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Nothing Existed Except the Eyes of the Maharshi
by N.R. Krishnamurti Aiyer. Oct. 29, 2001
Who Are You? An Interview With Papaji by
Jeff Greenwald. Oct. 24, 2001
An Interview with Byron Katie by Sunny
Massad. Oct. 23, 2001
An Interview with Douglas Harding by Kriben
Pillay. Oct. 21, 2001
The Nectar of Immortality by Sri Nisargadatta
Maharaj. Oct. 18, 2001
The Power of the Presence Part Two by David
Godman. Oct. 15, 2001
The Quintessence of My Teaching by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. Oct. 3, 2001
Interview With David Godman. Sept. 28, 2001
The Power of the Presence Part One by David
Godman. Sept. 28, 2001
Nothing Ever Happened Volume 1 by
David Godman. Sept. 23, 2001
Collision with the Infinite by Suzanne
Segal. Sept. 22, 2001
Lilly of the Valley, the Bright and Morning
Star by Charlie Hopkins. August 9, 2001
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• • • • • • • • •
Our
email address is editor
@realization.org.
Copyright
2002 Realization.org.
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Sri
Nisargadatta
Maharaj
1897
– 1981
FROM
HIS LIVING room in the slums of Bombay, this self-realized
master became famous for brilliant, aphoristic,
extemporized talks in which he taught an austere,
minimalist Jnana Yoga based on his own experience.
Many
of these talks have been published in books. The
earliest volume, I Am
That, is widely regarded as a modern classic
by practitioners of applied Advaita.
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Sri
Nisargadatta Maharaj was born in Mumbai (Bombay)
in March, 1897. His parents, who gave him the
name Maruti, had a small farm at the village of
Kandalgaon in Ratnagiri district in Mahrashtra.
His father, Shivrampant, was a poor man who had
been a servant in Bombay before turning to farming.
Maruti
worked on the farm as a boy. Although he grew
up with little or no formal education, he was
exposed to religious ideas by his father's friend
Visnu Haribhau Gore, a pious Brahman.
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Nisargadatta's
birthplace
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Maruti's
father died when the boy was eighteen, leaving
behind his wife and six children. Maruti and his
older brother left the farm to look for work in
Mumbai. After a brief stint as a clerk, Maruti
opened a shop selling children's clothes, tobacco,
and leaf-rolled cigarettes, called beedies, which
are popular in India. The shop was modestly successful
and Maruti married in 1924. A son and three daughters
soon followed.
When
Maruti was 34, a friend of his, Yashwantrao Baagkar,
introduced him to his guru, Sri Siddharameshwar
Maharaj, the head of the Inchegeri branch of the
Navanath Sampradaya. The guru gave a mantra and
some instructions to Maruti and died soon after.
Sri Nisargadatta later recalled:
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| Nisargadatta's
guru, Sri Siddharameshwar Maharaj |
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My
Guru ordered me to attend to the sense 'I
am' and to give attention to nothing else.
I just obeyed. I did not follow any particular
course of breathing, or meditation, or study
of scriptures. Whatever happened, I would
turn away my attention from it and remain
with the sense 'I am'. It may look too simple,
even crude. My only reason for doing it was
that my Guru told me so. Yet it worked!1
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1.
I Am That, Chapter
75, p. 375. |
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Within
three years, Maruti realized himself and took
the new name Nisargadatta. He became a saddhu
and walked barefoot to the Himalayas, but eventually
returned to Mumbai where he lived for the rest
of his life, working as a cigarette vendor and
giving religious instruction in his home.
The
success of I Am That,
first published in English translation in 1973,
made him internationally famous and brought many
Western devotees to the tenement apartment where
he gave satsangs.
At
the time of his death in 1981 he was his guru's
successor as the head of the Inchegari branch
of the Navanath Sampradaya. He was 84 years old.
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| Nisargadatta
smoked and sold beedies, popular Indian cigarettes
rolled in tendu leaves instead of paper. |
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Nisargadatta's teachings defy summarization,
but he frequently recommended the practice that
had led to his own realization in less than three
years: |
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Just
keep in mind the feeling "I am,"
merge in it, till your mind and feeling become
one. By repeated attempts you will stumble
on the right balance of attention and affection
and your mind will be firmly established in
the thought-feeling "I am."2
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2.
I Am That, Chapter
16, p. 48. |
| RELATED
PAGES ON THIS SITE |
| There
are two transcripts of talks by Sri Nisargadatta
on Rudra's
page. For transcripts of talks by Sri Nisargadatta's
teacher, Sri Siddharameshwar Maharaj, go to Sadguru.com.
Hur
Guler's site includes some wonderful things including
this
article by Cathy Boucher. There is a biography
on Ananda's
Site. There
are lots of links to other sites on Prahlad.
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This
page was published on February 28, 2001
and
last modified on May 30, 2002.
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