Wherever I go to stay I always know my
permanent abode.
460
Whatever you observe, you don’t require, that principle through
which ‘you are’ is greater. In the waking state ‘you are’ so you
have needs, in the absence of ‘I amness’ where are the needs? In
spite of being, not having the knowledge of being is non-being,
that state is a source of peace.
461
The sense of taste comes from the element earth, perception
emanates from air and sound from space, but the primary concept
is ‘I am’. First without sound you know ‘I am’ (as when you
awaken from deep sleep), then you say ‘I am’, with this comes the
need ‘to be’. With the departure of the vital breath, there is no
sound, no language, no warmth – its death, death is also a concept.
Nevertheless, everything dwells in food essence quality (‘I am’),
when this disappears – it is all over. To sustain beingness, the
product of food, we eat food, but that is not your identity.
462
The ‘I am’ is objective, it is the ‘I am’ that investigates and it is the
‘I am’ that disposes itself off and stabilizes in Eternity. The body is
made up of elements; the quintessence or quality (guna) is the ‘I