Now, what is meditation?

M:  There is no other practice to be done, except to understand (that is, telling yourself with conviction) that it is this knowledge that you are which is itself the knowledge, and not the way you are using this knowledge at the individual level. So the knowledge itself is the one that exists and must remain pure in and as that knowledge; and you must remain apart from it. That knowledge that you are has mistakenly identified itself with the body and so you are thinking of yourself as the body. But you are the “knowledge.” Strengthen your conviction that you are the knowledge, this Beingness, and not the body.

V: How can one do so?

M: By meditation, like dhyana. And dhyana means the knowledge must remain in meditation with the knowledge. Now, what is meditation? Meditation is the knowledge “I am” remaining in that knowledge.

~Maharaj, Sri Nisargadatta. The Ultimate Medicine.

This is the sum total of my teaching

You know you are. How do you know it? And with what did you know it? This is the sum total of my teaching needed to put you on the right track, its very quintessence. When all your questions are answered, my talks are very easy to understand. And when you understand, all your questions have gone. It is a vicious circle: So long as you have questions, you cannot follow what is being said…

I am going for the basic questions only: What are you? Since when are you? How did you happen to be? And due to what are you? I don’t want to deal with a lot of sundry questions; they are of no value to me. If you like my teachings, you may sit here; otherwise, by all means quit this place.

In any true spiritual search, whatever you have heard, whatever you have done, is of no use at all to arrive at the real truth. The knowledge “you are” has happened. Due to what?

First of all, you witness that you are. Stay put there only, with this “you are.” Just be there. Then with the help of this “you are,” you are witnessing the world. If you are not witnessing “you are,” you will not be witnessing the world either.

~Maharaj, Sri Nisargadatta. The Ultimate Medicine: Dialogues with a Realized Master

Nisargadatta Khetwadi 10th Lane Mumbai

on what he takes himself to be

What does he gain by living on and what does he lose by dying? What was born, must die; what was never born cannot die. It all depends on what he takes himself to be.

harmony with things as they happen

The essence of saintliness is total acceptance of the present moment, harmony with things as they happen. A saint does not want things to be different from what they are; he knows that, considering all factors, they are unavoidable. He is friendly with the inevitable and, therefore, does not suffer. Pain he may know, but it does not shatter him. If he can, he does the needful to restore the lost balance—or he lets things take their course.