I Am That

Nisargadatta Maharaj

This book has been my all time favorite spiritual text for the last several years. It is the book I would choose, without hesitation, if I could only have one for the rest of my life.

I Am That is deep and profound, yet simple and accessible. The text is 400+ pages of personal interactions between seekers and Nisargadatta Maharaj, one of the great Advaitans of the 20th century. Amazingly, I can read this book over and over and over, and discover new and important knowledge every time. I cannot recommend this book highly enough!

Review by James Braha

I Am That, subtitled Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj is acknowledged by many to be one of the greatest spiritual treasures of the 20th Century. We have included this book in our short list we call Books You Can't Live Without. It is an incredibly rich feast of wisdom that's best read a few pages per day over an extended period of time. Most serious seekers of Truth will want to read this book over and over again.

Review by Len Oppenheim

I Am That is the Operator's Manual for the serious Post-New-Age seeker. If you have had enough of bells and whistles and are ready to move out of your spiritual comfort zone, perhaps after several years of studying and practicing techniques for personal growth, this is the book for you.

Sri Nisargadatta himself is a study in the co-existence of opposite values. He is at once focused and expansive, wise and irreverent, compassionate and cantankerous. But no matter what his mood, his teachings are always supremely bold and energizing. Along with Sri Ramana Maharshi, he is considered the foremost proponent of Advaita Vedanta of the twentieth century. This collection of questions and answers is his seminal work.

Page for page, I Am That is the most engaging book I have ever read. I just finished reading it for the fifth time and continue to be amazed. On almost literally every page is at least one "mini mahavakya", one great idea that challenges the way we are taught to think about spirituality. For example, opening at random I find Sri Nisargadatta saying, "Abandon false ideas, that is all. There is no need of true ideas. There aren't any." His ability to use just the right bold-simple turn of a phrase to drive home an abstract point is unparalleled.

I Am That definitely says something different than the last hundred spiritual books you may have read. As the radical teachings of Zen are to the rational teachings of orthodox Buddhism, so is the ancient philosophy of Advaita Vedanta to orthodox Hinduism. That is, it represents the culmination and fulfillment of the system of thought of which it is a part, and at the same time, the complete antithesis of all that has been said before.

In a nutshell, rational, or "first stage," philosophies tell us that we are not a body (physical, mental or otherwise), but formless pure consciousness. Radical, or "second stage", philosophies (such as Zen and Vedanta) start from there and tell us that, ultimately, we are not even consciousness, but the absolutely still 'ground state' in which it manifests. An image often used is that, if consciousness is like pure energetic light, then our true nature is the still and silent vacuum of empty space through which light travels.

Though very direct, the path of knowledge may be experienced as difficult because its theory and practice are, counter-intuitively, quite different in some aspects. In this regard, Sri Nisargadatta dispels a very subtle and prevalent misunderstanding about Vedanta (and second stage philosophies in general): that mastery is easy. Simple perhaps, he says, but rarely undemanding.

The theory of Vedanta asserts that "All is One" and, since we know that we exist, we are that One. The good news is that no effort is required to claim one's status as the Self of all. Especially for those who have spent many years toiling at spiritual practices, this is good news indeed and, upon discovering Vedanta, many are tempted to stop all practice and simply rejoice in their "newfound" status.

However, Sri Nisargadatta points out that, "words describe words", and even the elegant statements of Vedanta are mere words until one has realized their truth for oneself. For the serious seeker, he says, effort is still required in the form of constant vigilance to consciously remember one's true nature at all times. Specifically, the practice calls for rigorously engaging a single thought before transcending the realm of thought altogether. At first, this process requires a good deal of effort.

This subtle distinction between effortlessness in theory and effort in practice is extremely elusive, especially if one is, perhaps unconsciously, seeking a break from the spiritual grind. It is here that the perspective of a teacher with laser–sharp discrimination is vital. Sri Nisargadatta is just such a teacher and this critical point is a good example of what distinguishes I Am That from any number of traditional and New Age titles available in the market today.

And what is this single thought which we are to "rigorously engage"? According to Sri Nisargadatta, it is nothing other than the familiar thought "I am". As the "I"-thought is always intimately accessible at the heart of every other thought, he says, it serves to link who we think we are to who we really are, the immortal Self. As he says in literally hundreds of ways in this book, all that each of us really has and really knows is this prime datum at the core of every experience: "I am". He says, for example, "The only true statement is 'I am'. All else is mere inference." Therefore, he says, holding onto "I am" is the key.

Who would have believed it? The one thing that it seems we've all been able to agree upon is that the ego is the enemy. Yet here is a very hard to dismiss teacher telling us that it is the key to heaven, brahmaloka, the whole works. Clearly defining the exact role of the "I am" as the witness in theory and the key in practice is Sri Nisargadatta's great gift to us.

I rate I Am That near the very top of my list, in fact, tied for second place among my favorite books of all time. (I have more to say about these two unique books in a joint review.) It is a true transitional classic, reminiscent of Be Here Now in its shocking potency. Its one hundred and one short chapters are perfect for reading right before falling asleep. By the time the book is finished, you may well find that your thoughts about spirituality and how it may be most directly advanced have changed, never to be quite the same again.

Review by Michael Baxter