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

only, and not this shackled form, then no liberation is called for,
that itself is liberation.
169
In this spiritual hierarchy, from the grossest to the subtlest, you are
the subtlest. How can this be realized? The very base is that you
don’t know you are, and suddenly the feeling of ‘I amness’
appears. The moment it appears you see space, mental space; that
subtle sky-like space, stabilize there. You are that. When you are
able to stabilize in that space, you are space only. When this spacelike
identity ‘I am’ disappears, the space will also disappear, there
is no space. When that space-like ‘I am’ goes into oblivion, that is
the eternal state, ‘nirguna’, no form, no beingness. Actually, what
did happen there? This message ‘I am’ was no message. Dealing
with this aspect, I cannot talk much because there is no scope to
put it in words.
170
Most essential is that knowledge ‘I am’. Claim it; appropriate it as
your own. If that is not there, nothing is. Knowledge of all stages
will be obtained only with the aid of this knowledge ‘I am’ From
the Absolute no-knowing state, spontaneously this consciousness ‘I
am’ has appeared – no reason, no cause.
171
This passing show maybe likened to the following situation:
suppose I was well all along, then suddenly I was sick and the
doctor gave me medicine. After three days my fever was gone. So
this stage of fever for three days is the ‘I am’ consciousness.
Exactly like that – a passing show, a time-bound state.